By this time, the entire Eastern Front battlefield Russian army was already in mourning, and more than 300,000 people led by Kuropatkin in the south were blocked in Odessa by his old opponent Goltz, fortunately there was Makarov's Black Sea Fleet to protect him, otherwise the Germans would have thrown him into the sea long ago. But this is not a long-term solution, Goltz has more than 20 large airships in his hands, and every day when he is idle and bored, he flies to Odessa and throws coagulated qiyou bombs to create panic among the gray animals. Now more than 300,000 Russian troops are crowded in this port, and the density of personnel is very large, even if those airships are relatively poor in dropping bombs at high altitude, the effect is still very impressive.

But if Odessa is abandoned, then the combined forces of these four armies will be completely liberated, and the next step will be to go north along the vast plain of Ukraine to Kiev, or along the Black Sea to Sevastopol, this depends on Baron Golz's mood.

The eight Austro-Hungarian armies in the middle added up to one hundred and fifty armies like a steamroller fiercely impacting the defensive line of the six Russian armies, fortunately, the battle on this front was relatively reassuring to Nikolai, although the Austro-Hungarian army had Skoda cannons, but the Russians had just been equipped with the Chinese-made 280 cannons that had just been equipped with them, and they could be said to be on par, and the unparalleled mobility of this heavy artillery was still very dominant. As for the soldiers on both sides, although the Austro-Hungarian forces have a slight advantage, the problem is that the soldiers of the Slavic nationalities under Emperor Joseph have not been very interested in fighting the Russian army, so the advantage of the Austro-Hungarian army is basically useless.

However, the situation of the Russian army on the northern front was extremely difficult, and the German Ninth Army continued along the Pripyat valley after capturing Pinsk. The Seventh Army was also advancing towards Minsk, and the attack clusters of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Armies had also captured Lutsk. The target is also obviously Kiev, the German Eighth Army is marching towards Riga in the north, and the goal of the Allies in this battle is already clear, that is, Kiev.

Two elite German armies attacked Riga and Minsk respectively to contain the Russian army in the north, leaving the remaining German and Austrian armies together to sweep across the Ukrainian plain if the Allies' campaign objectives were achieved. Then the entire west of the Dnieper River belongs to them, which is the largest granary in the whole of Europe.

Nikolai went crazy to collect cannon fodder and then pushed it to the battlefield in Ukraine, but the gray cattle had long been frightened by the coagulated qiyou shells. As long as he saw the airship appear, even if he didn't drop bombs, it would still be defeated, and he was helpless in this situation, but fortunately, at this time, the 14.5mm anti-aircraft machine gun shipped from China finally arrived.

Zhytomyr. The gateway to Kiev. This is already the decisive battle place of the retreating Russian army, once the city is lost, the German army can basically say that the army is coming to Kiev, Nikolai has established a continuous line of defense from Zhytomyr south to Vinnytsia to Nikolaev on the Black Sea, a total of thirteen army groups have been deployed, although the strength is strong, but it is obvious that those gray cattle who tremble and look up at the sky every day can not hold, even Nikolai himself is not sure, after all, this is only a hastily established defense line.

In the terrified gaze of the gray animals. An air fleet of a hundred airships appeared, and dozens of Valman-type fighters, which were not many in the hands of the Russian army, hurriedly took off to intercept them. But then the German fighters guarding the airship rushed up and ended the battle with a forty-two victory that made the gray cattle even more desperate, and then the air fleet swaggered over, and by this time some of the gray animals had already subconsciously wanted to run.

"Calm down, Russian warriors, behind you is Kyiv, for the sake of the Tsar and for Russia, stick to your posts!" The officers' lips trembled one by one, and their little faces were whitened to boost their morale, in fact, they also knew that when the hellfire burned, it would be difficult for them to do so. At the same time, sporadic gunfire rang out, of course, not to shoot at the enemy, at this time the Germans had not yet attacked, this was the execution of deserters, these gunshots had some effect, considering that behind them was Kiev, the gray cattle really wanted to resist heroically, of course, this is provided that the hellfire does not burn on their heads.

But it was clear that this was just a luxury, and the huge airships that covered the sky were still approaching slowly and unstoppably, and the gunfire of the executing deserters gradually increased, and when they saw the airships flying and descending in altitude, and understood that they were ready to start dropping bombs, the shots of the deserters changed from pistols to heavy machine guns, and the gray animals were about to collapse again.

But at this moment, in the bunkers on the forward position, countless flames suddenly erupted, and the red light points of tracer bullets pierced the airships in the sky like countless lines of fire, and almost instantly more than a dozen airships burst out at the same time, and then exploded into burning torches and fell to the ground.

The gray animals who were about to flee were stunned for a moment, and then there was a deafening Ullah sound.

The dense lines of fire shot from the ground were still piercing the remaining airships, and those airships were so frightened that they hurriedly rose in height, but unfortunately for the airships filled with solidified qiyou bombs, this work took time, and soon before they could rise, more than a dozen airships were beaten into torches, and the remaining airships couldn't care about the task, and began to panic and throw down heavy solidified qiyou bullets to speed up the ascent.

At the same time, the escort fighters swooped down and fired downward with their Chinese-made 12.7mm machine guns, and the German pilots saw clearly what had caused them heavy losses, and in the annular bunkers were countless strangely shaped small-caliber guns. It can't even be called an artillery, and the caliber is only a little larger than their 12.7mm machine gun, but this super-large caliber machine gun has a terrifying rate of fire, and the shells next to it almost seem to be spraying outward, because this weapon has four barrels.

Seeing the German fighters pounce, those 14.5 mm anti-aircraft machine guns immediately shifted their targets, and the terrifying fire with a fifteen hundred firing rate of more than 1,500 per minute instantly smashed more than a dozen German fighters into pieces.

But at this moment, a piercing whistling sound in the sky suddenly came, and they were frightened to quickly burrow back into the trenches, and then a dense explosion sounded all around, and the Germans saw that the airships had been badly damaged, and the shelling that had been stopped to avoid accidentally damaging them began again, but it didn't matter to the gray animals, they were afraid of freezing qiyou shells, but they were not afraid of shelling.

The German air fleet suffered arguably the heaviest losses since the beginning of the battle, one-third of the 100 airships that attacked were blown up by the super-large caliber anti-aircraft machine guns that the Russians suddenly appeared, and the rest had to throw all the coagulated shells outside the target area to escape, and even the new fighters that provided cover for them lost more than 30 planes. In the words of the returning pilot, this kind of anti-aircraft machine gun with an altitude of more than 2,000 meters can hardly escape once it fires, and almost no airship or fighter plane in the air can escape, the rate of fire is too fast, and the power is huge, and there is no pressure on a bullet to destroy an airplane.

Now the German General Staff was dumbfounded, how can you fight like this?

Immediately after the bad news came, this weapon also appeared in the hands of the Russian army in Odessa, and then Minsk, Riga, these important theaters of operations that the Russian army must hold onto began to appear, but Baron Goltz, who lost almost all the airships, sent back a very useful news, this anti-aircraft machine gun has almost no threat to airships above 2,500 meters, and the only remaining airship in his hand even dropped coagulated qiyou shells at this height, burning two bunkers.

After learning the news, Admiral Mackensen, who was responsible for attacking Zhytomyr, immediately mobilized the remaining airships and launched an air attack on the Russian army in Zhytomyr again, and the result was indeed as Baron Golz said, there is no need to worry about the Russian army's anti-aircraft fire if you drop bombs at an altitude of more than 2,500 meters, but the problem is that the effect of dropping bombs at such an altitude is also very poor, especially for targets like trenches, drop a hundred solidified qiyou shells, and burn high incense if one or two hit the target.

But if this is not the case, as soon as the altitude is dropped, it will immediately become the target of the Russian anti-aircraft machine guns, and there is almost no other possibility, and a drop of 2,500 meters is suicide for the airship, even if the plane is dangerous at this altitude.

No matter how sad the Germans were, the courage of the gray cattle was now restored, and although there were still some unlucky ones who were coagulated, the casualty rate was not much different from the shelling, and the situation was completely bearable compared to the previous bombardment of a sea of hellfire. And they soon discovered that this machine gun could not only hit airships and planes, but also threatened the German tanks, and as for attacking the infantry, it could be said to be cruel.

In this way, as the effect of the airship bombing was sharply reduced, the morale of the gray cattle soared, and the German attack on Zhytomyr became extremely difficult, especially the Russian army began to use heavy artillery purchased from China here, the German casualties increased day by day, and the battle returned to a see-saw state of bloodletting. Fortunately, at this time, the entire battlefield was still favorable to the Allies, who had so far captured a third of Ukraine, almost all of Lithuania and a third of Belarus, and the Eighth Army had even set foot on Latvian soil. (To be continued......)