Empire Conquest-Chapter 801 - 72: The Final Shot
"Chief, this is the last round!"
With a clang, Wu Qitie loaded the last multipurpose grenade into the barrel.
The ZT-99B was still speeding, or rather, reversing at top speed to retreat into a firing position close to the frontline, with the turret already turned 180 degrees.
The rear faced the enemy, ready to retreat quickly after firing the last shot.
It’s not only the grenades that ran out, but also the smoke shells.
About five minutes ago, Situ Lin personally fired the last two smoke shells to withdraw from the exposed position.
There were still 2 groups of 8 fragmentation grenades, but none of them were useful.
Firing would expose them and invite enemy attacks; if they didn’t retreat from the position quickly, even the ZT-99B couldn’t escape harm.
Situ Lin’s ZT-99B was the last tank still fighting; the others had already gone silent. The last communication was more than 10 minutes ago, with the commander of the last ZT-99B from the guard platoon reporting that all ammunition was depleted. He issued orders to abandon the tank, instructing the crew to dismantle the machine gun and relocate to nearby positions to continue fighting the advancing enemy.
After firing the last shot, Situ Lin and his team had to abandon the tank.
Actually, Situ Lin had already made arrangements.
After withdrawal, Tang Xuebing was responsible for destroying the sensitive equipment on the tank, especially the communication radio.
The digital radio contained a chip used to store communication codes that must be destroyed and absolutely not fall into enemy hands.
Wu Qitie was responsible for moving ammunition out of the vehicle, especially machine gun bullets.
Utilizing tens of thousands of rounds and taking advantage of favorable defensive terrain, they could engage in a good fight against the enemy rather than waiting passively.
Situ Lin was responsible for dismantling the machine gun and selecting a suitable position nearby.
Once placed in a proper location, the threat of two 8mm machine guns would be significant, especially against infantry fighting alongside tanks.
If there’s no retreat order from above, don’t retreat!
Even if it means dying in battle, stay on the position.
As the tank roared up the slope, Situ Lin tapped Wu Qitie’s shoulder, standing up and climbing out of the turret.
Situ Lin and his team had already retreated to the central area of the defensive position, 200 meters from the front.
The northern position was already occupied by the enemy.
Still, a few Eastern Luosha soldiers resisted, even though most were wounded, using only light weapons like rifles.
Occasionally, gunfire was heard. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚
Not very dense, and fired by small caliber firearms.
Due to higher velocity and faster shooting rate, the gunfire from small caliber weapons sounded crisp, like popping beans, very distinctive.
The small caliber weapons were used by Eastern Luosha soldiers.
Despite West Luosha having developed the 5.45mm small caliber cartridge over a decade ago following the trend, and it becoming the standard caliber in the West Continent Group, the main forces in the West Luosha Army still used assault rifles firing 7.92mm intermediate cartridges.
This cartridge actually originated from the Tiaoman Empire, developed by the Tiaoman Army post-war based on practical needs, as the second generation of intermediate cartridges.
The primary change compared to the first generation intermediate cartridges was increasing the shell case length to 43mm to raise the propellant charge, addressing the lack of power in the first generation 7.92mm intermediate cartridges, which soon got adopted by dozens of countries worldwide.
The second generation 7.92mm intermediate cartridge is considered one of the most successful rifle ammunitions developed post-war.
Despite the apparent shortcomings compared to small caliber cartridges, such as lower initial velocity and less ideal ballistic performance, the intermediate cartridges had a major advantage: higher bullet mass, better sustained speed over medium to long distances, and better long-range accuracy than small caliber cartridges.
In engagement distances from 400 to 800 meters, intermediate cartridges had a significant advantage.
Clearly, in the eastern plains of the West Continent, engagements exceeding 400 meters were not uncommon.
Due to this, the West Luosha Army maintained a large stock of assault rifles using intermediate cartridges, mainly providing them to frontline assault forces.
As for assault rifles firing small caliber cartridges, they were less emphasized and mainly equipped to secondary units.
In fact, when developing the 5.45mm cartridge, the West Luosha Army aimed to complete the task but never expected it to become the standard ammunition.
If it were not for the Tiaoman Army being overly ambitious, focusing on 4.7mm caseless ammo and encountering unsolvable technical challenges, and other competing proposals having issues, such as Belgium’s FN company’s alignment with Beigu Group, Locke Army’s insistence on using 7mm intermediate cartridges, and Bulan Army’s 6mm cartridges technology base originating from the Liangxia Empire, the West Luosha Army’s proposal wouldn’t have been selected.
According to outside opinions, the 5.45mm cartridge became the West Continent Group’s standard ammunition due to lack of better options.
Therefore, the 5.45mm cartridge was not fully promoted, with the 7.92mm intermediate cartridge remaining the mainstay of the West Continent Group.
Conversely, the Eastern Luosha Army only used the 6mm small caliber cartridge as the sole standard rifle ammunition.
The Eastern Group didn’t have intermediate cartridges.
Aside from small caliber cartridges, they had 8mm full-size rifle rounds.
This wasn’t the fault of the Eastern Luosha Army.
Two decades ago, during the Eastern Group’s initiative to unify ammunition calibers, the Eastern Luosha Army managed to obtain some 7.92mm intermediate cartridges and developed a batch of 8mm intermediate cartridges based on them to participate in the group’s standard ammunition bidding competition.
