Chapter 45: Flaming Sky

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While Wang Zhong commanded Tank 422 to move towards the village, the combat engineer squad had just cleared a house with a flamethrower.

Wang Zhong, while playing Company of Heroes 2, liked to use flamethrowers, yet the game’s flamethrowers, although powerful, were not invincible.

The Company of Heroes series of games featured a retreat mechanism: Press the T key, and your troops would sprint away (the latest third installment seemed to have changed the key). If confronted with a flamethrower, pressing T fast enough could save the burning troops and allow them to retreat back to base engulfed in flames.

But reality was not so forgiving; in real life, those hit by a flamethrower would lose their combat effectiveness instantly, left to roll on the ground unable to do anything else.

Only those with extremely tenacious willpower could continue to fight while engulfed in flames.

The current Third Company of the Amur Group, although high in morale, had not yet become a disciplined force with that kind of willpower.

Wang Zhong had to eliminate these combat engineers quickly, or else they might just take over the whole village.

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The company commander, Sherchev, shouted loudly, “It’s the combat engineers, the submachine gun bullets are too weak to penetrate their armor, use rifles!”

"But Commander, most of us are equipped with submachine guns for close-quarters combat!”

"Then fucking use machine guns!”

As Sherchev grabbed the machine gun from its operator, an explosion sounded from the backyard of the house he was in; the combat engineers had likely blown up the yard’s wall with explosives.

Brandishing the machine gun, Sherchev rushed to the window and began to fire through the breach.

The first combat engineer to enter the door hadn’t yet squeezed the trigger before being hit by bullets, causing him and his armor to be pushed back several steps, with blood flowing from the gaps beneath his armor—clearly, the machine gun was loaded with full-powered rounds that had penetrated the armor.

The enemy still managed to pull the trigger, but due to falling backward, the flamethrower was raised high, and flames spouted into the air like a fountain, crossing the opposite wall and landing in the neighboring yard.

As he continued firing, Sherchev yelled, “You see? Their armor weighs at most a dozen kilos, it can’t stop full-powered rifle rounds!”

Submachine guns fire pistol ammunition, which has questionable penetrating power.

Sherchev had barely finished speaking when a grenade was thrown into the yard.

This was no ordinary stick grenade, but a combat engineer’s breach grenade, noticeably larger than a regular grenade.

Even elite combat engineers couldn’t throw such a grenade to the second floor from that distance, so Sherchev laughed, “A bigger grenade’s no good if you can’t throw it up here—”

The grenade on the ground floor exploded.

The wooden floor beneath Sherchev’s feet, along with the brick wall of the first floor, collapsed.

The adjacent submachine gunner cried out, “Commander!”

In that critical moment, combat engineers took advantage of the lull in machine gun fire to breach through the hole in the wall.

The submachine gunner immediately opened fire, with bullets clinking and clanging off the metal armor.

The Prussians laughed, and the flamethrower was aimed at the second floor—

Suddenly, a bullet struck the flamethrower’s fuel line; the high-pressure fuel sprayed out and vaporized in the air.

The vaporized fuel, contacting the flames at the head of the flamethrower, ignited and instantly engulfed the combat engineer in flames.

The driver responded to Wang Zhong with actions, as the tank directly took the left road heading straight for the alley entrance fifty meters away.

Wang Zhong: “Turret, turn left!”

The turret immediately began to turn left.

Su Fang was about to use the machine gun to shoot at the enemy on the street when the turret turned, causing the machine gun to move away from in front of her.

Wang Zhong and the tank hatch blocked Su Fang’s access to the machine gun.

Su Fang: “My machine gun!”

Wang Zhong ignored her as the tank had reached the alley entrance and came to a sudden stop, shaking a little from front to back.

The half-track vehicle parked on the other side of the alley saw the tank; the Prussians on it shouted “Akh-toong,” and turned the vehicle-mounted machine gun towards the tank, only then realizing that the firing arc was insufficient—the machine gun could only cover a frontal arc, but the vehicle was parked sideways at the alley entrance.

Wang Zhong had not yet shouted fire when the tank gun fired.

The half-track vehicle must have been loaded with a lot of explosives, and flame-thrower fuel or something, as it immediately burst into an orange fireball that slowly rose, resembling a nuclear explosion.

Wang Zhong just watched as fragments bearing the Prussian cross flew past him, embedding themselves into the brick crevices of houses on the other side of the street.

Su Fang was blown off the tank by the blast wave, landing butt-first on the ground, and immediately started howling, “Ahh ahh ahh, my butt!”

Wang Zhong was about to say something when the enemy’s combat engineers climbed over the blast-damaged courtyard wall.

The enemy was clearly dazed by the explosion, freezing for a moment upon seeing the tank.

Wang Zhong immediately grabbed the anti-aircraft machine gun on top of the tank turret—the one Su Fang had been using—and fired at the enemy.

The sight was set to 300, but Wang Zhong didn’t aim; he just shot guided by the tracer rounds.

The combat engineers were hit by several shots and fell to the ground.

Wang Zhong switched to the overhead view and immediately ordered, “High-Explosive Shell, hit the courtyard next to it!”

"No firing angle!”

"Shoot the floor!”

A High-Explosive Shell hit the ground, and from the overhead view, Wang Zhong could see the combat engineers inside the courtyard being thrown onto the ground.

But their armor served its purpose; after all, the main gun of Tank 422 was only 45 millimeters, and its fragments might not penetrate the steel, only able to injure the enemies’ limbs.

At this moment, Sherchev’s subordinates appeared.

They charged across the alley shouting “Ura!” and crossed the flames left by the recent explosion, using their bayonets to finish off the still-grounded combat engineers.

The enemy’s neck did not have any protection!

Wang Zhong yelled: “Be careful to capture the flamethrowers! Be careful to capture the flamethrowers!”

Then he heard an engine sound, quickly searched for its source, and saw the enemy tanks that had been two hundred meters away starting to advance.

It looked like the fireworks Wang Zhong had caused had made them restless.

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