With coercion and lure in one hand, Weiss temporarily resolved the "internal contradictions", and then it was time to seriously deal with the "external threats". If it hadn't been for the accident, according to the original route and speed, the Norman transport ship would have arrived at Tashur by this moment - half an hour late, the Normans might not have thought it strange, but more than half an hour, any competent commander would have been alert, and as soon as he contacted the Wallens, he would know the departure time of the transport, and this simple straight line could only be lost: a serious breakdown, or an enemy attack. In either case, search and rescue forces must be dispatched quickly. Flying ships are of course the most efficient, but the dense fog in the mountains and forests makes it difficult for them to spot the wreckage of a fallen transport ship even if they fly through the vicinity without reliable guidance. However, many Norman crews had escaped before, and they would not organize a counterattack on their own without knowing the details of their opponents, but once they heard the movement of the flying ship, they would definitely try to attract the attention of their allies and lead them here to recapture the wreckage of the transport.

After clearing his mind, Weiss immediately thought hard about countermeasures: It would take a day to wait for the main force of the guerrilla advance force to arrive, and then transfer away with supplies, so how could he win this day under the nose of the enemy? With their existing manpower and composition, it is unrealistic to take the initiative to hunt down and hunt down those Norman ships who have fled to the mountains and forests, perhaps they can strike first and lure the enemy's flying ships down to inflict heavy damage, so that they will not dare to come down and connect with the fleeing Norman soldiers, or try to send a terrible message to the enemy - the Federation Army sent powerful cruisers to lure and destroy the light ships of the Norman army through the thick fog, and the Normans had to mobilize large warships to come, It will definitely take some time......

Fortunately, with the tribal warriors who reached a mercenary relationship, Weiss's plan could be put into practice. The only immediate combat force under his command helped to find the cargo list on the transport ship, and he quickly checked it, and none of the steel bars, steel plates, steel castings, cement, wires, dried rue wheat, canned wheat cakes, canned sauce meat, etc., could be used to overturn the Norman ships. As a military transport ship, its arsenal only stores a small number of guns and ammunition, and defensive weapons also include rapid-fire guns and machine guns installed in various combat positions on the side - the largest caliber, that is, the cruiser's secondary gun level, which is used to drive out enemy fighters, and against regular combat ships, even if it has the upper hand, it is difficult to have a 1 percent chance to beat the opponent down, not to mention that there are not even enough gunners at the moment...... What's the matter?

As the minutes ticked by, Weiss realized that he could not expect a vigorous victory under such conditions, so he made a move to the strong men of the tribe to move boxes of food in the cargo hold to the nearby woods to hide, and brought his rifles to clear the woods within a radius of five miles. As he expected, the survivors who had escaped from the transport ship did not leave, and some of them hid in the woods, waiting for an opportunity under the cover of night, vegetation, and the fog. Driven by the desire to survive, Weiss doesn't care whether the enemy is unarmed or not, as long as he doesn't leave, he is the object of his hunting, and if he consciously flees when he hears the gunshot, he will not pursue.

After more than an hour, Weiss returned to the transport ship in a big circle, and although there was only one guerrilla advance party soldier in the town, the tribal warriors who had been given freedom of movement did not slip away or slack off, but buried themselves in their work, and their individual efficiency was naturally not much better than that of the stevedores at the Wallence Air Transit Station. However, manpower is manpower after all, and it is not comparable to mechanical transportation, and at the current rate, even if the utility decay after a large amount of physical exertion is not considered, it will take at least five or six hours to move all the food.

Five or six hours......

Weiss entered the transport ship and inspected the wounded one by one. The transport ship has a medical room, equipped with basic medical equipment and medicines, ordinary trauma can be properly treated, and a period of rest can be recovered, and among the four wounded soldiers, two of them were blown off by bullets - one lost his right arm, and the other left leg was scrapped on the spot.

On the bridge, the wounded man with a broken leg grinned at Weiss and said, "Sir, you just went hunting raccoon dogs!" ”

As soon as he finished speaking, his cheeks twitched unnaturally a few times, and a few drops of cold sweat slipped down his sideburns. In the Ulster Free Federation, raccoon dogs are a common creature in the wilderness woods, they are cautious and agile like cats, and rarely attack people, but they are one of the most popular game meats, and they are also the trophy of hunters to show off their archery skills.

Although Weiss has not personally experienced the pain of a broken leg, he also knows what kind of torture and torment it is. He crouched down and looked at each other with relieved eyes: "Killed two, and the rest fled." ”

"Count them as fast as they run!" The wounded man with a broken leg said hatefully. Running, for him, has become a luxury.

"These people are not to be worried, what is really troublesome is the reinforcements that the enemy may come at any time." Weiss said as he climbed the ladder outside the bridge to the broken signal tower, the highest point of the transport ship and the commanding height within a radius of ten miles. He raised his eyes and saw that in the woods beyond the range, he could still find more than a dozen enemy crews, only a few of them were moving quickly, and most of them stayed somewhere and did not move. Without foreign help, these stinky fish and shrimp are insignificant, and once the Norman battleship arrives, these guys will definitely find a way to make contact. While driving the enemy through the woods, Weiss had spotted two Norman crews collecting piles of dry branches, apparently intending to light them up at the right time to provide ground guidance to the air force.

As his gaze moved up, the expression on Weiss's face froze.

What should come will come!

Judging by the silhouette of the battleship and the combat readings, the Norman battleship that appeared in the special field of view belonged to the second class of cruisers, which can be said to be the weakest among the combat ships. Although this kind of "king called me to patrol the mountains" role does not have the terrifying deterrent power of cruisers, assault ships, and battleships, it is still an existence that is enough to subvert everything for Weiss and the remnants of his command!

Exiting the special vision, Weiss's world was still gray. It was dawn at this time, and the night was fading, and the dense morning fog continued to obscure the vision, but the visual distance had gradually increased from nearly zero in the night to three or five feet, and after a while, it might reach ten or twenty feet...... The limitation of visual distance made it impossible for the enemy's air and ground personnel to detect each other early, and it was even possible that the Norman battleship flew by several miles away without the ground personnel being able to detect it.

That's right, to confuse the enemy's audio-visual!

From the bridge down to the deck, Weiss summoned the only soldier who could move freely and lectured him on the opportune moment. After a while, he found Bearded Brother and another tribal warrior and led them to the ship's boiler room to see if he could relight a boiler.

Weiss then moved to the side gun emplacements under the bow, where the two largest guns on the ship, one on the left and one on the right. Weiss has previously examined that they are 16PIR (equivalent to 80mm) caliber naval rapid-fire guns of the Norman army, with a horizontal range of about 35,000-40,000 feet and an anti-air range of about 20,000-25,000 feet; Using hydraulic buffers, without a mechanical auxiliary loader, the combat rate of fire was estimated at 6-8 rounds per minute. This time, he took a more detailed look at it from a combat perspective: both guns were equipped with improvised gun shields, which provided the gunner with relatively limited protection; There are four types of spare ammunition on the battle position, judging from the shape of the warhead and the identification of the type of ammunition, they are high-explosive shells, flares, grenade shells, incendiary bombs, and no armor-piercing shells. After that, Weiss made a quick inventory of the shells in the ammunition depot, in this small ammunition depot, there were only 60 high-explosive shells, 24 flares, 60 grenade shrapnels, and 36 incendiary shells of 16PIR caliber shells, all of which were packed in wooden ammunition boxes in three-round boxes, which of course did not compare with the amount of reserves of battleships - it was obvious that the Normans did not consider the need for transports to be involved in ship-to-ship firefights, high-explosive shells and incendiary bombs were used against ground targets, and shrapnel shells were used against enemy fighters, Flares are designed to meet the needs of night operations.

In the process of counting the ammunition, Weiss's operational ideas became clearer and clearer. When the count was completed, he rolled up his sleeves and carried out 4 boxes of high-explosive bombs and incendiary bombs, and spread them evenly on the two gun positions, plus the conventional reserve ammunition, 15 high-explosive shells, 15 incendiary bombs, 2 flare shells, and 4 shrapnel shells could be used on each side.

After preparing the ammunition, Weiss took a moment to familiarize himself with the operation of this Norman naval gun. Through his experience in guerrilla warfare in Lorraine, he became familiar with the various conventional weapons of the Norman army, as if to a level comparable to the weapons of the Union army. After such preparations, he once again observed the position of the enemy warship and found that the enemy ship was taking an S-shaped route in the air, which slowed down the advance speed but could spread out the reconnaissance surface to the greatest extent.

There was still no obvious movement in the lower cabin, Weiss personally ran to the boiler room, and the boiler was just lit at this time - the coal outside was wet from the previous emergency fire spray, and several coal bunkers were also soaked in water, and the strong men of the tribe had to pull dry coal from the farther coal bunkers to use it, so it took a lot of time. The oil is poured on, the fire is ignited, the boiler is rekindled, and then it takes a while to produce enough steam to propel the steam engine into action before the mechanical roar sounds.

Just waiting?

Of course not!

Burning boilers and turning on machines is not even an auxiliary battle at all, and Brother Beard and his tribe warriors have no reason to oppose water. These two people, one to deal with the boiler and the other to carry coal, did not take long and could completely cope with it. So, Weiss asked his "free men" to go outside to find two more tribal warriors to come back, and then personally negotiated with Brother Beard, asking him to help him carry some shells from the transport's ammunition depot to the nearby woods. After that, he returned to the bow, selected the left gun position, opened the gun latch, took out a flare, adjusted the delay to the maximum, loaded, turned the shaker, adjusted the elevation angle of the gun to 45 degrees, and the horizontal angle of fire was on par with the bow, took a deep breath, and pulled the gun rope suddenly......