Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 285: Destroying the Tower of Siege

“Easy, don't think about shooting a few more, I'd rather you guys slow down, aim closer, be careful, don't want any accidents. Markie, you supervise them. I'll check the defensive tower over there.” Claude watched as the solid iron ball burned red was stuffed into the cannon's mouth, and the crew again aimed down and fired.

A green smoke erupted at the mouth of the gun and the shell whistled, striking the middle floor of the tower on the far right, 80 metres away. You can see clearly in the frame of a single binoculars, and there is a clear vibration in the middle layer surrounded by logs.

“Yes, that's it, we don't need any heavy shelling, we just need to be more precise...” Claude waved excitedly.

After a two-day hiatus, the enemy reorganized an attack on the castle, now defending the first and fourth battalions on the walls. The log plates originally erected on the walls of the city have been struck into pieces of various sizes by six artillery cannons from the three enemy towers, but now piled in clay-filled sacks in the city give soldiers better shelter. The enemy's live ammunition shells cannot destroy these sacks, and only shotguns can pose some threat to the soldiers who expose themselves.

Under the precise target of the soldiers, the enemies of the attack were defenceless and dropped 30 or 40 bodies again and retreated. Only six artillery cannons on those three towers continue to launch futile artillery shelling into the city. Several of the soldiers injured by the shotgun were being rushed to the treatment center by the medics. Diaved came to Claude and was about to speak. The next sack of soil shocked and the soil splattered, making both of them grey-headed. Needless to say, it must have been a shell that hit this muddy sack.

“Boo! Boo!” After a few pukes, Diavid looked at the three towers in the distance through the space left by the pile of sacks and said: "Sir, without these three towers, the enemy would never have approached our walls...”

Claude dusted the dirt off his head: "I know, it's being tested now, be patient. How were our casualties? ”

“One of our battalions was injured four times, and two of our fourth battalions were injured seven times, all by shotguns fired by the enemy…" Diaved shook his head: “Told them to cover themselves up and use the space of the sack for shooting, but some idiots would always forget that they were reluctant to aim in the space of the sack and liked to shoot the gun rack on it. As soon as the enemy's artillery fired shotguns, it was too late to hide...”

“However, I think the enemy's attack today is less fierce than yesterday. This time it retreated in less than half an hour...”

“Yeah, I think so too.” Diavid laughed: "Yesterday the enemy fought his life and couldn't hit the walls, but the casualties were heavy. Today it looks like some of them are spreading and not vicious, most of them hiding behind wooden platoons. It's all because of you, sir, and the shelling you arranged was ingenious, unlike Captain Haemklin's old fool, who ordered artillery to shell the enemy's wooden platoon. Those wooden platoons smashed their asses, and the enemy could always push new ones from behind...”

After arranging three attack towers, the enemy pushed many wooden platoons from behind, almost full of empty space, and then used them as cover to approach the walls of the city when the offensive was launched. At the outset, defensive tasks on the walls were carried out by the second and third battalions, under the command of Captain Hemklin. He ordered the seven artillery cannons placed on the walls to strike the wooden platoons on the open ground, which revealed the location of the artillery on the walls and was knocked down by six artillery cannons on the three enemy towers. At the same time, because the nitrous smoke emitted by the artillery at the time of its rapid firing spread throughout the city walls, shielding the view of the soldiers and giving them the opportunity to climb the city by climbing stairs, the soldiers had to engage in a physical battle to drive the enemy down, causing heavy casualties.

Fortunately, during those four days, the enemy, while attacking the city wall and destroying a cannon, did not stand still and was driven from the city wall after the second and third battalions fought back. The casualties were then somewhat large, and the attack on the castle was suspended for two days until yesterday.

But what the enemy didn't expect was that his opponent had been replaced. The first and fourth battalions of the guerrilla camps are now guarded above the walls of the city. Claude never let the three artillery guns placed on the walls bomb the new wooden platoons that the enemy replaced on the open ground for two days, not even the four artillery guns placed in the left and right defensive towers bombard them. He ordered the four cannons in the defensive tower to attack the middle floor of the enemy's attacking tower on the far right with red iron bullets. There were two cannon windows for the enemy. Claude believed that with more shelling, it was always possible to hit that tiny cannon window...

All three cannons on the walls were loaded with shotguns, not targeting wooden platoons on the open ground and enemies hiding behind them, but staring at their climbing stairs. As long as the enemy grabs the ascent staircase and runs towards the city wall, there will be one artillery shell covering the direction the enemy is preparing to approach the city wall, and three artillery guns will never be allowed to fire simultaneously. The same is true of the defensive soldiers on the walls of the city, where only a dozen veterans with more precise shooting have the right to open fire at any time, while the rest of the soldiers are hiding behind sacks of dirt. Only when the enemy raids a large attack can they be ordered to shoot...

Such defenses make the enemy a little confusing, as if the attack under the walls was very violent and aggressive. The three attack towers were shelled, and soldiers hiding behind the wooden platoon fired heavily at the city's head, and the smoke quickly spread throughout the open space.

The response on the walls, however, has been scant, and if it had not been for the occasional shooting and the small amount of smoke that had soared between the piles of sacks, one could have thought that there was no defense on the walls. But if you want to assemble people to put the ladder near the city wall with the climbing ladder, there will always be a gunshot, and the soldiers next to the climbing ladder die and are seriously injured...

Yesterday, the enemy made a fierce attack for one day, and after returning to inspect it, it was discovered that the guards on the city walls' seemingly weak defenses caused more casualties to the attackers than the previous attack. The first attack did not exceed 200 casualties each day for four consecutive days, and as a result, yesterday came down one day, with more than 400 casualties and, most importantly, so many casualties not attacking the city wall. The reason for this is that the soldiers grabbed the ladder and headed toward the city wall, where one or two artillery shells were fired, covering the way forward, so that the casualties were extremely high.

Perhaps because of yesterday's lesson, not a single soldier in today's attack is willing to approach the ascent ladder. Several front-line basic officers, first taking the steps and forcing more than a dozen soldiers to prepare to attack the city head, just rushed underneath the city wall without putting the ladder on the city wall, and a gunshot was fired on it, and everyone fell into the blood. And then no one would ever go up the stairs again...

The afternoon fighting was calm, with soldiers from both sides shooting up and down with guns, with very few casualties. The guards on the city walls hid behind the sacks of dirt, and the attackers under the city hid behind the wooden platoon trucks, carrying guns that had not fired a single shot. Three artillery cannons on the city wall did not fire without the enemy approaching the city wall, leaving only four artillery guns in those two defensive towers on both sides to attack the enemy's rightmost tower with red shells at intervals of more than 10 minutes. The enemy also fired artillery from the siege tower towards the artillery windows in the defensive tower on both sides, punching the surface of the defensive tower into a crater.

Looks like that's it for today. Claude and Captain Cordwalker, the captain of the 4th Battalion, stood behind the walls and watched the last of the attacking enemies rush back to the village. They were about to speak, and suddenly they heard a fierce explosion coming from the battlefield. They turned around and saw the enemy's rightmost attacking tower sprayed with sparks and light. The top layer was falling down, while the middle layer started to burn...

“Hit it! Sir, we hit that cannon window!” Excited Markie rushed out through the small door of the defensive tower, almost falling on the steps.

Obviously, it was a red-burning shell that hit the small window of the tower and landed inside. Claude always wondered if the inner space of the tower was small and arranged for two artillery guns. Was that a pile of shells and powder launchers? Now there is an answer to that question. Obviously, the red-burning shell hit the cannon window and fell inside, igniting a pile of gunpowder inside, causing an explosion. If Claude hadn't insisted on burning the shells red, it's not likely that this shell hit the cannon window...

The destruction of an attacking tower was like pounding chicken blood on the crew of those four artillery guns, and now they're not complaining about Claude letting them fire red shells. After all, firing this is very troublesome, next to the fire prevention preparation, and the firing time is slow, not only wait for the iron balls to burn red in the fire basin, but even if it is put into the cannon tube, it has to be padded with a small piece of wood, and it has to be fired immediately so as not to ignite the powder bag behind the wood plate.

Even Major Skerry, with his arms hanging, was excited to rush up the wall and admire the burning siege tower of the bear: “Well done, you deserve a bottle of Gandhi for everyone at night! ”

Major Skerry's reference to a bottle of Gandhi per person refers to the crew of the artillery. As for the soldiers of the first and fourth battalions, it is impossible to have one bottle per person, and there is not much Gandhi in the warehouse. But one big glass of rye per person can still do it.

The artillery shouted, but continued to burn red shells, aim and fire, then cleared the chambers, loaded the powder packs, stuffed them into the planks, and waited for the shells to burn red in the basin.

“Which tower is ready to attack now?” Major Skerry was pleased that his greatest concern was the enemy's three towers, which suppressed the defensive advantage of the city's walls at high altitudes, forcing a barracks of guerrillas to pile up large amounts of dirt-filled sacks in the city to cover and shelter the soldiers from enemy fire. I didn't expect to see one destroyed today. There must be two of them. I'm sure the remaining two towers haven't been rampant for long.

“The one in the middle.” Claude said.

The enemy has not yet figured out why the tower exploded and neither the soldiers nor the two artillery crews escaped. The artillery shells fired on Claude's side were red enemies that were unclear, because no one dared to stay under or next to the tower after the shelling began and feared accidental injury, so even the shells that hit the tower fell below quickly became cold and no one noticed. The enemy thought it was the soldiers inside the Siege Tower who accidentally set fire to the powder before exploding...

But now that the four guns in the defensive towers on both sides are aimed at the siege tower in the middle, the enemy finally figured out what was going on. Although it is more than eighty meters apart, the screams from the siege tower can still be distinguished. It should be an enemy who wants to take the shell that fell on the ground next to the Siege Tower and was burned. This also makes the enemy understand why the Siege Tower next to him exploded...

Coincidentally, this should be a small chance of hitting, and after three gunshots from this side, the distant tower in the middle of the siege uploaded a shout from the enemy, followed by several enemy soldiers coming out of the bottom of the siege tower. They were kind of fateful, because there was a cry for help, and then like a slow motion, the spark flashed in the middle, and soon exploded, like the burning siege tower next to them, all turned into a fire pile...

Soldiers cheered again on the walls. Four artillery guns in this defensive tower did not need Claude's orders, and automatically turned the target to the last remaining attack tower on the left. Although it was almost evening and the sky was dark, the flames emanating from the burning of those two fire heaps clearly distinguished the two cannon windows in the middle of the last siege tower.

Major Skerry couldn't help but laugh with his big mouth: “It's time for all the crew to remember the second level of merit, it's a great feat! ”

Claude said, "Sir, I think you'd better give each of them another bottle of Gandhi. You know, they shelled the first siege tower a day ago. But as soon as you come and tell them that you reward each of them with a bottle of Gandhi, they will destroy the second Siege Tower in less than half an hour...”

Of course, Claude is talking about fun. It takes a lot of luck to shoot fist-sized shells so far apart into two tiny cannon windows in the middle of the enemy's attack tower. After all, the cannon is not a gun that targets the shooting performance accurately. At present, it is impossible to point where it is. It is a coincidence that the attack tower in the middle was just destroyed.

Finally, the siege tower on the left has stopped shelling and the enemy inside can be seen running out, some with gunpowder buckets in their hands.

Claude immediately ordered the three artillery shells on the wall to be fired, covering the bottom of the enemy's attack tower, leaving the enemy with nowhere to run. Unfortunately, however, the enemy, despite leaving several bodies behind, escaped under the cover of nearby wooden platoons and even pulled down two light infantry artillery cannons from the siege tower.

Marky comes out of the defensive tower and asks Claude if he wants to continue shelling the last tower?

Claude ordered the shelling to continue with his face, or with a red shell. The answer is simple: the enemy uses logs outside the siege tower and moisturizes mud to prevent shelling, but it must have a wood structure inside it, so long as it ignites, then you don't have to worry about the enemy using the siege tower again...