"Take it easy, don't think about firing more shots. I'd rather you slow down, aim, and be careful, and don't want any accidents to happen. Markchi, you're responsible for supervising them. I'll go take a look at the defense tower over there." Claude watched as the red-hot solid iron pellet was stuffed into the muzzle, and then the gun crew took aim again and fired.
A cloud of green smoke came out of the muzzle, and the shell roared out and hit the middle floor of the rightmost siege tower eighty meters away. It can be seen very clearly in the frame of the monocular telescope, and there is an obvious vibration in the middle layer surrounded by logs.
"Yes, let's fight like this. We don't need any violent bombardment, we just need to hit more accurately..." Claude waved his hand excitedly.
After two days of rest, the enemy once again organized troops to attack the castle. The first and fourth brigades were now deployed on the city wall for defense. The rows of logs originally built on the city wall had been shot into pieces of varying sizes by the six artillery pieces on the enemy's three siege towers, but now the sacks filled with soil piled up at the top of the city gave the soldiers a better chance. The enemy's live ammunition bombardment cannot destroy these sacks. Only shotgun shells can pose some threat to the exposed soldiers.
Under the precise aim and shooting of the soldiers, the enemy in this attack had no fighting spirit, and retreated again leaving behind thirty or forty corpses. Only the six artillery pieces on the three siege towers continued to bombard the city in vain. Several soldiers who were wounded by shotguns were being hurriedly taken to the treatment center by medical soldiers. Diavid came to Claude's side and was about to speak when the sack of earth and earth next to him shook violently, and the dirt fell everywhere. Splashed, leaving both of them in disgrace. Needless to say, a shell must have struck the sack filled with earth.
"Bah! Bah!" After vomiting several times, Diavid looked at the three siege towers in the distance through the gaps left by the accumulation of sacks and said: "Sir, if there are no these three siege towers, There is no way the enemy can get close to our city walls..."
Claude wiped the dirt off his head: "I know, we are testing now, be patient. What were our casualties just now?"
"Four of our first group were wounded, two were killed and seven were injured in the fourth group. They were all casualties caused by shotguns fired by the enemy..." Diaverde shook his head: "I told them to hide themselves." , and then use the gaps in the sacks to shoot, but there are always some fools who forget that they dislike the inconvenience of aiming in the gaps in the sacks, and like to put their muskets on it to shoot. As a result, as soon as the enemy's artillery fires cannonballs, it is too late to hide... "
"But it seems to me that the enemy's attack today was not as fierce as yesterday. This time they retreated in less than half an hour..."
"Yeah, I think so too." Diaverde laughed: "Yesterday the enemy tried their best and couldn't attack the city wall, but suffered heavy casualties. Today it seems a little perfunctory, and the charge is not fierce. Most of them They were all hiding behind the platoon cars. This is all your fault, sir. You arranged the artillery bombardment very cleverly, unlike that old fool Captain Hemkling who just ordered the artillery to bombard the enemy's platoon cars. Those platoon cars bombarded There's no point in breaking it into pieces, the enemy can push new ones from behind at any time... "
After the enemy arranged three siege towers, they pushed a lot of wooden carts from behind, almost filling the entire open space. Then when they launched the attack, they used the cover of these wooden carts to approach the city wall. At the beginning, the second and third brigades were performing defense tasks on the city wall, and Captain Hemkling was in charge of the command. He ordered the seven artillery pieces placed on the city wall to bombard the wooden carts in the open space. As a result, the position of the artillery pieces on the city wall was exposed, and three of them were knocked out by the concentrated fire of the six artillery pieces on the three enemy siege towers. At the same time, the smoke emitted by the rapid firing of artillery filled the entire city wall, blocking the soldiers' vision and giving the enemy the opportunity to climb up the city using ladders. The soldiers had to engage in hand-to-hand combat to drive the enemy down, resulting in heavy casualties.
Fortunately, during those four days, although the enemy stormed the city wall and destroyed an artillery piece, they still could not stand and were driven off the city wall despite the desperate counterattacks of the 2nd and 3rd Brigades. Then due to the heavy casualties, we stopped for two days, and it was not until yesterday that we launched the attack on the castle again.
But what the enemy didn't expect was that his opponent had changed. Now guarding the city wall are the first and fourth battalions of the Ranger Battalion. Claude did not allow the three artillery pieces placed on the city wall to bombard the new wooden platoon vehicles that the enemy had replaced in the open space in the past two days. He did not even let the four artillery pieces placed in the defense towers on the left and right sides. Be sure to bombard those wooden trains. He ordered the four artillery in the defense tower to use red-hot iron pellet shells to attack the middle floor of the enemy's siege tower on the far right, where there were the artillery windows of the enemy's two artillery. Claude believed that as long as the shelling There are many times, and there is always a chance of hitting that small artillery window...
The three artillery pieces on the city wall were all loaded with shotgun shells. Their targets were not the wooden carts in the open space and the enemies hiding behind them, but instead were staring at the enemy's ladder to the city. As long as the enemy grabs the city ladder and runs towards the city wall, then one artillery fires and shoots shotgun shells to cover the direction where the enemy is preparing to approach the city wall. Three artillery must not be allowed to fire at the same time. The same goes for the defensive soldiers on the city wall. Only a dozen or so veterans who can shoot more accurately have the right to fire at any time. The other soldiers are hidden behind sacks of earth and are on standby. Only when the enemy attacks in large numbers are they ordered to shoot...
This kind of defense makes the enemy somewhat unpredictable, just like the attack under the city wall is very fierce and fierce. The shelling of the three siege towers, and the soldiers hiding behind the wooden platoon vehicles fired fiercely at the city head, and gunpowder smoke soon filled the entire open space.
But there were very few responses from the city wall. If it weren't for the occasional gunfire and a small cloud of smoke rising from the piled sacks, one could simply think that there was no defense on the city wall. But if you gather people together and want to get close to the city wall with the ladder and set it up on the top of the city, there will always be a sound of cannon, and the soldiers next to the ladder will suffer heavy casualties...
Yesterday, the enemy attacked fiercely all day long. When I returned and checked, I discovered that the seemingly feeble defense of the defenders on the city wall had caused greater casualties to the attackers than the previous attack. During the first attack, the casualties did not exceed 200 per day for four consecutive days. As a result, yesterday, there were more than 400 casualties. And the most important thing is that despite so many casualties, they did not even attack the city wall. The reason was that when the soldiers were rushing towards the city wall while grabbing the city ladder, there would always be one or two cannons on the city wall firing canisters, covering the route forward, resulting in extremely heavy casualties.
Perhaps because of yesterday's lesson, no soldier was willing to get close to the city ladder in today's attack. A few grassroots officers on the front line took the lead and took the lead in picking up the ladder to climb the city and then forced a dozen soldiers to prepare to attack the city. As soon as they rushed to the bottom of the city wall and before they could put the ladder up on the wall, there was a sound of cannon from above and everyone fell to the ground. In a pool of blood. Then no one was willing to get a ladder to climb the city...
The fighting in the afternoon was very peaceful, that is, soldiers from both sides were shooting up and down with muskets, and there were very few casualties. The defenders on the city wall were hiding behind sacks of earth, while the attackers below the city were hiding behind wooden carts, holding up their muskets and firing every shot. The three artillery pieces on the city wall would not fire unless the enemy came close to the city wall. Only the four artillery pieces in the two defense towers on both sides used red-hot shells to attack the enemy's rightmost siege tower at intervals of about ten minutes. The enemy's artillery in the siege towers also bombarded the artillery windows in the defense towers on both sides, leaving craters on the surface of the defense towers.
It seems that today has passed like this. Claude and Captain Coldwalker, the captain of the 4th Brigade, stood behind the city wall and watched the last group of attacking enemies hurriedly retreat into the village. They were about to speak when they suddenly heard There was a very violent explosion on the battlefield. When I turned around, I saw that the enemy's rightmost siege tower was spraying sparks and fire from above and below. The top layer was falling down, while the middle layer began to burn. stand up…
"Hit! Sir, we hit the artillery window!" The excited Markchi rushed out of the small door of the defense tower and almost fell down on the steps.
Obviously, a red-hot shell just hit the small artillery window of the siege tower and fell inside. Claude had always guessed that the internal space of the siege tower was not large, and two artillery were arranged. Are the cannonballs and gunpowder launchers piled next to it? Now this question has an answer. Obviously, the red-hot shell hit the cannon window and fell inside, igniting the gunpowder accumulated inside and causing an explosion. If Claude hadn't insisted on burning the shell red, it would probably have had no effect if the shell hit the cannon window...
The destruction of a siege tower was like a shot in the arm to the crews of the four artillery pieces. Now they no longer complained about Claude letting them fire red-hot shells. After all, firing is very troublesome, and preparations must be made to prevent fires, and the firing time is also very slow. Not only do you have to wait for the iron pellet shells to burn red in the brazier, but you also have to place a small wooden board first before putting it into the barrel. It had to be fired immediately to avoid igniting the gunpowder bag behind the plank.
Even Major Skerry, who was hanging his arms, rushed up to the city wall excitedly and admired the blazing siege tower: "You did a good job, each of you has a bottle of kale tonight, you deserve it!" "
The bottle of kale for each person that Major Skerry mentioned refers to the artillery crew members. As for the soldiers of the 1st and 4th Battalions, it is impossible for them to have a bottle each, and there is not that much kale in the warehouse. But a large glass of rye per person can still be done.
The artillerymen cheered, but they continued to burn the cannonballs, aim, fire, then clean the barrel, load the gunpowder bags, stuff them into small wooden boards, and wait for the cannonballs to burn red in the brazier.
"Which siege tower are you going to attack now?" Major Skerry was very happy. What he was most worried about was that the enemy's three siege towers suppressed the condescending defensive advantage of the city wall in terms of height, forcing the 1st Ranger Battalion to have to attack the city. A large number of sacks filled with soil were piled on the head to provide cover for the soldiers and shield them from enemy artillery fire. Unexpectedly, one of them was destroyed today. If there is one, there must be two. I believe that the remaining two siege towers will not be rampant for long.
"The one in the middle," Claude said.
At this moment, the enemy still didn't understand why the siege tower exploded, and none of the soldiers inside or the crews of the two artillery guns ran out. It was not clear that the shells fired by Claude were red-hot enemies, because after the shelling started, no one dared to stay under or next to the siege tower for fear of being accidentally injured, so even if it hit the siege tower, it would drop The shells that fall below will also quickly become cold without anyone noticing. The enemy thought that the soldiers in the siege tower accidentally caught fire and ignited the gunpowder before it exploded...
But now the four artillery in the defense towers on both sides were aimed at the siege tower in the middle, and the enemy finally figured out what was going on. Although they were more than eighty meters apart, the shouts and curses coming from the siege tower could still be vaguely distinguished. It should be that an enemy tried to get the cannonball that fell on the ground next to the siege tower, but was burned. This also made the enemy understand why the siege tower next to it exploded...
It just so happens that this should be a small chance of hitting. After three cannon shots here, the enemy's screams came from the siege tower in the middle in the distance, and then several enemy soldiers were seen. Rushed out from the bottom of the siege tower. They were lucky, because there was a cry for help from above, and then as if in slow motion, the sparks in the middle sparkled, and soon exploded, just like the burning siege tower next to them just now. It became a big fire...
The soldiers cheered again from the city walls. This time the four artillery pieces in the defense tower did not need Claude's orders, and automatically turned their targets to the last remaining siege tower on the left. Although it was almost evening and the sky was dark, the two artillery windows on the middle floor of the last siege tower could still be clearly distinguished by the firelight from the two big fires.
Major Skerry couldn't help but burst out laughing, "It's a reward. All the artillery crew members will be credited with a second-level meritorious service. This is a great achievement!"
Claude said: "Sir, I think you might as well reward each of them with a bottle of kale. You know, they spent a whole day shelling today before destroying the first siege tower. But when you come over and say, reward each of them." A bottle of kale, and in less than half an hour, they destroyed the second siege tower... "
Of course, Claude was just joking. It takes a lot of luck to shoot fist-sized shells into the two small artillery windows in the middle of the enemy's siege tower at such a distance. After all, artillery is not precisely aimed and fired. High-performance muskets are currently unable to hit wherever you point them. It was just a coincidence that the siege tower in the middle was destroyed just now.
Finally, the siege tower on the left has stopped shelling, and you can see that the enemies inside the tower are running out, and some are coming out with gunpowder barrels in their hands.
Claude immediately ordered the three artillery on the city wall to fire shotgun shells one after another, covering the bottom of the enemy's siege tower, leaving the enemy with nowhere to escape. Unfortunately, although the enemy left a few corpses behind, they still escaped under the cover of nearby wooden platoon vehicles, and even pulled down the two light infantry artillery pieces on the siege tower and took them away.
Markchi came out of the defense tower and asked Claude if he wanted to continue bombarding the last siege tower
Claude ordered the bombardment to continue with a straight face, still using red-hot shells. The answer is simple. The enemy used logs and moistened mud to smear the outside of the siege tower to prevent shelling. But the inside of the siege tower must be a wooden structure. As long as it can be ignited, then there is no need to worry about the enemy using the siege tower trick again...