Chapter 142: The Division Commander’s Hands Tremble With Excitement!
Gao Cheng’s concern was not unfounded. Since Chen Jun had said earlier that they couldn’t clash head-on, otherwise one company couldn’t outlast their two companies.
Now returning to squad and platoon-level combat, that was definitely not appropriate.
Chen Jun realized Gao Cheng understood his idea but hadn’t fully grasped it, so he continued explaining: “We are both mice being caught everywhere by the cat, and even more so the ones holding the rope to walk the cat.
As long as we control the distance and rhythm well, we can perfectly exploit the time difference.”
“Time difference?”
Chen Jun’s thinking switched too quickly, too jumpy; Gao Cheng simply couldn’t keep up, only half-understanding what he heard.
“Simply put…”
Instead of saying something professional and profound that’s hard to understand, Chen Jun straightforwardly explained in plain language: “We’re up front executing the break up and disperse plan, and we specifically chose the direction of Blue Army First Company.
Not to disperse our own troops, but to completely scatter and disrupt Reconnaissance First Company.
Blue Army First Company, being led by the nose by us, doesn’t know where they’re going or where we’ll take them.
But our next direction is completely under our own control.
Most importantly, as the ones being tracked, we can clearly know how many troops the Blue Army following us has.
This way, with the advantage of being the ones holding the line and seizing the initiative, we can freely pair up and arbitrarily reorganize the already dispersed routes according to our needs.
Blue Army as pursuers has a time difference and can only passively be led by the nose by us; they can’t reorganize like we can.
As long as we make good use of this time difference, we can still achieve outnumbering them locally.
Moreover, Reconnaissance First Company, already broken into nine squads split into six routes for tracking, will definitely have at least three routes with only one squad’s troops.
We’ll target those three routes specifically, one squad at a time, slowly nibbling away at Reconnaissance First Company.”
Chen Jun’s explanation was straightforward and easy to understand; even the driving soldier got it, let alone Gao Cheng, a military academy graduate and proper high-caliber officer.
“I get it now. Your playing style is similar to our army’s guerrilla warfare during the Anti-Japanese War, with the same ingenuity, but the operations need to be even more clever; otherwise, it’s easy to overplay your hand and fail, trapping yourself instead.” Gao Cheng grinned.
“The ancestors of our army’s scouts weren’t precisely those martyrs who played guerrilla warfare? Traditional tactics may be eliminated, but guerrilla warfare will always exist, just evolving with the era.” Chen Jun smiled back.
As someone from the 21st century, Chen Jun took responsibility for his own words.
Special operations brigades developed in the 21st century, no matter how modernized their tactical equipment, still had roots in extensions of guerrilla warfare.
Even mainstream combined arms units had shadows of guerrilla tactics.
Because combined arms tactics, besides multi-arm coordination, emphasize diversity and efficiency of their own tactics; high-mobility guerrilla warfare is also an important component.
And Chen Jun was using guerrilla techniques from combined arms tactics in this exercise to fight outnumbered.
“Platoon Leader Chen, you’re so tall and burly, seeming like the same type as Wu Liu Yi—straightforward and single-minded. Unexpectedly, it’s the opposite; you have so many tricks up your sleeve. But I really like it, haha.”
Gao Cheng laughed heartily a few times, then formally confirmed: “I think this set of guerrilla tactics works. Let’s do it just as you said.”
With that.
Gao Cheng picked up the vehicle-mounted communication microphone and began issuing orders, commanding the troops to head to the six-way intersection indicated by Chen Jun. Chen Jun also began formulating a combat plan in his mind.
Meanwhile, as Steel Seventh Company rushed to the six-way intersection, Blue Army’s two companies were also accelerating on the road.
And at their fastest speed!
Reconnaissance Third Company was “instantly wiped out” by Steel Seventh Company, without any resistance, without consuming any of Steel Seventh Company’s strength, so no message could be sent.
The last message Reconnaissance Battalion Commander received from Third Company was just a hasty sentence—
“Report to Battalion Commander, we’ve been attacked!”
After that, no matter how the Reconnaissance Battalion Commander tried to contact them, there was no more news from Reconnaissance Third Company, as if they had suddenly vanished.
One unclear sentence, plus sudden loss of contact.
This made the Reconnaissance Battalion Commander, who originally relied on his own strong strength with no pressure, thinking that as long as he arrived and encircled Red Army Steel Seventh Company with three reconnaissance companies, the exercise would soon end.
In that moment…
His heart suddenly panicked uncontrollably!
But his inner stubbornness struggled, refusing to believe that his formidable reconnaissance company under his command would suffer at the hands of Steel Seventh Company.
He never imagined that in just over a minute, his reconnaissance company would be annihilated.
The Reconnaissance Battalion Commander could only forcibly comfort himself that it must be a signal issue; the loess plateau environment was harsh, and signal loss was normal.
While forcibly comforting himself on one side, he couldn’t resist the growing panic in his heart.
He could only order Reconnaissance First Company and Reconnaissance Second Company to rush to the location where Third Company lost contact at the fastest speed and investigate the reason for the loss of contact.
Even if ambushed by Steel Seventh Company, they needed to promptly regroup the scattered troops.
That’s right.
Even at this moment, the Reconnaissance Battalion Commander didn’t believe Third Company was done; even thinking in the worst case, he only thought they were scattered.
Battalion Commander and accompanying Reconnaissance First Company accelerated on the road; Steel Seventh Company proactively approached Reconnaissance First Company’s direction.
The two sides were moving toward each other.
When nearly an hour had passed and the distance between them was less than 15 kilometers, Steel Seventh Company, being closer, arrived at the six-way intersection first.
Chen Jun had already thought up the plan on the road and immediately began on-site deployment upon arrival.
Firepower Platoon, being a logistics support unit with very single offensive means and great limitations, needed time to set up cannons and aim.
In this “break up and disperse plan” emphasizing rapid maneuver guerrilla warfare where time was counted in minutes and seconds, there wasn’t much space for Firepower Platoon to play its advantages.
It was equivalent to having no offensive capability!
So Chen Jun flexibly made full use of them, arranging Firepower Platoon’s three squads to provide support throughout, playing the role of bait in this plan.
Three squads with three armored vehicles each taking a road were the best three fishing baits.
Anti-air Defense Squad, existing as a tactical unit, had an even more awkward status in this confrontation exercise because there were no air units at all.
They couldn’t play any role.
Thus, their mission was the same as Firepower Platoon, becoming bait in the break up and disperse plan.
The 212 military vehicle where Gao Cheng was, representing company headquarters, was the soul of Steel Seventh Company and needed certain self-protection capability, with security vigilance in place.
Chen Jun arranged Maneuver Squad, Logistics Support Squad, and Tactical Sniper Squad to travel with company headquarters.
Maneuver Squad could handle forward reconnaissance, coordinating with Sniper Squad and Logistics Support Squad for assistance; even encountering a Blue Army platoon, they could retreat unscathed.
Chen Jun himself still rode in the 212 military vehicle, staying with Company Commander Gao Cheng.
The split plan emphasized speed and efficiency, and command needed to be efficient too; being with the company commander allowed more efficient verbal communication and more convenient combat command.
This was very key in the upcoming combat.
The remaining Anti-tank Squad was the absolute core main force of this battle; to end the battle quickly, they could only rely on rocket launchers to destroy enemy armored vehicles, leaving the enemy nowhere to hide for quick elimination.
No other squad had the capability to disable armored vehicles in a short time, so Anti-tank Squad’s importance was irreplaceable.
To protect Anti-tank Squad’s safety and handle aftermath work for them.
Chen Jun arranged Steel Seventh Company’s most critical Vanguard Reconnaissance Squad, equivalent to the bayonet’s sharp knife, to operate with Anti-tank Squad throughout.
On one hand, to conduct reconnaissance and enemy search, preventing Anti-tank Squad from unexpectedly encountering and being taken out by the enemy.
On the other hand, after destroying the armored vehicle, Blue Army soldiers could only dismount and continue making a last stand; Anti-tank Squad alone couldn’t handle them.
Vanguard Reconnaissance Squad needed to cooperate with Anti-tank Squad to annihilate all these Blue Army warriors.
At this point.
All arrangements were complete.
Except for the road Blue Army First Company was coming from—which was very dangerous as it would head-on collide with Blue Army—the other five roads were all assigned.
Meaning the actual final split was only into five routes.
The other four roads led to left and right sides; since both sides were unknown and relatively dangerous, other four squads were assigned there.
Only the road Steel Seventh Company came from was specifically assigned by Chen Jun to Anti-tank Squad and Vanguard Squad.
This incoming road’s situation was fully scouted, and it was the road back to the starting point; the probability of Blue Army First Company sending multiple squads to double back was lowest.
Ensuring Tank Squad got the best protection and faced the least pursuit pressure from enemies.
This way, in the next actions, Anti-tank Squad would have greater operating space and range to cooperate anytime and anywhere with Chen Jun using combined arms company’s guerrilla tactics to nibble away at Blue Army First Company step by step.
Preventing the core Anti-tank Squad from being held up, leading to the awkward situation of being unable to coordinate actions.
Under Chen Jun’s command, Steel Seventh Company quickly split into five parts, each carrying their tasks, going separate ways.
They themselves didn’t feel anything special, morale high as they followed Chen Jun eagerly.
But the spectating leaders were once again stunned by Steel Seventh Company’s bizarre actions; every one of them was baffled, no one understanding what Steel Seventh Company was really doing.
Under the intense stimulation of strong inner doubt and confusion, heated discussion voices erupted again.
“What is Steel Seventh Company doing? Charging straight at Blue Army Reconnaissance First Company, about to meet head-on, yet suddenly splitting into five routes.”
“I thought Red Army was setting up another ambush, but they pulled this. I really don’t get it.”
“Is this breaking up and dispersing, trying to pass through Blue Army First Company from the middle, using scouts’ old method of infiltration reconnaissance to complete the reconnaissance mission?”
“Infiltration reconnaissance works on others, but Blue Army is Division Direct Reconnaissance Battalion, most skilled at this; is Red Army bringing a big knife to Guan Yu?”
“I won’t comment on the other four routes, but why are two squads heading back? What are they coming back for?”
…
The leaders discussed intensely; the red dots split into five on the map also spread farther in five directions amid the discussion.
Like fireworks exploding in the air, flying to different directions.
“Regiment Commander Wang, come here.”
The Division Commander called Regiment Commander Wang over and asked with an expressionless face, inscrutable: “Does your regiment’s Steel Seventh Company always play this jumpy?”
Previously, the Division Commander heard the Chief of Staff report that Steel Seventh Company wiped out a main force company in over an hour.
At that time.
He really suspected 702 Regiment was acting internally.
But now the confrontation had just begun; every action by Steel Seventh Company exceeded conventional tactics, all playing styles completely unpredictable, impossible to guess the next step.
This anti-conventional, anti-pattern, all kinds of anti, always anti—every step on a path no one expected.
This forced the Division Commander’s view to change.
No matter how shocked he was in his heart, how unable to understand Steel Seventh Company’s massive change, at this moment he clearly realized.
Today’s Steel Seventh Company was completely different, no longer the Steel Seventh Company he saw in the documents.
It now truly had real skills.
And very hard skills!
Not to mention anything else.
Just this confrontation exercise all the way; every step was beyond everyone’s expectations, leaving even these division leaders completely unable to see through.
This was solid hard power on display.
Regiment Commander Wang actually couldn’t understand himself what tricks Steel Seventh Company was playing.
But since the Division Commander called him over specifically to ask, as regiment commander if he knew nothing, that wouldn’t be good.
Regiment Commander Wang could only steel himself and, based on the combined arms theory Chen Jun had submitted that he had read, half-guess, half-think, half-bluff his answer: “Division Commander, Steel Seventh Company is our regiment’s first combined arms unit, also our division’s first; all playing styles rely on combined arms tactics.
Platoon Leader Chen Jun, responsible for the transformation, even wrote a complete set of combined arms combat theory, explaining building a combined arms unit from scratch.
I’ve read the theory several times and still don’t fully understand it. If Division Commander is interested, I can print a copy for you.”
Regiment Commander Wang really was a shrewd old regiment commander, pulling out combined arms combat theory to attract the Division Commander’s attention and ease his own embarrassment of not understanding.
The Division Commander was indeed attracted!!
More precisely.
He was shocked.
“What? You mean Steel Seventh Company’s tactics have a full set of combat theory as support? And written by Chen Jun? The first lieutenant who broke the record in the martial arts competition??”
The Division Commander, always calm with a mentality steady as a rock even if the sky collapsed before him, now lost composure, even his pupils trembling violently.
As if in an earthquake!
The higher the position in the troops, the more one understands the value of tactics and strategy.
And the Division Commander had always focused on combined arms tactics but struggled without theoretical foundation support; our army was still experimenting, with no mature results to reference.
Now, great.
Regiment Commander Wang suddenly dropped here that he not only had combined arms tactics theory, but a complete set from zero for building combined arms units.
How could this not excite the Division Commander to tremble!!!
