I want to be emperor

Chapter 796 The Perverted Shelling
The Chu army landed on Mozambique Island very smoothly. After all, if you want to really prevent the enemy's landing these days, you can't rely on forts or the like. You need your own fleet to guard the coastline.

Otherwise, the coastline is so long, your fort can defend one place, but it is impossible to guard all the coastlines.

However, the Portuguese navy was blocked in the port by the Chu army, and they could only rely on the coastal defense forts to survive, and they could not take the initiative to attack and disrupt the Chu army's landing operations.

This is equivalent to the landing operation of the Chu army, which is basically carried out without interference.

Although the Portuguese defenders reacted quickly, after sensing the landing direction of the Chu army, they dispatched troops in time to block the beachhead.

However, after breaking away from the strong city defense fortress, if you take the initiative to run to the beach to block the attack, because there is no strong anti-gun facility, you will suffer heavy losses from the fierce land fire support from the Chu army warships.

Later, under the attack of the Chu army's landing troops, they lost some more, and finally they were forced to withdraw from the beach and retreated into the castle.

The Portuguese's beachhead attack not only failed to have the desired effect, but also caused the Portuguese casualties at least nearly a hundred people, and dropped six field artillery.

It can be said that it was a loss to grandma's house.

After the vanguard troops landed successfully, the follow-up Chu army troops also began to land on a large scale.

A number of troop carriers carrying soldiers from the third regiment of the Indian Army approached one after another, and then put down a large number of landing boats. The soldiers carried their personal equipment and paddled the boats to start landing.
After landing, these infantry also marched deep into the island to protect the landing site.

At the same time, a Pingan-class landing ship also began to land on the beach. The Pingan-class landing ship is a new type of ship developed and built by the Great Chu Empire Navy in the past two years. In the overseas area of ​​the pier, the artillery is quickly transported ashore to support the army's operations.

The draft of this class of ships is very shallow, and it is still a flat-bottomed boat. It is constructed of all steel, and the bottom and keel are strengthened for beaching.

At the same time equipped with a high-power steam engine.

The full load displacement of the ship is only [-] tons, and the cruising distance of the steam power is only about [-] nautical miles.

But the practicality is very strong!

After all, in most overseas regions these days, there are actually no decent ports, let alone large-scale hoisting equipment, and the Chu army likes to carry a large number of artillery when fighting overseas.

When encountering some places with backward port infrastructure, it will often bring a lot of trouble to the landing of artillery.

Either directly erect a temporary trestle, or simply use a cargo ship to land on the beach, and then use the hoisting equipment on the cargo ship to hoist and land the artillery.

In short, it is very troublesome, especially for some medium and large caliber artillery, it is very troublesome.

In order to facilitate the landing of artillery, especially medium and large caliber artillery, the Great Chu Empire Navy simply created such a landing ship, which is specially used for artillery landing in overseas areas.

As the [-]-ton Pingfu landing ship successfully washed the beach, the bow hatch was opened soon, and the hatch directly touched the beach ground after opening downward.

Immediately afterwards, a large group of naval engineers carrying various tools and planks ran out of the landing ship. The engineers used planks and other tools to quickly lay a plank road directly on the beach.

Then I saw horses disembarking from the cabin, and then came a 20-year-style 110 [-]mm light field gun, which was pulled by many artillerymen, slowly disembarked along the board, and finally drove onto the temporary paved beach. boardwalk.

The gunners put four Toyosu draft horses on this cannon, which only has a cannon plus a gun mount, and a light and empty leading vehicle to reduce weight during wartime and facilitate disembarkation and maneuvering on the beach. Horses are more than 1.5 meters high at the shoulder.

This 20-year-style 110 [-]mm light field gun is said to be a light field gun. The Army even calls it a mountain gun, but after all, it has the name of a field gun, and 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, the barrel diameter is fourteen times, the gun mount is made of wrought iron, and the two main wheels on the mount are also made of iron.

The total weight of the row is one ton, and the total weight of the row is 500 tons. The effective range of launching solid bullets can reach 1000 meters, and launching grenades can reach [-] to [-] meters.

You said that a field artillery weighing more than one ton is not a light field artillery at all, let alone a mountain artillery?

You have to know that the Great Chu Empire’s homeland, such as the plain-type 23-year-style 115mm field guns assigned to Central Asia, has a total weight of [-] tons, and a total weight of [-] tons.

This is a field gun of the same caliber that is several hundred kilograms lighter. Why can't it 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 Great Chu Empire Navy will come up with the Pingan-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, and the gunners can directly land on their shoulders and the job will be over.

As the first 20-year-style 115mm light field gun landed, soon the second, third... and more artillery landed one after another.

With the completion of the landing of twelve 115mm light field guns, four or six 19mm light howitzers of the 150th year were brought down. The short-barreled howitzer with only seven times the diameter of the tube has a poor effective range, so the weight is 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 belonging to the Third Regiment of the Indian Army.

Although the third regiment of the Indian Legion is only a servant army, they are on the African battlefield, because the risk of rebellion is greatly reduced, and at the same time, it is really easy to work in battle. Therefore, the Chu Army has always provided weapons and equipment to the Indian Legion stationed in Africa. Not bad.

Basically, they are equipped with the standard weapons of the regular army of the Chu Army, but they are all old second-hand goods with relatively backward performance.

Be it rifles or artillery, they were basically replaced by overseas garrisons of the regular army of the Chu Army.

But even the second-line equipment replaced by the Chu army is capable of defeating the weapons and equipment of the indigenous peoples of various countries.

The performance of the 21-year-type flash cap percussion gun is still far superior to that of the indigenous muskets of various countries... Nowadays, most of the indigenous armies still use matchlock guns, and a few armies of European countries are equipped with flintlock guns.

But the performance gap between the flintlock and the cap percussion gun is not small.

The firing rate is more than 60.00%, the flintlock gun with a firing rate of more than 70, and the cap percussion gun with a firing rate of 90.00%, there is a huge difference in the firing rate alone.

The same is true for artillery. The current main artillery of the Chu army, even the old second-hand ones used by the third regiment of the Indian Army, can effectively beat the artillery made by the indigenous people of various countries in terms of effective range.

After landing, the Third Artillery Battalion of the Indian Army quickly deployed on a solid ground near the landing site to provide fire support for the landing troops.

Moreover, although this artillery battalion is only artillery deployed on the landing field, it is enough to cover most of Mozambique Island.

After all, Mozambique Island is actually very small, not more than 3000 meters long and only 500 meters wide. As long as the artillery of this artillery battalion lands, it is easy to carry out the task of bombardment and blockade.

But it doesn't make much sense now, because the Portuguese are all huddled in the San Sebastian Castle, and they don't come out to fight against the landing Chu army.

But even if it is not needed, some military deployment is still needed.

In war, don't be afraid of ten thousand, just in case.

In case the brains of those Portuguese are broken, if they insist on running out to attack the Chu army, the field artillery battalion will not support them in time, so they will be caught blind.

Of course, even so, the Chu army that landed can still get the fire support of the Great Chu Empire Navy Fleet!

Because the entire island is only 3000 meters long and 500 meters wide, and the series of front-loading rifled guns equipped on the battleships of the Great Chu Empire Navy can basically achieve an effective range of more than 3000 meters when supporting land.

Warships don't even have to risk getting close to the coastline, and they don't have to risk being attacked by enemy forts at close range. They can launch shelling on the sea a little farther away to give fire support to the landing troops.

Just like the warships of the Great Chu Empire Navy now, they bombarded the Portuguese fort on the sea 500 meters away, just like a live ammunition bombardment exercise.

The explosion of the shells caused by the violent shelling caused a lot of losses to the Portuguese at first, but now there are no Portuguese gunners on the fort at all... basically hiding behind to avoid the shelling.

The cylindrical high-explosive grenades fired by the large number of 170mm, 150mm, 130mm, and [-]mm front-loading rifled guns of the Chu Army are not as powerful as the spherical grenades fired by smoothbore artillery.

Although the charge is still black powder, its power is still very good.

After all, you have to know that even in the Russo-Japanese War in the original time and space, the artillery shells used by the Japanese and Russian armies were still black powder charges.

The artillery shells used on the Russian warships are still black powder charges, that is, the shells of the Japanese Navy are better, and they use picric acid.

But no one said that the shells fired by the artillery of both sides during the Russo-Japanese War were not powerful!
The continuous suppressive bombardment of the navy not only caused a large number of casualties to the Portuguese defenders, but also suppressed the Portuguese defenders, unable to use the artillery on the fort to fight back.

Otherwise, when the third regiment of the Indian Army landed, it might still encounter trouble. 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 fort fortress, they considered the issue of anti-landing. Although the setting of the fortress cannot threaten the large landing area behind, it can directly block the channel to the landing site berth.

However, the artillery firepower of the Chu army's navy was so fierce that their forts were completely suppressed, and they did not play the role of blocking the waterway at all.

After the third regiment of the Chu Army's Indian Army successfully landed, the bombarding fleet ahead fought for a while, and then stopped.

The Portuguese had already hid in the artillery fortifications in the strong fortress, and it was just a waste of ammunition to continue fighting, and it was obviously impossible for the grenades to directly destroy the forts and city walls.

The barrel of the front-loading rifled gun has a very limited lifespan, so it has to be used sparingly. Not to mention the question of whether it is expensive or not, how can we fight after the rifles of the gun barrel are wiped out when fighting on the sea?

It is difficult to directly replace the barrel on the battlefield.

Besides, it's useless to shell people and hide and not come out. It's better to slow down and wait for them to show up before shelling.

As the bombardment of the African fleet stopped, the smoke on the island and the sea gradually dissipated. The Portuguese on the island carefully poked their heads out of the artillery fortifications, and then looked at the bombed out of shape castle and The fort wants to cry but has no tears.

After more than a dozen warships of the Chu army and more than 100 front-loading rifled guns fired more than 2000 rounds of high-explosive grenades, the castle area and the fort area became a mess.

Although there are no problems with the main buildings such as the city walls and forts, a large number of ordinary buildings have been destroyed. Even the large number of shore fire artillery deployed in the open air on the forts have suffered serious damage.

Although the barrels of these shore fire guns are basically fine, they are all big guys made of copper or iron after all. The conventional explosion of a mere howitzer can't cause any actual damage to these big guys.

But many gun mounts couldn't hold up, and some were located in the center of the explosion and were overturned by the shock wave.

As a result, quite a number of coastal defense guns, although the barrels are still intact, have lost their combat effectiveness due to damage to the gun mounts.

The Portuguese were even more panicked when they saw the heartache.

The bombardment power of these Chu people is too perverted, far exceeding their ability to bear.

However, when these Portuguese emerged one after another, and then began to put out the fire in the 6 fort area, or cleaned up the mess in the fort, and began to repair the damaged artillery.

A rear admiral of the Great Chu Empire on the sea in the distance smiled while watching with a large nautical telescope, and at the same time ordered: "Every naval gun, get ready, wait a few more minutes, and there will be more people waiting for them to come out." Some, we'll give 'em a rapid fire!"

"We have to let these Portuguese barbarians know that we can't be relieved when our shelling stops."

About 5 minutes later, the African Fleet of the Great Chu Empire Navy, which had stopped shelling 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 shells.

Those Portuguese who ran out of the artillery fortifications to clean up the mess, put out fires or repair artillery, city walls and other fortifications were dumbfounded...

(End of this chapter)