The battle soon began......

Sure enough, as I thought, this time the Soviet army was not in a hurry to attack, but first occupied favorable terrain outside the valley to build fortifications......

This is the first step in a protracted war, and I think this time they should plan to take down our Xijieo Valley in a month to two months...... The Soviets had realized by this time that the war in Afghanistan could not end in a short time, so they were very patient.

It is precisely because they have the patience to prepare for a long battle...... So they need an outpost, a base to confront our Hijeo Valley...... The base is located on a small hill not far from the valley, which is actually more than 200 meters high, but it is really a small hill for Afghanistan, which is several kilometers above sea level.

Originally, this small hill could be said to be unsafe, because there were too many high ground than it, and a casual mortar could hit this small hill from a high position...... But the point is that the hill faces the valley mouth to the north, and the Soviets have a lot of modern equipment...... A slight transformation turns this hill into an impregnable wall!

The first way to renovate is to build roads...... This was not difficult for the Soviet troops, a few bulldozers came up, then explosives and clearing, and only half a day's work built a "Z" shaped road on the back of the hill to the top of the mountain...... It is said that the Soviet army is also experienced and level in building this kind of road, and the Salang Highway is either bad here or collapsed there because it is burdened with too many transportation tasks...... Since the beginning of the war, the Soviet army's engineering corps has never stopped...... So such a small project, of course, is not a problem for them!

Immediately after the road was repaired, several tank fortifications were tossed on the top of the hill...... The so-called tank fortifications are somewhat similar to the inclined planes built by the Vietnamese army to facilitate tank fire, but the tank fortifications built by the Soviet army are more comprehensive......

Behind such fortifications were tank fortresses. Just like a tunnel, the top is made of logs and sandbags. There is a triangle not far ahead...... The so-called triangle is one side that slopes downward. On the other side is the up-sloping ...... To put it simply, there are downward and upward slopes.

Needless to say, what they are doing is this...... The tank has a limit not only on the elevation angle, but also on the dip to the bottom, but if you get these two ...... The angle of the tank gun can be solved to a large extent by coming out of the inclined plane of the next to the upper part of the tank...... So eight tanks lined up on the top of the hill, and a few more anti-aircraft machine guns were arranged in the middle of the tanks...... It's basically sealed the mouth of the Xigio Valley!

The benefits of this arrangement are...... The tank can bombard all targets on the opposite side in all directions, and when attacked, it can also retreat to the tank fort to hide, and even more powerfully, the tank has night vision devices...... That is, this defense is all-weather and not limited by day or night.

In this respect...... The Soviets still used their tanks effectively. One of the most important functions of the Tunnel Tank is its mobility...... But the problem is that in Afghanistan, tanks face a dilemma...... If you want to maneuver, you can't hit the target, and if you can hit the target, you can't move!

So the fate of the tank in Afghanistan is ...... Either they will be driven back home, or they will be used as a battery as they are now!

I believe this is not taught by the Vietnamese advisory group...... Because "forts" like this can be seen everywhere on the Salang Highway, but there are not as many "forts" as here...... Eight of them came up at once, and all of them were more advanced T72s.

After this arrangement is done...... The Soviets brought up troops and supplies.

Of course...... These maneuvers were carried out under the cover of Soviet helicopter gunships...... When they came up, they did not attack immediately, but built fortifications.

What surprised us was...... The Soviets still built anticline fortifications, and after the construction was completed, they concentrated supplies and troops behind the hills as a base for attacking the Shigio Valley...... This is the only way to ensure that there will be no interruption of troops and supplies, and that you can launch a continuous offensive to inflict as much impact as possible on the enemy!

As for where this tactic came from...... I don't need to say more. It must be the ghost of the Vietnamese advisory group!

That's when the war began......

As I thought before, the offensive of the Soviet army can be called harassment. It can also be said to be offensive...... They did not have many troops, only two platoons on the left and one on the right, and the covering fire came from the tank positions on the hills, and of course the helicopter gunships were involved...... It just surprised me that there were only two helicopter gunships on the front, and the rest were more than a dozen...... This also includes Mi-8 helicopters with weapons on board, all of which circle around the two wings of the pass.

I quickly understood the tactics of the Soviet troops......

This time, they focused their strikes on the mortar positions we had placed in the mountains on both flanks......

This tactic of the Soviets was certainly correct, as it was known from their last painful defeat...... The focus of the defense of the Shigio Valley was not actually the mountain passes, but the mortars scattered in the mountains on both flanks. These mortar positions do not solve...... Then there is a risk that anyone or equipment entering the valley will be bombarded with these artillery fire!

Thereupon...... This time they decided to clear the mortar positions of our troops!

Right now...... In the face of the Soviet offensive, we had only two options:

One is the non-use of mortars...... But if mortars are not used, even if the mountain pass position is fully fortified...... I am afraid that it will be difficult to hold out for long under the all-round attack of Soviet helicopters, tanks and infantry.

Another option is the use of mortars......

Doing so will indeed hold the pass...... Because mortars can effectively hit the Soviet troops charging towards the mountain pass.

However...... The mortars were soon spotted by Soviet helicopters after a few shells, and the rest is not difficult to imagine...... Soviet helicopter gunships quickly locked onto the mortar position, and then lowered the infantry on board the Mi-8 helicopter to cooperate with the helicopter gunship to attack these mortar positions......

As long as they can pull out these mortar positions one by one, then victory is not far from the Soviet army!

The reason why they didn't do it last time...... It's all because they want to do it quickly, or they don't expect us to use this mortar tactic. But this time...... They had plenty of time to play slowly with us!

So it is clear that the Soviet army was fully prepared to go to war! (To be continued......)