Chapter 324: A Strange War

The explosion of the shells of the 75-mm steel rear-loading guns after landing directly killed and injured many enemy artillerymen, and even caused a certain amount of confusion.

Because those artillerymen who belonged to the artillery regiment of the Fifth Division of the County Guard Mansion couldn't figure out why the enemy's artillery could hit them accurately when they wanted to break their heads.

But any more experienced artilleryman, such a long-distance shelling, there is almost no accuracy to speak of.

Otherwise, these nine-pound front-loading smoothbore guns of theirs would also be able to shoot two thousand and three meters away by raising the elevation angle, but such a distance has no accuracy at all, and it has no effect except for wasting shells.

However, the opponent accurately hit himself through two rounds of shelling, which shows that the opponent's accuracy is extremely high!

But why?

They can't figure it out!

But this is not the end of it, the two guns of the experimental artillery company have obtained accurate shots through two rounds of firing, and accurately hit the target, then the follow-up shelling will be simple.

It is enough to carry out the artillery bombardment directly according to the existing shooting elements, and there is no need for any senior artillery officers to care, and those senior sergeant and artillery commanders can aim and shoot themselves.

Although sometimes the shells missed, this was a problem of the gun's inaccurate aiming, not a problem of firing the elements, not of the accuracy of the artillery itself.

As one shell after another continued to fall, it didn't take long for this artillery position with 12 new nine-pound guns deployed to be billowing smoke and dust, and continuous explosions were killing and injuring a large number of artillery on this field artillery position built in a hurry.

In the midst of such heavy shelling, the rudimentary artillery positions simply could not give the artillerymen an effective hiding place, let alone the artillery, and even those artillery pieces were staggered by the violent explosion.

It didn't take long for their artillery to suffer a lot of casualties, and most importantly, they had no way to fight back even if they wanted to.

Their artillery officers had long observed that the shells were coming from a hill more than 2,000 meters away, but they were unable to return fire because it was beyond the effective range of their guns.

Because the artillery continued to be killed and wounded, and they could not return fire, many artillerymen ran directly to the rear bunkers in order to save their lives.

The artillery position of the Fifth Division has 12 artillery pieces deployed, and there are only more than 100 artillery pieces deployed on it, which is nothing in the entire huge battlefield.

But this artillery position suffered so many casualties that even the artillery did not dare to stay on top, but it caused a huge chain reaction!

After suppressing the enemy's new nine-pound field artillery position on the left flank, the first artillery battalion under the First Artillery Regiment of the Sixth Division also acted quickly, urging their horses to move forward quickly, and one of the new-type nine-pound field artillery batteries directly and quickly went out to a place about 1,400 meters away from the enemy's infantry defense line and stopped, and then urgently deployed artillery and launched an artillery bombardment with solid shells on the spot.

And the object of their shelling is still the enemy's new nine-pound field artillery position that has just been suppressed by the rear-loading artillery.

In fact, the shelling at this time had already turned into a purely suppressive shelling, and the enemy was not allowed to restore the combat effectiveness of this artillery position.

At the same time, the 2nd and 3rd Artillery Companies in the 1st Artillery Battalion continued to advance, and finally the 3rd Artillery Company stopped only about a kilometer away from the enemy, and then continued to suppress the enemy's artillery positions, which were already using grenades.

Alternate suppression, this is the artillery staff team of the staff of the staff of the artillery work out of the artillery plan, in order to effectively use the two rear-loading guns, first suppress, and then the new nine-pound smoothbore guns forward relay to continue to suppress.

Finally, put your own nine-pound artillery in front of the enemy's front line at a range of about a kilometer, this distance is already the best shelling distance for this kind of artillery, which can directly fire grenades and carry out high-precision artillery bombardment!

While the 3rd Artillery Company continued to suppress, the other two artillery batteries were already keeping up and shifting the targets of the shelling, and their shelling targets had already become enemy infantry lines.

At the same time, the two rear-loading guns in the experimental artillery company had been transferred to another enemy position of the new nine-pound field guns.

The enemy army has only more than 20 new field guns of nine catties in total, and the battlefield is so large that it is deployed in two directions, and the distance between them is several hundred meters.

But this is not a problem at all for the two rear-loading guns of the experimental artillery battery, and there is no difference between two thousand meters and two thousand five hundred meters or even three thousand meters, all of which are within their effective range.

The next shelling was repeated alternately suppressing the shelling!

In just half an hour, with the two rear-loading guns of the experimental artillery company as the lead, the first artillery battalion and the second artillery battalion of the first artillery company kept up, and finally succeeded in completely suppressing the enemy's two new nine-pound field artillery positions!

Without these two new nine-pound field artillery positions, which pose the greatest threat, the artillery of the First Artillery Regiment and the Second Artillery Regiment and the artillery battalions of the two mixed brigades would not be polite, and they would be directly deployed to the front within a kilometer range or even closer, suppressing the enemy's other ordinary artillery in turn, and then switching to shelling the enemy's infantry line.

In the midst of the rumbling artillery, the 6th Division spent half an hour, and after firing out many shells, it finally completely suppressed the enemy's artillery position and began to intensively kill and wound the enemy's infantry!

At this time, the infantry units of the 6th Division, even the first regiment that was at the beginning of the mobile and roundabout operation, were still about 500 meters away from the enemy's front line.

It's not that they're not going fast enough, it's because they're waiting!

First bombarded with artillery, and then the infantry rushed forward, this standard infantry artillery coordination tactic, that is all an old-fashioned startling tactic, the Daheng Army played like this more than fifty years ago.

Now, although the weapons of the 6th Division are more advanced, and the details of infantry and artillery coordination are different, the essence is still the same.

Now Xu Zhongshu will lead his troops to rush forward after waiting for the artillery units in the rear on the front line to kill and injure a large number of enemy troops and shake the enemy's first-line defense line through intensive artillery bombardment!

At the same time, on the other side of the battlefield.

Fei Zhiyuan, the commander of the Western Expeditionary Army and the commander of the Fifth Division, had a deep and terrible face at this time!

Half an hour ago, he was still deploying a detailed defensive battle plan for his generals, and when he first heard the rumbling cannons, he was already the first to come out to observe the battle situation.

But he did not see the opposing infantry rushing up, nor did he fail to see the enemy's artillery deployed in front and shelling.

But he saw the smoke and dust of the explosion from a new nine-pound artillery gun deployed in front of him?

This cannon and that?

It didn't take long for him to see the enemy's artillery positions!

It didn't matter, Mom, it was more than 2,000 meters away, because the distance was so far that he even had to use a telescope to be able to clearly see the opponent's artillery position.

And what surprised him even more was that there were only two artillery pieces in this artillery position on the opposite side, and if you judge it simply, those two guns should still be small-caliber artillery, and it is estimated that the caliber is not as big as a five-pound field gun!

But!

Why are these small cannons of theirs able to hit so far?

The most important thing is that they continue to accurately hit their own artillery positions!

This doesn't make sense!

And after the surprise, he just discovered the truth that made people almost despair!

His artillery positions were destroyed one after another, even if the artillery of many artillery positions was still intact, but the artillery suffered heavy casualties, and the rest did not dare to brave the falling shells to come forward and control the artillery!

Own artillery units, completely suppressed!

As a veteran general who has been on the battlefield for a long time, he knows very well what the role of artillery is in battle, and he knows even more about what kind of bad consequences his artillery units will bring when they are suppressed!

But he could not have imagined that it had only been less than half an hour, and almost all of his artillery positions had been turned into ruins, not to mention the heavy casualties among the artillerymen, and there was no way to come out of the bunker and re-shell.

Because even if the artillery positions were empty, the artillerymen of the 6th Division on the opposite side were still unhurriedly firing grenades at these artillery positions.

It's only been half an hour, and nearly 100 artillery pieces on our side, a total of six artillery positions, have all been suppressed!

All this is simply because the other side has two artillery pieces that can hit far away!

What kind of artillery is this?

Why is it possible to shoot accurately at such a distance?

Although he couldn't even see it, it didn't prevent him from making a correct judgment: it was definitely a rifled artillery, otherwise it would not have had such a large effective range!

In the past, Fei Zhiyuan didn't understand why the Eighth Division outside Pingdan City was defeated so quickly.

The 8th Division also had a large amount of artillery and had solid field fortifications.

According to the convention, even if you can't beat it, but it is not a problem to keep it for ten days and half a month.

But from today's point of view, if the enemy forces faced by the 8th Division at that time also had this rifled artillery capable of shelling at long distances, then their artillery units would face the same situation as their own artillery units!

That is, it was completely suppressed, and there was no power to fight back!

When the artillery units are completely suppressed, the infantry line alone will never be able to stop the onslaught of the enemy.

The opponent's rear-loading artillery made the war no longer familiar and even made him feel strange!

But Fei Zhiyuan was unwilling to fail like this!

So I saw Fei Zhiyuan wave his hand: "Order the cavalry brigade to attack immediately and destroy their artillery unit!" ”

If it weren't for the fact that his own artillery units were suppressed too much, in fact he would not have been willing to take the initiative to send cavalry to attack the enemy's artillery positions.

The perimeter of the artillery unit of the people who didn't see it was protected by a heavy infantry phalanx, not to mention the enemy's cavalry was also eyeing from the side.

This initiative means that the strategic initiative has been taken initiative, and if one is not done well, a huge cavalry brigade will have to be lost.

But now, he has no other choice!

He can't just watch his artillery unit being suppressed, and then the infantry line is heavily shelled by the enemy, which will lead to the collapse of the whole army!

When the cavalry troops of the county guard headquarters began to move, on the front of the Sixth Division opposite them, Song You Shaoqing, the commander of the First Cavalry Regiment and the commander of the entire cavalry detachment, also turned on his horse, and then drew his saber and ordered: "All get on the horse!" ”

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