In fact, Marlin was well aware that with a slight alteration of the clockwork musket, a flintlock pistol could be made that cost less and was easier to use.

Although the clockwork musket is not afraid of wind and rain, it needs to be wound with a small wrench before firing, which will delay two or three seconds. Unlike flintlock pistols, the firing machine is ready to fire by flicking it back. Therefore, no matter how you look at the flintlock pistol, it is better than the clockwork musket.

However, Marin clearly knew that the flintlock pistol was low-tech and low-cost, and it was easy for opponents to imitate. Therefore, even knowing how flintlock pistols were made, Marlin did not intend to introduce flintlock pistols. Because, once launched, it is easy to be imitated by the enemy, and then hit yourself with a flintlock pistol......

Unlike the clockwork musket, the clockwork is very difficult to manufacture and the cost is very high. In the case that others do not have spring steel, the mainspring can only be made by hand, and the yield is extremely low. As a result, the cost of making a clockwork lighter is very high, even if you know the structure and principle of the clockwork lighter, and the imitation is successful, but because of the high cost, it cannot be installed on a large scale. On the contrary, because of the technology of carbon spring steel, Marlin has a low cost of manufacturing springs, a high pass rate of finished products, and a fast manufacturing speed, which is convenient for large-scale assembly.

Therefore, Marin deliberately used inferior clockwork muskets, hoping to make it impossible for those poor opponents to achieve large-scale assembly through cost advantages and technical advantages. In this way, the firepower of the other party is definitely inferior to its own.

Of course, other countries can also choose to equip arquebuses. But the shortcomings of the arquebus are too obvious - the shooting density is low, and the food will be stopped in case of wind and rain. Therefore, with the same musket, the arquebus line array will definitely not be able to beat the line array of the clockwork musket. This is because musketeers with clockwork muskets can shoot at each other at a density of nearly twice as many shots as the enemy's line formation. Although the shooting accuracy of the smoothbore gun is impressive, the greater the density, the greater the likelihood of the opponent being defeated......

……

However, just replacing the arquebus with a clockwork musket still has no advantage in the face of the British army. Why? Because the opponent's long-range firepower is also very strong......

Although it was a bow and arrow, in fact the English longbow was by no means inferior to the musket. Even, with neither side wearing plate armor, the English longbowmen were more lethal. Because, the rate of fire of the English longbowmen was much faster......

In general, the rate of fire of English longbowmen was 12 arrows per minute, and when 10,000 arrows were fired, it could reach 15 arrows per minute. With a musket, whether it is an arquebus or a clockwork musket, it takes 30 seconds to fire one shot, which is two shots per minute, because of the difficulty of reloading. Of course, with the three-stage shooting method, it was possible to increase to six shots per minute. However, in the face of the rate of fire of 12 arrows per minute on the opposite side, it was still a significant disadvantage.

If you don't wear plate armor, you will definitely suffer heavy casualties in the face of the rain of arrows from the English longbow. Even if the plate armor is worn, there will be certain casualties. Because, no matter which army, it is impossible to wear plate armor for the whole army. After all, wearing plate armor also requires strong physical strength and endurance.

Even if Marin dressed all the soldiers in the front row with cuirass and iron helmets, and equipped the soldiers in the back with iron helmets and wood chips, there would definitely be casualties. After all, even the soldiers in the front row didn't wear plate armor on their lower bodies. If you're unlucky, you might get an arrow in the leg. And the warriors behind, if the bow and arrow shoot the iron helmet, it will be fine. If it shoots through the gap between the iron helmets and hits the neck or chest, it's going to be doomed......

Therefore, relying on muskets alone does not have much advantage, and other ways must be considered......

……

Marin then began to think back to the plot of the Hundred Years' War between England and France, and eventually, he remembered that the reason why the French army was able to turn the tables in the end seemed to be mainly due to two things - artillery and plate armor......

Needless to say, plate armor has enough defense against bows and arrows. The reason for the frequent victories of the early English army was that plate armor had not yet appeared in the 14th century, and chain mail was still popular at that time, which naturally could not stop the English longbow. In the 15th century, with the development of plate armor technology, the French army gradually had the strength to fight back. In the case that the war horse was easy to be hit by arrows, the French knights simply dismounted and charged as plate infantry, with good effect.

Of course, it is the artillery that plays the main role. Because long-range firepower was far inferior to the British, the French began to develop artillery to counter the British in the 15th century.

Although the artillery technology at that time was average, the firing range was only more than two hundred meters. However, this was enough - because the range of the English longbowmen was just over two hundred yards.

Moreover, the lethality of artillery is much better than that of bows and arrows. English longbowmen were able to shoot more than 200 yards. However, beyond 100 yards, the power of the arrow will be greatly reduced, and the ability to pierce armor will be almost lost.

The artillery is different, such a large iron ball, even if it is smashed far away, just the kinetic energy provided by the mass of the iron ball itself can smash the opponent out.

Not only that, but wherever the iron ball cannonball passes, as long as it does not miss, it will kill and injure more than one person. A three-pound iron ball cannonball, where it flies, smashes the opponent's head when it hits the head, breaks the arm, breaks the leg, touches the chest, and directly smashes a big blood hole in the opposite side and continues to smash the next unlucky egg...... If you hit a crowded area, a single iron ball cannonball can always take away several enemies......

The French were ruthless, mobilizing dozens or hundreds of artillery pieces to participate in the battle in the later stages of the war, and hundreds of artillery guns were fired in unison, taking hundreds of English longbowmen at a time......

At this time, the English lost a lot, because it was extremely difficult to train English longbowmen. A longbowman must not only have a tall stature (more than 1.75 meters tall), but also need more than ten years of uninterrupted practice. In order to give young people enough time to practise archery, the King made it illegal to play soccer (because playing soccer would crowd out the time for young people to practice archery).

In this way, after many years of uninterrupted practice, the British king recruited thousands of longbowmen from the people. Such a difficult to train longbowmen, who were taken away by the French with a round of shelling, how could the hearts of the English not collapse?

You know, longbowmen are difficult to replenish because of their high requirements. Therefore, the English longbowmen fought less and less. After the qualitative change caused by the quantitative change, the French finally gained the upper hand in the later period and expelled the British army from the European continent.

Marin felt that the French were very clever and worth learning from. Therefore, this time, Marin also decided to use artillery as the main means of attack, and used intensive artillery fire to kill and injure a large number of English longbowmen.

Marin already had 50 front-loading three-pounder guns, plus more than 50 Saxon rear-loading bronze guns (Furlong cannons) captured at the Battle of Lübeck. Therefore, Marlin also has the ability to mobilize hundreds of infantry cannons to bombard the British longbowmen.

Although the range of the Francose cannons captured from the Saxons was the same as that of the French artillery, it was only more than 200 meters, unlike the front-loading three-pounder gun, which had 365 meters. However, this was enough to kill and injure the English longbowmen in large numbers. As long as the artillery ship is plated, it can fully resist the longbow projectile of the British army. And the English longbowmen, even if they put on plate armor, could not stop the bombardment of iron ball shells. As long as a hundred cannons inflicted enough casualties on the English longbowmen, the morale of the opposing side will definitely plummet. When the time comes, the whole army will advance and will be able to defeat the British army.

As a half-fan of Napoleon, Marin also admired "artilleryism". In fact, the later Chinese Republic also pursued artillery doctrine. In 79, the Chinese army knocked out more than 880,000 shells, shaking the ground. It is said that one of the chiefs suspected that there was an ambush of monkeys in a certain col, so he asked the artillery to fire 10,000 shells into the col. Afterwards, the scouts went over and found that more than 800 monkey soldiers had died in the tunnel. Moreover, they were not killed, but were killed by the blast wave of the explosion of the continuous shells, which shook the ears, nose and throat to blood. In Jin Daxia's description - he was shocked to death by internal strength, and he was shocked to the point of bleeding......

Marin actually admires this unreasonable style of play very much, but unfortunately, now saltpeter is limited, and gunpowder is not particularly sufficient. Therefore, it can only be used sparingly. But when Chilean saltpeter was developed later, Marin decided to let the shells fly as much as he wanted, and whoever refused to accept it would use tens of thousands of shells to smash it into dust......