Fox of France

The British on the armored train had noticed that the rails ahead were broken, so the train began to slow down, while the infantry on the train began to prepare to dismount and fight.

The wheels of the train creaked and creaked because of the friction with the rails, and the train trembled and slowed down sharply. The soldiers on the train grabbed other things around them to maintain their balance.

The braking performance of the armored train was good, and it slowly came to a stop very close to the section where the railway was destroyed. The soldiers all took their weapons and prepared to get off the train and fight. At this moment, a series of cannons rang out.

The two 40mm long-barreled guns of the Independent Army fired first. Their target was the power car for British armored trains. Armored trains are different from ordinary trains, and the power cars are generally in the middle. In order to avoid damage to the most important power car due to the pressing of landmines.

But in front of the cannon, this arrangement is useless. Two 40mm armor-piercing bullets easily penetrated the thin layer of armor hanging outside the cylinder of the power vehicle to resist rifle bullets. In front of the 40mm armor-piercing bullets, they were as fragile as a layer of paper .

After the cylinder was pierced by the shell, the cylinder exploded, and high-pressure steam spewed out immediately, covering everything including the cab of the train with white steam. Later, when cleaning the battlefield, the soldiers of the Independent Army discovered that the drivers and boiler workers in the cab were directly cooked by steam.

After the 40mm gun fired, the other guns also fired violently at the armored train. When using a 60mm sprint tube, because of the relatively low muzzle velocity, the penetration of the 60mm shell is far inferior to that of the 40mm shell. However, the 60mm armor-piercing bullet is still enough to penetrate the armored train passenger compartment, and can only withstand the armor of rifle bullets.

The French army has begun to equip high-explosive shells, but high-explosive shells are still very expensive, so the Irish can still use high-explosive shells, or high-explosive shells. The armor-piercing anti-personnel bomb, because it mainly relies on the fragments of the shell after it penetrates the armor, does not require fuzes and explosives. In contrast, it is much cheaper.

The British armored train has a total of six carriages, and the middle two are power cars and tender cars. At either end of them are crew cars, and at each end of the crew car is a fire compartment equipped with two cannons.

According to the plan, an important task of the artillery of the Independent Army was to attack the passenger compartment before the British soldiers got off the vehicle. According to the results of the experiment by the French, if one or two rounds of armor-piercing bullets can be used to shoot the passenger compartment before the British soldiers get off the vehicle, the entire army in the compartment that has not had time to get off the vehicle can be destroyed almost immediately. out of combat.

The fact is also the same as the results of the experiment by the French. Several cannons fired several salvos at the passenger car, and then saw a few bloody and distraught British soldiers running down from above.

These British people didn't even have guns, they just ran around, even forgetting that there were minefields around them, and many British soldiers stepped on landmines themselves.

At this time, the British fire compartment reacted and began to fire at the artillery of the Independence Army. However, due to the rush of shooting, several shells failed to hit effectively. At this time, the infantrymen of the Independent Army waved their guns and rushed towards the British armored train that was paralyzed and unable to move.

Just relying on a few cannons on the fire carriage cannot stop the infantry's charge. Because of their inability to form continuous firepower. The combat effectiveness of armored trains lies largely in the infantry carried in the carriages. But now it was obvious that the infantry could not count on it, so the soldiers of the Independence Army rushed to the front soon. Entered the shooting blind spot of the guns on the fire carriage.

Soldiers were about to throw grenades at the struggling enemy. But suddenly they found that the enemy's artillery stopped, and a white shirt was picked out with a bayonet and shook towards them. They also heard a voice shouting: "Don't shoot! Don't shoot! We surrender! !"

The British surrendered so simply, which surprised the soldiers a bit. Generally speaking, the combat ability and fighting will of the authentic British army far exceeds that of the security forces. Rarely have they surrendered so readily.

But when the soldiers walked into the passenger compartment and saw the damage caused by the armor-piercing anti-personnel bombs inside, everyone understood why the British surrendered so easily.

"That (crew car) was pretty miserable inside. The shells went through the outer armor, and when they went in, they splintered like a shotgun bullet. Ah, no, this thing is better than a shotgun The bullets are much more powerful. Each bullet from a shotgun is equal to at most one bullet from a revolver. But this is an artillery shell, and after penetrating armor, even small fragments it produces can still kill a person. Penetrate and then kill another. And those larger fragments can penetrate several people, and even after three or four people, bounce off the armor plate on the other side and kill a person.

The people inside the carriage were so dense that when they were shelled, the people inside had nowhere to hide. The continuous shelling also made it too late for them to even get out of the car. In a carriage, except for a limited few people, most of the British were killed or seriously injured in the shelling. It can be said that in those few rounds of shelling, at least three-quarters of the more than 300 soldiers in the two British carriages lost their combat effectiveness. It can be said that this round of rapid fire will determine the success or failure of the battle.

The soldiers of the Independent Army left the dead or wounded British in place, then used explosives to completely destroy the armored train, and then left the railway line with the prisoners and trophies.

In the next month or so, the Independent Army mobilized more than 100 battalions to launch sabotage campaigns on many railway lines throughout Ireland. Successfully pulled out hundreds of British strongholds, killed and wounded more than 6,000 British soldiers, destroyed 13 armored trains, and seized a large number of weapons.

In this battle, there was also a situation that was rarely seen before, that is, in this battle, whether it was casualties or the number of prisoners, the British army greatly exceeded the security forces. Many security forces avoided the battle with the excuse of "the phone is broken and can't hear at all", (it is said that some security forces cut the telephone line by themselves, and then the telephone line was destroyed by the independent army so that they could not accept it. It's time to order.) So they basically didn't suffer much damage except for losing a lot of weapons.

However, in the British battle report, their losses are still very staggering. Including Captain Jarvis, their team reported that they had been attacked by the Independence Army, and suffered heavy casualties. Almost half of their men died, and even only one-third of them died. After all, the authentic British gentlemen have suffered so many deaths and injuries. If the security forces are unscathed, how can they explain to the British? Doesn't that clearly say that he has colluded with the Independent Army? Therefore, they had to exaggerate their losses, which proved that when the British princes were besieged by rebels, they still rushed to help them.

Of course, dead Irish vigilantes are basically dead souls. In other words, they are all people who only exist on the salary roster, but do not exist in reality. They all have a common name: "Empty pay."

The British suffered another setback and retreated back to the main cities. And Athlone, who had caused the Independent Army a big loss not long ago, began to be isolated. Although they were not besieged again, the continuous destruction of the railway line made supplies here more and more difficult.

"Damn it, where is our fleet? If we can't stop the French from supporting the rebels, we will bleed dry in the swamps of Ireland!" Facing the predicament, the Duke of Norfolk turned on the blame mode, He desperately smashed the black pot on the head of the British Navy.

There's no way around this, the situation is getting close to getting out of control, if you don't throw the blame at this time, how will you mess around in the future? Just like the king of understanding in later generations, as long as the polls lag behind, he will scold the rabbit. The more the lagging behind, the more scapegoats will be thrown at the little white rabbit, and the more imagination is needed.

However, the Duke of Norfolk did not know that at this time, Nelson's fleet was facing great danger.

In order to keep abreast of the intelligence from North America, the French Navy dispatched several cruisers carrying radio equipment to cruise the Atlantic Ocean and serve as temporary radio signal transfer stations.

Using this system, the French quickly learned about the situation of the British fleet, especially the "Queen Elizabeth".

"Joseph, look at the new information. The 'Queen Elizabeth' is severely damaged and cannot sail at high speed. The squadron is currently on its way back. Do you want us to..."

"You mean, should we take advantage of others' danger?" Joseph was telling his daughter a story at this time, but when he heard Napoleon's words, he stopped and asked.

"Father, what happened to Snow White?" asked little Alice.

"Ah, didn't I tell you? Did the prince and princess live happily ever after?" Joseph said.

"What happened after that?" The daughter didn't want to end like this, so she asked again.

"After that? Of course he died." Joseph said.

"How did she die? Another witch gave her a poisoned apple?"

"There are no witches, but people will always grow old and die. Snow White must not die, so she must also become an old witch!" Joseph touched Alice's head with a smile, and said: "Okay Alice, the story is over. Well, go and play by yourself for a while, I have something to discuss with your Uncle Napoleon."

Alice ran out and closed the door intimately.

"I want to send out our main fleet, intercept them, and destroy them. If only we can find them at sea and destroy them, we can gain a decisive advantage over the British Navy. And force them to make further concessions to us."

"Who is the commander of the British fleet?" Joseph asked.

"General Nelson. He has performed well in a series of previous military operations." Napoleon replied.

Hearing this name, Joseph hesitated again. Although according to Napoleon's idea, the French fleet is far higher than that of Nelson's fleet in terms of tonnage and equipment level. But just the name Nelson was enough to make Joseph hesitate.

But after thinking about it for a long time, Joseph finally sucked in his determination:

"Compared to Nelson's fleet, we are larger in scale, better equipped, and in better condition. This is simply a flying dragon... Bah, bah, bah, you can't talk nonsense like this." Joseph thought so, and said: "You can try, but don't suffer."

The two talked for a long time, and determined the general principles. The next thing is the matter of Admiral Treville.

Seeing this plan, I got my elder brother's blessing. Well, Napoleon became more confident in this operation when he found out.

"As we all know, Joseph is a coward. He won't talk nonsense about uncertain things." Napoleon thought.

Today, of course, France and England are at peace. If you want to attack the British, although everyone can see that you are taking advantage of the danger, you still need to find a reason and an excuse. It would be nice if Britain and France bordered each other, then the French could find a batch of death row prisoners and wear the clothes of the British army...

However, this issue also does not require Napoleon to use his brain, just let Lucien and Talleyrand discuss it.

After discussing with Talleyrand, Lucien and Talleyrand came back and said to Napoleon: "We will send a warship, preferably a relatively important warship, to visit England, um, the kind that shows off its might. Then, the British will definitely There were protests against us. Then we let the ship blow up in the British port and it sank. Then we blamed it, saying that the British blew up our warship, and then proposed a Loads of demands they couldn't possibly agree to, and an ultimatum to them. Then legally go to war with the British."

"What kind of warship do you think is suitable?" Napoleon asked.

"Preferably a super cruiser," replied Lucien.

"Nonsense, you really don't know how distressed you are at all! Do you know how expensive a super cruiser is?" Napoleon said dissatisfiedly, "And super cruisers are also an important force in the battle, so they can't be wasted like this. Well, send an armored cruiser That's enough. Really, it's just an excuse anyway. Who doesn't know that's an excuse? Besides, if the British attack our ship, even if it's just a patrol boat that sinks, that's enough excuse."