The first flare that Weiss shot alone flew towards the mountains and forests in the distance. When it passed the highest point of its trajectory, it turned from rising to falling, and only then did it shine in the air. In the thick fog of dawn, a miserable white flame loomed, as if it were nothing. In such an environment, it is very likely that the lookouts on the Norman battleship were unaware of the flare, and the Norman crew who had evacuated from the transport ship and fled into the mountains and forests to wait for the opportunity were likely to notice the flare, and, nine times out of ten, thought that it was fired by their own warship, so they rejoiced......

Half a minute later, Weiss fired another shot in the same way, this time with a slight adjustment of the elevation and firing angles, so that the final landing point of the flare was slightly offset. After a while, a fire and black smoke appeared in the distant woods, and the flames and black smoke were wrapped in a thick fog, and they could not be distinguished from the distance. You must know that the covering height of the fog is usually about 2,000 feet, and may even reach more than 3,000 feet, and the black smoke produced by combustion, even if the fuming agent is added, can only reach a height of a few hundred feet. As for open flames, the effective observation distance is much closer than smoke.

The "human radar" was not ineffective, and Weiss used flares to lure the fleeing Norman crews into fire, not to search and locate their positions, but to disrupt their thinking, unable to distinguish between the enemy and the friendly forces, so that they could not smoothly connect with the reinforcements. Therefore, when the Norman crew lit the fire, Weiss immediately bombarded it with high-explosive shells. A pile of fire, two shells, "left and right bows" in a whole circle, ten shells were fired, one fire was extinguished, killing and injuring two Norman crews...... The direct effect is limited, and the psychological effect is endless. Although the Norman warship in the sky followed the trail, it did not dare to get too close at all, let alone land rashly. By keeping the enemy in a state of confusion and confusion, Weiss managed to buy some more time, but it wasn't enough to get through it. After about fifty minutes, the Norman transport ship, which had been lying on its stomach and had stopped burning, finally heard the rumbling roar of machinery again, and the chimney, which had been silent for a long time, sprayed smoke out continuously.

Under the on-site guidance of the "free man" under Weiss's command, the two strong men of the tribe who were transferred back moved a batch of shells from the ammunition depot to the woods in front of them, and divided them into two piles, one large and one small, and the "free men" also placed explosives and time-delays in the two piles of shells according to Weiss's instructions.

After a short time, two explosives were detonated one after the other - a small pile of shells exploded first, and a large pile of bombs a dozen seconds later. From a distance, it sounded as if a heavy cannon had fired, and then the shells fell with an earth-shattering explosion.

It's a simple and practical magic trick of sound and light!

In the thick fog, on the wandering Norman battleship, the commander and crew relied on listening to the position to deduce the strength of the opponent - through a special vision, Weiss saw that the Norman battleship was very embarrassed to retreat in the opposite direction, and it was not until more than half an hour later that another Norman battleship appeared, and it turned around and flew back in this direction.

The second Norman warship that came to the aid was no longer an ordinary miscellaneous fish, but a cruiser with considerable strength. In this more than half an hour, Weiss's "free men" brought a batch of ammunition to the woods with the tribe's heroes. After receiving Weiss's instructions, the "free man" repeated his old tricks, and engaged in a sound and light show that was small first and then large. This reality and fiction made the Normans even more confused.

After watching from afar for a while, the two Norman battleships that were moving together finally made a move: the cruiser opened the way in front, at a height of about 800 feet; The cruiser pressed in the rear, at a height of about a thousand feet. They were one after the other, separated by three miles between the front and back, and carried out a straight track interspersed with a uniform speed over this mountain forest.

In the process, Weiss was 60% sure that the enemy ships would be hit, but he remained unmoved, allowing them to pass by the nearby airspace. The reason for the silence was that the shells were not powerful enough to inflict substantial damage on any enemy ship, and once fired, the enemy's fire reconnaissance had achieved its purpose. Without firing, the enemy only saw an area in the mountains and forests filled with wolf smoke, as if they had just gone through a fierce battle, and perhaps heard the faint roar of machinery - out of instinct, the battleship commander and their staff were first concerned about whether there was a deadly threat in this dense fog, and the signs of the moment could easily give them a bad illusion: there was probably an enemy raider hiding here!

There is no doubt that since the outbreak of this war, the biggest change in both the battlefield technology and tactics and the macro-strategic level has been in the air. At the beginning of the war, the aviation units of the two warring sides were almost all flying ships, and in less than three years, the main body followed the principle of aerodynamic combat aircraft sprung up, becoming enough to influence the situation of the war in the air combat force, but in many aspects, the flying ships with star source stones as the floating power still have the characteristics that are difficult to compare with aircraft, so the replacement of flying ships by aircraft is far from reaching the point of "doing whatever you want". Even the federal army, which once lost all its large warships and relied on fighters to seize front-line air supremacy, still invested a lot in the quality and quantity of flying ships, and designed and built new types of ships, such as high-speed attack ships, air defense frigates, aircraft-carrying carriers, and high-speed transport ships, around strategic and tactical needs. Among them, the number of high-speed assault ships is small, the tonnage is not large, and the number of appearances is also limited, but almost every time they break into the area controlled by the Norman army, they have to stir up wind and waves, and turn over the river and the sea. In clear weather, the Normans focused on guarding against the swarm bombardment of Union fighters in their own airspace, while in the less good weather such as wind, rain and fog, the Normans focused on guarding against long-distance attacks by Union raiders.

High speed, high firepower, high rate of fire, strong survival...... To combine these four key features, the Union Army has applied a variety of new technologies to the new high-speed assault ships, resulting in unique architectural features. If a head-on challenge is conducted fairly and justly, it is difficult for this kind of raider to defeat the Norman cruisers, but if it is an encounter and a chaotic battle, the winning rate of the two sides is basically five to five, and the key depends on which side can take the lead. In this thick fog, even if the Normans fought the federal raiders with cruisers and corvettes two-on-one, if they lost the first move, they would probably lose the battle, which is the fundamental reason why they are cautious!

After a while, two Norman warships came back in circles. This time, they still choose to intersperse in a straight line, and the speed and spacing remain the same, but the angle and height of the cut have been changed. Before they could get closer, Weiss fired three incendiary bombs into the downwind forest, creating a new source of fire and smoke.

Twice ventured through the thick fog, but never found out the enemy's situation, the Normans, who had been defeated one after another, must have been very angry. They lingered for a moment in the distance, tentatively projecting fire into the depths of the fog with small and medium-caliber naval guns, and the shells whizzed down into the mountains and forests, and the shells landed near and far away, far away from the transport, which could not take off again.

Seeing the tribal warriors lying on the ground outside the transport ship, Weiss poked his head out of the gun emplacements and shouted in Ulster: "There is no danger, continue to carry!" ”

Some of them could understand the Ulster language, and the shells were indeed far away, so they climbed up one after another.

"No problem! Keep moving! Weiss continued.

When the warriors of the tribe began to carry the wooden boxes of food again, Weiss turned his attention back to the two Norman ships. After about a quarter of an hour of brainless bombardment and more than 100 shells, they began to try new tactics: the cruiser reduced its flight speed by half, to an altitude of three or four hundred feet, and resumed its S-shaped route, while the cruiser continued to maintain its flight altitude of more than 1,000 feet, and circled in a large circle in the vast fog at its original speed.

Seeing this, Weiss couldn't help but clench his fists—not nervous from worry, but a nervous feeling of excitement. Allowing the enemy to kill each other without knowing why, if not by chance, is the work of top-level tactical strategy. He kept a close eye on the positions of the two enemy ships, constantly making corresponding ballistic calculations, and thinking backwards from the perspective of the enemy ship commander. Fortunately, the enemy's corvette advanced slowly, and the cruiser was mechanically circling in circles, giving him enough patience and concentration to find the right moment and entry point.

Before you know it, a long time has passed. Weiss's "free men" came back and reported: "Sir, almost seventy percent of the designated supplies have been moved, and it is expected that they will be completed in another two hours. ”

Two hours or three hours, in Weiss's view, is not fundamentally different. Under the condition of ensuring the safety of the main force of the guerrilla advance force, there is no need to force all or most of the food that can be transported, and it is already a very good result to move out 70 or 80 or 90 percent at this time.

"Just in time!" Weiss asked the soldier to come to the gun position, told him how to fire the artillery, and after loading the shells and adjusting the firing angle, he ran to the gun position on the other side, loaded and adjusted, and spent a few seconds mentally checking the side, and shouted in the air: "Listen to my commands...... Fire! ”

The "free man" immediately pulled the cannon rope, and Weiss deliberately slapped the rope later. Two high-explosive shells came out of their chambers, they first ascended, and after 9-10 seconds of flight, they reached the highest point of the trajectory, at which time the flight of the shells tended to be horizontal, and then the shells began to fall - when one or two of them hit the Norman cruiser, the shape of the explosion and the traces left behind would give the enemy the misleading idea that the shells were fired from a similar or higher altitude.

Field gun-level fire, even if two shots are all hit, the threat to a Norman cruiser is almost negligible, but this fleeting explosion just stimulated the sensitive nerves of the Normans, the flying battleship immediately returned fire violently in the direction where the shells flew, unfortunately, the cruiser that coordinated with it was in the direction of the cruiser's gunfire, even if it escaped for a while, the officers and crew on the ship were also frightened by this scene, and hurriedly sent a warning telegram: Our ship has encountered an enemy attack!