Rise from eight hundred.

Chapter 320 'Tube' Balloon

Don't look at the 150 and 240 large-caliber howitzers of the Japanese Heavy Artillery Brigade, a large crater with a diameter of several meters, and a killing radius of 50 meters.

It almost means that when a shell goes down, an area the size of two basketball courts is within its destruction range.

But that doesn't mean that there is no safe place in Songjiang City, which covers an area of ​​two and a half square kilometers.

日军一个重炮旅团总计有30门150mm榴弹炮、20门240mm榴弹炮、10门305mm榴弹炮，一轮饱和式攻击，也就是投掷60发炮弹，哪怕一发炮弹可杀伤范围达5000平方米，能被炮火和气浪笼罩的区域也绝不会超过总面积达两百余万平方米的松江城区域的八分之一。

This is not to say that the heavy artillery brigade of the Japanese army is not strong enough, but, relatively speaking, Songjiang City, which was not small in the first place, still has a way to survive due to its sufficient depth.

If it was replaced by the cowboys of the United States who were in the Five Sacred Mountains more than ten years later, gathering hundreds of cannons and dozens of sorties of planes to bombard, then Songjiang City would really turn the city into powder.

For example, the machine gun shooter of the 67th Army who saw the Japanese army's "big balloon" in the machine gun fortification. Although the rumbling guns around him had already caused him to lose his hearing with cotton in his ears, his eyes were still good.

Through the thick gunpowder smoke, he saw the strange thing with a big head and a long tail flying in mid-air.

As the machine gun shooter of the air defense battalion, Mo Songzi has seen this thing a lot in the North China battlefield. The Japanese often use it to observe the opponent's position and guide the artillery shelling.

The North China Plain is originally flat, and the Japanese often have a clear view of the opponent's positions by relying on this thing, but because the distance is too far, the farthest can even reach ten kilometers. Even if the Chinese army has this kind of air-to-air combat, the range can reach 2500 meters The Oerlikon cannon can't pose a threat to this kind of large balloon that is far beyond the range.

Anyway, Mo Songzi hit two springboards on this thing on the front line, but it turned out that the bird was useless.The only thing that threatens the balloon is the airplane.

But in the sky of North China, there used to be Chinese fighter planes?It's okay to dream.

But now, the big balloon has reached a place where he can see clearly with the naked eye. Does this mean that he is courting death?

"Get up, get up, get up very well, there is work to do. Hurry up, hurry up!" Mo Songzi looked at the subordinates who were huddled in the corner and hugged their heads, kicking each of them.

Shouting was just a subconscious behavior, and his own ears could not hear anything other than the buzzing.

The fear on the faces of the soldiers did not disappear, but this did not prevent them from working under the urging of the sergeant squad leader. Some wiped off the dust on the cannon with a cloth, some moved the ammunition, and some gathered together Looking at the sky pointed by Mo Songzi through the gun scope, he took advantage of the moment when the gunpowder smoke was blown away by the wind and faded to find the big balloon still floating in the sky, and kept reporting the position to Mo Songzi who was already sitting in the shooting position.

Mo Songzi used the crank to continuously adjust the muzzle, and used the front sight on the barrel to lock on the large balloon with a straight-line distance of 1500 meters and a vertical height of [-] meters.

That happened to be the limit of the shooting angle of the machine gun in the fortification.

Tang Dao, who designed the cannon fortification, never thought of using the cannon for air defense. He mainly used it to shoot infantry. Mo Songzi just instinctively enlarged the shooting hole, but he didn't expect it to be used.

A city that was constantly trembling under the bombardment of the Japanese army, a machine gun fortification that was in danger and could be bombed into the sky at any time, a group of Chinese soldiers who were dominated by fear but still tremblingly controlled the machine gun, holding a dusty machine gun, aiming up a wood turtle balloon in the sky.

However, the airships or manned balloons used by the Japanese army for observation are really not stupid. For this thing that looks extremely stupid in the future, Japan has invested heavily in research since the middle of the nineteenth century.

Japan's military use of balloons can be traced back to the civil war in the Meiji period. During the Southwest War, the government army was besieged by Saigo Takamori in Kumamoto Castle and cut off contact with the outside world. Finally, a balloon developed by the University of Engineering and Technology in the city sent information back. Kyoto.

Afterwards, the Japanese Navy began research and development of balloons, which were successfully developed in mid-April 1877.However, it was found during the test flight that the balloon was still unstable and its safety was not guaranteed.Then, the unconvinced Japanese army also independently developed a balloon, but you know the test results, the army ground turtle is not much better than the navy millipede, and it still doesn't want to do it.

After more than ten years, Japan, which is habitually engaged in borrowing doctrine, decided that I would buy it instead of investing money in research and development.

He spent huge sums of money to import a complete set of balloon equipment from France, but the unlucky boy in Japan did not die. When he was transported back to China via the Indian Ocean, the rubber coating on the surface of the balloon deteriorated and melted due to high temperature and humidity, making it difficult to guarantee the airtightness. The test flight still ended in failure.

Until 1903, a "Yamada" balloon made by a private person played a good role in participating in army exercises and was quickly promoted.

To put it bluntly, the soil turtle balloon in Mo Songzi's eyes was really developed by the soil turtle.

However, even this bastard is still rare on the battlefields of China and Japan. It can even be said to be technically sophisticated, and it will be of great help to the Japanese army in terms of function.

For the army of this era, battlefield reconnaissance has two methods: reconnaissance by scouts on land and reconnaissance by reconnaissance planes in the sky.

But the Japanese use this thing called a tethered balloon in one more way, even better than those two.

Tethered balloons have several advantages over airplanes: First, they can hover in the air and observe targets at 360 degrees. Through observation instruments, targets can be found as far as 10 kilometers away, while it is difficult to clearly observe the passing aircraft;

The second is that the balloon is connected with a telephone line, which can transmit information to the front at any time, but the aircraft at that time could not do this.

The third is that the balloon is not affected by time and can be launched at night;

Fourth, there is no sound when the balloon lifts into the air, so it is difficult to be noticed.

Relying on this, the Japanese can accurately guide the artillery, causing great damage to the Chinese soldiers on the North China battlefield, especially in the Jinling battle in the next month, which will fully reflect its advantages.

The main reason is that the Chinese Air Force has been completely lost, and the Japanese army can even raise a large balloon 10 kilometers away, and all anti-aircraft artillery can only stare at it.

However, it is not easy to raise this kind of balloon. The tethered vehicle alone weighs 5 tons, and there are more than 10 tethered ropes. When it is lifted into the air, it is necessary to first deploy the heavy airbag and then fill it with hydrogen. This requires 40 Multiple soldiers operate, and at the same time require a flat avenue and a wide space.

Therefore, when the weather was bad, even if the artillery in Songjiang City made the Japanese soldiers cry, the Japanese did not make such a thing to make their artillery retaliate. The most powerful boss, Gu Hisao, head of the Sixth Division, felt that the opportunity had come.

It just didn’t come to fruition, the heavy artillery brigade was too powerful, and the smoke caused by the gunpowder covered the city of Songjiang tightly, and the balloons with special observation instruments could not see the specific situation in the city. The distance was as close as 2000 meters, but the commander of the balloon troop was not a fool. He quietly stayed 1000 meters away and stopped moving forward.

It's not that he is afraid of the machine guns of the Chinese who are being abused, but that he is afraid of the guns of his own people.

The Heavy Artillery Brigade is on the north bank of the Huangpu River, and the balloon is in the general direction of the shell's flight. Although there is no precedent for the balloon being dropped by its own shell, what if?
Besides, so close to the city wall, what if the surviving Chinese rushed here with a heavy machine gun and shot a shuttle?
The commander of the Japanese balloon force definitely had enough brains. After considering many contingencies, he chose to suspend the balloon in the wilderness 1500 meters away from Songjiang City.

The closer you are, the more clearly you can see.

Unfortunately, death is only a few minutes away.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Mo Songzi, a sergeant of the 67rd Regiment of the 643th Army, fired.

In order to ensure the hit rate, Mo Songzi emptied twenty bullets in one go, then immediately replaced them with new bullets and continued to fire, and then changed again and fired again!

Mo Songzi didn't think too much about it. He chose to fire into the air at this time and spent a full 60 rounds. In fact, he mainly wanted to fight against the huge fear of being bombarded into the sky at any time.

Without experiencing this kind of battle, no one can understand the fear that the soldiers are trying to suppress.

The previous 105 howitzers and 75 mountain cannons are okay. You know that as long as they don’t hit the fortifications, the chance of saving their lives is greater than 90.00%.

But the current 150 and 240 howitzers, as long as they hit the target, can penetrate the concrete walls of more than one meter. The strong fortifications and the people inside the fortifications are directly blown to pieces and buried alive.

In the entire Songjiang City, except for the air-raid shelter that makes people feel a little bit safe in their hearts, the rest of the place is all a gamble on luck, betting on how many god names they know.

It was almost like the fear of a condemned prisoner kneeling on the edge of the execution ground waiting to be guillotined.

People and cannons may blow up at any time, so save a ball!It's better to pick up and play 'ball'.

Mo Songzi actually has such a mentality.

A small sergeant quietly changed the direction of a war.

If it wasn't for Hisao Tani being too anxious, if it wasn't for the heavy artillery brigade firing too fast, waiting for the observation balloon to take off first, if the balloon was farther away.
If any of these happens, there is a great possibility that the artillery positions in Songjiang City will be severely damaged.

But, no if.

The observation balloon violated the regulations and arrived at an area 1500 meters away from the enemy. A Chinese machine gun sergeant shooter fired because he refused to be afraid!
One of the two observation balloons owned by the Tenth Army was sieved in the air by a 20mm cannon.

Expensive observation instruments and soldiers fell from a height of [-] meters and smashed into parts.

The other, which had broken down long ago, hadn't had time to fix it.

The legendary house leak met with continuous night rain, which refers to the Tenth Army.

From this moment on, the Tenth Army lost its sharpest 'eyes', which even the aviation could not make up for.

(End of this chapter)