The block where the Chinese are responsible for attacking is Block 12. This is also the area where McMahon, Frossard and others focus their attention. The regiments assigned to defend here are the most elite, and the ammunition rations are also the highest.
However, no matter how powerful the defense capability is, it cannot withstand the Zeppelin airship attack from the air. It is simply invincible. In this era, soldiers have no concept of air defense at all.
No rifle can cause damage to the airship, and all artillery can only move the muzzle horizontally or swing left and right. There is no gun designed to shoot into the sky.
It was under this dimensionality reduction attack that Block 12, the most heavily defended area by the French army, suffered the most violent attack!
Bastion No. 5, Bastion No. 13, Bastion No. 26... Within four hours, three large bastions were bombed by airships. These strong fortresses, which caused huge casualties to other Prussian troops, were The front of the airship is as fragile as a can.
All the French troops on the route of the airship hurriedly evaded it, but where there were crowds of people, the soldiers on the airship lit their bags and threw them away.
Some soldiers even directly touched the fuse safety of the artillery shell, and the warhead rushed down directly. This can be said to be the earliest aviation bomb in human history.
Xiao Letian had also discovered the melee in the 13th block at this moment. When he condescendingly discovered that the Prussian army position in the 13th block had been breached, he shouted in surprise, "Something's wrong! When did the French army become so crazy?"
"Pay attention to the junction! The enemy is very likely to take advantage of the chaos to launch an attack on our flank... Damn it, which troop is stationed in the 12th block? The intelligence reality is that there are no elites..."
Before Xiao Letian had time to arrange his troops, the Prussian heavy artillery group had already begun to counterattack. The rumbling artillery fire filled every inch of the 12th block. The Prussian artillery group used tons of steel to completely touch the French position. Read it again.
Xiao Letian let out a sigh of relief, "Hey...it's no use worrying about them. French artillery and Prussian artillery are not products of the same era at all. No matter how brave their soldiers are in this battle, it will be of no use..."
"Send the order, be vigilant, keep moving forward, target the central tower! Haha... Napoleon III, haven't you wanted to see me for a long time? Today I will give you this opportunity, let's have a good chat!"
"Hahaha..." Xiao Letian recalled the humiliation the French gave him when he first came to Europe. Looking at the current one-sided battlefield situation, the satisfaction of having a great revenge made him laugh heartily.
Some people laughed and some cried. At this moment, the French Emperor was completely desperate. Although the Prussian bombardment before was fierce, it was all concentrated on the city wall of Sedan.
That was when the battle began in the morning, when the Prussian artillery group began to suppress fire for the infantry attack.
Because it was relatively far away from the French Emperor, the huge power of the artillery bombing could not cause much panic in the French Emperor's heart, but this bombing was different.
First of all, Old Moltke's order was a saturation attack. What he wanted was to purely use steel to block the gap in the protrusion. At this time, the firing density of the artillery group was more than three times that of the morning.
What's more important is that the gap in the protrusion is very close to the central tower, no more than two or three kilometers away. From his 20-meter-high building, the Emperor could even see the corpses on the ground rolled up by artillery fire and tumbling in the air.
Napoleon III was a coward at heart. He thought he had inherited his uncle's talent, but anyone with a discerning eye knew that he was fierce and cruel!
When fighting against the wind, he is a tiger, and when conducting war games on the sand table, he is even more like a poisonous dragon!
But if you really put him on the battlefield of blood and fire and let him witness death with his own eyes, he will immediately turn into a sick cat and a grass snake!
Seeing the Prussian army's crazy artillery counterattack, the French Emperor's legs could not stop shaking. Looking at the Zeppelin airship getting closer and closer, Napoleon III's teeth began to chatter.
He was already an old man with dirt buried deep into his chest, and his health had been extremely poor these past few days. His extreme mental lethargy had even made him lose his previous vitality.
Coupled with the depressing news brought by Senator Raul, the Emperor had already begun to think about retreating!
"Your Majesty...how long do you have to think about it? If it doesn't work, just surrender and have a good negotiation with the Prussians...We can't win this battle!"
"Let's... let's see... what if McMahon's plan succeeds..."
But at this moment, a loud noise suddenly broke out from the top of the tower. Many soldiers were shouting, "It's within range... The Chinese hot air balloon has entered range..."
"No! Frossard is going to fire... If this kills Xiao Letian, none of us will survive! The Prussians will retaliate crazily!" Raul shouted loudly.
"Let them stop..." the French Emperor quickly ordered, but it was already too late. The crazy Frossard had already roared, "Fire! Fire on that damn balloon..."
Boom...boom...the two bronze Napoleon cannons hidden at the top of the tower roared angrily, and high-explosive shells equipped with delayed fuses went straight towards the Zeppelin.
The French's artillery technology has lagged far behind the Prussians. Not only the technology of cannons, but also the technology of artillery shells also lagged behind the Prussians.
Krupp steel cannons are all equipped with impact fuses, and the shells can fly to any target within the range as much as possible, and will explode only after impact.
The bronze Napoleon cannons use old time-delay fuses, basically three types of fuses: 800, 1,000 and 1,500 meters.
Such artillery shells must explode at a specified distance, but how could the Prussian soldiers just wait for you to explode at a fixed distance?
Therefore, throughout the entire Battle of Sedan, French artillery did not cause many casualties at all.
But old-fashioned artillery shells also have old-fashioned functions. This kind of delayed-fuze artillery shell is the ancestor of later anti-aircraft artillery shells. This kind of artillery shell is not easy to use for blasting targets on land, but it is very useful for blasting targets in the air. .
If these two bronze cannons used trigger-fuse shells, they would have to hit something to cause an explosion!
A soft air bag on impact? Or is it targeting ultra-small pods? How accurate is the artillery at a distance of more than 800 meters?
But the delay fuse is different. The cannonball will explode no matter whether it hits something or not when it flies to its target distance. At this time, it relies on the fragments of the cannonball to kill the enemy.
Boom...boom...two high-explosive shells went straight towards the Zeppelin airship. At that moment, the Dragon Guard, who was superb in internal skills, seemed to have an inexplicable conditioned reflex, and suddenly shouted and threw Xiao Letian to the ground.
Boom... A shell exploded fifty meters away from the left wing of the Zeppelin airship. This shell did not cause many casualties, but the second shell exploded violently twenty meters away from the right wing of the Zeppelin airship.
Sharp shrapnel flew towards the airship like rain. The operators and soldiers who could not dodge were immediately knocked down, and the pod was filled with screams.
More than a dozen shrapnel directly pierced the air bag, and hot air began to spray out violently!
