And such soldiers are liked by all commanders, and they have begun to take on more combat tasks, such as wearing heavy armor and transforming into heavy armored infantry... For example, strong grenadiers can directly pull a gun on foot. The two-and-a-half kilogram field gun approaches the front line and transforms into an infantry artilleryman...
As a result, over time, the grenadiers in the Chu army were no longer grenadiers, but evolved into an elite infantry unit.
The grenadiers in the third battalion are also the only troops in the third battalion that are always equipped with partial heavy armor, standard half-body armor, and four-meter-five-meter spears. When necessary, they can directly transform into heavy armored infantry!
The musketeers of the other five fusilier posts are all equipped with light half-body armor specifically designed for musketeers.
This kind of armor is relatively lightweight and is mainly used to protect against bows and arrows and cold weapons. Its defensive effect on firearms can only be said to be better than nothing...
But for fighting in the mountains and facing the Xi Ming army or various chieftain forces who still lack firearms and still use bows and arrows in large quantities, this kind of light half-body armor is very suitable.
In fact, in recent years, all armors on the entire Eastern battlefield have poor protection against firearms!
It cannot be said that the armor is not good, but that the armor-piercing ability of firearms on the Eastern battlefield is too strong!
This was all because the Chu army took the lead in equipping the Yuan Nian style matchlock guns, which led to the proliferation of various large-caliber short-barreled matchlock guns on the Eastern battlefield. The Ming army imitated the Yuan Nian style matchlock guns and developed thieves-killing guns.
The Dongji people also gave up on the blunderbuss and came up with the so-called Shenwu thief-killing blunderbuss... Who knows why they added the word "Shenwu" in front of the thief-killing blunderbuss. Whether it is the second-year-old flintlocks and first-year matchlocks equipped by the Chu army, or the first-year matchlocks imitated by the Ming army, or the Shenwu thieves-killing muskets from the East, they are all large-caliber short-barreled muskets. Although it is difficult to ensure that the calibers of the muskets of the Ming army and the Donglu people are uniform due to the manual production method, they basically fluctuate around 18 mm.
The characteristic of this large-caliber short-barreled musket is its high power.
The shortcomings are also obvious. The accuracy is relatively poor. If you fire a gun 150 meters away, the bullet will fly there. Even the soldier who fired the gun doesn't know...
But it is a smoothbore gun, and its accuracy is inherently random. In combat, it relies on barrages to kill, rather than precise hits.
Therefore, the shortcomings of poor accuracy are not worth mentioning in the face of its powerful advantages.
In the early days, Chu Jun did his own testing, using hand-made steel plates as targets. He tried one hole at a time, and then stopped testing it altogether.
Because by the time the steel plate was later tested, the thickness had increased to six millimeters. Armor made from such a thick steel plate was too heavy.
And this six millimeter does not refer to iron armor, nor those junk steel plates, but steel plates hand-made by senior craftsmen. The kind that cannot be mass-produced by machines these days cannot withstand it.
If it were replaced by the armor that was equipped in batches by the Chu Army or the Ming Army, let alone the iron armor piled up to ten millimeters thick, it would be of no use.
Then don’t think that Eastern armor is useless. Western-style plate armor can withstand it. At present, Western plate armor is generally made of low-carbon steel, also called mild steel. The thickness of the full-body armor is usually between two millimeters and three millimeters. , even against early matchlock guns, it still couldn't stand it, let alone those large-caliber muskets over 18 mm.
So now there are some three-thirds armor in the West. Under the condition of limiting weight, the thickness is increased by reducing the protective area. However, this kind of armor is still not very easy to use because it still cannot block large-caliber muskets.
According to the current trend, armor will develop towards reducing the protective area and increasing the thickness of the armor.
In the future, musketeers will even cancel their armor equipment, leaving only cavalry who need hand-to-hand combat equipped with breastplates.
Therefore, in the contemporary Eastern battlefield, aside from some special examples, in the face of the 18mm short-barreled muskets of the Chu Army and the Ming Army, let alone the protective capabilities of armor, it is useless.
However, the Chu army was still equipped with armor in large numbers, and even the front-line soldiers had 100% armor coverage!
Why is this?
Because there are enemies from the Western Ming Dynasty, Eastern captives, Western Mongolia, ethnic groups from the Western Regions, chieftains from the southwest, and so on.
None of them have widely popularized and equipped new muskets!
Even the strongest Dongdu people currently have a relatively low proportion of their new matchlocks, and they are mainly equipped in the Han Eight Banners. As for the Mongolian Eight Banners, they are mainly cavalry, while the Man Eight Banners are mainly equipped with cavalry. A force with heavy armored infantry as its core, with muskets only as an auxiliary force.
Generally speaking, including cavalry and infantry, their proportion of matchlock equipment is relatively low. More of the infantry's firepower still relies on bows and arrows or simply cold weapons for close combat.
Dongduo is like this, not to mention the others. Every one of them still holds a bow and arrow as the main infantry long-range weapon.
In this way, although the Chu army has popularized muskets and even begun to engage in line tactics, they are still equipped with a large amount of armor to resist enemy bows and arrows and other weapons.
These light armors can't stop bullets, but they can block a bow and arrow.
When the main enemies of the Chu army are all equipped with muskets, and the light half-body armor of the musketeers loses its final effect, the Chu army will naturally eliminate the infantry armor.
But that’s all for later.
Nowadays, armor is still an indispensable and important defense for the Chu army. Each major arsenal has a specialized armor factory to produce armor. The arsenals behind the Chu army are also constantly researching and improving armor.
Improvements will be made in various aspects, from improving performance to increasing output and reducing costs.
The armor factory affiliated to the Hantian Arsenal has begun trial production of plate armor. However, this plate armor is not the same concept as the various sophisticated plate armors used by Western knights. It is mass-produced plate armor worn by ordinary soldiers.
The material used is mild steel.
In fact, in the Da Chu Empire, plate armor has long been able to be made. Even sophisticated plate armor can be made. Luo Zhixue himself has a suit of plate armor made by senior craftsmen, but this kind of armor needs to be crafted slowly by senior craftsmen. The plate armor has no meaning to the Chu Empire.
As for plate armor made of inferior materials such as mild steel, the Dachu Empire could actually produce it on a large scale before, but it still did not produce and equip it.
There is a very real problem here, and that is cost-effectiveness.
The production of various weapons, including armor, in the Dachu Empire was not based on craftsmen as in the traditional handicraft industry, but on machines.
The emphasis is on industrial mass production.
In the case of industrial mass production, the cost of cloth armor with mature manufacturing technology in the Dachu Empire was actually very low. The iron sheets were directly forged with wrought iron. Because it was not processed in one large piece, but in small pieces, the processing was simple and the production It is easy and has a large output. At the same time, the processes of drilling and deburring wrought iron are also relatively simple.
It is also particularly suitable for mechanical production. Hydrodynamic forging machinery can produce these palm-sized iron sheets in large quantities and then assemble them into cloth armor.
But plate armor is different. For the industrial production of the Chu Empire, the biggest difficulty lies in the processing of large-area curved materials, and there are also many small curved and special-shaped parts. Although it can be produced, the cost will go up. .
The Dachu Empire industrialized to produce a set of cloth-faced infantry full-body heavy armor, which only cost more than twenty taels of silver. However, to produce a set of plate-style infantry full-body heavy armor, the price would rise to thirty or forty taels of silver.
Due to cost considerations, the Da Chu Empire had never mass-produced plate armor before, but continued to use large and cheap cloth armor.
As for what you said about the same materials, the defensive performance of cloth armor is not as good as that of plate armor. This is also true, but when it comes to guns and cannons, any armor is useless...
As for protecting bows and arrows from cold weapons, the performance of cloth armor can also meet the needs.
However, although the Da Chu Empire has never launched industrial mass production of plate armor, it does not mean that the Da Chu Empire has stopped researching plate armor.
The armor factory affiliated to Hantian Arsenal has been studying the production process of plate armor!
The focus of their research is not to create better plate armor, but purely to study how to reduce costs and make plate armor suitable for mechanical industrial production.
After several years of research, the armor factory affiliated to Hantian Arsenal has successively solved a large number of technical problems. In particular, it has joined forces with Hantian Machinery Factory to design more than ten types of machinery specifically for the production of plate armor parts. A lot of equipment and even molds have been developed.
After they were almost done, they estimated the production cost and came to the conclusion: the price of a set of plate armor-style infantry full-body heavy armor can be controlled at around twenty-five taels of silver. The more production in the later period, the higher the price will be. It can be further reduced to about twenty taels of silver.
This price impressed the senior officials of the Ordnance Department, and they placed an order for the Hantian Arsenal Armor Factory to produce a batch of plate armor first and try to equip the troops to see the effect.
However, the bulk of the orders placed by the Army Ordnance Department were light half-armor for musketeers and light half-armor for cavalry, each with 5,000 sets.
As for the full-body armor and standard half-body armor, the Army only gave each a symbolic order of 500 sets.
You can tell from this order quantity that the Chu Empire Army values more light half-body armor and cavalry half-body armor.
Because the Da Chu Empire Army has been fully reorganized and re-equipped, the future infantry will be all fusiliers. In the future, only grenadiers will wear full-body armor or standard half-body armor. In order not to affect mobility, the fusiliers Xing always uses half-body light armor.
The same is true for the cavalry. The Chu Empire Army now attaches great importance to the development of cavalry. The protective performance of the light half-body armor of the cavalry in the plate armor style is better, so even if the current cavalry does not lack armor, it plans to replace it.
