Black Corporation: Joseon

Chapter 936

Episode 936: The Imperial March 2 – Charge return, run on the ground. (24)

When she first picked up the final blueprints for the ‘Assault Car Type A’ and ‘Type B’, Hyang placed her hand on her forehead and muttered.

“No matter how much I came up with the idea, what is it? “What about this horrible hybrid?”

The shape of the assault vehicle, drafted by Hyang and designed by craftsmen, was a mixture of the Saint-Chamond tank made by France during World War I and the AAW7 used by the US Marine Corps and the Korean Marine Corps in the 20th century.

To be more precise, Type A, which is equipped with siege artillery, resembles a life-and-death dream, and Type B, which is a troop transport type, resembles the shape of the AA7V turned upside down.

The steam engine and basic frame of both types A and B were the same in power and size.

The difference in space, commonly called the ‘baggage compartment’, was what differentiated Type A and Type B.

Type A was characterized by thick frontal armor in the shape of an ? when viewed from above. Additionally, the roof covering the ceiling of the open luggage compartment and the armor plates covering the sides were also thicker than Type B.

Thick armor was adopted because of the G-type characteristics of having to stand at the very front, break through trench lines, and destroy enemy defenses.

Also, there was a thin groove in the middle of the ‘?’ shaped frontal armor, and a siege gun was installed in that groove.

In the case of type B, a pentagon-shaped luggage compartment that combines a triangle and a rectangle was adopted. No, it would be more accurate to see it as a hexagon by cutting off the sharp vertex at the front.

On each of the three sides of the front line created in this way, one military-style wagon was attached to fire bullets at the enemies loitering in front of the assault vehicle.

also. There was an appropriate amount of space between the steel plate that covered the sides of the luggage compartment and the roof that covered the top. It was a vent and a kind of wall that allowed the soldiers in the luggage compartment to breathe comfortably.

Soldiers who climbed up using simple chairs made in the luggage compartment as stepping stones could fire toward the outside

.

The offense and defense of incense continued.

The engine room, located between the cockpit and the luggage compartment, was blocked front, rear, left and right with thick bulkheads. This was to prevent additional casualties from occurring if the engine was destroyed by an enemy attack, with high-temperature and high-pressure water vapor covering the cockpit and luggage compartment.

In addition, the engine room was an unmanned space. The fire outlet for putting firewood into the combustion chamber of the steam engine was opened on one side of the cockpit.

Unlike the thick front, left, and right bulkheads, the upper part of the side had a small window with blind-type spokes. The blind-type flesh blocked the fragments of enemy bullets or artillery shells, and at the same time, as mentioned above, even if the steam tank exploded and high-temperature, high-pressure steam was released, it was designed to escape directly through this window.

Placing the cockpit and engines behind the luggage compartment was also intended to increase survivability and improve mobility

.

This was because, if it had a steam engine attached to the front like a regular iron horse and was destroyed by an enemy attack, it would have to endure the loss of life that could have been caused by high-temperature, high-pressure water vapor.

However, if thicker armor was installed, there would be a problem that the mobility, which was at least that of a rabbit, would drop to that of a tortoise.

In order to break through the enemy’s trenches, the structure attached to the front and back of the car body – similar to the one attached to the butt of the Renault FT tank – had increased its weight, so it was absolutely impossible to make it even heavier.

In this way, an assault car was created and an assault force was established. Assault soldiers wearing black uniforms began calling the assault vehicles they rode “assault return ships.” There was

a plausible reason, ‘because it was surrounded by iron on all sides and the mission was the same, charging into the middle of enemy lines,’ but

there was also a different reason. .

-Because I always get motion sickness when I ride it-

* * *

The ghost face drawn on the front armor of the assault vehicle was entirely the soldiers’ idea.

“Looking at you like this, you look so calm!”

The assault troops, looking at the wide frontal armor plate without anything, could not help but get the impression that it was too calm.

“If I rush in with a gentle face like this, will the enemies be scared?”

“yes! yes!”

The soldiers greatly sympathized and soon submitted a request to their superiors.

“Ho~ That seems like it?”

In this way, the soldiers’ petition reached Wan, the emperor at the time

. And the answer that came down was simple.

-Allowed only when combat occurs.

“If you go around acting like crazy on a regular basis, who is going to take care of maintenance?”

It was the scent of MSG

* * *

As the assault vehicles with ghost faces painted on the front charged in with high smoke columns, the French soldiers in the trenches fell into a state of panic.

“It’s a monster! “The monster is coming!”

“Run away!”

The soldiers were in a semi-conscious state due to the persistent bombardment of the imperial artillery, so they did not properly perceive the situation.

“It’s a monster!”

“Run away!”

bang!

“Come to your senses!”

To calm the panicking soldiers, the French military officer held the trigger in the air and shouted, extending his hand toward the front.

“Wake! That’s not a monster! It was made by the empire! “It was made by humans!”

“Wake!”

“Come to your senses!”

“Are you the proud French Army?!”

Afterwards, several executives raised their voices to calm the soldiers. Such efforts seemed to have worked as the soldiers soon came to their senses.

“That’s right…”

“Go back to the trench! Protect the trench line!”

The French soldiers and soldiers of the Pavia Castle garrison who had run out of the trench line at the shouts of the executives jumped back into the trench line.

“Bring the cannon! Hit it with a cannon!”

At the command of the commander, the French artillerymen rushed to the hidden cannons. Some cannons were damaged by the imperial army’s persistent bombardment, and many war horses died or ran away, so the

French artillerymen had to drag the cannons out manually.

“Push! “Push!”

“Bring gunpowder! “Bring the cannonballs too!”

The French artillerymen, who had dragged the cannons to their positions with great difficulty, could not rest properly and immediately began preparations.

“No problems inside the gun barrel!”

“Load!”

After confirming that there was no problem inside through the gun barrel, the artillerymen immediately began loading gunpowder and shells.

Aiming continued while the loading was in progress, and finally, the entire procedure was completed by inserting the detonator into the percussion device and pulling the detonator back.

“launch!”

bang!

Qua! Quagwang! bang!

When the commander pulled the lanyard, the cannon fired a cannonball with a loud gunshot. Then the French cannons located nearby opened fire.

pop! Puff!

Soon, large and small earthen pillars rose up around the charging vehicles. However, because the bombardment was aimed at Mokpo as a moving target, few shells hit properly.

Empty! Boom!

A few shells hit the front armor of the assault vehicle approaching in front, but bounced in vain into the air.

“Holy shit!”

“Keep doing it!”

“Guess it right!”

bang! Quack! bang!

Under the urging of their commanders, the French artillery reloaded and targeted the assault vehicles.

“What are the freight cars doing?”

“Fire on the freight cars too!”

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

After a while, the fire from the freight cars began to rain down on the assault trucks.

The assault cars advanced silently under heavy fire from the French army’s cannons and freight cars.

Among them, unlucky assault vehicles also began to appear one by one. Although the French army’s artillery shell did not penetrate the armor, it was destroyed in an endless orbit and stopped.

As a result, assault vehicles also responded.

Squeak! Let’s go! Hey!

After spotting the French artillery, the assault car types stopped moving forward and turned their bodies toward the French battery they had targeted.

After completing fine tuning by turning the car body at an appropriate angle and moving the gun barrel, the assault car type 2 immediately burst into flames.

bang! Quack!

One by one, the French artillery guns on the trench line began to fall silent due to the bombardment of the assault vehicles.

* * *

It was inevitable that the A-type assault vehicle had a similar appearance and main gun placement to the Saint-Chamond tank.

“If you put a rotating armored turret on an assault vehicle powered by a steam engine, it literally turns into a land battleship. This is impossible. A land battleship is a dream, but… a dream is a dream, and reality is reality. This is something that even Hitler gave up, right? Chew, tsk, tsk….”

Hyang, unable to hide his disappointment, took a sip of his appetite and fluttered his arms.

“Unlike intuitive external combustion engines like steam engines, internal combustion engines require imagination and the development of science and technology, including chemistry, is essential. By the way…”

Hyang paused for a moment and looked out the window. Hyang smiled bitterly as he looked at the black smoke rising from all over the place.

“At first glance, I remember saying that the most positive thing Mongolia did was ‘delaying global warming by more than 200 years.’ Then I might go down in history as ‘the person who advanced global warming.’” As

Mongolia swept across Europe and Asia, many civilizations were destroyed. And in the aftermath, there were some technologies that regressed and some that advanced.

What Hyang said was that among the technologies that had retreated were coal and oil. At the time, the Southern Song Dynasty, which used coal as its main heating fuel, collapsed and went back to using firewood, and the only record left was that petroleum was also used here and there by distilling crude oil.

Because of this, the half-joking, half-serious statement that ‘Mongolia delayed global warming by 200 years’ came out.

* * *

Although it did not have a rotating turret, the assault vehicle types faithfully performed their duties.

As a result, most of the French batteries on the trench line were suppressed, and the assault vehicle group E, which was quietly following behind, began to speed up.

“Was this it? “What answer did the imperial army think?”

“I think so.”

The French generals, who were looking down on the battle situation from the walls of Pavia Castle, muttered with sad expressions.

Thanks to the good fortune of being right above the castle gate, most of the French generals were able to survive safely.

And thanks to their luck in surviving, they were able to clearly see with their own eyes the ‘serious bombardment’ of the Imperial artillery and the ‘best assault’ of the Imperial assault force.

And they felt it desperately.

-Their thoughts were not wrong. But the means were the wrong answer.

Victory was recognized only when the friendly forces occupied the enemy camp or enemy territory. In that case, it was necessary to advance and charge –

up to this point, the answer was correct. But the means were the problem.

The bare body assault of soldiers armed with the spirit of assault was not the answer.

Human skin was helpless in the face of bullets, and this meant enormous loss of life.

Here, the imperial army revived the traditional method of ‘knightly charge’.

The only thing that changed was that the assault was carried out by knights riding steel warhorses powered by steam engines and armed with cannons and guns instead of lances and long swords.

“I know that the wall has been completely destroyed by this bombardment, and that the trench line can be easily breached thanks to those tow trucks, so what should I do?”

At the question posed by one of the generals, the others all fell silent and were lost in thought. After a while, the generals answered almost simultaneously,

“Urban warfare.”

“We have to lock ourselves down with street fighting and pull back our main force in the meantime.”