Chapter 77 Generalized Artillery Battles

Standing on the Cambridge of the armored cruiser USS Destein, Colonel Gallok looked through a high-powered telescope at the coastline five kilometers away, which was the land that the lieutenant general had planned to occupy, but which seemed to be a completely barren mountainous area.

After leaving the Quy Nhon area controlled by the French army, you can see continuous mountains in most of the two areas, and after entering the broad boundary, all you see are the rocks of the coastline, and the dark rocks are the result of long-term erosion of the sea. Apparently there are many more hidden killer reefs in existence.

That kind of place was not at all suitable for any kind of landing operation, Colonel Karrok immediately asserted, and along the way he now saw that the only suitable thing for landing operations was the sandy area along the coast in front of him, but apparently the Vietnamese were not stupid, and they had built two forts on two rocks not far from the coast.

Because of the distance, Colonel Karlok could not tell the type of artillery, but the information sent back by the missionaries in Vietnam showed that the Vietnamese had no way of obtaining any advanced artillery, so he judged that it was just some old cast-iron cannons, maybe even bronze......

After all, the first task of this trip was to search for the so-called fleet of the Great Qing Kingdom, and Gallok quickly hoisted the order flag to follow, and the three battleships were arranged in a horizontal formation spanning four nautical miles, with the "Destan" in the center, La Peruluz on the left flank, and the Nielli patrolling north along the coast at cruising speed on the right flank.

The three battleships slowly drove off the coast of Guangyi, and by the time Wu Jing, the general soldier of Guangyi, heard the news, the French battleships had disappeared! The commander of the fort reported that the French were sailing north, which surprised Wu Jing, and if the other party was going to attack Da Nang ...... to the south, he immediately ordered the herald to report the French warship to Da Nang.

However, it was evident that he had a wrong heart, and in the afternoon, the three French battleships were again slowly approaching the coastline from a distance, and the two batteries on the shore were obviously also in full formation, and soon after the appearance of the French battleships, a large number of soldiers appeared on the batteries!

Gallok looked at the battery in the distance, and after observing for a while, he smiled and asked Major Sikov, a staff officer on the side, "Major, in your opinion, how long can these Vietnamese resist the attack?" ”

Major Sikov also held a telescope and said contemptuously while observing, "Colonel, this is an ancient army with formation, and that old artillery battery and night should be the only weapons they can use to stop us!" ”

The two laughed, and Gallok observed for a while, and suddenly asked, "Major, where do you think this Qing fleet's fleet will go?" It's really strange, we all searched for them in the more than 100 nautical miles from Da Nang to Quang Neng, and we never saw a shadow, so they should have arrived ......a long time ago."

For this problem, the two have discussed it many times, in fact, according to the normal speed, even if it is climbing, then it should have climbed, of course, they will definitely not know that this Qingguo sailor they have been waiting for a long time is struggling in the mí voyage, otherwise the two of them will probably be half angry.

"Major, do 3 rounds of correction shè strikes! The battery on the south side of the front in front of the target! "Gallok finally got the important task of this fleet, I was looking forward to a bumper harvest on land and sea, but I didn't expect to go to sea for four days, except for these two batteries in the broad sense, the ghost shadow on the sea has not caught one, so he decided to start with the fort first, try to see the opponent's firepower, and when attacking in the future, he can attack the farthest distance from the other party, he is very sure, the artillery of the Vietnamese must be rubbish.

The cruiser Destein hoisted the flag of bombardment, and the three ironclad cruisers immediately shortened the distance to 1 nautical mile, sailed along the coastline at a cruising speed of 8 knots, and staggered the course, in order to avoid a collision on a short distance, this battleship had a sharp ramming angle in front of it, and in the face of this thin-skinned cruiser, it was a fatal thing to touch.

The two Mén 200mm main guns and the 180mm stern guns in the bow of the ship were involved in the shè attack, and the cannons on the French cruisers also used standard turrets with left and right angles of 250 degrees, and the gunners were protected by the so-called ironclad fort that had just emerged in this era, that is, a square or circular protective ring of the steel-armored siege, plus a roof. ,

And when moving sideways, the battleship can exert the full combat power of the main and auxiliary guns, Karok looked at the approaching opponent's battery, and secretly calculated in his heart that the effective range of the 200mm main gun equipped by the cruiser was only 4500m, and the maximum range was only more than 5000m, he quickly gave an order, "Order, the distance of the first round of shè shots is 3500m, and the three rounds of full fire shè shots, and calibrate after each shè shot!" ”。

The order was quickly issued to each gun emplacement, on which there was an artillery officer in charge of commanding the shè attack, and the concept of an optical rangefinder had not yet appeared in the shè strike tutorial of the French army, but as a naval power, of course, it also had its own set of shè strike routines in shè strikes.

The shè strike officer at the first gun position immediately gave the order to prepare for the shè shot, "Load yào packs 3 and use spherical blasting shells!" ”

This projectile has hundreds of kilograms, so it must be loaded by a machine, and the soldiers on the gun position quickly bring up the shells and yào bags through the gunner, and the artillery officer looked at the clock on the side, and the loading was very efficient, and it took only 70 seconds.

"The elevation angle is 37 degrees, and the deflection angle is 83.5 degrees! Look at the level and hit ...... again," the officer shouted, pulling his throat.

Rumble...... Rumble...... Rumble...... There was a loud bang, black smoke and fire from the muzzle of the gun, and the huge recoil caused the battleship to pan slightly, and all the officers on the three battleships tried to observe the rangefinder shells fired by their battleship, but the black smoke from the muzzle still caused trouble.

A few seconds later, the high-speed projectile slammed into the rocks on the shore, and the exploding projectile immediately kicked up a cloud of smoke and established three obvious distance markers on the distant coastline!

Karok stood in the command room and observed the situation on the shore, and he nodded with satisfaction about the efficient operation of the fleet. This cannon apparently woke up the Vietnamese troops guarding the forts on both sides, and the French went and returned, and most of the Vietnamese soldiers originally estimated that this was the return of the French, but unexpectedly ushered in a shelling! Suddenly, the two forts were crowded.

The ranging of the first gun showed that the distance between the fleet and the battery was very close to the preset distance of 3500m, and the estimate was about 3600-3800m.

The French soldiers on the gun emplacement nervously cleaned the chambers, and then quickly completed the second round of loading and yào packs, at this time, without any enemy interference, this qiē was as fast as in training, after the loading was completed, the thick barrel began to make slight adjustments.

Immediately after that, the second round of shelling began, only two and a half minutes after the first round of shelling, which was already a very efficient shè attack efficiency, and a total of 6mén 200mm main guns and 3mén 190mm secondary guns on the three ironclad cruisers roared at the same time......

This time, the estimates of the various officers were very accurate, only one shell flew over the top of the battery, and the other shells were scattered on the front side of the south side and the hillside near the left on the coast.

However, it is already a very difficult thing to hit a moving battleship, even if it is a fixed battery target, and the 200mm gun has dropped significantly at a distance of nearly 4000m, and the horizontal height of the battery is much higher than the sea level, so it is a difficult problem to directly hit the inside of the battery.

The shè shot was obviously a great encouragement to the French army, and the design officer was making new fine-tuning according to the bullet point, and soon the third round of shè firing began one after another, and the 190mm loading of the tail gun was slightly faster than the main gun in the bow, and the smoke rising from the barrel immediately attracted everyone's attention.

The shè fire of this round of tail guns can be said to be very perfect, one shell crossed the stone wall in front of the fort and hit the inside of the fort, and a fire suddenly rose on the fort, and thick black smoke rose from the fort, and the other shell hit the outer wall of the fort, collapsing a piece of stone wall, and the third shell also exploded very close to the fort.

Immediately, there was a cheer in the command room, and Colonel Gallok nodded with satisfaction, and two of the 15 shells were fired, close to 16%, which is an absolutely excellent result.

At the same time as the cruiser began the third round of shelling, the two shore guns of the Vietnamese finally began to counterattack, and the flames that came from the muzzles of the guns on the opposing batteries, Colonel Gallok and Major Sikov judged the caliber of the other side in unison - "5-inch guns!" 8mén”

The whistling shells fell on the sea nearly a thousand meters in front of the fleet, and there was no trace of the explosion, it turned out to be a very primitive solid bomb ......,

In response to this round of shelling, the roar of the destroyer's six main guns dissipated, and after the smoke of the nòngnòng dissipated, the Vietnamese battery in the distance did not react, and all six shells fell on the rock in front of the battery, and none of them hit the target, even the outer wall of the battery did not cause any damage.

After being attacked by the opponent's artillery, seeing that the shè Cheng of the opponent's artillery could not attack the cruising battleship at all, the atmosphere that was still a little tense suddenly relaxed for the French soldiers, and they whistled to each other, and the loading speed suddenly reached the highest efficiency of the usual training, and it only took 2 minutes and 10 seconds to complete the preparation for the shè attack.

Once again, the officers adjusted the angle of the design, this was the last round of shelling, and it was clear that in addition to being relaxed, they also hoped to complete the day's cruise with a perfect round of shelling.

This round of shè strikes did not start at the same time, each shè strike officer was after careful consideration, and proposed a new design elevation angle and offset angle, and the officers were shouting loudly, "Steady, steady, wait for the hull level before sending shè!" ”

Then the rumbling cannon sounded again, the cannonballs whistled out, straight to the battery on the opposite stone cliff, the French on the three battleships were full of confidence looking forward to the results, but the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment, this time the nine shells of the three battleships were still not collected, the bullet point in the Vietnamese army battery continued to fall, a burst of smoke rose, but did not see any shells fall into the battery.

Colonel Gallok smiled awkwardly, obviously the second round of three shots and two hits, it was the favor of the god of luck, and the shè attack after that was the normal play, but this can't be blamed on the shè strike officer, after all, at the shè strike distance of 3500m, the hit rate of the artillery is really not high, not to mention that this is still a hanging shè from a low place to a high battery.

However, today's shè attack was obviously not without results, and seeing that the shells that fired again on the opposite fort fell into the sea in the distance, Gallok calculated that the next attack on the fort seemed to be able to carry out a close shè strike......

The sky gradually darkened, and the three cruisers followed, heading in the direction of the downstream Qiujiang River, today's enemy's appearance was too bad, and the caliber of the opponent's artillery was also obviously better than his own, but the interval between the two rounds of shè was much longer, and the shè was far inferior to the 200mm heavy guns on the battleship. Therefore, when returning home, the lookout post on the mast rested very calmly for a while, and even ignored a mast that suddenly appeared in the distance behind him.

The cruiser had been cruising outside for the fifth day, and the commander of the fleet, Colonel Galloque, had decided to go to a nearby French port to refuel.

Seeing the French retreat, the Vietnamese let out a cheer from the fort to celebrate the repulsion of the French attack, but by this time a military camp had been set up on the hill, with a cliff at the back, which was not accidentally injured by shelling from the sea, and there was a mountain road leading to the coast in front of it, which was convenient for supporting the fort.

Wu Jin, the general soldier of Guangyi, was sitting in the camp tent at this time, and in the morning the French army approached and peeped at the fort, which had not happened since the conclusion of the so-called "Vietnam-France Treaty of Peace and Alliance", which made him smell an unusual smell, which was his foundation, and he immediately decided to accumulate troops to the fort, defend with all his might, and recruit people to transport fire and pellets to the fort.

After a while, his younger brother, Wu Fang, the general of the Guangyi Army, ran in with a smile and said: "Big brother, it's really a miracle, this Frenchman really came to attack, those two rounds of artillery, I specially reduced the fire by three points according to your order, I didn't expect these Frenchmen to slip away really fast!" I didn't take the bait......"

"The French ships are strong and artillery, this is the last resort, remember to arrange the guns and birds, if you come to attack, I am afraid that it will be difficult to parry, the good ones do not come, and the ones who come are not good!"