600 meters.
At last, we were close enough to see the seams in their armor plates.
“Now.”
As I murmured, Major Hermann shouted, veins bulging in his neck.
“All batteries! Fire!!”
Kwaaaang—!!
With a roar that seemed to overturn the earth itself, the 88mm muzzles belched fire.
The tremendous muzzle blast tore away the camouflage nets, and the piles of brick rubble and sandbags nearby were scattered in every direction.
True artillery firepower, on a completely different level from mere tank guns.
And then.
Shiiiiik—!
A speed the eye could not follow. A high-velocity armor-piercing shell, traveling at nearly 1,000 meters per second, split the air.
Clang!
A metallic rupture rang out, crisp to the point of being chilling.
Sparks burst from the frontal armor of the Rene medium tank at the lead. A ricochet? No.
Crunch!
With a dull impact, the thirty-ton lump of steel recoiled backward as if it had been struck by a giant. The armor-piercing shell, carrying absurd kinetic energy, crushed through its sloped armor like rotten plywood and surged into the interior.
And 0.1 seconds later.
Kwaaaang—!
An ammunition cook-off erupted inside the tank. The steel turret, weighing dozens of tons, shot high into the sky like a cork.
Thud.
The turret slammed into the ground and rolled like a spinning top. From the decapitated tank hull, a massive pillar of flame soared upward.
“……Huh?”
Someone let out a dazed groan.
“It… it pierced it?”
Dietrich muttered blankly.
It was an unbelievable sight. That hard armor, which neither 37mm shells nor mana rounds had been able to penetrate, had crumpled like wet cardboard.
“Load the next round! Stop standing there and keep firing!”
Only at my shout did the artillerymen come to their senses. Through the cloud of dust, they barely managed to take aim at the enemy tanks.
Kwaang! Kwaaang!
Successive cannon reports shook the streets of Rosenheim.
The second tank tried to hurriedly rotate its turret, but the 88mm shell was faster.
Bang!
The turret was blown away together with the gun barrel. The steel giant, its head gone, lost its momentum and spun around before crashing into the remains of a building.
The tanks following behind panicked and tried to brake. But the narrow intersection was already blocked by the burning lead vehicles. They could neither advance nor retreat.
They were perfect targets.
Kwaang! Puhng!
“Tank Three destroyed!”
“Tank Four, track severed! It’s stopped!”
The third tank was hit in the side and flipped over, while the fourth had its track torn off and spun in place before a follow-up shot reduced it to scrap metal.
But the battle was not going entirely in our favor. Once the effect of the initial ambush wore off, the surviving Republic tanks began firing smoke shells and counterattacking.
Fwooshhh—!
“Damn it! Smoke shells! Our visibility is blocked!”
“H-hold fire! We’ll hit our own men!”
The anti-aircraft gun crews shouted in panic. No matter how powerful the 88mm anti-aircraft guns were, once their sight was completely obscured, they became as helpless as mutes who had swallowed honey.
But I had cheat skills. I focused on the [Minimap] in the corner of my vision. The enemy positions inside the hazy smoke were clearly marked as red dots.
They were pretending to retreat, then circling around behind collapsed buildings to target our flank.
“Battery Three! Two o’clock, aim at the wall of the building with the red roof!”
At my shout, the gunner looked bewildered.
“Sir? That’s just a brick building! I don’t see any enemy—”
“If I tell you to do it, do it! They’re hiding behind the building!”
When I barked at him, the gunner hurriedly swung the barrel around.
“Confirm armor-piercing round loaded! Fire!”
Kwaaaang—!
The muzzle belched fire, and the 8.8cm armor-piercing shell flew out at more than three times the speed of sound.
Crunch!
The thick brick building burst apart like a firework. And beyond it came the scream of steel that had been hiding in silence.
Clang—! Kwaaaang!
“It… it hit after punching through the wall?!”
As the smoke cleared, a horrific scene was revealed. The armor-piercing shell had gone through the wall and penetrated the tank’s side armor. The Rene tank, its insides blown apart, stood motionless while belching black smoke.
The Air Force soldiers’ jaws dropped.
“H-how does that make any sense…?”
“It goes through buildings and tanks?”
They seemed to be realizing the true power of the weapon they were operating only now. When shooting down aircraft, it had done little more than scatter fragments, but on the ground, it had become a spear of death that pierced through everything.
“What are you doing! Push them while they’re shaken!”
I struck Major Hermann, who was standing there in a daze, on the shoulder.
“Ah, ah! All batteries! Follow Captain Jaeger’s instructions! Continue firing!”
The look in Hermann’s eyes had changed. The fear was gone, replaced by a strange heat.
“Ten degrees right! Range four hundred! Moving target!”
Watching the [Minimap], I called out coordinates without pause.
“Lead shot! Aim for where it’ll be in one second!”
Kwaang!
“Hit! Turret ejected!”
“Eleven o’clock left! It’s hiding behind the rubble! Aim low!”
Kwaang!
“Track destroyed! It’s stopped!”
It was a one-sided massacre.
“Kahahaha! Did you see that?! Did you?!”
At some point, Major Hermann had climbed on top of the battery and was waving his command baton.
“This is the power of the Air Force! Blow away all those crude Army tin cans!”
‘Status Analysis.’
[Name: Heinrich von Hermann]
[Status: Extreme excitement]
[Emotion: Deeply thrilled at the sight of his cherished anti-aircraft guns slaughtering tanks.]
It was hard to believe this was the same man who had been trembling while citing regulations just moments ago.
“Major! There’s one more trying to run away over there!”
“Don’t let it escape! Not so much as a single fly gets away without my permission!”
Kwaaaang—!
A hole was punched through the engine compartment of the Rene tank that had been trying to flee last. It sputtered a few times, then came to a halt with a massive explosion.
Annihilation.
The vanguard battalion of the Republic’s proud 4th Armored Division had been turned into a heap of scrap metal at Rosenheim Station, defended by nothing more than a single infantry brigade.
The city streets were filled only with the wreckage of burning tanks and the acrid smell of oil. And after a brief moment.
“W-we… won….”
“We took out the tanks! We wiped out an armored unit!!”
“Waaaaaaaah!!”
The infantrymen who had been buried behind cover rushed out and cheered. They embraced one another, threw their helmets into the air, and savored their victory.
But among them, the most excited of all were the Air Force men.
“Insane…. This is truly insane.”
Major Hermann was still stroking the smoking barrel of the 88mm as though it were a lover’s skin.
“This beautiful penetration…. This overwhelming stopping power…. Why did I never realize it? This was never something to let rot away as a mere anti-aircraft gun.”
He turned to me with an enraptured expression.
“Captain Jaeger! No, Lord Jaeger!”
His form of address suddenly changed.
“You’re a genius! How did you come up with such an idea? This is a revolution! You’ve changed the paradigm of anti-aircraft guns!”
“I was simply trying to put out the immediate fire.”
“No, no! You recognized the true value of this 88 anti-aircraft gun… of the Acht-Acht!”
Hermann seized my hand, spittle flying as he spoke.
“Regulations? To hell with them! I’ll report to Air Force Command immediately. I’ll ask them to supply more armor-piercing shells for this beauty! No, we should create dedicated anti-tank batteries altogether!”
Huh.
“Acht-Acht…! Oh, my lovely 88 millimeter….”
He seemed to have completely lost it.
Just then, someone staggered out from behind cover. It was Brigade Commander Dietrich.
He stared at the burning graveyard of Republic tanks with an expression of disbelief. The sight of an entire battalion’s worth of cutting-edge tanks lying around as lumps of scrap metal.
“Ha, hahaha….”
His lips trembled.
‘Status Analysis.’
[Name: Karl von Dietrich]
[Status: Extreme ecstasy]
[Emotion: Unable to believe the fact that he achieved a one-sided victory against a battalion of Rene tanks.]
“We stopped them…. We really stopped them….”
He slowly turned his head and looked at me. The eyes that had been filled with fear and tension were nowhere to be found.
“Captain Jaeger!!!”
Whump!
The old gentleman forgot all dignity and ran over to embrace me.
“You… What on earth are you?! Are you even human?! How did you achieve such… such an absurd result!”
Ah, well, you see….
That was historically accurate.
“We were lucky. It was thanks to the Air Force’s cooperation.”
“Luck?! Excessive modesty becomes deception! This is a miracle! A revolution in tactics!”
Unable to control his excitement, Dietrich slapped my shoulder again and again.
“When those bastards at Central Command receive this report, they’ll faint in shock! An infantry brigade wiped out an armored unit?! Hahaha! My star! My star is shining again!”
[Hidden Desire: To embellish this achievement, earn two stars, and become active in central politics.]
The old fox’s head was already filled with thoughts of promotion.
It wasn’t a bad thing. The higher he climbed, the more my own value as his brain would rise along with him. For now, there was more to gain.
But unlike the brigade commander’s cheering, the situation around us was still urgent.
“Supply squad! Gather ammunition! Armor-piercing shells in particular! Bring them even if you have to raid the Air Force warehouses!”
“Medic! The platoon leader collapsed over here!”
The battle was over, but the war was only just beginning. There was no time to be drunk on victory.
“Brigade Commander. Major Hermann.”
I spoke as though pouring cold water over the two cheering men.
“Celebrations come later. They were only the vanguard. Once the main force gets word of this, they won’t sit still.”
At my words, the smile vanished completely from Dietrich’s face.
“Ah, ah. That’s right. The main force… We should assume the entire 4th Armored Division… is coming.”
“Correct. Which means there are still hundreds more tanks.”
“H-hundreds….”
Just as Dietrich was about to turn pale again, Major Hermann cut in, his eyes gleaming.
“Hmph! Let them come! As long as my Acht-Acht is here, they’re nothing but lumps of scrap! Captain Jaeger, we’ll reconstruct the positions as you said. How about we make dedicated anti-tank ambush positions this time?”
…….
Instead of answering, I used [Status Analysis].
‘Status Analysis.’
[Name: Heinrich von Hermann]
[Status: Addicted to the impact of his guns tearing tanks apart]
This man really did seem to have lost his mind.
His Air Force elitism had vanished, leaving behind only a firepower maniac. Well, in truth, that wasn’t a bad thing. We needed that kind of fanatical passion right now.
“Very well. Major, please scrape together every available 88mm gun. We need to use the ruins of Rosenheim’s city streets to form a kill zone.”
“Leave it to me! I’ll have it ready even if I have to grind up every bastard in the Air Force maintenance crew!”
Major Hermann ran off, humming to himself. Now he was like a fish in water.
“Major! Battery Three has completed its movement! We’re setting up camouflage nets!”
“Ammunition! Bring more ammunition! I said scrape up everything in the warehouse!”
Having confirmed the power of the 88, the Air Force soldiers and officers were all actively participating in the redeployment. After verifying that scene, I crossed the ruins of Rosenheim.