The Fourth Cuirassier Regiment, which many people were looking forward to or curious about, finally arrived at the front line of Shanhaiguan on the seventh day of March.
However, they did not enter Shanhaiguan City directly, but were stationed about four kilometers north of Shanhaiguan. This was also the main area where other Guards troops were stationed.
The third group army's defense area is actually not just a Shanhaiguan city, but a long defense line extending from the Bohai Sea to Ji Town, which is hundreds of kilometers long.
It's just that the troops in Shanhaiguan area are relatively dense.
However, this density is only considerable. In the Shanhaiguan City and a few kilometers around it, which is the relatively flat terrain at the eastern end of the Liaoxi Corridor, the total number of troops deployed is only about 50,000...mainly the Ninth Army and The troops directly under the group army.
To the north of the Ninth Army is the Guards' defense area.
To the north of the Guards is the defense area of the Eighth Army.
The above three combined, spread about 30 kilometers, with Shanhaiguan City as the core, the Great Wall as the support, and many small and medium-sized cities and fortresses as support along the way.
After the arrival of the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment, many generals from nearby friendly forces came over to take a look.
The main reason is that the name of heavy cavalry is too deceptive...
Even if the cuirassiers are actually just simplified versions of heavy cavalry, they are not heavy cavalry. Their battlefield assault capabilities are unmatched by light cavalry.
There are not too many cavalry in the Chu army, mainly traditional mounted archers and dragoons, as well as hussars who also just appeared.
And these cavalry are all typical light cavalry!
What is a light cavalry? It is a cavalry with poor protective capabilities...
Although the Chu army's cavalry paid more attention to protection and basically wore armor, their armor was very thin, even thinner than the light half-body armor of the musketeers!
This kind of half-body light armor can only protect against mid- to long-range bows and arrows, and it cannot even protect against relatively close-range heavy arrows.
This kind of light cavalry is basically unreliable when conducting assault operations on the battlefield.
Of course, this is not just the case for the Chu army. The cavalry of the Eastern Banners on the opposite side, regardless of whether they are the cavalry of the Manchu Banner, the Liaoxi cavalry of the Han Banner, or the cavalry of the Mongolian Banner, are actually this kind of light cavalry, and even Soon they won't even wear fake armor like this... As for heavy cavalry in the traditional sense, they don't even have them!
On the one hand, the traditional oriental classical heavy cavalry is no longer suitable for the battlefield, and secondly, the cost performance is too low and the cost is too high.
The most critical thing is that the war horse is not good enough, which leads to a flaw in mobility!
The Fourth Cuirassier Regiment of the Guards is actually a compromise unit that actively reduces its protective capabilities in order to ensure mobility.
This is despite the fact that the horses attached to the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment are all excellent Central Asian horses.
The Central Asian horses attached to the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment of the Guards are quite good. They are all excellent war horses imported directly from the Western Regions from the Great Chu Empire. After carefully selecting hundreds of war horses, it is said that they are only one in a hundred. Yes, it has passed, but there is still no problem with one out of ten.
From a group of Central Asian Mali horses whose shoulder heights are generally more than 1.35 meters, this group of excellent war horses with an average shoulder height of 1.4 meters were selected.
This shoulder height is actually comparable to the Arabian horse, which is most suitable for use as a war horse among the original horse breeds.
In fact, horses in Central Asia are generally bred with Arabian horse blood.
These Central Asian horses have an average shoulder height of 1.4 meters, and some outstanding ones can even reach a shoulder height of 1.45 meters. Their weight-bearing capacity is much better than that of Mongolian horses.
Therefore, these war horses can actually support cavalry wearing heavy armor in combat.
Not to mention these excellent war horses, even the Mongolian horses used by the Eastern captives can still select a group of excellent war horses to serve as mounts for heavy armored cavalry. However, in the case of small horses pulling large carts, their maneuverability is very poor. That’s it.
If you use a Mongolian horse as a war horse for heavy cavalry, you basically cannot expect it to be able to sprint for a few hundred meters with a cavalry wearing dozens of kilograms of armor...
The Central Asian horses used by the Chu army were in a similar situation. They could barely be used as heavy cavalry, but they were very restrictive and seriously affected their mobility.
This was unacceptable to the Chu army.
Therefore, the generals of the Guards, namely Lieutenant General Qian Tai and several other cavalry generals, thought about it and simply abandoned their heavy armor.
Of course, there are several other reasons for the Guards to completely abandon the heavily armored cavalry.
For example, even if you wear full-body heavy armor, even if this heavy armor is the latest plate armor produced by the Industrial Department of the Dachu Empire, it still can't stop muskets... let alone artillery.
Because the weight of a soldier is limited, this means that the weight of the armor can only be controlled to a certain extent. When the weight is limited, the larger the protective area, the thinner the armor can only be made.
If the plate armor is thin, it will naturally not be able to stop bullets.
As for why there can't be better plate armor, it's because the smelting strength of the Dachu Empire is just that, and it can't make steel plates that surpass the times to process plate armor. Now the Ministry of Industry has begun small batch production, and limited equipment or elite infantry are not available. Even the grenadier's plate armor is made of only average steel...the hardness is barely up to the level of low carbon steel, and it also contains a lot of impurities. If you use modern observation techniques, you can even find it. Lots of bubbles and cavities.
If this kind of bad material were placed in the 21st century, no one would want it if you produced it. If developers dare to use this kind of material to build houses or bridges, they will be arrested...
But... in the mid-seventeenth century, this kind of junk is definitely a high-end material!
If it can be mass-produced on a large scale and the price can be controlled, that would be even more amazing.
In fact, even the largest iron smelting plant with the most advanced technology in the Chu Empire could not bring down the price when mass-producing this kind of low-carbon steel.
How did the large iron smelting plant produce this kind of low carbon steel, and also be able to produce such a large amount of steel that it could be used in the production of plate armor?
What else can be done? If the technology is not good, just rely on scale!
Large iron smelting plants were based on the original small manual production model, and then changed most of the repetitive and monotonous processes to machinery. Now they can expand production with limited skilled craftsmen.
As for the cost, it was much higher than hand-made in the early days, but now it is barely the same... As for the cost, which is lower than hand-made, you can wait.
Because labor costs are cheaper than machinery these days... If you use machinery for large-scale mass production, it would be cheaper to hire thousands of skilled craftsmen to forge iron.
The problem lies here. Daye Iron and Steel Plant cannot find and train so many skilled blacksmiths!
As for why Chu Jun didn't use better stainless steel... it was still due to mass production issues. If the steel was a little rubbish, we could barely use mechanical equipment to replace manpower, and just pile up the number of machines to achieve violent mass production.
But fine steel, this thing cannot be mass-produced... For details, you can refer to the various knives used in the Dachu Empire's industrial system. Although the materials used in these knives are just like that from the perspective of later generations... But it is already this era. The best steel in the world.
How are these steels with the best properties produced?
They are all made by top skilled craftsmen step by step. The craftsmen use their rich experience to control the quality.
You cannot replace the experience, feel and even intuition of top craftsmen with simple machinery, at least not with the current processing level of the Dachu Empire.
Even in the 21st century, many precision machinery parts are made by hand... For example, the photolithography machine for making chips that the Chinese are very concerned about has lenses in it.
This ultra-high-precision lens is processed bit by bit by veteran engineers at Zeiss who have been playing with lenses for decades using advanced instruments...the output is extremely low.
If the same instruments and equipment were given to other ordinary engineers, they would still be unable to process such top-notch lenses.
Although times are different, things are different, and even standards are different, the essence is still the same.
As for the Dachu Empire, these things that cannot be mass-produced are destined to be used only in some special industries and cannot be used in industries with mass production.
National defense products are all mass-produced. If you come up with something that cannot be mass-produced, it does not make much sense to the Chu army, which has hundreds of thousands of troops.
And those plate armors that can barely reach the level of low carbon steel, if they want to be fireproof, they have to be very thick, at least six or seven millimeters, or even higher.
But making full-body armor with such a thickness would be too heavy, and neither soldiers nor horses could bear it.
Therefore, the problem facing the Chu army was to either reduce the protective area or reduce the thickness of the armor.
And the Chu army actually advanced on both routes...
The army's elite grenadiers and hussars have actually begun to equip small batches of new armor, namely plate armor.
Of course, it's not the kind of iron can that covers head to toe that knights in TV movies wear, it's just an ordinary plate armor.
Among them, the grenadiers are equipped with a kind of full-body plate armor, which is relatively thin and has a large protective area. Generally speaking, the protective performance is much better than the previous wrought iron full-body armor, but it still cannot stop medium and short-range bullets.
Among the hussars, a few units are equipped with light half-body plate armor, which is about the same thickness as the grenadiers, but because the protective area is smaller, the weight is also lighter.
The breastplate of the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment is thicker because it gives up more protective area and focuses on the protection of the front torso. The thickest part in the middle reaches seven millimeters.
Can effectively resist medium and long distance bullets.
If it is a bullet fired at close range, multiple live-fire tests have shown that it will be penetrated most of the time. Even if it is not penetrated, the huge impact of the bullet will cause the plate armor to dent, thereby causing trauma to the human body.
The purpose of this breastplate is very simple and pure, which is to block mid- to long-range bullets.
As for the protection against cold weapons, it is actually not as good as the light half-body armor of the hussars. Although the light half-body armor of the hussars is as thin as paper, it is still no problem in blocking bows and arrows at ordinary distances. It can chop against cold weapons. It can also prevent thorns and the like, and the protective area is larger. In addition to the torso, it can also protect the cavalry's hands, thighs and other parts.
Unlike the chest armor, there is only a solitary piece of plate armor on the torso, and only the front one is thick, while the chest armor on the back is very thin.
The hands and thighs are not protected either.
However, the reason why the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment is still equipped with breastplates is that the top brass of the Guards believe that the future... is wrong, now the world is dominated by guns.
Except for some indigenous losers, who else is stupid enough to use bows, arrows, swords and spears!
Even on the opposite side, Dongduo used matchlocks and artillery on a large scale.
In this case, bullet protection is even more important.
As for protection against cold weapons, the opponents are using swords, spears, bows and arrows, but you still foolishly rush up on horseback to engage in hand-to-hand combat with them?
Why don't you use cavalry cannons and cavalry flintlocks from afar?
The Ming army decades ago knew how to use firearms to deal with cold weapon troops... Qi Jiguang was the cavalryman who used light artillery and three-eyed blunderbuss to defeat the Mongolian cavalry.
It makes no sense that the Chu army's cavalry troops are like mentally retarded, insisting on giving up their advantage in firearms, and then rushing in to engage in hand-to-hand combat with an enemy who only has cold weapons!
Especially when the firepower of the Chu Army's cavalry troops is abnormal!
Each of the three cavalry divisions on the front line of Shanhaiguan is assigned a cavalry artillery regiment, equipped with twenty-four two-and-a-half-pound and five-pound cavalry cannons. This firepower can directly defeat the frontier troops in the Qi Jiguang era. Well, by the way, It can defeat other armies of this era, including infantry firepower and so on.
The Dongqiu people were on the front line in western Liaoning, and the army of more than 100,000 people only had about 200 long-barreled artillery pieces. However, the three cavalry divisions of the Chu army could pull out dozens of artillery pieces with 10,000 men.
This doesn’t even compare to quality!
The Fourth Cuirassier Regiment may not be regarded as a regiment, but as an independent cavalry regiment, it also has attached cavalry artillery and heavy cavalry troops.
With four two-and-a-half-pound cavalry cannons, on average, about a hundred cavalrymen can receive fire support from one cavalry cannon.
This fire support density seems low, but it is actually very high.
Ordinary cavalry units cannot get such a high firepower allocation, let alone infantry.
But the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment, as the first heavy cavalry unit of the Chu army, received great attention even if it was only a simple heavy cavalry unit.
The war horses were specially approved by Luo Zhixue, the breastplates were specially made by several defense factories organized by the Ministry of Industry, and the cavalry were selected from the Guards and underwent intensive training for nearly two years.
Even the feed the war horses eat is the best.
For this kind of troops, a few extra two-and-a-half-pound field guns are nothing. They even need auxiliary forces such as rapid engineers and military bands!
This also led to the fact that the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment seemed to have only more than 600 combat cavalry in the standard establishment, but in fact the entire regiment had more than 1,000 troops.
The number of horses also reached more than 2,000.
Each combat cavalryman, in addition to the main battle horse, will also be assigned a Mongolian horse as a service horse.
At the same time, a supply camp with hundreds of people was also allocated.
In addition, each cavalry post also has a part of ordinary hussars to assist in combat. These hussars are mainly used to provide reconnaissance, peripheral security, and provide flank maneuver support during combat.
This is to prevent our own cuirassiers from being dragged along by some of the opponent's unarmored light cavalry with their light artillery kites due to their heavier load and slightly poorer mobility than the light cavalry.
Well, the Chu army's hussars often did this... took off their armor, threw away their sabers, and then rode forward with a musket, dragging two and a half kilograms of cavalry cannon behind them.
When we get to the place, directly cover the cavalry artillery behind and fire!
If there are many enemies and they want to rush over, just ride away. If there are few people on the opposite side and want to rush over, just dismount and line up, and shoot at them with several platoons.
If the enemy wants to run away, ride after him...
In fact, because this tactic lacks fierce fighting, the casualties caused by the enemy will not be very large, but it is very disgusting...
This is more disgusting than others, so naturally you have to prevent others from doing this to you!
Therefore, the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment is specially equipped with a large-scale hussar sentry.
Assigning additional auxiliary troops to the cavalry regiment is actually not very rare in the Chu army. The Chu army's cavalry unit uses the regiment as the basic tactical unit, so each cavalry regiment will be assigned some according to the situation. Auxiliary troops.
It's just that the auxiliary strength of the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment is exaggerated...it's only twice as many as the friendly cavalry!
After the 4th Cuirassiers Regiment arrived at the front line of Shanhaiguan, they first rested for several days to allow the cavalry and horses to regain good physical fitness, and then conducted adaptive cooperation drills with several friendly forces.
The focus of the drill is for the 4th Cuirassier Regiment to intercept the enemy's cavalry, cover the advance of our own infantry and artillery, and attack the opponent!
The imaginary enemies are played by the traditional cavalry and archers of the Chu army. They are basically the former Ming army's frontier cavalry. It's hard to say what they were like before, but since they were reorganized by the Chu army, everyone can eat freely, and the military pay is also the same. After giving enough, I also changed all my equipment.
The old tattered armor, swords, spears, bows and arrows, and even three-eyed blunderbuss were all thrown directly into the garbage dump, and then equipped with excellent armor and swords produced by the arsenal of the Ministry of Industry of the Dachu Empire. Weapons such as spears, bows and arrows, and flintlocks.
With their equipment in good condition and sufficient supplies, the morale of these traditional cavalry from the Ming Dynasty's border army is still quite good, and they also train very hard on weekdays.
This exercise also fully proved this point. A large number of cavalry originally belonging to the Ji Zhen border army of the Ming Army were reorganized and incorporated into the Fourth Cavalry Brigade under the Second Cavalry Division of the Dachu Empire Army.
The more than a thousand cavalrymen of the cavalry brigade, led by several senior traditional cavalry officers, almost fully demonstrated the characteristics of cavalry and archer cavalry from entering to maneuvering.
From the beginning of roaring in and shooting arrows directly on horseback with a riding bow, striking out at simulated enemies such as outpost infantry, to retreating the entire team, and then doing it all over again.
However...when the 4th Cuirassier Regiment came on the scene, the situation changed dramatically.
Facing the 4th Cuirassier Regiment's active attack, the imaginary enemy took a temporary retreat. However, the 4th Cuirassier Regiment seemed to be heavy cavalry, but its maneuverability was not bad, so it actually pursued them directly.
Finally, a cavalry regiment of the 4th Cavalry Brigade was forced to turn around and attack to intercept.
As a result, a medium-sized hedging battle took place between the two sides.
Of course, this is just an exercise, and the cavalry on both sides are just charging at the targets in the air... It is impossible to directly clash!
The result of the exercise was a great victory for the 4th Cuirassiers!
However, this result made Brigadier General Qi Lianghou, commander of the 4th Cavalry Brigade, very dissatisfied. He even said in front of his friendly colleagues: "In this exercise, our enemy is not the 4th Cuirassier Regiment, but the Judicial Department!"
When he said this, several of his close colleagues even gave him sympathetic looks!
When the 4th Cavalry Brigade sent a cavalry regiment of more than 600 cavalry for impact operations, and two forward cavalry posts from the 4th Cavalry Regiment, a total of about 400 cavalry, the battle loss rate reached Five to one!
In the words of Brigadier General Qi Lianghou, commander of the 4th Cavalry Brigade: The devil knows how they made the decision!
That's fucking hand-to-hand combat. Their breastplates are not full-body heavy armor, and their protective area is not as large as our half-body light armor. Why are their battle losses so much lower than ours? Is it possible that their lances are lances and my saber is not a sword?
Also, who the hell stipulates that I have to hedge against them... I am a light cavalry, or a light cavalry that mainly rides and shoots. I am stupid enough to hedge against them... and let them catch up, how is this possible... I I'm not blind, so I saw them appearing from a long way away. I can definitely pull out the cavalry and bombard them. If that doesn't work, I can just leave. It's a damn thing if they can catch up.
We are not allowed to use cavalry cannons, and we are not allowed to leave. We are forced to fight hand-to-hand. Let alone fighting hand-to-hand, we must suffer a five to one battle loss!
How shameless!
It's a pity that complaining can't change anything. After all, this is just a drill, and the drill process is directly determined by the superiors. It is not his decision whether to fight or how to fight, but it is formulated by the superiors.
Brigadier General Qi Lianghou even doubted that the result was probably finalized from the beginning...
He felt that this exercise was just a show put on by the military leaders to show how awesome the cuirassiers were and to promote the cuirassiers.
He estimated that after the exercise, the report would be sent to Jinling City, and then a request would be made to expand the size of the cuirassiers.
This made Qi Lianghou particularly unhappy... If it hadn't been for the direct orders given to him by his superiors, he wouldn't have played house games with a group of young cavalrymen.
Damn it, I didn’t expect that the top brass of the Chu Army were just like the previous bosses of the Ming Army, they were all drama queens.
With depression, the 4th Cavalry Brigade left. Brigadier General Qi Lianghou still had a dark face before leaving.
He is an old cavalryman who has been in Jizhen all his life. He fought with the Mongols and the Eastern captives when he was still in the Ming army in his early years. He is very skilled with bows and horses. He is also good at commanding cavalry and has made many meritorious deeds.
It's a pity that he has fought in battles for a lifetime, killed hundreds of enemies with his own hands, and led his cavalry squad to defeat the enemy many times. Because he came from an ordinary military family, he has a bad temper and easily offends people, and his superiors There was no one to protect him, so when Chongzhen hanged himself, he was still only a hundred households!
When the Chu army came, he followed the crowd and took the initiative to surrender with his cavalry like others. Because he was a cavalry officer, and he was not slandered during the review, and his attitude was very correct during political studies, so After completing his studies, he was awarded the rank of captain and continued to serve in the cavalry.
However, serving in the Chu army did not make much difference to him. Apart from eating better and using better equipment, there were no major changes.
He is still stationed at the border to kill Dongduo!
Just as he kept killing, he found that his fortune seemed to have changed. Within a month of joining the Chu army, he was promoted to major because he led his team to kill several traitors who captured the reconnaissance cavalry.
Then, during the battle to attack the Dongji people, he was sent to the Jinling City Army Officer Academy after he made military exploits and entered the advanced training class. After graduating from the training class, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
After returning to the Jiliao front line again, he served as a combat staff officer under the chief of cavalry staff of the Northeast Campaign Command. Soon he was transferred to the commander of the cavalry regiment and promoted to colonel.
Last winter, when the Second Cavalry Division was established, he was promoted to commander of the Fourth Cavalry Brigade and awarded the rank of brigadier general.
He... was also the one who was promoted the fastest among the large number of Ji Liao soldiers who defected to the Ming Army!
But to be honest, he couldn't figure out why he was promoted so quickly. He didn't do much. From time to time, he would talk back and complain about his superiors... Of course, he would still do the work ordered by his superiors, and then there would be fighting. At that time, he killed a few more Donglu people than the friendly forces.
He was like this before, but after more than 20 years of living, he was only a member of a hundred households.
Now...he is still the same person and has never changed, but while hanging around with the Chu Army, he was inexplicably promoted to brigadier general.
In this situation, even Qi Lianghou, whose cultural level was actually not very good, knew that it was not just his luck that had improved, but that the Chu army was different from the Ming army.
It's just that his education level is low, and he can't tell the specific difference for a while. Anyway, it's better.
But there is one thing he is very dissatisfied about, and that is that the top generals are all fucking bastards!
He was actually playing house in the exercise. He wanted to see if those young master's cuirass soldiers actually went to the battlefield, to see if those East Riding Cavalry would rush up stupidly, and if they would really be five to one in a fight. Battle loss ratio.
He was looking forward to the expressions of the high-ranking generals when they saw that the cunning Eastern Cavalry came and went like the wind, and would not take the initiative to fight as they expected!
This is war, not playing house!
No enemy will fight according to the routine you envisioned!
And when the time comes, it's time for traditional cavalry like them to come out and fight violently!
War will tell those whimsical guys that bows and arrows plus cavalry cannons are the way to go, and dragoons and cuirassiers are all heresy!
