395 Battle of Thonburi (11)
The Siamese war elephants and horse teams were not meant to provide cover for the Siamese soldiers, but their greatest role was to quickly transport the soldiers through the area covered by the Tang army's firepower, reach the city, and launch an attack on Thonburi. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
In Southeast Asia, the war elephant is one of the most powerful siege weapons of the local army, some of the poor city gates, can even be knocked open by the war elephant in one fell swoop, in addition to the war elephant can also carry the battering ram, and even carry a soft ladder, for the climbing of the city wall, Siam does not have a city wall above ten meters high, so many soldiers can climb the city wall from the back of the war elephant by throwing a grappling hook.
The red flares in the sky lit up most of the battlefield, and the Tang army also found that the main direction of the Siamese army's attack no longer seemed to be one. However, due to the effective range of the flares, the Tang Army could not be sure that all the enemies were now appearing on the battlefield.
Chang Bin's face was grim, and he said: "Our enemy has summed up the lessons and lessons this time, attacked us in three aspects, and also used the cover of night to use cavalry to speed up the assault. If I'm not mistaken, there must be a large reserve behind them, and if they see which side is weak in defense, they will definitely throw themselves into it and break through our defense in one fell swoop. ”
The strength of the Marine Corps was only about 800 men, and they were scattered on three sides to defend the city, which greatly increased the difficulty. Fortunately, the Marines prepared a large number of light and heavy machine guns, and did not hesitate to rain bullets on the rushing Siamese troops.
In order to get the most out of the machine guns, the Marines operated a machine gun almost in two people, one to shoot, one to observe, and to change the ammunition and barrel. After the last battle, the Tang army also made certain adjustments and optimized its firepower arrangement. The end of the Siamese army was still stubble.
The Phayasuri faction is not to be taken lightly. He was for this siege. After making a lot of preparations, he had already ordered the generals and colonels under his command to pay attention to the fire coverage of the Tang army, and not to rush up with their heads in their heads. Having found the relatively weak point of the fire strike of the Don army, the troops were mobilized to storm from that direction.
This has to be said to be a relatively clever approach, but it is actually very unfeasible on the battlefield. In the feudal army, once the soldiers were stormed, it was difficult to give orders again. But there is a military flag. Let the soldiers follow the flag, but the Siamese standard-bearer is definitely the first to be killed, even if someone repeatedly results in the battle flag, there is only the consequence of being killed repeatedly, and in the end, the Siamese people are not attached to the battle flag.
The vast majority of the Siamese army was unable to make effective movements to avoid shooting, and the strength of about five or six thousand men in each group was basically shot head-on, that is, hundreds of people fell in front of the head, and the blood was extremely bloody.
But even so. Still breathing a sigh of relief, Phaya Suri said, "Today's situation is much stronger than the last time. If you are lucky, it is estimated that you will be able to reach the castle on three sides. Haha, the Tang artillery is not working at night, even if they have this illuminated strange thing, they can't stop us. ”
It's just that not long after the Phaya Surian faction was proud, when the soldiers of the Siamese army hit a certain distance, they only heard a few loud bangs, and saw some Siamese soldiers, even men and horses, and they were even directly swept away. The explosion also produced all kinds of flying fragments, which slashed at the Siamese soldiers, and they really fell somewhere.
"Cannon, it's a cannon!" Some of the Siamese soldiers were immediately frightened. However, they soon found that there did not seem to be any whistling sound of shells at all, and that the explosion had occurred for no reason.
And as more people rushed over, more explosions followed. The destructive power of this explosion was no less than that of the Tang cannon, and the explosion swept down one by one. The Siamese were terrified by the bombing, and they soon discovered that those who rushed to the front were definitely killed, and those who were behind were not. So some of the shrewd ones automatically slowed down and fell behind. But no one is stupid, and in the end, everyone can't move at all, and they don't dare to move forward when they are piled together.
It doesn't matter if they don't dare to move forward, but the Tang Army Marines won't let them go. Seeing a large group of people piled up there, several machine guns immediately beckoned to come, and the machine gun shells strafed, killing the hapless Siamese soldiers.
This is naturally the effect of the mines laid by the SEALs on the battlefield before, and the Siamese people do not understand the combat form of the Tang army at all, so they use their flesh and blood to wade through the mines, coupled with the fear of facing the unknown, so that the Siamese still hesitate. Even if an elephant steps on a landmine, it can blow one of its legs into a bloody blur, which is quite terrifying.
Machine guns, artillery, and mines made the battlefield more and more bloody and chaotic, but the Siamese still did not seem to give up, and this paranoid spirit made Chang Bin's heart sink, and he continued to attack despite thousands of casualties, which was somewhat more than the Tang people expected.
But no matter what, Chang Bin and the Marines must defeat them all.
When some Siamese troops had approached 200 meters of the city wall, Chang Bin was ready to fight hand-to-hand combat. The losses of the Siamese army this time were by no means smaller than the last time, and basically four or five thousand people died in each direction of the main attack, but due to the limited strength of the marines, and the night attack was relatively scattered with the Siamese army's formation, the Siamese army was still close to completing their battle objectives, approaching the city walls and city gates.
At a distance of fifty meters, the Siamese soldiers who rushed over did not know what kind of luck it was, because they had already fallen thousands of their companions behind them, of course, this did not mean that their good luck would continue, the closer they were, the easier it was for them to be hit by machine guns.
At this time, the Marine officers at the head of the city had already adjusted the target of the attack: "Give priority to shooting the enemy's war elephants with bazookas!" ”
This choice is also absolutely wise, because these elephants are the best siege weapons due to their size, whether it is to hit the city gate or climb the city, if they are allowed to get close to the city walls, it is obviously the worst consequences.
In fact, at this time, the number of war elephants rushing up was not much. Many elephants were killed by the time they encountered machine guns and mines, and some were so frightened that they overturned their riders and prepared to flee.
The rockets struck the elephants with their tails of smoke, and the poor creatures fell to their front hooves. And the Siamese soldiers kept crossing the corpses of fallen war elephants and companions, and even some of them had already entered the range of bows and arrows, and these archers were of course within the priority attack of the Tang army.
Armaments such as rams and siege engines are basically the priority of the Tang people, and the Tang army has bazookas, which are extremely destructive to these things. This also made it impossible for a large part of the Siamese army to effectively attack the city when they actually attacked under the city walls, because they had no siege equipment at all.
Some of the smarter guys chose to hide behind the overturned elephants and siege equipment, and the archers, who carried bows and arrows, carefully shot at the Don troops on the city walls. Naturally, this kind of bow and arrow shooting did not have a particularly good effect, but there were still soldiers of the Tang Army who were hit by arrows. However, these archers are often followed by a wave of more powerful firepower, with light machine gun bullets not penetrating cover for heavy machine guns, and heavy machine guns failing to get on the bazooka.
The second battle of Thonburi to defend the city, the Tang army can be said to have consumed the most ammunition since the formation of the army, only one machine gun bullet, the Tang army consumed about 400,000 rounds, in the middle of the battle, even many machine guns ran out of bullets, Chang Bin had to order the support personnel of the Tang army, and even mobilized the navy's sailors to move bullets for the marines, which also once made the firepower of the marines on the city wall uneven, and also caused the enemy to finally approach the city wall.
On the other side, the Phaya Surian faction learned that the Siamese army had made progress on the side of the West Gate and had attacked the city, and could not help but be overjoyed, and ordered: "Send me Zhu Wanglongpai and Vajladu men and horses to reinforce me, and give me a breakthrough through the West Gate in one go." ”
Left and right: "But our army has almost no siege equipment, and it may not be easy for the soldiers to attack the city!" ”
With a fierce cold light in his eyes, Phaya Suria Pai gritted his teeth and said, "Even if you pile up my flesh and blood, you have to climb the wall of Thonburi for me!" ”
Under the strong orders of the Phaya Surian faction, another group of Siamese troops rushed to the direction of the West Gate, this time this group of Siamese troops did not suffer as much losses as the previous siege troops, the mines were at least half of them crossed, plus half of the energy of the machine gunners on the city wall was involved by those guys under the city, but even so, this group of about 4,000 troops, by the time the city wall was down, there were only less than 2,000 left.
However, these 2,000 people still put a lot of pressure on the Tang soldiers defending the city, at such a close distance, as long as they rushed out, they were basically strafed by machine guns, even if a small number of Siamese soldiers with flintlock pistols or bows and arrows shot at the Tang army on the city wall, but still could not withstand the Tang army's terrifying fire suppression. In such a near-mortal situation, the Siamese people did not know what kind of spirit they were supporting, and climbed against the wall with grappling hooks and the like.
The muzzle of the machine gun was not easy to face down, so the soldiers in charge of reloading directly grabbed the submachine gun and shot at the city, and a large number of Siamese soldiers fell from the city. Some Don soldiers used sabers to cut the ropes of their grappling hooks. However, on this side they only had about 300 men, and even though they killed the enemy with dozens of times the efficiency, the Siamese people who followed each other still climbed the wall.
Of course, the first guy to climb up was immediately knocked down by a lieutenant officer with a pistol and fell off the wall.
Seeing that more bloody hand-to-hand combat was about to begin, Chang Bin ordered the other two marines to draw out their limited forces to reinforce them. (To be continued.) )