Why does Zhang Zhidong have these super-shooting machine guns?
This was Liu Hai's frequent use during this period, and air strikes on the ground made the powers wary.
The current industrial base of these great powers should not be underestimated. With their existing equipment, they slightly modified the heavy machine gun and added a few brackets to form a simple anti-aircraft machine gun.
But to be honest, this kind of anti-aircraft machine gun already has all the characteristics of the anti-aircraft machine gun before World War II. If this kind of machine gun is used to attack propeller aircraft, it will still be very threatening.
It is a pity that this kind of machine gun is currently facing the second and a half generation JH-7.
Because the JH-7 is too fast and is at an altitude that cannot be threatened by this kind of machine gun, although the anti-aircraft machine guns on the ground keep firing, it hardly poses any threat to the JH-7 in the sky.
However, although the JH-7 was not fatally threatened, it still interfered with the J-H-7's bomb delivery.
If Liu Hai used precision guided bombs, then naturally he would not worry about this. However, because guided bombs and missiles were too expensive, Liu Hai did not import them at all, but used the most common aerial bombs.
Although the JH-7 has advanced guidance equipment, due to inherent limitations, the accuracy of these aerial bombs cannot reach the level of guided bombs.
Therefore, this is now under threat from the ground, and the accuracy of aerial bomb delivery has dropped to another level.
Many aerial bombs exploded near bunkers and permanent fortifications, but did not pose a fatal threat to these fortifications, so the JH-7 had to be used for supplementary bombing.
Therefore, the effect of this air strike was not very satisfactory.
After the JH-7 bombers dropped their bombs and left the sky above Taiyuan, the 24 H-6 bombers behind them finally arrived belatedly.
The power of the bombers is not comparable to that of the J-H-7 bombers. Although they are slow, with their huge bomb load, the H-6 bombers use this advantage to pose a huge threat to various types of bunkers on the ground.
After the two waves of bombing ended, the thousands of heavy artillery that Liu Zhi had gathered on the ground finally came into use and began to carry out continuous and indiscriminate bombardment on various targets and hilltop posts.
Since the fortresses on the outskirts of Taiyuan were all built behind Shanyin, the threat from artillery to them was not very great, so the heavy artillery attack was very unsatisfactory.
But Liu Zhi did not know that after the bombardment ended, tens of thousands of soldiers immediately launched an attack on the group of bunkers on the outskirts of Taiyuan from three directions.
Originally, Liu Zhi thought that after aerial bombardment and ground heavy artillery bombardment, Taiyuan's outskirts should be obtained quickly.
But the facts poured cold water on his head. Although tens of thousands of soldiers said they were very brave in fighting and were supported by advanced weapons and heavy artillery, they still suffered a bloody blow when attacking these bunker groups.
This offensive battle started in the afternoon and lasted for three hours. In the end, the group of bunkers on various hills were safe and sound, but Liu Zhi's attacking army suffered heavy losses and had to retreat and renovate.
After the army retreated, Liu Zhi immediately felt bad all over as soon as he took stock.
The losses of the more than 30,000 soldiers who launched the attack as the vanguard actually reached 2,500, which was almost 1/10.
This is one of the biggest casualties Liu Hai has suffered in a battle since he founded the army.
Although Liu Hai said he would not directly command the battle, seeing such casualties, he could not sit still.
Therefore, Liu Hai directly overstepped his authority and ordered all officers to go to his headquarters for a meeting.
Liu Hai sat in the middle of the conference room, and Liu Zhi sat next to him, his head lowered and his face flushed.
The other generals present were also as if they were beaten by frost. It seemed that this tough battle had awakened these proud and powerful generals.
Know that they are not invincible in this world, there are still people who can withstand their attacks.
"What's wrong? You're all mute? A few days ago, weren't you all the bosses? Are you the second child?"
When the lieutenant generals below heard Liu Hai's question, they all lowered their heads and said nothing.
Finally, Liu Zhi, as the commander of this battle, stood up and bowed deeply to Liu Hai, and then said: "Commander, I made a mistake in my command this time, which cost so many soldiers their lives. I ask for punishment."
.”
Liu Hai looked at his favorite general, waved his hand, asked Liu Zhi to sit down again, and then said: "I hope you can remember the lessons of this time and try your best to prepare in advance before every battle."
After Liu Hai said this, he stood up and walked around the conference room a few times before continuing: "More careful preparations could have been made for this war."
"For example, the air force can bomb for several days to try to eliminate all targets on the ground, and the artillery can also provide greater support to soldiers before the battle."
"But you have failed to achieve these two things with the air force. You just hurriedly bombed one round and ended it. Although the artillery attack was very lively at the beginning, it did not produce the intended effect. At this time, you should temporarily stop
We attacked and carried out supplementary bombing and artillery shelling, but you did not stop. Instead, you drove the soldiers and launched one charge after another against the enemy's strong fortress. This is why the soldiers suffered such heavy losses."
After saying this, Liu Hai returned to the center, looked at the general below and ordered: "Starting from tomorrow, we will temporarily stop the attack on the ground. Move the main attack direction to the sky, and use the advantage of the air to give the enemy a devastating blow."
Strike.”
"Yes, I will obey the commander's orders."
Following Liu Hai's order on the second day, the entire Hunan Army changed its combat methods.
All land attacks have stopped, and only heavy artillery units are constantly shelling the enemy.
In the sky, Liu Hai's aircraft had increased from more than 50 to 100. They were divided into several waves and continuously launched fierce air attacks on the group of bunkers outside Taiyuan.
Faced with this attack from the sky, Zhang Zhidong's self-strengthening army on the ground was equipped with anti-aircraft machine guns supported by some major powers, but it was still ineffective against these advanced second-generation aircraft.
Therefore, after nearly five days of continuous bombing, all the main buildings of the bunker groups outside Taiyuan were destroyed, leaving only some relatively well-hidden, small and permanent fortifications.
At this point, Liu Hai felt that the time was ripe to continue the attack.
Therefore, in early March 1899, Liu Hai once again handed over command to Liu Zhi, allowing him to command the troops and begin cleaning up the outside of Taiyuan City on the ground.
This time Liu Zhi learned the lesson from last time and distributed a large amount of light firepower to all troops, such as platoon-level guns or rockets.
This is to prevent soldiers from attacking with their bodies and flesh when encountering hard-to-gnaw bones, but to rely on advanced weapons to clear the obstacles.
During the attack, in addition to the heroic fighting of the soldiers on the ground, Liu Zhihan sent out all the drones in his hands, and then divided them into several directions, and the soldiers on the ground provided guidance or removed difficult fire points for them.
Under such a two-pronged attack, after five days of arduous fighting, Liu Hai's generals finally defeated the important strongholds on the outskirts of Taiyuan.
The outskirts of Taiyuan City, the east bank of the Fen River, Han Mountain and all positions in the north and south of Taiyuan are all in the hands of the Hunan Army. Taiyuan City has become an isolated city with an area of less than a few square kilometers.
However, because the defender of Taiyuan City was Zhang Zhidong, a big boss of the imperial court, with his huge prestige, the defenders of Taiyuan City still resisted strongly.
Deaths on both sides continued to increase. The closer they got to the city, the stronger the resistance the Hunan Army encountered. Sometimes a group of bunkers would be fought over more than a dozen times. The Hunan Army constantly organized demolition teams, and could only manually attack bunkers that were not conducive to bombardment.
Carry out blasting clearance.
Fortunately, there were drones in the sky for support, so the casualties were not as tragic as in the previous battle.
But even with this, the number of casualties is still rising rapidly. Now, Liu Hai can't bear it anymore.
If he continues like this and waits for Taiyuan City to be conquered, he will lose at least nearly 20,000 people, which Liu Hai cannot accept at any cost.
Just when Liu Hai was about to call off the battle again, Liu Zhi also discovered this problem, and he immediately stopped the attack with heavy casualties.
Instead, the Air Force was ordered to begin indiscriminate bombing of all bunkers outside the east city of Taiyuan City, and carpet bombing when necessary.
In this way, the air force concentrated its original attack on Taiyuan City at the east gate of Taiyuan City.
This tactical change had an immediate effect. Under the continuous bombing by more than 100 fighter planes of the Air Force, almost all the bunkers and defense structures at the East Gate were destroyed.
Although there are still a large number of bunkers deployed in the other four directions of Taiyuan City near the city wall, the East Gate is in despair and there is no support at all.
After Liu Zhi cleared the obstacles at the East City Gate, he ordered the army to launch another ground attack.
And this time they are not fighting alone, but there are several bombers or attack aircraft in the sky at any time to provide support. As long as they are slightly blocked, one or several heavy aerial bombs will fall in the sky.
Relying on Liu Hai's huge reserve of artillery shells and aerial bombs, the Hunan Army soldiers finally attacked the walls of Taiyuan City.
Because of the fear that the Hunan Army would suffer huge casualties, because of the desperate resistance of the defenders, and because almost all of Taiyuan City was filled with resisting people.
At this time, it was almost impossible to distinguish between the army and the people in Taiyuan City (almost all the people joined the militia). This was also Zhang Zhidong's strategy. After he came to Taiyuan City, he gathered most of the young people in Taiyuan City to form a militia.
Participate in defense.
On the one hand, these people are used as cannon fodder and used in the construction of various fortifications. On the other hand, they are also used as shields when fighting.
Liu Zhi decided to use heavy artillery to destroy the old city of Taiyuan to reduce the casualties of our army and also reduce the casualties of ordinary people in street fighting.