Development of productivity started in 1981

Chapter 157: 155 Artillery's Battlefield Performance

"Jiankun, you're here, why don't you come to my place and rest for a while?"

"Uncle, you're busy all day long. It's better for me to go to the base and get busy first than to go to your place."

"You've worked so hard. By the way, why is the optical fiber preform factory in such a hurry? We don't need much here. The batch you made with your superpowers is almost enough for the base."

"Uncle, optical fiber has already started formal production in Hong Kong. I will put the front-end process - optical fiber preform production here, and then supply it to the factory in Hong Kong. In the future, overseas demand for optical fiber will rely on Hong Kong, so the front-end production here must be carried out as soon as possible."

"Okay, although the optical fiber production plant has been built according to your requirements, it is difficult to find workers. The production of optical fiber preform rods should be considered to be very high-tech."

"If it's the equipment from the United States, it does take a long time to train, but the equipment I designed and manufactured doesn't require that. With a high school education, video tutorials and half a month of hands-on practice, you should be able to do it."

"Okay, in that case, I'll have these devices transported away for installation, and then I'll let them try them out once they're installed."

"That's right. Use them boldly. If they break, I'll make new ones. I'll try to train as many production staff as possible. In the future, I may even have to go back to China to guide factory construction."

After Wang Jiankun handed over the optical fiber preform equipment to his uncle, he drove him to the foot of the mountain in the north.

A coal-fired power plant is being built here. The foundation has been built, and a large cooling tower and some conventional equipment have been installed.

"Jiankun, are you really going to build a 300-megawatt helium-cooled reactor?"

"Yes, little uncle, I brought you here this time to take a look at the site. The main building of the coal-fired power plant on the ground is almost completed. I used my superpowers to manufacture boilers, generators, transformers and other equipment.

After the coal-fired power plant is ignited and the underground nuclear reactor is almost completed, the waste heat from the reactor can be cooled by the cooling tower of the coal-fired power plant. When I drew up the design, I had already considered leaving enough redundancy, and the satellites in the sky will definitely not notice any abnormality. "

"Since you have designed it long ago, let's do it according to your idea. I will transfer the infrastructure workers to another construction site first, so as not to disturb you here."

"I was just about to tell you this. Based on the amount I can build every day, it will be completed in about eight days. You can then send someone to finish and start the coal-fired power plant."

"Okay, by the way, Jiankun, the people who went to Persia have brought back good news. The first batch of four artillery pieces from a company demonstrated what ultra-long-range artillery fire is in Persia. Now Persia plans to send representatives to visit us and sign a purchase contract."

"Oh? So soon? That batch of artillery should have arrived in Persia only a few days ago, right?"

"Yes, it just so happened that after unloading the cargo at the Persian port, we were preparing to go to their test site for testing. A general there heard that we provided a cannon that could fire 45 kilometers away, so he asked to test it directly on the battlefield."

After the 1982mm gun was finalized on Christmas Day in 155, Wang Jiankun used his superpowers to manufacture two guns, and then the base's artillery production line manufactured another two guns. A total of four guns were transported by airship to the offshore platform in the Bay of Bengal, and then a small cargo ship of the Sihai Group transported the guns to the port of Abbas in Persia.

Along with the four artillery pieces was transported an artillery command vehicle, which carried an artillery radar manufactured by Wang Jiankun.

Let us turn our attention to the battle line between Persia and Babylonia.

On January 1983, 1, four artillery pieces, 8 grenades, and a vehicle-mounted artillery radar arrived at a port in Persia.

Captain Zhang Zhong, who led the team, met and shook hands with Persian Major Mars Hashemi who came to contact them.

"Zhang, are these the artillery pieces you want to sell us?"

"Yes, Hashemi, this time we brought a company of four 4mm guns, four bases of ultra-long-range shells and an artillery command vehicle."

"Very good. Originally we were going to test it at a test site not far away, but our General Suleiman wanted to see the actual combat effect of the ultra-long-range artillery you mentioned, so he asked me to deliver your artillery to the front line. Zhang, you won't object, right?"

"Go directly to the front line of the battlefield instead of testing at the testing ground? Okay, but I have a request." Zhang Zhong said after thinking it over.

Zhang Zhong was originally a company commander of the internal security forces of the Southern Liberation Army. Because of his high level of education and high school diploma, he was selected to learn a lot of artillery knowledge. He also has a good talent for languages. He had mastered English before, and also learned some simple Persian due to business needs.

He was the one who led the team to demonstrate individual missiles and rockets to the Persians, and brought back a large order.

After a brief 155mm artillery shooting training in northern Myanmar, he led his team to Persia to demonstrate this artillery.

Unexpectedly, the Persians were so unsophisticated that they actually let them test it directly on the battlefield.

But he was not afraid. After all, he had fought in northern Myanmar for many years and had seen the cruelty of the battlefield.

"I asked to choose the artillery position myself, and then scout the front line myself. We will decide when to fire."

"Zhang, you are not familiar with the front line, so you should go to our existing artillery positions."

"No, you can ask us to go to the front line to test this artillery, but we must choose the artillery position ourselves because you don't understand the performance of this artillery."

"Okay, Zhang, I'll tell General Suleiman about your request. But if you choose your own artillery positions and fail to hit valuable targets in the damn Babylon, then we may not necessarily want your artillery."

"Don't worry, if we dare to sell you something, we will definitely choose the best ones. Please go and ask for your instructions as soon as possible."

The Persian Major Mars Hashemi who came to contact them made a phone call at the dock and said that Zhang Zhong and his team could choose their own artillery positions, and the Persian side would also inform them of the situation of the opposing positions that they had discovered.

"Thank you, Hashemi. Believe me, this artillery will definitely surprise you."

"You're welcome, Zhang. Please tow the artillery behind these four trucks. The shells will be loaded in the carriages. Your command vehicle will follow behind the convoy."

"Okay, Hasimi, I've brought 12 people to the front line. Please help arrange 8 more people to help carry the ammunition and install the fuses."

"These are all trivial matters, Zhang. Let's go. It will take a while to get to the front line. Please come with me in a car."

"Okay, I'll check it out and come right back. You get in the car and wait for a while."

Hasimi did not get in the car first, but watched Zhang Zhong arrange the preparations before departure.

Zhang Zhong took his men to check the fixing of the artillery and the placement of the shells one by one, and then told the deputy captain who would be sitting in the artillery command vehicle later to keep an eye on the artillery and shells in the back, and report to him in time via the walkie-talkie if anything happened.

After the inspection, Zhang Zhong followed Major Hashimi into a Hummer, a battlefield commuter vehicle commonly used by the US military. In front of the convoy was a US-made armored vehicle with a machine gunner on it observing the situation ahead from a high altitude and clearing the way for the convoy.

Why does Persia have so many American-made vehicles? To answer this question, we have to talk about Persia’s modern history.

After World War II, the era when European powers dominated the world was gone forever, but if the United States wanted to truly stand at the center of the world, it must first deal with the former world hegemon, the British Empire, so it wanted to use Persia to fill the vacuum that appeared in the Indian Ocean.

At that time, the Soviet Union was developing rapidly and also sought to exert influence on Persia.

As a result, the intelligence agencies of the United States and Britain worked together to overthrow the government at the time and put King Pahlavi back in power.

Afterwards, Pahlavi returned the favor and decided to throw himself completely into the arms of the United States.

Therefore, after 1953, the relationship between the United States and Persia quickly warmed up and entered a nauseating honeymoon period. The United States' goal was very clear, which was to use Persia to confront the Soviet Union. From then on, the United States and Persia became a mutually dependent strategic alliance.

In the eyes of the United States, Persia is almost as important as Britain and Japan.

Britain balanced Europe and the North Atlantic for the United States, Japan helped the United States blockade Asia and the Pacific, and Persia was involved in the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean and the entire European hinterland. Of course, the most critical thing was to defend against the expansion of the Soviet Union.

Pahlavi lived up to the expectations of the United States and other Western countries. As soon as he came to power, he made his pro-Western attitude clear. Soon he drove the Soviet troops out of the country and turned to the United States and the West.

Pahlavi wanted to build Persia into a secular state, and carried out the "White Revolution" which included a series of reforms such as universal education, judicial independence, establishment of universal medical care, restriction of religious power, and advocacy of Western lifestyle. This led to the rapid development of Persia's economy, which once ranked among the top ten industrial countries in the world.

So when Zhang Zhong came to Persia last time, he found that although this country had fought a war for several years and was blockaded by the two largest countries in the world at the same time, its domestic infrastructure was better than that of most countries. The people he dealt with spoke very standard English and had an understanding of many situations in the world. It did not look like a conservative religious country at all.

In fact, all of this was the foundation laid during the reign of King Pahlavi. It also benefited from the fact that the major powers in the world were all engaged in post-war reconstruction after World War II, which required a large number of industrial products. The manufacture of industrial products requires a large amount of oil, and Persia happened to have large oil reserves.

During the reign of King Pahlavi, European and American oil companies came to explore and build oil wells. In the late 70s, several refineries were established in Persia. Therefore, Persia at this time had the financial resources to fight against Babylon while dealing with pressure from the two major powers.

Although some of King Pahlavi's policies were beneficial to the country as a whole, his reforms also aroused dissatisfaction among domestic conservatives and religious forces.

They focused on the corruption of the Pahlavi government and used the people's anti-corruption sentiment to instigate the overthrow of Pahlavi's rule.

In 1979, the Persian Islamic Revolution led by Khomeini overthrew the Pahlavi regime and established the theocratic Islamic Republic of Persia.

This coup inevitably infringed upon the interests of Western countries led by the United States, so the United States joined other Western countries in imposing an embargo and blockade on Persia, and Babylon brazenly launched a war against Persia, which was more or less influenced by the United States.

So although Persia was considered to have entered the top ten industrial countries, the industry built with the help of the United States and the West was not systematic, there was very little investment in heavy industry, and most heavy industrial products had to rely on imports. The only relatively complete industry was the petrochemical industry, which could produce everything from oil extraction to refining most fuels and most chemical raw materials.

Due to the unbalanced development of heavy industry, Persia could only produce some light weapons such as rifles, pistols, light mortars, simple bullets, etc. at this time.

Heavy weapons, especially artillery above 120MM, medium-range missiles, etc. cannot be produced domestically, so Persia is in urgent need of weapons and equipment imported from abroad to resist the invasion of Babylon.

However, since the Soviet Union discovered that the United States had become hostile to Persia, it relaxed its suppression of Persia in the past two years and secretly sold some weapons to Persia through Afghanistan in Africa and Central Asia.

However, Persia was obviously not confident in the Soviet Union. Although it still bought weapons from the Soviet Union as usual, it no longer dared to rely on the Soviet Union.

So when an Eastern group like the South Liberation Front came to sell advanced weapons such as individual-soldier missiles, the Persian government and military were very happy, as this represented a new source of weapons.

In December 1982, the individual missiles and rockets purchased from the South Liberation Front had begun to be installed at the front line. The investment of these weapons was a powerful weapon for the Persian side.

Before, they had been suppressed by Babylon. Their air force began to lack parts from the United States and Britain, so they did not dare to take off and fight all the time. They could only be used to defend key places, so they rarely took care of the ground battlefield. This led to the Persian positions being frequently bombed by aerial bombs from the Babylonian Air Force. Some arrogant Babylonian pilots even dared to use machine guns to straf the Persian troops in the trenches on the ground.

Now with this portable individual air defense missile, the Babylonian Air Force no longer dares to drop bombs at low altitudes. After all, this missile is capable of hitting supersonic aircraft flying at an altitude of 3500 meters and within a radius of 8.5 kilometers.

The armor-piercing shells they were equipped with were very accurate in dealing with Babylon's tanks and armored vehicles. The Persian military distributed the first batch of 60 missile launchers and 300 missiles to one battalion, and then used this battalion as a guide to break through one of Babylon's defense lines.

Subsequent reinforcements rushed to both sides through the gap, quickly disintegrating Babylon’s southern front and recovering the territory that had been occupied by Babylon for two years in one fell swoop.

Now Persia is planning to make further efforts and try to push the front line into Babylonia.

General Suleiman, who was in charge of the front-line command this time, was of course very happy to hear that the Southern Liberation Front had brought a 45mm artillery with a range of 155 kilometers. He was worried about how to deal with Babylon's artillery.

Because Babylon has the support of the United States and some Western countries, its armaments are relatively much better than Persia. The armored forces now have the DH-1 individual missiles provided by the Southern Liberation Front to deal with them, and the battlefield air defense can also allow this missile to play a low-altitude protective role, but the opponent's several heavy artillery brigades have no way to deal with them.

Due to the lack of spare parts, our air force can no longer provide all-weather protection for the artillery positions, so our precious artillery dare not be pulled to the front line to engage in artillery battles with the enemy, and can only be placed in the rear to attack the enemy's infantry.

Now the Southern Liberation Front has sent us four ultra-long-range artillery pieces. If the performance is really as good as they said, we must purchase more.

Zhang Zhong was unaware of the urgency of the Persian military and thought that the other side wanted to make things difficult for them by actually sending them directly to the front line for test firing.

On the way forward, their convoy unexpectedly encountered four Babylon aircraft that were crossing the border for combat. Fortunately, the convoy was protected by DH-4 missiles. Two aircraft that lowered their altitude to attack the convoy were hit and exploded in mid-air by the launched DH-1 missiles. The two aircraft in the sky saw that the convoy was protected by these death missiles and did not dare to lower their altitude to take revenge. They circled around and flew away.

Zhang Zhong and the members of the Southern Liberation Front who were traveling with the convoy witnessed the encounter and planned to report the situation upon returning.

The convoy has been traveling at a speed of more than 50 kilometers per hour in Persia. This is also due to the development over the past 20 years. Most of the roads in Persia are asphalt roads, so the convoy's driving speed is at the maximum maneuvering speed of the artillery.

The convoy slowed down when it was about 50 kilometers from the front line. Because of the war, the road had become bumpy, which were craters left by previous wars that the Persian side had not had time to repair.

The convoy drove slowly and did not arrive at the place selected by Zhang Zhong until after midnight.

This place is about 10 kilometers away from the front line and about 30 kilometers away from the enemy's artillery position.

As for why they knew about the artillery positions on the Babylonian side, artillery positions should be kept secret and would not stay in one place for long.

The main reason was that the Persian side lacked weapons to attack the enemy's artillery, and the quality of the Babylonian army was not very good. After several artillery battles, they found that the enemy was unable to fight back, so their positions were no longer changed.

Zhang Zhong rode a three-wheeled vehicle to inspect the position in the dark, and finally chose to deploy four artillery pieces behind a relatively high sand dune.

"Zhang, are you sure you want to deploy the artillery here? This place is more than 30 kilometers away from the enemy artillery position we detected. It would be bad if your artillery can't hit the enemy."

"Hashimi, as long as the intelligence you provided is accurate, as soon as the enemy opens fire, my four artillery pieces will definitely blow their positions to pieces. By the way, how will you confirm the results of the battle then?"

"Haha, don't worry, Zhang. We will find a way to confirm it. Don't worry, as long as your cannon can really hit that far, we will definitely not take away your credit, and we will place a big order at that time."

"That's good. I placed the artillery position here because I took into account that the enemy might move their position. I gave them a lot of redundant distance. If they retreat, we can still hit them. By the way, when are you going to launch a tentative attack so that I can make preparations for the next step?"

"Zhang, we will start in another seven hours after breakfast. Zhang, you can take a rest first. I will inform you before launching the attack. I will stay here."

After hearing what he said, Zhang Zhong asked the accompanying team members to set up the artillery first, adjust the general design parameters, and turn on the artillery radar for inspection every half hour to ensure that it can be used at any time.

Then he trained several people who were sent by Hashemi to help carry the shells and install the fuses, and took them through several simulation exercises to ensure that after the artillery battle began, they could help install the fuses on the shells and carry them to their destination in a timely manner.

Heavy artillery shells are usually placed separately from fuses and propellants. Fuzes are usually installed a few times before a battle begins, and then installed while fighting. Propellants are also stored separately. This is done to prevent the enemy's shells from hitting their own positions and causing large-scale explosions.

A position without a fuse and with little propellant nearby would rarely explode even if hit by a shell.

Moreover, the shells with the fuse installed cannot be moved at any time. They must be moved after the fuse is removed. Otherwise, the shells with the fuse installed will be very easy to detonate during the movement.

After arranging all this, Zhang Zhongcai finally had some free time. He went to the tent set up next to the position to rest and quietly waited for the arrival of dawn.

(End of this chapter)