Fox of France

But at this time, the military dogs deployed by the British came into play. They barked wildly.

"All units pay attention to vigilance! All units pay attention to vigilance! Anti-infantry directional mines are ready! Cannons are ready to load shotguns!" Battalion Commander Richard immediately picked up a microphone and shouted when he heard the barking of the military dogs. After speaking, Colonel Edward Stamford, who was about to leave, also stopped.

"They're coming!" said Colonel Edward Stamford, opening his eyes wide, trying to see through the fog and behind it. Of course, the dense fog hadn't dispersed yet, so he could vaguely see a distance of twenty or thirty meters ahead.

After the sound of the dog barking, the Irish naturally knew that the British were prepared at this time. But they still spread out in a loose formation, holding the explosive packs and continuing to move forward with the blasting barrel.

Visibility is only more than 20 meters, at most 30 meters. One dash, and you can rush up. In this era, there is no big killer like a machine gun, and the only alternatives are cannons that fire shotguns and anti-infantry directional mines like broadswords.

The fire density of these two things is of course very sufficient, but the firepower persistence is much worse. If the enemy rushes up a large group of people at once, the effect of these things is no worse than a machine gun. However, if there are not many enemies coming up in the first wave, and after a round of fighting, the second wave comes up again immediately, then the firepower continuity of this configuration will be very problematic.

More importantly, the barbed wire fence was a full forty or fifty meters away from the fortress. This is a very suitable distance in normal times. At this distance, rifles, directional mines, and artillery shells all have a fairly good hit rate.

But at this time, the barbed wire was hidden in the mist, completely invisible.

The British hung a lot of bells on the barbed wire. As long as the bell rings, it means that someone is working on the barbed wire. However, this design is aimed at the nighttime situation. When you hear movement at night, searchlights will shine on it, and then rifles, artillery shells, and directional mines can fire as needed. But at this time, it was shrouded in thick fog, and the searchlights were useless at this time.

The Irishman was soon at the barbed wire. They took out wire cutters from their backpacks, first carefully removed the bell from the barbed wire, and then used the wire cutters to destroy the barbed wire, cutting gaps in the barbed wire.

Of course, in the middle of this, someone still rang the bell.

"Sir? What should I do?" Commander Richard asked.

"Shoot, let the soldiers shoot where the bell is ringing! But don't move the directional mines and artillery!" Colonel Edward Stamford said.

So the British began to crackle and shoot. Just because they couldn't see the target, these blind shots didn't bring too much hindrance to the fighters of the Irish Independence Army.

"Jerry, don't worry, the British are just emboldening themselves." The Independent Army platoon leader Matra, who was a little behind and holding a blasting tube, whispered beside him, holding a gun in his hand. Said the soldier with the bayonet-mounted rifle.

"I know, I'm not nervous," replied the soldier, his hands gripping the rifle so hard his knuckles turned white from the exertion.

Matera chuckled and said nothing, but turned her gaze to the widening gap in the barbed wire.

"Let the soldiers mount their bayonets," said Colonel Edward Stamford. "The enemy is about to charge! We may well be fighting with bayonets!"

The order was passed on, and the British soldiers began to bayonet and prepared to rush out of the trenches to engage in a bayonet battle with the Irish rebels.

"Our level of bayonet warfare is not comparable to that of the rebels. We will definitely win by relying on bayonet warfare." Colonel Edward Stamford encouraged his subordinates. But at the same time he cursed the damn weather in his heart. Because he knew that training in bayonet warfare was important, but morale was even more important. Judging from his experience in dealing with the Irish, the training level of the Irish is indeed mostly inferior to that of the British army, even the "main force" of Ireland; but their morale is surprisingly high, even those bandits in this way.

A team, if its morale is high enough, can withstand greater casualties in hand-to-hand combat. As for hand-to-hand combat, as long as one side's morale does not collapse, and then is chased and hacked by others, the exchange ratio will not be much greater anyway. Colonel Edward Stamford was indeed sure that in a hand-to-hand fight of equal numbers the exchange ratio would prevail. However, he only has a few more people here, and there are tens of thousands of rebels! If the losses in hand-to-hand combat are too great, the commander of the city defense, General Wilson, will definitely find trouble for himself...

At this time, some faint figures had appeared in the sight of the British army. These sparse figures rushed towards the British army's position, and at the same time threw grenades towards the British army.

The British soldiers shot at these people, or threw grenades at them. Many Irishmen were knocked to the ground, but because the distance between the two sides was too close, some Irishmen rushed up holding explosive packs and blasting barrels. Then, with a bang of explosions, some bunkers, together with the British troops in the bunkers, flew into the sky in the explosion.

At this time, more figures appeared in the mist!

"Fire, fire! Use directional mines!" shouted Battalion Commander Richard.

The further back guns blared, shot knocked some Irishmen to the ground, and some directional mines blared. However, because the wave of explosives and blasting tubes fired by the Irish in front also destroyed a lot of directional mines, although this round of salvo caused a lot of damage to the Irish, it did not stop them from moving forward. rush. At this time, the British's artillery and directional mines were too late to fight the second round.

In fact, even the number of Irishmen who rushed up in the second round was not particularly large. It was only because of the cover of the thick fog and the influence of the nervous mood that the British made the illusion that there were many people rushing up this round. But in this round of shelling and directional mine bombardment, not as many Irish people died as the British imagined.

"Load the bayonet! Counter-shock! The artillery covers the No. 2 target area!" Watching the Irish who rushed up again, Colonel Edward Stamford ordered.

If the Irish are allowed to rush up again and have a meal of explosives, the loss will be really too great. So Colonel Edward Stamford decided to counterattack immediately with a bayonet and beat the Irish down.

Now under the influence of the depraved French, the originally abundant military virtues of the European army have gradually degenerated. Even things with abundant martial virtues such as fighting bayonets have begun to become unbearable.

In the days when "bullets are fools, bayonets are heroes", everyone used bayonets to speak honestly. That is a pure man, a real man! But now, the rules have been broken by the French. They invented the mixed bayonet and shotgun in the bayonet battle. The bayonet is still called a bayonet in name, but it has become a troll in essence. This is really unbearable for Fella, unbearable for Fella!

Now the whole of Europe, including Britain and Ireland, has been affected by the French's unbearable tactics, so their bayonet fighting teams have similar configurations, basically two rifles with bayonets and one Take a pump action shotgun. Then there was a burst of shotgun bangs on the battlefield.

At the same time, the British artillery continued to bombard the passage where the Irish reinforcements might come up, shelling with shrapnel. To say this, the completely blind bombardment is of course not efficient, but it still caused some difficulties for the Irish follow-up troops to attack. Therefore, the British still forced the Irish rebels back by bayonet fighting and held the first place. line of defense.

After repelling the Irish's first round of attack, Colonel Edward Stamford saw that the fog had gradually dissipated, and left the front and returned to his regiment headquarters. As soon as he entered the regiment headquarters, someone told him: "Regiment commander, General Wilson asked you to go to the headquarters immediately."

Colonel Edward Stamford was at once at General Wilson's headquarters.

At this time, several other team leaders had also arrived. Seeing that Colonel Edward Stamford had also arrived, General Wilson said, "Since everyone is here now, let's all talk about the situation on our defense line."

So except for the Greve Regiment, which is the general reserve, the other regiments began to introduce the attacks they had received and their current losses. Basically, either the consumption of ammunition is huge, or the loss of personnel is huge. Some units even lost their positions.

"Everyone has noticed that due to the influence of the weather, there are some unexpected situations now." General Wilson said, "It's hard to say whether such a heavy fog will continue to appear tomorrow. If the weather is still like this in the next few days , then with today's casualties and ammunition consumption rate, our situation will be very dangerous. Do you have any suggestions for this?"

"I suggest that we immediately send a report to Dublin and Galway, requesting reinforcements. Otherwise, if the foggy weather continues, our defense is likely to have serious problems." Colonel Edward Stamford said immediately.

"However, the mission given to us is to hold here for at least a month, so that domestic reinforcements can arrive, and then..." another regiment leader said.

"Today my regiment did not lose ground, and killed quite a few rebels, but my regiment alone lost almost seventy people in this morning, plus those who were wounded and at least temporarily lost their fighting power. , there are probably nearly a hundred people. If there is such a heavy fog a few more times, my entire regiment will lose its combat effectiveness. I just heard the results reported by everyone, and the loss is not smaller than mine. According to the years I have been in Ireland According to my experience, heavy fog is common in this season. So it is entirely possible to have heavy fog for several days in a row. Once such a situation occurs, it is not impossible to lose the defense. Is it necessary for us to take such a gamble? "