Struggle in the Steam Age

"This thing of yours seems to be a hedgehog bomb?" Watching Lawrence directing Shumei to draw more and more detailed pictures on the paper, the little puppet quickly saw what Lawrence drew. "But we don't have many ships that can be equipped with this weapon system for the time being. Even if they are built, there are only a few of our steam sailboats that can be equipped."

"Who told you that I can only put them on the ship." Lawrence said with a smile. "These things can actually be used for coastal defense. Although it is difficult to cause damage to those large sea beasts due to the problem of the internal charge, in fact, those large sea beasts will basically not approach the shallow waters of the island, because The depth of the water here will make them immobile. The water monsters that can reach the shallow waters are mainly the murlocs known for their numbers."

"I understand." At this time, Nora also reacted. "The underwater explosion will generate a huge shock wave, causing serious damage to all creatures in the water. And those murlocs whose quality is worse than humans on average will be easily wiped out in batches by these depth charges."

"That's it." Lawrence said as he took out a map of New Sauer Harbor and the surrounding sea area from the space bag and pointed. "There are always signs before every large-scale sea beast attack. That period of time is enough for us to evacuate the personnel from various coastal settlements. Except for the port of New Sauer where we are now and several coastal towns, other places can be completely abandoned. "

"And under the premise of this important defense, we can concentrate as much firepower as possible to make up for the shortage of manpower. And if you look at the seawater contours on the map, you will find that these coastal towns basically except for important main waterways The water depth in most other areas is relatively shallow."

"We don't have to worry about the defense of the main channel. After all, almost all of the previous fortifications are in this direction. During wartime, a large number of manpower and firepower will be concentrated here." Lawrence pointed to the waterway from New Sauer Harbor into the harbor. "And this kind of bomb is mainly used in the positions that lack sufficient manpower on both sides of the harbor."

"Under such a premise, the hedgehog bomb, a depth charge bomb that uses a touch fuze, is very suitable." Lawrence said as he picked up a drawn bomb design from Shumei. "There are two types of fuzes for depth charges. Among them, the price of water pressure fuzes is much more expensive than that of impact fuzes. If it is in the open sea, we can only use water pressure fuzes in consideration of effective killing. But now we use 5-6 meters in other areas. The depth of the water, even if these bombs fall to the bottom of the sea and explode, they will cause fatal damage to a large number of murlocs."

"What's even better is that this thing can make us a lot of money." Saifeier said as if he suddenly thought of something at this time. "At least like Huguang City, where the water is not deep near the shore of the lake, but where large-scale murloc raids are encountered every year, this kind of weapon is definitely needed."

For Lawrence and the others, another advantage of using this weapon in defensive warfare is that no additional detection equipment is required. Because the water depth here is too shallow, it is basically impossible for those small sea beasts or murlocs to hide their whereabouts when they attack. The outpost on the mountain can easily observe the signs of those monsters attacking with the naked eye.

In addition, Lawrence also purchased a batch of acoustic reels for underwater reconnaissance and assigned them to the coast patrol for coastal defense. Although sonar has not been invented in this world now, mages who extend their range of activities underwater have invented a lot of magic for underwater reconnaissance. The effects of these spells were no worse than those of Lawrence's previous sonar.

Of course, this kind of magic works really well when it comes to solving problems. The disadvantages are the same as other magic props, all of which are expensive and require operators. At least such a scroll that takes less than one minute to use costs an ordinary worker's salary for a year, and the user is also required to receive relevant training.

Fortunately, this place is far away from both the land and the deep sea, so there are not many monsters visiting this place. Therefore, the frequency of using those special reconnaissance scrolls on the island is not high. At least for such a long time, those magic scrolls on the island were zero consumption.

But this unmanned ship incident reminded him that the sea is not only vast in size but also interconnected. Therefore, there is a certain probability that those dangerous sea beasts will come to this island. Although everything went smoothly during the previous period, for Lawrence, this was not a reason for him to slack off in this regard.

However, everything was quiet for a while. He just heard from his father that the joint investigation team of the church had successfully found the specific location where all the people on the previous ship disappeared, and confirmed through sacrifices that the culprit was a huge ship. , a whale with a thick layer of scales on its body.

It's just because the whale has a special bloodline related to the ocean and the water elemental world, so the church can't track the whale in the ocean. In view of the fact that they really lack enough power to search for the fish in such a large ocean, all the churches can do now is to pass this information to the surrounding forces and put them on the wanted list inside each church. .

So amidst the calm, Lawrence ushered in the transport ship carrying new weapons. This ship departed directly from Huguang City. In addition to 30 sets of Hedgehog bomb systems and each set of supporting ten base ammunition, there was also a whole team of more than a dozen technicians, and the leader was a A dwarf with reddish brown hair.

"You should be His Excellency Earl Sauer. Nice to meet you." Obviously, this dwarf should be the leader of this team. So after getting off the boat, they walked towards Lawrence who was greeted by them. Because Lawrence habitually wore a dress on such a formal occasion, the dwarf recognized Lawrence's identity at first sight.

"Welcome, welcome to New Shaw Island." After all, this is his subordinate, so Lawrence will naturally come out to greet him in person. After a few simple greetings, he figured out that the dwarf was named Adolphe Bofors Volcano, and he was another cousin of Lawrence's partner, Eugène Bofors Volcano, who had previously driven a steam engine. repair shop. Later, after Lawrence saved the factory, he was recruited into the factory due to insufficient manpower, and is now the chief engineer of the repair department.

"Four of the engineers this time will immigrate to this island." The dwarf named Adolf said, "In addition to the anti-submarine bomb mortars you ordered, we have also transported a batch of meter-gauge bombs and mortars." Tracks, these are one of the additions in this transaction."

"Meter gauge, this gift should be very expensive, right?" Lawrence became a little nervous when he heard the track, even though the meter gauge in this world is only used for the tracks inside factories or mines, not everyone can afford it . At least Lawrence felt that the construction of the track system on the island should probably be several years away.

"It's actually very cheap. You know that our factory annexed several factories when it expanded a while ago. And these rails are the unnecessary parts removed from those factories." said Adolf the dwarf. "My cousin thought you might need it here, so he asked me to send it over. And really, because the locomotives on these tracks have other uses, so all I sent was some tracks and carts. .”

"That's enough." Lawrence nodded after knowing that the meter gauge was only two or three kilometers away. "Anyway, there are a lot of horses and cows on the island, and the small carriages used on this kind of rice rails can still be pulled, not to mention that these rails can only be laid for a short distance, and there is no need to consider the animals. A matter of stamina."