Steel Soviet Union

The transport ship, which has been loaded with cargo, will be able to set sail and leave the port soon.

The only thing he has to do now is to hold back and suppress the Russians who may invade before they leave, in order to buy time.

This kind of task is not difficult in Nagano Koji's opinion. What qualifications does the army have to challenge the navy? Even the Russian Army is the same, it is just the same kind as the Army Red Deer.

"General? Well, the first general of the Nagano family will be me, Nagano Koji, which feels pretty good."

Nagano Koji, who was always in high spirits during happy events, became happier and happier the more he thought about it. He was waiting to get promoted and make a fortune after returning from this job.

Unexpectedly, before this promotion and wealth could come, and would never come, the roar of Russian heavy artillery could already be heard in the sky.

Woo——

"Commander, please take cover! Shelling!!!"

"Baga! These Russian pigs!"

Boom——

A near-miss bomb exploded in the water, sending a column of water higher than the bridge into the sky. Nagano Koji, who clearly witnessed this scene through the porthole, instantly felt a chill on his back.

"The Russian heavy artillery is more powerful than our naval guns? How is that possible?"

No matter how surprised Nagano Koji is, the 152 grenades roaring in the sky will not give you the Japanese devils to press the pause button.

Several more shells hit the water around the ship and exploded continuously. Before Nagano Koji could take a closer look at the impact point distribution, he heard an even louder explosion coming from the port.

"Your Excellency, Commander, this is bad! The Russians have eight-inch heavy artillery! This is at least the power of eight-inch heavy artillery!"

"Nani!?"

The "eight-inch heavy artillery" that horrified the Japanese in the port was ensured and brought along by the leading troops of Kurbalov's division. The ISU-203 self-propelled artillery has now moved into the firing position and is firing with all its strength.

Thanks to the strong maneuverability and off-road passability brought by the IS7 chassis, the failure rate is no lower than that of other vehicles. The ISU-203 was also repaired and stopped several times along the way. Once the ability to move is restored, it is often possible to catch up with large forces at a faster speed and maintain high speed.

This made it possible for a small number of ISU-203 to arrive with the vanguard.

Although there are not many in number, currently there are only 4 vehicles that can enter the shooting position and fire.

But the horrific noise caused by these four vehicles has become a terrifying nightmare that frightens the Japanese troops in the port.

The ISU-203, which was originally an artillery unit directly under the army, is now in the vanguard of the Kurbalov Division because Malashenko specifically delegated command authority in consideration of combat needs.

After all, shooting against a warship is very difficult and also tests skills and strength. Even if the opponent is a small destroyer with weak protection, it cannot be underestimated.

Malashenko, who tried to make Kulbalov's battle relatively easy, directly allocated 12 ISU-203s to Kulbalov with a wave of his hand as a firepower supplement to ensure that he could deal with possible attacks at the port. The Japanese destroyers inside established a firepower advantage.

At the level of the Navy, the eight-inch 203mm heavy gun is a proper heavy cruiser-level firepower. In terms of ship type classification, the firepower is directly two levels higher than that of a destroyer, with a light cruiser in between.

It is true that army artillery is incomparable with naval artillery in key attributes such as rate of fire, firepower persistence, and projection density per unit time, but as long as such a large-caliber heavy artillery hits one shot, it will definitely cause heavy damage to a small destroyer.

As long as it hits a vital part, it is not impossible to lose combat effectiveness on the spot.

After several consecutive near-misses either landed in the water or on the dock on the shore.

Before the shocked Nagano Koji and Captain Yoshimura beside him could recover, they heard a loud explosion suddenly coming from behind. At the same time, the ship's hull shook violently like an earthquake, making the two men unsteady on the spot, and several Japanese sailors in the bridge fell to the ground.

"Report! The No. 3 turret was hit by a bullet and was completely destroyed! The No. 4 turret was affected and caught fire and was unable to fight!"

"Put out the fire! Rescue the No. 4 turret, quickly! The damage control team is coming quickly!"

"Hi!"

A 203 high-explosive grenade hit the dome directly above the No. 3 turret at the stern of the ship without any bias.

The big explosion that erupted in an instant almost completely tore the entire No. 3 turret into pieces. It seemed that the ammunition ready to be fired in the turret was detonated at the same time.

Because the power of the explosion was too strong, and the flaming debris scattered in all directions, the No. 4 turret, which was next to the No. 3 turret, was also affected and caught fire, losing its combat effectiveness.

Just this one direct hit from the heavy artillery removed the combat capabilities of the two twin 100mm turrets, causing the entire ship's main gun firepower to be reduced by half in an instant.

Such terrifying power was in front of him, so shocking that Nagano Koji no longer dared to look down on the Russian army artillery that he had looked down on not long ago. He quickly grabbed the arm of Captain Yoshimura and spoke repeatedly.

"Quick! Get the warship moving and leave this port! Otherwise we will all be doomed!"

The captain whose arm was tightly grasped wanted to reply, "It's already underway." Unfortunately, it's not that easy to launch a warship. The original plan of buying time for the transport ship has now been forced to become buying time for one's own survival.

"Your Excellency, Commander, it will take time to launch the warships! We are already doing it, let's fire back at the Russians first! We can't let the Russians continue to shell like this!"

"Yes! Fire, fire immediately! Contact the Xiaoyue! We must suppress the Russian artillery and use the main gun firepower of the entire fleet to fight back at the Russians!"

Nagano Koji, who spoke up and down, said it was simple, but the bridge observation post responsible for guiding the main gun to fire soon discovered that this was almost impossible to do.

Even though the Japanese sailors in charge of guiding the naval guns used optical sighting equipment to search the high ground, they could not find a Russian artillery position that was firing. No matter whether it was the top of the high ground, the slopes or the foot of the mountain, nothing was found.

This is not a simple artillery exchange of postures. The Russians are far less stupid than imagined.

The artillery shells fired from a large angle were the Russians' cross-mountain lob shots fired from the reverse slope of the highlands by taking advantage of the height difference to increase the range!

The entire highland slope and the entire mountain are now Russian artillery bunkers.

Due to the need to increase the range of air defense operations, the Akizuki-class destroyer's twin 100-gun cannon, which uses high-caliber barrels, straight ballistic trajectories and high muzzle velocity, simply cannot hit such targets hiding behind reverse slopes.

The hidden observation post on the top of the high ground looked through the telescope in his hand at the Japanese destroyers in the harbor that were unable to fire because they could not find the target.

Kulbalov, who was determined to send away the Japanese army completely with this wave, gave another order, and the assembled attack force immediately rushed towards the port area.