"Энди Макнаб. Немедленная операция (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автораSome movement was on foot; some was a combination of foot and vehicle. It
all depended on the terrain. Whatever, we had to get that fire down. Mortars work by the angle of the barrel and the amount of energy supplied by the explosive charge on the mortar round. There are seven bands of propellant. If the mortar fire controller says, "Charge Three," that means there's three bags of propellant, which, with the angle of the barrel, provides its range. What it does at the other end depends on what fuse is 'Set: airburst, delayed, instantaneous, or it might be smoke. The MFC reported that the enemy were troops in buildings; that meant I had to put a delay fuse on the rounds. They would go into the building, then explode; the earth would be churned up and their defenses would collapse, we hoped, taking them out in the process. As I looked up to the high ground, I could see the squadron commander getting people into position, but it was no good their attacking until the firefight had been won and all enemy fire was suppressed, as we were about to do. The troops who were going to attack got into the F.A.P (final assault position). The suppressing fire would be "switched," which meant that it still went down but was moved along, so that as our blokes were advancing toward the target, we weren't firing on them. All this had to be coordinated by the squadron commander, who could either see things visually for himself or was getting the information on the radio. We couldn't see jack shit; we would just fire on command. Nosh and Steve were getting the mortar sorted out and waiting for shouted: "Immediate action! Direction one-six-four!" Nosh shouted: "Direction one-six-four!" From the number two came the confirmation: "Direction one-six-four!" The MFC called: "Elevation one-two-two-eight," Nosh: "ElevAtion one-two-two-eight!" Next mortar: "Elevation one-two-two-eight!" As soon as all the bearings were done on the sight, Nosh shouted, "Number one ready!" Then we heard "Number two ready!" They were set commands and standard actions, though slightly different from the rest of the army's. I was listening for a command about charges. "Two rounds, charge three! Stand by!" I shouted, "Two rounds, charge three!" I prepared the ammunition, and Steve took it and waited for the command to throw it down the tube. Everything was going incredibly smoothly on our tube. We had the elevation and the bearing; we had the lot. We were all ready. "Number one, fire!" We threw two rounds each down the tube to "bed in" the weapon. When a mortar goes off, it starts burying itself in the ground. We all stand on the plate at this stage to help it bed in. If the baseplate isn't correctly set, the mortar bounces around and the ammunition goes off target. The next rounds, once the baseplate was buried into the ground, would be on target. |
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