Chapter 15 New Recruits Report for Duty 13

  "Reporting! I know! Commander!" Zhang Nan shouted loudly, raising his hand.

  He took three long strides and two short steps to arrive in front of Zhang Nan, shouting: "I didn't think you'd know about this! Alright, go ahead and tell these trash what's going on. If what you say is true, maybe I'll change my opinion about you, you sick cat!"

  "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will shoot him in the name of God and on the behalf of my country. My rifle and myself are the defenders of our country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life... until there is no enemy, until peace comes."

  After listening for a long time, he couldn't help but pat Zhang Nan's shoulder and exclaimed: "Damn it, I really have to change my impression of you, you little brat actually said not a single word wrong!"

  "Thank you for the compliment! Commander!" Zhang Nan excitedly shouted, this was the first time Commander had praised him, his face now looked like a flower. Zhang Nan also secretly congratulated himself that he had just watched a movie before joining the army, where he thought the poem in it was pretty good, so he memorized it, didn't expect it to come in handy today.

  Lian Chang turned around and shouted to the others: "Although I don't think much of M country's special forces, this poem from M country is actually pretty good. A gun is just a weapon, but it's also our alter ego. Without us, a country is nothing but a pile of scrap iron. If we didn't have guns, we'd be nothing but useless people! So you must take care of the gun in your hands, treat it like your lover. As they say in martial arts, 'when the gun dies, the person dies!' Do you all understand?"

  "Understood!" Lei and others loudly responded to Lian's words.

  Lei couldn't help but feel excited, and when Lian Long wasn't paying attention, he secretly reached out to touch the gun on his shoulder, thinking to himself: "From now on, you're mine, I'll take good care of you."

  From Lian's explanation, Lei learned that the gun on his shoulder was called "81" type automatic rifle. It, along with the 81-1 automatic rifle and 81 light machine gun, formed the 81 series of firearms. Many parts of these guns could be exchanged and used universally, and they all used 7.62mm caliber ammunition, making it convenient to switch between them. This automatic rifle adopted a rotating bolt closure system, allowing for single or continuous fire, fed by a 30-round magazine. The initial velocity of the bullet was 720m/s, and the fixed grenade launcher could fire 60mm anti-tank grenades with blank cartridges, as well as 40mm grenades with live rounds. The entire gun weighed 3.4kg, measured 955mm in length, had a barrel length of 440mm, an effective range of 400m, and a sighted range of 500m. Bullets still had lethal force at a distance of 2000m, and the combat firing rate was 45-115 rounds per minute.

  Having his own rifle, the first thing to do is to understand the structure of the rifle in his hand and how to wipe and maintain it. Lian Zhang took everyone back to the dormitory and let Gao Wen demonstrate how to disassemble the rifle. Lei was completely stunned, originally thinking that a rifle was like the toy guns he played with when he was a kid, which were tied together with twine. But he clearly saw that Gao Wen didn't have any tools in his hand, yet under his agile movements, the complete rifle quickly became disassembled into small pieces. "This is too incredible!" Lei exclaimed inwardly.

  After Gao Wen's explanation, Lei only knew that the Type 81 automatic rifle is divided into ten major components: bayonet (dagger), barrel, sighting device (front sight, rear sight), piston and adjusting plug, receiver, bolt carrier group, recoil mechanism, trigger mechanism, magazine, and stock.

  After familiarizing themselves with the structure of the gun, Lei and the others began to learn how to clean it. The requirements for cleaning the gun were very strict, especially when it came to the inside of the barrel, where not a speck of dust could be seen. After each cleaning, they would place a piece of newspaper under the barrel, then point the muzzle towards a light source. Through the reflection off the newspaper, even the tiniest bit of dust inside would be clearly visible.

  After Lei and the others learned how to clean their guns, they began practicing shooting. Practicing aiming and shooting is a very boring thing. Lei and the others first learned prone shooting. In such cold weather, you have to lie on the icy ground for an hour at a time. The cold will occasionally find opportunities to invade you, even that precious thing seems to be shrinking from the freezing. Every hour of target practice requires half an hour of physical training to increase the heat in your body, otherwise, you'll find that some part of you has been frozen stiff.

  It was like this, every day was a monotonous routine of running, physical training and shooting practice. The only thing that made Lei and the others look forward to was when they could finally have live ammunition shooting practice. Finally, on the tenth day since Lei and the others had come into contact with rifles, their instructor gave them such an opportunity, ten rounds per person.

  "Are you guys thinking you're all that? You think you can hit the enemy's forehead from 100 meters away? Now I'm giving you a chance, use these ten bullets to prove you're not trash!"

  Lei listened to Lian's words in his ear, his body pressed against the ground, constantly adjusting his breathing. He didn't know if it was tension or excitement, but his breathing had quickened slightly. Lei had to adjust his breathing properly, otherwise he would definitely not be able to achieve his desired score. He looked through the scope at the target 100 meters away, a target that was roughly the same size as a real person, and now seemed so tiny.

  Bang!

  It was unclear who fired the first shot, but that one shot disrupted Lei's carefully adjusted state once again. Lei quickly readjusted and pulled his own trigger. "Bang!", with a loud gunshot, Lei felt his gun slightly jump up as he hadn't gripped it tightly enough, and the strong recoil made his right shoulder ache slightly. Knowing the gun's power now, Lei gripped it tighter and continued to fire: "bang, bang, bang...", he finished off his remaining nine bullets. After finishing, he looked at the distant target with both eyes, feeling that these ten shots weren't bad.

  After everyone had finished shooting, the company commander walked up to the crowd with a score sheet in his hand. He read out the number of rings each person had scored with an expressionless face. After reading out all the scores, the company commander glanced at Lei and slowly said: "The best score is now announced, Lei, 93 rings."