I want to be emperor

Chapter 784

After Harrell was transferred to Africa with the soldiers of the third regiment of the Indian Army, he underwent a change of clothes and adaptive training in Mogadishu.

However, because they had already used the export version of flintlock guns and export version of field guns and other weapons before, the corresponding tactics were also the infantry coordination and infantry line tactics of the Chu army.

These tactics are actually the same as those in the regular army of the Chu Army, so the soldiers of the third regiment of the Indian Army also carried out adaptive training very quickly.

You only need to adapt and master the operation of the flash cap firing gun, which is basically the same.

On the contrary, low-level officers like Harrell still need to study extra.

After all, different weapons lead to changes in tactical details. In the past, Harrell was used to providing artillery support for his own side at around 600 meters, but now, artillery support often starts at more than 1000 meters away. Expand.

This also makes the infantry advance, the distance of the formation, and the change of rhythm are also different.

Ordinary Indian soldiers in the legion don't need to understand these things, they just need to follow orders and fight.

But Harrell, a low-level officer, needs to understand. After all, he is the deputy sentry officer, and he also needs to cooperate with the sentry officer to command and fight, and lead dozens of people to fight alone when necessary.

After about a month of adaptive training in Mogadishu, Harrell and the others began to perform their first combat mission.

The mission this time is very simple, mainly to attack an indigenous tribe tens of kilometers away from Mogadishu.

According to the news reported by the superiors, it is said that there is an indigenous tribe in the local area who refuses to accept the enlightenment, not only refuses to open the territorial market, but also expels a Chu State caravan going to trade by force.

For this reason, the superiors decided to give them a little color, and by the way, to kill chickens and monkeys to deter many messy indigenous tribes in Northeast Africa.

Let them know who the real master of Northeast Africa is!

After receiving the order, Harrell attacked with hundreds of other soldiers of the Indian Legion.

There are a total of three infantry posts, one artillery post, one cavalry team, and one transport team performing this combat mission. The total strength is about 630 people. It has become a small-scale mixed battalion. Yingguang commanded.

This scale of multi-arms mixed formation is also the small-scale mixed battalion formation that the Chu army often uses when carrying out some small-scale battles.

There are basic arms, which can fight alone.

After all, fighting a war requires the cooperation of multiple arms, and it is impossible for a single arm to launch a battle.

If you pull the infantry out to fight alone, you only need to put a few old front-loading smoothbore guns on the opposite side, and they don't need to perform too well, then they can pose a great threat to your own infantry.

Then there is the enemy's cavalry, which is also a great threat.

To guard against this threat, one's own artillery and cavalry are also needed.

Multi-armed battles consume a lot of materials, so naturally professional logistics troops are needed to take care of logistics issues.

After Harrell and his small mixed camp left Mogadishu, they walked for four days under the leadership of local indigenous guides before arriving at the scheduled location.

The reason why it took four full days to walk about [-] kilometers was that apart from not being familiar with the terrain and roads, the more important thing was that the local roads were really bad.

There are basically no wide roads, only some trails, and even most of the time they walk in the wild.

People and mules and horses can move forward on foot, but it is more difficult for artillery and carriages to transport baggage to maneuver, resulting in slow progress.

However, even if the marching speed was slow, they did not say that they would give up artillery and supplies and adopt a light-packed approach.

It is impossible for the Chu army to fight without bringing enough artillery and shells.

How can we fight without artillery?

Although the Indian Legion is just a servant army, their commander is from Chu State, and he is a serious graduate of the Army Officer Academy, so naturally he can bring as many artillery pieces as he can when fighting.

However, the servant army of hundreds of people brought a full six artillery pieces, four of which were 25-year-style 65mm light field guns and two 20-year-style 110mm light howitzers.

In the Chu army, these two types of artillery are generally equipped with mountain and jungle troops or overseas troops, local mountains, jungles, overseas areas and other places with inconvenient transportation.

The main feature is lightness and detachable carrying.

Among them, the 65mm field gun, although not very powerful, and limited by the relatively small caliber, can only use solid shells, but because of its light weight and very convenient maneuvering, it has been used since the unification war of the Great Chu Empire. For 30 years now, Chengshun is still an indispensable main artillery in the Great Chu Empire Army.

This thing seems to have little power, and its effective range is only about a few hundred meters... But you can't stand it lightly. At critical moments in battle, you don't even need to draw a horse, and you can just pull it up with two artillerymen.

When encountering mountainous terrain, it can be dismantled directly for pack transportation. When there is no Thomas, the artillerymen can carry it separately...

And its power seems to be small, but this is also compared with other medium and large caliber field artillery of the Chu army, but in fact it is enough to deal with the indigenous people.

For example, the 25-year-old 65mm light field gun has a total weight of only 210 kg, and the barrel, gun mount, and wheels can all be disassembled, and then carried separately with a horse.

But don't look at it as light, in fact, the effective range of the artillery can reach 400 meters.

This is still talking about the effective range. If you don’t pay much attention to respecting the head and high lethality, it’s not a problem to fire at a distance of 700 meters. It’s just that the hit rate has dropped, and the kinetic energy at the end of the solid bullet is not enough. That's all.

In terms of actual power, the 25-year-old 65mm light field gun of the Chu army is actually similar to the six-pound field guns in many European countries, but its maneuverability and rate of fire far exceed them.

So this thing seems to be not very powerful, but it is very important in the Chu army, especially in the hands of the soldiers at the grassroots level.

Even if it is a 115mm light howitzer that can fire howitzers, this kind of light artillery that is specially developed for regiment-level troops and can shoot curved fire cannot replace the tactical status of the 65mm field gun.

Because the basic units of the Chu army have a special liking for the 65mm field artillery, the Chu army has been continuously improving it in the past 30 years and has been widely equipped with this series of artillery. The two latest improvements are:

The 24-year-type 65mm field gun of the plain type weighs 350 kg and has an effective range of 500 meters;
The mountain-type 25-year-style 65mm light field gun weighs 280 kg and has an effective range of up to 400 meters.

It's just that with the progress of the times, especially after the rifled weapons gradually mature, I am afraid that it will not be long before the 65mm front-loading smoothbore field gun will gradually withdraw from the war stage like other front-loading smoothbore guns.

After all, the difference in explosive power, range, and accuracy between the two is too great.

In the autumn of Chengshun's 30th year, Hebei Arms Company has reported that their continuous improvement of the 75mm rear-loading rifled field gun has initially solved the problems of barrel pressure and rifling wear after improving the material and process of the steel barrel.

The breech breech problem that plagued the rear-loaded rifled guns has also been solved to some extent. The breech-loaded rifled guns developed by Hebei Weapons Company are mainly horizontal wedge breech breeches, but because of the processing and some design details, the airtight Sex isn't really that good.

It is far less air-tight than the screw breech breech made by Dangtu Heavy Artillery Factory of Jiangnan Arms Company.

It can only be said that it is barely enough.

Well, this is also a breech-loading rifled gun developed by Hebei Weapons Company. It only has a caliber of 75 mm, and it uses a fixed-loading metal shell...

To some extent, the Hebei Arms Company's 75mm rear-loading rifled gun is actually a thing that imitated some of the design principles of their own Type [-] rear-loading rifle, and then enlarged and improved it to make such a thing!

So it naturally has the two characteristics of relatively small caliber and the use of metal fixed-loading ammunition... otherwise it will not work.

However, these seemingly flawed things also allowed them to come up with finished products faster and passed the military's harsh live ammunition shooting experiments.

Although it has not yet been finalized, the distance is not far away. It is optimistic that by next year, the Army will be able to get the first batch of sample guns for various tests.

They are very hopeful to get the military's first large-scale rear-mounted artillery order!
The overall progress and prospects are much faster than the other four domestic weapon companies... Huguang, Shaanxi-Gansu, and Guangdong-Guangzhou, the three weapon companies, have not even solved the problem of barrel life.

There is nothing wrong with the gun barrel of Jiangnan Arms Company, and it has been applied to the rifled guns currently in production for the navy, but their air leakage problem has not been solved.

The screw-type breech block they made seems to have a bright future, especially for heavy guns with medium and large calibers that use separate ammunition, but the problem is that it hasn't been made yet...

Overall, the development progress of the breech-loading rifled artillery of the Great Chu Empire is not bad, and there is no hope of large-scale service in a short period of time, but it is estimated that small-scale experimental equipment will be available in two or three years, and mass production will basically be realized in five years. Equipped.

But that's all for the future, and even if the Chu army is equipped with the latest breech-loading rifled guns, it will start from the first-class combat readiness divisions, and it will start in the local area first, and then the overseas first-class divisions, one step at a time. one step at a time.

Under such circumstances, it is not known when it will be the turn of the regular army stationed in Africa to equip the most advanced rear-loading rifled guns.

This is still referring to the regular army in the Great Chu Empire Army, um, specifically refers to the first-class division and the second-class division.

As for the local garrison troops of the C Division, it is even more difficult.

And the Indian Army Corps of the slave army...the Indian Army Corps stationed in India, it is estimated that there will be no hope in 20 years.

The third regiment of the Indian Legion on the African side or the servant army in similar situations in the future, it is estimated that the treatment will be better, but it can only be equipped after a large number of first-class and second-class divisions.

Under such circumstances, for the third regiment of the Indian Army, it is conservatively estimated that the seemingly old-fashioned weapon of the front-mounted smoothbore gun will have to be used for more than ten years!

Well, the premise is that the Indian Legion will still exist ten years later...

Not everyone in the high-level Chu army has a good impression of the servant army of the Indian Army. The servant army of the Indian Army was supported by the Indian Garrison Command and the No.20 Fourth Army. .

The local Jinling side is not too concerned about it, and it can't be said that it supports or opposes it.

After all, the overseas troops stationed in other places will actually use the local aborigines to form some armed forces in the nature of servants, but there is no formal establishment.

For example, the Nanyang Garrison Command previously recruited thousands of young natives from Siam, distributed them weapons, and then sent them to Borneo to fight against the local natives, but there was no official The establishment is only in the name of armed guards.

As for the recruitment of young natives to serve as logistics personnel, this is even more common. Basically, in every overseas military operation, the Chu army will recruit young and strong locals to serve as logistics personnel.

After all, the Chu army can mobilize troops from the mainland, but it cannot mobilize a large number of young and strong civilians. The cost is too high to be worthwhile.

Not to mention that unarmed and self-protecting logistics workers are prone to large-scale casualties when they are attacked. Naturally, Chu State is reluctant to let its own people die as cannon fodder, so recruiting local young and strong aboriginals has become Take it for granted.

Even going to Africa is no exception. When Harrell and the others advance, they are followed by a group of young and strong peasants recruited by the Chu army from the local area. These peasants will transport a large amount of food and ammunition for Harrell and the others. The army needs it all the way.

This time the Chu army launched a crusade against the local indigenous tribes. Except for the battalion guards and supervisor team composed of more than a dozen Chu army officers and more than 30 Chu soldiers, the rest were Indian servant soldiers and local young and strong men. Civil husband.

Among the more than 1000 people, there are only less than 50 Chu people.

This is also an important change in the overseas expansion of the Great Chu Empire, that is, to reduce the casualties of the Chu people as much as possible, and began to use the indigenous people as cannon fodder on a large scale to complete various low-intensity, high-casualty combat missions.

This situation is not good or bad, it is just some changes made according to the changes of the times. It is precisely because of this change that people of indigenous origin like Laihar can hug the Chu people. Thighs, escape from the poverty of the past.

After marching for four days, the third regiment of the Indian Legion successfully arrived at a local indigenous tribe whose name is unknown... This tribe naturally has a name, but the local indigenous language is complicated and difficult to understand, and the Chu people are not in the mood to come with them What kind of cultural and language exchange.

So until the battle broke out, in fact, whether it was the Chu people, Harrell and other servant soldiers, they still didn't know the name of their enemy...

But it doesn't matter.

If you can't communicate with language, you can't communicate, as long as guns can communicate.

A burst of shelling passed, followed by a few more rounds of shooting, and the aboriginal tribe on the opposite side knelt down on the spot, and then it was time to collect the spoils. Lehar was lucky, and got an inlaid from the corpse of an aboriginal leader. A lot of jeweled daggers, and some gold ornaments.

Others have gained more or less.

After looting the spoils and cutting off the heads of the enemy's dead to set up a Jingguan several meters high to show the might of the Chu army and deter other indigenous tribes, the army returned with more than 2000 young and strong prisoners of war.

Mogadishu is in the stage of large-scale construction. As the largest military camp of the Chu army in Northeast Africa, it is also a supply port for the fleet and a transfer port for various materials. A large amount of labor is urgently needed to build the port and other various class building.

Well, Harrell and the others went out this time, in addition to showing force to deter other indigenous tribes, they also wanted to capture some prisoners of war and come back to work.

The infrastructure construction of such a large port requires a lot of small labor, and it is obviously impossible for the Chu army to use its own soldiers to do it, and it is impossible to transport construction workers from other places, so they can only use prisoners of war. up.

Well, most of the overseas coastal port cities of the Great Chu Empire were basically built by prisoners of war.

Of course, it must be emphasized that the Great Chu Empire claims to be the only civilized country on earth, and the people of Chu State are civilized people, and slavery has always been strictly prohibited.

Regardless of whether they are natives or natives, as long as they are in the area controlled by the Great Chu Empire, slaves or slave labor are not allowed.

Therefore, it is not slaves who build various infrastructures in overseas territories, or cultivate plantations, but prisoners of war!

A prisoner of war is a prisoner of war, a slave is a slave, and the two must never be confused.

People from the state of Chu still need face!
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(End of this chapter)