Chapter 373: The Protagonist of the War: Artillery

A few kilometers south of Dingjiang Fortress, that is the border of Dingjiang County, and further south is Lehe County of Luohai County.

The area where these two counties meet, this is the area where the north-south confrontation is at the forefront of the southern defense line.

Since Lin Ziran unified Luo'an County, Shao Bing and other surrounding feudal towns have regarded Lin Ziran and the Luo'an garrison under his command as a huge threat.

Among them, Shao Bing's response was the most timely, he had already increased his troops to the north in May, and by August, he had deployed a total of 25,000 troops in Lehe County in the northern region of Luohai County, and on the side of Ningjiao County, he also deployed a huge number of troops.

These troops can be regarded as Shao Bing's defense against Lin Ziran, and the more than 20,000 troops deployed in Lehe County are the first line of troops to resist the southward movement of the Luo'an garrison.

From these, it can be seen that Shao Bing attaches great importance to Lin Ziran.

On the other hand, in order to break through the defense line deployed by Shao Bing on the front line of Lehe County, Lin Ziran also transferred a large number of main forces, and according to the situation of the enemy on both sides, especially his own artillery superiority, he formulated a strategic plan to forcibly break through the enemy's defense line along the Luo River.

In order to carry out a frontal forced breakthrough, but also to directly kill and injure a large number of enemy forces with the help of dense artillery at the time of breakthrough, and strive to completely defeat the enemy's defensive forces while breaking through.

This time, when Lin Ziran was fighting in the south, he gathered three main infantry divisions, two independent heavy artillery regiments, and one experimental artillery regiment on the battlefield width of about six kilometers on the offensive front.

The 1st Division, which served as the core of the attack and was responsible for tearing through the opponent's defense line and opening gaps, in addition to its own strength, was supported by a heavy artillery regiment and artillery fire from most of the experimental artillery regiments.

Therefore, at dawn, after the shelling began, countless shells flew out of the artillery positions of the Luo'an Army and fell into the enemy positions.

The artillery routine is still the same old-fashioned, and the rear-loading artillery is responsible for suppressing the enemy's artillery, suppressing or even destroying the enemy's preset artillery positions at the first time.

A larger number of front-loading artillery is used to keep up with and suppress enemy artillery or directly shell enemy infantry lines, depending on the situation.

But in any case, at this time, a total of more than 150 artillery pieces bombarded the opposite side with a width of only a kilometer.

Xu Zhongshuqing, the commander of the First Division, looked at the smoke and dust of the explosions constantly raised by the opponent's position, and a smile appeared on his face: "This time the artillery is quite powerful, and it is quite accurate, and we have destroyed several enemy artillery positions that we have touched out before as soon as possible!" ”

"Yes, the shells of those heavy howitzer companies are full of explosive power, even if the other party has perfect fortifications, but it can't stop this large-caliber heavy grenade!"

The 150 mm grenade, and the cylindrical body, the charge is far more than the old spherical grenade, this shot is very powerful.

Xu Zhongshu looked at the pocket watch in his hand, and then said: "The first round of shelling is almost over, let the brothers hurry up and maneuver, enter the predetermined position, and after the second round of shelling is over, launch an attack according to the predetermined plan!" ”

Soon, the first round of large-scale artillery bombardment was over, and the Luo navy on the opposite side finally reacted, seeing that the other side's shelling stopped, many officers urgently urged the surviving soldiers to enter the trench and prepare for defensive operations.

After all, after the artillery bombarded the infantry charge, this is a very classic and old-fashioned infantry artillery coordination tactic.

But what they didn't expect was that when their infantry had just begun to come out of various hiding places and then prepare to defend themselves in the trenches, the enemy's intensive artillery bombardment came again.

This is the result of heavy casualties in Luohai County!

Even more than in the first round of shelling, the losses suffered by the Romanian Navy were even greater.

At the time of the first round of shelling, in fact, the artillery units of the Luoan garrison, especially the rear-loading guns and large-caliber smoothbore guns of the main force, were aimed at the enemy's preset artillery positions, not the enemy's trench lines.

However, in the second round of shelling, the above targets were basically hit, so most of the artillery was aimed at the opponent's infantry defense line before hitting.

And the infantry of the Luo Navy also came out of various hiding places and began to prepare for defensive operations.

At such times, their infantry lines were suddenly subjected to intensive artillery shelling, which caused a large number of casualties.

And this is exactly what Xu Zhongshu wants to see!

After seeing the obvious effect of the second round of shelling, Xu Zhongshu's expression relaxed a lot, which meant that the follow-up infantry charge attack would be blocked even less.

And the truth is exactly what he expected.

With the end of the second round of shelling and the artillery fire began to extend the shelling, the officers and men of the 1st Division, which had already been maneuvering on the front line in advance, also launched a formal attack.

The first to bear the brunt of the attack was the 1st Advance Corps, which began its offensive at a distance of about 400 meters from the enemy, advancing rapidly under the constant cover of artillery.

The defenders were also unwilling to sit idly by, although they had been bombed by artillery, they still stubbornly organized infantry units to intercept!

But this kind of interception operation is futile.

I saw that in a trench in front of the First Infantry Corps, many defenders once again hurriedly left the anti-artillery fortifications, and then stood densely behind the trench and the breastwork, holding South China Sea breech-loading rifles, and opened fire at the soldiers of the First Infantry Corps who had spread out in formation and used the terrain to continuously and rapidly assault!

Because when these Luohai County soldiers reappeared on the breastwork and listed a dense formation, they didn't have time to fire a few shots and hit a few people, and they were once again subjected to intensive shelling.

After the intensive shelling, the breastwork began to collapse, and the defenders in the trench suffered heavy casualties.

Taking advantage of the fact that the defenders were suppressed by artillery, the soldiers of the 1st Infantry Corps outside once again began to advance under the orders of the officers.

Once again, the officers of the defending army directed the soldiers to fire at interception, and again they were shelled......

After repeating this several times, the soldiers of the First Infantry Corps had not yet approached two hundred meters away, but the defenders on the opposite side had already suffered heavy casualties.

The casualties of these defenders were not inflicted by the 1st Corps, but by intensive artillery fire from the rear!

By the time the soldiers of the first regiment had reached a hundred meters and shouted one by one that they had launched a final rapid charge, and when they had reached the last twenty or thirty meters and began to throw grenades, the enemy soldiers in the opposite defense line had completely collapsed.

"Even if the infantry is equipped with rear-loading rifles, the role of artillery in war is still irreplaceable!" After Xu Zhongshu put down the binoculars, he said to a group of officers around him: "Now and even in the future, artillery is still the protagonist in the war!" ”

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