I became a witch, but I started the industrial revolution

Chapter 18: Artillery debut, first battle victory

She didn't have to wait long. When the last ray of sunlight on the horizon fell into the earth, the war between the two sides began.

Under the watchful eyes of Medea in the distance, Ovinia's army continued to absorb and gather the fire elements contained in the surrounding heaven and earth, and a giant flaming bird quickly took shape in the sky.

Then, under the guidance of the Ovinia Mage Corps, it slammed heavily into the defense line set up by Harlem City. The high temperature of thousands of degrees melted all the barbed wire in the range and smashed a huge gap.

"Target spotted, artillery ready!"

Behind Medea, the soldiers of the artillery regiment moved quickly, and the sackcloth around them was pulled off one by one.

With a group of six people and the horses pulling hard, the huge weapon hidden in the shadows was finally exposed under the moonlight amid the teeth-grinding "squeaking" sound of dragging.

“坐标确定，方位：1-7-3-0，范围：0-4-7-5。”

"Location: 1-7-3-0, confirmed."

"Range: 4-7-5-0, confirmed."

"Aim - Fire!"

Tens of thousands of Ovinian infantrymen and auxiliary soldiers carrying wooden boards and sandbags rushed frantically to the gap left by the extinguished sea of ​​fire, trying to pave the way for the heavy cavalry behind them.

“Bang! Bang!!”

The loud noises and sharp whistles made some soldiers subconsciously raise their heads.

"What is that?"

In the pitch-black night, they could not see clearly what was making the sharp sound in the sky. Before they could dispel their doubts, a bright light suddenly appeared behind them.

"Boom!"

The dense explosions and the violent shaking of the ground made most of the soldiers lie on the ground subconsciously. Some of them looked back and saw that the camp behind them was already engulfed in flames.

They slowly stood up with lingering fear:

"Goddess bless you, what is this! Is it the magic of the magician on the other side?!"

"I don't know! But luckily we weren't there..."

"Bang bang bang..."

Before he could finish, tiny flames suddenly burst out from the dark and silent front, dense noises rang out, and a large number of the densely packed crowd suddenly fell down.

From Medea's perspective, a sea of ​​fire suddenly exploded behind and around the direction where the magic had just been fired.

"4-2, distance reduced by 50."

'Shrink 50, load and prepare...'

Three minutes later, the second round of artillery shells hit the Ovinian army again. This time most of them hit that area, and Medea felt relieved.

In three minutes, this group of magicians should not be able to run far, so they can only kill some casualties, and they probably won't dare to show up again in a short period of time.

Thinking of this, she couldn't help but turn her head to look at the huge monster beside her.

The 150mm heavy rifled cannon has a combat weight of 22 tons, a barrel length of 7.3 meters and a weight of 10 tons, and a gun mount counterweight of 12 tons. It is the largest caliber artillery that Media can currently produce.

The range is 15 km. The cradle and elevation mechanism allow the elevation angle of the gun barrel to be controlled between 0° and +45°. A high-explosive shell weighs nearly 150 kilograms. A team of people is only enough to turn it, and it is impossible to move it by pulling it. It can be regarded as a fixed turret for city defense.

Even with the transportation tool of steam locomotive, they only got six in nearly a month. Although they have railways, the land roads are still dirt roads, so they can't transport too much.

At this time, Nipalmo was in great confusion. The Ovinia Mage Corps had suffered heavy losses, and nearly half of the magicians did not escape.

Because the shells did not emit any magical fluctuations, they had no idea how to defend against them. They even thought that there was a magician behind them attacking them and were busy defending themselves, which resulted in their evacuation being a step late.

The 10,000 men who led Nipalmo to explore the way were soon defeated and fled by the musketeers, leaving behind thousands of corpses and wounded.

The defeated soldiers attacked Nipalmo's main camp, causing a riot. The situation was barely stabilized until the supervision team killed a group of them.

Medea, who was watching the battle from a distance, felt regretful. Her combat strategy was relatively conservative. She had not thought of the tactic of counter-charge and missed the opportunity to blow up Nipalmo's camp.

Nipalmo's army was in chaos for a while, and it was not until the second half of the night that it calmed down. Nipalmo did not launch another attack, probably because he was afraid of Astar's strange equipment.

Under the command of Medea, some engineers secretly rearranged two barbed wire defense lines before dawn, and took the opportunity to kill the soldiers who were still alive.

The night passed quickly, and after dawn, Nipalmo organized another attack. This time, he did not let the mage regiment take risks, but sent out the heavy infantry regiment.

More than 5,000 heavily armored heavy infantrymen pulled long lines and carried tower shields at the front, forming a safety wall for tens of thousands of auxiliary soldiers and archers behind them.

The shield wall pushed forward, the auxiliary soldiers in the rear dismantled the barbed wire and sandbags to fill the pit, and the archers kept shooting arrows to suppress possible attacks.

In response, Medea just smiled and said, "Artillery Regiment, get ready!"

‘火炮准备完毕，参考坐标 4-8-7-6-7-6，完毕。’

‘收到，4-8-7-6-7-6确认。’

"Bang! Bang! Bang..."

Everyone who heard the familiar sound couldn't help but shudder. In the distance, Nipalmo was floating in the void, looking at the direction where the sound came from with his eyes wide open.

This time he finally saw the culprit who had killed half of his mage corps last night, because of the magic fluctuations that only appeared when the object exploded on the ground.

This time, instead of blowing up his magic group, they directly started bombarding the infantrymen who were charging at him with artillery fire.

The destructive range radius of the magic high-explosive bomb exceeds twelve meters, and anything hit within six meters will be turned into a paste.

Within a range of twelve meters, the double shock wave of magic and air can cause any living creature it touches to die in agony due to shattered internal organs.

The heavy infantry at the front were not immune to such an attack. Before the stunned soldiers could recover, dense bullets began to take their lives.

Moreover, that shrill and terrifying sound also exploded rhythmically all over the battlefield, far exceeding the speed at which the Mage Corps released magic in their previous impression.

There were bullets raining and bombs in front, and a supervision team holding sharp blades in the back. There was death all around, and soon some soldiers suffered a mental breakdown.

"Devils! There are devils! They are all devils!"

"Don't hit me! Don't hit me!"

"I want to go home!"

A large-scale rout began, and the supervisory team was unable to control the situation.

In fact, the casualties of the Ovinian army on the front battlefield were not very tragic, about 20%

After all, Medea only had six guns, and the damage it could cause to tens of thousands of enemies was actually very limited.

But the proportion of casualties that traditional feudal armies could withstand was too low. If there were no supervision teams waiting behind them, they would have retreated when the casualties exceeded 10%.

Nipalmo gritted his teeth and looked at the strange giants spewing flames in the distance, but he could do nothing about it.

The distance is too far, the magic of the mage group can't hit it, unless he uses instant magic at close range to hit it, it should be feasible

But no matter how skilled and courageous he was, it was impossible for him to cross the entire battlefield and run to the enemy base camp to do this. He could only hold his anger and withdraw.

He can't fight this battle now, he must find out what's going on with the Astar territory on the opposite side!

Chapter 19 Hal Meat Grinder, Meteor Falls

Nipalmo urgently applied to the kingdom in the rear to transfer a batch of magic crystal cannons to the front line. He needed this heavy weapon to break the stalemate between the two sides.

This world has magic crystal cannons forged by magic alchemy, but the magic crystal cannons are only similar to artillery in appearance. The Astar Territory itself has two of these things.

Unlike the artillery on Media's side, the magic crystal cannon has a large number of magic arrays engraved inside the barrel, and finally it is charged with magic crystals and gathered into an energy beam before being fired. It is a completely different concept from artillery.

But one thing is the same, that is, they are both very bulky, so Nipalmo's application to return to Ovinia was directly rejected by King III.

Because of the long distance, it is simply unrealistic to transport such a large thing.

However, Ovinia III also understood his dilemma from his report and said that he would loan half of the Royal Magic Corps stationed in the capital to him and would set out to provide support soon.

After receiving the reply, Nipalmo realized that he could only rely on himself on the front battlefield. He made up his mind to adjust the battle plan, withdrew the remaining elite soldiers, and transferred the auxiliary troops to the front line.

Nipalmo was prepared to use the hundreds of thousands of auxiliary troops in logistics as cannon fodder, and to sacrifice their lives for him to create a defensive breakthrough in the Hal Line.

This method is very vicious, but it is effective.

Although there were a large number of auxiliary troops, they were called soldiers, but in fact they were just a group of young and strong poor people and slaves who were conscripted to the battlefield to transport supplies.

They were not given any weapons, let alone any armor, and had to bring their own food.

Nipalmo didn't feel sorry for their deaths. He just needed to recruit a group of poor people and slaves to transport supplies to the rear.

When Medea saw this group of ordinary people in thin clothes and without weapons being driven towards the death charge on the battlefield the next day, his heart skipped a beat.

Staff officer Frick standing next to her also saw this scene and sneered: "As expected of Prince Nipalmo, this is a really despicable move."

Anna asked him, "Are our ammunition reserves sufficient?"

Frick shook his head. "The intensity was already a bit tight before, and it's definitely not enough now. There are too many of them."

Medea was not surprised to hear this answer. It would take hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition to kill hundreds of thousands of pigs standing there for you, not to mention that they are people who can run and hide.

Moreover, Nipalmo didn't really want them to die in vain. Every once in a while, he would only send out one or two teams of a thousand men to disperse the charge, and from time to time he would organize an attack of ten thousand men led by a small number of elite soldiers.

The bullet consumption increases exponentially when shooting at scattered targets on such a huge battlefield. With the current speed at which Astell obtains magic crystal ore, it cannot keep up with such consumption.

The most important thing is that Ovinia's elite army has been waiting in the rear, gathering strength and ready to be deployed at any time, which has caused great mental pressure on Lord Astar.

From time to time, the forward positions were taken away by Ovinia, and then they were reoccupied. In the contact battle, the Medea army began to suffer losses.

Most of the soldiers under her command were ordinary people. Once Ovinia's elite soldiers got close to them, two or three of them working together could easily kill her entire company.

It has to be said that although the tactic of adding fuel to the fire is old-fashioned, it can indeed work wonders if used well.

During this period, the auxiliary soldiers in Ovinia's camp did start riots, but they were all quickly suppressed by Nipalmo.

According to the wartime law, if a soldier deserted the battlefield, his entire family would have to pay for the deserter's crime, and the entire family would be declassified and become slaves.

Men would be dragged to mines or battlefields to be cannon fodder, and women would naturally be sent to be official prostitutes, and the entire family would never be able to be reborn.

Even if there are people who are desperate to risk their lives, the heavily armored knights under Nipalmo cannot kill the enemy, but they are definitely more than enough to kill these unarmed slaves.

Time passed in the bloody tug-of-war day by day, and half a month passed in the blink of an eye.

The Hal defense line was now a veritable meat grinder.

The 2st Astar Division was crippled and retreated to the rear for repairs, and the newly mobilized 3-rd Division took over the position.

Although the number of defenders doubled, the pressure did not decrease at all, because Nipalmo also gradually brought his elite troops forward.

At this time, due to long-term and intensive use, four of the six heavy artillery had lost their combat capability, and the remaining two had reduced their firing frequency.

They all have the problem of the barrel rifling being worn out and the barrel needs to be replaced, which cannot be solved in a short time.