Chapter 1040 The First Artillery Confrontation on the Eastern Front 1
Chapter 1040 The first artillery confrontation on the Eastern Front 1
In a turret of the Lviv Fortress, an M1908 siege howitzer was deployed. There was a section of track directly behind the artillery. A small car was being pushed by several soldiers to move to the position directly behind the artillery. Then several soldiers A grenade weighing 382 kilograms was placed at the loading position at the rear of the gun using a boom, then the running bolt was opened, and several soldiers used a ramrod to stuff it into the glistening muzzle of the gun. After the cannon was locked, the short and thick barrel began to rise slowly. And finally stayed at the position of 25 degrees.
At the same time, the same scene also appeared on 22 forts in the five important defense areas of the Lviv Fortress area. Eight M1908 12-inch siege howitzers, 10 240MM long-range cannons and 32 210MM heavy howitzers responded. The pre-selected targets were targeted, and the medium-caliber howitzers and cannons, which were smaller in caliber but lost more, were also ready!
"From now on, bombard for 2 hours!" Caliput's order was very simple, but it was too cruel for the Russians who knew nothing at this time!
boom! As the cannonball was fired, a huge fireball erupted from the muzzle, and the remaining energy generated by the burning of the gunpowder blew a strong wind within a few dozen meters of the surrounding area. Clouds of gunpowder smoke continued to pour out from the muzzle, and then dust and water vapor formed a fog-colored air mass that spread to other places. The 382-kilogram artillery shell drew an elegant arc in the air and fell into the Russian army assembly position 7 kilometers away!
I saw a black thing flying towards me with a harsh whistling sound, and it fell like a sword of Damocles that heralded destruction under the stunned Russians! For a moment, the ground seemed to tremble. The impact of more than 300 kilograms of missiles falling and the huge explosion force of more than 70 kilograms of explosives blew nearby artillery, soldiers and several tons of soil directly into the air! A wave of air visible to the naked eye carried the fragments and corpses and quickly expanded to the surroundings, tearing apart everything it could touch like a storm!
Flames, poisonous gas, and an invisible air pressure difference that is enough to burst a human's lungs swept across a range of nearly 100 meters from the impact point of the cannon! The hastily constructed fortifications had no intention of resisting such a level of attack! This shell directly tore two 75MM artillery pieces and half a company of infantry around them into pieces! When the smoke cleared, a radioactive crater several meters deep and more than ten meters in diameter appeared in front of people's eyes.
And this was just a prelude. When the 305MM heavy howitzers and 240MM cannons in the fortress area opened fire, the Austro-Hungarian artillery group that had been hidden for a long time began to fully activate! The roar of hundreds of barrel artillery broke the tranquility of the early morning! Like a doomsday meteor shower, artillery shells landed densely on a 10-kilometer-wide position. At its peak, 3,000 artillery shells were fired at distant targets every minute! A storm composed of flames and steel pushed sideways towards the Russian position, leaving behind a large and small crater and debris and bones everywhere! Before the Russians launched their attack, the Allied artillery first disrupted the deployment of the Russian army!
After sweeping the shallow positions,
The artillery with sufficient range began to expand in depth, and a wall of flames piled with shells began to advance forward. Expand from the front of the Russian position toward the limit of the artillery range. More than half of the several Russian breakthrough points discovered were damaged in this sudden attack.
What's even more tragic is that some of the troops prepared to expand the breakthrough entered the position prematurely and were blown up by the flying artillery shells! The shelling that lasted for more than 2 hours almost completely ruined Russia's assault plan today. The forward troops suffered heavy losses, and the Russians would need to spend at least a day and night rearranging their infantry and close support fire if they wanted to resume the offensive.
"Damn it, our plan was leaked!" Alexeyev said sadly and angrily, looking at some of the Russian positions that had turned into a sea of flames in the distance. "But it doesn't matter, we have a lot of capital this time! Even if we suffer a little loss, it won't hurt the overall situation! What are those heavy artillery waiting for? Waiting for all the infantry on the front line to be killed?! Let them fire! Fire immediately!" Ali Kseyev roared.
There is a reason for the optimism of the commander of the Russian Southeast Front. There are definitely not many artillery pieces that can fire hundreds of kilograms of shells and can shoot very far. This is true on the Western Front, and even more so on the Eastern Front. To be honest, without the support of the two empires of Germany and Austria-Hungary, the Bavarian Army would not even have a few 12-inch train guns.
For example, the M1908 heavy howitzer that fired the first shot of the battle just now has a range of only 9,600 meters. Considering that it is deployed relatively far back, these artillery can only deal with Russian front lines and shallow depth units at best. No matter how far it is, it can't be reached, and the K09 cannon with a longer range is less powerful. It is still very difficult to destroy an important node that the Russian army has been operating for several months in a short period of time.
The naval guns that the Russian Army snatched from the Navy now became the most powerful killer weapons for both sides in the first round of artillery battle! At this time, a 12-inch L52 naval gun nicknamed Katyusha by the Russian army raised its more than ten-meter-long barrel. When the gun was transported, it was placed on two 5-axle trailers and entered the After the position, the rear half of the artillery was fixed, and the front half was placed on an arc-shaped railway, which could rotate within a 120-degree range from the front. A grenade weighing 446KG was loaded into the barrel of the gun. After the nearby personnel had almost evacuated, the Russian Army's heaviest and most powerful artillery finally let out its first roar after the war started. At the same time, more than 20 people Various types of 12-inch and 10-inch train guns opened fire within a few minutes! The reconnaissance plane in the air can clearly see the light spots rising about 19 kilometers behind the Russian front line! The Russian artillery group finally showed its power!
The 446KG shell flew out of the muzzle at a speed of nearly 800 meters per second, drawing an elegant arc in the air with a piercing scream and flying towards the Lviv Fortress 24 kilometers away. The first choice target of "Katyusha" and its comrade "Seryozha" is a huge reinforced concrete gun nest. Two 210MM heavy howitzers are deployed in this gun nest, which directly blocks a certain Russian army's planned breakthrough. point.
The first shell landed directly behind the turret, directly penetrated the outer soil layer more than 1 meter thick, then penetrated the reinforced concrete up to half a meter thick, and exploded directly in the passage! , along with a burst of fire, a smoke column tens of meters high rose into the sky. The violent explosion blew the support structure of the passage to pieces, directly destroying a section of the passage that was hundreds of meters long!
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