Because of the conditioned reflex brought about by repeated training, everyone immediately fell to the ground without thinking.
It was extremely spectacular for tens of thousands of people to suddenly lie down. There was a loud rumble. Everyone crawled on the ground as fast as possible.
Immediately afterwards, bursts of fire flickered in front, and smoke and flames spurted out from the muzzle. Countless spherical solid bullets and shotgun shells passed by screaming in the space above the back.
The hot wind brought by it made people feel the scorching air waves from the cracks of the armor even if they were wearing plate armor.
Han Qingyuan and the others lay on the ground, covering their ears. This place was less than a hundred meters away from the enemy formation in front, and the huge noise from the muzzle was coming directly towards them.
My ears buzzed. These cannons were captured from the Ming Army and were equipped by the Eight Banners. That is to say, Nurhaci stipulated in the previous article that each unit should be equipped with a number of cannons, and those artillery refers to.
These cannons all have one characteristic, which is a short and thick barrel with many iron hoops. Most of them are less than one meter in length, generally around 70 centimeters.
The ratio of caliber to length is generally about ten to one. The materials are mainly bronze, wrought iron and pig iron. Manufactured by casting or forging.
The breech of this gun is flat, like the bottom of a jar. It doesn't have the bowl shape of the red cannon and has a small ball tail.
In front of the breech is the medicine chamber, which is enlarged like a drum. Because the gun barrel is short, this design can be charged with more charges to increase the range.
Different names such as General, Second General, Third General, Short General, Sai General, etc. refer to the caliber of the artillery.
Because the lengths are almost the same. No. 1 is the largest, and then the caliber gradually decreases, and the weight gradually decreases.
The weight of the Third General is about 95 kilograms. The artillery of the third general and below has a built-in handle, so it can be carried away in an emergency.
Good maneuverability and easy to carry. In use, it can be loaded with spherical solid bullets and shotgun shells. The Ming army also liked to mix it, that is, first load it with shotgun shells, then load it with a solid spherical shell, and fire it together.
These general cannons generally need to be maneuvered on vehicles. Small ones can be carried on people's backs and on packhorses.
Qi Jiguang made improvements to the general's cannon. Open the bulging medicine chamber and insert a blunderbuss similar to a Franco cannon into this position.
The improved cannon is called the Invincible General Cannon. It is also divided into No. 1 to No. 5 according to caliber and weight.
Ye Mengxiong, Minister of the Ministry of War, was dissatisfied with Qi Jiguang's invincible general cannon and thought it was still too heavy, so he invented the forging method of the general cannon.
The weight is greatly reduced. Ye Mengxiong said that the largest firearm in Ji Town is the Invincible General. His son's gun weighs 150 kilograms, and his mother's gun is made of copper and weighs 1,000 kilograms.
Ye Mengxiong used the design of the Invincible General's cannon to forge the cannon body and musket, lengthening it three times to reach 6 feet in length, with a total weight of only 250 kilograms.
It can fire 7kg closed lead bullets, with 3kg bullets and smaller ones with a total weight of 1kg.
The "Sun Bomb" has 200 rounds and a range of 800 steps. After the invention of this kind of gun, the size was expanded and reduced according to practical applications.
They are also divided into generals No. 1 to No. 5. Through this actual battlefield inspection, Yang Fan has completely figured out what the cannons Jiannu mentioned are all about.
Before he looked at the information, the Ming Dynasty documents referred to
"General guns" are these things whose magnification ratio is mostly about 10 to 12.
This thing was invented during the Yongle period. The so-called
"Magic Cannon"
"God machine gun". These also refer to this type of different sizes
"General Cannon". In Yang Fan's opinion, these are all junk. In other words, long-barreled breech-loading cannons such as the Fran machine of various sizes can still be seen.
It was still the middle and late stages of Huang Taiji when Jiannu forged red cannons. The officers, who were very rigorously trained, played an important role.
They made a prompt decision and ordered the militia troops to lie down in time before the cannons and heavy artillery fired by the Han army flags opened fire.
These measures caused the projectiles fired by the Han Army Flag to fly one or two meters above the backs of the militiamen.
Greatly reduced casualties. Only far behind, some artillery shells with a short range hit the ground, killing and wounding a dozen people lying on the ground to a limited extent.
The heavy infantry of the Zhenglan Banner formed a formation and stood behind the cannon. Waiting quietly. They planned to launch a direct assault after the artillery caused heavy casualties to the Ming army.
Destroy the Ming army at once. I have to say that their wishful thinking was very shrewd. However, the association is very plump and the reality is very skinny.
Yang Fan's Cao Dian has four hundred years more battlefield experience than theirs, so he naturally has ways to deal with them.
This method is that the fire blunderbuss can be shot hard because the plate armor is reliable. If there is artillery fire from the opposite side, the officers will immediately blow the whistle and everyone will lie down.
In this way, whether it is spherical solid bullets or shotgun shells, they are useless. These things are direct-fire weapons and cannot hit the ground.
This primitive gun had limited depression and elevation angles because of the primitive design of the gun mount. After the army lay down, they directly exposed the field artillery battalion and machine gun battalion behind them.
Yang Fan had already arranged for artillery to suppress the enemy before the cavalry was dispatched. Because of their short barrels, these general cannons have a very poor range, generally between 100 and 200 meters.
A few can reach 300 meters. After all, Ye Mengxiong has very few guns in Liaodong. Jiannu did not capture many invincible general cannons and forged general cannons.
Most of them are small guns. Moreover, the number of No. 1 generals is relatively small, and there are still not many Han military flags.
Most of them are No. 3 generals. The process of Yang Fan's three-pound cannon is that after the casting is completed, it is red-hot and forged with a hydraulic forging machine.
Then a boring machine was used to dig out the gun bore. The length-to-diameter ratio of this gun reached 36 times the diameter. Yang Fan has the best propellant of this era - maroon gunpowder.
Coupled with the blessing of a long barrel, it can achieve extremely high muzzle velocity. Although the caliber is small, it has strong penetrating power and considerable power.
The purpose of making such a long barrel is to penetrate shield vehicles. This length-to-diameter ratio is already very large. Many modern artillery guns are 39 times in diameter. Although the mainstream ones are 45 times in diameter, the latest ones are 52 times in diameter.
Yang Fan's three-pounder has a direct firing range of more than 750 meters, and its muzzle velocity far exceeds that of artillery of this era. The gun battalion contained thirty three-pounders.
Deployed five hundred meters away from the Han army flag artillery. Here, the artillery of the Han Army Banner could not reach this far.
And Yang Fan's three-pounder can definitely hit them. After the Han army flag was fired, the field artillery battalion immediately fired back.
The general cannons of the Han army were of varying quality and performance, but they all fell behind the lying army and could not reach the three-pounder positions behind them.
Immediately, the three-pounder opened fire. Thirty artillery carriages violently recoiled, thick smoke spewed from the muzzles, and dense shells flew towards the enemy's formation.
Because the distance is far, there are people in front of me. Shotguns cannot be used, only solid spherical bullets are used. Hot spherical bullets roared into the ranks of the Han Army Flag and the Zhenglan Flag.
It is difficult for these spherical projectiles to hit enemy artillery, but there is no problem at all when hitting people around the artillery.
The caliber of the three-gun cannon is only 76 mm, but it is enough to carve out a bloody alley in the crowd.
The four square formations and the array of 13,000 infantrymen were all in a thick and dense formation. Every time a shot was fired, there were more than a dozen casualties.
Then the ricochet landed another dozen casualties. Ricochet three to five times in a row before it stops.
Thirty three-pound guns can fire at a rate of two rounds per minute using fixed ammunition. Round after round came.
