Chapter 1764 Show of Force (6)
Different from the "Stride" military exercise that Haihan leads in the South China Sea every year, this amphibious military exercise in Sanya did not invite other countries to send troops to participate, and all participating troops came from Haihan. The troops participating in the military parade in the morning were mainly the Army, and they had already begun their vacation after the parade. Only the Marine Corps will continue to participate in the military exercise in the afternoon and serve as the main force for the armed landing.
The tactical drill of amphibious landing has a long history in the Haihan Army. Ever since troops were sent to Annan to participate in the war in the early years, seizing beaches and islands has become one of the combat subjects that the Haihan Army must master. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a special skill. . In the wars launched by Haihan over the years, amphibious landing operations have almost become a fixed link. Even whether they have participated in amphibious operations will become one of the assessment criteria for officers to be promoted to a certain stage.
The effect of this top-down emphasis and persistence over the years is that Haihan has almost unparalleled strength in the field of amphibious warfare. At least in the entire East Asia region, there is currently no armed force that can do a better job on this project than Haihan.
Of course, this specialty of the Haihan Army will also be used as an object of study by various countries. The Spaniards even made highly targeted defense deployments at the Manila Port in advance and tried to use dense coastal defense forts to attack the harbor. Fire blockade. It's just that the Spaniards failed to guard against Haihan's eyes and ears in terms of intelligence and leaked this trump card in advance, allowing the Haihan army to correct the main attack direction before the war. Otherwise, they would have been very likely to defeat Haihan in the coastal offensive and defensive battle. The forerunner of the Han offensive.
But even Spain's ultimately failed defense strategy cannot be copied by just any country. Putting aside the cost of building coastal defense forts and the required weapons and equipment, Spain also has an armed fleet cooperating in the port, and the strength of this fleet is probably second only to the Haihan Navy in the South China Sea. Even other countries can Repair forts, but it is difficult to assemble such a fleet to support operations at sea.
Of course, the battle reports in Manila are basically content that Haihan officials have chosen to release. For the outside world, most of the specific battle conditions can only be imagined. Although Haihan himself claimed that he had bypassed the key defensive areas of the Spanish and carried out the landing, everyone is still curious about Haihan's current amphibious landing tactics - maybe after watching the exercise, he might be able to figure it out. If you take advantage of the loopholes and shortcomings of Haihan's tactics, you can really make a fortune.
However, this is just a one-sided idea. The tactics that Haihan will publicly display to guests from various countries will certainly not be bottom-of-the-line. It is still a bit difficult to infer the true strength of Haihan's army from the exercises. To put it bluntly, even if the Haihan Army comes up with real things, there seem to be very few troops that can withstand such an offensive.
The three warships on which the guests were riding were at full power and surpassed the naval fleet under review before arriving at Ximaozhou. This speed was an eye-opener for the guests. In most people's minds, it was impossible for a sailboat to travel at this speed under the current weather conditions, but Haihan's warship was able to do this incredibly. Of course, knowledgeable people know that this is the function of the steam propulsion device installed on the ship, but the problem is how exactly this thing propels the sailboat forward, but not many people can figure it out.
This made the few people who had been lucky enough to find out the clues from military exercises suddenly feel cold. With this speed alone, the Haihan Fleet was enough to defeat its opponents. It is no wonder that the Haihan Navy has never had any success in sea battles. Too bad.
However, not all Haihan warships can have this advanced propulsion system. Only the largest-tonnage Majesty-class warships built in the early years were equipped with steam engines. A small number of later expedition-class warships also began to install this propulsion system. But the proportion in combat ships is actually less than one-third.
On the one hand, the steam propulsion system is very expensive in terms of manufacturing, installation, daily use and maintenance. The Navy’s limited military expenditure is not enough to support the installation of this system on all combat ships. In terms of cost performance, the Navy is more I am willing to use this part of the funds to build more sail warships to expand the size of the fleet so that I can control a larger sea area.
On the other hand, the use of this system has very high requirements for logistical support. It does not mean that there are only a few boiler workers on the ship to use the steam engine. At least three on-board engineers with certain experience are needed. And if the mission is to be carried out far from the base, then at least one or two supply ships must carry coal, fresh water and ammunition, as well as very important steam engine spare parts. Due to the heavy reliance on logistics, the cost of using the steam propulsion system is increased in disguise. Therefore, although the steam battleship has outstanding navigation performance, Haihan still has no way to make it a standard equipment of the navy.
Other countries are naturally eager to see Haihan's steam battleships, but they know how to handle this kind of thing. To maintain the superior combat effectiveness of the navy, the price Haihan has to pay is actually quite high. Because of this, although the Haihans are currently able to build next-generation warships like the Black Shark, they do not have the conditions to start mass-building this extremely costly new warship at the moment. They can only deploy it into the fleet as a Arrow power to use. If other countries realize that Haihan is not qualified to build and equip such powerful warships in large quantities, perhaps their fear of them will be reduced.
The battleship where Tom Wang was on fired three red flares, which slowly rose into the air and could be clearly seen miles away. There was no need for the officers on the ship to explain. The guests all understood that this meant that today's military exercise had officially begun. They quickly cheered up. Those who had telescopes took out their telescopes, and those who did not opened their eyes wide to see the clear sea. How did the Han Dynasty attack this Ximaozhou?
In fact, this is not the first time that Haihan has held an amphibious landing exercise in this place. Because there are not many islands with suitable conditions in the waters near Sanya, Ximaozhou has long been designated as a training location by the navy. Various defense fortifications have been specially built on the island to prepare for daily training needs. There are seven or eight styles of coastal defense batteries alone to simulate various landing tactics.
The landing tactics that the Navy plans to demonstrate here today are not complicated. It can even be said to be a bit simple and crude. It is to use long-range artillery fire as a cover to send the infantry of the Marine Corps to forcibly land on the beach. However, for safety reasons, the navy did not deploy personnel on the island to pretend to be enemies, so it was just a unilateral offensive display.
However, the spectators do not care whether these arrangements are reasonable. They now want to see what role the Black Shark can play in an amphibious landing battle. At the same time, he was also weighing in his mind whether his own country's army would have a chance to block Haihan's offensive if it were his own country's army as the defender. After the exercise began, the Black Shark, which was spitting out thick smoke, took the lead and rushed into the battle area. Then the guests finally saw how the rotating turrets of the two naval guns on the deck worked. The two guns were turning towards each other. After targeting the target in the coastal direction, they quickly opened fire. The flying shells hit the shore defenses about a kilometer away, causing stone fragments to fly. When the smoke and dust dispersed, two holes about one meter wide had been ripped out of the stone fortifications, which showed its power. So big.
The crowd of onlookers immediately let out a sigh. Judging from the shooting effect alone, it can be confirmed that the power of the two naval guns on the Black Shark far exceeds the level they know, and is even more powerful than the Majesty-class equipment equipped by Haihan in the past. The large-caliber naval gun is much more powerful.
After the Black Shark carried out three rounds of shelling on the shore defenses, other ships also arrived at the predetermined position, pointed their broadsides towards the coast, and began to carry out intensive shelling. It's just that the naval guns on these ships do not have as far a range as the Black Shark's naval guns, so they must get close to the coast to complete an effective attack.
The visual shock brought about by this intensive fire attack cannot be described in words. When the shells hit the fortifications on the shore like raindrops, there was only one thought left in the minds of the guests from all over the world: The person who was beaten was thousands of people. It must not be yourself. Even if it is a bunker made of stone, who can withstand such intensive artillery fire?
Some people even began to wonder whether the Manila battle report published by Haihan was false. Could the coastal defenses built by the Spanish really force Haihan's army to find another landing site? Based on this intensity of firepower, even if the Spaniards built a Great Wall on the shore, it would probably be destroyed by artillery fire.
Such a relentless artillery attack lasted for about a stick of incense, and then the second-echelon troop carrier quickly rushed into the beach under the cover of artillery fire. The landing ship lowered its bow springboard, and the soldiers quickly swarmed onto the beach, and among them Several light field guns were clearly transported from several landing ships.
It only took a very short time for the Marines to complete the erection of artillery on the beach, and then joined the ranks of shelling the shore defenses. Although only a few small-caliber artillery were added, the shelling effect was very significant because the shooting distance was closer. The outer walls of several forts that were targeted were almost completely removed. No one would doubt that if someone was deployed inside during the war, they would not even have a chance to look up.
Several beachheads were quickly set up as more soldiers rushed onto the beach. Haihan's experience in civil engineering was also used in combat. The engineers quickly erected a bellows-type barbed wire fence around the beachhead to prevent infantry and cavalry charges. Several gun emplacements already had barbed wire in front of them. A bunker made of earth.
Such combat efficiency amazed guests from various countries. Although the tactics used by Haihan in the landing battle were very simple, these details are still commendable. Most people mentally evaluated the effect of the shelling just now, and then gave up the idea of resisting Haihan's landing head-on. Once the Haihan Army successfully established a beachhead, it would not be a simple matter to drive it back to the sea.
When the Marines with only a few hundred men attacked the coastal fortifications, the visual impact was not as strong as the previous artillery bombardment. However, sharp-eyed people have observed through telescopes that not only the rifles used by this unit can be fired continuously, Moreover, the field artillery they equipped is different from traditional artillery. They only need to load the shell from the breech, lock the barrel, and then fire. This new type of artillery can fire three times in the time it takes a traditional artillery to fire one shell, and the firing speed is simply despairing.
"How to block Haihan's landing combat method?" This question appeared in the minds of almost every audience present, but no one could come up with a practical and effective response plan. After all, the previous wave of artillery strikes It is too powerful. Not to mention this relatively simple shore defense, even if a city wall is really built on the coast, it may not be able to withstand the intensity of the shelling just now.
Fei Cexian turned his head and looked at Su Keyi, who shook his head at him with a wry smile, indicating that he had no solution to this situation. Fei Cexian sighed secretly, and suddenly felt that Haihan was able to restrain himself and only maintain activities in coastal areas. It was lucky for Ming Dynasty. If this group of maritime strongmen really wanted to attack Ming Dynasty's coastal prefectures and counties, then Who can withstand such an offensive? No wonder the Spaniards couldn't hold on to the fortified city in Luzon. They must have felt desperate under such a bombardment, right?
At this time, Wang Tom explained seriously to everyone on the deck: "This kind of combat method is actually rarely used by our army. We generally prefer to find areas with weak enemy defenses to carry out landings, rather than choosing this kind of combat method." Of course, in any war, we will prepare for the worst, so we will also conduct tactical training for the more extreme environments you have seen, to ensure that even in the most adverse situations Under the conditions, the navy’s combat effectiveness can also be fully utilized to complete amphibious landing missions.”
In fact, the current environment in Ximaozhou is far from an extreme environment. Because there are no defenders deployed, the Haihan Army's offensive can be launched calmly. It looks like a raging fire cooking oil, but in fact, if you consider the defenders, The army launched a counterattack, and the offensive was unlikely to be as smooth as everyone saw. When the Haihan Army attacked Manila, they deliberately avoided the key defensive areas of the Spanish because they did not want to fight the enemy during the landing stage. They might still be able to win in a real fight, but the price they had to pay was something the military was not willing to see. of.
However, for most spectators, they do not have that much experience and knowledge. The environment in Ximaozhou is basically equivalent to a battlefield. It is difficult to imagine how the defenders can counterattack under such artillery fire. . Therefore, Wang Tom's words sounded more like a demonstration to their ears - just defend, if you can't attack, I lose!
(End of chapter)