Mercenary's War

Chapter 2452: Chapter 2428: Cluster Bombs

Liang Dong slammed on the brakes, and then he shouted in despair inside the car: "Cluster bomb!"

Liang Dong’s mind was a blank.

He knew what a cluster bomb was, and he knew what consequences it would bring, but seeing a cluster bomb explode right in front of him, that Liang Dong truly didn’t know.

With his foot on the brake, looking at the artillery position shrouded in thick smoke, Liang Dong felt his foot on the brake trembling.

It’s over, dozens of artillerymen are done for, the logistics convoy’s people are also done for, all finished.

Involuntarily, he reached out to cover his mouth, and after swallowing hard, Liang Dong suddenly grabbed the intercom, then hoarsely shouted: "Sheep is under cluster bomb attack, all... all covered, Mouse calling Sheepfold, Sheep is under cluster bomb attack, come quickly! Come and save people!"

After a brief moment of distraction, Liang Dong finally came to his senses.

Now is not the time to be afraid or dazed, now is the time to save people, so Liang Dong quickly released the brake, let go of the clutch, and although he felt he wasn’t flooring the gas, the pickup truck roared out, almost off the mountain road into the ditch by the roadside.

The intercom rang with Tarta’s urgent voice.

"Sheepfold received! What’s the situation, what’s the situation!"

"Sheep is under cluster bomb attack, it should be an air raid, all finished, maybe there are a few survivors, come quickly to save people!"

Liang Dong shouted anxiously, and his intercom rang with Gao Yang’s frantic shout: "What’s going on? Where’s Rebrov? Is he dead? My Curtis, what’s going on!"

"Probably an air raid, a large area of explosions, all top attacks, definitely cluster bombs..."

Liang Dong didn’t know what had happened, he just happened to see the explosions because his car was facing the artillery position, that’s all.

Liang Dong was not far from the artillery position, he drove at breakneck speed onto the artillery position, jumped out of the car, instinctively glanced upwards, then immediately ran towards the self-propelled artillery now in a dire state.

Four self-propelled guns were ablaze, Liang Dong ran towards the one closest to him, which was only smoking without exploding in sympathetic detonation, as for the other four guns, they had already exploded.

But Liang Dong had barely run a few steps when a loud bang ensued, and the last burning self-propelled artillery finally experienced a sympathetic detonation, the drooping barrel was blasted skyward by a great force, flew hundreds of meters before falling onto the mountain, causing a loud crash.

Liang Dong sat on the ground, both stunned by the blast wave, scared, and lost in despair at what to do.

Cluster bombs, also called submunitions, attack the top armor of armored targets at their weakest point with submunitions generally being armor-piercing shells, and each submunition carries radar that corrects its trajectory, only exploding accurately when above its target.

The mechanism of injury to personnel inside armored vehicles from armor-piercing shells and bullets need not be elaborated, generally speaking, the chances of survival for anyone inside a targeted armored vehicle are very slim, and for a self-propelled artillery that experienced sympathetic detonation, survival is absolutely impossible.

Ironically, self-propelled artillery inside always holds a large number of shells and propellant, unlike tanks that shoot using compartmentalized sections, if sympathetic detonation doesn’t occur, that would be surprising.

Liang Dong staring at the heaps of utterly distorted scrap metal, felt tears streaming down.

In fact, Liang Dong wasn’t familiar with those artillerymen from Ukraine, language barriers meant there weren’t many opportunities for interaction, naturally not fostering familiarity, but he knew those artillerymen were his comrades.

Witnessing his comrades vanish before his eyes, in a moment, completely gone, Liang Dong couldn’t take it.

This was Liang Dong’s first profound experience of war’s cruelty, a cruelty that no amount of training could convey, regardless of the number of exercises.

"Just like that, how could they be gone? I’ve made the borscht! I made the borscht! You kept talking about borscht, where was I supposed to find red beets? I just learned red beets are sugar beets, just found the sugar beets and cooked it up for you, how could you be gone, a big pot of borscht, how could all the people be gone..."

Liang Dong, tearfully speaking words without comprehension, only felt his heart blocked with panic, he would suffocate if not speaking.

At this moment, Liang Dong heard desperate shouts, he turned with both surprise and bafflement, spotting Roshkov and Rebrov running over rapidly.

Liang Dong’s legs seemed to have springs, bounced upright and shouted excitedly: "You’re not dead? There are survivors! Wonderful! There are survivors!"

Liang Dong, faster than Rebrov and Roshkov running over, drove to the position.

Rebrov ignored Liang Dong, his eyes red, sprinting towards a burning self-propelled artillery, Roshkov, although in despair, kept his sanity, saw Rebrov erratic, halted and grabbed Rebrov.

Roshkov grabbed Rebrov, failing to stop him, instead being dragged down, falling to the ground, fortunately Liang Dong reacted swiftly, ran towards Rebrov, grabbed him around the waist and wrestled him to the ground.

"Yajin! Come out! Come out!"

Rebrov lay on the ground, shouting hoarsely, struggled to push Liang Dong away, shouting loudly, eyes bloodshot, though staring at the still burning artillery remains, his eyes seemed unable to focus.

Liang Dong grabbed Rebrov’s clothes, slammed him hard to the ground, shouted: "Dead! All dead! Stop yelling, wake up and check the logistics convoy, there might be survivors, wake up!"

Roshkov let out a heartbreaking scream upon seeing the burning artillery remains, while a calculator soldier, bewildered, held his head, another calculator soldier called out names of departed comrades, gazing at the wreckage, indistinguishable from one another, calling without coherence, as if calling spirits.

Rebrov no longer struggled, he closed his eyes, tears streaming from the corners, in a hoarse and desolate voice said: "My men are dead, all dead, all my fault, if only we had moved minutes earlier, no one would’ve died, I killed them, my brothers..."

Liang Dong yelled: "Stop yelling, these are cluster bombs, even with relocation, aircraft would’ve spotted it, go check the logistics convoy now, the aircraft may return, your shouting is useless, get up! Follow me!"