Chapter 352 Bombing London (1)

Inside the V-3 cannon base, everyone was afraid of making any mistakes, and they checked meticulously several times. Finally, the time had come, exactly at eight o'clock in the evening.

"Ignite!"

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The V-3 cannon is a multi-stage artillery, with many sections of the barrel connected together, resembling a multi-segmented centipede. Moreover, on both sides of the main barrel, there are many short barrels, which are the powder chambers. During firing, the main propellant is ignited first, and then when the shell just passes the first transverse tube, the powder in the first transverse tube is ignited, and the other transverse tubes are ignited in sequence as the shell flies past.

However, with the increase in the number of sections, controlling the timely ignition of each powder chamber became increasingly difficult. Engineers gradually discovered that the boosting effect of each powder chamber was not fully utilized; only a few powder chambers were effective. The reason was that the ignition times of various sections were inaccurate, leading to accidents where the barrel was blown up multiple times.

In the end, time control was still a mathematical problem. Wilhelm sent Turing to help, and Turing almost effortlessly designed an automatic ignition mechanical device, perfectly solving the problem of the ignition times of various powder chambers.

Now, the bottommost powder chamber of the cannon is ignited first, setting the shell in motion. As the shell swiftly flies past each section's powder chamber, each section's powder chamber is ignited in a timely manner, continuously accelerating the shell. This way, the initial velocity of the 83-kilogram shell leaving the muzzle reaches 1800 meters per second, and the maximum range can reach 300 kilometers.

Kunda, standing in front of the window, watched as a series of explosions followed, and finally, the muzzle near the mountaintop spewed out a flame. He couldn't help but exclaim, "Hehe, the British can't even dream of this, right?" Goebbels' broadcast clearly played a trick, claiming to bomb London, and most people, with the notion of bombing involving airplanes dropping bombs, couldn't possibly conceive that the Germans would use this super cannon for bombardment.

The assistant standing beside him also couldn't help but feel emotional. "Yes, the Paris Cannon in the last war was already astonishing enough. His Highness is truly a genius. Unfortunately, if His Highness had been born ten years earlier, I'm afraid we would have already unified Europe in the last war."

Kunda patted his shoulder. "Fortunately, there is still a chance, isn't there? This time, we won't lose. By the way, how many shells did His Highness instruct us to launch?"

"No instructions."

"Then each cannon fires 20 shells first, then check the condition of the barrels and decide on the firing frequency."

"I think that's a good plan."

"I heard that the undercover agents in the UK will send back impact points; let's wait and see."

Ten minutes later, a messenger walked in with a telegram. "Report, this is the impact point sent back from the UK."

Taking the telegram, Kunda glanced at it, shook his head with a bitter smile. "Tsk, as expected, the accuracy is really not commendable. The impact point of cannon No. 1 is three kilometers off the estimate, No. 2 cannon is off by five kilometers, and No. 3 cannon is a bit outrageous, off by ten kilometers, almost hitting the suburbs. The impact points of the other shells are also significantly off."

The assistant, however, was indifferent. "It's already better than the Paris Cannon, isn't it? After all, they all hit the London city area. And His Highness said not to expect precision from this kind of cannon; as long as it can hit inside the city, it's considered a success. Now, ten shells have hit the London city; we can say we have successfully completed the mission given by His Highness."

"Hehe, last time, the Paris Cannon didn't even consider the Coriolis force, and I wondered why the fired shells always deviated to the right of the target." After a self-deprecating remark, Kunda ordered, "Continue firing; each cannon fires another 19 shells."

"Yes!"

When the first shell fired by the V-3 cannon flew over London, Old John was on his rooftop, looking at the clear night sky, leisurely smoking.

"It seems those timid Germans dare not come!" He picked up his luminous pocket watch and glanced at the time; it was already past 7 p.m. (Berlin is one hour ahead of London).

Throwing away the cigarette butt in his hand, just as he was about to turn around and go downstairs, he suddenly heard a strange sound in the distance. Old John couldn't help but stop in his tracks, looking towards the direction of the sound, trying to identify what kind of sound was coming from the sky.

He swore that he had heard a similar sound before, but unfortunately, being old, his mind wasn't that sharp anymore, and for a moment, he couldn't recall what this kind of sound in the air was.

The sound became clearer, and Old John felt the hairs all over his body involuntarily stand on end.

The fear deep in his soul finally awakened his memory; this was the sound that took him several years to adapt to, a sound that fell somewhere between the low tones of an organ in a church and the exhaust of a steam pipe, the terrifying sound of large-caliber shells piercing through the air!!

"Damn, it's shelling!"

Old John was startled by his own answer. Shelling?! How could London be shelled? Weren't the Germans supposed to bomb London with airplanes? How could the range of their cannons be so far? Could it be that the Germans have already landed in the UK?

A series of unanswered questions flooded his mind, and for the moment, he couldn't care much. Several sonic booms came from the sky, at least eight or nine of them.

Obviously, the Germans had more than one cannon.

Listening to the successive explosions in the distance, Old John was frightened. He hurriedly ran downstairs, pulling his family into the air-raid shelter they had dug during the last World War.

"What's going on? Didn't the Prime Minister guarantee that not a single bomb would fall on London?" There was more than one explosion outside, and his family was scared and confused. Just at noon today, Prime Minister Churchill had solemnly promised on the broadcast that not a single bomb would fall on London.

Old John shook his pale face. "It's not an air raid; it's artillery shelling!!"

Everyone was shocked. "What? The Germans are attacking?!"

Old John, after all, was a veteran of the last war and still very experienced. He analyzed, "No, it should be the Germans shelling across the coast. Maybe they've built another 'Paris Cannon.'"

At this moment, on the top floor of one of London's famous landmarks, Big Ben, two men dressed as janitors were watching from a distance. One of them was holding a telescope, observing the impact points, while the other kept pressing the key on a wireless radio transmitter.

After sending out ten impact points, the radio operator folded up the radio and asked, "How far is the launch site from here?"

The burly man with the telescope replied, "The launch site is in the Calais area, at least 150 kilometers from here."

"Isn't that the Paris Cannon again?"

The burly man looked proud. "Paris Cannon? That's nothing. I heard that this time the shells can reach 300 kilometers."

"Wow!" The radio operator was astonished. The last Paris Cannon was already shocking enough, and now the range of this cannon was more than twice that of the Paris Cannon.