Chapter 233: Finally Upgrading From Shotguns To Big Guns!
After arriving at the position with the troops, Li Fuguo did not dare to relax even a little bit.
He personally drove the staff officer to the position for a survey, and also took people to scout the Green Army’s highland in advance. The site selection for each company’s camp was also personally reviewed by him.
He handled everything personally.
Afraid of making any mistakes, afraid of missing anything.
Upon returning, he immediately gathered all the company commanders and began discussing tactical play and deployment without stopping, and he prepared two sets for both attack and defense.
One as the main, one as backup.
Deploying troops not only for attack, but also emphasizing defense.
Just like setting up a chessboard, how to arrange one’s own camp, arrange it in the most suitable position, most conducive to attack and defense.
It was not a simple matter.
Li Fuguo was very nervous and set up a strict defense, while on the other side, Sun Dongping’s style was completely different.
In contrast to Li Fuguo’s immense pressure and caution, Sun Dongping seemed not to take it as a big deal, and did not trust any of the company commanders below.
He directly started a one-man dictatorship!
He first gathered the five company commanders at the position, held a short meeting, briefly introduced himself, letting everyone know he was the supreme commander.
Then he made demands in a very serious, unquestionable tone.
In this confrontation exercise, everything was centered on him, no one needed to provide him with any suggestions, they just needed to obey his orders.
He then hunkered down in the command tent and basically never came out.
The attitude he displayed throughout could be summed up in four words.
Extremely arrogant!!
The Blue Army’s five company commanders saw Sun Dongping being so dominant, and he specifically said no need for suggestions from them, clearly not trusting their abilities.
They all felt quite uncomfortable inside.
The initial excitement upon hearing they were to participate in the confrontation was like being doused with a basin of cold water.
But thinking that he was a candidate for combined arms battalion commander, and in this exercise he was their direct superior, his words were absolute orders.
Even if uncomfortable inside, they could only endure it and go down to busy with their respective companies.
Although Sun Dongping’s style was very dominant, completely unwilling to discuss tactics with anyone, confident that he alone could handle it.
In fact, he did have some skills, and was extremely efficient in doing things.
Important tasks like scouting terrain and topography, he directly ordered the infantry company to organize four vehicles, two people per vehicle to go scouting.
One responsible for driving, the other for recording.
Combat plans and such, he decided alone, without calling any company commander over, he alone came up with tactics and play.
Both execution plan and backup plan were ready.
In an extremely short time, using limited intelligence, quickly writing two combat plans ready for battle, really required some skill.
Ordinary people just arriving in the exercise war zone, being able to calm down was already good, very hard to write two combat plans alone.
The three battalions were busy at their respective positions, preparing for the exercise’s official start the next day, and the directing staff were also busy in full swing.
To make this confrontation have better spectating experience, so leaders could see the battlefield more directly.
The division used the newly issued equipment, similar to news interview television broadcast equipment, specially arranging directors to drive to the site for live broadcast.
Transmitting signals via satellite to the directing staff, synchronously playing on television.
If there were particularly exciting wonderful scenes, could also issue real-time orders to directors to follow up, close-range broadcasting of exciting combat.
This way, no need to have personnel describe orally via radio like before.
Compared to deploying wired cameras at the training ground, transmitting monitored footage to directing staff, this was more flexible and clear.
Cameras were fixed and couldn’t move, fundamentally unable to do tracking broadcasts.
T Division introducing television broadcast equipment into the exercise was absolutely a milestone upgrade, also keeping pace with informatization reform.
This exercise field selected for confrontation already had a certain number of cameras deployed.
Paired with this newly introduced television broadcast equipment, this time leaders sitting in the directing staff room would absolutely have an unprecedented experience.
Various preparation work proceeded in an orderly manner, and a day’s time passed in the blink of an eye.
June
8:30 a.m.
The broadcast room in the directing staff was already full of people, not only the leadership of the Seventh Hundred and Second Regiment headquarters basically all present, a crowd of battalion and company-level cadres also sitting in the back rows.
Even the division commander and chief of staff had come, sitting in the first row at the front of the broadcast room.
Directly in front of everyone were four 34-inch televisions, with one every meter in the middle, able to play footage from eight on-site camera groups at any time.
As for which TV played which footage, all regulated by the directing console.
34-inch televisions in the broadcast room were indeed a bit small, but with only a few dozen people watching, it was barely enough.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to bring larger TVs, but at this time the largest TV size was 34 inches.
Gao Cheng, as the Steel Seventh Company commander of the Seventh Hundred and Second Regiment, experienced this novel viewing method for the first time, very curious what the broadcast footage was like.
Curiously asking the political instructor beside him: “Old Hong, I heard this confrontation uses new equipment called television broadcast, have you seen it before?”
“Of course I’ve seen it, news live broadcasts, don’t they all use this equipment?” Hong Xingguo replied.
“No.”
Gao Cheng said helplessly: “What I mean is, have you ever sat in a room like now, watching a live broadcast of a confrontation exercise.”
“No.”
Hong Xingguo shook his head, haha laughing: “When our regiment does mock exercises, it’s all shouting over walkie-talkies, where is there such advanced stuff.”
“If we could get a set for the combined arms battalion, specially for broadcasting training monitoring, that seems pretty good.” Gao Cheng said with a wild idea.
“This broadcast equipment is said to be very expensive, and also need to buy satellite communications, signal launch vehicles and such, I feel it’s unlikely.” Hong Xingguo was not optimistic.
“You’re right, our combined arms battalion’s military expenses are probably already quite a lot, adding equipment would indeed be quite difficult.”
Gao Cheng smiled, changed the topic: “Hey, Old Hong, the confrontation is about to start, do you think our battalion commander can win?”
“Of course he can, I have confidence in him, fighting on home ground, at least has an advantage.” Hong Xingguo said without hesitation.
“Hey.”
Gao Cheng sighed, frowning: “My feeling is the opposite of yours, Second Battalion Commander is indeed a good battalion commander, but compared to that guy opposite, honestly, there is quite a gap.
That Sun Dongping is a National Defense University master’s graduate, also studied abroad for a year, and has also served as battalion commander, his conditions are much better.
If the battalion commander doesn’t come up with a few clever moves, it’ll be hard to gain advantage.”
If Sun Dongping was a top student from Tsinghua University, then Li Fuguo was equivalent to a junior college student, the gap between them was obvious.
If Li Fuguo had no killer moves or clever tricks, he fundamentally couldn’t make up the gap between them.
The final result was obvious.
Although Hong Xingguo was a political officer, he also graduated from military academy, even if not as proficient in combat as military cadres, he understood the basics.
The gap in their personal resumes was too big, paper combat effectiveness completely not on the same level.
If Li Fuguo had no means, winning would be hard.
Even with Steel Seventh Company providing a reconnaissance platoon, it would definitely play a big role in the exercise, but still couldn’t make up the huge gap between them.
So he actually agreed with Gao Cheng’s judgment.
But he wasn’t as straightforward as Gao Cheng, saying whatever was on his mind, after all it would extinguish his own prestige, so he chose silence.
And on site discussing this topic were not only Gao Cheng and Hong Xingguo.
Other battalion and company-level cadres of the Seventh Hundred and Second Regiment, even the division commander and Regiment Commander Wang sitting in front, were discussing the two sides of this confrontation.
In this collective discussion atmosphere, time passed minute by minute.
Soon it was nine o’clock!
“Whiz—whoosh—”
With two red signal flares shooting into the sky, the curtain officially rose on this confrontation exercise.
Two signal launch vehicles drove to the training ground, eight broadcast teams simultaneously started up, the numerous directors and referees deployed on site all moved to their positions according to arrangement to prepare.
Footage shot by the broadcast teams also began transmitting in real time to the broadcast room.
The director quickly sorted and categorized all collected footage in the background, prioritizing the best footage to project on the televisions.
First to appear was the Red Army headquarters, footage inside of a pre-war meeting.
Li Fuguo and the five company commanders gathered around the sand table, seemingly discussing how to attack next, specific discussion content not synced over.
Viewers in the broadcast room seeing the broadcast footage could know in real time what the Red Army was doing.
This was the first time experiencing it, felt very novel.
Everyone watched with great interest!
They weren’t too interested in exactly what they were discussing, main attention on this unique spectating method.
Seeing the Red Army headquarters, everyone then became curious what the Blue Army was doing.
The director was temporarily brought in from the television station, since the troops had no one proficient in operation, very professional in footage broadcasting.
As if knowing what everyone was thinking, immediately switched to the Blue Army headquarters footage.
And when the Blue Army headquarters footage appeared, everyone in the broadcast room had two seconds of surprise, because the actual footage had too big a gap from imagination.
On the Red Army side, the headquarters tent full of people, from the footage you could feel the urgency of the battle starting.
But the Blue Army headquarters?
Excluding the broadcast team shooting, and the two signalmen guarding the radio station, the actual combat command personnel was just the lone Sun Dongping.
And even the remaining Sun Dongping wasn’t doing anything.
As if unaware the exercise had started, just sitting at the head of the conference table, hands on the table, even eyes closed.
Sun Dongping’s strange action immediately sparked intense discussion in the broadcast room.
Even to maintain indoor discipline, everyone could only whisper, but the discussion was too heated and still became very noisy.
“The confrontation exercise has started, what is he doing?”
“Why doesn’t he gather the company commanders for a meeting? Not even holding a pre-war meeting?”
“Heh, really saw something rare, confrontation already officially started, headquarters with just a lone commander, first time seeing this.”
“What trick is this again? I can’t understand it?”
…
It wasn’t that no one knew, Sun Dongping dominantly started a one-man dictatorship, no need for meetings, just notify directly via radio if needed.
And the things to notify and arrange, he had already deployed yesterday.
Now what Sun Dongping had to do was one thing.
That was to make the entire Blue Army follow his thinking, centered on his combat plan, obey his orders and dispatch, to complete this confrontation.
No need for company commanders or any other cadres to come to headquarters.
And you know…
If Chen Jun were here, he really would praise him a few words.
People in the broadcast room couldn’t understand Sun Dongping, even the division commander was baffled, completely not knowing what medicine Sun Dongping was selling in his gourd.
Because they fundamentally didn’t understand combined arms units, hadn’t grasped the essence of the three words “informatized”.
Chen Jun was a professional, he could see through at a glance.
Sun Dongping after all had studied abroad, been in a basically mature combined arms unit, even if not eaten pork had seen pigs run.
He knew how to play combined arms units.
The command mode of combined arms units really was like what Sun Dongping was showing now, headquarters only needing the commander-in-chief there, paired with logistics personnel, everything solved through the command system.
The commander could command down to every soldier, that was the core change of informatized combined arms units.
Domestic troops didn’t have professional command systems allowing the top commander to directly command every soldier, the Blue Army participating in the exercise even less so.
Sun Dongping used radio and telephone as substitutes, could barely replicate the form.
And a bunch of people sitting together discussing play would completely disappear in the informatized digital era, to be replaced by computer simulation deductions.
Basically the staff department discusses a general policy, after computer simulation can form specific combat plans.
Troop cadres below fundamentally don’t need to participate.
And the exercise troops weren’t combined arms battalion, no substitute chief staff group for the chief of staff.
Sun Dongping simply started a one-man dictatorship, letting company commanders below focus on leading soldiers to fight, tactics and strategy handled by him alone.
This seemingly domineering dominant behavior was actually imitating combined arms units.
Only Sun Dongping was too arrogant, fundamentally disdaining to explain to anyone, making the company commanders below very uncomfortable.
If this were on a real battlefield, it would actually affect morale a lot.
People in the broadcast room had no combined arms battalion thinking, even more clueless about combined arms operations, all couldn’t understand what Sun Dongping was playing at.
One thing everyone was certain of, Sun Dongping definitely wasn’t messing around.
Even less likely to forfeit right from the start.
So what was he doing?
Everyone couldn’t wait to solve the mystery!
