Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 193 Land Artillery, Naval Artillery, Coastal Artillery
Upon hearing Wang Gensheng's salute, the Fourth Field Army commander returned the salute, then looked at the two thousand men Wang Gensheng had brought, and then at the sea not far from Tashan. However, it was clear that he did not see the warship that Wang Gensheng had captured.

So he asked:
"I heard you captured one of Old Man Ji's warships. So where is your warship? Without a warship, what use are your two thousand men? I don't need one or two thousand men!"

Indeed, the Fourth Field Army commander had heard of Wang Gensheng's exploits in destroying and capturing warships in Qinhuangdao, but he found that Wang Gensheng had not brought the warships with him, and only saw his two thousand men.

However, in the eyes of the Fourth Field Army commander, Wang Gensheng's two thousand elite troops were nothing. His Fourth Field Army now had 700,000 men, so how could he care about Wang Gensheng's two thousand men?
What he cared about was the inability to deal with the warships at sea, to which Wang Gensheng simply smiled and said:
"Although we didn't bring warships, we did bring secret weapons. Sinking a few warships shouldn't be a problem!"

Seeing that Wang Gensheng had said this, the commander of the Fourth Field Army naturally couldn't say anything more. After all, Wang Gensheng was directly under the command of the General Headquarters. Moreover, the commander of the Fourth Field Army also understood that it was unrealistic to bombard Chiang Kai-shek's fleet with a captured warship.

So even though the commanders of the Fourth Field Army heard Wang Gensheng boast that sinking a few warships would be no problem, they didn't really count on Wang Gensheng's navy and instead continued to look at the map.

Wang Gensheng did not disturb them. The Fourth Field Army commander pondered the situation and went to an inconspicuous spot on the coast to wait for the arrival of Lao Ji's warship.

Of course, the Fourth Field Army commander also understood that land artillery was no match for naval guns, so he did not expect the infantry guns he brought to be able to retaliate against the naval guns. Therefore, he could only order the soldiers to dig deep trenches so that the soldiers' trenches could withstand the bombardment of the warships' guns.

In fact, there have been instances of land artillery and naval artillery exchanging fire. In April 1949, during the Liberation Army's crossing of the Yangtze River campaign, the British Navy's HMS Amethyst attempted to block the Liberation Army's crossing, and the Liberation Army responded by sending artillery units to retaliate.

According to records, the PLA's land artillery directly crippled the HMS Amethyst frigate. Subsequently, the British Navy dispatched the cruiser HMS London and the frigate HMS Black Swan for support, and they once again exchanged fire with the PLA artillery.

It was this exchange of fire between the PLA and the Royal Navy that completely dispelled the idea of ​​the British military intervening in the PLA's crossing of the Yangtze River. Although the PLA demonstrated its military might, it also suffered more than 200 casualties.

The advantages of naval guns actually lie mainly in their rate of fire and automatic fire control system. First, in terms of rate of fire, naval guns have a significantly higher rate of fire than land-based guns. Moreover, the barrels of naval guns cool down much faster, while the average rate of fire for land-based guns is generally six to eight rounds. However, if more than ten rounds are fired, the rate of fire will slow down significantly because the barrels of land-based guns will overheat at this point, making it almost impossible to maintain a high rate of fire. In fact, after overheating, they can only maintain one to two rounds per minute.

Naval guns, on the other hand, do not have this problem because they have "cheats" when it comes to cooling. The reason why naval guns can fire continuously is mainly because they can use seawater for circulating cooling, which is somewhat similar to the water cooling system in a computer case.

It's important to note that the naval gun's cooling system doesn't use actual seawater, but rather desalinated freshwater. It's precisely this use of freshwater that allows the gun to maintain a reasonable temperature, enabling continuous firing. In reality, a properly functioning naval gun, if it can maintain a suitable temperature, can fire hundreds of rounds continuously—a capability that land-based artillery often struggles to match.

The second advantage is the automated loading system, which is even more impressive.

Actually, automatic loading is not a new thing. However, the word "automation" means increased size, which would further reduce the mobility of land-based artillery. Therefore, in order to improve mobility, automatic loading had to be canceled.

But for naval guns, this is not an issue at all. Therefore, almost all naval guns are automatically loaded, while land-based guns can only be loaded manually, which creates a huge speed advantage.

Because of the differences in automatic loading and cooling, many people say that a single naval gun can withstand an entire artillery battalion. Although this statement seems exaggerated, it is indeed true. For example, if an artillery battalion has eight cannons, then under continuous firing conditions, the average rate of fire can only be maintained at around twenty rounds.

This is not the rate of fire of one cannon firing twenty rounds, but the rate of fire of eight cannons combined with twenty rounds.

However, with a cooling system and automatic mode, firing twenty to thirty rounds per minute is still quite easy. Moreover, warships can move, but land-based artillery isn't as mobile.

Moreover, naval guns are protected by turrets, so ordinary shells don't cause any damage when they land on them, but land-based guns are a different story.

Of course, there are also land-based artillery pieces that are more powerful than naval guns, such as coastal defense guns with fixed firing positions.

Unlike mobile land-based artillery, this type of gun has a fixed location, so in order to increase the protective capabilities of the coastal defense gun, it is equipped with an extremely heavy turret.

Its protective capabilities are naturally far superior to those of naval guns.

Of course, this type of coastal defense artillery also has its drawbacks: it cannot be moved and can only protect targets within a certain range.

Therefore, they are usually only set up in important locations, such as river mouths, like the Dagu Forts.

Just as Wang Gensheng was watching the construction of defensive fortifications at Tashan, Liu Xiu, who was in charge of observing the sea, suddenly said to Wang Gensheng:
"Commander, the commander is here! Old Jing's fleet is here! There are five warships in total, and the largest one should be the Congqing that the commander mentioned."

Wang Gensheng showed no mercy, immediately putting on rubber hoses, flippers, and hand webs before diving into a cruising torpedo.

That's right. Although the battle hasn't started yet, Wang Gensheng doesn't intend to let the Congqing ship bombard the enemy first before making his move.

Instead, the goal was to sink the Congqing before it could fire on the Tashan.

After all, the Qing had eight 152mm guns and twelve 102mm guns.

Such a round of shelling could result in at least a hundred casualties, and possibly even a thousand.

Therefore, Wang Gensheng cannot allow them to be so arrogant. As long as he sinks one warship, especially the fleet's flagship, the Qing, the remaining ships will probably flee immediately.

Even if they don't flee, they dare not attack anymore, and some warships are still carrying a large number of soldiers!

If a ship were sunk, the consequences would be unimaginable.

With the roar of the torpedo engine, the cruise torpedo, propelled by its propeller, left the beach and headed straight for the fleet.

(End of this chapter)