1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 811 Sniper
The two-story farmhouse Gao Qiaonan chose 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 in the plantation fled back to the city and abandoned the area.Although this place is indeed within the range of the city's fire artillery, the defenders did not open fire on the Haihan soldiers who sporadically entered these areas to carry out search operations due to limited ammunition reserves. Therefore, the special operations battalion took over here relatively smoothly without much trouble. .

Observing the city wall on the east side of Santo Domingo from the second-floor attic of this farmhouse, the line of sight is only slightly lower than the city wall, and the defense situation on the city wall can already be seen clearly, and its appearance is not easy to attract the attention of the defenders. It is indeed an excellent combat observation point.And other similar farmhouses with two-story attics are significantly farther away from the east city wall.

Under the eaves of this farmhouse, hung a red lantern with a diameter of more than two feet, and its existence could be clearly seen even 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, and when the target is in place, the ultimate move will be launched outside the city.

Although he didn't have full confidence in the ultimate move that Takahashi Minami claimed, but at this point, Delgado couldn't help but regret it.He calmed down a little, then turned his head to Lopez and said, "Captain, I think that officer Haihan has already entered the farmhouse before dawn."

"How do you know?" When Lopez heard the news, he immediately looked out from the crenel: "Which farmhouse are you talking about?"

"The villain has seen them make the agreed signal outside the farmhouse. Yesterday when the villain eavesdropped on their conversation..."

Before Delgado finished speaking, Lopez, who was completely hooked, interrupted him impatiently: "Which one is it?"

"Look, my lord, it's the one on the east side..." Delgado stepped back so that Lopez could get a better view from the crenel.

Seeing Lopez impatiently move to the crenel to look outside, Delgado took a deep breath, took another step to the side calmly, completely hidden his body behind the city wall, and silently prayed in his heart that the plan would go smoothly Implementation, don't let any extraneous things happen.

Qian Tiandun's special warfare battalion was recruited and selected from Annan's local military sources during its establishment, and nearly [-]% of the veterans were of Annan descent.The remaining [-]% of the Han soldiers are basically affiliated with special arms that only the Sanya headquarters can afford to train, such as artillery, communications, and so on.These Han soldiers were assigned by the Military Commission after the formation of the special warfare battalion, and they were considered a rather special existence in this army.

Tang Zixing was one of the few Han soldiers. The unit he belonged to was an absolutely scarce resource in the army. The entire special warfare battalion already had over a thousand troops, but his unit was only a squadron.There is no other reason, because the sniper branch has extremely high requirements for personal military quality, and the long training period and the cost of training far exceed that of ordinary soldiers make it impossible to expand the training scale.Even though the ministries of the militia select and send hundreds of military elites to participate in the special training at the Sanya Army Base every year, there are still very few trainees who can complete the training period of nearly half a year and pass the rigorous final examination.

Even if it is compared among the snipers in the entire militia system, Tang Zixing is still one of the best.When Morgan led the establishment of the sniper training system, he was one of the first batch of trainees, and he was also one of the very few elites brought out by Morgan throughout the training.A considerable part of the snipers who joined the army at the same time as him have already changed careers to become instructors in order to train more elites for the rapidly expanding Haihan militia.And because Morgan has a position in the medical system in addition to his military position, it is already difficult for Morgan to have enough time to lead the students in person.Only old students like Tang Zixing still have the opportunity to be tutored by Morgan during the annual refresher course.

The weapon used by the Haihan militia snipers in the early days was the imitation M1857 Whitworth rifle personally selected by Morgan. This strange rifle with a hexagonal chamber has the highest shooting accuracy among contemporary long-range weapons. The impact point on the distance is only 500 feet, which is equivalent to a distance of nearly one mile. This rifle can accurately hit a life-sized chest target through auxiliary means such as a scope.The Whitworth rifle had many killing records at a distance of more than 0.37 yards in the American Civil War, and the actual combat effect was quite good.

Of course, its shortcomings are also very obvious. The front-loading rifle and the wonderful hexagonal spiral rifling are technically difficult to process and manufacture. Because it is a special firearm, its demand is not high, which leads to high costs. In addition, it is loaded with ammunition It is very troublesome, the shooting speed is slower than that of a cannon, and the thick and long barrel makes the gun body very heavy, and it is not convenient to carry and maintain.

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 loading to breech, and the hexagonal barrel was also changed to a circular barrel with spiral rifling. advanced structure.However, because the materials and processing technology are far from being comparable to the era before the time travel, the service life of the barrel 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 with the previous model, 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 before Haihan's industrial capabilities can produce rifles like Mosin Nagant, Springfield M1903, and Mauser K98, the Trinity can basically be used for several years.

This new sniper rifle has been issued to various troops since the beginning of 1632 to replace the old model used by snipers.Tang Zixing was also the first batch of ace snipers in the army to start using the Trinity sniper rifle. As an extension of the gun performance test, Tang Zixing received sufficient training ammunition and spare parts. There were as many as seven barrels replaced, which also allowed him to fully grasp the performance of this new gun.

Although there is currently one squad of snipers in the special warfare battalion, the others, including Tang Zixing's partner, are all "novices" who have been assigned in the past two years, and their actual combat experience is definitely not as good as Tang Zixing's.As the leader of this special team, Tang Zixing often bears the most critical responsibility when performing combat missions.

This mission was no exception. Tang Zixing received Gao Qiaonan's order last night, asking the sniper squad to enter the preset shooting point in the early morning of this morning, and 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 of people to act with him.Since they were not equipped with more advanced communication tools, they could not communicate in a timely manner, so they could only enter the same shooting point to ambush, so that they could seize the opportunity to shoot at the same time.

They are also located in the second-floor attic of a farmhouse. The west-facing side has been arranged overnight, and a horizontal row of tiles has been uncovered on the roof.Since the location of this farmhouse is farther away from the city wall than Gao Qiaonan's preset false latent position, it is unlikely that people on the top of the city can observe with the naked eye that there is a row of tiles missing on the roof of a farmhouse 200 meters away, while For a sniper who controls the Trinity rifle, this distance is already within a very good range.

If measured by Morgan's requirements, a qualified sniper must be able to hit eight out of ten shots at an equivalent body chest target at this distance.In order to be able to seize the fleeting shooting opportunities, 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 sky, it will not affect the ballistic trajectory. Too obvious an effect.If there are any deficiencies, the snipers cannot calibrate the target through test shooting in advance in order to avoid alarming the enemy. This may slightly affect the feel and confidence of the snipers.

Although it is possible to 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 binoculars are responsible for discovering the target, giving hints, and communicating. And command three snipers to attack.This kind of combat method of group fire attacking the same target is actually a compulsory subject in sniper training, but it is the first time that these three groups have cooperated in actual combat. Even Tang Zixing himself has no idea how effective it is. grasp.

About an hour after entering the combat position, the observer finally saw the target appear on the wall-Delgado and a middle-aged officer surrounded by guards behind him.Tang Zixing saw the officer's scorched yellow beard and military uniform through the scope, and he was able to confirm his identity.

"Get ready to shoot!" After Tang Zixing issued this short order, he fell silent. He had to concentrate all his attention on the next tactical action, and the command was automatically handed over to the observer partner next to him.

Perhaps it was because Delgado prepared too well the night before, or seeing the silence of the enemy positions outside the city, Lopez was not too wary of what Delgado said, because of his tricks. After the performance, he really moved his body to the crenel indicated by Delgado, poked his head out and looked out, unaware that he had become a prey in the eyes of some people.

Lopez was actually not afraid of any plans to assassinate him outside the city, at least he didn't see the opponent's soldiers moving within his field of vision. Will snort - the hit rate from 30 meters away depends on the weapon, need to be nervous?

But at this moment, Lopez felt a pain in his chest, and then he heard a gunshot in his ear. He slowly lowered his head and saw blood gushing out of the hole in his right chest.He looked out of the city in a daze, but he couldn't even see a single figure as far as he could see, and he didn't know where the black guns were being shot.At this time, the second and third gunshots also reached the top of the city. One of them hit Lopez's right shoulder, and the other shot missed.

The guard standing behind Lopez realized something was wrong, and quickly reached out to support his slowly falling body, but the shooting outside the city did not stop, and two or three bullets hit the city wall near the crenel. On the ground, debris and debris were beaten flying.

"Fire! Fire!" The captain of the guard shouted loudly, but he didn't know where the enemy was and 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 observers have confirmed the results of the battle from the telescope just now, and at least two bullets directly hit the target.After the figure of the target disappeared, Tang Zixing also knew that there would be no chance to continue the pursuit, and the most urgent thing to do was to retreat to a safe area as soon as possible, because he couldn't confirm whether the enemy army on the top of the wall had discovered the hidden spot where he was. If the last round of shelling is aimed at this place, the risk they need to bear is still quite large.

Delgado was standing less than one meter away from Lopez at the time of the incident. It took only three to five seconds from when Lopez's body was exposed on the crenel to when he was shot and fell down.Delgado originally thought that Takahashi Minami's plan would not be easy to implement, because it was too difficult for the rifle to accurately hit the target at a long distance. He had even thought about the follow-up plan for the failure of this plan, how to try to create a war in the city. Chaos disrupted the deployment of city defenses, but the Haihan people really did what Gao Qiaonan said.Seeing Lopez lying in a pool of blood, Delgado suddenly felt lucky. If he hadn't changed his position in time to join Haihan, but had stayed here with the Spaniards, he would have ended up like this, right?He didn't even know how he died, and he was talking about fighting back.

The guards dragged Lopez away from the city wall in a chaotic manner, and then another group of gunners rushed up to fire at targets they didn't know outside the city.Delgado remembered Takahashi Minami's instructions, and if necessary, he could guide the defenders to bombard the false latent point, and said loudly: "The enemy is in the house with the red lanterns. I saw them and opened fire there. !"

(End of this chapter)