LRAB Chapter 55 The Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment's Success
Chapter 55 The Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment's Success
As the Japanese bomber formations approached, Chen Zijun on Nanjing Road raised his head.
The engine was incredibly loud. It sounded like hundreds of bison charging down from the sky at once.
The battalion commander of his guards suddenly lunged at him.
"Young Marshal! Air raid! Get to cover!"
Chen Zijun pushed him away.
He didn't run away.
He stood in the very center of Nanjing Road, craning his neck and staring intently at the dark sky to the southeast.
A biplane. An old-fashioned Type 4 A1 attack aircraft.
The hum of the propellers blended together, and two dark bombs hung under each wing. The Japanese flag insignia on the fuselage was particularly glaring in the moonlight.
Chen Zijun counted them.
Forty-two.
An entire air squadron.
He gave a cold laugh.
"Contact the air defense regiment!"
The communications soldier next to him ran over with a field telephone.
"Report! The air defense regiment is in position! Camouflage nets are deployed at all sixteen high points throughout the city!"
"Where's the main gun?"
"All thirty-six 88mm Flak anti-aircraft guns are in place! Shells are loaded!"
As Chen Zijun watched the Japanese planes rushing towards him like moths to a flame, a slow smile crept onto his lips.
Thirty-six gates.
And these aren't the same four gates used when the Izumo was fired last time.
It's different, a total of thirty-six doors.
The system-exchanged heavy-duty anti-aircraft artillery regiment is entirely equipped with German-made 88mm anti-aircraft guns, featuring the latest mechanical fuses and fragmentation warheads. Its effective firing altitude is 10,600 meters.
The paper-thin biplanes in the sky could not fly at an altitude of more than three thousand meters.
This is not a battle.
This is a massacre.
"Unmask it!"
Chen Zijun's voice was icy cold.
Almost simultaneously, the camouflage nets on all sixteen high points in the city were torn down at the same time!
The rooftop of Sincere Department Store, the rooftop of HSBC Bank, the side wing of the Jianghai Customs Building, the base of Longhua Pagoda, the roof ridge of the riverside warehouse complex...
On each position, two to four cold, menacing anti-aircraft gun barrels were visible. The dark gray steel gleamed coldly in the moonlight. The gunners, wearing steel helmets, gripped the crank handles tightly, and the muzzles of the guns tracked the targets in the sky in neat rows.
The Japanese formation failed to detect it at all.
The lead commander, Major Ishikawa of the First Air Fleet, was looking down from the open cockpit. He wasn't even wearing protective goggles.
He saw the flames and tanks on Nanjing Road, and a contemptuous smile appeared on his lips.
"These Chinese warlords don't even own a single airplane."
He patted the cabin wall, signaling the bombardier to prepare.
"Attention all formation, entering bombing flight path! Altitude 2500! Target: Chen's bandit command post on Nanjing Road!"
Forty-two biplanes began to descend. The formation, like an open fan, enveloped them from the southeast.
The soldiers on the ground began to stir. Some instinctively shrank into buildings.
Chen Zijun remained motionless.
He raised his right hand.
The entire Nanjing Road fell silent for a second.
Then he chopped down with his hand.
"Fire!"
boom!!!
Twenty-four 88mm anti-aircraft guns roared simultaneously!
The flames spewed from the cannons turned half of Shanghai's night sky into daylight!
Each cannon can fire 15 to 20 shells per minute. When 24 cannons fire simultaneously, nearly 500 fragmentation shells are injected into the air per minute.
A dense, impenetrable rain of steel exploded in the sky in an instant!
Each fragmentation round detonates at a predetermined height, shattering into thousands of high-speed fragments. The fragmentation radius exceeds thirty meters.
The paper-thin biplane simply couldn't withstand the strain.
The first bomber to be hit was the attack aircraft at the very front of the formation.
A fragmentation shell exploded five meters directly below it. Thousands of fragments tore apart its underside like a shotgun blast.
The fuel tank is broken.
The gasoline was ignited in 0.3 seconds.
The entire plane was transformed into a giant fireball. The propellers were still spinning, but the wings were broken off. The wreckage, trailing a long fiery tail, crashed into the Huangpu River like a falling meteor.
Boom!
A jet of water shot skyward!
But this is only the beginning.
The second one. The third one. The fourth one.
The swarm of fragmentation bombs covered the entire flight path of the formation with terrifying density. The Japanese pilots were horrified to discover that no matter which direction they turned or what altitude they flew at, they could not escape the overwhelming net of steel fragments.
"Pull up! Pull up!" Major Ishikawa roared frantically into the radio.
Useless.
The effective firing altitude of an 88mm anti-aircraft gun is 10,600 meters. The service ceiling of these biplanes is only a little over 4,000 meters.
Which way to pull it?
Are you going to pull him into a coffin?
Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.
In less than five minutes, more than half of the formation turned into fireballs falling from the night sky.
It was as if a fiery meteor shower was falling over Shanghai. Clumps of burning debris plummeted to the ground with shrill cries. Some crashed into the Suzhou Creek, some struck the embankment of the Bund, and some plunged headlong into the abandoned warehouses of Hongkou, blasting out a crater dozens of meters in diameter.
Major Ishikawa's plane had half of its left wing torn off by a piece of debris.
The plane began to spin wildly to the right.
He clung tightly to the control stick, but it was unresponsive. The hydraulic hose had snapped. The rudder was jammed.
The entire plane tumbled through the air like a withered leaf torn apart by a storm, plummeting downwards.
Major Ishikawa's last gaze fell through the shattered windshield and fell upon a figure on the ground.
That person was standing right in the middle of Nanjing Road.
Not moving at all.
I looked up and watched him fall.
It's like watching a fly get swatted.
boom!!
Major Ishikawa's plane crashed into the roof of the Japanese Marine Corps building in Hongkou.
Aerial bomb detonated.
The entire third floor of the building collapsed.
It took eight minutes from the first shot to the last plane crashing.
Forty-two aircraft.
Thirty-nine aircraft were shot down.
The remaining three planes, trailing black smoke, fled in a sorry state to the southeast. One of the wobbling reconnaissance planes frantically pressed the shutter of its onboard camera before crashing into the sea.
I got a picture.
It captured the terrifying barrage of anti-aircraft shells over Shanghai.
They captured images of the densely packed anti-aircraft gun barrels gleaming coldly in the moonlight.
This roll of film will be salvaged at sea by a Japanese destroyer and then transported overnight to the flagship's command center off the coast of the East China Sea.
On Nanjing Road.
The smoke of battle has not yet cleared.
Chen Zijun put down the binoculars, his face expressionless.
The communications soldier ran over.
"Reporting to the young commander! Air defense regiment's battle results: 39 enemy aircraft shot down! Zero casualties on our side!"
"Ammunition consumption?"
"More than 1,600 88mm shells were used."
More than 1,600 rounds, which is just over 10,000 pounds!
Thirty-nine aircraft were replaced.
Anyone can figure this out.
value!
The battalion commander of the guards came over, his face full of excitement.
"Young Marshal! A resounding victory! A great air triumph!"
Chen Zijun did not laugh.
He picked up his binoculars and looked towards the East China Sea.
The night was deep. Nothing could be seen on the sea.
But he knew that something was approaching in that unseen darkness.
The telegram from the watchtower at Wusongkou was still clutched in his hand. The handwriting was soaked with sweat, but he remembered every single word.
"Large formation spotted 252 nautical miles from the East China Sea. Estimated to be at least sixty transport ships and more than twelve escort destroyers. Heading: due west. Target: Wusongkou."
Sixty troop transport ships.
That means at least two standing divisions.
The 6th Division. The 11th Division.
They were all top-tier divisions of the Japanese Army. At full strength, they numbered 25,000 men. They were veterans who had experienced the Russo-Japanese War.
It wasn't those idiots who dropped bombs with paper airplanes in the sky just now.
They are true elite land forces.
Fifty thousand people.
They're heading towards Shanghai.
Chen Zijun crumpled the telegram into a ball and stuffed it into his uniform pocket.
He turned his head and glanced at Nanjing Road behind him, which was full of bullet holes and tank track marks.
Then he said something. His voice wasn't loud, but everyone around him heard it clearly.
"Okay. Come on."
"88 millimeters can shoot down airplanes in the sky, and it can also penetrate your iron-clad boats."
"Let them come. As many as they come, they will all die."