Open an aircraft carrier to fight against Japan

At three o'clock in the afternoon, more than [-] infantrymen from the Left Association of the Dingwu Army, together with artillery from the two battalions, marched towards the two highlands of the Japanese army.

The scouts of the Japanese army discovered the actions of the Qing army and reported immediately. The squadron leader of the Japanese army thought to himself: "Isn't the commander-in-chief of the Qing army, Lin Yuan, dead? Why is he attacking again?"

Although the Qing army was superior in strength, the Japanese army did not panic, because the Liaohe River was still frozen at this time, and the Japanese army stationed on the east bank of the Liaohe River could provide support at any time. What he did not expect was that Lin Yuan's plan was: Before the Japanese reinforcements arrived, they captured two highlands and wiped out the Japanese defenders.

The Japanese army built artillery positions on the high ground, dug caves behind the positions, and hoarded a large amount of shrapnel shells specially for infantry in the caves. The artillery of the Japanese army used simple elastic gun mounts, so the rate of fire of the artillery can reach Ten rounds, this kind of firepower is enough to cause major damage to the attacking Qing army.

The artillery battalion of the Dingwu Army has three teams under each battalion, each team has six guns, and there are platoons under the team, and each platoon operates one artillery. The 36 artillery pieces are divided into two groups under the unified command of Lin Yuan. The column advanced to a place about 500 meters away from the Japanese highlands. Here, the engineering battalion had already dug the artillery fortifications in advance, and Lin Yuan issued an order: Expand the battle formation!

At that time, there were no self-propelled artillery, and the artillery was extremely heavy. It was impossible to be carried or pulled by people. We had to put the artillery on the artillery cart, and then use the animals to pull the march. Generally, horses were used, because the speed of the cattle was really fast. It's too slow. If the terrain is rough, the artillery can be broken down into several parts and reassembled when used.Don't underestimate this cannon carriage, even the factories of the Qing court couldn't produce it, so it had to be bought from foreign countries, and the cost was high. The cost of a cannon carriage was roughly half of the cost of a cannon.

Because the gun cart must have a shock-absorbing device, because the road surface cannot be very smooth, there are inevitably potholes, and the cart is pulled by livestock, so the vibration will be very large, and these vibrations will affect the parts of the artillery. , resulting in a series of adverse effects such as inaccurate shooting and many faults.

Lin Yuan knew that the technology of the Qing court was backward, but in many cases, there was a big difference between those who had experienced it and those who hadn’t experienced it. In this environment, he was still taken aback. He did not expect that the seemingly simple cannon cart All must be purchased from abroad!

In this era, radio stations were still in their infancy, so the Qing army had very little equipment, and the army's communication command widely relied on drums, gongs, signal lights, etc. Of course, the most reliable thing was the human throat.The platoon leader of the artillery battalion saw the signal sent by Lin Yuan's messenger with the signal light, and immediately conveyed it.

Since the artillery battalion uses a large number of war horses, each platoon is equipped with four horse soldiers. As the name suggests, they are responsible for the horses. They stopped the horses. It is called "Yu", and the "Yuan" in the idiom "Nanyuanbeiru" is this thing. The artillery carts of the Dingwu Army are all double-shafted carts, which are fixed on the saddle and girth by ropes, so that the horse uses the waist during the march. Pull the cannon.

The horsemen jumped off their horses, untied the ropes that fixed the shafts, and drove the horses out of the shafts with "woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh". There were also three carriages pulling the ammunition needed for the artillery, and those horsemen also drove the horses away. In order not to frighten them with the huge roar of the artillery, they will drive the horses to a place tens of meters away from the artillery position.

Next, the ammunition soldiers, the observer soldiers, the calculator soldiers and the gunners pushed the artillery into the launch fortification together, and unfolded the garrison hoes together. At this time, they can load the ammunition and shoot. However, Lin Yuan did not specify the shooting target, so they did not The action only sent a signal to the artillery battalion's belt that it was ready to shoot.

Immediately, the belt of the artillery battalion sent a signal to Lin Yuan that the preparations were complete, and Lin Yuan was about to instruct the target to be shot. The artillerymen did not wait too long, because Lin Yuan's messenger had already reported the target's location.

What surprised the officers and soldiers of the Artillery Battalion was that the target indicated by Lin Yuan turned out to be tens of meters above the Japanese fortifications!

The observers and calculators acted immediately, and a set of theodolites were set up to measure the elevation angle and horizontal angle. The observers shouted out the measured angles, and the calculators had trigonometric function tables and ballistic parameter tables , he checked the data, pulled the slide rule, and loudly announced the height and direction angles that the artillery should adjust. This is the job of the gunner. When it comes to azimuth, it is inevitable that there will be deviations, and the control of deviations depends on the experience of the gunner.

The platoon leader once again conveyed the signal that the position was ready, and the artillery battalion belt then passed the signal to Lin Yuan that the preparation was complete, but they could not fire at this time because they were waiting for Lin Yuan to choose the type of ammunition.

The Dingwu Army is equipped with three types of shells, grape shells, blooming shells, and letter shells. The names of these shells are far from the names of modern ammunition. Lin Yuan was really confused for a while after seeing them, and asked Liu Biao, he He couldn't explain clearly, so Lin Yuan had no choice but to find an experienced gunner, and after careful questioning, he found out that the grape shells were modern shrapnel shells. After the shells exploded, there were many fragments, and they were mainly used in defensive operations. The enemy is charging, today is an offensive operation, so Lin Yuan didn't let his subordinates bring this kind of shells.

The flower bomb is a high-explosive grenade in the modern sense, and the cluster bomb is the original version of the cluster bomb. Lin Yuan quickly issued an order to use the flower bomb with a delay fuze!This order made the artillerymen very confused, especially those experienced veterans. They thought that they should use sub-munitions, so that the chances of the shells falling into the enemy's trenches would be greater. As for the time-delay fuze, they were even more puzzled. .

The ammunition hands transported the shells from the artillery cart to the side of the artillery. In the artillery establishment of this era, the personnel responsible for handling the shells accounted for a large proportion, because the artillery of this era did not have automatic loading machines, and the shells could only be loaded by people. Come on, a 75mm shell may weigh more than 20 kilograms, and the shell is stacked at least 20 meters away from the artillery. The maximum rate of fire of the Dingwu Army's artillery is about ten rounds per minute. To achieve this speed requires people Running at full speed to transport ammunition, carrying 100 catties of shells by one person, and running dozens of 20 meters at a speed of [-] meters sprint, must be exhausting, so several people are needed to transport ammunition.

The ammunition hand released the safety, replaced the delay fuze, and transported the shells to the vicinity of the artillery.

At this time, Lin Yuan gave the order for the infantry to attack, and Liu Dart had already personally led the infantry and moved to a distance of 800 meters from the Japanese position. Upon hearing the order, Liu Dart stood up, waved his hand, and said, "Follow me!" Come."

The infantry then ran towards the Japanese position at a slow speed. The reason why they jogged was to warm up for the last 100-meter sprint. Although Liu Biao was nearly forty years old, his speed was not slow at all. He ran at the front of the team, Holding a revolver in his hand, gradually, he was able to see the stones on the Japanese positions clearly.

At this time, Lin Yuan's headquarters suddenly issued a loud bugle sound. The Dingwu Army not only had traditional communication equipment such as gongs and drums, but also purchased some Western bugles. Different bugle sounds represent different meanings, but What this bugle sound represented, but no one clearly understood.

Liu Biao heard this, but suddenly stopped, waved his hand, and said, "Stop for me, run back at full speed!"