The Last Frontier of Fire and Sword
Chapter 726
Artillery changed the form of siege in the history of World War not in 1453, but in 1446.
In that year, seven years before the fall of Constantinople, Muhammad II\'s father Murad II attacked Peloponnesus, one of the few provinces left in the Byzantine Empire, with artillery.
Here, Constantine Xi built a six mile wall in the isthmus of Corinth, extending from the west coast to the east coast, completely blocking the peninsula.
But Murad II attacked the wall with long barrel artillery and broke through it in only five days.
Constantine Xi almost lost his life and managed to escape.
After that, in 1453, Muhammad II smashed the millennium old city wall of Constantinople with ulban cannon, and turned it into Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.
The power of the giant artillery shocked everyone, including the Russians.
That is to say, since then, the Russians have gone forever on the road of "stupid, big, black and rough".
After several failed attacks, Prince Alexei finally sacrificed the big killer, the incomparable stone gun.
The artillery are preparing for the launch of the cannon. The gunpowder is loaded into the barrel, then the barrel is filled with a wooden plug and pressed with an iron rod.
Then, through a set of lever tools, the Gunners lifted the stone bullet to the front of the cannon and carefully filled the bore.
Although the shell is required to be designed to match the bore, it is difficult to match the caliber completely. So the gunner wrapped the shells with a layer of silk to enhance the tightness as much as possible.
The Gunners then adjusted the pitch angle by wedging up the turret.
A group of serf soldiers put the huge wooden beam in place behind the cannon and pressed the wooden beam with stones to absorb recoil.
After more than three hours of preparation, the gunpowder was filled into the fire gate and the shooting preparation was completed.
At 10 a.m. on May 8, the gunner of Czar Russia put the torch close to the fire door, and the monster roared for the first time since the war began.
After the gunpowder was ignited, a terrible roar came out in an instant, and the earth trembled violently under your feet, which spread far away. The noise was unheard of.
The wooden stopper was rushed out by the hot explosion of dry air, and the stone bullet was pushed out by the strong impact force. The incredible force drove the stone bullet roaring away and hit the sharp corner on one side of the triangle fort.
Immediately, the sharp corner was smashed, and a slope paved with rubble and broken bricks was created in front of the triangle fort.
Prince Alexei nodded with satisfaction when only one shell had such an amazing effect.
After the smoke from the muzzle dissipated, the Gunners hurried back to the running position. One of them will reset the cannon and check whether the wooden beam under the tail is loose.
This is the most important work that must be done. Once the wooden beam is loose, the huge recoil of the cannon will rush back like a raging bull at the next firing, leaving the fort, causing casualties and even blasting.
Another team of gunners carefully examined the gun body. Because the high temperature produced by gunpowder explosion will produce hair like cracks on impure metal. In order to control this problem, after the shell is fired, the gunner must immediately soak the crack of the gun barrel with warm lard and butter to prevent air from entering and expanding the crack.
The artillery work was over, and it was time for the infantry to come on.
The trumpeter sounded the horn of attack. More than 1000 Russian soldiers jumped out of several trenches and rushed towards the trenches, carrying cotton bags filled in the trenches on their backs and shouting "ula! Ula".
Strips of bags were thrown into the ditch.
The defenders of the triangle fort were dazed by huge guns, and many people were beaten by broken stones. But at this time, the Russian soldiers were filling the trench at a speed visible to the naked eye. Regardless of the dust and bleeding wounds, they started shooting at the enemy one after another.
Gunfire rang out. One Russian soldier after another burst into red blood on his chest and fell to the ground.
But driven by the officers and supervisors, they are still fearlessly filling the trenches, and even those dead comrades in arms have become tools to fill the trenches.
After paying nearly 100 casualties, nearly half of the trench was buried. Those wooden sticks and triangular nails were all buried by sundries.
"Woo, woo!" the trumpeter howled again.
The Russian soldiers who filled the trench heard the horn like an amnesty. They turned their heads and ran back into the trench.
"Take your place! The Russians are about to attack," Pedro warned loudly, leaning his back against a chest wall.
His horse\'s head was bandaging his wound with gauze - a fragment of a flying stone bullet wiped Pedro\'s forehead and took away a piece of flesh.
That Ma Bian was a recruit. He was frightened by the huge gun just now. The action of bandaging the wound was light and heavy. It didn\'t hurt Pedro from time to time.
"You!" Pedro shouted to his horse: "go back to konotopu fort and ask the regiment captain to send a team of Cossack sailors and German double handed swordsmen right away. Do you understand?"
The horse\'s eyes nodded in fear.
After the horse left, Pedro shouted again, "fill the gun with gunpowder and the enemy will come up soon!"
But Pedro\'s expected attack did not come soon. The Russians "cleaned" the triangle fort with another heavy artillery fire.
The shelling lasted more than an hour.
The breast wall and sandbags of the triangle fort were smashed, and the shooting port became a pile of ruins. But under the suppression of artillery fire, the defenders in the triangle Fort could not repair the gap at all.
"These Russians are getting better and better," said Pedro.
Just then, the third horn sounded. The gunfire stopped, and then to Pedro\'s ears were the footsteps of thousands of pairs of leather boots on the ground.
Russian new arms gunmen in red uniforms came to the position with heavy muskets and axes.
They lined up in five rows, then inserted the end of the long axe into the ground and put the firerope gun on the long axe.
After firing, the front row retreats to the back to load ammunition, and the second row fires bullets again. Again and again, again and again, three and five.
The new army Musketeers set their targets on the sharp corner of the triangle Fort destroyed by giant guns - an attack point conducive to climbing.
"Get ready, get ready. This time they\'re really going to attack." Pedro shouted.
"Deputy Colonel Pedro, here we are."
At this time, a team of German double handed swordsmen and Cossack sailors led by Xie Miao came to support the triangle Fort through the channel connected with the triangle fort.
"Great!"
Seeing the reinforcements arrive, Pedro clapped his thigh with joy.
"You go to the front of the gap and get ready. As soon as the Russians rush up, the Cossack sailors give them a shot with a pistol. Then the German swordsmen cut with a sword. Remember, if the Boyer cavalry wearing mirror armor and holding a steel shield come up, they will protect their face and body with a steel shield, and you will cut their feet with a sword," said Pedro.
This is the experience that Pedro summed up in the battle of Smolensk. He hopes it will work here in konotop.
After a volley, a 300 member attacking team composed of dismounted Russian pistol cavalry, Noble Cavalry and Boye cavalry, led by cavalry commander Alexei vorotensky, attacked the gap.
They quickly climbed up the gap, and the pistol cavalry rushed in front.
After boarding the triangle fort, these soldiers in chest armor will use pistols to clean the enemy near the gap.
After the sharp corner of the triangle fort was destroyed, the gap left was not big or small, just enough for five people to go in line.
Three pistol cavalry soldiers took the lead in climbing up the triangle fort, but they looked up and were ready to shoot the enemies that would appear around, but they saw a swordsman with a flame sword stride in front of them, and then a slash.
Three heads fell to the ground together.
Then three headless bodies came back.
"There\'s an ambush! Be careful, be careful," shouted the Russian under the gap.
Then there was a gunshot. This is the pistol cavalry shooting blindly at the gap.
About five meters behind the gap, twenty German double handed swordsmen fell to the ground on one knee. Their flame swords and double handed big swords pointed 45 degrees to the front, and behind them were 50 Cossack sailors standing with guns.
When the Russian pistol cavalry finished shooting, they pulled out their sabers at the urging of Alexei vorotens base and rushed to the triangle Fort again.
This time, it was not the sword of the swordsman with two hands, but the pistols of the Cossack sailors.
Seven more Russian pistol cavalry fell. But this time, the Russians finally rushed into the gap and scuffled with the defenders of the triangle fort.
In close combat, defenders with better armor quality take advantage. Although even Pedro was amazed at the bravery of the Russians on the line of fire, their mirror armor and chest armor were at a disadvantage in the face of the full body plate armor of German double handed swordsmen. What\'s more, the garrison also has such big killers as "organ" platoon gun and giant shotgun.
A "pipe organ" platoon gun and a giant shotgun can fill 30 to 50 bullets. The effect of these bullets at close range is amazing - they have great penetration. If a lead bullet hits a Boye cavalry in armor, it can not only directly penetrate the shield and body of the Boye cavalry, but also penetrate the people standing behind him, and then kill another person, Until the power of gunpowder is exhausted.
A lead bomb can kill two or three people at the same time.
Finally, after four hours of fierce fighting, the Russian commandos were driven out of the gap.
The scorching sun shone on the city wall, but it suddenly quieted down. Only the occasional groans of the dying lying in the trenches and in the triangle castle broke the calm. After a deadly battle from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., the garrison finally collapsed like a dead man.
In that year, seven years before the fall of Constantinople, Muhammad II\'s father Murad II attacked Peloponnesus, one of the few provinces left in the Byzantine Empire, with artillery.
Here, Constantine Xi built a six mile wall in the isthmus of Corinth, extending from the west coast to the east coast, completely blocking the peninsula.
But Murad II attacked the wall with long barrel artillery and broke through it in only five days.
Constantine Xi almost lost his life and managed to escape.
After that, in 1453, Muhammad II smashed the millennium old city wall of Constantinople with ulban cannon, and turned it into Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.
The power of the giant artillery shocked everyone, including the Russians.
That is to say, since then, the Russians have gone forever on the road of "stupid, big, black and rough".
After several failed attacks, Prince Alexei finally sacrificed the big killer, the incomparable stone gun.
The artillery are preparing for the launch of the cannon. The gunpowder is loaded into the barrel, then the barrel is filled with a wooden plug and pressed with an iron rod.
Then, through a set of lever tools, the Gunners lifted the stone bullet to the front of the cannon and carefully filled the bore.
Although the shell is required to be designed to match the bore, it is difficult to match the caliber completely. So the gunner wrapped the shells with a layer of silk to enhance the tightness as much as possible.
The Gunners then adjusted the pitch angle by wedging up the turret.
A group of serf soldiers put the huge wooden beam in place behind the cannon and pressed the wooden beam with stones to absorb recoil.
After more than three hours of preparation, the gunpowder was filled into the fire gate and the shooting preparation was completed.
At 10 a.m. on May 8, the gunner of Czar Russia put the torch close to the fire door, and the monster roared for the first time since the war began.
After the gunpowder was ignited, a terrible roar came out in an instant, and the earth trembled violently under your feet, which spread far away. The noise was unheard of.
The wooden stopper was rushed out by the hot explosion of dry air, and the stone bullet was pushed out by the strong impact force. The incredible force drove the stone bullet roaring away and hit the sharp corner on one side of the triangle fort.
Immediately, the sharp corner was smashed, and a slope paved with rubble and broken bricks was created in front of the triangle fort.
Prince Alexei nodded with satisfaction when only one shell had such an amazing effect.
After the smoke from the muzzle dissipated, the Gunners hurried back to the running position. One of them will reset the cannon and check whether the wooden beam under the tail is loose.
This is the most important work that must be done. Once the wooden beam is loose, the huge recoil of the cannon will rush back like a raging bull at the next firing, leaving the fort, causing casualties and even blasting.
Another team of gunners carefully examined the gun body. Because the high temperature produced by gunpowder explosion will produce hair like cracks on impure metal. In order to control this problem, after the shell is fired, the gunner must immediately soak the crack of the gun barrel with warm lard and butter to prevent air from entering and expanding the crack.
The artillery work was over, and it was time for the infantry to come on.
The trumpeter sounded the horn of attack. More than 1000 Russian soldiers jumped out of several trenches and rushed towards the trenches, carrying cotton bags filled in the trenches on their backs and shouting "ula! Ula".
Strips of bags were thrown into the ditch.
The defenders of the triangle fort were dazed by huge guns, and many people were beaten by broken stones. But at this time, the Russian soldiers were filling the trench at a speed visible to the naked eye. Regardless of the dust and bleeding wounds, they started shooting at the enemy one after another.
Gunfire rang out. One Russian soldier after another burst into red blood on his chest and fell to the ground.
But driven by the officers and supervisors, they are still fearlessly filling the trenches, and even those dead comrades in arms have become tools to fill the trenches.
After paying nearly 100 casualties, nearly half of the trench was buried. Those wooden sticks and triangular nails were all buried by sundries.
"Woo, woo!" the trumpeter howled again.
The Russian soldiers who filled the trench heard the horn like an amnesty. They turned their heads and ran back into the trench.
"Take your place! The Russians are about to attack," Pedro warned loudly, leaning his back against a chest wall.
His horse\'s head was bandaging his wound with gauze - a fragment of a flying stone bullet wiped Pedro\'s forehead and took away a piece of flesh.
That Ma Bian was a recruit. He was frightened by the huge gun just now. The action of bandaging the wound was light and heavy. It didn\'t hurt Pedro from time to time.
"You!" Pedro shouted to his horse: "go back to konotopu fort and ask the regiment captain to send a team of Cossack sailors and German double handed swordsmen right away. Do you understand?"
The horse\'s eyes nodded in fear.
After the horse left, Pedro shouted again, "fill the gun with gunpowder and the enemy will come up soon!"
But Pedro\'s expected attack did not come soon. The Russians "cleaned" the triangle fort with another heavy artillery fire.
The shelling lasted more than an hour.
The breast wall and sandbags of the triangle fort were smashed, and the shooting port became a pile of ruins. But under the suppression of artillery fire, the defenders in the triangle Fort could not repair the gap at all.
"These Russians are getting better and better," said Pedro.
Just then, the third horn sounded. The gunfire stopped, and then to Pedro\'s ears were the footsteps of thousands of pairs of leather boots on the ground.
Russian new arms gunmen in red uniforms came to the position with heavy muskets and axes.
They lined up in five rows, then inserted the end of the long axe into the ground and put the firerope gun on the long axe.
After firing, the front row retreats to the back to load ammunition, and the second row fires bullets again. Again and again, again and again, three and five.
The new army Musketeers set their targets on the sharp corner of the triangle Fort destroyed by giant guns - an attack point conducive to climbing.
"Get ready, get ready. This time they\'re really going to attack." Pedro shouted.
"Deputy Colonel Pedro, here we are."
At this time, a team of German double handed swordsmen and Cossack sailors led by Xie Miao came to support the triangle Fort through the channel connected with the triangle fort.
"Great!"
Seeing the reinforcements arrive, Pedro clapped his thigh with joy.
"You go to the front of the gap and get ready. As soon as the Russians rush up, the Cossack sailors give them a shot with a pistol. Then the German swordsmen cut with a sword. Remember, if the Boyer cavalry wearing mirror armor and holding a steel shield come up, they will protect their face and body with a steel shield, and you will cut their feet with a sword," said Pedro.
This is the experience that Pedro summed up in the battle of Smolensk. He hopes it will work here in konotop.
After a volley, a 300 member attacking team composed of dismounted Russian pistol cavalry, Noble Cavalry and Boye cavalry, led by cavalry commander Alexei vorotensky, attacked the gap.
They quickly climbed up the gap, and the pistol cavalry rushed in front.
After boarding the triangle fort, these soldiers in chest armor will use pistols to clean the enemy near the gap.
After the sharp corner of the triangle fort was destroyed, the gap left was not big or small, just enough for five people to go in line.
Three pistol cavalry soldiers took the lead in climbing up the triangle fort, but they looked up and were ready to shoot the enemies that would appear around, but they saw a swordsman with a flame sword stride in front of them, and then a slash.
Three heads fell to the ground together.
Then three headless bodies came back.
"There\'s an ambush! Be careful, be careful," shouted the Russian under the gap.
Then there was a gunshot. This is the pistol cavalry shooting blindly at the gap.
About five meters behind the gap, twenty German double handed swordsmen fell to the ground on one knee. Their flame swords and double handed big swords pointed 45 degrees to the front, and behind them were 50 Cossack sailors standing with guns.
When the Russian pistol cavalry finished shooting, they pulled out their sabers at the urging of Alexei vorotens base and rushed to the triangle Fort again.
This time, it was not the sword of the swordsman with two hands, but the pistols of the Cossack sailors.
Seven more Russian pistol cavalry fell. But this time, the Russians finally rushed into the gap and scuffled with the defenders of the triangle fort.
In close combat, defenders with better armor quality take advantage. Although even Pedro was amazed at the bravery of the Russians on the line of fire, their mirror armor and chest armor were at a disadvantage in the face of the full body plate armor of German double handed swordsmen. What\'s more, the garrison also has such big killers as "organ" platoon gun and giant shotgun.
A "pipe organ" platoon gun and a giant shotgun can fill 30 to 50 bullets. The effect of these bullets at close range is amazing - they have great penetration. If a lead bullet hits a Boye cavalry in armor, it can not only directly penetrate the shield and body of the Boye cavalry, but also penetrate the people standing behind him, and then kill another person, Until the power of gunpowder is exhausted.
A lead bomb can kill two or three people at the same time.
Finally, after four hours of fierce fighting, the Russian commandos were driven out of the gap.
The scorching sun shone on the city wall, but it suddenly quieted down. Only the occasional groans of the dying lying in the trenches and in the triangle castle broke the calm. After a deadly battle from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., the garrison finally collapsed like a dead man.