249 Mr. Xu’s chocolate

The overwhelming artillery fire covered Baisha Harbor.

This time, the Western coalition forces were mentally prepared and no longer as careless as the first time. Moreover, after such a battle, they were not ignorant of the intensity of short-haired firepower. Therefore, before the war began, regardless of Spain,

The Dutch and British warships have already agreed to unified command, instead of fighting separately as before.

Although those Westerners were arrogant, they immediately changed their attitude after suffering a loss and turned to fight this battle with the most cautious and careful attitude. Under the deployment of experienced generals, they arranged the firepower of warships of all levels.

All are carefully equipped to ensure that the firepower of the entire fleet can be maximized.

Such careful pre-war arrangements are rare even on European battlefields. Regardless of whether they can accept it psychologically or not, these Westerners have actually compared the opponents they encountered on this island to those super powerful enemies in Europe, and even more so.

There has been.

The Western fleet, no longer concerned about the coastal defense artillery fire, formed a long queue. One ship passed by the outside of the port one after another. When it entered the range of the broadside gun, it opened fire at the same time. After a salvo, it quickly evacuated and gave up the firing position before changing.

A wave of ships came up... long guns, medium-range guns, and short-range mortars that fired large-caliber shotguns... all kinds of firepower were fired at the same time, flying rubble along the coast like a Shura hell.

"Even in Europe, there will be no more perfect and more violent artillery coordination than this!"

More than one veteran commented that in just half an hour, the firepower they fired was equivalent to the amount of ammunition dropped in a small battle. The sky and earth were dark on the Baisha Port position, and the dust and sand splashed completely covered the sky.

Cover. Under such fierce artillery fire, even if the shore fort has the strongest defense, in this case, it is impossible to observe the external situation at all, and naturally it is impossible to shoot - in order to prevent the opponent's artillery counterattack, this is the Western Army

The commander's vision when deploying artillery fire.

However, to everyone's surprise, the counterattack artillery fire from the shore never stopped. Even when the artillery fire here was the most intense, the three forts were completely covered with smoke and dust, and the gunners inside could not see anything.

The shells fired from the three turrets were still very sharp. Although the hit rate was slightly lower than before, it was obviously still fired after looking at the target and not shooting randomly. Soon several gunboats were damaged and had to withdraw.

Battlefield emergency repairs.

"How is that possible? How can they still aim in this situation?"

The gunners of the Western Army must not have imagined that the "eyes" of those coastal defense batteries are not actually in the same position as the artillery. Artillery Director Ma Qianshan personally led an observation team to lurk outside the defensive position, somewhere hidden and out of sight.

At a good observation post, he reported the target parameters to the people inside the fort through the intercom. The latter only needed to adjust the position and angle of the muzzle according to these parameters, and they could hit the target without any need to rely on the naked eye.

aim.

Through this method, no matter how fierce the artillery fire from the sea is, it cannot completely suppress the counterattack firepower here. Moreover, as the Western Fleet gets closer and closer, the counterattacks from the coastal defense artillery become more and more fierce...

"...We're almost close enough. It's time to give them some goodies...take out 'Engineer Xu's chocolates' and let the guests try them!"

Artillery commander Ma Qianshan gave the order, and the artillerymen in the three forts immediately took action. They dragged out the shell boxes marked "3 C" one by one, pried open the wooden slats, and removed the straw stuffing to reveal the inside.

The round projectile body is like a watermelon, and its shape is similar to that of ordinary high-explosive bombs, but it is specially painted red - these are incendiary bombs.

Engineer Xu Hui has been studying incendiary bombs for a long time. After repeated testing, he has designed multiple models. So far, this is the most mature one - this type is designated as "Type 3C" for the outer layer of incendiary bombs.

The asphalt is wrapped and the core is made of flammable materials such as napalm and sugar. It is usually very stable. But before launching, just insert an ignition fuse made of white phosphorus material into the shell, and it will burn by itself in the air.

.The soft asphalt projectile will break wherever it falls, splattering the incendiary agent inside, making it difficult to extinguish even if watered.

White phosphorus fuzes are very dangerous and will spontaneously ignite if exposed to the air for too long. Therefore, these fuzes are usually stored in cold water buckets and are only taken out and inserted into the projectile by a dedicated assistant gunner before firing. According to regulations, the gunner must carry

Wear fish skin gloves to perform the above operations - white phosphorus is poisonous. However, in actual combat, the artillerymen who are accustomed to stripping off their arms and doing it will rarely follow this rule, unless there is a short-haired superior who is watching personally.

Otherwise they don't care about phosphorus poisoning.

There is a hard shell on the outside, and a soft core wrapped in sugar on the inside - Xu Hui's work is easily reminiscent of the once-popular wine-filled chocolate candy, so the No. 3 C-type incendiary bomb has another nickname.

: "General Manager Xu's chocolate".

The use of incendiary bombs to deal with the wooden-hulled sailboats of this era is really the most effective weapon, but because the materials are very limited - most of the fuel must be used by the Qionghai, and only some by-products fractionated during the processing can be used

It is used to make incendiary bombs, so the output of this type of bomb has not been high. In addition, the asphalt projectile is relatively soft and easily deformed when flying in the air. Not only has the range short, but it is not accurate at long distances. Therefore, in the past, the distance between enemy fleets was relatively small.

When the target was far away and the hit rate was not high, the artillery did not use incendiary bombs - they did not want to waste most of them by throwing them into the sea.

But now that the group of Westerners are rampaging and approaching in a manner that they are not afraid of being beaten, Ma Qianshan is no longer polite. Because these forts are expected to be abandoned, and there is not much ammunition stored in them. At present, each gun

The cannon was equipped with two boxes of incendiary bombs, with twelve in each box. The quantity was limited, but the huge power of the shells was immediately revealed, shocking the Westerners.

…………

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Accompanied by a slightly muffled sound of artillery, four very eye-catching artillery shells were fired from three forts - as soon as they left the muzzle, bright flames appeared on the projectiles, dragging long in the air.

The tail flame flies towards the target, extremely colorful.

The Western fleet at sea didn't pay much attention at first - they put incendiary objects in the muzzles of their guns and fired them. They themselves did a lot of this kind of thing. Many of the cannonballs fired at the land now were red-hot iron balls or

It was a fire dumpling wrapped in oilcloth, hoping that it would cause a fire when hit, but the effect was not good.

Unexpectedly, the fireball fired by the opponent was far from a simple burning object. Due to the suppressed artillery fire here, only two of the four shots hit the target. One of them was relatively accurate and landed on the front deck of a Spanish galleon.

, and the other shot only hit the outside of the hull of the other ship, but as soon as the small fireball touched the hard ship plate, it immediately exploded violently, spraying large swaths of flames around.

After only a short while, large fires rose from the hulls of the two large sailing ships, and they were still spreading rapidly around. From the sea wind, the Spanish people's panic calls could be faintly heard - they must have

It has been found that this fire cannot be extinguished with sea water.

Not to mention the unlucky guy who was hit on the deck and set the sail on fire, but the outer hull of that ship was only scratched by the shell, and the damaged part was almost close to the horizontal line. The sailors on the ship didn't take it seriously at first.

——This location is already very humid and is often washed by sea water. It should be impossible for it to burn. But they couldn’t see it themselves, but several ships in the same formation next to them could see it clearly ——The fire was actually sticky.

It burned even on wet wooden boards! In just a few minutes, the fire suddenly shot up and completely engulfed the large sailing ship.

After seeing the fate of these two ships, all the sailors on the nearby ships gasped - although the previous explosive bombs were terrible, as long as they were not sunk on the spot after being shot, there was still room for repairs after retreating.

Even if this thing is lightly rubbed, if it starts to burn, it won't even be able to be saved. How can we fight this battle?

"God! A fire that cannot be extinguished with water? Is that the devil's hellfire?"

The armed merchant ship "Dream" was also in this formation, and it happened to be sandwiched between two burned ships. Captain Torres just saw with his own eyes that a burning fireball flew towards his ship, but fortunately he missed it.

At this time, he was so frightened that he kept praying to God... No matter what the military order was, Torres personally steered the ship out of formation, far away from the two sailboats that had been burned into big torches, for fear of being touched by the terrible "hell fire"

A little over a hour and a half ago.

This cannot be blamed on his selfishness - this Western United Fleet is not a regular navy after all, and is mostly composed of armed merchant ships affiliated with various business associations. Although the captains obeyed the orders of the business associations to participate in the war, they wanted to use the merchant ships to rob

For those who have made a fortune to rush forward at the risk of being burned to ashes like now, it is beyond their expectation.

Not only the Torres ship, but other captains in the combined fleet were also shaken when they saw this situation. They were just a group of businessmen who came all the way from Europe to East Asia for the purpose of seeking wealth rather than fighting for their lives. The opponent's weapons were so terrifying.

To attack forcefully, the risk is too great.

However, these captains were quite competent. Before receiving new orders, the fleet's bombardment of the port continued. However, under the threat of the terrible fireball shells, the bombardment ships accelerated their speed, lest they stay within the opponent's range.

The time was too long, even if it affected the bombardment effect. At the same time, liaison boats were dispatched from many ships to go to the rear command ship "Lion" to consult the commanders' opinions.

——Do you want to continue fighting this battle?
Chapter completed!