Chapter 585: Urgent! What Should Paratroopers Do When Facing Ground-Based Air Defense? (Part 2)
And now...
It's certainly better for fighting people!
Doo—dooodooodoo——
The duty adjutant quickly blew the whistle, one short and three long with urgency, signaling to enter combat positions.
"Eat, eat, eat! Keep eating, once we've dealt with the American bastards, your family grave will be smoking." A squad leader slapped a private's head beside him.
"What do you mean, squad leader?"
"What's that?" the squad leader pointed to the sky and asked.
"Paratroopers!"
The private paused for a moment, "American paratroopers."
"Bullshit, that's the Iron Cross Medal, look, aren't those medals of honor jumping down one by one?"
Iron Cross!
Upon hearing that, all the soldiers' breath quickened somewhat.
One must know that the lowest Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross comes with a reward of 6000 Riyal, and some financially flexible places also have rewards.
700 men quickly raised anti-aircraft machine guns, swift and decisive, evidently well-trained over time.
"Prepare!"
"Azimuth 35, slant range 800!" The observer roared out the parameters and slapped them on the iron plate by the gun mount. The loader's fingers swiftly moved across the ZAP-23 vector sight's dial, the clicking of the copper wheel and gears echoing along with the breathing sounds.
The aimer stomped on the pedal, and the breeches of two 2A14 machine guns recoiled simultaneously, the belts of 23x152B high-explosive tracer rounds funneling into the feeder like bloodthirsty centipedes.
"Fire!"
Four ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft guns and six S-60 57mm anti-aircraft guns began "shooting moles" at the sky.
Meanwhile, other soldiers lifted their rifles and swept upward.
The first burst of fire tore through the air just as the paratroopers unfastened their parachutes.
23mm projectiles turned into a steel rain at an initial velocity of 950 meters per second, the high-explosive warheads exploding ten meters away from the parachute gear, spreading prefabricated fragments in a fan-shaped spray.
Neither the 407th Brigade Support Battalion nor the 1st Squadron of the 73rd Cavalry Corps anticipated such a situation!
"F***!"
"F***!"
"F***!"
Colonel Orellio Henderson, the deputy division commander, heard nothing but curses around him, but felt a cold chill inside...
Poof…
Not far from him, a paratrooper's ballistic vest was pierced by three jagged shrapnel pieces, the shockwave tearing the parachute not yet fully opened into shreds, the body tumbling in the air like a marionette with broken strings.
What can you do in the sky?
Only put the weapon in your crotch and mindlessly shoot downward.
The gunner's fingers clutched the trigger pedal tightly, the twin 23mm barrels rising rapidly in the whirring of the electric servomotor, the floating parachute flares in the sight dropping into human hell at five meters per second.
The copper casings of armor-piercing incendiary rounds in the ammo box shimmered under the morning light, as tongues of fire erupted, the paratroopers were yet to realize they were being measured by death with a ruler.
The barrels shuddered, spraying 32 rounds per second of metallic fury into the horizon, tracers weaving a scarlet web at low altitude. A certain Captain paratrooper attempted to curl his body to dodge, but the 23mm warhead easily ripped through the nylon canopy, his right leg below the knee instantly becoming a mist of blood, the shattered shinbone even embedded into the bulletproof insert of his companion behind.
"God!!! Aaaaaah!!!"
The unique cavity effect of high-explosive warheads blossomed within the human body, the blood mist bursting in the air like an inverted fountain, parachute gear swept by the ammo belts crashing down like kites with broken strings, half of a charred arm still hanging from the suspension lines.
That blood...
Unashamedly splattering everywhere in the air!
Unknowing people...
Might think the heavens were having a period.
The loader yelled as he slammed the new ammo belt into the feeder, the scorching shells piled under the gun mount had reached ankle depth. The aimer's forehead veins bulged out as he cranked the manual vector sight's speed dial to the limit—these paratroopers' descent trajectory was so predictable, it was like a slow-motion shot at a shooting range.
As the third round of firefights began, the entire paratrooper zone was shrouded in a rain of metal and flesh, paratroopers cut in half didn't even have time to let out heartrending screams, shattered bones and organs radiating from the shockwave, staining the wheat field below an eerie dark red.
The barrel replacement alarm suddenly blared, the assistant gunner's hand which was swinging the spare barrel froze mid-air—there were no longer any intact silhouettes in the sky, only drifting tattered parachute fabric and slowly descending blood drops.
Within the smoke, the flash suppressor of ZU-23-2 still quivered red, like some mechanical beast that had just completed its hunt and now was panting.
"Change the ammo belt!" As the loader tore off the empty ammo box, four soldiers were already waiting at the sides of the gun mount, they rushed towards the scorching feeder with 50-round new ammo belts.
The aimer's handle furiously rotated on the elevation wheel, the barrel traced a deadly arc chasing the scattering parachute formations—the barrage sliced three paratroopers in half straightaway, the scarlet trajectory of the tracer rounds weaving a bloody web in the sky. A soldier who tried to cut the suspension lines to fall faster was pierced through along with his parachute by a 23mm armor-piercing incendiary round, burning magnesium-aluminum powder gushing from his chest cavity...
The barrel glowed a dark red during continuous firing, the barrel replacement soldier gripped the wooden handle to latch the spare barrel onto the guides, 15 seconds later the new barrel roared again.
At this moment, the sky no longer had any intact parachute gear, only the slowly descending remains and parachute shreds soaked in blood foam, in the 2000 rounds per minute metal fury of ZU-23-2, the human body was as fragile as dandelions in a storm.
ZU-23-2 had another name: "Infantry Harvester."
It was simply very, very, very...
Relieving!
Even more relieving than watching earwax extraction videos at night.
The only downside was, gravity pulls to the ground, so after about ten minutes, there were still some lucky fish that slipped through the net and fell on the ground.