Tyranomaster
patreon
[Vol.4] Ch.48 The Battle for Kembora Part 4
🕑 Added 2024-02-21 17:59:01 +0000 UTCIf there is one upside to the fact that the attempted landing is going to happen imminently, it's that the invading fleet has halted their cannon fire. Smooth bore cannons aren't really accurate enough to avoid friendly fire at these ranges, so at least we won't be dealing with getting shelled while we're fighting their troops.
That said, their four smallest ships are now at the point where they're running aground. These ships have a slightly wider shape, and seem to be specifically shaped to let them run in more shallow water than the larger ships. They seem like a mix between a caravel and a viking longship. The water where they've grounded themselves is about four feet in depth, meaning that their soldiers will be able to walk to land, albeit with some difficulty. As I'm thinking this, ropes fall over the sides of the ship, and men dressed in armor begin to dismount.
They're still too far for us to properly hit them with most of our defensive implements, but it's still worth trying to aim some of the ballistae from the front-most positions to attempt to hit them. The way we've layered our beach defense, we can run extra ammo forward as needed, wood is cheap after all, but we keep most of the reserves of ammo further back, so that our own weapons aren't turned against us as we cede ground.
Each of the small ships unloads about sixty men each, who begin trekking through the water towards us. Unfortunately for them, they're realizing just how difficult we've made that trek, as they're being forced to navigate harden wooden spikes in the water. Even without the spikes, it'd be an exhausting trip up to land, but with them, they're forced to slowly turn and crawl over the spikes, making the path even more exhausting and slow.
From further out, rowboats begin coming to shore as well. Overall, it seems like well over fifty rowboats in total are making their way to shore. They're different sizes, but the average rowboat has twenty soldiers, so we're looking at over a thousand soldiers who are going to be coming to shore soon. Through my telescope, I can see there are still many more soldiers further out at sea in their ships. Around a third of the rowboats are also headed further along the coast where our defenses are fewer, but the terrain is much rockier and harder to unload in.
Ultimately, if we're forced to focus on the main invading force here continuously, they can make a few trips with the rowboats to the rougher terrain and flank us given enough time. On some level, I feel for them attempting to invade a beach like this. During WWII, taking Normandy during D-Day required an extreme amount of human sacrifice to claim the beachhead. When you factor in the technology level of this invasion, and the fact that we're fighting with an informational edge, rather than the other way around, and it's honestly quite a bad deal for them.
On the other hand, they've got significantly more troops than we do, which swings the scales to a level that makes it hard for me to make any predictions about the outcome. All I can say for sure is that we sank most of the smaller vessels which would have made their invasion much easier. At some point, we'll also be dealing with those unarmed soldiers who bailed from their sinking ships as well, as they swim to shore. Ultimately, this is going to get messy.
From where I sit using the telescope, I can see that the ballistae have taken out a few of the soldiers marching through our waters on their way to dry land. As they get closer, their speed increases due to the water becoming more shallow, while at the same time, our ballistae find it easier to aim at them.
As the first of the soldiers make it out of the water and onto the beach, the first of our steam cannons fire grapeshot at them. I watch as three men fall, and the rest continue charging forward. Of the nearly 250 men who dismounted from the small ships, about twenty have died so far. Considering we've only sustained one injury so far, that's pretty good. Never mind how many potential men have died at sea.
As more of them start to make it onto more solid ground, the first of them fires off their own fireball attack towards one of our defensive positions, but given our cover, it is ineffective. It seemed similar to Zaka's fireball, flying through the air in a straight line, then bursting when it hit a surface. Well, I can't exactly blame them for at least trying something. Until now, they've been receiving ranged harassment from our side, I'd also want to fire back myself in their situation.
Unfortunately for him, he stood still to aim his fireball, which resulted in him being shot by a ballista through his upper leg. He's not dead now, but without medical treatment soon, he'll die. As more of their soldiers make it to the beach, the distance between us and them has continued to shrink. Our first layer of defense is built about 100 yards back from the high tide mark, and the tide has been receding for a few hours now, so they have a little less than a quarter mile distance to close between us and them.
Some of their soldiers exhibit some unique magics I haven't seen before. A few dash forward at about four times the normal running speed for a human. Unfortunately for some of them, that means they're now the priority targets for some of ballista on the fort, as well as some of our defenses. More than half of the thirty or so who dashed forward in this way died before they even got to within a hundred yards of us. Of the remaining fifteen or so, nine fell into pitfall traps. At the very least they were injured enough they didn't climb out, although I suspect they're as good as dead. The remaining six had to slow down thanks to the large wooden barricades that were set up. As they moved to maneuver around some of the barricades, or through ones broken by cannon fire, they were killed before they could actually reach our defensive line.
However, the remainder of the force was gaining ground during that maneuver. A second steam cannon fired grapeshot into a clustered group, bringing down another six individuals. More ballistae fire from the fort and other parts of beach, bringing down more soldiers. Ultimately, we want to keep them from getting close, due to the unpredictability of magic attacks. The row boats are beginning to approach as well. Within a few minutes, the first of them will make it to dry land, resulting in thousands more combatants.
A little more than half of the initial landing group now remains. Despite their best efforts, they're forced to form groups if they want to pass through the wooden barricaded areas of the beach. They attempted to go through one at a time, but quickly realized that would just result in them dying to ballistae. Instead, as a group attempted to pass through a gap, a steam cannon unleashed more grapeshot onto that group, resulting in all seven of those attempting to pass through dying or being maimed.
In the first line of defense on the beach, we have six steam cannons, and we've now used three. Once all six are used, we'll start contemplating falling back to the next line of defense, where another six are located. The remaining three on this layer are loaded with single shells meant to shoot at those rowboats as they approach, so they should be firing soon.
Almost on queue, one of the steam cannons fires off towards one of the row boats, compromising it's hull at about the same distance as the small ships had parked, forcing the twenty or so individuals inside to begin the slower trek towards land, abandoning any additional equipment they might have had in the rowboat.
As the remnants of the initial landing parties got closer to our defenses, a few used new magic types. One created a defensive wall in front of themselves, which quickly collapsed as it was made of the same sand as the beach. It did eat a single ballista shot though, so it wasn't completely useless. A few individuals surprised us with powerful leaps, allowing them to clear some of our barricades. Of those individuals, about half died on landing by falling into hidden spike traps as they repeatedly attempted to hop barriers. The remainder were focused on by balistae in order to bring them down.
Ultimately, the initial landing party didn't make it past our first line of defense. Which wasn't a surprise. Outside of some unseen magic, we have about 100 individuals in a heavily defended position. They only numbered 250 at most. That isn't enough to claim victory, and they didn't really have a choice in the matter, other than to simply hide on their ship and wait for all the rowboats to land. Honestly, that was what they should have done.
My guess is that once their flagship was sunk, the fleet had fractured in command somewhat, and most of the commanders operated on whatever their pre-existing plan was, which likely involved all the small ships landing at once and invading. Given that only a handful of small ships actually remained, they attempted the attack anyway, and this was the result.
They did do one thing for the invaders though. They no longer need to deal with our steam cannons on the front row. The three anti-personnel steam cannons are now spent. I give the word to our defensive line, we've done what we set out to do on this line. "Fire the remainder of your ballista shots, fire the two steam cannons to sink some row boats, then destroy your ballistae and retreat to the next defensive line."
