The servant army composed of Sendai Domain railway workers was somewhat awkward in terms of weapon configuration. Zhao Xin, Wang Yuanfang and others did not want these guys to master the standard weapons of the North Navy, but at the same time they had to ensure a certain degree of firepower output, so they issued three homemade wooden-handled grenades to each soldier. However, since the war in Bacheng began, the soldiers of the servant army have not used it yet.
When the two hundred Württemberg soldiers at the front emerged from the thick smoke and were only 40 meters away from the right wing of the North Navy's defense line, many of the servant soldiers would have been almost gone had it not been for a loud reminder from a certain platoon leader. I forgot that I was still carrying a "bomb"!
As soon as the platoon leader finished speaking, the soldiers in the second row who had finished firing didn't care about reloading. They threw their rifles over their shoulders, took out grenades from the cloth bags at their waists, unscrewed the safety cover, and pulled The ring was thrown out with a swish. Because of their nervousness, more than a dozen soldiers didn't even pull the ring, and they just hit people like iron lumps. As soon as the grenades were thrown out, the platoon leader yelled at the people around him to squat down. He could see clearly that several grenades were thrown more than 20 meters away.
The North Korean navy's grenade is a copy of the "Type 67 grenade" from another time and space, with a charge of 38 grams and a preset killing radius of seven meters. However, this thing is said to be seven meters away. In actual tests, the arsenal found that it is lethal 80 meters away from the explosion point. If it is an open and unobstructed area, the fragments can cause injuries from 150 meters away. If you happen to hit the aorta in your neck, the game will be over in a matter of minutes.
But the Württemberg soldiers more than forty meters away didn't know. They still measured it according to the black powder grenades used by European grenadiers. The main function of grenades in these years was to disrupt the enemy's formation and cause psychological panic. To really eliminate the opponent, you had to rely on guns and bayonets.
So in the queue where people are shoulder to shoulder. Except for a few shaking their heads to avoid the iron bumps hitting their foreheads, most of the soldiers ignored the grenades thrown by the servants. They raised their guns towards the front under the loud orders of the officer holding the command knife.
"Pre-"
"Boom! Boom! Boom"
Deafening explosions sounded one after another, and the rising gray-black smoke enveloped all two hundred enemy soldiers forty meters away. On the servant army's position, crackling earth and rocks fell one after another like rain, mixed with some broken blue cloth, bloody flesh, and even fingers and toes.
A gust of wind blew across the field, gradually blowing away the diffuse gunpowder smoke, and the field of vision gradually became clearer. All the VOC soldiers marching behind the two hundred people stopped in their tracks. Some of them even stopped and were frightened. He was looking at the ground twenty meters away with extreme concentration, and even forgot about the bullets fired from the North Navy position.
What a scene this is! Not one of the two hundred elite infantrymen was standing, they all fell to the ground in a bloody state. The survivors howled like wild beasts, and the scene was horrific. In fact, the two platoons at the back had to thank these casualties. If they hadn't stood so close together and endured almost all the fragmentation damage, they wouldn't have been much better.
Seeing that his soldiers had stopped moving forward, the leading officer who had noticed the situation ahead yelled: "Can't stop! Let them shoot, and then keep moving forward!"
"The enemy is about to shoot! Everyone squat down!"
The servant soldiers behind the parapet fired a round of bullets at the enemy eighty meters away in a messy manner, then squatted down with only half of their heads exposed, observing the situation.
"Raise the gun! Aim! Shoot!"
The officers from Württemberg quickly issued the order to fire, and the soldiers carried out the orders blankly like puppets. As streaks of fire erupted from the muzzles of the guns, hundreds of lead bullets hit the outside of the sandbag wall, crackling. There was a loud noise; some bullets flew over the fortifications and hit several soldiers who were busy loading ammunition.
Well, the Württemberg soldiers finally completed their first shooting at a distance of eighty meters. The other battalions on the same plane did not dare to go any further. They all stopped at the eighty-meter position and splashed. Ammunition, and then move forward ten steps for another round.
As the VOC troops started shooting, the servants behind the fortifications began to suffer sporadic casualties. Most of them were shot because they had to stand up when loading ammunition. So in order to speed up the loading pace, some soldiers took out two flash caps from the cowhide bag and bit them in their mouths. After the bullets were pressed into the gun chamber with the bullet rod, they could quickly install the flash caps. The other soldiers saw this and quickly imitated him.
The four 12-pound cannons at the rear of the position no longer bothered to bombard the enemy infantry. The VOC artillerymen had pushed several four-pound artillery carts to a position of 500 meters, and they had to be destroyed as soon as possible. This thing is very easy to move and can be pushed by only four people. Since Gustav used it, it has become a standard battlefield equipment in European countries.
Forty minutes into the battle, as the casualties on the front line continued to increase, Van De Gus gritted his teeth and pressed on with the last reserves. He did not expect that the enemy's grenades on the opposite side were so powerful and had a great impact on the morale of his soldiers. But as he said himself, he had no choice.
However, what he didn't know was that the reason why Hood on the opposite side had been suffering casualties from close combat was because he was waiting for him to press all his troops up.
Hood was very ambitious. He planned to annihilate the two regiments on the opposite side and did not want to let any of them return to the other side. When he observed in the telescope that the last two battalions of the enemy were also dispatched, he knew that the 100mm rapid-fire gun on the armored vehicle was ready to fire.
"Tum!"
A strange sound of artillery echoed in the wilderness. Vandegus subconsciously turned his head to look and saw a cannonball falling behind the two battalions that had set off. The ground shook violently, as if the sky was shattering. The soldiers of the two battalions were startled and immediately accelerated their pace under the orders of the officers.
"not good!"
c keenly felt that something was wrong. Since the enemy's artillery could hit so far, why didn't it hit like this at the beginning? Unexpectedly, before he could think about it, more shells flew towards him. First it landed on the left, then on the right, then flew over the head, and finally landed dozens of meters in front of him.
Amidst the rumbling explosion, Vandergus was thrown to the ground by his horse and lay face down on the ground, while his adjutant lay on top of him, almost suffocating him. The shock waves that kept exploding around him made him feel the air waves rolling and the soil flying. It seemed that the whole world was overturned by the opponent's artillery fire. The fire and vibration of the explosion made him dizzy. The huge sound and scorching shock wave conveyed death. message.
When the constant barrage of gunfire finally left his position, Vandergus shouted to his adjutant to get him up. However, when he struggled to push the adjutant away, he found that the adjutant was already dead.
Vandegus was a little confused, and he was confused as to what happened just now. After fighting for so many years, I have encountered large-scale shelling before, but it has never been like this time. It feels like the world is being destroyed and the earth is destroyed. It is really terrible!
He groped around himself to make sure he was intact. And where he was, there were quite a few people just now, some raising flags, some looking at maps, some passing orders back and forth to report on the situation ahead, and even some just hanging out. Dozens of horses, baggage carts, and ammunition boxes were all gone now, like streets swept by a storm.
In the dirty air behind him, there were explosions one after another, and clusters of yellow lightning struck the ground. The earth was falling apart. As the air waves danced wildly in the wilderness, I turned to look at the battlefield. The two battalions that had just set off had already Shrouded in firelight and gunpowder smoke, not a single figure could be seen, as if the entire army suddenly sank underground.
Not far away, a horse covered in blood ran out of the smoke with a weird posture. It only had three legs left, which was very scary. Another white horse followed out, but there was no one on it. However, as a shell exploded, the horse was caught in the fire.
The whole world in his field of vision was shaking. Vandergus climbed on his hands and knees behind a horse whose leg was blown off. He raised his head and looked over the horse. The explosions on the battlefield hundreds of meters away were still going on. . Suddenly, a shell hit the ammunition cart accompanying the four-pounder. A huge yellow fireball rose into the sky, and then turned into a huge black smoke column. In a scene that was like the end of the world, he saw a guy in a blue military uniform flying up to a height of more than ten meters in the air, and then tumbling and spinning before landing on the ground.
It’s over! Vandergus wanted to stand up and find a horse to leave this hell of blood and fire, but the explosion just now made him so dizzy that he fell down after taking only two steps. Dust and smoke enveloped him, and he lay face down on the ground, thinking that if he could rest for a while, I would be able to stand up. But gradually, the world around him became blurry, and even the continuous sound of explosions had a hypnotic effect. Although the bombardment of the Northern Navy was still as crazy as thunder, for him, it gradually receded like the tide. .
Well, Major General van der Goose passed out from a concussion. However, on the battlefield in front of him, artillery fire was still raging. Stone chips, sand, and shrapnel mixed with shouts of people and horses were floating on the battlefield, filling the ears of the servants behind the sandbag fortifications.
Seeing the continuous explosions not far away, Hood leaned into the ear of the Second Battalion Commander next to him and shouted loudly: "Battle Commander Ma, you go to the left wing! Let's launch a full-scale attack!"
"Charge across the board?" The second battalion commander didn't hear clearly, so he asked hurriedly.
Hood nodded and said: "When the armored vehicles cease fire, the bugler will blow the charge horn, and your battalion will rush straight along the left road until it reaches a position 800 meters away, and then surround it and come back. No one will be allowed to escape." Drop it. Pay attention to search the location where their commander’s flag was just now.”
"Yes! Got it!"
"Everyone, bayonets on!"
As the messengers on horseback ran around the fortifications, the soldiers behind the parapets excitedly took out their bayonets and installed them, and the clang of metal clashing sounded.
Finally, the 30mm cannon on the armored vehicle stopped firing. Hood was now standing in the gap between the two sandbag walls, and the flag-bearer behind him had already raised the flag high into the air. He raised his saber and roared loudly: "Everyone follow me! Move forward!"
The bugler blew the charge bugle, and Hood took the lead in walking away from the fortifications. But before he could take a few steps, the adjutant and guards rushing behind him blocked him in front. On both sides and behind him, nearly two thousand soldiers also roared like beasts. They poured out like a tide from the gaps between the sandbag walls and pressed towards the enemy on the opposite side.
When the enemy's corpses began to appear in the soldiers' field of vision, the originally dense formation also became loose. The soldiers were divided into sections, and "Follow" orders sounded from time to time in the team.
There were corpses everywhere on the ground, like a battered sandbag wall. In pieces, countless people wearing blue and red military uniforms staggered and fell in a pool of blood, making the ground under their feet muddy and slippery. The soldiers could only walk around. On the battlefield at this time, only the forest on the left was still ringing with gunshots. It was Quan Baocai's platoon who was firing at the enemy troops who fled into the forest.
When the thick smoke was blown away by the wind, a blond soldier wearing a blue and red military uniform appeared in Hood's right field of vision. His left hand grasped his broken arm, and he looked at the oncoming attack with a numb face. The enemy neither expressed surrender nor dropped his severed arm to grab the weapon at his feet. The servant soldiers passing by him seemed hesitant. Should they shoot or not?
"The man looks very pitiful."
"Yeah, are you afraid that you were blown up by a cannonball?"
"Don't kill him, keep him as a prisoner."
"My arms are gone, my blood is almost gone, I can't live."
"Why don't you give him a bayonet?"
"Are you still human? He's already like this."
Several soldiers said this as they trotted past the wounded Württemberg soldier, and some even looked back. They saw the wounded soldier lying on the ground, leaning against a corpse, his head slowly hanging down, but still holding his severed arm in his hand.
The people of the second battalion ran very fast. As they advanced, a platoon of men was separated to join the battle in the woods, and Quan Baocai's platoon carried out the final siege against the enemies in the woods. Hundreds of VOC soldiers who fled into the woods had no intention of resisting. They ignored the bullets flying around them and just wanted to pass through the woods, jump into the Wurong River and swim to the other side.
Major General Van De Gus finally woke up. When he opened his eyes, he felt as if he had forgotten the existence of time. The surrounding artillery fire has stopped, only sporadic gunshots are still ringing out.
He forced himself to stand up and knelt on the ground, still feeling a little dizzy. Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps beside him, and a dozen meters away, a Württemberg officer with a bloody face stumbled over. Van De Gus recognized the rank of lieutenant on the other man's body.
"Lieutenant, how many of us are left?"
The lieutenant saw the major general standing up and felt a little unbelievable. However, he only hesitated slightly and ran away to the east without looking back.
A wry smile appeared on Vandergus's face, and he finally stood up with a strong effort on his arms. He looked around blankly, and after confirming the direction of the floating bridge, he staggered towards it. However, after only ten steps, several gunshots were heard behind him, and Vandergus, who was shot in the back, immediately fell to the ground. He rolled on the ground in pain, and finally lay on the ground, raising his hands to the sky, as if groping for something.
(End of chapter)
