1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1764 Demonstration of Force ([-])

Different from the "Leaping" military exercise led by Haihan every year in the South China Sea, this time the amphibious military exercise in Sanya did not invite other countries to send troops to participate in it. All participating troops came from Haihan.The troops participating in the military parade in the morning are mainly the Army, and they have already started their vacation after the work is over. Only the Marine Corps will continue to participate in the military exercise in the afternoon and serve as the main force for armed landing.

The tactical drill of amphibious landing has a long history in the Haihan army. Since sending troops to Annan to participate in the war in the early years, it has become one of the combat subjects that the Haihan army must master. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a housekeeping skill. .In the wars launched by Haihan over the years, amphibious landing operations have almost always become a fixed link. Even whether they have participated in amphibious operations or not will become one of the evaluation criteria for officers to be promoted to a certain stage.

The result of this top-down emphasis and persistence over the years is that Haihan has almost unrivaled strength in the field of amphibious warfare.At least in the entire East Asian region, there is currently no armed force that can do better than Haihan in this project.

Of course, this specialty of the Haihan Army will also be used as a research object by various countries. The Spaniards even made a very targeted defensive deployment in Manila Port in advance, trying 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 Haihan's army to correct the main attack direction before the battle. The forerunner of the Han offensive.

But even Spain's ultimately failed defensive strategy cannot be emulated by any country.Aside from the cost of building coastal defense turrets and the required weapons and equipment, Spain also has an armed fleet to cooperate in the port, and the strength of this fleet is probably second only to the Haihan Navy in the South China Sea. Repairing forts, but it is difficult to gather such a fleet to support operations at sea.

Of course, the battle report in Manila is basically the content that Haihan officials choose to release. The specific situation of the battle can only be guessed by the outside world.Although Haihan himself claimed that he bypassed the key areas of the Spanish defense and landed, 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 exploit the loopholes and shortcomings of Haihan's tactics, you will really make a fortune.

But this is just a one-sided idea. Of course, the tactics that Haihan will publicly show to guests from all over the world will not be the bottom of the box. It is still a bit difficult to infer the true strength of the Haihan army from the exercise.Taking a ten-thousand-step back, even if the Haihan army produced the real thing, there seemed to be very few troops that could 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 opened the eyes of the guests. In most people's minds, it is impossible for a sailboat to sail at this speed under the current weather conditions, but Haihan's warship can do this unbelievably.Knowledgeable people certainly know that this is the function of the steam propulsion device installed on the ship, but the problem is how this thing propels the sailboat forward, but few people can figure it out.

This made the few people who were lucky enough to see the way from the military exercise suddenly feel cold. With this speed alone, the Haihan fleet is enough to deflate the opponent. over defeat.

However, not all Haihan warships can have this advanced propulsion system. In the early years, only the majestic class with the largest tonnage was installed with steam engines. A small part of the expedition-class warships manufactured later also began to install this propulsion system. But the proportion of 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 limited military expenditure of the Navy is not enough to support the installation of this system on all combat ships. In terms of cost performance, the Navy is even more expensive. I am willing to use this part of the funds to build more sailing warships to expand the fleet size 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 is not possible to use a steam engine with a few boiler workers on board. At least three or more experienced ship engineers are required.And if the mission is performed away 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 great dependence on logistics, the use cost of the steam propulsion system is increased in disguise. Therefore, although the steam warship has excellent navigation performance, Haihan still has no way to use it as the standard configuration of the navy.

Other countries are naturally envious when they see Haihan's steam warships, but they know this kind of thing. To maintain the navy's outstanding combat effectiveness, Haihan has to pay a considerable price.Because of this, although the Haihans have been able to manufacture the next generation of warships such as the Black Shark, there is no condition to start building a large number of such extremely expensive new warships at the moment, and they can only deploy them in the fleet as a Arrow power to use.If other countries realize that Haihan does not have the conditions to build and equip such powerful warships in large quantities, perhaps their fear of them will be reduced a bit.

Tom Wang's battleship fired three red flares, which slowly rose into the air and could be clearly seen several miles away.There is no need for the officers on the ship to explain. The guests all understand that this means that today's military exercise has officially begun. How did the Han attack this Ximaozhou.

In fact, this is not the first time Haihan has held an amphibious landing exercise in this place, because there are not many islands with suitable conditions in the waters near Sanya, so Ximaozhou has long been designated as a training location by the navy.Various fortifications have also been specially built on the island to prepare for daily training needs.There are seven or eight styles of coastal defense turrets alone, which are used to simulate various landing tactics.

The landing tactics that the navy intends to demonstrate here today are not complicated, and 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 land on the beach forcibly.But for safety reasons, the navy did not deploy personnel on the island to pretend to be the enemy, so it was just a unilateral offensive display.

But spectators don't care whether these arrangements are reasonable, they just want to see what role the Black Shark can play in the amphibious landing battle.At the same time, he was also weighing in his mind whether he would have a chance to stop Hai Han's attack if his own country's army was the defender.

After the exercise started, the Black Shark, which was exhaling thick smoke, took the lead and rushed into the battle area first, and then the guests finally saw how the rotating turrets of the two naval guns on the deck worked. After approaching the target in the direction of the coast, it opened fire soon.The shells that flew out hit the coastal fortification about a kilometer away, and the stone chips flew. When the smoke and dust dispersed, the stone fortification had been broken into two openings about one meter wide, which showed its power so big.

The onlookers immediately let out a burst of exclamation. Judging from the shooting effect alone, it can be confirmed that the power of the two naval guns on the Black Shark is far beyond what they know, and it is even more powerful than Haihan's previous equipment on the majestic class. The large-caliber naval guns are much more powerful.

After the Black Shark carried out three rounds of shelling on the coastal fortifications, other ships also arrived at the predetermined position, pointed their sides at the direction of the coast, and began to carry out intensive shelling.It's just that the naval guns on these ships don't have as far a range as the Black Shark naval guns, so they must be close to the coast to complete an effective attack.

And the visual shock brought by this intensive firepower attack cannot be described in words. When the shells rained down on the fortifications on the shore, there was only one thought in the hearts of the guests from all over the world: the one who was beaten It must not be yourself.Even if it is a bunker made of stone, who can withstand the impact of such intensive artillery fire?

Some people even began to doubt whether the Manila battle report announced by Haihan was false. Could the coastal fortifications built by the Spaniards really force the Haihan army to find another landing site?According to the intensity of firepower, even if the Spaniards built a Great Wall on the shore, it should be destroyed by artillery fire.

Such relentless artillery attacks lasted for about a stick of incense, and then the troop carriers of the second echelon rushed into the beach under the cover of artillery fire. The landing ship lowered the bow springboard, and the soldiers quickly rushed onto the beach. Several light field guns were obviously brought down from several landing ships.

In a very short time, the Marine Corps completed the erection of the artillery on the beachhead, and then joined the ranks of bombarding the coastal fortifications.Although only a few small-caliber artillery pieces have been added, the shelling effect is also very significant because of the shorter shooting distance.The several forts that were targeted were almost forcibly knocked out of a layer of outer walls. No one would doubt that if someone was deployed inside during the war, I am afraid that they would not even have the opportunity to look up.

Several beachheads were quickly erected as more soldiers rushed onto the beach.Haihan's experience in civil engineering was also used in combat. The engineers erected a concertina-style barbed wire fence around the beachhead at the fastest speed to prevent infantry from charging, and several artillery positions were already in front of them. A bunker built out of earth.

This kind of combat efficiency made the guests from all over the world also amazed. Although the tactics used by Haihan in the landing battle were very simple, these details are still commendable.The vast majority of people evaluated the effect of the shelling just now in their hearts, and then gave up the idea of ​​resisting Haihan's landing head-on.And once the Haihan army successfully built a beachhead, it would not be a simple matter to drive them 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 shelling, but people with sharp eyes have observed through binoculars that not only the rifles used by this army can fire continuously, Moreover, the field guns they are equipped with are different from traditional artillery. They only need to fill the shells from the breech, lock the barrel, and then fire.This new type of artillery can ring three times in the time it takes for a traditional artillery to fire one shell, and the firing speed is simply desperate.

"How can we stop Haihan's way of landing operations", this question appeared in the minds of almost every audience present, but no one could come up with a practical and effective solution, after all the previous wave of artillery strikes It was too strong, not to mention this relatively simple coastal fortification, even if a city wall was really built on the coast, it might not be able to stop the shelling of the intensity just now.

Fei Cexian looked sideways at Su Keyi, who smiled wryly and shook his head at him, expressing that he was completely clueless about this situation.Fei Cexian sighed secretly, and suddenly felt in his heart that it was lucky for Da Ming that Haihan could restrain himself and keep only operating in the coastal areas. Who can withstand such an offensive?No wonder the Spaniards couldn't defend the fortified city in Luzon. Presumably, under such bombardment, they would inevitably feel desperate, right?

Wang Tom explained to everyone on the deck solemnly at this time: "This kind of combat method is actually rarely used by our army. We generally prefer to find areas with weak enemy defenses for landing instead of choosing this kind of combat method." A frontal attack style. Of course, in any war, we will prepare for the worst, so we will also conduct tactical training for the more extreme environment you have seen, to ensure that even in the most unfavorable Under these conditions, it can also give full play to the combat effectiveness of the navy and complete the amphibious landing mission."

In fact, the current environment in Ximaozhou is far from being an extreme environment. Because there are no defenders deployed, the Haihan Army's offensive can be carried out calmly. The counterattack launched by the army, the offensive is unlikely to be as smooth as everyone saw.When the Haihan army attacked Manila, they intentionally avoided the key areas of the Spanish defense. They just didn't want to fight the enemy force during the landing stage. They might still win if they fought, but the price they had to pay was that the military didn't want to see it. of.

However, for most of the spectators, they don't have so much experience and insight. The environment in Ximaozhou is basically equivalent to a battlefield, and it is hard to imagine what kind of counterattack the defenders can launch under this kind of artillery fire. .So Wang Tom's words sounded more like a kind of demonstration to their ears - just defend, if you can't attack, I will lose!

(End of this chapter)