That Works Too?

Take a crack at him? Then take a crack at him! What did Gao Fei have to fear? He couldn't ask for better. "All right! Let's shoot." There was only one machine gun at the position, and it was in Glaski's hands. When Sokholov suggested taking a shot with it, Glaski paused his cleaning. The moment Gao Fei agreed, Glaski immediately clicked the belt into the feed tray, slapped the top cover shut, and trotted eagerly over to deliver the gun into Gao Fei's hands. Gao Fei took the machine gun. It was heavy, heavier than he had imagined. So far, Gao Fei had fired three times: twice in single shots, once in burst. All told, he hadn't even gone through a single magazine. And now, he was about to shoot a machine gun. Gao Fei knew how to use one. He knew how to load it, how to rack the charging handle, and how to reload and swap barrels. He also knew that a machine gun's primary role was suppression. Suppressing enemy infantry charges, engaging lightly armored targets, suppressing enemy firing points, and providing sustained fire with a high rate of fire and deep ammunition reserves to protect friendly infantry. Yet all of Gao Fei's knowledge of machine guns remained strictly on paper. He knew the PKM inside and out in theory, and he had watched countless videos of people firing PKM machine guns—hip-firing, walking fire, and, most commonly of all, prone on the ground. But not a single article or video had ever explained how a pure novice was supposed to shoot one. What was more, four hundred meters was a tremendous distance. At that range, a person looked like nothing more than a tiny, moving black dot. If someone kept most of their body behind cover, exposing only their head, you wouldn't be able to spot them at all. At this range, engaging a human target with a machine gun that only had iron sights, missing was normal; hitting was what would be abnormal. Gao Fei deployed the machine gun's bipod onto the ground, pressed the stock against his shoulder, and tried aiming. The sights were simple, virtually identical to a rifle's, but a distance of four hundred meters was a bit beyond Gao Fei's range of accurate estimation. Within a hundred meters, Gao Fei's eyes were as good as a measuring tape, with an error margin of never more than two meters. Within two hundred meters, his margin of error never exceeded five meters. Beyond two hundred meters, though, it fell apart. In all the engineering projects Gao Fei had worked on, the greatest distance had been setting poles two hundred meters apart; he had no real concept of four hundred meters. He tried aiming down the sights, only to find all he could see was an uneven patch of terrain. Without elevated ground, even if people were moving around four hundred meters away, he wouldn't be able to see them at all. Gao Fei shifted his eyes from the front sight and said to Sokholov beside him, "How could anyone possibly spot a target like this? Our position is too low." Sokholov chuckled, while Glaski broke in eagerly, "Nobody said to shoot a target flat on the ground. See that tree over there?" Glaski pointed in a direction. Gao Fei looked closely and could make out a dark silhouette. Sokholov smiled. "That's an observation point for their forward position. It looks like a blasted tree trunk, but it's actually fabricated from sheet metal. It's an observation post." Gao Fei was taken aback, because what Sokholov and Glaski were describing sounded straight out of World War I. World War I was all trench warfare: everyone was stuck in trenches with no view into the distance. To monitor enemy movements and guide targets for machine gunners, both warring sides had independently constructed lots of dummy tree trunks and similar contraptions for observers to hide in. The problem was that no matter how realistic the camouflage was, any elevated structure jutting above ground was bound to draw intense enemy scrutiny. Consequently, these high points dubbed observation posts were, in truth, death traps. Gao Fei asked, puzzled, "Would anyone really be stupid enough to climb up into that thing?" "Yes, absolutely," Glaski said with total confidence. Sokholov laughed. "As long as there are new recruits, someone will climb up there. There's always some rookie curious enough to crawl up and take a look. Whether it's on our side or theirs, there are always rookies like that." Glaski said gravely, "I took shots at it twice. Missed both times." "In our entire company, we've killed twelve idiots at that observation post. The sniper over at the adjacent position killed four, and their machine gunner got two." Sokholov spoke solemnly. He sighed and went on, "That observation post sits right between our squad's two positions. The neighboring trench has killed six, so we ought to have at least a few to our name. But so far, we haven't gotten a single one." Glaski threw up his hands in resignation. "Their machine gunner had help from a sniper. But here at our position, we don't have a sniper, and we don't have a scope." Sokholov curled his lip, but rather than tearing down Glaski's excuse, he kept speaking to Gao Fei: "We wait. The moment someone goes up, you shoot. Opportunities won't come often—you'll only get one shot at it, and there's no zeroing in. Well? Do you think you can hit it?" Gao Fei aimed toward the observation post Sokholov had pointed out. He found that the post was even smaller than the front sight post of his iron sights—meaning that if he tried to aim at it, the front sight would completely obscure the target. It was difficult, truly difficult, but Gao Fei wanted to try. Even with the bipod supporting the gun, the extreme distance made the target look completely indistinct; the point of aim was nothing but a blur. He adjusted his focus. When his eyes focused on the distant target, the front sight blurred into multiple ghosts. Furthermore, with each breath and the subtle tremor of his shoulder, the target seemed to waver in the rear notch, drifting to the left of the front post one second and to the right the next. Real combat really was a different world. Gao Fei had never realized that engaging distant targets took this much effort. Only now did he appreciate what godlike beings those snipers who hit targets hundreds of meters away with iron sights truly were. Seeing Gao Fei constantly adjusting and shifting around, Sokholov couldn't help asking, "Well? Can you take the shot?" So that was what Sokholov had meant every time he asked if he could shoot. "I can shoot!" Even if he couldn't, he had to say he could. It wasn't as if missing would hurt anything anyway. Gao Fei raised his upper body again and checked the rear sight leaf. The PKM machine gun's sight graduated from one hundred to one thousand five hundred meters, but the battle sight zero was set at three hundred meters, which was precisely where Glaski's sight sat right now. To make himself look professional, Gao Fei intended to slide the rear sight notch to four hundred meters, but his fingers slipped, sliding it two notches up to the five-hundred-meter mark. Glaski said nothing, but Sokholov let out a stunned gasp. "Whoa! How did you know the observation post is five hundred and fifteen meters out? I didn't tell you that, did I?" This time, it really had been a complete guess—pure dumb luck. Gao Fei, who had been about to pull the sight back one notch, froze, then said nonchalantly, "Looked like it." With the sight adjusted, Gao Fei examined the belt. Glaski's machine gun wasn't using a belted ammunition box; instead, it fed directly from a loose section of belt that looked to hold forty or fifty rounds. The belt was loaded in a ratio of five ball rounds to one tracer, a common configuration for light machine gun deployment. Not knowing what round was currently in the feed tray ready to fire, he figured opening it up to check was safer. Gao Fei popped open the receiver cover for a look and found a standard ball round waiting in position. "At five hundred meters, how big is the trajectory difference between ball and tracer rounds?" Gao Fei asked a highly technical question. Glaski blinked, thought about it, and said, "Probably around five meters, but I've never paid close attention. I don't usually shoot at targets that far out." Sokholov asked with a touch of nerves, "Do you need to swap the belt? Need to change rounds?" Not knowing the ballistics or exact bullet types at all, changing rounds wouldn't make a difference anyway. "No need." Gao Fei latched the receiver cover shut, then racked the charging handle, cocking the machine gun so it was ready to fire. Aiming toward the observation post once more, now with a shred of experience under his belt, he didn't need to strain his eyes deliberately to pick out the target. Right then, Samir spoke up cautiously from behind: "Sir..." "Shh!" "Shut up!" Both men glared at Samir. Samir said helplessly, "Can I dig later? I want to see if he can hit it too." Before Sokholov could speak, Gao Fei quickly cut in, "Samir's my brother. Let him watch too. It's a rare chance." "Come over, keep some distance, and watch quietly." Sokholov humored Gao Fei out of respect for him, then asked carefully, "Do you want to spot through binoculars yourself, or do you want me to guide you onto the target?" Without binoculars, it was impossible to see whether anyone was in the observation post. But if he spotted on his own, dropping the binoculars and picking up the gun once a target appeared would obviously take too long. "Let me take a look first, then you can spot and call the target for me." Glaski handed over a pair of binoculars right away. Gao Fei took the binoculars and noticed the brand was Steiner—clearly not standard Russian military issue. "Nice binoculars." "Looted them," Glaski said. This wasn't Gao Fei's first time using binoculars, but the pair he had used before was a cheap hundred-yuan set. The clarity here was an entirely different league. Crystal clear and brilliantly bright. He could distinctly see the black cylinder, right down to the bullet holes of various sizes riddling its surface. Just as Gao Fei brought the observation post into view, he spotted a helmeted head poke out. "Holy shit!" Dropping the binoculars in a flash, Gao Fei grabbed the machine gun. Without a single thought in his head, he aimed straight at the top of the observation post. As Gao Fei dropped the binoculars, Glaski lunged to pick them up, while Sokholov, who was already holding a pair, blurted out urgently, "He's out! He's out!" Gao Fei set the gun, and the instant his shooting posture stabilized, he squeezed the trigger. Before his brain had even processed whether he should shoot, before his ears had registered Sokholov giving the order to fire, his finger pulled the trigger. His hands were faster than his mind. As the rounds burst out, the tremendous recoil slammed into Gao Fei's shoulder. Only then did he realize what he had done. By the time his finger instinctively released the trigger, the short burst was complete—three rounds had flown downrange. In other words, Gao Fei's brain reaction time was the duration it took a PKM to fire three rounds. "Hit... A hit! He dropped!" Sokholov gasped. Glaski finally brought the observation post into focus through his binoculars, but he didn't see anyone. As he fine-tuned the focus ring, he muttered in utter vexation, "Suka blyat, I missed it... I didn't get to see it..." Sokholov was completely dumbfounded, yet he couldn't tear his eyes away from his binoculars. As Glaski swore in frustration, Sokholov couldn't help muttering, "Suka blyat... even that fucking works?!"