"Baga, it's the Ming army's airship!"

The one-eyed dragon Saigo raised the binoculars and looked at it, and immediately exclaimed. And the samurai on the airship he was on were also terrified.

Saigo put down the binoculars and saw faces that were afraid of death, and immediately said angrily: "Baga, why are you scared? As a samurai, you are not afraid of seppuku, but are you still afraid of fighting enemies in the sky? ”

When Yamamoto, who was driving the airship, heard this, he asked helplessly, "Captain Saigo, what are we going to use to fight the enemy's airship?" We don't have weapons on our airships that can be used to attack other airships! ”

It turned out that the original role of the British Armstrong II airship was only reconnaissance, patrol and mine-laying, mainly acting as the eyes of the fleet and fortresses, and it could fly to the enemy's doorstep and drop a few mines to exceed the task. Not to mention air combat, even the bombing function was added later. Because this type of airship originally has a mine pylon, which can drop mines in the air, it is relatively simple to convert into a bombing airship, which is nothing more than turning a mine into a bomb.

But it is difficult to install machine guns in the narrow cabin of the airship to fight air battles, and now there are no air-cooled machine guns, and the machine guns are all bulky water-cooled, dozens of kilograms of big guys, and according to the standard, it is not possible to operate alone for a long time, and it is necessary to have a bombardier, and two people can operate a machine gun to fight for a while. For a large boat like the Wyvern-III, the cabin is large enough for two machine gun crews, and there are enough personnel to make cameo roles as ammunition suppliers in the event of a fight. However, there was no room for machine guns in the cabin of the cramped Armstrong II, and its crew was relatively small, with a pilot, a co-pilot, a navigator and bombardier, a total of three people.

Therefore, according to the assumption of the British, if the Armstrong II airship encounters a hostile Wyvern III in the air, it will just run away. Although the Armstrong II airship is not as fast as the Wyvern III, how fast can the airship go? And as long as you fly low, you can also use the complex wind direction at ultra-low altitude to disengage with the terrain and landform - because the size of the Wyvern III is too large, flying at ultra-low altitude is not very flexible.

But now...... Will they be able to run away from Saigo?

Saigo Yoshibei Takamori raised his binoculars again and looked out at the bay on the edge of Jeruginous Island in the distance. Inside the bay, there was a peaceful place, except for a Lushun-class cruiser sailing slowly in the bay, the rest of the more than 20 white ships were lying next to the harbor yards, and two neat columns were discharged, including at least four battleships (including one Emperor-class, three Wangye-class), five cruisers (all Lushun-class) and more than a dozen destroyers of 1,000 tons. Except for the Lushun-class, which was slowly sailing, the chimneys of these ships were not smoking!

That is, none of these ships have any ability to maneuver!

Theoretically, the airship could hover over the heads of these ships and then slowly descend to a low enough altitude to ensure that the bomb hit the target.

And it doesn't matter if these airships are shot down over the ship, because even if the airship hovering over the battleship with bombs on it is bursting with hydrogen air bags, there is a high probability that it will fall vertically and directly hit the head of the battleship below with the bomb!

Ship-for-ship buying and selling...... It's worth it!

Then Saigo looked around with a telescope, and there was only one Ming army airship in the air, which should be an airship on patrol missions. And the airship doesn't just fly...... I had to carry out routine inspections, and I also had to add gas and ammunition to toss for a long time.

My Healing Game

So just stop this airship and don't let it attack the Armstrong II boats that are slowing down and preparing to hover over the battleship, and the Shadow Island surprise attack will be won!

Thinking of this, Saigo Yoshibei Takamori pulled out his ribs (the airship cabin is too narrow, and he didn't dare to play with the sword), and then pointed to the Ming army airship in the distance, and said loudly: "We are samurai, and as long as the samurai has a sword in hand, he can defeat any enemy...... Although we don't have machine guns, we have knives! ”

With a knife...... Chop the airship?

Yamamoto and several other flying samurai were speechless.

Seeing the stunned looks of Yamamoto and the others, Saigo shouted angrily and pointed at the Ming army's airship with a knife: "Target, Ming army's airship...... Hit me! ”

It's a bump, not a cut!

Yamamoto and the others also knew the consequences of the airship collision, but they still shouted loudly together: "Ha Yin! ”

......

"It's ...... Whose airship? How can there be so many? ”

"Sir, those are the Englishman's Armstrong boats...... It should belong to the rebels of Nagasaki, Japan! ”

"Nagasaki rebels? Then they came to Shadow Island...... Ah, sneak attack! Quick, send a telegram, there are enemy airships coming, more than ten of them! ”

"Yes, sir!"

The crew on the airship of the Ming army also discovered the incoming Japanese airship at this time, and Guan Tianpei, the commander of the Ming Naval Aviation, happened to be on this Flying Dragon Type 3 airship...... He's taking flying lessons, and as a commander in naval aviation, he's going to be able to fly an airship, right? So he took the opportunity to sit in the airship base of Shadow Island and arranged an airship driving lesson for himself, and if there was nothing major on this day, he would follow the airship on the alert mission to fly in the sky for six hours. Unexpectedly, I was about to end the flight and go back to dinner today, when I ran into an incoming Japanese airship!

This can make Guan Tianpei anxious!

Because the anti-aircraft firepower on the current ships of the Ming Navy is very weak, in addition to the machine guns and 50mm rapid-fire guns and 155mm rapid-fire guns that can make a cameo appearance to hit the airship, there is only one 13mm caliber anti-aircraft gun!

Well, it's a gun!

It may sound backward, but as long as it is built and used, it is still very powerful.

In fact, carrying a gun is not unique to the Qing Dynasty in history, and European countries also have similar weapons to carry a gun, and some people in Japan have enlarged the arquebus as a small cannon to use, which is actually a gun. In the new Ming Dynasty, the gun was "invented" by King Wuzhong of Zhuge Dynasty, and it was also a rifled version and equipped with a "Migne bullet" to carry the gun, when King Wuzhong followed Zheng Chenggong's Northern Expedition to Nanjing, this "Minne version of the gun" had shown its might on the battlefield, and the Qing artillery and elite white-armored soldiers suffered heavy casualties.

After the reign of King Wuzhong, the "Minne version of the gun" became a sharp weapon for the snipers of the Ming army, with a large number of equipment and killing all sides. Later, the Ming Dynasty came to a hundred years without fighting, so there was no reason to eliminate the ancestral treasure of lifting the gun, but it was still upgraded to carry the gun, and a 13 mm caliber rear-loading repeating gun was developed, and it was not carried by anyone, but it was changed to use a tripod carriage to support.

Because of the long range, high power, and high accuracy of this lifting gun, and there are tracer bullets that can be used to ignite hydrogen gas (this kind of lifting gun actually uses the same ammunition as the 13mm heavy machine gun, so the tracer bullets of the machine gun can also be used), so it was issued to the navy to fight airships.

It is a pity that the airship of the Ming Naval Aviation is not equipped with anti-aircraft guns, and can only be used to fight with 7.5 mm water-cooled machine guns mounted on both sides, and the effective range of this machine gun is more than 1,000 meters, and it cannot be fired forward or backward - the purpose of the Ming Naval Aviation to install machine guns on the airship is actually to hit small ships on the sea downward, not for air combat.

"Boom, boom, boom......"

At this moment, there were suddenly several explosions on the sea, and it turned out that the airship that Saigo was riding in threw away the bombs it was carrying, so that it could be lightly armed into the air impact battle.

After dropping the bomb, the Armstrong boat suddenly became very light, and it was in a downwind position, and it was faster after driving at full power, aiming at the airship that Guan Tianpei was riding.

At this time, Ling Zongjun, who was teaching Guan Tianpei to drive the airship, was shocked, and shouted: "It, is it trying to hit us?" ”

Guan Tianpei, who was still sitting next to him, reacted quickly, and immediately ordered: "Hurry up, go up quickly, and hit it condescendingly with a machine gun!" ”

"Yes, sir......"