On January 7th, the sky was clear, and the morning sun could not make the earth hot. At this time, Admiral Bartlett looked at his pocket watch, and the hands pointed exactly at 9 o'clock.

"Fire!"

An order from the command ordered more than 200 artillery pieces placed on various artillery positions to fire fiercely at the enemy in the distance.

Heavy artillery fire destroyed everything on the ground, whether it was barbed wire or pillboxes, it was destroyed by the dense artillery. At this time, the officers and soldiers of the 1st Regiment of the 37th Division of the British and Indian Army, who were hiding in the trenches outside the border town of Selum, had never seen such a scene.

The explosions constantly sounded on the position, and these Indian soldiers who were not trained enough, the soldiers of the 37th Division of the British and Indian Army were mainly Bengalis. This race is not as aggressive as the Sikhs (compared to other Indian peoples).

So the morale of these Bengali soldiers is constantly decreasing under artillery fire. In particular, the screams of the wounded soldiers made these soldiers even more pale. Even the British officers who led the team were constantly motivating them, but it was difficult to keep them motivated. There are even people who are dominated by the fear of shelling, who do not listen to the orders of the officers and are frightened to run back.

But fortunately, these people are a very small minority. And how stupid it is to run in the midst of artillery fire. Either they were hit by shelling or they were court-martialed by officers, and a single life was lost.

The shelling lasted from nine to 11 o'clock.

During the two-hour shelling, the positions laid out by the 37th Division were blown to the ground. The barbed wire fence was blown up in sections, and most of the positions and pillboxes were also destroyed.

Similarly, the blow of more than 200 artillery pieces terrified the officers and men of the 37th Division of the British and Indian Army, because they had never had the energy. In addition, their division was only formed in June last year. How is it possible that it takes half a year to complete the training of officers and soldiers and transport them to the front line in Egypt.

It takes three months of basic training for a soldier alone, and even if London does not treat these Indian soldiers as human beings, it will take two months of basic training. Then there is the tactical training of squads, platoons, and companies, as well as training in other aspects, which normally takes a year to barely do, and it takes at least 10 months if it is abnormal.

After half a year to go to the battlefield, these soldiers are not in a panic to have a problem.

And Lieutenant General Capello, the commander of the Fourth Army, who was in charge of commanding the battle, keenly saw the enemy's panic and immediately ordered. "Let the 4th Division attack, and order the 16th Division to pin down from the flank."

Under the orders of Lieutenant General Capello, two divisions sent troops from the south-west flank to attack the enemy positions outside Selum, and the 4th and 16th Divisions sent a regiment at the same time to attack the enemy positions.

"Attack!"

Led by the officer, the soldier rushed briskly towards the enemy position.

It may not look pretty, but it is the best way to reduce the casualties of the charge.

It is also true that straightening up the upper body also increases the chance of being hit, and as for crawling forward, this speed is not only slow but also physically demanding, and can only be used for the last distance before charging.

At this time, in the face of the Italian attack, the British and Indian soldiers on the position also raised their rifles and fired at the enemy at the officer's order.

The marksmanship of these inadequately trained Indian soldiers was somewhat indescribable, and the low accuracy of continuous fire was touching.

The only way to rely on these soldiers to attack and retreat the enemy was to rely on God's help, and those British officers had no choice, even if they were whipped with leather whips.

Fortunately, Colonel Rodney of the 37th Division did not have such thoughts. He trusted the power of the Vickers heavy machine gun and the Lewis light machine gun even more.

I saw that when the Italian officers and soldiers attacked to a distance of 500 meters, the machine guns behind the position opened fire. The rain of bullets from nearly 100 machine guns hindered the attack, and the soldiers could not raise their heads.

In the face of the enemy's dense machine-gun fire, the attacking forces also had a way.

"Mortars, give me the enemy's machine-gun fire."

An officer, seeing that his soldiers were immobilized by enemy machine-gun fire, immediately ordered mortars to fire at enemy machine guns.

At this time, a 60 mortar group had already completed the construction of positions in one of the craters, and the observers, having carefully identified the position of the enemy's machine guns, immediately spoke. "Shoot Zhuyuan, azimuth 21, angle 63!"

With a "bang", a 60-mm fragmentation bullet hit three meters to the left of the machine gun position, which startled the cheerful British and Indian soldiers.

"Quickly shift positions."

The British leader of the experienced machine-gun team immediately shouted loudly, and the members of the machine-gun team immediately prepared to move the machine guns to the next position. However, the hot machine guns were not easy to transfer, and while the machine gun crew was still preparing, the Italian mortars fired again.

At this point, the deep voice was getting closer.

"Lie down!"

The team leader shouted, and immediately hugged his head and lay on the ground. The clever team members also learned to lie on the enemy's stomach, stupid and didn't know what was going on, and froze in place.

However, whether they were lying on the ground or standing in place, they saw a 60mm mortar shell fall directly and accurately into their machine gun position.

"Boom!" An explosion sounded in the machine-gun position, and scattered shrapnel pierced through the figures standing in the position, and some shrapnel hit the unlucky ones lying on the ground.

For a while, the machine gun position turned into a Shura field, and at this time, the team leader and one of the lucky people coughed and stood up, the barrel of the Vickers heavy machine gun they were using had been bent, and it was no longer usable.

Such a situation can be seen everywhere in the entire line of defense. In addition to 60-mm mortars, battalion-affiliated 82-mm mortars and regimental 120-mm mortars were firing.

However, for the front-line infantry, the most important thing is the company's 60-mm mortar. The cannon does not need to wait, and the weight of 19.3KG can still follow the soldiers to attack. The rate of fire is extremely fast, the accuracy is not bad, and it is really the best quality artillery.

Regarding the role of mortars, the British and French sides have the most say. After suffering from it, Britain, France, and Russia did not hesitate to start copying it through seizure.

At present, on the eastern and western fronts, the mortars of the Entente have already appeared, and it is believed that it will not be long before both sides have a large number of mortars.

With the topic of mortars out of the way, we return to the battlefield.

Under the suppression of all kinds of fire of the Italian army, the attacking troops were already approaching the enemy's trenches.

"Rush in."

Amid the shouts, the Italian troops rushed into the trenches.

White-knuckle warfare ensued, but compared to the brave Italian soldiers, the British and Indian soldiers were far inferior. The coordination was not tacit enough, the assassination action was not standardized, and the Italian soldiers had trench sweepers such as submachine guns and shotguns, and the white-knuckle battle ended in less than a quarter of an hour.

The defenders fled to Selum in the rear, at a speed that only hated their parents for missing two legs.

At this time, Admiral Bartlett, who had watched the whole process of the attack, said to Lieutenant General Capello beside him. "The British colonial division fights so badly, I have to sleep in Selum at night."

"Yes!"

For his part, Lieutenant General Capello did not consider the general's demands excessive. Judging from the peripheral battle that ended just now, the other party couldn't bear it in two hours, which fully explains a lot of problems.

He was confident that he would take Selum before dark, so after the general left, he gave the order "Order the 4th and 16th Divisions to be ready for battle, and I will have dinner in Selum." ”

With the order of Lieutenant General Capello, the fighting broke out again in Selum, and the shelling, which had just stopped for two hours, opened fire on the inside of Selum.

(End of chapter)