Chapter five hundred and seventy-eight choose the battlefield
Shulka was not joking, Vavilovic has indeed become the chief instructor of the mortar school, although he does know nothing, including calculating ballistics, calculating coordinates, and guiding artillery fire...
Even Vavilovic was a little at a loss when facing a group of students because he didn't know what to teach.
Shulka said something to Vavilovitch.
"In this school, what we need is not an artilleryman!" Shulka said: "This may be a bit ridiculous, what the mortar school needs is not an artilleryman! However, this is true, because what we have to face is a battlefield, a battlefield
It will not be static, we must adapt to the battlefield and must constantly change. This school is one of the changes!"
Someone asked: "Does this change mean that artillery is no longer a weapon?"
"Yes!" Shulka nodded: "You cannot fight like artillery, but should be more like an infantry! Just like Second Lieutenant Vavilovic. You need to run in the ruins, dodge, and then rely on feeling
Fire a shell and quickly move your position. From this aspect, you should be a sniper rather than an artilleryman, because you don't need to calculate the trajectory..."
"But we can't be as perfect as Lieutenant Vavilovitch!"
"It's not important!" Shulka said: "The important thing is that you can survive and put pressure on the Germans!"
So the students and Lieutenant Vavilovic knew what they were going to do.
Whether it can hit the target is indeed not the first priority. Artillery shells are different from other equipment. A large part of them relies on exploding shrapnel or debris to hurt people, which means it requires a certain amount of luck.
After all, there are only a few who can hit every target as accurately as Vavilovic.
The light mortar has a unique advantage on battlefields like Stalingrad, because it can shoot at the enemy in the ruins without exposing itself at all, and can even attack the enemy across buildings.
Of course, the Germans also have light mortars, and even the light mortars have a longer range than the light mortars in the hands of the Soviets and have better gunner quality.
This is one of the reasons why Shulka asked the Soviet mortarmen not to fight like artillery.
If the Soviet army fought like artillery, it would be impossible to defeat the German mortarmen who were superior to the Soviet army in every aspect.
Therefore, we should fight differently and not take the ordinary path.
The German troops fought like artillery, which meant they mostly needed to calculate ballistic trajectories and explosive points. No matter how well-trained the German troops were, this would take some time.
The Soviet army did not need to do this. They let go and fought completely based on feeling, while constantly changing positions... This would gain them a little time advantage, and just such a little time advantage could often determine life or death on the battlefield.
What's more important is that this mortar school is not independent, it cooperates with the sniper school: sniper rifles are aimed at direct targets, while mortars are aimed at targets hiding behind buildings and ruins.
Golikov was a little confused by Shulka's series of actions.
"What role can they play on the battlefield, Captain?" Golikov asked: "Deter the enemy's attack? Or attack the enemy? They don't seem to be able to do either!"
Golikov is right.
Neither the sniper school nor the mortar school can serve as the main body of defense and offense. At most, they can only cooperate with the main attack force in offense and defense.
So, this may seem a bit redundant.
"They neither attack nor defend, Comrade Golikov!" Shulka replied: "I mean, they do not perform regular tasks. But if necessary, they can also attack and defend, but only by killing the enemy's physical strength.
Lord, what the enemy lacks most is people, isn’t it?”
"But the army you organized only has more than 300 people!" Golikov said.
The current two schools are only company-level in size, with more than a hundred students each.
"Although I believe in you, your abilities and achievements are obvious to all!" Golikov continued: "But how many enemies can they kill?"
"Perhaps more than we think, Comrade Golikov!" Shulka replied.
"Okay!" Golikov nodded: "I have no objection!"
Shulka knew what Golikov meant.
Another meaning of "no objection" is actually "no support", which means that Golikov is not optimistic about this plan and is in a wait-and-see attitude. If the effect is not good in the future, he may cancel the plan at any time.
Shulka was not surprised by this. After all, the Soviet army mostly engaged in large-scale battles, with a large wave of attacks or charges at every turn. Like Shulka, he invested his energy in two company-sized schools to fight against the enemy.
For Likov, it was a complete waste of time.
It can even be said that if it weren't for Shulka's previous results and reputation, Golikov would not have agreed to Shulka doing this.
The actual results came out immediately after three days.
It can be said to be actual combat, but it is still training for the two schools.
During these three days, both the sniper school and the mortar school conducted some simple tactical training, mainly the training of cooperation between mortars and snipers... If the mortars are viewed as infantry, many trainings are actually related to
Snipers are the same, the difference is that snipers have direct fire weapons and mortars have curved fire weapons. The latter have more hiding places and are more concealed because they don't need to stick their heads out to shoot like snipers.
What mortarmen learn more is to observe the position of the target while leaping towards the hiding place, or to roughly judge the position of the target based on the enemy's gunfire, artillery sound, smoke, etc.
These are not trivial, the difficult issue is actually the choice of battlefield.
Regarding this, Shulka and Vasily collected a large amount of battlefield intelligence and screened it one by one.
"It shouldn't be too difficult for the first time on the battlefield!" Shulka said while dividing a pile of documents in half in front of Vasily: "Too difficult will lead to too many casualties among the students and directly damage morale."
Vasily leaned the sniper rifle to the side, flipped through the documents and nodded and said: "The difficulty cannot be too low, otherwise people will think that our two schools are just show-offs!"
"Yes!" Shulka was very satisfied with Vasily. Not only was he an excellent sniper, he could also consider the overall situation.
However, it seems that the best snipers are strategic masters rather than pure sharpshooters.
"The most important thing is..." Shulka found a copy from the document and handed it to Vasily: "The battlefield chosen must be suitable for the two schools to fight!"
Vasily took the document, looked at it, and then put it in an alternative location: "If there is no other more suitable, this is it!" (To be continued)