The history of Venice is said to have begun in the 5th century, when nearby farmers and fishermen fled to the islands off the Adriatic Sea to escape the nomadic sword-thirsty people. Venice is built on a shallow beach 4 kilometers offshore, with an average depth of 1.5 meters, and the city covers an area of less than 7.8 square kilometers, but there are 118 small islands and 177 canals dotted like cobwebs. Many of the islands are small enough to accommodate only one or two buildings, and in peacetime they are unique scenery of "water towns", and in the beacon years, they become the positions of the defenders who fought hard to stop the enemy......

Through simple but clever tactical tactics, Maguire and his marines captured a small island of only two buildings at a fraction of the cost and quickly cleared the island of Italian defenders.

According to the brigade headquarters' battle plan, after Maguire's regiment cooperated with the Austro-Hungarian army to capture these adjacent islands, the next goal was to attack the largest island in Venice, that is, the main island, with friendly troops. The island is home to more than half of Venice's buildings, including some of the most historic and imposing buildings, with a permanent population of tens of thousands, and is connected to the Apennine Peninsula by a 4-kilometer-long railway bridge.

Before the Battle of Venice began, the Allied forces destroyed the bridge built in the middle of the last century with guided bombs, leaving the Italian defenders only able to communicate with the outside world by water, which to a certain extent undermined the morale of the defenders and reduced the resilience of the Italian defense system.

The island that Maguire and his soldiers fought so hard to capture was actually the closest "pedal" to the main island, but there was still more than 200 meters of water between the two. It was obviously impossible to force a crossing under the guns of the Italian defenders with flesh and blood alone.

The valiant marines rested in place for more than an hour, during which time the soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Army brought in machine guns, mortars, and light infantry guns as the main fire support for the attack. The battle lasted from early morning to mid-morning, and both sides seemed to be tired, and the sound of gunfire around them sounded much more sparse, but it was only a deceptive illusion.

With a different roar, a number of small ships painted in light gray sailed into the waterways of Venice from the east. Some of them were common river gunboats, some were coastal patrol ships, some were landing ships, and even civilian ships that had been temporarily converted – to capture a city like Venice would certainly not be possible with aircraft, artillery, and infantry. Before the battle began, the Allied command transferred as many landing ships and light gunboats with a shallower draft from the naval bases of Trieste, Bum and Pula, and drove to the east coast of Venice under the cover of the Austro-Hungarian fleet to transport thousands of Allied soldiers to the city of Venice.

Although these ships played an important role in the early days of the coalition attack on Venice, their numbers and capacity were far from sufficient for high-intensity combat. Under these circumstances, the Austro-Hungarian ** team had no choice but to quickly recruit gunboats and patrol ships on the Danube to come to support, and recruit fast boats and yachts from the residents of the Adriatic coast to participate in the war.

After two days and two nights of fierce fighting, the coalition forces occupied most of Venice except for the main island and a few other islands, and paid the price of more than 4,000 dead and more than 6,000 wounded, and another 30 ships sunk and dozens damaged. The loss of ships is certainly due to the night raids of the Italian Navy, but it also has a lot to do with the weak defense and poor adaptability of these ships......

As the coalition ships approached the main island, the exchange of fire between the two armies suddenly heated up. On the surface of the water, the columns of water stirred up by the cannonballs rose one after another, and when it was dense, it was like a violent storm. The gunboats and warships flying the Austro-Pleno flag braved the rain of bullets, and the Austro-Hungarian ** detachments that occupied the adjacent islands also supported them with various weapons. Not long after, a thunderous roar was heard on the east bank of the city, and that was the proud heavy artillery unit of Austria-Hungary!

A piercing scream burst through the air, instantly transforming into a dazzling light and a shock that shook the ground. Under the repeated bombardment of the Austro-Hungarian artillery units, the main island of Venice has become a "disaster scene", and as far as the eye can see, it is full of ruined walls.

Smoke from heavy shells drifted over the heads of the Italian defenders, and several buildings that had been set ablaze by the fire silently spewed tongues of fire and smoke. Suppressed by this, the artillery fire of the defenders on the main island of Venice tended to cease, and the ships flying the Austro-Hungarian flag hurriedly rushed forward.

As they approached the shore, orange cannon flames erupted from the ruined buildings and rubble. At a distance of only three or four hundred meters or even closer, the Italians shelled almost one by one. In the blink of an eye, seven or eight ships caught fire, some quickly capsized, and the survivors had no choice but to abandon the ship and jump into the water, while others forced themselves to rush ashore and continue to endure the baptism of Italian guns. As for those who were not directly hit, whether they were injured or not, they did everything in their power to get the fighters on board to the near shore position, and when the "unloading" was completed, they quickly withdrew backwards.

Just then, a different kind of roar came from the east. The allied air forces, which basically have air supremacy on the battlefield, fly to Venice in relatively scattered small echelons to carry out precise bombing of the targets guided by the flare flares of their ground forces, or find and attack the defenders' firepower points in the process of free hunting......

From a good vantage point, Corporal Cardwell, Maguire's full-time sniper, watched the battlefield intently for a long time, and from time to time gave "live commentary" to his colleagues:

"It's too bad, another gunboat has been hit, oh...... It exploded, like a ball of fireworks......"

"There was less than a company of soldiers who landed, and they were suppressed by the enemy's machine guns under the cruise ship dock, and they couldn't climb up at all, and climbing up was a dead end......

"Oh...... Another light landing craft was hit, fortunately most of the soldiers disembarked, and the casualties should not be too great, but their landing position was still thirty or forty meters from the shore, and the number of people who could avoid the enemy's machine guns and mortars and hold on to the shore was probably only half of them, maybe less than half of them......"

Maguire coughed twice: "Isn't there a little good news to bring us?" ”

Corporal Cardwell was able to become an excellent sniper first of all thanks to his innate good eyesight. The young Irishman, who was striding on the road of an ace sniper, observed for a moment on the other side: "Our bombardment has just destroyed one of the enemy's most threatening firing points, and behold the explosion, the Italian gunners have been blown up into the sky by their own ammunition!" ”

Immediately afterward, the sniper glanced farther away a few times, and his voice was slightly excited: "Ha! Lo and behold, that's our 'Raiders', at least one squadron! ”

The Marines who were sitting and resting got up to watch, but Maguire stayed motionless and said in a lukewarm tone, "Oh, it's finally the turn of the boys of the 2nd Marine Regiment to be tested by the Goddess of Fate." ”

In the early stage of World War II, Germany and Ireland jointly developed and equipped a number of amphibious combat vehicles for the purpose of fighting against Britain, which later played an important role in the Allies' landing in Britain and the invasion of Central and North America. By the end of World War II, the Germans were equipped with more than 4,000 amphibious combat vehicles of various types, and the Irish Navy was also equipped with more than 1,200 vehicles.

Based on the fact that the Battle of the "Chain of Piave" encompassed the coastal areas of southern Veneto, especially Venice, a unique seaside fortress, the new United Kingdom sent the 1st and 2nd Marine Brigades to the Italian-Austrian battlefield at the same time, and urgently activated 150 Raider II amphibious combat vehicles, along with 60 Raider III in active service, to Austria-Hungary.

The Raider II is equipped with a hemispherical machine gun turret common to domestic bombers, with two 12.7 mm machines as the main armament, and can carry 6,000 rounds of machine gun rounds; the performance and battlefield positioning of the Raider III are closer to that of an amphibious combat vehicle, equipped with the standard turret of the "Patrol" combat vehicle, and the K-40 42 times diameter 75 mm gun and 7.92 mm coaxial machine gun can provide strong close support for the landing force.

With an unladen weight of less than 20 tons, these amphibious combat vehicles are suitable for transportation and deployment by rail, and in landing operations, they are more mobile and flexible than gunboats, more robust than civilian ships, and more importantly, they can transport fighters ashore and provide them with continuous cover, which greatly improves the penetration capability of the landing force.

After a few moments, Corporal Cardwell whispered, "Look north, there's another squadron over there!" ”

Like the flying squadrons of the Royal United Kingdom Air Force, the Navy's amphibious combat vehicle squadron is the equivalent of a company-sized unit, with a regular strength of 12-16 combat vehicles, although not many in absolute terms, but it still looks quite formidable in the relatively narrow waterways of Venice.

After half an hour of bombardment, the Austrian heavy artillery on the periphery temporarily quieted down, but this did not prevent the coalition artillery in the city from continuing to suppress the Italian firing points on the main island. The new United Kingdom Navy amphibious fighting vehicles, which were put into battle as the second wave of attack groups, staggered past the withdrawn Austrian ships during the voyage, forming a very sharp contrast between the neat and high-spirited troops on one side and the chaotic and disgraced ranks on the other.

However, no amount of handsome appearance was enough to make the enemy give up resistance, and these amphibious vehicles were also tested by the defenders' artillery fire before approaching the main island of Venice from both directions, and their solid armored hulls were also the result of a direct hit by an Italian shell.

At this time, the Allied front-line aviation units, which had already advanced their forward bases into Italian territory, were once again killed, and groups of fighters used unguided rockets to violently bombard Italian positions, and tactical bombers continued to perform a stunt of 100 steps, sometimes destroying entire buildings, sometimes detonating ammunition on Italian artillery positions, a major quintessence of Italian culture, and the great power ambitions that the Italians had gradually built up in the past century, were reduced to ashes in this rumbling explosion......