In order to be able to make a greater response in the northern states, the Southern Navy gritted its teeth and crossed more than 300 kilometers all the way to Qingde City, preparing to take this strategic transportation city.

And can the Quyang Prefecture army in the city hold it?

The defenders in the city naturally have some confidence, otherwise they would not have deployed in Dongcheng District, but would have retreated all the way across the river and ran to Xicheng District.

The Southern Navy outside the city is also confident that it will capture Qingdeok City, although the supply is not smooth, it is expected that there are not many artillery shells that can be used in the battle, although the previous several exploratory attacks found that the enemy's fortifications are doing well, and the enemy's tactical adaptability is much stronger than the enemy troops encountered in the past.

However, the officers and men of the Southern Navy are still full of confidence in conquering Qingde City!

That's a lot of confidence from countless victories in the past!

They are confident that they will defeat all enemies!

After several exploratory attacks, the General Staff Headquarters headed by Wu Guanlin has perfected the operational plan on the basis of the operational report of the exploratory offensive, and one of the more important improvements is to attach importance to the tactical position of rapid-fire mortar artillery, and when attacking the enemy's defensive line, it will focus on using rapid-fire mortar artillery to attack enemy troops hiding in trenches.

In order to meet the ammunition consumption of rapid-fire mortars, the logistics transportation system has increased the transportation volume of rapid-fire mortar shells, otherwise, it will not be able to meet the needs of the troops.

The number of rapid-fire mortar equipment in the Southern Navy is actually not small, and the consumption is small in peacetime because it is used relatively little, and if you really let it go, then the consumption of artillery shells will be very large.

At present, the units fighting in Quyang Prefecture are all equipped with this kind of light artillery, and the number of equipment is somewhat small, with a small number of dozens of guns, of which the second division of the main core force is equipped with more than 100 guns.

Each infantry battalion of the 2nd Division had a separate rapid-fire mortar battery with six 60-mm rapid-fire mortars, which were either dispersed among the infantry companies or used in a centralized manner, depending on the situation.

At the infantry regiment level, a rapid-fire mortar battery was set up, equipped with six 80-mm rapid-fire mortar guns.

In addition, it is worth noting that under the division headquarters of the 2nd Division, there is also a rapid-fire mortar battalion directly under the direct jurisdiction, equipped with 16 120-mm rapid-fire mortar guns.

In addition, the division's cavalry regiment also had a rapid-fire mortar battery, equipped with six 80-mm rapid-fire mortars.

The division's baggage regiment was also attached to a rapid-fire mortar battery with six 80-mm rapid-fire mortar guns.

The division was equipped with 72 60-mm rapid-fire mortars, 36 80-mm rapid-fire mortars, and 18 120-mm rapid-fire mortars.

At first glance, there are quite a few of them, but in fact, these rapid mortar guns are still secondary auxiliary firepower when the Second Division is fighting, and the Second Division mainly relies on the huge firepower of its divisional artillery regiment when it fights in the past.

The divisional artillery regiment of the South China Navy inherited the Daheng doctrine of artillery and was equipped with 56 rear-loading rifled guns of 75 mm caliber in one go, of which 36 were field guns and 18 were howitzers.

And in the usual battles, in fact, in most cases, the second division will also be supported by independent artillery units in the rear, and this support is not a few artillery pieces, but in most cases a whole artillery brigade!

How can I say that when the second division was fighting, there were often hundreds of 75 mm and then 150 mm caliber guns behind for fire support!

The superiority of the South China Navy's firepower is based on a huge artillery force!

In the case of rapid-fire mortars, they are more of an infantry support firepower, and when there is a lack of rear artillery support, or when the rear artillery cannot solve the enemy, the infantry units will risk approaching a distance of about 800 meters or even 500 meters to fire rapid-fire mortars.

The effective firing range is too close, which is also the fundamental reason why the rapid-fire mortar in the Southern Navy, although it is equipped with a lot of equipment and the rate of fire is fast enough, it still cannot become the main artillery.

Of course, there are certain situations where these rapid-fire mortars can be very useful, such as the large-angle curved projectiles characteristic of these rapid-fire mortars in the face of a group of enemies who have dug countless trenches.

Improving the tactical positioning of rapid-fire mortar artillery is one of the responses of the Southern Navy to the enemy's defense strategy.

No matter how the enemy army is constantly changing, the South China Navy is also constantly changing, and both the enemy and us are constantly adapting to the war and wanting to win and survive.

Even in the past so many years, the internal feudal towns of Daheng have been in turmoil, and the feudal towns have not said that they are complacent, but have been constantly seeking changes.

More than 50 years ago, during the Hengao War, the rifle at that time was only a flintlock pistol, but then gradually began to use the fire cap firing gun, and during the Hengao War, the effective range of its smoothbore guns was generally low, and the shells used were mainly solid bullets, but many years ago, the smoothbore guns generally had a range of 1,000 meters, and at the same time generally fired grenades with wooden metal disc fuses.

In the same period, front-loading rifled guns began to appear, but they still did not become the mainstream, mainly because when everyone played front-loading rifled guns before, the barrels were basically cast in iron, and the rifling was easy to be worn out, and more importantly, the metal fixed ammunition had not yet appeared, although the performance advantages of front-loading rifled guns existed, but they did not pull the gap too big, so in this period, in fact, smoothbore guns and front-loading rifled guns coexisted.

Later, the rise of the Southern Navy solved the defect of insufficient structural strength of the bolt with a unique wedge bolt, and at the same time used brass metal shells to solve the problem of air leakage, and used steel barrels to solve the defects of insufficient barrel strength and easy wear and tear of rifling, and finally came up with steel breech-loading rifled guns.

For the first time, the world has entered the era of breech-loading rifled guns!

At the same time, the rifle has also entered the era of rear-loading rifling, and it is worth noting that the rear-loading rifled guns of this era are not all made by Lin Ziran himself.

Although Lin Ziran proposed to use the 18mm Fuyuan musket to convert it into a rear-loading rifled gun and apply it to actual combat, he also proposed the use of metal cartridge shells to set the bullet.

However, the Nanzhou Bank has been researching rear-loading rifled rifles for many years, and even secretly stockpiled a large number in advance, and finally after the collapse of the Nanzhou Bank, the remnants of the Nanzhou Bank began to form a new army in the South China Sea.

Although the remnants of the Nanzhou Bank have been wiped out one after another, and now they have completely disappeared into the dust of history, the South China Sea rifle they left behind has become the originator of the contemporary breech-loading rifle.

The Luo'an III rifle equipped by Lin Ziran's troops was actually based on the improvement of the South China Sea rifle, and the improvement was actually limited to using brass cartridge shells to replace paper shell cartridges, but other designs have basically not changed much.

The rifles produced by other feudal towns are copied from the Roan III rifles, and of course some will be slightly modified, but the overall situation is still the same.

The war continued, technology improved, the Southern Navy was innovating, and so were the other feudal towns.

The only difference is that there is a Lin Ziran in the Southern Navy!

Lin Ziran knows a lot of advanced weapon concepts, even if he doesn't understand too detailed technology, but many things only need one concept, and there are naturally technicians who use their ingenuity to develop them.

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