The Chu army's landing on Mozambique Island went very smoothly. After all, if you want to really prevent the enemy from landing these days, it is not possible to rely on forts and the like. You need your own fleet to control the coastline.
Otherwise, the coastline is so long, and your fort can defend one place, but it is impossible to defend the entire coastline.
The Portuguese navy was blocked at the port by the Chu army and could only rely on shore defense forts to survive. It was unable to take the initiative to disrupt the Chu army's landing operation.
This is equivalent to the Chu army's landing operation, which was basically carried out without interference.
Although the Portuguese defenders reacted quickly, they noticed the landing direction of the Chu army and promptly dispatched troops to block the beachhead.
However, after breaking away from the solid city defense fortress, if they took the initiative to run to the beach to block the attack, they would suffer heavy losses from the fierce land fire support and artillery fire from the Chu warships because there were no solid anti-gun facilities.
Subsequently, they suffered further losses under the attack of the Chu army's landing force, and were finally forced to completely withdraw from the beach and retreat into the castle.
The Portuguese's beachhead blockade not only failed to have the desired effect, but also caused the Portuguese to suffer at least nearly a hundred casualties and dropped six field artillery pieces.
It can be said that it is a loss to my grandma's family.
After the leading troops landed successfully, the subsequent Chu troops also began to land on a large scale.
Several troop carriers carrying soldiers from the Third Regiment of the Indian Army approached one after another, and then dropped a large number of landing boats. The soldiers carried personal equipment and rowed the boats to start landing.
After landing, these infantrymen also advanced deep into the island to protect the landing site.
At the same time, a Ping An -class landing ship also began to land on the beach. The Ping An -class landing ship is a new type of ship developed and built by the Da Chu Empire Navy in the past two years. It is specially used for artillery landing, so that it can be used when there is no In the overseas area of the dock, artillery was quickly transported ashore to support army operations.
This class of ship has a very shallow draft and is a flat-bottomed ship. It is made of all steel and has a reinforced bottom and keel to facilitate beaching.
It is also equipped with a high-power steam engine.
The ship's fully loaded displacement is only 300 tons, and its steam-powered cruising range is only about 500 nautical miles.
But the practicality is very strong!
After all, in most overseas areas these days, there are actually no decent ports, let alone large-scale lifting equipment, and the Chu army likes to bring a large number of artillery with them when fighting overseas.
When encountering some places with backward port infrastructure, it will often cause a lot of trouble for the landing of artillery.
Either build a temporary trestle directly, or simply use a cargo ship to land on the beach, and then use the lifting equipment on the cargo ship to hoist the artillery to land.
In short, it is very troublesome, especially for some medium and large caliber artillery.
In order to facilitate the landing of artillery, especially medium and large-caliber artillery, the Da Chu Empire Navy simply built such a landing ship, which was specially used for the landing of artillery in overseas areas.
As the 300-ton Binh Phuoc landing ship successfully washed up on the beach, the bow hatch was soon opened. The hatch opened downwards and directly touched the beach ground.
Immediately afterwards, a large number of naval engineers carrying various tools and thick planks came out of the landing ship. The engineers used thick planks and other tools to quickly lay a thick plank road directly on the beach.
Then I saw horses disembarking from the cabin, and then came a 20-year-old 115mm light field gun, which was pulled by many artillerymen, slowly disembarked along the ship's plank, and finally drove onto the beach. Makeshift boardwalk.
The gunners then attached four Toyoshu draft horses to the cannon, which only had a gun, a gun mount, and a light unused lead vehicle to reduce weight during wartime and facilitate disembarkation and maneuvering on the beach. The horses are all over 1.55 meters tall at the shoulder.
This 20-year-old 115mm light field gun is said to be a light field gun. The Army even calls it a mountain gun, but after all, it is called a field gun, so it is relatively heavy.
This thing is generally used as the division-level main support artillery for local mountain jungle troops and overseas garrison troops.
The gun barrel is made of copper alloy, and the diameter of the barrel is fourteen times. The gun mount is made of wrought iron, and the two main wheels on the gun mount are also made of iron.
The total weight of the array is one ton, and the total weight of the column is 1.4 tons. The effective range for firing solid bullets can reach 1,500 meters, and the effective range for firing grenades can reach 1,200 meters.
You say that a field gun weighing more than one ton is not a light field gun at all, let alone a mountain gun?
You have to know that the Great Chu Empire in its own country, for example, the Pingyuan Type 23-type 115mm field artillery distributed in Central Asia, has a total weight of 1.5 tons, and a total weight of 2.1 tons.
Why can't this field gun of the same caliber, which is hundreds of kilograms lighter, be called a light field gun...
Well, looking at the weight of this thing, you will know why the Chu Army has not abandoned the old antique 65mm series field guns in the past twenty years...
It is precisely because some medium-caliber field guns are relatively heavy that the Da Chu Empire Navy built a safe-class artillery landing ship...
If the overseas troops are equipped with some 65mm light field guns, then what kind of artillery landing ship is needed? The gunner can just carry it to land.
As the first 20-year-old 115mm light field gun landed, the second, third... and more artillery soon followed.
As the twelve 115mm light field guns were landed, four or six 19th-year-old 150mm light howitzers were transported. Although this thing has a larger caliber, it is actually lighter in weight because it is all The short-barreled howitzer has a barrel diameter only seven times, and its effective range is not very good, so it is also relatively light, with a total weight of only four to five hundred kilograms.
The above-mentioned eighteen artillery pieces are all artillery pieces of the field artillery battalion of the Third Regiment of the Indian Army.
Although the Third Regiment of the Indian Army is just a servant army, on the African battlefield, because the risk of rebellion has been greatly reduced, and at the same time they are really easy to use in fighting, the Chu Army has always provided weapons and equipment to the Indian Army stationed in Africa. Not bad either.
Basically, they are equipped with regular weapons of the Chu Army, but they are all old and second-hand goods with relatively backward performance.
Whether it is rifles or artillery, they are basically replaced by the Chu army's regular overseas garrison troops.
But even the second-line equipment that was replaced by the Chu army was powerful enough to defeat the indigenous weapons and equipment of various countries.
The performance of the Type 21 flash cap percussion gun is still far superior to that of the indigenous muskets of various countries... Today, most indigenous armies still use matchlock guns, and the armies of a few European countries are equipped with flintlock muskets.
However, the performance gap between flintlock guns and flash cap percussion guns is not small.
A flintlock gun with a firing rate of more than 60% or more than 70%, and a flash cap firing gun with a firing rate of 99%. The firing rate alone is completely different.
The same is true for artillery. The main artillery currently in service of the Chu army, even these old second-hand goods used by the third regiment of the Indian Army, is enough to defeat the artillery made by indigenous people in various countries in terms of effective range.
After landing, the 3rd Artillery Battalion of the Indian Army quickly deployed on a piece of solid ground near the landing site to provide fire support for the landing troops.
Moreover, although this artillery battalion is only an artillery deployed on the landing site, it is enough to cover most of Mozambique Island.
After all, Mozambique Island is actually very small, no more than 3,000 meters long and only over 500 meters wide. As long as the artillery battalion's artillery lands, it will be easy to carry out artillery blockade missions.
But there is no point now, because the Portuguese have retreated into the San Sebastian Castle and will not come out to fight the landing Chu army.
But even if it is not used, the military deployment is still needed.
In war, don't be afraid of ten thousand, just be afraid of the worst.
If those Portuguese lose their minds and insist on taking the initiative to attack the Chu army, they will be blinded if the field artillery battalion fails to provide timely support.
Of course, even so, the Chu army that landed could still receive fire support from the Chu Empire's naval fleet!
Because the entire island is only three thousand meters long and five hundred meters wide, and the series of front-mounted rifled guns equipped on the warships of the Da Chu Empire Navy can basically achieve an effective range of more than three thousand meters when supporting land.
The warships do not even need to risk getting close to the coastline, and they do not need to risk being attacked at close range by enemy fort fire. Instead, they can launch shelling from a distance on the sea to provide fire support to the landing troops.
Just like the warships of the Dachu Empire Navy now, they were shelling the Portuguese forts on the sea 2,500 meters away, just like a live-fire bombardment exercise.
The explosion of artillery shells caused by the fierce shelling caused a lot of losses to the Portuguese at first. Now, there are no Portuguese gunners on the fort at all... They are basically hiding behind to avoid the shelling.
The cylindrical high-explosive grenades fired by the Chu army's large number of 170mm, 150mm, 130mm and 100mm front-loading rifled guns are not as powerful as the spherical grenades fired by smoothbore artillery. can be compared.
Although the charge is still black powder, the power is still very good.
After all, you have to know that even during the Russo-Japanese War in the original time and space, the artillery shells used by the Japanese and Russian armies were still charged with black powder.
The cannonballs used on the Russian warships still have black powder charges, while the Japanese navy's cannonballs are better and use picric acid.
But no one said that the artillery shells fired by both sides during the Russo-Japanese War were not powerful!
The navy's continuous suppressive bombardment not only caused a large number of casualties to the Portuguese defenders, but also suppressed the Portuguese participating defenders and was unable to use the artillery on the fort to fight back.
Otherwise, the third regiment of the Indian Army may still encounter trouble when it lands. After all, if you want to reach the landing site, you actually need to pass under the nose of the Portuguese fort.
The Portuguese are not stupid. When they built the fortress fort, they considered the issue of anti-landing. Although the setting of the fort cannot threaten the large landing area in the rear, it can directly block the channel to the landing site.
However, the artillery firepower of the Chu navy was so fierce that their forts were completely suppressed and did not play their role in blocking the waterway at all.
After the third regiment of the Chu Indian Army successfully landed, the fleet that was bombarding them continued for a while, and then stopped.
The Portuguese had long been hiding in the artillery fortifications in the solid fortress. Continuing to attack would only be a waste of ammunition, and it was obviously impossible for grenades to directly destroy the forts and city walls.
The life of the barrel of a front-loading rifled gun is very limited, so you have to use it sparingly. Not to mention whether it is expensive or not, if you just burn out the rifling of the barrel during sea combat, how can you fight in the future?
It is difficult to directly replace the gun barrel on the battlefield.
Besides, it's useless to keep bombarding people while they hide and don't come out. It's better to wait for them to show up and then bombard them again.
As the bombardment of the African Fleet stopped, the gunpowder smoke on the island and the sea gradually dispersed. Only then did the Portuguese on the island cautiously poke their heads out of the anti-gun fortifications, and then looked at the bombed-out castle and the The fort was about to cry but had no tears.
After experiencing the indiscriminate bombardment of more than a dozen warships of the Chu army and more than 2,000 rounds of high-explosive grenades fired by more than a hundred front-loaded rifled guns, the castle city and the fort area became a mess.
Although there were no problems with the city walls, forts and other main buildings, a large number of ordinary buildings were destroyed. Even the large number of coastal defense artillery deployed in the open air on the forts were severely damaged.
Although the barrels of these shore defense artillery guns are basically fine, they are all made of copper or iron after all. The conventional explosion of a mere howitzer cannot cause any actual damage to these big guys.
However, many gun mounts could not hold up, and some were located in the center of the explosion and were overturned by the shock wave.
As a result, quite a few coastal defense guns, although the barrels are still intact, have lost their combat effectiveness due to damage to the gun mounts.
The Portuguese were heartbroken and panicked at the same time.
The power of these Chu people's artillery fire was so abnormal that it far exceeded their ability to withstand it.
However, just as these Portuguese emerged one after another, they began to put out fires in the 6th fort area, or to clean up the mess in the fort, and began to repair the damaged artillery.
A rear admiral of the Da Chu Empire on the sea in the distance smiled while looking with a large navigation telescope, and at the same time ordered: "Get ready for each ship's gun, wait a few more minutes, more people will be waiting for them to come out. Some, let’s give them a rapid fire!”
"We need to let these Portuguese barbarians know that they can't rest assured once our shelling stops."
About five minutes later, the African Fleet of the Chu Empire Navy, which had stopped bombarding for half an hour, suddenly fired rapidly at the fort and the castle area.
In just one minute, the entire fleet fired nearly two hundred rounds of artillery shells.
The Portuguese who ran out of the artillery fortifications to clean up the mess, put out fires or repair artillery, city walls and other various fortifications were dumbfounded...
