"Tommy, what is the content of our training today? Is it another damn trench digging? Pooh! I was digging in the countryside, but when I joined the army, what I did was digging, and the digging was worse than when I was farming. Too many!" A Sardinian soldier grumbled, stepping on the foot of a multi-purpose engineering shovel, and the steel engineering shovel immediately sank deep into the soil, and then he lifted it hard, A chunk of soil was thrown out of the trench.

"Rosie, stop complaining and keep doing it. Although it's hard work, let's be honest, Lieutenant Colonel Neville is a good man. Although he likes to toss people with those Americans, he pays us enough when he pays us." .unlike some officers, I hear..."

"Tommy, why did I see you chatting again? If you don't finish on time today, I'll beat you with a whip!" a man with the appearance of a company commander roared.

"Damn it!" Tommy scooped up a shovel of dirt and threw it out. "Why does Captain Andy always only see me talking? You said it first!"

"Haven't you heard of it? We don't beat those who are broken or lazy, but those who don't have eyes!" Rossi looked around and saw Captain Andy turning his head to that side, and quickly replied.

"Why doesn't he come down and do it himself?" Tommy complained with his head down, "But this American shovel is a good thing, much better than ours. If we retire in the future, we can take it home Just go."

"If you can take it home, you don't need to buy shovels, kitchen knives, scissors, axes, saws, hoes, and frying pans. This one is enough! But, think about it, our military uniforms are still left after the seniors retired. Yes, this thing will stay in the army, and you want to take it back, it’s just a dream!" Rossi said while lifting the engineering shovel in his hand, and moving it vigorously at a certain part, the engineering shovel bent over and turned into a hoe. Then Rosie put her head down and hoped with it.

"Come on guys, dig it deep. We have to finish this damn spiderweb today! I'm telling you, tomorrow you're going to squat in it and experience what it's like to be bombarded."

Like most countries, the artillerymen of the Kingdom of Sardinia usually have very little live ammunition training, and they may not be able to fire two shots a year. But now, all fools know that they are about to go to war with the Austrians, so the number of live ammunition training for the artillerymen has also greatly increased. The Kingdom of Sardinia even spent money to change the cannons for the artillerymen. They bought some new 12-pound guns from the French and are busy with training.

This new 12-pound gun was named after Napoleon III, who ruled France at the time and was called the Napoleon gun. As a bronze smoothbore gun, its performance is also very good, so in the later Civil War, both sides used this artillery in large quantities. However, with the emergence of steel-rifled guns, the glory of this gun was like a flash in the pan and soon declined. But at this time, this gun is still among the advanced weapons.

The consultants of "Blackwater" felt that since the artillery rarely had the opportunity to practice live ammunition, it would be a waste of time to just let them use those 12-pound iron balls to hit the target. It's better to just put the target near the trench net dug by the infantry, and let the guys in the army get acquainted with the feeling of shells flying over their heads by the way.

...

There's a reason Captain Andy called this set of trenches the "Spider's Web." If you climb up the nearby hill and look down at the trenches, you will find that there are three trenches with a distance of more than 100 meters between each trench, and these three trenches are composed of several longitudinal traffic trenches. connected. The traffic trenches looked like the warp threads of a spider's web, and the three zigzag-folded trenches looked like the weft threads of the spider's web.

It is now the morning of the second day. Several artillery targets have been placed before the first trench, between the first and second trenches, and between the second and third trenches. The infantry also entered the trenches, ready to experience the shelling.

"Tommy, you idiot! You haven't fired the cannon yet. What are you doing with your head so low and your butt so high? Is it so I can kick it hard?" Captain Andy cursed viciously. He has never experienced such a thing as entering the trench and waiting for the artillery shells to fly over his head, so he is a little nervous.

"Captain, didn't you teach us to take cover?" Tommy raised his head and looked at Captain Andy innocently, and the soldiers around him burst into laughter.

"Tommy, the Captain didn't tell you to stick your ass up that high!"

"Yeah, Tommy, your ass sticks out of the trench!"

"There's nothing to be afraid of when you fire a cannonball. You can hide after seeing the shells." Dale, the "Blackwater" consultant who was sent to this company, said, "I saw it when I was fighting the Mexicans."

"What does it look like when the shells fly over?" someone asked.

"It's like a large baseball flying over. At first glance, it looks so slow that it seems that you can catch it with your hands. (At that time, the shells were all subsonic, and the speed was very low, so they could indeed be seen with the naked eye.) Of course, You'd be a fool to accept it. I've seen a 12-pound shell run through a Mexican column from end to end. Those unlucky ones hit were smashed to pieces." Dale replied that when he said "fall apart", he also made a very exaggerated gesture of exploding.

"Okay, let's wave the red flag over there again. They are ready to fire. Just wait for us to wave the red flag." Captain Andy said, "Boys, are you ready, ready, I will Wave the flag and let the cannons fire over there."

"Report Captain, are you okay?" Tommy replied.

"Why are you again? What else do you have?"

"Report Captain, I want to pee," Tommy said.

"Hold on!" the captain said viciously, while vigorously waving the flag in his hand.

The soldiers were still laughing at Tommy, but when they saw the captain waving the flag, they squatted down one by one, fearing that they would be hit by shells.

Captain Andy also wanted to squat down, but seeing that Yankee named Dale still looked at his leisure, he still exposed his head outside the trench and looked towards the artillery with his binoculars, so he again I feel as if I am too embarrassed to squat down. So Captain Andy had no choice but to stick his head out, like the Yankee, raised his binoculars to look at the artillerymen, and at the same time cursed in his heart: "Damn Yankee!"

Through the binoculars, Captain Andy saw that a gunner was inserting something into the gun body, and then a puff of white smoke came out of the gun muzzle.

"Fire!" Andy instinctively wanted to squat down, but looking at Dale, he still stood upright.

"Damn Yankee!" Andy tried hard to restrain his desire to squat down. He had never hated that Yankee so much now.

Although the white smoke from the muzzle was seen, the sound of the cannon did not come over immediately. The artillery positions of the artillerymen were about 1,500 meters away from them, and it took more than four seconds for the sound to come back. So most of the soldiers who said their heads were in the trenches had no idea that the artillery had fired.

"Cowards! These are cowards who are afraid of death!" Andy cursed, using this to relieve his tension. It wasn't until he finished cursing this sentence that the sound of the cannon pierced his ears. The sound of the cannon was low and blunt like thunder coming from faraway clouds during a thunderstorm.

At this time, he also saw the big baseball-like cannonball described by Dale. It flew from a distance and flew very slowly. It seemed that it only needed a pair of better gloves to catch it. live.

"How powerful is this thing?" Andy thought.

The shell flew to the highest point and began to fall. In Andy's eyes, it began to become faster and faster and then fell heavily on the ground more than ten meters away from the target, and immediately smashed into a ball on the ground. Dust, and then the shell jumped forward as if it was floating in the water, and easily cut a hole in the first target made of thick wood, and then pierced through the next four or five targets, and then again It fell, and landed heavily on the mound in front of the first trench, stirring up a large cloud of dust. At the same time, the shell jumped upwards, crossed the first trench, fell again about twenty meters behind the trench, rolled another twenty meters, and then fell into a pit and stopped.

Andy has personally inspected these targets. The thick wooden boards on each target are as thick as a palm, and at such a long distance, the shell can penetrate them like several layers of paper. If these shells fall in line, it's really...

The first shot hit the target accurately, which excited the gunners on the opposite side. This can be seen from the faster and faster firing speed behind them. It's just that the shells fired by these gunners are not as accurate as the first shot. For the second group of targets, it took five shots to hit them. One of the shells was directly hit a little more than one meter away from Andy's trench. When the shell fell with a strange sound, When they came, even the Yankee who had been pretending to be coolly moved, and he jumped to the side of the corner of the trench with a single dive. Then the shell landed just in front of where he had just stood, kicked up a huge pile of dust, jumped up again, and fell over the trench and back. After a while, the clods of stones and soil fell one after another, and Andy, who had just squatted down, was covered with military uniforms on his hat.

After about 20 shots were fired, the opposite side waved the flag to indicate that the shot was over. Andy began to check the losses of his troops.

"Report to the company commander, there are no casualties in our platoon." The platoon leader of the first platoon reported. Andy nodded in satisfaction.

"Report to the company commander, there are no casualties in our platoon." The platoon leader of the second platoon reported, and Andy nodded in satisfaction.

"Report to the company commander, one person in our platoon was injured." The platoon leader of the third platoon reported.

"How is it hurt? Is it serious?" Andy was taken aback because he remembered that no shells fell into the trench.

"It's Tommy. A stone from the shell landed on his hand. There was some blood, but nothing serious," replied the platoon leader.

"I knew it was the idiot!" Andy scolded.