Chapter 270: Heavy artillery is rampant

The contemporary artillery units of Daheng and even the Blue Star countries, because of the great influence of the Heng Olympic War, have focused on the development of high-power, long-range artillery in recent decades.

Especially in the Heng Olympic War, the Orissa Empire suffered a heavy loss from the heavy artillery unit of the Daheng Army.

When the war was not over, they began to replace a large number of nine-pound field guns, and in the following decades, special attention was paid to the development of heavy artillery.

Of course, it is impossible for them to say that all of them are equipped with heavy artillery, after all, the terrain of the Orissa Empire is not as flat as that of the Daheng Empire, and many of them are mountainous and hilly terrain, so they adopt a combination of light and heavy methods.

But even so, the main field artillery of the Orissa Empire's army today has changed from five or seven catties of artillery decades ago to nine catties of field artillery.

The artillery development of the Orissa Empire, and in general, the artillery development of other countries in recent decades, were all influenced by the Daheng Army, and then large-scale equipment of heavy artillery.

And the Daheng Army, which is the initiator, is not to mention.

Today's Daheng feudal towns, their artillery units pay special attention to range and power.

Usually the artillery units in the feudal towns had a large number of heavy artillery.

The core main force is naturally the field artillery units, which are usually equipped with five-pound field guns, seven-pound field guns, nine-pound field guns, and fourteen-pound or eighteen-pound howitzers.

The location of the domain town is more complex, and it may be equipped with light howitzers of caliber such as 9 catties and 14 catties.

Cavalry units are generally equipped with lightweight five-pound and seven-pound cavalry field guns and nine-pound howitzers.

However, although the field artillery units of each domain town are equipped with more artillery, the core and main artillery are often all nine-pound field guns and eighteen-pound howitzers.

Without him, the two have a longer range and greater power, and can even be said to be the largest caliber artillery that the field army can carry, and no matter how large it is, it will be difficult to maneuver with the army.

However, just looking at the field artillery units, in fact, it is not possible to see how much the Daheng Army attaches importance to the range and power of artillery.

What can really reflect the importance that the feudal towns of Daheng attach to artillery is still the heavy artillery unit.

The feudal towns with a little strength in Dahengli will have more or less heavy artillery troops under their hands.

In the past, there were three heavy artillery regiments in a small Luoan County!

One of the heavy artillery regiments, that is, the sixth heavy artillery regiment, fell under Lin Ziran, and Li Kun's family on the opposite side also had more than 30 heavy artillery pieces under his hands.

These heavy cannons are all long-barreled cannons or super-heavy howitzers or even siege mortars, which are very easy to use for siege or something.

Therefore, there are two indispensable things to fight in this place of Daheng.

Cavalry!

Heavy artillery!

Without these two, there would be no war at all.

Last year, Li Kun went south from Chongguang City, and once wanted to conquer Nanguang City, which was guarded by Li Xuan.

At that time, if it weren't for Kong Deyi's heavy artillery troops, Li Xuan and the others would not have expected to be able to hold Nanguang City, because Li Kun came over with dozens of heavy artillery pieces and dozens of nine-pound field guns at that time.

If it is impossible to maintain superiority in artillery battles, the strength of the counterattack, there is no way to defend the city.

In such a country where heavy artillery is rampant, there is not much market for even light howitzers, unless a mountainous feudal town is forced to use these light howitzers, most of the other feudal towns do not use it.

Even if it is mountainous in the north of Luo'an County, but Lin Ziran still hasn't engaged in any light howitzers, although that thing is light, but it is really useless, the nine-pound light howitzer has a grenade range of about 600 meters, and when firing solid shells, the muzzle velocity is only half or even lower than that of field guns, even if the shells are on hard soil, it is difficult to bounce, not to mention what directly a solid shell kills the enemy's company of queues.

If you use this thing as the main field firepower of artillery, you will be beaten to slag by a large number of field artillery of the enemy.

But the nine-pound light mortar made by the Qingshan Machinery Factory is different, this thing is light enough.

Although the nine-pound light howitzer is also very light, it can cost hundreds of kilograms when the whole gun is down, and it must be equipped with a gun carriage with wheels to maneuver.

So even if this thing is lighter than field artillery, it belongs to regular artillery and belongs to serious artillery equipment.

But the nine-pound light mortar is different, this thing is a simplified version of the mortar in Lin Ziran's opinion.

The gun uses an iron cast gun body with a very short barrel, which can fire a standard nine-pound round grenade, and the maximum range can reach four hundred.

Although the range is not even as far as the Mini rifle, this thing is not shooting bullets, but shells!

At a distance of 400 meters, there is no need for accurate shooting at all, and a grenade can play a significant role in hitting it.

Although the accuracy is poor and the firing range is short, what Lin Ziran values is that this kind of light mortar can be carried directly to the battlefield by the infantry, and accompany the infantry units to provide medium and close range artillery support.

Therefore, Lin Ziran planned to equip the infantry units with a number of such nine-pound light mortar guns to test the actual combat effect.

Anyway, this kind of light mortar is made of iron cast cannon body and wooden floor, and the cost is very low, and the purchase price is less than 100 yuan per door......

Because this thing itself is cheap, and the positioning is the direct firepower of the infantry, so the artillery projectile propellant is naturally not the latest grenade and maroon gunpowder, just use the large amount of black powder in stock to launch the charge and the old grenade.

Anyway, after the production line of new grenades and maroon powder is built, these new ammunition will be able to be continuously supplied, plus the new ammunition in stock, which is enough for the artillery units of the Sixth Division to use all the new ammunition.

In this case, the artillery unit will not continue to use the old ammunition, after all, the effective range difference between the new ammunition and the old ammunition is too great, but whenever possible, the artillery unit will choose the new type of ammunition.

In this way, the stock of black powder propellants and old grenades can also be used for these cheap light mortars, which can be regarded as waste.

As for the actual combat effect of these light mortar guns, we have to look at it again, if it is easy to use, then continue to equip it, if it is useless, just withdraw it directly.

Anyway, Lin Ziran didn't expect this thing to play any decisive role.

Lin Ziran knows very well that the firepower that the troops can rely on today is still those field guns and howitzers.

In terms of field artillery, there is no need to worry, he had purchased more than 40 new nine-kilogram field guns produced by the Nanzhou Machinery Bureau through various commercial banks under the Nanzhou Bank, as well as 20 new-type five-kilogram field guns.

A total of more than 60 field artillery pieces, even in Dahengli, which pays attention to heavy artillery, is enough for an army of more than 10,000 people.

However, the medium-caliber howitzers used with these field guns, that is, about 150 mm caliber and 18 hengjin field howitzers, are relatively lacking.

()