On May 21, 1951, the 566th Regiment of the 189th Division of the 63rd Army of the Volunteer Army, which was responsible for serving the large force, was dragged to death after encountering the 9th Division of the American Army and the 28th Brigade of the British Army.
At such a critical juncture, Zhu Biao, the commander of the 566 regiment, who was impatient, suddenly remembered the old method used during the Liberation War and immediately asked the soldiers to make preparations.
The British side soon sensed the exhaustion of the volunteer soldiers, was overjoyed, and prepared to take all the volunteers with a single blow.
At this moment, something suddenly flew from the volunteer position that should have been exhausted, and it exploded like thunder in the British camp, and many British soldiers were shocked to death on the spot before they could react.
After only two salvos, the already arrogant British position fell silent, and the soldiers were so frightened by the strange artillery that they failed to launch any attack for half an hour.
By the time they came back to the volunteer position, the 566th Regiment of the Volunteer Army had long since disappeared, and the British troops, who had no worries, stood on top of the empty position and looked at each other, and could not understand what kind of ferocious weapon it was just now.
After a long time after this war, the British, who could not understand anything, believed that the mysterious weapon that prevented their attack that day and caused them a lot of casualties was that the Chinese army used a large-caliber artillery shell fired from depth.
Apparently, this frightened group of British felt that heavy artillery was hidden in the volunteer troops.
But in fact, the mysterious Chinese weapons that scare them to such an extent are actually just empty gasoline barrels. This artillery was called the "Flying Thunder Cannon" because of its amazing power, and it also received a nickname called "Conscienceless Cannon".
The Korean battlefield is not the first time this artillery has been put into use, as early as the liberation war, this kind of "conscienceless cannon" has already appeared on the historical stage, and has made no small contribution to the victory of the liberation war.
During the Liberation War, Hu Zongnan was ordered by Chiang Kai-shek to lead an army to invade northwestern Jin in 1947. Wherever the Nationalist troops went, they would build fortified bunkers and bunkers, which often commanded the machine gun eyes to be exposed to the ground, and the rest of the bunkers were hidden underground.
At that time, the plaster's weapons and equipment were very backward, and compared with those armed with advanced U.S. military equipment, it was much worse. Many PLA units are equipped with not many direct-fire firearms, and even if they do, the caliber of those guns is very small, and even for a period of time, the most powerful in the major columns is only mountain artillery.
With extremely poor firepower, PLA soldiers were faced with these strong fortifications built everywhere by the Nationalist army.
Every time you want to charge the enemy's positions, you must find a way to solve the enemy's bunkers, and in order to solve these bunkers, the PLA fighters have to take the method of manual approach to blast, often paying a small cost of casualties. Behind every victory, there will always be many martyrs who can sing and cry.
To this end, the PLA urgently needs a weapon that can replace manpower. The "Cannon without Conscience" was born under such circumstances.
The inventor of this artillery was named Nie Peizhang, a native of Shanxi, who was an engineer company commander, born in a class, who had previously served as a captain in the ironclad unit of the Northeast Army, was proficient in armor and engineering technology, and also had a deep understanding of blasting. After becoming the commander of the engineer company, Nie Peizhang often conducted technical training for the sappers through actual combat, and soon cultivated a group of outstanding sapper talents.
In 1947, Hu Zongnan led troops to invade the Jinnan region, which had a great impact on the 4th Column of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army, which was fighting in the Jinlu area at that time. In order to solve some of the difficult problems that arose, the 4th Column organized a training camp for engineer companies.
Nie Peizhang was on the training list. He came from a scientific background and had rich practical combat experience, and the heavy responsibility of developing and updating recent weapons fell on him.
Nie Peizhang actually had a certain idea in his heart.
According to the principle of mortar firing, he designed a trapezoidal earth pit with a bottom slope length of 1.2 meters, a mouth width of 1 meter, and a bottom width of 0.8 meters, which was used to project mines, and named it "projectile pit". After many tests and modification of parameters, Nie Peizhang and the backbone of the company were finally able to make the mine fly as far as 100 meters and explode on the ground.
The people who heard this news were all very excited, but only Nie Peizhang had not relaxed.
For this test launch, Nie Peizhang and the backbone of the company spent two hours digging the earth cylinder, but they could only throw it once, which obviously could not meet the needs of actual combat. Moreover, the size of the mines varies, and the weight is different, which makes it difficult to promote.
After a period of thinking, Nie Peizhang finally decided to first build a cannon barrel that could be used repeatedly.
He asked a local blacksmith to help him add iron hoops to the empty gasoline barrels he had prepared to strengthen the barrels. Then, he blocked the bottom of the gun barrel with thick jujube wood, and then dug out of the jujube wood a special medicine chamber for projection, drilled the air to install the fuse, and thus made a gasoline projectile.
Next, Nie Peizhang took the explosive package that was not used, repeatedly tested, and finally developed a projectile cylinder that could throw out more than a dozen pounds of explosive packages, and the best range was 100 meters to 150 meters, and the longest range was 300 meters. Because it was designed from the idea of mortars, the earliest use of projectile mines was used, so it was named "flying mine cannon".
As early as September 1947, in the Battle of The East Gate of Shaanzhou, the successfully developed "Flying Thunder Cannon" was put into use for the first time, and the main bunker of the city gate was blown up in a few consecutive clicks. After the explosive package is thrown out, the explosion point has a radius of 10 meters, all kinds of obstacles can be destroyed or destroyed, and the enemy within a radius of 20 meters is basically incapacitated even if it is not killed.
Such a powerful weapon startled the soldiers of the Nationalist army, and a captured deputy battalion commander of the Nationalist army asked: "You always say that we use American weapons, are you not using Soviet weapons?" Obviously, the "flying thunder cannon" was regarded as a Soviet-supported weapon.
The term "cannon without conscience" was first put forward by the soldiers of the National Army.
In the Battle of Huaihai, the "Flying Thunder Cannon" fully proved its own existence value.
At the end of November 1948, the Battle of Huaihai was already in its second phase, and the 12th Corps of the Nationalist Army was surrounded by the People's Liberation Army in Shuangduiji, Su County, Anhui Province.
At that time, the commander of the corps, Huang Wei, felt that the equipment and firepower of the People's Liberation Army were not enough, so he repeated the trick and once again used the terrain advantage to build a large number of bunkers, and then filled hundreds of cars with sand and soil, connected into a circle, creating a solid defensive circle with three layers inside and outside, and also put the strength of the entire two regiments here.
As a result, the People's Liberation Army set up a "flying thunder cannon" a few dozen meters in front of the nationalist fortifications, alternately carried out 3 rounds of firing, and in only half an hour, it broke the defensive circle set up by the nationalist army in one blow, and the vehicle array collapsed instantly, whether it was a bunker or a man and horse, it would be blown up, and the entire ground was blown into a scorched earth. The fallen soldiers often had no wounds on their bodies and were directly shattered.
When the junta heard the news, it insisted that the PLA had used a destructive weapon. The captured officers and men of the Nationalist army were so frightened that they shouted "a terrible fight" and simply named this "flying thunder cannon" "no conscience cannon."
By the time of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the Fifth Campaign had come to an end, and the volunteer troops participating in the battle had withdrawn one after another, and the 566th Regiment of the 189th Division of the 63rd Army, which was commander of Zhu Biao, took over the task of the palace and engaged in a month-long fierce battle with the 9th Division of the US Army, the 28th Brigade of the British Army, and some Korean troops.
A month later, the number of the 556 regiment was sharply reduced, leaving only about 50 people, each soldier was very tired, the weapons and ammunition were almost used, and the combat effectiveness was seriously reduced. The large troops of the volunteer army had almost retreated, and Zhu Biao decided to turn to retreat as well.
And it is not easy to retreat smoothly.
Although the main force of the enemy army is the well-equipped American army, the combat ability of the British army should not be underestimated. They seemed to see the intention of the 556th Regiment to prepare for retreat and stepped up their pursuit. Zhu Biao realized that in order to retreat smoothly, it was first necessary to suppress the British army with heavy firepower.
At that time, the 556th Regiment was equipped with 132 mm Caliber Katyusha rockets, which were slightly less powerful, and could not go up the mountain at all, and could not be put into use.
Zhu Biao thought about it for a long time, and at the suggestion of the company's sappers, he remembered the "flying thunder cannon" that had been used during the Liberation War. At that time, the troops used "flying thunder cannons" because the equipment was really backward and the enemy was too cunning, and the dilemma faced by the 556 Regiment at present was not exactly similar to the situation during the Liberation War?
Thinking of this, Zhu Biao immediately found all the soldiers of the sapper company. Some of these sappers participated in the Liberation War, and some participated in the training of engineers after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the "flying thunder cannon" is still an indispensable training content during the training. Other sappers, even if they had never seen it, had more or less heard of this "conscienceless cannon."
Just in the previous battle, the 556th Regiment captured some empty gasoline barrels, which seemed useless at the time, and did not expect to come in handy at this moment.
The production of the "flying thunder cannon" is not complicated, the 556 regiment does not need too professional gun barrels at this time, the basic materials can be used on the spot on the position, at least for emergency is no problem.
On the morning of May 22, 1951, the Americans first shelled the 556th Regiment for a long time, and then the infantry began to attack. The British were not to be outdone. Their commanders had realized that the Volunteers were running out of ammunition, and it was a good time to charge and take the Volunteers down in one fell swoop.
At this moment, they suddenly saw something flying in mid-air in the direction of the volunteer position, which should have run out of ammunition, not too fast, and fell precariously, and before they could react, the thunderous sound exploded in their ears, and they lost consciousness in an instant.
The 556th Regiment's combat hero, Elder Yang En, later recalled that after their "flying thunder cannon" was fired for two rounds, the British 28th Brigade on the opposite side fell into a full half-hour of silence, and it was estimated that they were shocked by this unseen thing.
The 556th Regiment bought enough time for its own transfer, and taking advantage of the good opportunity of the enemy's encirclement, Zhu Biao quickly retreated with the whole regiment.
Until later, the British did not understand what kind of weapon could bring such terrible lethality, and could only record it in the report of "The Summer Operation in Korea in 1951" in the name of "large-caliber shells fired from depth".
However, this kind of "flying thunder cannon" is a temporary weapon after all, not only has a short range and poor accuracy, but also has the danger of self-detonation and poor safety. Because it is a manually controlled fuse, there are often delayed explosions, which is easy to cause accidental injuries to their own fighters, and it did not take long for this weapon to completely withdraw from the historical stage.
Even so, the great contribution made by the "flying thunder cannon" on the actual battlefield cannot be ignored. After the death of Nie Peizhang, who invented this weapon, his comrades-in-arms wrote his deeds into military history, so that the thunder he created resounded forever in the hearts of the plaster soldiers.