I want to be emperor

Chapter 422

This is also why Xu Zhixian said just now that he wanted to build an artillery traffic trench and pull out the mortars.

To deal with this kind of tortoise shell, the solid artillery fired by a large number of two and a half catties and five catties field guns in the Chu army is useless. Then pull up the mortar, especially the 48-jin mortar, in order to better suppress the enemy's counterattack firepower.

This is also a good reflection of the Chu army's combat thinking in the past year or so: use mortars when in doubt, use larger caliber and more mortars...

This also led to more and more mortar equipment in the Chu army, and more and more money was spent on ammunition!
There is no way, now that the Ming army is scared by the artillery of the Chu army, it is impossible for them to come out to play field battles with you, so the large number of medium and light field artillery and various battle tactics developed by the Chu army are basically useless .

The Chu army can only increase the number of nine-pound field artillery accordingly, and even equip them with fourteen-pound siege cannons.

Not to mention the mortars, the Chu army has built more than a dozen independent 48-jin mortar regiments.

You must know that modern mortars are basically useless except for siege, and they are basically useless in field battles...

After all, contemporary mortars are actually poor in performance, short in range, poor in accuracy, and particularly dangerous to operate, and their mobility is not good... In the end, they are very expensive, and they need to be fired with the same caliber. Several times the propellant of field guns...

However, even so, the Chu army was still equipped with mortars on a large scale.

Without him, the Ming army was so tormented that they couldn't pry open their turtles without so many mortars!

Facing different environments and enemies will seriously affect an army's thinking on building an army.

This is not only true in the Chu army, but also in the Ming army.

The Ming army did not play like this a few years ago, especially Lu Xiangsheng back then, who even fought a dignified raid with the Chu army.

The result was a complete failure.

It is precisely because of Lu Xiangsheng's disastrous defeat in the field that the Ming army became more and more conservative when dealing with the Chu army.

As far as the Yangzhou defense system built by Song Zushun is concerned, it is actually quite complete. Except for the perverted Chu army, even European colleagues from the 30 Years War can only stare blankly...

The various three-pound regiment guns and six-pound, nine-pound, and twelve-pound field guns of European counterparts are basically useless against this defense system, and after fighting for a long time, there may not even be a single defender. with...

But you rushed up when you thought the defenders were finished, and the defenders immediately took out all kinds of messy artillery and hid in the trench fortress to fight back.

However, blindly passive defense cannot stop the onslaught of the Chu army.

After all, Luo Zhixue is not a person of this era, and he is not bound by the various concepts that are taken for granted in this era.

For example, when other people were still admiring the powerful kinetic energy of solid shells, Luo Zhixue's eyes were always aimed at the grenades.

The grenade research team at the Royal Institute of Technology has more than 100 researchers, and they are thinking about how to make the long-barreled artillery fire grenades all day long.

And the project team was established by Luo Zhixue himself by recruiting researchers. All kinds of funds are fully guaranteed. It can be said that they want people to give people and money to give money. of grenades.

Now the grenade research team has a preliminary idea, and they have come up with a new ignition idea.

When the current grenade is fired, the gunner needs to ignite the match directly on the shell, but now, they are thinking about how to use the high temperature generated by the artillery to ignite the match...

This can avoid the great troubles and troubles of the mortar artillery unit in the Chu army today, because because of the matchlock fuze, the gunner must light the matchlock before firing the shell every time... This step is very dangerous , In the Chu army, there are often accidents such as the bombing of the mortar gunner due to operational errors, and the resulting deaths and injuries are not a small number...

So now the thinking of the grenade research team is, since it is too dangerous for the gunner to ignite in advance, then use the high temperature generated by the propellant to ignite the fuse, so as to avoid various risks such as premature bombing and direct explosion of the shell just out of the chamber.

It’s just that it’s not enough to use the old-style exposed fuse as a fuze, and a more reliable fuze has to be found. Recently, they are working on wooden fuzes and have achieved certain results.

Generally speaking, the research on grenades has gone smoothly, but due to the rush of time, there are no precedents to refer to. Even if the general direction is already in place, the specific details still need to be worked out repeatedly.

At least during the Jiangbei Campaign, Luo Zhixue did not see the production and service of new grenades.

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Unswervingly promoting the development of grenades, this is the direction Luo Zhixue uses his personal prophet to take. In Luo Zhixue's view, any resistance in the face of an absolute explosion is scum...

As for the solid cannonball, that thing is a big iron lump, which can kill several people... And now this thing can only be aimed directly at the attack. This kind of defense system, solid shells are useless...

As for the grenade, although the most primitive mortar is still a little bit worse in all aspects, the difference is mainly reflected in poor accuracy, short range, and high cost.

As for the power, it is definitely leveraged!

In order to make the explosive shells of the mortars more powerful after the explosion, the Chu army used prefabricated fragment shells, and there were a lot of charges.

Among the three caliber mortars in the Chu Army, the 24-jin mortar, the 48-jin mortar, and the 48-jin mortar, the most common one is not the [-]-jin mortar, but the [-]-jin mortar...

Even if the charge is still black powder... But don't look down on black powder, it's very powerful, okay... Countless famous wars in the [-]th century were fought with black powder, such as the Napiron War, Crimea Asian War, Franco-Prussian War, Prussian-Prussian War, American Civil War between North and South, Sino-British Opium Wars, Sino-Japanese War (Japanese Navy used picric acid for shells, Army used black powder), etc.; even in the Russo-Japanese War of the [-]th century, both sides The charge of army shells and Russian navy shells is still black powder...

It was only during World War I that TNT became the mainstream of artillery ammunition for the army and navy, and black powder was gradually abandoned, and this process of abandonment lasted for decades...

Even during World War II, the armies of some countries or forces still used black powder as shell charge.

As for the black powder used by the Chu army, the proportion was proposed by Luo Zhixue himself based on the hearsay of later generations. It is definitely the most scientific proportion, and it is produced by machinery.

The black powder produced here is even more powerful than the black powder of many countries in the [-]th and [-]th centuries...

And when the shells with this black powder charge were fired towards the Ming army positions outside Yangzhou City through a large number of mortars of the Chu army, and then set off bursts of explosions.

On the opposite side of the Ming army, some soldiers of the Jiangbei New Standard Army who had successfully withdrawn from the battle of Hezhou, once again experienced this kind of violent shelling that was almost desperate.

As for the recruits of the Jiangbei New Standard Army who had not gone through the Battle of Hezhou, they were all trembling under the shelling.

As for the guards, Song Zushun never sent them to the core defensive places like the forts outside the city. It was not because they disliked their poor combat effectiveness, but because they were afraid that they would blow up the camp and flee after being heavily bombarded by the Chu army.

Their escape could easily cause a chain reaction.

So Song Zushun would rather deploy his main force in the fortifications outside the city than let these guards go to the most dangerous front line...

The Jiangbei New Standard Army under Song Zushun's command has many veterans, and the recruits have also undergone certain training. The most important thing is that their artillery fortifications are still doing well.

Hiding in the artillery fortifications one by one can also better resist the shelling of the Chu army.

However, the Chu army fired too many shells, and many of them were 48-jin mortars.

The 48-pound mortar shell is quite powerful. Even if it does not hit directly, the huge impact after the explosion can destroy many roof fortifications, and even directly kill the soldiers of the Ming army inside the fortifications.

If a shell just fell into the tunnel and exploded, the casualties would be even more severe.

The fierce shelling lasted for more than two hours. After more than two hours, a group of soldiers of the Chu Army wearing thick armor, carrying muskets with bayonets, or commando soldiers with swords and shields gradually passed through the traffic trench and approached the road. [-] meters away.

Immediately afterwards, following the order of the frontline officer, this commando team belonging to the fourth division launched a surprise attack on the fortress in the eastern suburbs of Yangzhou.

As soon as the shelling stopped and extended the shelling towards the rear, they rushed up quickly...

They strive to rush up and fight when the defenders of the Ming army react!

As for the Jiangbei New Standard Army, it was true that they almost didn't react, but they almost didn't. When they saw that the shelling had stopped, and when a large number of Chu thieves in gray military uniforms appeared outside and rushed up, they immediately stood up from the defense one by one. Drilling out of the artillery fortifications, the gunners were manipulating various short robes in an attempt to bombard, and the musketeers also began to shoot.

However, since the Chu army's assault troops rushed out, they were naturally prepared in advance.

This preparation is not theirs, but the artillery unit...

No, when a large number of men from the Ming army came out of the artillery fortifications to try to fight back, a batch of mortars from the Chu army that had already been prepared and rushed into the deployment also opened fire directly.

Immediately, dozens of mortar shells flew into the sky, drew a series of curved curves, and finally fell towards the fortress in the eastern suburbs!
(End of this chapter)