Empire Conquest
Chapter 236 - 232: Special Incendiary Bomb

Chapter 236: Chapter 232: Special Incendiary Bomb

"You haven’t been to the Ice Storm Peninsula, so you don’t know what it’s like over there..."

"Have you been there?" Zhou Yongtao was clearly a bit incredulous, thinking that Shen Pu was boasting since Shen’s exaggeration seemed like nothing but bragging.

Shen Pu hesitated for a moment before responding, "I haven’t been there, but during the re-equipment training, I met several officers who had returned from the front lines. According to them, the Imperial Guard Army’s Armored Forces were able to advance triumphantly while the Air Force, particularly those bomber units, contributed significantly to the victory."

"Is that so?"

Zhou Yongtao was still unconvinced, but Shen Pu spoke with such confidence that he couldn’t refute him.

"Incendiary Bombs, and they were specially made Incendiary Bombs." Zhu Huasheng continued, "They were first tried out in Tianzhou, and after discovering their effectiveness, they were used on a large scale in places like Quan City. According to those officers, the entire Quan City was burned to the ground after the bombing."

"The whole city was burned to the ground!?" Zhou Yongtao’s eyes widened in disbelief as he looked at Zhu Huasheng.

"Everything that could burn was gone, even the city walls and road foundations were burned and blasted away. One officer who had been to Quan City took a few photos and showed them to us. He said that the bombing took place at night when hundreds of bombers entered in batches, dropping nearly a thousand tons of Incendiary Bombs within more than an hour. The blaze burned all night long, illuminating the entire night sky, visible from tens of kilometers away. When the ground troops arrived, not to mention resistance, the roads outside the city were filled with refugees who had fled in the night, many not even clothed."

"How many people died was impossible to count. However, after occupying Quan City, the Imperial Guard Army took in and provided treatment for no more than three thousand refugees. According to intelligence obtained before the battle, at that time, there were about fifty thousand soldiers of the Saiyi Army guarding Quan City, along with roughly three hundred thousand residents."

Zhu Huasheng had only told half of the story; Shen Pu supplemented the rest.

After speaking, both let out a long sigh, looking depressed and, one might say, significantly shocked by such a brutal method of warfare.

"Three hundred and fifty thousand people, and only three thousand..." Zhou Yongtao was speechless, unable to finish his sentence.

"If we’re talking about it, the Imperial Guard Army’s rapid capture of Buju also relied on Incendiary Bombs. If I had to guess, at least ten thousand tons were dropped on Buju."

"Buju wasn’t that large; five thousand tons would have been enough. Don’t forget, it was in the dead of winter, where even indoors, you’d be bundled up tightly. With limbs not working freely, who could escape once the fire started? Even if someone managed to escape, once the fire went out, they’d either freeze to death or starve!"

"When you think about it, it was truly tragic."

"Yeah, just think about it, Buju being such a small place, with so many people crammed together, especially around the docks, after those Incendiary Bombs were dropped..."

"What Incendiary Bombs?" It was at this moment that Bai Zhizhan finally spoke up with a question.

Shen Pu and Zhu Huasheng both paused, realizing they had become so engrossed in their tall tales that they had neglected the main point.

"I heard they were made with gasoline as the main component, adding aluminum powder, white phosphorus, and sulfur as accelerants, and then made into a semi-solid state with some kind of adhesive. After the explosion, they would first splatter around before igniting due to the high temperature. According to those officers, if you got it on you, you simply couldn’t put it out, and it would be even worse if it touched anything flammable. It would burn even more fiercely upon contact with water."

"That cruel!?"

"Don’t say it like that; that isn’t even the worst of it. An officer in charge of logistics told us that an Army-funded munitions factory has already developed even more powerful Incendiary Bombs, it’s just they haven’t been able to produce them on a large scale yet. Once they work out the production process, the devastation will be even greater."

"How much worse?"

"We’ve only heard about it, but supposedly, these bombs can instantaneously consume all the oxygen in the vicinity, causing everyone within the blast area to die from suffocation."

Is this even a bomb!?

Zhou Yongtao blinked, his expression utterly shocked.

But his expression hadn’t changed throughout the conversation, always fixed in disbelief.

"What about the bombers?" Bai Zhizhan changed the subject.

In fact, the Navy had also researched Incendiary Bombs, but eventually abandoned the idea.

The reason is simple: incendiary bombs do not pose a significant threat to battleships.

Perhaps they have some value against carriers, such as burning and damaging the flight decks or destroying planes stored in the open or in open hangars. However, compared to the powerful aviation armor-piercing bombs and air torpedoes, incendiary bombs find it difficult to cause permanent damage to battleships.

Besides, aren’t there plenty of flammable and explosive materials on a battleship, making specialized incendiary bombs unnecessary?

In the era of Dreadnought battles, most battleships that were sunk caught fire after being hit, and many were destroyed in explosions.

Moreover, bombing Saiyi’s homeland was the task of the Army Air Force, which didn’t concern the Navy much; thus, there was no need to worry about what type of bombs to use.

Relative to this, Bai Zhizhan was quite interested in the Army’s bombers.

Probably influenced by Li Yunxiang, Bai Zhizhan had always found heavy bombers intriguing, or else he wouldn’t have previously persuaded He Pengfei to work on large aircraft.

Despite the fact that heavy bombers could not operate from carriers, they were not entirely useless to the Navy.

Compared to ship-borne aircraft, heavy bombers had two unmatched advantages: extremely long range and exceptionally strong bomb-carrying capacity.

From a tactical perspective, the Navy had to face the enemy’s military bases built on islands, such as the formidable Tuk Fortress.

Once entering the strategic offensive phase, especially after engaging in war with the Newland Federation, they would have to use the islands as bases, pushing eastward step by step.

At that point, heavy bombers would become very valuable.

When bombing the enemy’s island bases, heavy bombers could take off from rear airfields and drop an amount of bombs equivalent to several or even dozens of ship-borne aircraft in one sortie. The key point was that they wouldn’t interfere with the Fleet and didn’t even need Fleet cooperation, hence not affecting Fleet operations.

Bai Zhizhan had always hoped that the Navy could allocate some funds for the development of heavy bombers.

Unfortunately, it had always remained just a "hope."

Unlike the Army, the Navy really didn’t have money. Just the development of ship-borne aircraft and the construction of various battleships had drained the Navy’s resources.

Moreover, from the perspective of pressing needs, ship-borne aircraft inevitably took priority.

Furthermore, the Grand Secretary had made arrangements.

Overall, in the years preceding the war, the Navy had not acquired any heavy bombers; in fact, it hadn’t even acquired twin-engine medium bombers.

At the time, the prevailing thought was that if needed in the future, they could just purchase the Army’s bombers.

Attempt to emulate the Saiyi Navy and develop a heavy torpedo bomber like the 96-style land attack?

That was clearly an impossibility.

It had always been the Saiyi Navy that imitated the Empire’s Navy; when had it ever been the other way round?

Another key point was that the Empire’s Navy had always considered the 96-style land attack to be a medium bomber, with very poor performance, and not worth referencing.

If they needed to deploy heavy attack aircraft at land airfields, they should take the B-25 bombers of the Newland Federation as the standard.

As for anti-ship attacks, ship-borne aircraft were sufficient; there was no need for bombers.

Of course, that was only pre-war.

Now that the great war had erupted and they were about to enter the strategic offensive phase, it was probably wise to consider establishing a shore-based air force.

Therefore, learning from the Army, or rather, obtaining the Army’s combat experience, was undoubtedly a smart move.

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