"Brother Dong, Iron Tiger, they've arrived."

Wang Dong was slightly stunned, then got up and walked over.

At this time, it was already half past nine in the morning.

While waiting, the rebels fired three more shells, but only at defensive positions to the west and without firing into the city.

The main thing was that the advance of the rebels was too slow, and the artillery positions were too far back.

In addition, the rebels used howitzers, not rocket artillery.

To put it bluntly, the rebels certainly do not have many rockets in stock, and even if the rocket artillery is amazingly powerful, it cannot completely replace the howitzer with a higher efficiency ratio.

Not to mention the Iraqi army, even the US military is dominated by howitzers.

Of course, the main preparation of the artillery of the Iraqi government army is also howitzers, and like the rebels, the M109A6 bought from the US military at a low price.

These self-propelled howitzers were all handed over by the U.S. military to the Iraqi Defense Forces after the liberation of Mosul.

During the battle for the liberation of Mosul, the U.S. military deployed several artillery battalions to provide artillery support to the Iraqi Defense Forces, mainly using the M109A6.

Because the fighting was too fierce, these M109A6s were badly worn, so after the battle, the U.S. military gave them to the Iraqi Defense Forces.

Actually, it's not for nothing.

After acquiring these self-propelled howitzers, the Iraqi authorities also allocated funds for modification and commissioned the US military to train gunners.

Since then, Iraq has also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase artillery shells from the United States.

In total, the Iraqi authorities spent almost $2 billion on more than 200 M109A6s.

You know, the purchase of 200 brand new M109A6 will not cost so much.

These self-propelled howitzers, mostly deployed in the north, are equipped with elite units and have played an important role in the pursuit of terrorists.

Only one battalion, or more than 20 gates, was provided to the troops stationed in Basra.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, this artillery battalion was ordered to be stationed in Sugshuyukh in preparation for the front.

It's just a pity that until the fall of Semavo, the battalion was not ready for battle.

Quite simply, there is not enough ammunition.

At that time, the battalion had only one base number of shells, and no one believed that it would be able to hold Semavo with a few hundred shells, let alone turn the tide of the battle.

When Semavo fell, there was one more problem.

That is, more than a hundred officers and soldiers from the Shiites intended to take away these self-propelled guns, and after the operation was revealed, they also tried to destroy them.

Although it did not succeed in the end, eight M109A6s were severely damaged during the riots.

What's worse is that these Shiite officers and soldiers are all backbones.

In other words, without them, the remaining Sunni officers and soldiers would not be able to use these artillery pieces effectively.

As a result, all these powerful self-propelled howitzers were placed in a barracks in Sgshuyukh, and no one cared about them.

Last night, after learning of the incident, Wang Dong asked Tiehu to rush over with dozens of Pakistani operatives.

Although the Pakistan Army is equipped with the M109A3, which has some differences from the M109A6, those Pakistani operatives should be able to master it after some exploration.

Subsequently, Wang Dong also contacted Yunlong and asked Saudi Arabia to airlift a batch of ammunition over.

In fact, Saudi Arabia is also equipped with M109A6, there are quite a few of them, and there are enough ammunition in stock.

At this time, sixteen M109A6 in good condition had already arrived in the city of Nasiriyah and were heading for the artillery positions set up in advance.

The situation is not ideal, and the M109A6, which has 8 doors that were badly damaged, has lost its repair value.

The advantage is that there is half a base of ammunition more.

Commanding artillery operations is not Wang Dong's strong point, and he did not intervene arbitrarily, delegating command to Wang Haotian and letting him do it.

In fact, this is not Wang Haotian's specialty.

Fortunately, what Wang Haotian had to do was only to help the artillery find the target and provide the coordinate parameters of the target, and Major Shamuh was responsible for the rest.

Before retiring from the Pakistan Army, Shamkh was indeed a major officer and a scout in the artillery unit.

Two years earlier, during the clash with India, Major Shamkh's troops had been involved in artillery battles, and he had repeatedly gone behind enemy lines to carry out reconnaissance missions.

To put it bluntly, it is to find targets for artillery.

In one operation, more than a dozen civilians were killed or injured in the shelling because Major Shamkh failed to detect civilians in the vicinity of the Indian army camp in time.

Shortly thereafter, Major Sharmah retired from the Pakistan Army.

Through Musharraf's introduction, he joined the "Angu" company and became Wang Dong's subordinate, and he was also one of the few operatives who were proficient in artillery warfare.

Of course, before that, Shamkh was mainly involved in forward reconnaissance operations.

At 10:15, 16 M109A6 guns carried out the first round of shelling.

In fifteen seconds, each howitzer fired 3 shells.

Because the rebels had artillery positioning radars, after completing the rapid fire, Sham immediately issued an order to move and quickly withdraw from the position.

The shelling was quite accurate, 48 shells covered the positions of the rebel artillery battery, destroying 6 M109A6 of the rebels.

Actually, Shamkh was overly cautious.

The rebels did not fight back, did not even react.

You know, until the civil war has been fought, the government army has only used a few 105mm towed howitzers in Semavo, and they were quickly destroyed.

Not to mention that the rebel artillery battalion that was shelled was twenty kilometers from the forward positions of the government troops.

This distance, which exceeds the effective range of almost all 105-mm howitzers.

Apparently, the rebels could not have imagined that artillery far from the front line would be shelled by government troops.

More than ten minutes later, the 16-door M109A3 was in full swing again.

It was still a short shot, and the same hit-and-run tactics were used.

Although the rebels were prepared, it was of little use.

This time, it was a ground force advancing towards Nasiriyah that was shelled, and although the tanks and tanks that were charging ahead were not hit by shells, the infantry accompanying the tanks and tanks suffered heavy casualties, and at least dozens of officers and men were killed.

The rebels immediately returned fire, but to no avail of anything other than wasting shells and exposing artillery positions.

Threatened by artillery fire, the rebels halted their advance.

Although the government army only has more than a dozen M109A6s, Major General Giannini knows that as long as these guns can still fire, the ground forces advancing towards Nasiriyah may be wiped out at any time, and with the sharp increase in casualties, the morale and fighting spirit of the troops will definitely be in doubt.

As a result, the rebels advanced less than five kilometers towards Nasiriyah that day.

Over the next few hours, the main instrument of engagement on both sides was artillery, and self-propelled guns.

If, because of the threat of air defense systems, Wang Dong could not count on air support for the time being, then the rebels did not have air support at all.

In fact, the rebels did not even have effective means of reconnaissance.

In any case, Wang Dong still has the small drones brought by Wang Haotian, as well as the scouts led by Xie Chuyue and Zhang Zilan to rely on.