Standing at the center of his command post built on the southern side of the redoubt, Lerris carefully studied the map in front of him. The map was made recently by his cartographers aboard the scout ship Osprey. From all the reports they had received from both scout ships, Lerris knew the enemy had them surrounded, and the situation looks grim.
To the east, the enemy had massed more than thirty cannons and over seven thousand foot soldiers and two thousand mounted infantries. To the South, occupying the heights on the other side of the valley was a force of eight thousand soldiers and fifteen cannons, while on the north was force of four thousand cavalry. And directly to the west was a blocking force of four thousand soldiers and six hundred horsemen, along with twelve carro-ballista.
Lerris on the other had on his disposal were eight hundred and sixty cavalrymen, five hundred and forty airborne troops and three hundred and thirty-five Hellenic soldiers armed with muskets, and only seventy of them were armed with rifled musket.
He had placed all of his Hellenic troops on the western wall, supported by two light machine gun crew and two mortar crew armed with the older stoke mortar, while the cavalry and his airborne battalion manned the northern, eastern and southern wall, with most of the mountain guns aimed towards the east along with half of his light mortars, the other half of his light mortars were positioned along the southern wall, while the rest of the cavalry mortars was aimed towards the north. The rest of his light machine gun crew on the other hand were equally distributed along the northern, eastern and southern wall.
Just as Lerris had hoped for, the enemy began their artillery barrage and started blasting the outer walls, almost obliterating a large section of it, along with the wooden dummies.
His gun crews quickly responded, firing their 75mm mountain guns against the artillery battery, scoring hit after hit, while the mortar crews began dropping shells after shells against the enemy artillery battery positioned on the other side of the small valley.
His two-scout ship, at the start of the barrage started to climb up higher, beyond rifle range and started flying high above the enemy artillery position and began strafing the enemy guns. The enemy soldiers tried to shoot the airships with their musket to no effect. But despite strafing runs of the airship and the best effort of his mountain guns, the enemy guns kept their barrage with their iron shots and their explosive shells kept creeping closer towards the trenches.
Twenty minutes into the barrage, the enemy began pounding the edge of the trenches with iron shots, most of them whizzing past above the trenches and travelling across the redoubt and landing harmlessly beyond the southern wall, while the rest buried themselves into the ground, or bouncing off the ground and arcing dangerously inside the redoubt, some landing near Lerris command post. While the explosive shells always lands just a few meters above the dummy wall where it would explode harmlessly, throwing dust and dirt up in the air. Thirty minutes later, the mines began exploding one by one inside the woods. At that moment, Lerris could feel the tension grow around the redoubt as everyone brace for an attack.
Despite the continuous enemy artillery barrage, morale was high among his troops and they all watch the surrounding woods as the explosion crept closer and closer as the enemy began triggering the mines that was scattered around the woods. The wait was agonizing slow, and then just as suddenly, the woods surrounding the redoubt erupted with a blanket of volley fire as thousands of enemy muskets fired in unison, pelting the sandbag walls from northern wall down to the southern wall with thousands of lead balls, mostly landing harmlessly along the sandbag walls.
His troops responded with everything they got, firing their repeating rifles rapidly with the light machine gun sweeping along the tree lines, while the mortars began bracketing the tree lines with shells after shells. Then of all things, the enemy tried a cavalry charge straight to the redoubt through the road, but their attack immediately faltered after the cavalry force struck the land mines, decimating the front ranks, while the machine gun hammered at the surviving cavalrymen and driving them back.
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A New Life in a Parallel World
FantasyA man in his late forties suddenly found himself in a body of a young boy, in a parallel world. To survive he has to adapt to his new surroundings. (This is my first novel, fantasy genre, which I wrote out for fun)
