This 150-millimeter howitzer, which was only temporarily added to the experimental artillery battalion, was actually not an artillery project developed under the auspices of the Ordnance Department, but was made by the engineers of the Luoan Arsenal themselves.

The Ordnance Department's R&D and equipment plan for rear-loading artillery mainly focuses on two models, one is the 75-mm field gun, that is, the 75-mm rear-loading gun used now, which has a diameter of more than 20 times, an effective firing range of nearly 5,000 meters, and a good control of weight.

In the eyes of military generals, this artillery is quite good except for the smaller caliber, and even if the caliber is small, but because the rear-loading artillery uses cylindrical shells, the charge is much larger than that of round shells.

Even with a caliber of only 75 mm, the actual explosive power is comparable to that of a round grenade of 120 mm.

Therefore, whether it is Lin Ziran, the ordnance department, or other generals, they have already positioned this 75-mm field gun to replace a large number of new and old nine-pound field guns and even five-pound field guns, and use it as the main artillery of the future divisional artillery regiment.

For the time being, the support artillery of the higher level is mainly focusing on the 120-mm field guns, striving for a longer effective range and greater power.

It's a pity that the large-caliber long-barreled cannon is too high for the manufacturing process, and the previous Qingshan Machinery Factory could not produce it manually even in the laboratory state, and now the R&D department of the Luo'an Arsenal has taken over this research and development plan, but the time is short, but the engineers of the Luo'an Arsenal also believe that the technical requirements of this artillery are relatively high.

If you want to produce field artillery of this level, looking at the entire Nanhai Prefecture, it is estimated that only an advanced large-scale arsenal such as the Nanhai Machinery Bureau has such technical conditions.

At least the existing equipment of the Roan Arsenal can't handle it.

Therefore, according to the many technical information provided by the Qingshan Machinery Factory, while continuing to develop the 120-millimeter field gun, the engineers within the Luoan Arsenal set their sights on the short-barreled howitzer or mortar gun.

Because for artillery, the most difficult thing is the manufacture of the barrel, and under the same caliber, the longer the barrel, the more difficult it is to manufacture.

In order to reduce the technical difficulty, they aimed at the short-barreled artillery, and since they were all short-barreled artillery, the caliber naturally had to be increased, so they came up with a 150-millimeter short-barreled artillery.

The first prototype cannon had just been made, and only one round of live ammunition was fired, and the people in the Ordnance Department were stunned when they saw the live ammunition test, and then directly pulled the sample cannon away......

Because this thing is so powerful, a 150 mm caliber shell has a lot more explosive power than a 200 mm round shell.

As for the shorter firing range, it is only about 4,000 meters, which is not important, even if it is only 4,000 meters, it can still hang all existing front-loading smoothbore guns.

In terms of weight, the total weight of the battle was 2.5 tons, and the total weight of the march was about 3 tons, which was nothing at all for the army of Daheng Domain, which was accustomed to using heavy artillery.

Not to mention two or three tons, even if it is about seven or eight tons or even ten tons of heavy artillery, the artillery generals of Daheng Domain Town dare to directly pull it up as field artillery!

It doesn't matter if the ordinary Shayang horses don't move, they also have huge larmas.

Those 300 mm caliber giant short-barreled smoothbore guns, the Sixth Heavy Artillery Regiment dared to pull all the way from the southern defense line to the outside of Chongguang City!

So this little weight is nothing at all.

In this regard, Lin Ziran also felt a little happy, and felt more and more that it was correct to decide to quickly take the county town.

If nothing else, just a Roan Arsenal is worth the ticket price.

With this arsenal, the supply of weapons and ammunition for the troops under his command can directly soar by a large margin.

Now it is not only self-sufficient in various types of weapons and ammunition, but also able to produce more advanced rear-loading guns.

Now on the side of the Luoan Arsenal, the production line of artillery has been adjusted, and it is ready to mass-produce steel afterloading artillery.

This is something that Aoyama Machinery Factory has done anyway.

Today's Castle Peak Machinery Factory can only continue to produce small-scale production by hand, and it can't produce a few doors a month.

However, if the artillery factory of the Luoan Arsenal is renovated, it will be able to produce at least 30 75-mm steel rear-loading guns a month, even if the current production line has not been refurbished, but it has already provided several rear-loading guns.

They even came up with a 150mm short-barreled howitzer.

This kind of efficiency and technical ability is unmatched by Aoyama Machinery Factory in any way.

The second largest comprehensive arsenal in Nanhai Prefecture, no joke!

Looking at these rear-loading guns of the experimental artillery battalion that was marching on the road, Lin Ziran felt that the certainty of storming the Dingjiang fortress had increased a little more.

It was estimated that it was a little more difficult when he first went, but the Luoan Arsenal in the back was working day and night to cast breech-loading guns, and if the battle in front lasted a little ten days and half a month, he would be able to get a few more breech-loading guns.

If a month he will be able to produce a dozen more breech-loading guns, of which there will be at least several 150-mm short-barreled breech-loading guns.

With these rear-loading artillery all the way south, a large number of infantry and artillery led by Lin Ziran personally walked relatively slowly in order to ensure that nothing went wrong.

However, the 1st Cavalry Brigade and the 1st Division, which were the vanguard troops, had already arrived at the northern outskirts of the Dingjiang Fortress ahead of schedule.

As the commander of the First Division, Xu Zhongshu took a staff officer with a telescope to look at it as soon as he arrived at the northern outskirts of Dingjiang Fortress.

This look just makes him frown!

This Dingjiang Fortress is really a pure fortress!

Dingjiang Fortress is located in the west of the Luo River, at the mouth of the north of the Dingjiang River.

Although the Dingjiang Fortress is located at the mouth of the river, the terrain is actually relatively high, and the surface of the river is about tens of meters.

This means being condescending.

Facing northwest is a tall, thick, semicircular wall, but in fact it is a standard bastion wall, with numerous protrusions for the deployment of artillery, infantry fire, etc., to form numerous crossfires.

And that's not all, beyond the city walls, there is the same system of trench defenses!

The entire defense system is only more than 1,000 meters, but the city walls, moats and other systems add up to form a complete defense system, rich in depth, but not only a lone city wall.

This defense system can deploy at least 100 artillery pieces and tens of thousands of soldiers to fight at the same time.

Looking at the fortifications of the northwest city wall of Dingjiang Fortress, which were almost armed to the teeth, Xu Zhongshu tried to deduce the attack, and finally frowned slightly.

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