The main difference between siege artillery and field artillery is the vehicle. Gao Pragmatic knows this without Liu Xin's introduction. The biggest difference is definitely the "straight gun" and the "curved gun". After all, the former is a long barrel with a smaller caliber and a longer range, while the latter is a short barrel with a larger caliber and a shorter range. These two guns are basically the same. It is impossible to use one tube for multiple purposes or one bomb for multiple purposes.
So no matter what, after distinguishing between "straight artillery" and "curved artillery", it is inevitable that the logistical burden will increase. No matter how hard you think of a solution, you can only try not to aggravate it too much.
However, with the addition of "bent cannons", both the Ming army and the Southern Xinjiang garrison will definitely have a considerable increase in their lethality against the enemy. This improvement mainly lies in the range of damage to enemy personnel, war horses and other effective forces. As for attacking fortresses, under the current technical level, we still have to rely on "direct artillery", that is, cannons with straight ballistics.
Now that the technological progress of artillery has achieved initial results, Gao Pragmatic must come up with corresponding artillery tactics. But he did not express his opinion immediately. Instead, he asked Huang Zhiting and Liu Xin a question: "In your opinion, after the batch equipment of 'Bent Cannon', what new tactics should our artillery adopt to cooperate?"
Huang Zhiting and Liu Xin looked at each other, and Liu Xin smiled slightly and made a "please" gesture to Huang Zhiting. Huang Zhiting smiled and nodded in response, without being too polite, and said: "As for the 'Bent Cannon', I have been paying close attention to it when it was still in the research and development stage over the years. Judging from some of the tentative technical indicators, there are roughly a few Features. It has a short range but it falls from the head, so it is difficult for the enemy to defend against it; its killing range is large, but the probability of injury and disability is much higher than death.
Although this is a new type of artillery that Jinghua has been researching for more than ten years before launching it, there are actually many prototypes of it. When I was young, I went with my father to fight against the rebellion with the imperial army. I saw at least five or six kinds of firearms among the army, which can be said to be some kind of "flowering cannons". "
When Huang Zhiting said this, he glanced at Gao Pragmatically and said, "Master, do you still remember that when you reformed the army's military industry and logistics system, you cut off a large number of strange firearms production and equipment?"
Gao pragmatic smiled: "Of course I remember that there are more than fifty types of beheading that I personally ordered to be chopped off, not to mention those that were not even delivered to me, but were proactively taken out by the Ministry of War in response to my orders. Cut off.”
"That's it." Huang Zhiting said: "I wonder if the master knows about the poisonous fire flying cannon?"
"I remember it, but I remember it not because of anything else, but because when I compiled "Huidian", I recorded it according to the manuscripts of my predecessors."
Gao pragmatic recalled a little and said: "This thing is made of wrought iron, like a general's mouth, and contains more than ten taels of gunpowder. The mouth of the cup is filled with pig iron, and it looks like a flying cannon. It contains five taels of sulfur poison, and the medicine line is always tied in one place." The ignition cannon fired first, and the flying cannon was fired 200 steps away, shattering and injuring people."
After a pause, Gao Pragmatic shook his head and said: "You can say that it is a kind of 'bent cannon', but I don't regret cutting off the production of this thing. The reason is very simple. Its power is already It was too weak, and some inexplicable so-called poisons were added to it, making it useless and could only make a sound on the battlefield.
Secondly, its range is too short. Two hundred steps is only 340 meters. At this distance, even if the enemy troops are both infantry, they can only reach them in one charge. It is impossible to fire a second artillery, let alone the main imaginary enemy of the official army at that time is the Mongolian cavalry. "
Huang Zhiting smiled and said: "The power and range are indeed a bit different. Otherwise, what would Jinghua have been doing for more than ten years? I just want to say that there were actually many such explosive cannons and ammunition at that time. In addition to this poisonous fire flying cannon, there are also thunder flying cannons, watermelon cannons, flying cloud thunder cannons, flying exploding cannons, wind-drilling fire meteor cannons, etc."
This time Gao Pragmatic just nodded slightly but didn't say much. He knew that Huang Zhiting wouldn't look back at these antique products for no reason, and he must be expressing something through them.
Sure enough, Huang Zhiting continued: "So, do you know how these strange and colorful cannons were used by the officers and soldiers in the past?"
This really confused Gao Pangshi. He had always believed that these gadgets were useless in his early years, so naturally he would not study how to use these fancy but limited power things.
Gao pragmatically shook his head decisively.
Huang Zhiting seemed to have guessed it a long time ago, so he smiled and said: "As the master said, these things are too weak and have insufficient range... so they are often used flexibly."
Gao Pragmatic frowned: "Flexible use? What is flexible use?"
"Ah, this is the way the master used words to express it. In fact, I want to put it in my own words, it is a hammer in the east and a mallet in the west." Huang Zhiting spread his hands and said: "These cannons are very small, one or two are stronger. Soldiers can carry them and run, so when the enemy is camped in the field, they can be used as a weapon to harass at night. After firing one shot, they can move to another place and fire another shot.
It may not be useless when two armies are facing each other. For example, you can form several small teams outside the main army formation. Each team can carry two or three such small cannons. When the enemy troops line up, advance or retreat, they can run near them and fire one. Cannons can also interfere with it. "
"It's enough." Gao Pingshi rolled his eyes and said angrily: "There are so many types of things, and the result is that they can have a harassing effect? It seems that I really did not do anything wrong by cutting off the production and equipment of these things. .”
Huang Zhiting smiled and said: "I won't go into details about their disadvantages. I just want to say that when these things became the current Jinghua Curved Cannon, although they were very different, there were some ideas in them. There is still room for improvement and reference.”
"For example?"
"Things that can be improved, such as changing from piecemeal to concentrated firepower." Huang Zhiting said: "Concentrated firepower is a combat principle that the master has repeatedly emphasized, and it must also be adhered to in the application of Jinghua curved artillery.
Since the Jinghua Curved Cannon has greatly improved range and power compared to these old small cannons, and its quality is much more stable, it can be used intensively to further increase its lethality.
However, concentration can lead to flexibility. Assume that our army now faces Chahar's superior cavalry attack with inferior strength. According to the current tactical principles, our army must deploy a bayonet hollow square.
Before the advent of the curved cannon, if the hollow square array was not large enough, it would be difficult for our original artillery to be useful, because if the square array was too small, the firing angle of the artillery would be insufficient. Artillery with sufficient shooting angles may be beyond the range of the enemy's approach, but it is of little use.
But it's different with the curved cannon. The curved cannon has a larger firing angle and won't hit too far. Its explosive shells can go over the top of our infantry array to hit the attacking enemy.
The reason why I say that I can be deployed flexibly means that even in such a square formation, I can focus on attacking the enemy. As for large-scale field operations, split-up attacks, etc., it is also possible to formulate a special "bending artillery" unit, with several or more than ten cannons as a basic organization to form a curved artillery unit that can be flexibly deployed, mobilized, and struck flexibly. Artillery units to execute. "
Although Huang Zhiting's expression was not perfect, Gao Pragmatic understood what she meant and was quite surprised because it was a very forward-looking suggestion. To a certain extent, if Huang Zhiting's suggestion is compared with European military history, it has even reached the conceptual level of artillery application in mainstream military thought during the Napoleonic Wars.
The concentrated use of artillery is a very iconic principle in Napoleon's tactics. Gao Pragmatic also liked the concentrated use of artillery, but his previous concentrated use was not exactly the same as Napoleon's concentrated use. Perhaps it should be said that the concentration of artillery in the past was a concentration at the strategic level, while Napoleon's concentrated use of artillery was a more detailed application at the tactical level.
This means that Gao Pragmatic's previous "artillery concentration" simply temporarily concentrated the artillery under his jurisdiction for use, while Napoleon's "artillery concentration" was to separately organize the artillery from the beginning, so that it could be used independently during the war. Used, they can also be taken apart and used individually, and they can also support each other at any time, etc.
The reason for this difference is that Gao Pragmatic usually did not care about front-line command in previous battles, because he was a civilian, not a soldier or a general.
Gao pragmatic knows that his tactical command level is not much better than that of ordinary generals, let alone compared with some famous generals - not to mention the god of war like Qi Jiguang, even Liu Wei and others, their tactical command level is definitely far behind Super pragmatic. Therefore, everything Gao Pragmatic has done in the past has been biased towards overall progress, and it is difficult to go deep into specific preparations.
Take a look at the Guards that he nominally created. Although he was responsible for the establishment of the Guards, how much role did he play in the specific training, including tactical research, etc.? It was all handled by Qi Jiguang. The most pragmatic thing is that when Qi Jiguang said how many muskets and how many artillery pieces were needed... he would satisfy Commander Qi's requirements.
Now, Qi Jiguang has retired, but artillery has developed to a new level. The army's application tactics urgently need to adapt to such changes, so they have to find more professional people to handle it. Gao Pragmatic originally meant to find Ma Gui, Liu Wei, Qi Jin and even Zhang Wanbang, a new generation of famous generals, but he never expected that he would have such a talented person with a keen tactical vision in his own family!
The suggestion Huang Zhiting just made immediately reminded Gao Pragmatic of Napoleon's basic artillery organization: artillery battery.
During the Napoleonic era, the basic unit of artillery was the battery. Of course, the right to use these artillery batteries is concentrated in the hands of the army and even the highest commander.
During the battle, the higher-level command department will basically assign an artillery battery to each division to provide fire support. Although the French army is organized into an artillery regiment with six artillery companies, each company of the artillery regiment must also be assigned to a division-level unit. This method of centralized management and use of artillery batteries was not only used by the French army, but was also accepted by the armies of various countries at the time.
Of course, Napoleon, Wellington and the Archduke Charles all tried to assign some light artillery directly to regiments and even units below the regiment. However, because this method had too much freedom and was not conducive to concentrating artillery firepower, it was finally changed back to the original state.
At that time, European field artillery was divided into dismounted artillery and mounted artillery. There is not much to say about dismounted artillery. Gunners basically have to march on foot. Senior artillery officers or older junior officers are allowed to ride horses. Of course, there are also records of gunners riding artillery carts towing horses.
William the Great of Prussia founded the earliest mounted artillery and gave this unit a nice name "flying artillery". The French officers at the time were shocked after seeing the performance of this artillery on the battlefield, but France still had not established a mounted artillery force.
It was not until 1792, after the French Revolution, that two mounted artillery companies appeared in the French army. But it doesn't matter. After that, especially after Napoleon came to power, the French army's mounted artillery developed rapidly. By 1807, the French army had six regiments (36 companies) of mounted artillery. In 1810, the 7th Dutch Mounted Artillery Regiment was established.
It can be said that the French mounted artillery was the highest in Europe at the time, both in terms of absolute quantity and equipment level. The rate of mounted artillery in the British army is also very high. Half of the 26 artillery companies that participated in the Battle of Waterloo were mounted artillery.
According to a record that Gao Pragmatic read in his early years, only 13 of the 42 artillery batteries deployed by Austria on the battlefield in 1813 were mounted artillery; during the Battle of Waterloo, there were 6 mounted artillery batteries among the 17 artillery batteries of the Prussian army; The organization of the army's artillery is relatively chaotic, and it is difficult to collect accurate data, but it is certain that its ratio is roughly similar to that of the Prussian army.
At that time, the number and configuration of artillery batteries in the artillery batteries of various European countries were not much different. Among them, the French dismounted artillery consisted of 6 cannons and 2 howitzers; the mounted artillery consisted of 4 cannons and 2 howitzers.
The British troops are either mounted or on foot, some are 5/1 (5 cannons and 1 howitzer, the same below) and some are 4/2; the Prussian troops are all 6/2; the Austrian 12-pounder artillery battery is 8/ 2. The mounted artillery battery is 6/2, and the light artillery battery is 4/2; the Russian army...well, the situation is unclear again.
Because 12-pounders are heavier, mounted artillery is rarely equipped with 12-pounders, but instead is equipped with a large number of 6-pounders.
The total number of officers and soldiers in artillery companies in various countries ranges from 150 to 200. Each gun has 7 gunners (the French 12-pounder has 8) and several infantrymen to assist in moving and adjusting the angle of the artillery. When the artillery company is attacked, it can also provide necessary resistance.
Among the 7 gunners, the gunner is usually a sergeant, one igniter, one loader, one or two are responsible for carrying ammunition, one is responsible for moistening the barrel, and the last one is called ventsman (note: I don’t know how to translate it). Let's call it the ignition port operator.
If there is only one person carrying ammunition, and the remaining person is on standby at the rear of the horses and "front car", a lieutenant will be in charge of every two guns, and the captain will be in charge of the entire artillery company.
Gao Pragmatic only knew so much about the establishment of the French artillery company at that time. This was thanks to the fact that he had been addicted to a certain tactical command game for a while, so he checked it out. Excluding the forgotten parts, that's all that's left.
Change source app]
"Ah, I remembered... Zhiting, the artillery ratio of the Dingnan Garrison has always been the highest. Is it because of this that you paid special attention to the application of artillery and gained these insights?" Gao pragmatically asked.
Huang Zhiting nodded and said: "There are reasons for this, but the first time I was concerned about the issue of artillery was actually during the Annan period... The artillery under my command at that time gave me a great shock. From then on, I have been I am very concerned about the development of artillery, and when I have nothing to do, I often think about how to make good use of artillery."
Gao Pangshi and Liu Xin looked at each other, suddenly slapped their thighs, and said: "Well, let's take advantage of the fact that you don't have to go back to southern Xinjiang for the time being. During this time, you can study and test the artillery organization after the advent of the Jinghua Curved Cannon.
I personally suggest that the basic establishment of artillery should be set at about ten as you just said, which can be regarded as an artillery company. How to prepare it specifically, you can go to another hospital to test it. In addition to the armed servants who are in rotation, I will also inform the Beijing Guards Camp to let their artillery cooperate with you when you need it. What do you think? "
Huang Zhiting smiled and said, "I will naturally depend on the master's orders."
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ps: School is about to start. My wife asked me to call the kids over tonight to discuss three chapters, which delayed some time. However, there is a second chapter tonight, but it seems to be after 0 o'clock.
