Chapter 120: Strangling Yelnia (Part 2)

Accompanied by Malashenko's order, the 76mm high-explosive shell that was ejected instantly shot straight towards the German 88 gun position like an arrow from a string. The TNT charge of the warhead triggered by the collision fuse of the bullet immediately burst into a dazzling fire at the German gun position.

"Did it kill it?"

Following the direction of the explosion, he held his commander's periscope and looked hurriedly. The scene presented by the soil blown away by the shock wave of the explosion was not what Malashenko hoped for.

"Damn it! These Germans actually set up the 88 gun behind the earth slope!"

The 88 gun, which was designed with the flat shooting function in mind, not only has an ultra-large anti-aircraft shooting elevation angle of up to 85 degrees, but also has a negative 3-degree downward depression angle of the gun barrel. In addition to taking into account the air defense mission, the 88 gun can also use a condescending depression posture to achieve some cross-terrain strikes, such as deploying it on a small back slope to serve as a temporary shelter to perform anti-armor missions.

The German army was trying their best to protect the 88 guns in their hands as much as possible so that they would not become disposable equipment.

The 88 guns were tall and high due to the need to perform air defense tasks. It was difficult to carry out effective all-round protection. After considering the protection according to local conditions, the German army finally deployed it behind a small hill, hoping to use the terrain protection to resist any possible counterattack by the Soviet army.

This hill, which was deliberately cut off by the German engineers, was neither high nor low. While revealing a small gap so as not to affect the firing of the 88 guns, it also used the thick soil layer and the hill itself to provide more than 85% of the frontal projection area for the 88 gun group hiding behind it. After that, a certain degree of green camouflage was added on the hill, making it look more like a huge bush rather than a terrain shelter.

The 76mm high-explosive shell fired by Malashenko's car just now not only blew a crater on the front of the hillock, but also blew the camouflaged bushes into pieces and flew into the air. The German 88 gun crew hiding behind the hillock and loading the guns did not suffer any substantial damage except for some ringing in their ears.

Being completely fooled by the Germans' painstakingly camouflaged terrain defense bunkers, he never thought that the 88 gun could have such an amazing way to perform anti-tank tasks. After opening his eyes, Malashenko did not get discouraged but chose to continue to face the challenge.

"Kirill, switch to armor-piercing shells! I don't believe that we can't smash the tortoise shells of these Germans today!"

"Iushkin! Fire at the weak soil layer near the German 88 gun group on the edge of the hill, and penetrate that damn hill while ensuring that the armor-piercing delay fuse is not triggered! No matter what the killing effect is, at least let those Germans taste our shells!"

As one of the classic 76mm armor-piercing shells equipped by the Soviet Red Army during World War II, the armor-piercing killing principle adopted by the BR-350B wind cap armor-piercing grenade is very simple.

When a BR-350B wind cap armor-piercing grenade is fired, the armor-piercing shell wind cap, which is used to reduce wind resistance and increase the remaining speed and kinetic energy of the shell when it reaches the target, will be deformed and shattered first due to external force compression and impact.

After that, the armor-piercing shell itself, which is covered under the wind cap, will continue to move forward and penetrate the enemy tank armor with the help of the residual launch kinetic energy.

When the remaining launch kinetic energy of this BR-350B type wind cap armor-piercing grenade after reaching the target is enough to penetrate the target armor plate, the armor-piercing delay fuze will be triggered in the process of penetrating the enemy armor because the thickness of the penetrated armor reaches the requirements of the impact fuze.

So that after penetrating the enemy tank armor and entering the enemy tank crew fighting room, the warhead charge is detonated, and the broken shrapnel and warhead charge are exploded in a small scale to cause serious damage to the interior of the enemy tank.

The sensitivity of the armor-piercing delay fuze equipped on the Soviet 76mm BR-350B type wind cap armor-piercing grenade is roughly about 15 mm thick homogeneous steel armor due to the fluctuations of its production batch and the manual craftsmanship of the workers.

In other words, only when the total equivalent armor thickness of the penetrated armor on the ballistic route exceeds 15 mm, the armor-piercing delay fuze of the BR-350B type wind cap armor-piercing grenade will be triggered to detonate the warhead charge.

On the contrary, if the total thickness of the equivalent armor of the penetrated armor on the ballistic route is less than 15 mm, then the BR-350B type wind cap armor-piercing grenade that penetrates the armor is likely to not trigger the armor-piercing delay fuse, and naturally cannot detonate the warhead charge, which is what we usually understand literally as "overpenetration".

At present, the high-explosive bombs in hand cannot cause any substantial damage to the German 88 gun crew hiding behind the hill bunker because of the sensitivity problem of the impact fuse that "explodes as soon as it is touched".

Malashenko, who had an idea, immediately thought of using armor-piercing shells to try to penetrate the weak position of the soil layer at the edge of the small earth slope, so that the armor-piercing shells can pass through the soil and kill the German gun crew hiding behind it.

Although this approach is theoretically feasible, how hard is the soil structure of the small earth slope in front of him, how thick is the soil layer, and how thick will the soil layer be after the armor-piercing projectile hit, triggering the armor-piercing delay fuse, resulting in the ineffective explosion of the armor-piercing projectile.

This series of problems involving field investigation and geometric calculations naturally did not interest Malashenko. At present, Malashenko could only hope that the gunner Iushkin's artillery skills could be as good as he hoped.

"I understand, comrade commander! I'll try it now!"

Although Lieutenant Iushkin, a gunner who also graduated from the tank cadets, was much younger than Malashenko, his superb artillery skills were shown in the previous Lutsk to Brod battle and were favored by Malashenko. Otherwise, there was no need for Malashenko to let such a guy who had not yet recovered from his injury to serve as his gunner.

At a distance of less than 100 meters, Iushkin, holding his breath, could clearly see the hill where the German artillery group was hiding with the help of the aiming scope with four times optical magnification.

Just like the feeling of time slowing down when swordsmen dueled with each other in ancient times, Iushkin, who was almost one with the gun in a trance, was sure that he had aimed at the right position, and his right foot instantly stepped on the firing pedal without any hesitation.

"Hit the bull's eye, German."