Chapter 305: Airship Battle

The last 60,000 Ser troops gathered in the scorching sun, and the residents of the city supported their own army, helping the army dig a large number of trenches and build fire points, and the whole scorching sun was in full swing, so that when the Yaman army reached the periphery of the scorching sun, a defensive position with a depth of five kilometers had miraculously appeared.

A large number of artillery attached to the 300,000 Yaman army began to shell the scorching sun, and because of the trucks towing, many large-caliber howitzers could move with the troops, and the ammunition was abundant, this large-scale artillery bombardment lasted for two hours, and the outlying positions of the Serre army were in disarray, and then the Yaman soldiers began to charge in groups.

Just when the Yaman army attacked the Grand Duchy of Serre, on the border between the Yaman Empire and the Nantes Empire in the east, in order to cope with the defense of the Grand Duchy of Serre, the Nantes Emperor ** team began the first assault, and they for the first time sent the chariot purchased from the Chinese Empire and renamed the FT17 type to the battlefield, as an infantry cover force to start a full-scale assault.

The Yaman Empire also placed heavy troops on this line, and when they saw that the Nantes Empire began to attack, the Yaman Empire did not defend, but took the initiative to attack, and under the cover of the Chariot also purchased from the Chinese Empire and named Type I, the Yaman soldiers also rushed forward.

The chariots of both sides soon twisted together and engaged in a life-threatening close-quarters artillery bombardment with each other, and the first tank battle in the world began. Artillery shells flew indiscriminately, machine guns fired volleys, and soldiers on both sides were killed and wounded in large numbers, while grenades and explosives became invisible killers for the vehicles on both sides.

The Yaman soldiers quickly used their new tactics, and the dense crossfire from the machine guns caused the Nantes soldiers to suffer heavy casualties, and they had to retreat at the end of the day.

Then the Yaman army began to shell the Nantes Emperor's ** team, and the Nantes Empire was not to be outdone, and sent their airship troops, intending to repeat the scene of the Yaman Empire on the border of the Grand Duchy of Serre, but unfortunately they didn't know how to compare the treatment with those countries that have always been hostile to the Chinese Empire, as a business partner and friendly country of the Chinese Empire.

Equipped with a fourteen mm large-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun secretly provided by the Chinese Empire, the Armanti** was equipped with a fourteen mm large-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun in the eyes of the air force of later generations, and at most it threatened a low-altitude helicopter, and in this era, only 800 meters tall and very fragile airships flew in the air.

When the Nantes Empire's airship reached the sky above the Yaman Army and was about to drop bombs, dozens of tongues of fire suddenly erupted from the ground, and the fragile airship airbags were punched out of a series of holes.

Fortunately, the design concept of the airship of the Chinese Empire is very advanced, and the airship airbag is composed of many small airbags, which is similar to the general setting of the watertight compartment of a warship, so that even if half of the airbags are destroyed, they can still fly, but the altitude will slowly decrease.

Seeing this situation, the first reaction of the captains of the Nantes Empire was to run fast, but the airship was originally slow to fly, and this combat voyage was a full flight with a full load, and some of the airbags were destroyed.

Not only did these airships not fly fast, but their altitude was constantly decreasing, and many clever captains immediately began to drop bombs to reduce their weight, while they directed their airships to retreat as fast as possible in the direction of their own positions.

At first, it was only some airships imported from the Chinese Empire, which were not a big deal except for the reduced buoyancy, but when a Nantes Empire replica airship was hit by an airbag, tragedy happened.

Although a small number of airbags still do not reduce buoyancy much when hit, these replica airships do not have a double shell due to technical reasons. The double-layer shell of the Chinese Imperial Airship is an aluminum hard shell, and there is a large spacing inside for maintenance personnel to carry out emergency repairs to the airbags, and the inner layer is the real airbag.

Since the electrolytic purification technology of aluminum is a secret technology of the Chinese consortium, although countries can use the chemical method to extract aluminum, the cost is too high, and such a high-cost metal obviously cannot be applied to such a huge weapon, otherwise the governments of various countries will be poor without going to war.

The lack of a double-shell is not the most fatal, the worst thing is that the production of helium is also an untold secret of the Chinese consortium, so these imitation airships use hydrogen.

The production of helium requires many advanced equipment and harsh conditions, while the production of hydrogen only requires the zinc skin to be injected with concentrated sulfuric acid, which is simple and easy to use and affordable. But hydrogen also has its own disadvantages, because it is flammable and explosive, it is easy to explode when exposed to an open flame or mixed with oxygen to reach a certain concentration.

Therefore, when the tracer bullet of the anti-aircraft machine gun pierced the airbag and the flammable hydrogen touched the oxygen in the air, a large explosion was inevitable.

The airship that was hit was like a huge torch in the air, and it quickly began to burn, and the fire was so big that people didn't have time to react.

The flames soon spread throughout the airship, and some of the crew jumped from a height of hundreds of meters with flames covered in flames, falling into a pile of flesh.

The entire ignited airship quickly fell to the ground, but it still continued to burn, and the blazing flames even completely melted the steel skeleton of the airship, completely paralyzing it to the ground.

Seeing this spectacular scene, the soldiers on both sides stopped shooting, and everyone held their breath to watch the human tragedy in front of them.

After this war, the countries finally realized that the Chinese Empire was not using lighter and cheaper hydrogen, but using helium, which was less buoyant and expensive.

None of the countries now have the means to produce helium, which is a unique trick of the Chinese Empire, and if you want to use helium to fill airships, the high price is enough to make governments staggered.

The helium to be filled with by an airship alone is enough to build a large ocean-going torpedo boat, not to mention that the airbag often needs to be replenished with gas, and once it is partially destroyed, it will have to be reloaded after returning, and such a high price is not affordable for all countries.

Therefore, after the use of anti-aircraft machine guns in the Yaman Empire, each country began to develop its own large-caliber anti-aircraft machine guns to counter each other's airships, which was also a remedy for the insufficient number of expensive airships.

With all countries vigorously developing anti-aircraft weapons, the situation of airships is becoming more and more dangerous, but the greatest danger of airships still comes from the air.

When the Sahr Empire first used the machine guns on its own airship to attack the invading Yaman Empire airship, the real air battle began.

The airships of all parties are fighting hard in the air, which greatly increases the loss of airships, but if they buy airships from China Ling, not to mention that they cannot be transported, the finances of various countries cannot afford it.

Even if the airships imitated by the countries themselves, the nylon materials used in the airbags were still imported from the Chinese Empire, so the countries had to sacrifice their personnel and continue to use hydrogen airships.

As a direct result of this, there is a shortage of airship operators, and those who have just completed training may die after one or two flights, and at the end of the day, the airship crews will collectively strike and fly unless the state uses helium balloons, and they would rather be dealt with by military law than never take off.