Chapter 253 Out of sight

Warrick held his gun to the ground, and his bright red military uniform was particularly eye-catching in the sun.

Around, the neatly arranged comrades-in-arms also looked grim and nervous. Outside the sight blocked by the woods in the distance, the sound of cannons rumbled with smoke. Every time there was an explosion, every thick smoke rose and hit everyone's heads like a hammer.

Pacific Fleet!

The news from China has spread all over the barracks, and the Kingdom of Spain and Honolulu have declared war!

This is probably something that no one expected. It's just that two escort ships were accidentally sunk. In Europe, it was at most an apology for compensation, but these yellow monkeys in the Far East actually went to war for this reason!

Damn it!

Warrick cursed from the bottom of his heart. It took two months to come here across the sea from Spain, and then finally wiped out the mob under the threat of extreme heat and sultry, malaria and mosquitoes, but who would have thought that it would have provoked the people of Honolulu again.

He is no longer a rookie to the Far East. The reputation of the Pacific Fleet has already spread all over the sea, and even the British must admit that their status here is loosening little by little.

Defeat Japan, defeat Russia, and Honolulu, which has the world's fourth most powerful fleet! How could Spain provoke these barbaric war lunatics?

Don't those damn noble members in the country understand? The Philippines is under their eyes, and General Montojo's fleet, God, is not even as good as a battleship.

All kinds of news spread faster than the plague. When Warwick and his comrades-in-arms had just figured out the Pacific Fleet, the war had broken out. When the rumbling guns came from the distant bay, they were shouted and gathered by the officers and arranged neatly ready to fight and land.

Warrick didn't know how he was fighting in the distance, but the stern faces of the officers gave him an extremely uneasy feeling. Fortunately, it was ten kilometers away from the bay and out of range of the naval guns, so he didn't have to worry about the hundreds of pounds of naval shells falling from above his head.

The sunshine at noon was really hot. In less than a while, almost all the soldiers' foreheads were sweaty and their backs were hot. Some people began to whisper, some adjusted their bodies, and their formations gradually relaxed.

When everyone couldn't stand it, the sound of gunfire in the distance gradually decreased. Everyone tiptoed up and held their necks high waiting for the sent sentinels to the front to inquire about the news to come back.

Suddenly, the crowd became restless.

Warrick quickly found that almost all his friends raised their heads. He also looked up quickly, but when he had just raised his eyelids, he found that something the size of an egg on his head was slowly approaching. Because of the dazzling sun, he had to cover it with his right hand.

Looking at the flying big egg approaching the barracks little by little, Wallick's uneasiness suddenly exploded, but before he could shout, dozens of black spots appeared in his eyes, and in the blink of an eye, the black spots hit the woods in the distance.

"Boom."

The fire broke out from the woods in front of him, and a sentry who happened to pass by and ran back was submerged in the sea of fire in the blink of an eye. The air waves generated by the explosion raised the soil, knocked over the trees, and even the rocks were scorched.

Warrick and everyone's eyes widened. How could this be! It's exactly ten kilometers away from the coast! Coupled with the obstruction of the bay, can the Pacific Fleet fire at a distance of tens of thousands of meters?

Before the Spanish soldiers came out of shock and fear, the naval gun suddenly stopped again. Was it just a few missed shells, but how could the naval gun cross the woods and the low slope, and then leap more than 10,000 meters to hit here?

The soldiers were suspicious, but without the order of the officer, no one dared to leave. Warwick squeezed into the crowd and looked at the big egg flying overhead, and an idea suddenly flashed in his mind.

"God, it's it."

Before the words "bring the shells here" came out, they froze in Warwick's throat, because he found that the rumble that had just stopped for more than a minute sounded again from the sea in the distance, and then dozens of black spots jumped into his eyes, and the huge shells roared into the neat line of soldiers.

A shell exploded not far from Warwick's side. The fire was like an inflatable balloon, mixed with countless iron pieces and debris suddenly expanded. The retina only flashed. When the violent explosion was just stuffed with ears, the body lost consciousness forever.

Boom!

Fang Xiaotian held his telescope and licked his lips next to the hanging basket.

Originally, he was just an ordinary observer in the fleet. After being selected, he never thought that one day he could fly to the sky and look down on the whole battlefield. This feeling was really cool!

Of course, he was not so happy at the beginning, especially when he got on the airship for the first time, he was so scared that he almost peed his pants, but as he trained, he gradually got used to the feeling of fluttering in the buzzing noise.

A 203mm shell exploded among the scattered Spanish soldiers. The sweeping flames and air waves tore up hundreds of soldiers, and the limbs were lifted by the air waves, wrapped in countless soil falling like raindrops.

This feeling is really cool. It is more exciting than standing on the mast and watching the Russian [***] ships explode in front of him. At that time, he looked up and could only see the scene from the perspective of the telescope. Now he can even look down on the whole battlefield like an eagle without a telescope.

"Xiao Tian, what are you doing? Report it quickly."

The boat behind him shouted, and Fang Xiaotian was so scared that he almost lost the telescope. He quickly put away his mind and reported the deviation of the direction and bullet points that needed to be shelled one by one. The telegraphers among the three crew members kept tapping their fingers and sent the coordinates and information reported by Fang Xiaotian to the fleet not far away.

On the four determination-level patrols, the gunners constantly adjusted the shelling of Zhuyuan according to the telegram. They didn't even look at the woods in the distance at all. If they were in the eyes of others, they could not believe that there was such a way of shelling Zhuyuan by telegram.

Two naval guns per minute keep roaring, and the four main guns keep spewing flames and thick smoke. Every five minutes of shelling, the gun group will stop for a minute and re-adjust the muzzle according to the elements provided by the gun officer, and then load the bomb again.

The maximum range of 15 kilometers can completely cover the whole Krabi. In addition, due to the massacre of the Spanish army, there are only a very few residents left in the city, so that the fleet does not need to consider incidental damage at all, directly stuffs the shells into the gun, and then continues to shoot out under the guidance of the airship.

Each determination-level heavy patrol can project eight 250 kilograms of high-explosive bombs per minute. After each shell explodes, the area swept away is nearly 2,000 square meters. The four heavy patrols cover a range of more than 50,000 square meters in one minute, even if the bullet points overlap, repeated shelling, etc. The factor is folded in half, and this kind of damage is also extremely amazing.

The explosion continued, and pieces of barracks were pushed down. The small Krabi city was already in a mess. Fires were like blooming flowers of death. While harvesting life, they also destroyed the confidence of Spanish soldiers. Countless red dots ran wildly, and everyone wanted to avoid like hell. The scene.

When the four determination-class heavy patrols opened fire with all their strength, they could not participate in this out-of-sight shelling because of the angle of fire problem. The two extremely depressed battleships led the Sky Survey, the Sea Patrol and Honolulu to vent their anger to the Krabi port area. The huge 305mm shells were obviously more horrible than the main gun of the patrol, although The rate of fire is slower, but the mushroom cloud that rises after each explosion has been frozen for a long time.

With the secondary guns of each ship, the whole port of Krabi seems to have been swept over by a hurricane. Houses, streets, walls and dark castles are all flying through flesh and blood, bricks and tiles are broken, and even thick trees have been uprooted.

With such strong firepower, not to mention that the port has already been completely destroyed by the fleet, waiting for the Spanish garrison to surrender, even the army comrades-in-arms on the transport ship secretly smacked their tongues. Although they can't see how much damage to the distant Krabi City blocked by the mountains and woods is actually, they only look at the ignition in the port area. The blazing flames and black smoke knew what nightmare the Spaniards who were out of sight behind the woods had suffered!

An hour later, when the four heavy patrols took the lead in ending the shelling, Chen Ping took a long breath and squinted at Zhang Shun on the flying bridge next to him. He jumped and shouted. Master Li, who was eager to shoot twice by himself, had an incompassable feeling in his heart for the first time.

From the adjustment of the gun angle of the ship, from the frame that can greatly improve the rate of fire and reduce the weight of the ship to the hydraulic pipe retreat technology, from the loading of the old crane to the modified hoist, from the redesign of the new naval gun to the innovative triple installation technology, to the epoch-of-the-air gun battle that can even be said to be epoch-only guided by radio. Li Mo participated in every project, and almost every improvement he proposed was forward-looking, and sometimes it even made people feel that he was born for the navy.

After exhaling a mouthful of heat from his lungs, Chen Ping cigaretteged himself. The triple 152mm gun and the double 130mm gun of the bow of the USS Honolulu under his feet were still roaring, mixed in the roaring sound of the fleet, beating people's hearts like a drum, and the heat of the muzzle drifted with the sea breeze. While he was on the flying bridge, he felt his cheeks hot.

The smell of gunpowder in the bay was mixed with tobacco, but it made people feel more exciting. When the port of Krabi had become a pile of rubble, when the airship telegraphman sent a signal that the main targets had been destroyed, the lively troop carrier slowly lowered the boat for most of the day.

A few minutes later, the first group of marine soldiers boarded the steamboat and began to land with choking gunpowder smoke. The small gunboats that had nothing to do just now took advantage of shallow food and gathered around like wolves. Regardless of whether there was anyone in the smoke in the distance, the machine gun on the deck swept over violently, as if they were going to touch the ship. The team's power.

At 4:00 p.m., the second battalion of the first regiment of the Marine Corps took the lead in landing in the port of Krabi under the cover of naval guns. At the same time, it also announced the occupation of Spain's most important military base in the Philippines, the Far East Fleet Command and the Krabi naval dock.

The worrying street battle did not appear. A team of Spanish soldiers, who had long been frightened, almost had almost no resistance, so they raised the white flag and walked out of the hidden place. It was obviously a good choice for them to end this nightmare early.

At 6 p.m., the first batch of four troop carriers leaned against the dock, and 3,000 soldiers of the second regiment of the Third Lu Division stepped on the land of Luzon, which made Li Mo and Chen Ping, who were onlookers, relieved.

At seven o'clock sharp, after confirming that the remnants of the dock had been completely cleared, Li Mo and Chen Ping set foot on the port of Krabi under the witness of the flashing cameras of several military reporters.

Looking at the silent city of Manila more than ten kilometers away, the two looked at each other and smiled

(to be continued)