Chapter 1599

After the jeep followed the armored car in front of me for some distance, I suddenly thought of something. I raised my hand and patted my forehead. I said with chagrin, "hell, it's a living thing!"

"What's the matter, comrade deputy commander?" The driver sitting next to me was startled when he saw my action. He stepped on the brake in a hurry and said, "what's the matter?"

"Nothing!" I waved to the driver and told him, "keep driving!"

As the jeep continued to move forward, I couldn't help laughing bitterly. Major general leiruofu was indeed the commander of the 70th group army before, but he was transferred to the post of commander of the 28th army of the guards last month. He dealt with him every day some time ago, but he forgot such a big event. I was really confused.

After arriving at the headquarters of the group army, the officers on duty at the gate, after verifying the identity of my forehead, respectfully said, "Comrade deputy commander, general Popov is in the conference room calling all division commanders to a meeting. Do you want me to be your guide? "

I nodded to the officer and said politely, "OK, comrade officer, please show me the way ahead."

I was led by the officer to the door of the conference room. There was a desk beside the door as usual. Behind the desk sat an officer. Seeing my arrival, he quickly stood up and ran out from behind the desk. He raised his hand to salute me and said, "Comrade commander is in a meeting. Do you want me to inform him?"

"No, I'll go in myself." After saying this, I said thanks to the officer who led me. Then I went forward, pushed open the closed door and walked in with great strides.

Just across the door was major general Popov, the new commander of the group army. He saw that someone broke into the conference room without saying hello. He wanted to get angry. When he saw that it was me, he quickly got up from his seat and walked towards me. When I was two or three steps away, he stopped, raised his hand to salute, and reported according to the regulations: "Comrade deputy commander of the front army, the 70th group army is holding a meeting of commanders at division level, please give instructions!"

I took a quick look inside. The long conference table was full of school officers and even some generals. As Popov came towards me, they got up from their seats and looked at me in unison. I saluted Popov and said politely, "Comrade General, I'm just here to have a look. Please continue!" With that, I turned to the division commanders in front of me, raised my hands and pressed them down, indicating that they would all sit down.

Popov led me to his position. At the same time, he ordered to a staff officer who was in charge of the minutes of the meeting standing beside him: "bring a chair to the deputy commander!"

The staff officer rushed to the empty chair against the wall, carried one and put it next to bobosha's seat.

"Sit down, comrade deputy commander." Popov said and moved his chair aside to make room for me.

I sat on the chair that the staff officer had brought for me, looked at Popov and asked, "Comrade General, what were you discussing before I came here?"

"Comrade deputy commander, this is the situation." Popov politely said to me: "according to the order, our group army will cooperate with the 47th group army in the near future to launch an attack on the German army occupying the East Bank of the visva river. At present, we are discussing how to transport heavy weapons to the other bank of the river."

"Has the discussion come to an end?" Popov's words aroused my curiosity. I immediately asked, "I really want to know how you can transport heavy weapons to the other side of the river without enough crossing equipment."

When Popov heard my question, he turned to look at a general sitting on his left and said with a smile, "Comrade deputy commander, my chief of staff came up with this method. I think it's better for him to report to you and introduce it more comprehensively."

The general, who was named by Popov, stood up slowly, nodded to me with a smile, and began to talk about it in detail: "Comrade deputy commander, because the German army bombed all the bridges on the visva River, and our army lacked enough crossing equipment, in order to solve this problem, I decided to use air drop after several days of thinking, To solve the problem of transportation of heavy weapons. "

"By airdrop?" I was confused by the chief of staff's words, and I asked, "chief of staff, can you tell me more details, how should we air drop?"

"It's very simple. We carried the tanks in transport planes, flew over the visva River, opened the hatch behind and threw the tanks down." "As long as our tanks land successfully, they can fight immediately," said the chief of staff

"When the tank lands, it can fight immediately." After hearing what the chief of staff said, I couldn't help nodding with a smile. Just as I was about to praise him, my smile suddenly froze on my face. I looked at him in surprise and asked, "Comrade chief of staff, when our tanks parachuted, where were the tankers? Are they going to jump down to receive the tanks after they have dropped them? "

"Of course not," the chief of staff said triumphantly, shaking his head and denying my conjecture. "I'm going to let the tank soldiers sit in the tank and parachute with the tank."

"Shut up As soon as his voice fell, I suddenly slapped the table and stood up, pointed to his nose and angrily scolded: "chief of staff, have you ever considered how much impact the tank has when it lands from high altitude? How much damage will the tank soldiers we are sitting in suffer? "

"Comrade deputy commander, please don't get angry." The chief of staff did not immediately explain, but said in a flat tone: "please listen to me explain this matter to you in detail."

"Go ahead." I wanted to hear how he defended himself, so I sat down again and said angrily, "I want to hear what reasons you have to make such a ridiculous plan."

In the face of my reproach, the chief of staff was still smiling. He said slowly, "Comrade deputy commander, before the outbreak of the war, I worked in the Department of weapons and equipment. As early as 1935, we carried out similar experiments and achieved success."

In 1935, the Soviet Union carried out the experiment of man-machine integrated airdrop, which made me feel at a loss for a moment. I didn't know how to refute the chief of staff, so I had to listen to him patiently.

"... in order to achieve rapid airdrop, the general equipment department conducted a top secret experiment in 1935." The chief of staff first glanced at the commanders, then solemnly said: "we tied a t-37 Amphibious Reconnaissance tank under a tb-3 heavy bomber, flew close to the water, then airdropped it without parachute, because everyone thought that under the great inertia, the tank would float to the shore."

It's the first time I've heard of what the chief of staff said, so I asked with great interest, "Comrade chief of staff, don't you know if the experiment is successful?"

Hearing my question, the chief of staff gave a wry smile and said, "of course, such a trial experiment can not be successful at one time. We dropped three in a row, and they all went straight to the bottom. Due to underestimation, all three members of the first sunken tank died. "

I know that since the chief of staff dares to bring this up at such a meeting, the experiment is probably successful. However, in order to know what I was interested in as soon as possible, I kept silent and listened to the chief of staff about what happened next.

"After we repeatedly studied the reasons for the failure, a comrade suddenly asked whether we could install a paddle shield under the t-37 After installing the paddle shield, and after several experiments, our airdropped tank can finally use the huge inertia to rush from the water to the shore. "

After listening to the chief of staff's talk about the airdrop experiment of that year, I immediately identified it in my mind as a brain disabled airdrop method. I don't care whether this method is applicable to other troops; But in the first front army of Belarus, I will never allow this kind of thing to happen without the lives of tank soldiers.

After the chief of staff finished speaking, everyone's eyes focused on me again, and everyone was waiting for me to make a statement. I stood up slowly and said firmly, "comrades, I'm here to make a statement. I absolutely don't agree with this dangerous way of Airdropping heavy equipment."

"But, comrade deputy commander." When the chief of staff saw me, he denied his proposal. He could not help saying anxiously, "but at the meeting just now, more than half of the comrades agreed to adopt this tactic."

"I don't know who among the commanders here agrees that we should adopt this kind of man-machine integrated airdrop method to airdrop our heavy equipment?" My eyes slowly swept from each commander on the scene: "please raise your hands if you agree!"

After what I said, I didn't even raise my hand. When the chief of staff saw this situation, he became more and more anxious. He could only turn his eyes to Popov. Popov thought he couldn't bear to see his subordinates get shriveled, so he stood up and said to his subordinates all over the table, "comrades commander, please raise your hand if you agree with the proposal of major general Vassili, chief of staff. Even if it's wrong, we won't blame everyone. "

Although Popov came out to support Vassily's chief of staff, it took quite a long time for several colonels to raise their right hands hesitantly and express their approval for Vassily's airborne method.

Seeing that there are some people who support Vassily, I can't help frowning. I think if I don't persuade them on this occasion, maybe in the future they will do something to me. It's a small matter to do man-machine integrated airdrop and scrap a few tanks. If it causes unnecessary casualties for those experienced tank soldiers, it's not worth the loss.

I coughed a little, and then said, "comrades, I want to talk about why I oppose the man-machine airdrop plan proposed by chief of staff Vassili. First of all, this idea is too crazy and too advanced. We don't have the platform and umbrella that can protect the personnel and vehicles;

Secondly, even with the protection of the umbrella, the huge impact of the tank falling from the air will shock the soldiers sitting in the tank to death;

Third, even if, to say the least, there is not much risk in airdrop, due to the limitation of the load of transport aircraft, the tanks that we can use for airdrop can only be light tanks with light weight, and the number will not be too many.

I would like to ask the commanders present here that even if a number of light tanks are successfully airdropped behind enemy lines, as chief of staff Vassili had imagined, our tanks with extremely weak firepower and armor can only be reduced to their targets when facing the German Tiger and leopard tanks. "

After my words, the whole conference room fell into silence. Vassily sat glum at the table, and the officers who agreed with him also sat in their seats smoking. Finally, Popov came out and said, "well, comrades, since the deputy commander of the front army has said that the method of man-machine integrated airdrop is wrong, then there is no need to discuss this matter. That's all for today's meeting. Let's go back to our respective troops. " When the commanders who attended the meeting were almost gone, and there were only me, Popov and Vasili left in the huge meeting room, I said to Vasili who was in a bad mood: "chief of staff, do you think I didn't show you any mercy at the meeting just now?"“ No Although Vassili said no, I know he was still unconvinced. If I am not wrong, he became commander of airborne troops several years later, and solemnly proposed to promote man-machine integrated airdrop in airborne troops, but it did not attract enough attention from the superior. I said to him with a pleasant face: "Comrade chief of staff, if the man-machine integrated airdrop in those years really achieved great success, I think it would have been promoted in the whole army long ago, and it would not be delayed until now."“ But our experiment did make the airdropped tank rush from the water to the land with the aid of huge inertia. " Vassili said unconvinced: "isn't such an experimental result a success?"“ No, "I said decisively in order to dispel his illusion," the airdrop experiment you conducted is just a gamble. Only when the pilot's luck is good and the airdrop angle is ideal can you achieve the effect you said. And throwing a tank from the air onto land is another matter. If there is no platform for parachute buffer during low airdrop, the tank will fall apart; And when high air drop, even if equipped with parachute, but the specific impact, will also let the soldiers stay in the tank life“ Comrade deputy commander, if you are only worried that tank members will be hurt in the airdrop, you can do it in another way. " Vassili said unconvinced: "then we can implement the separation of man and machine to carry out the airdrop."“ This will not work, comrade chief of staff. " I immediately denied his new idea“ The landing points of tanks and tank soldiers will certainly not be at the same place. After the airborne landing, our tank soldiers will spend a lot of time looking for the landing tanks, which will delay the aircraft. "“ Is it really impossible to adopt this kind of airdrop method? " Vassily asked reluctantly“ Yes, comrade chief of staff, this is absolutely impossible. " After finishing this sentence, in order not to continue to hurt his self-esteem, I added: "maybe in a few years' time, with the development of science and technology, our troops will be able to use the way you say today to carry out airdrop behind enemy lines."