When the main force of the 5th garrison brigade and the first sentry of the 1st siege artillery battalion went south to Zhongxiang.
A military order carrying the battle report of the Battle of Nanzhang was sent to Luo Zhixue outside Zhongxiang City in advance.
Luo Zhixue didn't pay much attention to the situation of ordinary troops such as the Ninth Guard Regiment in the battle report. Anyway, the fighting was just like that. What he really paid attention to was the situation of the first sentry under the first siege artillery battalion.
To be precise, it focuses on the actual combat application of the eighteen-pound mortar.
In the battle report, the actual combat situation of the post is reported in detail, and each artillery record is individually recorded, including the amount of charge, range, hit rate, dud rate, kill rate, normal firing time interval, and maximum rapid fire rate. intervals and so on.
Every data is recorded in detail in order to obtain the most accurate data, and subsequent combat manuals are formulated based on actual combat data.
After Luo Zhixue briefly looked through the summary data, he said to Zhang Malin, the artillery director on the side: "Although the rate of fire of this artillery is a bit slow, it is powerful enough and is a powerful siege weapon. Our army will definitely equip this artillery in the future. Even for larger 48-pound mortars, your artillery must formulate training procedures and combat manuals in advance to train relevant gunners."
Zhang Malin said: "General, don't worry, I have already asked people to start comprehensively sorting out the combat data of the 18-pound mortar. The training and combat manuals will be initially available within five days at most. We will continue to improve the more detailed ones in the future while doing actual combat."
Luo Zhixue said: "That's good. In addition, we should also pay attention to the fact that the current grenade is still a bit inferior. I have discussed the research and development of grenade fuses with people from the Ammunition Department of the Ordnance Department. Your artillery unit should follow up and pay attention in time. ."
The detonation method of the so-called grenades currently used by the Baoxiang Army is still too primitive. In order to successfully detonate the artillery shells, the only way is to directly install a match rope on the grenade, and rely on the length of the match rope to control the delayed explosion of the artillery shells.
But this method is too unreliable and extremely dangerous.
Although there were no accidents during the first actual combat of the 18-pound mortar in the Battle of Nanzhang, this was achieved only after the artillery troops deliberately controlled the rate of fire and conducted strict inspections on every firing step.
If the war situation is tense and the mortar artillery unit needs to increase its rate of fire, once the rate of fire increases, the artillerymen will easily be in a hurry, and eventually accidents will occur.
And once this kind of artillery has an accident during firing, it can directly wipe out a gun crew in minutes...
In this regard, Luo Zhixue also asked technicians from Xiangyang Arsenal and other factories, under the auspices of the Ministry of Ordnance, to develop new methods of detonating artillery shells, that is, to develop fuses.
Luo Zhixue did not expect to be able to produce the kind of modern collision fuse that would be seen in later generations. As long as he could produce a more reliable delay fuse, it would be enough.
The principle of the delay fuse is relatively simple. It is nothing more than controlling the burning speed and time of the ignition substance, plus the method of igniting the ignition substance.
If the match rope is unreliable, then you have to find a way to replace it with other flammable materials, such as nitrated cork.
Now the Ordnance Department has begun to organize manpower for preliminary research and development. As for when it can be produced, it depends on luck, but it will definitely not be used in a short time.
In the short term, especially in the attack on Zhongxiang City, if you want to use mortars, you can only continue to use match ropes to fuse such backward and primitive artillery shells.
——
The Fifth Garrison Brigade and other troops arrived very quickly, arriving at Zhongxiang City in only five days. They also captured Yiyang Suo, the Ming army's garrison stronghold here, along the way.
There weren't many Ming troops on the Yiyang side. The 5th garrison brigade and other troops didn't even need to set up their positions. They just sent a battalion of garrison troops there, and the few generals who stayed at the garrison on the opposite side moved ahead neatly. He ran away, and the remaining middle and low-level guard generals surrendered decisively.
Therefore, the capture of Yiyang did not waste much time of the Fifth Guard Brigade and other troops.
When they arrived at Zhongxiang City, another fleet from Xiangyang also arrived at Zhongxiang smoothly.
This fleet is fully loaded with various military supplies, including muskets, armor and other combat weapons, ammunition, food, etc.
The most important thing is the two batches of artillery.
One batch is the first batch of 600-pound long-barreled iron-cast artillery produced by Xiangyang Arsenal, and the other batch is the second batch of 18-pound mortar cannon produced by Xiangyang Arsenal.
The main productivity of Xiangyang Arsenal in recent times has been focused on the production of guns, especially artillery.
The first and last batch of 600-jin cast-iron artillery pieces have been shipped out of the factory one after another. The total number is twenty. After producing twenty 600-jin cast-iron long-barreled artillery pieces, the Xiangyang Arsenal can just take advantage of the trend. Process two and a half kilograms of bronze long-barreled artillery pieces.
Six of the last batch of 20 artillery pieces were added to the Western Front, and were separately organized into a field artillery post, under the jurisdiction of the West Route Army Headquarters, to enrich the strength of the Western Front.
Even though the troops of the West Route Army are now garrison troops, once the garrison troops have field artillery to provide fire support, their combat capabilities will be able to reach a higher level.
In the era of hot weapons, although it seems that guns and artillery are equally important, in fact artillery is always more important.
Artillery is the god of war.
In addition, six artillery pieces were left in Xiangyang and were incorporated into the Third Artillery Regiment to be used as artillery for the seed field artillery unit. In the future, these six artillery pieces will be responsible for training more gunners. At the same time, the artillery regiment is stationed in Xiangyang training, because these artillery will also be used as teaching artillery in the artillery section of the Officer Academy.
Six of the remaining eight were added to the First Artillery Regiment on the Zhongxiang front line. After adding these six two-and-a-half-pound artillery pieces, the number of two-and-a-half-pound field guns owned by the First Artillery Regiment will reach 24. Door.
There are also two more, but they were incorporated into the 1st Cavalry Brigade and used as artillery directly under the cavalry.
So far, the various units of the Baoxiang Army have fifty two-and-a-half-pound field guns, twenty-four of the First Artillery Regiment of the First Division on the southern front, and two of the First Cavalry Brigade Artillery Team;
Six units of the Third Artillery Regiment of the Third Division garrisoned in Xiangyang;
The Second Artillery Regiment of the Second Division on the Northern Front has twelve branches;
There are six field artillery posts directly under the Western Front Command.
The above-mentioned two-and-a-half kilogram field artillery pieces are all iron-cast artillery. In the future, the Baoxiang Army will not continue to be equipped with iron-cast field artillery, but will be fully equipped with bronze field artillery.
These cast-iron two-and-a-half-pound field guns will gradually be relegated to the second line after their service life reaches a critical point, and will be withdrawn from active service when they are completely unusable.
In fact, even now, the barrel life of some iron field guns has almost expired, especially the batch of artillery built during the Funiu Mountain period. After several battles, each artillery fired more than four shells. Hundreds of shots.
Although these artillery can still be used, the frequency of use must be reduced, especially frequent rapid fire. At the same time, the charge will be reduced to reduce the pressure on the barrel, but the cost is that the firing rate is slower and the power of the shells is also reduced.
This batch of artillery that was approaching the end of its barrel life was replaced when the main force passed through Nanyang, and was equipped with the northern front troops. It is now incorporated into the Third Artillery Regiment of the Third Division.
The main artillery unit, the original First Artillery Brigade and now the First Artillery Regiment of the First Division, was equipped with twelve new artillery pieces.
Today, the artillery of the artillery regiment is either brand new or relatively new, and the remaining life of its barrels is enough to support several large-scale battles.
Then continue to provide fire support to the troops moving south.
It would not happen that in the middle of the battle south, the artillery units of the artillery force were forced to suspend the operation because the barrels had reached the end of their service life, or that common explosion accidents occurred after the shelling was forced to continue.
In order to prepare for a big war, a batch of new artillery must be prepared for replacement. This is the helplessness of the current iron artillery. It is also Luo Zhixue's determination that even if the cost of bronze artillery is several times that of the cast iron artillery, it must be completely replaced. Bronze field cannon.
——
In addition to eight two-and-a-half-pound field guns, the fleet heading south to Zhongxiang also had a new batch of twelve eighteen-pound mortars.
The Xiangyang Arsenal is working day and night to produce various artillery pieces, and the production of eighteen-pound mortars is the highest priority.
At the same time, this kind of artillery process is relatively simple and easy to produce, so the output is relatively large. Only in this way can we provide more than ten 18-pound mortars in more than a month.
The twelve 18-pound mortars newly arrived at Zhongxiang were also incorporated into the first siege artillery battalion.
After obtaining these twelve 18-pound mortars, the First Siege Artillery Battalion was truly full, with a total of three artillery posts and eighteen mortars.
These eighteen mortars will be an important weapon for the Baoxiang Army to attack Zhongxiang.
After the First Siege Artillery Battalion arrived at Zhongxiang and received a batch of new mortars, it did not launch an attack on Zhongxiang immediately, but conducted emergency training.
Although the gunners in the First Siege Artillery Battalion are all veteran gunners directly drawn from various armies, rigorous and intensive training is still required to master an extremely dangerous weapon like the 18-pound mortar.
Otherwise, it will blow up every minute during the fight and I will show you.
While the artillerymen of the First Siege Artillery Battalion were training hard, other troops were not idle either and were also making various preparations.
Take the Fourth Infantry Regiment, for example. After hundreds of members of the regiment arrived at Zhongxiang, they successively accepted new recruits who set off from Xiangyang City and sailed south by boat. These recruits also needed adaptive training.
Another example is the Fifth Guards Brigade. Only one regiment of this brigade went south at the beginning, but soon the remaining regiment, the 10th Guards Regiment, also went south.
In this way, the fifth garrison brigade under Zhongxiang City has all arrived. There are more than 4,000 people in total, and they also need to undergo various trainings.
As the 4th Infantry Regiment and the 5th Guards Brigade moved south one after another and arrived at Zhongxiang, more than a dozen mortars arrived.
It also means that the day when the Baoxiang Army storms Zhongxiang is getting closer.
