afterglow

Chapter 26
"This is definitely not the remnant army before, this is a complete Chinese army!" Major General Wilson said solemnly: "Because of our arrogance, thirty outstanding British people lost their lives."

Only officers and non-commissioned officers in the British Indian Army are British. As for the Indians?That was naturally ignored.

The British and Indian troops who had been hit hard for underestimating the enemy began to prepare for the attack honestly and according to standard tactics.

A series of actions such as digging bunkers, correcting shelling, calling for air support, dispatching reconnaissance units, and discussing offensive plans were carried out quickly.

The Dmagee Hospital is actually not that big, with a total of four floors and a single floor area of ​​about [-] square meters. However, this is the only reinforced concrete building with a frame structure.

Although the high ground outside the urban area has already approached the enemy, the soldiers of the second team stationed here are still struggling to reinforce the fortifications. The large number of empty fertilizer bags and two trucks found in several warehouses were put to great use-first go to dig the soil outside the urban area Fill, then return the earthbags.

Under Zhou Changfeng's order, every window in the hospital building was nailed to death with wooden boards, leaving only a one-foot-square shooting opening in the middle; earth bags were piled up on both sides and under the windows, after all, the walls alone might not be able to withstand today's Full power rifle rounds.

On the top floor of the building, Zhou Changfeng, who was holding a telescope, said in surprise: "Isn't it? The British are joking? The artillery positions are placed so close?"

It can be seen that the British and Indian Fourth Artillery Battalion is "seriously" building a position. They didn't even bother to launch a line when shelling before, but now they have to follow the rules.

It's just that the artillery positions they arranged seem a little too far forward?
"Xiao Li, bring me the rangefinder."

"Yes!"

At this moment, Major Sampson, the one who thought the Ming army had escaped before, was ordered to come to the position of the artillery battalion for inspection.

When he got out of the car, he saw that the artillerymen were digging pits and piling up soil leisurely. He couldn't help saying angrily, "Lieutenant! What are you doing? Who told you to deploy at such a close distance? Where's your officer?"

Lieutenant Arik immediately stood to attention and replied, "Sir, this place is more than two miles away from the enemy... um... four thousand yards to be specific, and their battalion-level units don't have weapons that can attack that far."

Theoretically, the support weapons with the longest range of the infantry battalion of the Ming Army are four 80mm mortars with a maximum range of 3000 meters.

While Major Sampson and Lieutenant Arik were talking, on the Demagee Hospital building...

Zhou Changfeng took over a long tube, which is a small optical rangefinder produced by Hangzhou Jingrui Optical Company. connected to form a triangle.

The longer the range finder with this principle, the higher the accuracy. For example, the baseline of the optical range finder on a battleship may be more than ten meters long, but the baseline of this small range finder in Zhou Changfeng's hand is only three feet.

To be honest, he always felt that it was unnecessary for Ming Dynasty to continue to use the old-style weights and measures after industrialization. Length units such as feet, inches, cents, and centimeters were mixed with the metric system of meters, centimeters, and millimeters, which was sometimes really confusing.

But having said that, Britain and the United States seem to be more stubborn in this regard?
Because in order to adapt to industrialization, the Ming Dynasty specially re-determined the ancient weights and measures. For example, the traditional construction ruler is 32cm, the seiko ruler is 31.1cm, and the tailor ruler is 34cm. These are all unified into the standard "ruler ", one foot is equal to 32cm; the same is true for the unit of weight, 16 taels per catty has been reformulated as ten taels per catty, and one catty is equal to 500g.

In Britain and the United States, one pound is equal to 0.454kg, one gallon is equal to 3.785L, one foot is equal to 30.48cm, and one yard is equal to 0.914m. This kind of measurement is really confusing.

"Three thousand and 650 meters?" Zhou Changfeng put down the range finder thoughtfully, and then thought about how to give these arrogant enemy troops a hammer, "Go, go and call Fan Wenhai."

Setting up artillery positions so close?Are you really sure that we can get the range without weapons?

Later, Fan Wenhai, the captain of the machine gun team, arrived.

Facing the emaciated captain, Zhou Changfeng asked straight to the point: "What is the limit of [-] forced charge?"

The Type 1927 two-and-a-half-inch mortar of the Ming Army is actually a localized improved version of the French Brand M81 [-]mm mortar. Denmark, Sweden and many other countries have adopted it.

Under normal circumstances, the [-]-type mortar can be equipped with a maximum of three additional charge packs, and the maximum range at this time is [-] meters.

Fan Wenhai was stunned, and pondered: "The manual recommends that the forced charge should not exceed No. [-]. At this time, it can hit about [-] meters."

"No. [-] strong charge, shoot a few rapid-fire rounds." Zhou Changfeng pointed to the distance, "Give the foreign devils a hard shot at the artillery positions."

It can be possible, but it will only lose its service life, and weapons like mortars are worthless.

Some hesitant Fan Wenhai struggled and said: "Battalion Commander, forcibly charging the medicine will affect the accuracy, you just add two more medicine bags, I'm afraid it won't be accurate."

Hearing this, Zhou Changfeng waved his hand and said casually, "Then I'll do it."

aha?You haven't received mortar training, have you?
Fan Wenhai and several officers of the machine gun team watched Zhou Changfeng leave the roof in surprise, and then came to the mortar platoon department on the fourth floor.

The mortar platoon has two artillery squads and one ammunition squad, each equipped with two [-]-type mortars.

The current deployment is that one artillery squad is on the roof, and the other artillery squad is near the post office. They communicate with each other through the laid telephone lines.

"Squad [-] and Class [-] have received it, please reply and report their respective status."

"Squad [-] received, on standby."

"The second shift is clear and is on standby."

"How about subjective?"

"Report, everything is normal."

"What about the side view?"

"normal!"

【Subjective is the main observation point, side view is the side observation point, front view is the frontier observation point. 】

Because it is not an indirect shelling, the process is very simple.Zhou Changfeng looked at the 64% indicated by the hygrometer, then did a mental calculation with reference to a booklet, and then issued a series of orders.

"Attention all, No. [-] reference object is [-] mi west, the enemy artillery position, meet."

"Shooting Zhuyuan binding, No. [-] strong charge, one shot per shift, kill explosive bombs, and shoot in school."

"Roger that!"

The commanding artillerymen added a full five additional charge packs to the tail of the mortar shell with some guilt, then pulled out the safety pin, and then put the shell on the muzzle... let go.

"Bang——" two shells flew away from the muzzle at a muzzle velocity far exceeding the normal situation, and flew towards the enemy with two extraordinarily high ballistic trajectories.

The British and Indian troops who were digging the bunkers suddenly heard the screams of the shells flying?
Immediately, two shells landed on the sides and corners of the artillery position, one from the left and the other from the right, making a thunderous roar.

Where did this... this shell come from?The surrounding soldiers were stunned on the spot.

"Subjective report, the landing point is sixty meters west, invalid."

"Side view report, uh... the landing point was northward... no, it was an effective hit."

"Okay!" Zhou Changfeng, who was full of interest, took the microphone and ordered: "Correct all elements, kill explosive bombs, instant fuze, four rounds, effective fire!"

After speaking, he immediately walked to the window, and squatted impatiently in front of an eight-power artillery mirror.

(End of this chapter)