The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 353: Four consecutive hits on the river surface 2
The Hinoki destroyer, which was hit in the middle of its hull, shook violently in the thick smoke and water column produced by the explosion of the 150mm grenade. Not only did the destroyer's hull roll sideways, but half of it instantly sank into the river water and then emerged again, just like a small boat being tossed around in a storm.

Strictly speaking, this 150mm grenade did not hit the Hinoki destroyer directly, but hit the water surface close to the port side of the Hinoki destroyer.

The grenade equipped with an instantaneous fuse was very sensitive. It exploded quickly after hitting the river water, causing the grenade to explode near the Hinoki destroyer. Although the grenade did not directly destroy the hull of the Hinoki destroyer, it also did not cause structural damage to the destroyer.

However, the huge shock wave and dense shrapnel generated by the grenade explosion still blew several holes in the hull plate in the middle of the Hinoki destroyer.

For a normal warship, such combat damage can be said to be insignificant. The 150mm shell that just exploded near the Hinoki destroyer was strictly speaking a near miss. This non-direct hit shell actually did not cause much damage to the warship, but the Hinoki destroyer was forced backwards by the impact and explosion power of the near miss shell, the hull tilted suddenly, and the speed immediately decreased.

The reason why the Hinoki destroyer was defeated by a near miss was actually because the material of the four destroyers in the current Japanese fleet was not the high-strength ship steel material commonly used by ordinary warships, but cement material. The outer shells of these four destroyers were all made of ship steel, but the inside was filled with cement.

During the First World War, as the war severely consumed the steel resources of European and American countries, those countries, feeling deeply the shortage of steel production, began to start a trend of building ships with cement.

In order to use precious steel to build combat ships, European and American countries during World War I used a large amount of cement in the construction of civilian ships and military auxiliary ships, and Japan also followed suit and tried to build ships with cement.

However, the Japanese, who are not rich but are warlike, have taken a different approach in building ships with cement. Europeans and Americans use cement to build civilian ships and auxiliary military ships so that precious steel can be used in the manufacture of warships, but the Japanese, bizarrely, use cement directly to build warships!
The four Japanese Peach-class destroyers on the river at this time were the products of Japan's use of cement to build warships after World War I. Their names were Peach, Kashiwa, Hinoki, and Yanagi.

Of course, this kind of warship made of cement as the hull material is purely a "silver plaque gun head". For example, the four destroyers built by the Japanese have excellent performance on paper, strong firepower, fast speed, and low manufacturing cost, but they have a fatal flaw, that is, the fragile cement hull has very poor protection performance and cannot withstand any attack at all.

The Japanese Navy also found that the protective performance of this type of cement warship was really poor in actual use, so it quickly withdrew it from the front-line fleet and used it on the Chinese battlefield instead, intending to let these four embarrassing cement destroyers play their remaining heat on the Chinese battlefield to deal with the extremely weak Chinese navy.

The subsequent performance of the Hinoki destroyer undoubtedly added another footnote to the failure of cement shipbuilding.

Since the hull of the Hinoki destroyer was filled with cement material, which had extremely poor elasticity and sinkability, a large amount of river water poured into the hull through the holes created by the 150mm grenades.

The Japanese sailors on the ship quickly took out various sealing materials to carry out damage control operations, but no matter how they blocked it, they could not control the large amount of water entering the hull. Soon, the hull of the Hinoki destroyer, whose speed was rapidly decreasing, tilted further.

Although the 150mm grenade just now was essentially just a near miss that did not directly hit the Hinoki destroyer, due to the special material of the ship's hull, this near miss did cause severe damage to the Hinoki destroyer.

The Chinese officers and soldiers on Banbi Mountain naturally could not see clearly the specific circumstances of the impact of the shell. When they saw the Hinoki destroyer tilt, they all thought that it was a heavy artillery shell that directly hit the hull of the Japanese ship.

In the command post of the mechanized heavy artillery battalion, the battalion commander Hu Rizhen saw that the "hit bullet" was obtained, and immediately ordered excitedly: "Well done, brothers, work harder and destroy that Japanese warship!"

Without Hu Rizhen's urging, the officers and soldiers of the mechanized heavy artillery battalion in the permanent artillery fortifications had already worked hard and operated and fired in an orderly manner, launching rounds of fierce howitzer fire.

The whistling sound of the 150mm howitzer once again came towards the destroyer Hinoki from far away, and the two mountain artillery companies of the assault corps artillery battalion also followed suit.

Dense rapid-fire shells once again covered the Hinoki destroyer, and shells of various calibers exploded near it again.

This time, what hit the Hinoki destroyer was no longer a near miss, but a real direct hit.

First, three 75mm mountain artillery shells hit the superstructure of the Hinoki destroyer, and then one shell hit the deck of the Hinoki destroyer, killing and injuring more than a dozen Japanese sailors, creating a bloody scene.

Then, another mountain artillery shell hit a gun position of the Hinoki destroyer, killing the nearby gunner, while another mountain artillery shell that hit the Hinoki destroyer hit the chimney of the Hinoki destroyer, and after the explosion, a large hole was opened in its chimney.

What followed were two 150mm caliber heavy artillery shells.

A 150mm explosive bomb hit the lifeboat hanging on the side of the Hinoki destroyer. The high explosive filled in the grenade exploded, producing a huge shock wave and dense shrapnel. The huge shock wave caused the ship to shake violently, and flaming fragments and shrapnel flew everywhere, almost engulfing most of the Hinoki destroyer's deck in fire and flames.

With a flash of fire, the upper half of the mast of the Hinoki destroyer, which still had the Kikuhiki flag flying, was blown high into the air and fell into the river.

What finally put an end to the Hinoki destroyer was another 150-caliber armor-piercing shell, which hit the middle of the Hinoki destroyer's hull. The shell easily penetrated the steel hull of the Hinoki destroyer, and then penetrated the cement hull material behind the steel plate very smoothly.

In this case, facing the German-made 150mm armor-piercing projectile equipped with an alloy steel armor-piercing warhead, the poor protective performance and low bullet resistance of the cement material were undoubtedly exposed.

The 150mm armor-piercing shell penetrated into the hull of the concrete destroyer smoothly like a meteor. When the shell passed through the hull, the delay fuse on the shell started to work, detonating the explosive filled in the shell, followed by a loud bang like thunder.

The powerful 150mm armor-piercing shell directly tore a large hole in the center of the hull of the Hinoki destroyer, and a large amount of river water poured into the hull through the hole.

This destroyer made of cement not only had insufficient protection, but also had average anti-sinking ability. After being hit so hard, the hull, which had already begun to tilt, actually flipped over in the river, and then turned upside down, revealing the red bottom of the ship, and quickly sank into the river with a huge whirlpool. The sinking speed was so fast that even He Wei, who was watching the battle on Banbi Mountain, and the Chinese gunners who were sweating and shooting frantically were stunned and forgot to cheer and celebrate.

The warship sank too quickly. He Wei, who was watching the battle through a telescope in the command post, only felt that several rounds of intensive artillery shells covered the Japanese warship and hit it with several shells. Then the Japanese ship suddenly capsized in a huge explosion and was swallowed by the river in a very short time like a fish with its belly up. It was far less resilient than the Japanese Xinshan ship that had just been sunk.

Of course, He Wei and the officers and soldiers on Banbi Mountain would not know that the sunken Japanese destroyer was built with cement.

Everyone just felt that the warship sank too quickly, too quickly, and sank very thoroughly. Although the Xinshan minesweeper was also sunk, at least part of the hull was still exposed on the river surface, and the destroyer was completely overturned and sunk, leaving only whirlpools and the Japanese sailors wailing miserably in the river.

The rapid sinking of this cement destroyer with a displacement of only 800 tons indicated that the Chinese artillery on the hillside had achieved its second victory of the day!

As the Hinoki destroyer suddenly capsized and sank amid a series of explosions, not only was there another sunken Japanese warship on the river, but from the overall formation of the Japanese fleet, the first four ships in the long snake formation of nine warships had been cut in half by the artillery fire on Banbi Mountain.

More importantly, once the Hinoki destroyer, which was in the Japanese fleet formation, sank, coupled with the sinking of the Japanese fleet's lead ship, the Shinyama, which had already been sunk, the forward and backward routes of the second and third ships in the Japanese fleet's formation, which were also the same class of destroyers as the Hinoki destroyer, the cement destroyers Momo and Kashiki, which were sandwiched behind the lead ship, the Shinyama, the minesweeper, and in front of the fourth ship, the Hinoki destroyer, were completely blocked, and they could neither advance nor retreat.

In the command post on the top of Banbi Mountain, seeing that his tactical goal of closing the door and beating the dog was achieved, He Wei held up the telescope and said excitedly: "Good, beautiful fight, this is a double hit, calling all the artillery positions to give orders, now it's time to close the door and beating the dog, the route of the second and third Japanese ships has been blocked, don't worry about the Japanese warships behind, concentrate firepower to destroy the second and third Japanese ships, and quickly clean up these two turtles in the jar! Strive for a fourth hit!"

He Wei looked at the boiling river surface, and stared at the second and third ships of the Japanese fleet that were blocked in the middle by the first ship of the Japanese fleet, the Xinshan, and the fourth ship, the Hinoki destroyer, with a look as if he was looking at a pitiful creature.

Warships cannot sail on land. Once the front and rear channels are blocked, the only fate that awaits the two Japanese warships is a tragic end of being sunk.

"Come here, quickly notify all artillery positions to attack the second and third Japanese warships and destroy them!"

Chief of Staff Wang Yuanling, who was also extremely excited, immediately organized his staff to convey orders to various artillery positions.

As soon as Wang Yuanling finished speaking, a loud rumbling sound was heard on the river, and the guns of several Japanese ships spit out orange-yellow flames.

Then, shells exploded on the river bank below half a mountain, thick smoke rose from the places where the shells landed, and then wisps of white mist rose up. It was a special reaction caused by the high temperature generated by the explosion of the large-caliber naval gun shells of the Japanese ship and the moist mud on the river bank.

"Notify all artillery positions to avoid enemy guns when firing!"

Wang Yuanling issued additional orders to the staff officers who delivered the message.

Boom
Boom
The sound of cannons on the river rang out again, and another round of artillery fire from the Japanese warships came. This time the accuracy of the Japanese warships' artillery fire was much higher. Some shells hit the surface of the river at the bottom of Banbi Mountain, causing high splashes in the river.

Several more shells directly hit the cliff in front of Banbi Mountain. Although they did not cause any serious casualties to the Chinese officers and soldiers on Banbi Mountain, nor did they suppress the artillery fire of the Chinese army on Banbi Mountain, the naval artillery shells that directly hit the cliff also blew away several huge rocks with a breathtaking roar, and some trees on the cliff were also ignited, causing a big fire.

He Wei was naturally not hurt in the well-protected and safe command post, but the tremendous power of the large-caliber naval gun shells still made him feel a huge vibration under his feet.

He Wei sneered and said to Wang Yuanling: "One more order. No matter how the other Japanese ships fire, do not fight back. Concentrate all your firepower on attacking the second and third Japanese ships. Remember, they fight theirs, and we fight ours!"

On the flagship of the Japanese fleet, Yaeyama, the captain of the Yaeyama and commander of the fleet, Masaaki Tsuboi, looked at Banbishan with bloodshot eyes, holding a microphone and shouting loudly: "Open fire, hit hard, target, Banbishan!"

The Japanese navy on the river were not idiots. Although two of their warships were destroyed in a very short period of time, their retaliatory fire never stopped.

Whether it was the Xinshan ship that was sunk first, or the Hinoki destroyer that was just destroyed, or other Japanese ships, they had been firing at Banbi Mountain as much as possible.

However, due to the single-column formation of the Japanese fleet and the dangerous terrain of Banbi Mountain, the Japanese ships on the river were unable to exert all of their naval gun firepower and could only use a limited portion of their firepower to attack Banbi Mountain.

Therefore, the Japanese naval gun firepower was unable to cause significant casualties to the Chinese defenders on Banbi Mountain, especially the 150mm mechanized heavy artillery battalion deployed in the permanent artillery fortifications. This core unit of the artillery firepower on Banbi Mountain was not affected by the Japanese naval gun return firepower. Only the firing of the assault corps artillery battalion and the naval artillery team deployed in temporary artillery positions was slightly disturbed.

The sudden artillery attack from Banbi Mountain suddenly killed the Xinshan minesweeper at the head of the fleet and the fourth destroyer in the formation in a short period of time. Even a fool could see the intention of the Chinese army commander on Banbi Mountain, let alone the commander of this small fleet, Masaichi Tsuboi.

But everything was a foregone conclusion. Even if Tsuboi Masakazu saw through He Wei's intention, he was destined to be unable to change the fact that the Chinese artillery on the hill was about to achieve the brilliant result of "hitting four targets in a row".

(End of this chapter)