At noon, Zhang Geda stood on the reviewing stand at Dongshan Camp and looked at the assembled veterans of the 600th Regiment. They were all the backbones who had experienced the bloody battle on the rocky beach.
Behind the veterans were 1,200 newly trained militiamen from each village. There are also a hundred students from Xinghe School.
More than a thousand people were mobilized to transport heavy supplies, drive carts, and take care of horses and livestock.
"Everyone is here, let's reorganize the team. The veterans will re-establish the team according to their previous duties. Those who have been team leaders and squadron leaders will come to the front." Zhang Geda shouted.
Soon the officers all came out and stood behind Zhang Geda.
The original corps commanders and gang leaders organized teams, replenished the militia, and reorganized sixty squads.
Each team is divided into three groups of ten people.
The first group was equipped with standing shields, waist knives and spears. Mainly composed of militia.
The second group was equipped with old-fashioned nine-shot door guns. Mainly composed of militia.
The third group was equipped with newly manufactured flintlock rifles and was mainly composed of veterans.
In addition to these sixty groups, there is also an artillery battalion in the Dongshan camp. Yang Fan installed the ten large bronze cannons captured last time on the artillery cart and equipped a field artillery battalion. However, this Yang Fan is not going to be exposed now. These people will first be trained according to the army's artillery battalion and used as an artillery training team. Responsible for training subsequent gunners.
When Beitang Shipyard's clipper ship matures, Yang Fan plans to install these ten cannons on the clipper ship. After all, going to sea without cannons means giving money to pirates.
Regarding the next development of muskets, Yang Fan was also a little entangled, because he knew that every advancement in weapons had profound reasons. He was a little hesitant about whether to skip the matchlock gun and directly develop the flintlock gun.
Yang Fan consulted his military comrades in the Guns and Roses group.
The masters answered this question for Yang Fan in detail.
The beautiful girl of the Medici family: To achieve the ideal effect of the fire door gun, it is best to work in a team of two, one holding the gun to aim, and the other person responsible for igniting. The late-stage fire door guns that were later developed all had a hook, which was used to hook the city wall as a support point, and the other hand was used to light the fire.
Therefore, the main purpose of developing the matchlock gun was to free up the right hand for aiming and firing. Holding the handguard of the rifle with one hand and holding the handle with the other, your finger pulls the trigger, the match falls, ignites the gunpowder and is fired. This turned the trap gun, which actually required two people to aim and fire, into a matchlock gun that could be fired by one person.
The trigger structure of the matchlock is developed from the trigger structure of the crossbow invented in China.
Yang Shiyilang (Yang Fan): What are the advantages and problems of the matchlock gun.
Sauron the Great: The advantages of the matchlock gun are epoch-making compared to the previous generation of fire door guns. The early fire door guns were made of cast copper or cast iron, very short, the gunpowder stroke was not long, and the shooting range was short. One is that the casting technology was not up to par at the time, and the barrel could not be made too long. In addition, the gunpowder at that time was very poor and not very powerful. A short barrel was enough, but a long barrel was meaningless.
Later, gunpowder improved, but the barrel was still the same. There were many bubbles and cracks in the casting, and it was easy to explode the chamber, so I didn't dare to charge more powder. The effective range is only thirty meters, and the direct range is only about ten meters.
Later fire gate guns began to use wrought iron rolled on a steel column to make the barrel. Wrought iron is soft, and bubbles and cracks can be squeezed out by knocking, resulting in a dense barrel. By increasing the hardness through quenching, the barrel can be lengthened and propellant added.
Pharaoh's slipper-bearing officer: At this time, another problem arises, that is, it is really inconvenient for two people to fire a fire door gun together. So someone got inspiration from the crossbow trigger and installed the trigger on the fire door gun. This saves one person and frees up one hand. One person can complete loading, aiming and firing.
Yang Shiyilang: What is the principle of match rope.
Pharaoh's slipper-bearing officer: It's very simple, made of hemp rope, and the materials are everywhere. Generally, a string or cloth made of linen is soaked in spirits or acid vinegar dissolved in saltpeter for 24 hours (it can also be soaked in other salt solutions or plant ash or lime concentrated alkali), and then dried.
Sometimes in order to pursue a slow burning effect (of course the longer the burning time, the better), they will be soaked in urine for treatment. It is then dried in the sun to form a fire rope that burns very slowly but always maintains an open flame.
The burning rate is about 80 mm to 120 mm per hour. In this way, after the soldier presses the metal hook into the fire door, he can hold the gun with one hand or both hands and keep his eyes on the target. According to historical records, a well-trained shooter can fire 2 to 3 bullets per minute, and the long-barreled gun has a range of about 100 to 200 meters.
You see, this matchlock gun is much more powerful than the fire door gun. This is an epoch-making change in gunpowder weapons.
Yang Shiyilang: I understand, I feel that when it develops into a matchlock gun, it can be considered a real musket. What's wrong with the matchlock gun?
You can travel a thousand miles if you hold in your urine, but you can't walk an inch if you have diarrhea: there are too many problems, some of which are simply mind-numbing.
Problem 1: There are never enough match ropes.
Since a match rope is required to fire a matchlock gun, every musketeer at that time had to carry a match rope several meters long on his body.
Before going into battle, they must first light the matchlock, because it is extremely difficult to light the matchlock when the weather is humid, and if it rains, there is no need to use the matchlock gun.
Moreover, experienced warriors will light both ends of the match rope so that they can fire the second shot at any time. In this way, a match rope will not burn for long.
Although the match rope burns slowly, no matter how slow it is, it is still an open flame.
It is also very dangerous when ignited. If you are not careful, the sparks will ignite the ammunition belt you are carrying, causing an explosion and injuring the musketeer himself.
Moreover, a lit match rope can easily expose itself at night, making it impossible to sneak attack the enemy at night. You may also become a target for the opponent's crossbowmen.
Question 2: There are as many as 25 steps in firing a matchlock gun, which is very complicated.
Problem 3: It cannot be used on rainy days. It rains heavily on the battlefield, and your matchlock gun turns into a fire stick in minutes.
Question 4: This is the most terrible thing. It has poor accuracy and short effective range. It can only shoot targets within 100m, and its direct range is lower than that of a crossbow.
The power is still small, because the use of lead bullets with a diameter smaller than the barrel of the gun results in air leakage and a lot of waste of gunpowder and gas. As the distance becomes longer, the penetration of armor protection drops sharply.
Yang Shiyilang: Wouldn’t it be airtight if the lead bullets were wrapped in cowhide?
Fans’ previous lives were potatoes: That’s not possible either. The inaccuracy of the matchlock gun is not only due to air leakage. More importantly, the technology at that time was unreliable and there were no boring machines. Without a boring machine, how can you ensure that the barrel is absolutely straight? This cannot be seen with the naked eye. The barrel is curved, and you still expect the bullet to go straight when it comes out of the chamber.
Yang Fan was shocked that this situation still existed.
