Chapter 1439: The Trench War of Verdun (3rd update, please subscribe)
early morning.
As usual, Honjo Shigeru squeezed toothpaste onto his fingers and rubbed his teeth hard.
What is the easiest thing to lose in the trenches?
Just toothbrush and toilet paper.
It seems that everyone has lost their toothbrushes, and it seems that everyone is brushing their teeth with their fingers, or even needs to use their fingers... In short, the battlefield is the battlefield.
“This is the right hand…”
While Honjo Shigeru was talking to himself, a thunderous sound came from the sky. He looked up at the sky and then shouted desperately.
"Hide, bombard, bombard..."
When he issued the warning, the soldiers who were originally washing up in the trenches immediately rushed to the anti-gun holes or bunkers, waiting for the artillery fire to pass.
After arriving at the Marne River, the expeditionary force built a series of trenches. Even in the battle, they continued to strengthen their defenses and built a fairly complete field defense system. Trench, support points, communication trenches and anti-artillery holes were enough to protect the soldiers from artillery fire.
When they were bombarded, the soldiers immediately retreated into the anti-bombardment caves next to the trenches. Compared with a month ago, their anti-bombardment caves are now more solid, and the covering soil layer has increased to 2 meters... If they are lucky, they may even be able to withstand 150-level artillery shells, provided that the wooden beams on the top of the cave are not broken.
Although the soldiers retreated quickly, they still could not keep up with the speed of the falling shells. When some soldiers retreated into the anti-artillery caves, shells fell heavily from the sky like raindrops.
In an instant, the front-line position was completely covered by a rain of bullets. The choking smoke and the dirt and debris raised by the explosion were flying around the position. The barbed wire was blown into the sky by the explosion, and then flew into the air like a long dragon rising from the ground, and then fell down heavily.
The shells that fell into the trenches directly set off a bloody storm. The violent explosion threw the soldiers directly into the sky. In mid-air, their bodies were torn into pieces by the shrapnel and the high-pressure wind blades of the shock wave. In an instant, their bodies were completely transformed into countless flying flesh and blood, rising with gunpowder smoke, then falling, and then being blown away again, and finally completely merged with the soil.
Bombardment!
This bombardment was even more severe than the heaviest bombardment Honjo Shigeru had ever experienced, and it was something he and his comrades had never experienced before.
The bombardment was like a strong wind, turning the earth into the sea. The vibrations from the bombardment were like waves, constantly hitting the earth. Even in the cave, Honjo could still feel the power of the explosion. The lantern hanging on the top of the cave was shaking violently, and above his head, small pieces of soil kept falling through the gaps in the logs.
Amid the shock of the explosion, one could occasionally hear screams from the soldiers, especially the new recruits.
"Don't worry, let those British guys bomb! Their shells are just like tickling us..."
Amid the earth-shaking events, Honjo Shigeru, who was already a veteran, even deliberately took out a poker and asked.
"Who's willing to bet with me..."
"Count me in!"
"Come on, come on, let's touch it together..."
Although he was inevitably a little nervous, Honjo Shigeru still started playing Pai Gow with his comrades. The veterans' actions made the new recruits breathe a sigh of relief.
On the battlefield, compared to officers, veterans are the real backbone and the source of courage of the soldiers. Their calmness makes the highly nervous recruits relax. In war, will is sometimes more important than weapons!
"Haha, the British would never have thought that they were firing so fiercely while we were playing poker here..."
"Yes, these shells are just like tickling us."
Although the anti-bomb hole was shaking due to the violent explosion, the soldiers who had calmed down started to joke around. It seemed that for them, all this was not worth worrying about or thinking about too much, because it could not hurt them at all.
The fierce bombardment will be over soon!
How long can such a bombardment last?
Normally, the British would stop bombarding for an hour at most. Then they would attack.
However, what was beyond their imagination was that the shelling lasted for five hours!
From 3-inch small-caliber field guns to 8-inch heavy guns, from 2-inch mortars to 240mm heavy mortars, the British mobilized almost all the most violent artillery attacks on the imperial army's defense lines.
"Wipe out the French and Ming positions completely from this planet!"
The order received by the Anglo-German artillery was so simple, and they were confident that they could do it. Almost at dawn, the British and Anglo-German hidden artillery groups launched the largest-scale bombardment on the German positions since the war began, using everything from 82mm mortars to 406mm railway guns. The British and French teams concentrated almost all of their available artillery fire to achieve that goal.
The fierce artillery fire plunged the Ming army's positions into a sea of smoke and fire. In the violent explosion, not only obstacles such as barbed wire were blown into the sky, but even bunkers were occasionally blown into the sky. Even some sturdy fortresses were hit by the British 12-inch railway gun.
"The British don't want to destroy the world, do they?"
This was the devastating artillery fire. Hundreds of thousands of shells fell on the battlefield like raindrops in just a few hours.
While the fierce artillery fire was going on, behind the Anglo-German Allied Forces, dozens of artillery calibration balloons were observing the positions of the Ming-French Allied Forces from high altitudes, and constantly indicating targets for ground artillery by telephone, correcting the impact points of the artillery shells and indicating new targets.
After such fierce bombardment lasted for two hours, the Ming army's surface positions were completely destroyed. Not only was the barbed wire in front of the positions destroyed in the violent explosion, but even many trenches were buried by the soil raised by the explosion.
The most deadly shell is the 240mm heavy mortar shell, which weighs 81.6 kg and is filled with 40 kg of high explosive. It is extremely powerful. This heavy mortar designed by the Empire is very popular in various countries because of its powerful power. Not to mention general civil engineering works, it can be destroyed one by one. Even reinforced concrete fortifications can be destroyed with just dozens of shells.
Sometimes a heavy shell landed on the top of the shelter, and the people inside were buried alive before they even knew what was going on.
In the fierce artillery fire, almost no one could escape. Even if they were not killed directly by the shells, they would have been killed by the shock wave of the explosion. At least, for the British and German forces, they believed that such fierce artillery fire was enough to destroy everything.
However, what the Anglo-German Allied Forces did not know was that as early as when the bombardment just began, most of the officers and soldiers of the Ming-French Allied Forces had already retreated into the anti-gun caves that had been reinforced many times. Although the anti-gun caves would be destroyed by heavy artillery shells, most of them were still strong, and people safely avoided the shells that were falling like raindrops.
However, not everyone can stay in the sturdy anti-artillery caves. In the front-line bunkers, there are many officers and soldiers responsible for reconnaissance and surveillance. They use periscopes to observe the movements of the British and German forces in the fortifications.
The old group is down, so I created a new book club group: 739209015. Everyone is welcome to join and discuss and deduce the plot together.
(End of this chapter)
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