The Indian dispatched army tried to establish the first indigenous servant army in the history of the Chu Empire: the Indian Legion in Bombay, but this did not affect the Indian dispatched army's offensive against Mumbai.
Since the heavy artillery was in place, the Chu army began to clear and bombard Bombay's city defenses, mainly the British city defense forts.
However, the artillery bombardment power of this year is not very good compared to the artillery bombardment power of later generations. Even if there is a hot air balloon for guidance and sighting, the hit rate is good, but the bombardment effect is actually relatively limited. You can only rely on the quantity to pile up, or simply It’s grinding bit by bit.
The main reason is that the British artillery positions should have learned the lessons of the Dutch and Portuguese and deployed anti-grenade ring fortifications, so that the effect of the howitzer bombardment was greatly reduced.
As for the solid artillery shells... those things are even more useless. The artillery position is built directly on the small hill. The foundation is very stable. At the same time, there are several meters of defenses in front of the artillery... even the solid shells of the 150mm heavy artillery. The damage caused by hitting it is also limited.
Therefore, there is no good way to attack this kind of fort with strong fortifications. The only way is to use more and larger artillery, and then carry out repeated and lasting shelling.
This is why the Chu army paid so much attention to the development of artillery and equipped it with artillery on a large scale.
Facing such a fortified city, it would be really difficult if we didn't pull out hundreds of artillery pieces and a lot of heavy artillery inside.
This also resulted in the Chu army's artillery equipment being extremely large in number, and the calibers were generally relatively large.
The main fighting force in the Chu army, that is, each first-class division has hundreds of artillery pieces.
Among them, the Plain Type A Division has three battalions in its artillery regiment. Each battalion is responsible for eight 115mm field guns and four 150mm light howitzers.
First-class divisions deployed in mountainous areas or other areas with inconvenient transportation often use lighter 115 mm mountain guns to replace part of them, that is, twelve 115 mm field guns, that is, twelve 115 mm field guns, twelve 115mm mountain gun, twelve 150mm light howitzers.
However, no matter what type of first-class infantry division it is, its field artillery regiment will have thirty-six artillery pieces.
In addition, the division's cavalry regiment will have a separate small artillery battalion with a standard of eight 90mm field guns. The cavalry regiment of the mountain division will be equipped with a lighter 115mm mountain gun. There are also eight gates.
Each infantry regiment and baggage regiment will each have eight 65mm field guns and four 115mm short-barreled light howitzers (which are lightweight artillery that can fire at medium and short range, well, their combat positioning is similar to that of mortars or infantry mortars).
The division headquarters Wei Xian Battalion will also have two 65mm field guns and two 115mm light howitzers.
The two kinds of artillery in the infantry regiment, the baggage regiment and the Wei Xian camp are all standard infantry artillery.
The infantry artillery now equipped by the Chu army all adopts a lightweight and detachable design. In daily marching conditions, it can be pulled by a pair of inferior horses, or a single horse can do just fine... If you can't find the horsepower, a few soldiers can just pull it. Let’s go!
When encountering mountainous areas, it can also be broken up and carried by mules and horses, or even multiple soldiers can take turns carrying it.
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In order to facilitate the soldiers to take it apart and carry it away in an emergency, there are also several special small rings, which can be easily inserted into multiple wooden sticks for the soldiers to carry it.
These two kinds of artillery designed and equipped specifically for infantry are very light and have moderate firepower. Therefore, they are equipped in a very large number in the Chu army. They are equipped for all types of troops, regardless of mountains, plains or marines.
[In view of the general environment,
The total of the above-mentioned regular artillery and infantry artillery is no more, no less, exactly one hundred!
These one hundred artillery pieces with different calibers, barrel lengths, and different combat positions support the combat confidence of a first-class combat readiness division.
Not to mention that when the Chu army went to war, in addition to the artillery carried by the division and regiment levels, they also particularly liked to strengthen the artillery units for the troops on the front line responsible for siege.
What is strengthened is often medium and large-caliber cannons or large-caliber short-barreled howitzers. For example, the Indian Expeditionary Force has strengthened the 27th Heavy Artillery Regiment, which has 36 heavy artillery specifically for siege.
At the same time, if there is a coordinated operation by the navy, the navy will often directly dismantle part of the naval gun, transport it ashore, and form a temporary naval artillery battalion or regiment to participate in the war.
Just like outside Mumbai now, in addition to some of the artillery of the 72nd Division itself, there are also two battalions of the 27th Heavy Artillery Regiment and a heavy artillery battalion of the Navy.
At the same time, the navy also dispatched warships to venture close to the coastline, and directly used a large number of naval guns on the warships to conduct long-distance bombardments on shore targets. Although this kind of bombardment was to ensure its own safety, it was impossible to get too close, so that the accuracy of the bombardment was not very good. , but the Chu army’s artillery attacks rarely pursue precise artillery attacks, and are often covering artillery attacks!
It doesn't matter if the hit rate is a little worse...
Today, outside Mumbai, the Chu army is still doing this. The army and navy go into battle together, using hundreds of artillery pieces for bombardment every day. On the biggest day, the navy dispatched more than a dozen warships, increasing the number of artillery pieces participating in the bombardment to More than three hundred doors!
There is no way, the navy's battleships have a lot of artillery. Just pull out a third-class battleship and there will be seventy or eighty guns, and a first-class battleship will have hundreds of guns.
Even if it is a broadside bombardment, only a part of the naval guns can be used to participate in the bombardment, but the number is still not comparable to that of the army's artillery.
The Chu army wanted to rely on this overwhelming and fierce bombardment to destroy the British defenses and defeat their confidence in resistance until they no longer dared to attack the city.
The British army was quite heroic at first. In the first few days, they had to fight back despite the Chu army's shelling.
Especially during the days when the Chu army dug communication trenches, the British artillery troops fought very bravely. They had to go to the fort to fire back despite the Chu army's shelling. Moreover, the indigenous civilians who dug the trenches also lacked the necessary skills. Tactical skills, often stupidly jumping out of traffic trenches and running back... and then getting bombed.
This also resulted in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of indigenous people.
However, the British artillery troops also had a hard time, because the Chu army would also take advantage of this time to launch fierce bombardments at the British artillery positions, and would also launch grenades specifically to kill and injure the British artillery.
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Even if the shelling effect of a single artillery is not obvious and the hit rate is very low, if it occasionally hits, the impact and shrapnel will be absorbed by their ring fortifications.
But there are too many artillery pieces to hold off the Chu army!
This was bombarded by hundreds of artillery pieces at every turn. Even if the English were well prepared, they would still inevitably suffer a large number of casualties.
Especially their skilled gunners, dozens of them were shot down today, and dozens more tomorrow. Within a few days, the British army found that they didn't even have the gunners on hand anymore.
Then they were embarrassed... There were still dozens of artillery pieces, most of which were in good condition. A few gun mounts could be repaired urgently if they were damaged, and the ammunition reserves were sufficient. As the gunners continued to be killed and injured, they There are not many skilled gunners who can operate artillery.
On the other hand, the Chu army on the opposite side relied on the range advantage of its own artillery. They basically deployed medium and large-caliber direct-aiming artillery, that is, field artillery and cannon artillery positions thousands of meters away... Everyone in England has artillery performance It's so bad that the shelling from more than a thousand meters away can only be heard.
At the same time, the artillery used by the Chu army to carry out shelling at a distance of several hundred meters is a curved howitzer. Whether it is a 150mm light howitzer, a 115mm mountain cannon or simply a 115mm light howitzer, they basically hide on the reverse slope for shelling... The solid artillery shells fired by the British troops on the opposite side were basically impossible to pose any threat to them.
As for grenades... the British army didn't have grenades. If they were overwhelmed, they would just get a few mortars to fire matchlock fuse grenades, and their power was just that, which did not help the overall situation.
A group of European countries, especially the Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and English who had more contact with the Chu Empire, actually knew about the Chu army's new grenades for a long time.
Yes, they also want to imitate it, but they can’t imitate it...
On the one hand, the metal disc fuse currently being upgraded by the Chu Army is difficult to produce. Of course, this thing can also be produced by hand on a small scale.
But they can't get rid of the bullet casings!
The real core technology of Chu Army's grenades is not in the metal disc fuze, but in the cartridge case... and the cartridge case involves materials and processing.
The shells of Chu Army's grenades are made of special steel, not ordinary pig iron, because only steel shells can be made thinner and have a high enough bore pressure capability to ensure a certain range.
Looking around the world, only the Chu Army can produce artillery shells on a large scale...and you can't expect other countries to use hand-made and hard-tempered precious steel to produce artillery shells.
Even if they did, it would be difficult for them to process it.
To carry out batch industrial processing of steel, the technical requirements are higher... There is no difference between the indigenous people and Dengtian who are not good at materials technology.
Based on these technical difficulties, if their counterparts in Europe want to develop grenades, they can only imitate the early grenade model of the Chu army and use ultra-short-barreled mortars to fire iron grenades with matchlock fuses!
That thing can be used, but it's not very powerful and extremely dangerous...
In the early days of the Unification War, the Chu army had no choice but to use them on a large scale when faced with many turtle shells from the Ming army.
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At the same time, this thing is not very effective, but it is also very expensive to use.
For the British troops defending the city, the effect of using these primitive grenades was actually not great. During defensive operations, solid artillery shells at medium and long distances and shotgun shells at medium and short distances were much stronger than matchlock iron grenades.
However, in response to this situation, the Chu army was very experienced... they did not play any traditional infantry siege with the British army, and directly dug communication trenches, and the infantry hid in the trenches and gradually advanced.
Although it takes a lot of time, it is normal to spend ten days and a half to attack a city, or even a month or two is nothing.
It's much better than letting soldiers fill it with their lives.
Ten days have passed since the Chu army came to the city of Bombay. The artillery fired countless shells, but the British army defending the city did not see even a Chu army infantry...
Those damn Chu infantry were still stationed in the fortifications more than a thousand meters away. The few infantry who rushed within a few hundred meters to protect the artillery were hiding in the trenches and did not show up at all.
Then the British were dumbfounded... They prepared many defensive strategies, but when faced with the Chu army's offensive mode, they found that they were of no use.
Who would have thought that these Chu people could use hundreds or even hundreds of artillery to bombard them every day for more than seven or eight days, and not a single infantryman was sent in the process!
Looking at this ghost, I'm afraid I'm going to be bombarded forever...
After seven or eight days of artillery fire on both sides, the English on the opposite side simply gave in and stopped using artillery to fight back... Anyway, the counterattack had no actual results other than killing and wounding some indigenous people. The most important thing was to continue fighting. They All the gunners have to be used up.
What's the use of having more and better artillery without skilled gunners?
They still had to keep some skilled gunners until the Chu army officially attacked the city.
Seeing that the British army on the opposite side had given up, Major General Bai Zhen, who was observing and commanding the operation, laughed: "A group of barbarian natives, who don't know the heights of the world, dare to compete with us in artillery fire. They are getting impatient."
"These British barbarians are even more ignorant than the Dutch barbarians!"
During the Battle of Ceylon, the Dutch knew that competing with the Chu army in artillery bombardment was sheer folly, and they simply ignored the Chu army's long and continuous artillery bombardment. The gunners ducked their heads to avoid bombardment every day.
They only planned to use artillery to carry out an intensive counterattack when the Chu army finally used infantry to attack the city.
Of course, due to the lack of morale of the military and the company's senior management running away in advance, the counterattack strategy formulated by the Dutch was not implemented.
However, the English still
A battle with the Chu army... Before, they had only heard how powerful the Chu army was, but after all, they had never really seen it, let alone experienced it personally. In addition, Bombay was related to the raw silk produced by the English East India Company in India, so they still maintained a certain degree of confidence. of courage.
Because of this courage, they sacrificed a number of precious gunners' casualties without much practical significance!
When the Chu army actually launched an siege later, the British army would not have many skilled gunners available.
While the Chu army continued to bombard, continued to dig various communication trenches, and continued to advance the battle line to less than a hundred meters away from the city wall.
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Laihar, who performed outstandingly in the training of the past few days in the Indian Army, was promoted to corporal and appointed as captain, with nine soldiers in charge.
After training, Hal will also go to watch the battles on the front line!
It’s just that the Chu army’s fighting style was incomprehensible to him, or it was beyond his imagination!
Except for the rumble of cannons, everything on the huge battlefield was quiet, and there were not even a few people visible. This was completely different from the war scene that Laihar had imagined, where tens of thousands of people gathered together to fight.
Not to mention that Laihar, an indigenous soldier, could not understand it. Even the British officers in the Bombay Castle who had traveled all over the country and had experienced a lot, some of whom had participated in the Thirty Years' War in Europe, could not understand it.
At this moment, the war pattern in Mumbai made them equally puzzled and even scared!
The Chu army's artillery fire was really brutal, especially the exploding grenades that were unstoppable.
Once the Chu army launches an infantry attack, one's own defenders are bound to board the city to defend the city. However, this means directly exposing their infantry to the fierce artillery fire of the Chu army.
Any officer could not help but frown or even be horrified when he thought of his own infantry being exposed to the fierce artillery fire of the Chu army.
No soldier can withstand this fierce bombardment, because it is not a battle, but a death, and a worthless death.
So, in another combat meeting, the British officers discussed and decided to immediately start forming a second line of defense in the city.
Once the Chu army dispatches infantry to attack the city, the British army will not fight with the Chu army at the top of the city. Instead, they will let the Chu army in, and their own side will rely on the second or even third line of defense to conduct defensive operations behind the city wall.
With the city walls and buildings in the city blocking the way, the Chu army's artillery, no matter how powerful it was, could not pose a fatal threat to the British army.
What's left is a contest between infantrymen, and they have confidence in the bravery of their own infantry... It doesn't matter if they don't have confidence.
If we were to fight in the streets, no matter how bad the situation was, it would still be better than fighting on the top of an unobstructed city with countless artillery shells from the Chu army.
Bringing the Chu infantry in, killing a large number of Chu infantry through street fighting, and eventually forcing the Chu army to retreat. This is the only feasible solution that many British officers came up with after careful consideration.
But, can they do it?
rainy day
