Episode 185: Must increase the code

When designing the "hail bomb", several designers proposed whether steel balls can be added to the bomb to enhance the damage effect of the fragments. Because they think that in addition to dealing with aircraft on the runway, such dense small bombs are also a good weapon for killing enemy infantry on a large scale. However, most designers opposed it. The reason is that after the bomber formation appears, infantry on the ground will lie down and avoid it. The power of this small bomb is really limited. Even if it is in a very close place, as long as it lies in time, the killing effect will be greatly reduced. Moreover, adding steel balls to the bombs must be reduced accordingly and the explosive power is reduced. Moreover, steel balls are much heavier than explosives, which will also increase the weight of the bomb.

The final conclusion is that without adding steel balls, you rely entirely on explosive shock waves. After all, the target of this kind of bomb is objects, not people.

After testing, a hail bomb can not only completely destroy an aircraft, but also completely destroy a military vehicle, slightly injure a tank, and almost no damage to targets like artillery.

The so-called minor injury tank means that if it hits the top of the tank directly, it will not penetrate the top armor, but it will definitely shock the gunner inside, which may temporarily deafen or even lose consciousness. However, the top armor of the two tanks of the Qing army, the top armor of the two tanks of Barutu and Kubu are 28mm thick, and the power of 60mm mortar shells can only damage, but cannot penetrate the 28mm thick armor.

In other words, if you hit it directly, a tank can temporarily lose its combat power, but it cannot destroy the tank. Unless you are lucky, it happens to fall on the engine position at the back of the turret. In that case, the fireball will swallow the tank in an instant. But the probability is too small.

It is said that there is almost no damage to the artillery, mainly because the target target of the artillery is too small and basically cannot hit it directly. In fact, if it hits directly, the artillery is more fragile than a tank. But compared to hitting a tank or an aircraft, if you want to hit a cannon directly, it would be like throwing a pea at the tip of the needle several meters away. However, the power of the hail bomb is too small. As long as you don’t hit it directly, even if it is only one meter away, there will be no scene. Even the artillery is difficult to hurt - as long as the artillery is on the spot, the casualties will not exceed 20%.

...

The results of the previous tests were reported to the People's Guards' Installation Training Department and the Aircraft Commander Li Guoliang, and they reported them to Xiang Xiaoqiang again.

Xiang Xiaoqiang was not very willing to be with this result. He felt that in this case, he worked hard to create such a "hail bomb", and spent so much manpower, material resources, financial resources, and time training and testing. In the end, it was like he could only use it at one time when the Qing army's airport was sneak attacked on the D-D. Moreover, the Qing army learned the lesson from the last time, and this sneak attack may not have much result. In his opinion, this made this bomb too useless.

Wang Hexiang, the commander of the Installation and Training Department, also had this view. Although he had opposed adding steel balls to hail bombs, he hoped to increase the power of hail bombs a little. When participating in the design, he advocated not using 60mm, but directly modified with 80mm mortar shells. However, most designers agreed to use 60mm. In their opinion, the main use of hail bombs is to bomb airports, and the power of 60mm is more than enough to destroy aircraft. If it were replaced with 80mm, the weight of a single piece would double, which means that the bomb load capacity of the bomber will be doubled, the area covered by the bombing will be doubled, and the theoretically the Qing army aircraft destroyed on the ground will be doubled. This is completely contrary to the original intention.

However, this kind of hail bomb was not led by the People's Guard, but was led by the General Administration of Military Industry of the Ming Dynasty. The People's Guard Training Department was only involved.

...

"No," Xiang Xiaoqiang walked around the office of the People's Guard Training Department and said to Wang Hexiang, "We must create a hail bomb that increases its power. For those above 5 kilograms, one must completely destroy a tank and blow up a cannon at close range...especially artillery. The Qing army attaches great importance to artillery, even surpassing tanks. Their dense group of artillery is the biggest threat to us."

Wang Hexiang looked at his figure walking around and said with certainty:

"good."

Xiang Xiaoqiang stood up suddenly, turned to Wang Hexiang, and said:

"Especially the artillery groups opposite several cities along the river! For example, the Pukou artillery group opposite Nanjing! The Yangzhou artillery group opposite Zhenjiang! The Jingjiang artillery group opposite Jiangyin! The Hexian artillery group opposite Ma'anshan! Huaining artillery group opposite Anqing!... It can be imagined that on the D-Day, within a few hours of our attack and not occupying the depth of the opponent, these artillery groups will crazily pour shells into our cities! It will be like when the Ming and Qing wars began at the beginning of the year!"

Wang Hexiang looked at Xiang Xiaoqiang for a moment, then spread his hands and said helplessly:

"Sir, you also know the meaning of the commander. There are only a few cities along the river, and the city is at a certain distance from the riverside. The Qing army is afraid of the artillery on the Yangtze River defense line, and dare not put the artillery group close to the riverside, and retreats for a certain distance... In this way, the distance between each Qing army artillery group is more than 15,000 meters from the city of my riverside. When it comes to real bombardment, the only ones that are more damaged are the edge urban areas in the west and north. Originally, the target of the Qing army artillery group is not our urban areas, but our Yangtze River defense line."

Xiang Xiaoqiang began to pace irritably again and waved his hand:

"Oh, I also know this... The mainstream attitude in the commander now is to use artillery on the Yangtze River defense line to bombard and suppress the artillery groups at h time, and cooperate with dive bombers to destroy those artillery groups... I admit that dive bombers are the best weapon to deal with artillery positions, but the problem is that h time is in the early morning, between 3:00 and 5:00, and it was still very dark at that time, and it was also a decoration when the dive bomber went there. As for the artillery on the Yangtze River defense line, it is okay to block the river surface with the gun seat density on the defense line. If you want to effectively suppress the superior artillery group that is more than ten kilometers away from the opponent... that is, yy. Even in normal times, the artillery density on the other side of the Qing army is several times that of our defense line."

Xiang Xiaoqiang sat on the chair, stared at Wang Hexiang and said:

"In this case, the most effective way to destroy the Qing army artillery group is to fly over the target and use a carpet bomb to increase the power of the "hail bomb". If you want to use a dive bomber, you must aim at the naked eye, and in the darkness before dawn, you will definitely not aim accurately... Besides, this is not only for the lives of the people in the cities along the line. If the Qing army artillery group is not eliminated, our crossing of the river will also suffer great losses."

Wang Hexiang said:

"Sir, our large bombers are not as many as dive bombers. Apart from the defense line in the middle and western sections, there are also other strategic directions to defend, and there are even limited opportunities to participate in the D-D offensive. Marshal Zhang Zhaoxian obviously wanted to put all the large bombers into bombing the Qing army airport. He wanted to basically eliminate the Northern Qing Air Force from the beginning. He may not be willing to occupy too many large bombers in dealing with targets such as artillery groups."

Xiang Xiaoqiang understood that Zhang Zhaoxian was not sure whether he was influenced too much by himself or too much by the Pukou Battle and fortress exercises, so he seemed to be a little superstitious about dive bombers. He advocated using dive bombers to deal with Qing army artillery groups, which is a reflection.

Xiang Xiaoqiang stood up and sat down, restless. He knew that this was not because Zhang Zhaoxian was not good at the best, nor because old man Zhang Zhaoxian was too stubborn, but because of the general limitations of military generals in this era.

When a new weapon and a new tactic was first proposed, these mainstream generals of this era always deny, doubt, and disdain. And after this new weapon and a new tactic shine in its first battle and won the world's surprise, the mainstream generals of this era will praise it, believe in it, raise it to a height that is out of reality, and even think that it can do everything.

Xiang Xiaoqiang knew that it would take until the new weapons and new tactics had won both reputation and exposed their shortcomings after many practical battles, so that people could learn to look at them objectively. As a person who traveled through time decades later, Xiang Xiaoqiang had already jumped out of Mount Lu, and naturally could see these "new weapons and new tactics". And the Ming general like Zhang Zhaoxian was still in Mount Lu, and was in the stage of glimpse through the leopards.

He asked Wang Hexiang:

"Hong Kong, if we start modifying the 80mm caliber 'hail bomb', how long will it take to make 10,000?"

Wang Hexiang said:

"10,000 pieces are definitely not enough. If you promote it, you will need at least 15,000-20,000 pieces in the first month of the Northern Expedition. This time is a bit nervous. However, the processing speed of 80mm should be no different from that of 60mm. After all, mortar shells are ready-made, and all you need is to modify. Now this batch of 60mm processing and modification has been taken for about a month. If you make another batch of 80mm, you should be able to make it before the war begins... But, it's a bit nervous."

He nodded to Xiaoqiang, grabbed his hat and pulled out his legs, and said:

"Hong He and I go with us, we will go to the commander-in-chief now. I don't believe that I can't deal with those old stubborn ones."

...

In the central hall of Purple Mountain Fortress, there was still a busy scene before the war. At a conference table in a corner, a regular meeting was being held, and Zhang Zhao was listening to the combat plan reports of several generals.

General Feng Lingcai, the commander of the right-road army group, was paddling the sand table on the table with his command stick and saying:

"...In the main assault direction, there is one division in the front of every 2-3 kilometers. In addition, for the divisions that carry out auxiliary attacks, the prescribed front of the attack is 8-10 kilometers....So, even if the main front of the attack is only 25 kilometers, 8 divisions must be required to complete the task. In order to carry out auxiliary attack operations on 20-25 kilometers, 2-3 divisions are required, that is, 10-11 divisions need to be put into combat in this section... The remaining 4-5 divisions should be given the following instructions: to which areas to move and what kind of deployment is made.

"Each assault army must leave their third and fourth divisions. The troops carrying out auxiliary assault missions must send their third division to the main assault area... In the main assault direction, each first echelon division must be assigned to a supplementary artillery regiment, and the divisions operating in the auxiliary direction must only bring their own artillery to the war..."

As he spoke, his voice slowly stopped and he looked up at the opposite side.

Everyone else followed him to look opposite him.

Xiang Xiaoqiang was strode towards this side.
Chapter completed!