Han Duotian looked at the faint figure of the enemy in the telescope, and he realized that the enemy's counterattack was about to begin, but at this time, his troops did not all get up and shoot to block, because now the enemy's shelling is still continuing, and it is not a good idea to rashly come out of the anti-artillery hole, in addition, the enemy is also relatively far away, not to mention the infantry shooting at this distance, and the heavy machine guns on the side are not going to fire.

Although the range of the heavy machine gun can reach thousands of meters, the accuracy is outrageously low after that distance, and the heavy machine gun consumes a lot of ammunition, and the Fengtian Army under Zhao Dongyun is not a great force, and the bullets can be shot out like money, and the ammunition that this heavy machine gun can get is limited.

So usually, the heavy machine guns in the third town are generally suppressed at a distance of five or six hundred meters, and sometimes in order to save bullets and kill more targets, they will even take the initiative to put them into a distance of about three or four hundred meters.

According to the effective range of contemporary rifles and heavy machine guns, the best firing distance for heavy machine guns is between 350 meters and 400 meters, because this distance is just the effective range of heavy machine guns, although the accuracy is still not good, but a series of bullets do not need too high accuracy, but at a distance of 350 meters, for the attacking infantry, this distance is difficult for them to use the rifle in their hands to counterattack.

Considering the effective range of the heavy machine gun, this is also the main reason why Zhao Dongyun asked the 60mm mortar to have an effective range of 500 meters, in order to be able to fire shells beyond the effective range of the heavy machine gun.

This attack on the Sixth Town, in the eyes of many officers who were watching the battle with binoculars, was a standard attack that could not be more standard.

Xi Hezhi, who was in the back, said while looking at it: "It seems that this Wang Shizhen is still a little capable, and the practice of this sixth town is not bad!" ”

Xi Hezhi did not despise the enemy he was facing, because not to mention the confrontation battles in the past few days, the level of infantry and artillery coordination displayed by the Sixth Town alone was no longer something that other armies in the country could do.

"This artillery support before the attack is about a battalion of artillery, judging by their ballistics, it should be field artillery!" Wu Peifu in the rear also looked at it with a telescope, and when he said this, he still showed pity on his face, if the Sixth Town was to use mountain artillery to support close to him, he would not be able to fight a counter-artillery battle again.

As for now, don't think about the anti-artillery, the long-range field artillery in the sixth town of the people is at least ten kilometers away from Wu Peifu's artillery position, and unless the shells are equipped with wings, they will not be able to fly to the heads of others.

However, he couldn't hit the artillery of the Sixth Town, but he couldn't sit and watch the show, so when the Sixth Town dispatched artillery to bombard the frontline positions of the Third Town, Wu Peifu's artillery battalion also immediately opened fire to suppress the soldiers of the Sixth Town who were preparing to attack.

For a time, the artillery deployed in the rear of the two sides opened fire one after another, and the battle was all in point and line, the sixth town wanted to attack the section of the salient controlled by Han Duotian, since it was necessary to launch a companion attack on the battle line around the salient in order to contain the other troops in the third town, and in this way, the scale of the battle was suddenly expanded from the team level and platoon level to the battalion level.

And the battalion-level battle will inevitably involve artillery units, heavy machine guns, and at the same time, it will also affect nearby friendly forces, and then also have a certain impact on the battle lines of several nearby battalions.

Therefore, Han Duotian only saw that there were two or three hundred people in front of him who were preparing to attack him, but in Xi Hezhi's opinion, the sixth town on the opposite side had already mobilized at least two battalions of troops.

Since entering the customs, it has been so many days since the sixth town in Tongzhou, but to be honest, this is the first time that such a large-scale battle has been held.

However, to Xi Hezhi's relief, the artillery behind quickly launched an artillery attack on the attacking troops of the sixth town.

For a time, although the infantry officers on both sides were extremely nervous, the early stage of the battle was dominated by artillery battles, with the 6th town firing a dense artillery shell in an attempt to reduce the follow-up resistance for the attacking troops.

Wu Peifu's artillery unit also fired a large number of grenade bombs, and the purpose was quite clear, that is, to suppress the enemy.

At this time, I have to say that at this moment, the artillery units of both sides are mainly grenade shots, what is a grenade shot, in short, the shells are launched into the air above the enemy to explode, and then the shells are thrown around the ground A large number of small steel balls, and then kill and injure living targets.

Since this kind of shell explodes directly over your head, it is impossible to avoid it whether you are lying down or standing, even if you stay behind cover or under a trench, as long as the enemy's shell explodes overhead and there is no cover above you, then it will not be immune.

During the Russo-Japanese War, a large number of soldiers on both sides died under this kind of grenade projectile, and it can be said that the military role of the grenade is no less than that of a heavy machine gun in contemporary times.

So at this moment, the infantry on both sides are trembling and hiding in the anti-artillery holes in their trenches, although the anti-artillery holes they have built are very simple, only to add a layer of earth to the trench or simply dig another soil hole to drill into, but this kind of fortification is still relatively effective for grenade shotguns.

In fact, it was the development of this kind of anti-artillery fortifications that led to the fact that when attacking trenches, countries began to abandon the use of grenade bombs, and then used simple grenades, directly relying on the impact of the huge explosion power to destroy the trenches and kill the enemy.

But that was after the First World War, and now, the trenches have only been around for a year or two, so when the artillery launches an artillery bombardment, they are still used to using these grenades.

After dozens of long-range artillery pieces on both sides opened fire one after another, the two 80-mm mortars under Xi Hezhi's hand also fired in time, and these two 80-mm mortars fired traditional grenades, which were naturally far inferior to those howitzers for the destruction of exposed personnel, but due to the curved characteristics of the mortar's trajectory, the mortar shells could directly hit the enemy's trenches and explode, and the lethality was also considerable.

Of course, the mortar shell lethality has never been its main selling point, but its ability to warp fire, as well as maneuver and rate of fire, are the selling points.

For the current Beiyang Army, in fact, mortar mobility is more important for 60 mm mortars, but for 80 mm and 120 mm mortars, the most important thing is curvature and rate of fire.

The rate of fire of the two 80-mm mortars initially reached more than 15 rounds per minute, and then the rate of fire decreased considerably due to overheating of the barrels and the lack of ammunition, but there were also more than 8 rounds per minute.

It can be said that this rate of fire is more than twice that of the contemporary tube-retreat artillery, and the most advanced German-style tube-retreat artillery currently equipped in the Beiyang Army has a maximum rate of fire of only about eight rounds per minute, and if it is to maintain a long-term artillery bombardment, then the rate of fire will be further reduced, and the actual combat rate of fire is generally between three and four rounds.

As for the more old-fashioned rack guns, not to mention, there was no comparison at all.

As a result, the number of artillery pieces in the artillery battle above the surface was about the same, but the number of shells dropped per unit of time was a part more in the third town than in the sixth town on the opposite side.

Just the extra part also made several officers of the Sixth Town on the opposite side frown: "It seems that the rumors that the Third Town is equipped with a large number of small cannons are true, looking at this posture, in addition to an artillery battalion on the opposite side, there are at least four or more mortars!" ”

In the artillery battle, the shells fired by the Third Town were obviously different from those fired by Wu Peifu's First Artillery Battalion, and it was easy to distinguish them in the eyes of experienced officers.

"Maybe there are no four, don't they only have two in a battalion, I think it should be two mortars, you don't know the rate of fire of their mortars, it's easy to shoot ten shells in a minute!" An infantry officer next to him also frowned.

"It's a pity, if we can buy a batch first, it will be much more convenient to use!"

"It doesn't matter, although this mortar is light and easy to use, but in the end it is a small artillery, this artillery battle, naturally we have to rely on our long-range artillery to fight!"

After more than ten minutes of artillery battles before the attack, the soldiers of the Sixth Town, who were preparing to attack, broke out of the trenches amid a brass whistle.

Wu Peifu also promptly ordered his artillery unit to shrink the distance of the artillery bombardment, no longer shelling the direction of the trenches, but preparing to intercept between the trenches of both sides.

At this time, Wu Peifu's artillery unit was the embodiment of its due value, and a large number of grenade projectiles fired continued to explode above the heads of the charging enemy, and then knocked down the enemy one by one.

At the same time, Li Yuanjun also blushed, brandished the command knife in his hand and ordered his two heavy machine guns to shoot!

"Azimuth 235, distance two hundred, long point shot!"

And at this time, suddenly a bomb exploded near the heavy machine gun fortifications of this sandbag pile, although the shock wave of the explosion was not large, but there were still fragments of a bomb flying in, and then the lives of two heavy machine gun soldiers were harvested in a row, especially the first ammunition hand who was hit, the entire chest was cut a big hole, and the person had already lost his life before he fell to the ground.

Li Yuanjun stretched out his hand and touched the blood splashed on his face, then opened his eyes wide to look at the few soldiers who were already stunned next to him, and he shouted loudly: "Bastard, what are you still doing in a daze, hurry up and replenish ammunition, continue to shoot, don't stop!" ”

The heavy machine gun position under Li Yuanjun can be said to be the core target of the Sixth Town's launch this time, and the heavy machine gun position has always been the focus of the artillery bombardment of the Sixth Town, but don't expect any accuracy in long-distance shelling, but the dense shells fell one after another, even if they did not hit directly, but they also caused certain casualties to Li Yuanjun's heavy machine gun troops.

At the same time, Han Duotian had already retracted the binoculars, and then the cat bent his waist to the trench, and at the same time shouted loudly: "Brothers, get ready, give me a fuck!" ”