Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 162 The Siege Continues
After several days of low-intensity offensive, the walls of Winchester had become very loose, collapsing a little every day. The Wessex defenders would also repair them at night under the cover of darkness. However, despite this, the overall structure of the walls was still becoming increasingly loose. After all, a wall made of a mixture of wood, stones and mud was definitely weaker in strength than a regular stone wall.

During this period, the Wessex defenders and the Romans continued to have small-scale conflicts. At night, the defenders in the city would take advantage of the darkness to start large-scale activities. Both sides won and lost alternately. Overall, it caused considerable trouble to the Romans, but it was not very serious.

Orville was somewhat afraid of the Frankish regular army's inaction, so he prepared for a quick battle. After the strength of the city wall weakened, he ordered his soldiers to start the next plan.

The soldiers arranged in the classic tortoise-shell formation held up their shields and formed neat rows to cover the battering rams as they entered the front line of the battlefield. The archers on the siege platform more than ten meters high shot arrows at the defenders on the city wall from above, and the two sides began a fierce offensive and defensive battle.

The Romans were well-trained, and the Wessex people had to defend their country. Both sides had a strong will to fight, and the intensity of the war was high from the beginning.

The Wessex defenders on the city wall threw stones, logs and even boiling water from above, but the Romans remained unmoved. They resisted the resistance of the Wessex people and began to operate the battering ram, hitting the city wall again and again.

Compared with the Palphians who lived at the intersection of three continents, these Wessex people obviously did not have so many strange things in their hands, such as flammable items like asphalt and oil. They could only use heavy objects or fire arrows to try to destroy the structure of the siege hammer, but for the extremely strong and durable siege hammer with fireproof treatment, this effort had little effect, and they did not succeed in igniting the siege hammer for a while.

Seeing that an obvious gap had been smashed into the city wall, the defenders in the city could no longer hold back and began to pour out of the city gate.

The infantry of both sides held their spears, swords and shields tightly in their hands. The Wessex men gave passionate war roars to give themselves courage, while the Romans remained silent and began to line up in preparation for the impact under the orders of the centurions.

"Form a formation! Raise your shields! Move your swords forward and kill with one strike!!"

“ōu! ōu! (Get out! Get out!) ōu! ōu! (Get out! Get out!)”

Both sides were resolute and determined, fighting to the death. Infantrymen with different equipment collided with each other like waves. The crisp sounds of metal clashing and the dull collision of shields mixed together. The figures of the soldiers intertwined and merged on the battlefield, painting a picture depicting the most violent and bloody conflict of mankind.

The warriors of the Kingdom of Wessex were not inferior in courage or martial arts; their biggest problem was the plain productivity gap.

The first group of people to attack the city were Orville's most elite guards. He was never stingy with his own people and would use the best of what he had. They were truly heavily armed warriors.

They all wore very fine chain mail, and on top of the chain mail they added a layer of Roman ring armor. The first 200 soldiers were super luxurious warriors wearing two layers of armor. The traditional Roman armor had a large shield to protect the body, so the protection of the limbs was very weak. Orwell gave them an experimental new technology - chain mail that covered a large area of ​​the limbs, and also embedded many large armor plates to strengthen the defense, which was actually the design idea of ​​the later plate chain armor.

Of course, people in this era cannot make full-body plate armor, but it is no problem to make armor plates to strengthen the protection of key parts. It is just a bit more expensive, which is acceptable. The money for those extravagant banquets is more than enough to arm a hundred-man team. Orville never organizes these extravagant things, and all the money saved is used to strengthen the combat effectiveness of the army.

Thanks to this, in the Kingdom of Wessex, where most of the army is lightly armored or even unarmored, these super-heavy armored warriors can carry out dimensionality reduction strikes, and are almost immune to a large part of physical damage except for super-standard weapons such as rolling logs, stones, battle axes and hammers.

The warriors of the Kingdom of Wessex were quite brave, but they were still overwhelmed by an enemy that was better trained and equipped, and they were unable to break through the Roman army's defenses and reach the battering ram.

The Romans had already made a thorough analysis of the combat characteristics of these barbarian armies. This applied to the Franks, the Gauls, and now it also applies to the Anglo-Saxons.

Barbarian armies often have advantages in physique and explosive power, but are often lacking in organization, endurance and obedience. To put it bluntly, due to lack of training, they only have three tricks, relying on their physique and courage to fight a wave. After withstanding the first wave of impact, the opponent will gradually show signs of decline, the fighting time will gradually drag on, and the advantage of the Romans will become greater and greater.

Seeing that the Romans had sent out another group of infantry to seize the city gate, these Wessex soldiers finally had to retreat back into the city wall. Their action against the battering ram failed, and the Romans finally succeeded in chiseling a small hole in the city wall.

The soldiers who had been on standby took over the position of the Royal Guards and began to attack and capture the city.

Some of them started climbing the wall directly, while others came to the bottom of the wall with specially reinforced super-heavy shields, carrying drafts, chisels and other props, and began to dismantle the stone bricks of the wall.

It must be said that the Wessex people's will to resist was very commendable. The offensive plan organized by Orville was repeatedly frustrated at this step. The suicide squad climbing the wall could hardly make any progress and was dragged on the wall by the enemy, unable to move. After several strong attacks, they were pushed off the wall. In the end, seeing that the losses were a bit serious, the morale was not very stable, and the endurance of the soldiers was a bit unsustainable, Orville could only choose to retreat first and fight again another day.

Taking stock of the results of a whole day's siege, Orville only destroyed a small section of the city wall and chiseled off a large number of stones and bricks from it. This was not considered a major achievement because he knew that the Wessex defenders would repair this section of the city wall overnight, and by tomorrow the city wall would be able to be barely maintained.

But today's losses made Orville feel a little painful. Dozens of soldiers died and the number of injured reached 173. These were all precious regular troops. Not to mention the somewhat mundane issue of pensions, Orville felt sad when five or ten of their combat effectiveness were lost in the war.

(End of this chapter)