Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 281 Live-fire Training
The live-fire training with magic-powered cannons that everyone had been looking forward to was soon arranged.

However, the training ground was moved from the military camp to the east bank of the Icefield River, on an open river beach outside the newly built garrison fortress.

The mountain cat stood on the artillery cart pulled by the alchemical camel and followed the artillery battalion's team slowly across the new and spacious Ice River Bridge. He could vaguely see that on the fertile black soil that had just been opened up on the opposite bank, there were still many large agricultural alchemical beasts busy plowing back and forth.

Fortunately, when the garrison corps was being formed, although I applied, I was not selected - because my family was too small and did not meet the selection requirement of moving to the east coast. However, it was a blessing in disguise and I had the opportunity to join the artillery battalion with better benefits.

There were people riding bicycles back and forth on the two sides of the bridge. They couldn't help but stop and watch, curiously looking at the four-wheeled artillery vehicle covered with waterproof tarpaulin.

The six artillery teams were quickly brought to the riverbank. After a short wait, a huge metal sailing ship arrived at the downstream dock. This was the steel icebreaker that traveled back and forth between the territory and the river valley outpost all day long. It was said that it was powered by magic and could travel at high speed on the river covered with a thin layer of ice without sails.

The icebreaker slowly passed through the river in front of them. The crew on the ship waved to them and threw some strange objects into the river.

"Boss, what are they doing? Aren't icebreakers responsible for transporting soldiers and supplies to and from the outposts? Why are they casting nets upstream to catch fish today?"

Bobcat was a desert wanderer with excellent eyesight. He squinted his eyes and looked for a moment before realizing that the other party was not casting a fishing net, but throwing a huge red buoy into the river at intervals.

Commander Pierce also spoke at the right time and revealed the content of today's live-fire shooting training.

Their artillery targets were the buoy targets that were floating in the middle of the river with anchors. The artillery battalion was currently located on the river beach, which was exactly about 800 meters away from the center of the river.

This is a distance that a cannon cannot reach by firing horizontally, and it is necessary to use an elevated projectile to hit the target.

"Commander, this is to test our artillery accuracy..." Lynx suddenly came to his senses and understood the main purpose of today's live-fire training.

The enemy will not stay still like these targets and wait for them to fire. Once they enter a real battle, they must learn to flexibly use the firing angles and accurately smash each precious magic shell into the dense crowd of enemies, striving to achieve the greatest killing effect - magic shells are expensive, so the opportunity for live-fire shooting training is precious.

Every member of the artillery group had practiced the process of setting up the gun position and loading the shells so thoroughly that they could hardly make any mistakes even with their eyes closed. Therefore, Commander Pierce quickly named the first artillery group where Bobcat was located to conduct the first test firing.

Lynx skillfully took out the shooting scale and inserted it into the rear sight of the gun barrel. He squinted one eye and looked out from the shooting hole on the scale. His hand quickly shook the joystick on the gun mount to adjust the muzzle angle until the red buoy in the middle of the river was put into the center of the shooting hole.

He felt a lot of slippery sweat on his palms, and the joystick he was holding was slightly slipping. He quickly rubbed it on his uniform inconspicuously, then looked at the other members of his artillery crew and nodded to show that they were ready.

"The shells are loaded!"

"Aim and hold!"

"The safety is on!"

"Fire in position!"

Following the commander's order, Bobcat pulled the cannon's firing lever hard.

A low humming sound suddenly rang out... A stream of hot air spurted out from the muzzle at high speed, and the cannonball, whose trajectory was difficult to capture with the naked eye, flew towards the river like lightning.

With a loud bang, a splash of water two or three meters high rose up on the left side of the red buoy. From a distance, it looked like the river surface suddenly boiled. Then a piece of the pointed top of the buoy suddenly disappeared, as if it had been cut horizontally by something.

Commander Pierce, whose eyesight far surpassed that of an ordinary soldier, reported the final results of the live-fire exercise in a cold voice: "The impact point error was three meters, and the energy beam of the shell slightly impacted the target. Training evaluation... failed!"

Then each artillery group completed a round of shooting training in turn. Only one group managed to get a qualified score, but they did not hit the buoy itself completely. Instead, they landed within one meter to the side of it. The energy impact of the explosion was purely used to knock it out of the water and smash it to pieces.

When it was Lynx's artillery team's turn again, the two alchemy apprentices who were with the team came forward and replaced them with a new set of shooting scales. Lynx took it in his hand and looked at it carefully, and found that many half-value scale symbols had been added to the original integer scale of the scale.

由原来的500……600……700……，变成了550……600……650。

Although he didn't understand why, he knew he would never go wrong if he followed his superior's instructions. As Commander Pierce shouted "Firing angle 850!", Bobcat quickly shook the muzzle lever and put the red buoy back into the designated shooting hole.

Another shot was fired, and this time it hit the red buoy floating in the river steadily, almost instantly blowing it to pieces, without even any large debris left.

It was another round of shooting training. This time, except for one group of unlucky ones, all other artillery groups received qualified evaluations.

Lynx also gradually figured out the principle of aiming and hitting the target - the greater the angle of the muzzle, the longer the shooting distance, and the smaller the spacing between the numbers on the shooting scale, the higher the adjustable hit probability.

Looking at the ammunition box at his feet, which was fully loaded with twelve magic energy shells and had two empty slots for shells that had just been used, Bobcat felt both excited and heartbroken.

He had heard the private complaints of the logistics officers who delivered the shells to them. It was said that the production of each such magical shell required enough liquid magic energy for an off-road magic motorcycle to travel at high speed for half a day. If converted into gold, the value would probably be more than one thousand gold.

This means that every time these people fire a bullet, they will consume half a year's salary, which makes the Bobcats feel very nervous.

……

Harvey sat in the study, looking at the report on live-fire shooting training sent by Pierce, and couldn't help but sigh with heartache.

Twenty-four magic shells were consumed in one shooting training exercise. Military factories and alchemy laboratories have been working overtime these days to rush production, but they have only produced less than three hundred shells. If there are a few more exercises, the ammunition reserves will probably run out immediately.

The Federation sent several hundred boxes of extremely cold black iron, which was used to cast a total of twenty magic-powered cannons. This was because the process of integral casting and then using alchemical potions to dissolve out the integrated barrel would consume and waste a large amount of material.

"Developing the military industry is indeed the most expensive business in the world..."

Harvey and the Pioneer Territory still have a long way to go to achieve the terrifying war effect of a magical artillery bombardment.

(End of this chapter)