Chapter 811 Sniper
The two-story farmhouse chosen by Gao Qiaonan is located in a plantation just over a hundred meters east of Santo Domingo City. It was originally used as a barn and a warehouse for stacking farm tools. However, after the Haihan Army arrived two days ago, all the workers on the plantation fled back to the city and abandoned the area. Although this place is indeed within the range of the city defense artillery, the defenders did not open fire on the Haihan soldiers who entered these areas sporadically to conduct search operations due to limited ammunition reserves. Therefore, the special operations battalion took over the place relatively smoothly without much trouble. .
Observing the city wall on the east side of Santo Domingo from the second-story attic of this farmhouse, the line of sight is only slightly lower than the city wall. You can already see the defense situation on the city wall relatively clearly, and its appearance does not easily attract the attention of the defenders. It is indeed an excellent observation point for combat. Other farmhouses with two-story attics like this are significantly farther away from the east city wall.
Under the eaves of this farmhouse, a red lantern with a diameter of more than two feet hangs, and its existence can be clearly seen even from a hundred meters away. According to the agreement between Delgado and the Haihan Army the day before, as long as you see this red lantern hanging out, it means that everything is ready. Once the target is in place, a killing move will be launched outside the city.
Although he did not have full confidence in the killer move claimed by Takahashi Minami, when things got to this point, Delgado had no choice but to regret it. He calmed down a little, turned to Lopez and said: "Captain, I think the Haihan officer has entered the farmhouse before dawn."
"How do you know?" As soon as Lopez heard the news, he immediately approached the crenellation and looked out: "Which farmhouse are you talking about?"
"The villain has seen them sending out the agreed signal outside the farmhouse. Yesterday, the villain happened to hear this while eavesdropping on their conversation..."
Before Delgado could finish speaking, Lopez, who had taken the bait, interrupted him impatiently: "Which building is it?"
"Sir, please look, it's the one on the east side..." Delgado stepped back so that Lopez could get a better view from the crenel.
Seeing Lopez eagerly move to the crenel to look outside, Delgado took a deep breath and quietly moved a step to the side, completely hiding his body behind the city wall, silently praying that the plan would go smoothly. Implementation, don't let any extraneous things happen.
Qian Tiandun's special operations battalion was recruited from local soldiers in Annan during its establishment. Nearly 90% of the veterans were of Annan descent. The remaining 10% of Han soldiers basically belong to special arms that only the Sanya headquarters has the conditions to train, such as artillery, communications, etc. These Han soldiers were assigned by the Military Commission after the special operations battalion was formed, and they were considered a relatively special presence in this unit.
Tang Zixing is one of these few Han soldiers. The branch he belongs to is an absolutely scarce resource in the military. The entire special operations battalion has more than a thousand troops, but his branch only has the strength of a squad. There is no other reason, because the sniper branch has extremely high requirements for personal military quality, and the long training cycle and the cost of training far exceed that of ordinary soldiers, making it impossible to expand the scale of training. Even though various militia departments select hundreds of military elites to participate in special training at the Sanya Army Base every year, there are still only a few students who can complete the training period of nearly half a year and pass the rigorous graduation examination.
Even if compared among the snipers in the entire civilian system, Tang Zixing is still considered the best among them. When Morgan took the lead in establishing the sniper training system, he was one of the first batch of students, and one of the very few elites who was led by Morgan throughout the entire training process. A considerable number of the snipers who enlisted in the army at the same time as him have switched careers and become instructors in order to cultivate more elites for the rapidly expanding Haihan Militia. In addition to his military duties, Morgan also has a position in the medical system, so it is difficult for him to have enough time to personally lead the students. Only veteran students like Tang Zixing still have the opportunity to receive guidance from Morgan during the annual refresher courses.
The weapon used by the snipers of the Haihan Militia in the early days was the imitation M1857 Whitworth rifle personally selected by Morgan. This strange rifle with a hexagonal bore has the highest shooting accuracy among long-range weapons of the era, at 500 yards. The distance of the impact point is only 0.37 feet, which is equivalent to a distance of nearly one mile. This rifle can accurately hit a life-size chest target through auxiliary means such as a scope. The Whitworth rifle had many kill records at distances of more than a thousand yards during the American Civil War, and its actual combat effect was quite outstanding.
Of course, its shortcomings are also very obvious. The front-loading rifle has a strange hexagonal spiral rifling, which is technically difficult to process and manufacture. Since it is a special firearm, its demand is not high, which in turn leads to high costs. In addition, loading ammunition It is very troublesome. The shooting speed is slower than the cannon. The thick and long barrel makes the gun body very heavy and not convenient to carry and maintain.
Starting from the second half of 1631, at the request of the Military Commission, the military industry department began to improve its structure, changing the original front chamber loading to the rear chamber, and the hexagonal barrel was also changed to a round barrel with spiral rifling. advanced structure. However, because the materials and processing technology are far from being comparable to the era before time travel, the barrel service life of this new rifle is not too long, and the shooting accuracy will gradually decrease as the rifling wears out.
The production capacity of the Trinity sniper rifle has not increased much compared to the previous type, and it still only maintains a monthly output of about five to ten. With the quadruple scope specially developed by the military industry department for this sniper rifle, the shooting accuracy within 500 meters after adjustment is quite impressive. Morgan believes that until Haihan's industrial capabilities can produce rifles such as the Mosin Nagant, Springfield M1903, and Mauser K98, the Trinity can basically be used for several years.
This new type of sniper rifle was gradually issued to all troops starting from the beginning of 1632 to replace the old models used by snipers. Tang Zixing was also one of the first ace snipers in the military to start using the Trinity sniper rifle. As an extension of the gun performance test, Tang Zixing was adequately provided with training ammunition and spare parts. During this year, he was killed due to excessive rifling wear. As many as seven gun barrels were replaced, which also allowed him to more fully grasp the performance of this new gun.
Although there is currently one class of snipers in the special operations camp, the others, including Tang Zixing's partner, are all "novices" assigned in the past two years, and their experience in actual combat is definitely not as good as Tang Zixing's. As the leader of this special team, Tang Zixing often bears the most critical responsibilities when performing combat missions. This mission was no exception. Tang Zixing received an order from Gao Qiaonan just last night, requiring the sniper squad to enter the preset shooting point early this morning to prepare to kill the enemy commander who appeared on the city wall. In order to ensure nothing goes wrong, Tang Zixing also arranged for two other groups to act with him. Since they were not equipped with more advanced communication tools and could not communicate in time, they could only enter the same shooting point to ambush so that they could seize the opportunity to shoot at the same time.
The location they were in was also the second-story attic of a farmhouse. The west-facing side had been decorated overnight, and a row of horizontal tiles had been unveiled on the roof. Since the location of this farmhouse is further away from the city wall than the preset false lurking position in Gaoqiao South, it is unlikely that people on the top of the city would notice with the naked eye that a row of tiles is missing from the roof of a farmhouse two hundred meters away. However, this distance is already within a very wide shooting range for the sniper who controls the Trinity rifle.
If measured by Morgan's requirements, he must be able to hit eight out of ten shots at a chest target at this distance to be considered a qualified sniper. In order to seize the fleeting shooting opportunity, Tang Zixing also prepared three rifles loaded with ammunition in advance and placed them next to the three shooting positions for the second round of supplementary shooting.
For a sniper, today's weather conditions can only be described as excellent. There is neither fog that affects the visible distance nor dazzling sunlight. Although there is an occasional breeze in the air, it will not have any impact on the ballistic trajectory. Too obvious impact. If there is any shortcoming, it is that in order to avoid alerting the enemy, snipers cannot perform targeted calibration on the target through test firing in advance, which may slightly affect the sniper's feel and confidence.
Although it is possible to roughly delineate the range where the target may appear, the actual situation is unpredictable. Tang Zixing can only arrange three sniper teams to aim at different crenels, while three observers with telescopes are responsible for discovering the target, giving tips, and communicating And commanded three snipers to launch an attack. This kind of combat method in which small groups focus fire on the same target is actually a compulsory subject in sniper training. However, this is the first time that these three groups have cooperated in actual combat. Even Tang Zixing himself is not fully aware of the effect. grasp.
About an hour after entering the fighting position, the observer finally saw the target appear on the city wall-Delgado and a middle-aged officer behind him surrounded by guards. Tang Zixing saw the officer's burnt yellow beard and military uniform through the scope, and was able to confirm his identity.
"Get ready to shoot!" After Tang Zixing issued this short command, he fell silent. He had to focus all his attention on the next tactical actions, and the command was automatically handed over to the observer partner next to him.
Perhaps it was because Delgado had done a good job setting the stage the night before, or because he saw the silence of the enemy positions outside the city, Lopez was not too wary of what Delgado said. After the performance, he moved his body closer to the crenel indicated by Delgado, stuck his head out and looked out, unaware that he had become prey in the eyes of some people.
Lopez was not actually afraid of any plans to assassinate him outside the city. At least he did not see any soldiers on the other side within his field of vision. Even if someone told him that there were muskets aimed at him outside the city at this time, he probably only Will you sneer at it - a weapon whose hit rate depends on your face thirty meters away, is there any need to be nervous?
But at this moment Lopez felt a pain in his chest, and then heard a gunshot in his ears. He slowly lowered his head and saw blood pouring out of the hole in his right chest. He looked out of the city in a daze, but couldn't see a single figure wherever he could see, and he had no idea where the black gun shooting was taking place. At this moment, the second and third gunshots also reached the top of the city. One of them hit Lopez's right shoulder, and the other missed.
The guard standing behind Lopez realized something was wrong and quickly reached out to support his slowly falling body. However, the shooting outside the city did not stop, and two or three more bullets hit the wall near the crenellation. Go up and hit them, causing debris and debris to fly everywhere.
"Fire! Fire!" the guard captain shouted, but he actually didn't know where the enemy was or where to fire. It was just a subconscious reaction.
"Retreat!" At the same time, Tang Zixing, who succeeded in one blow, also gave an order to his companions. The observer had just confirmed the results of the battle through the telescope, and at least two bullets directly hit the target. After the target's figure disappeared, Tang Zixing also knew that there would be no chance to continue the pursuit. The top priority was to retreat to a safe area quickly, because he could not confirm whether the enemy troops on the top of the city had discovered the hidden spot where he was. If a round of artillery fire were aimed at this place, the risk they would have to bear would still be quite high.
Delgado was standing less than one meter away from Lopez when the incident occurred. From the time Lopez's body was exposed at the crenel to the time he fell after being shot, it only lasted three to five seconds. Delgado originally thought that Takahashi Minami's plan would not be easy to implement because it was too difficult for a rifle to accurately hit the target at a long distance. He had even thought of a follow-up plan for the failure of this plan, how to create a fire in the city. Chaos came to disrupt the city defense deployment, but the Haihan people really did what Takahashi Minami said. Seeing Lopez lying in a pool of blood, Delgado suddenly felt lucky. If he had not changed his position in time and joined Haihan, but followed the Spaniards to defend here, he would probably end up like this, right? He didn't even know how he died, so how could he talk about fighting back?
The guards dragged Lopez away from the city wall in a chaotic manner, and then a group of gunners came up and prepared to fire at targets they did not know outside the city. Delgado remembered Takahashi Minami's instructions to guide the defenders to bombard the false lurking point if necessary, and said loudly: "The enemy is in the house with the red lantern. I saw them, so I opened fire there. ! ”
(End of chapter)