"At that time, it was on the southern front of the Turgai River, and I encountered this high casualty rate in battles with individual British troops. I haven't encountered that situation though. At that time, we thought that the second-line troops were not capable of fighting, but after capturing some British soldiers, we found out that it was mainly because they were equipped with new weapons. ”

Lin Ao said while reminiscing.

Everyone was interested: "What new weapon?" ”

Lin Ao smiled bitterly: "Actually, it's not new, all countries are now generally equipped, rifled rifles." ”

"Rifles?"

Everyone nodded, they can be military attachés, more or less there are catties, after all, they are responsible for collecting military information of the country where they are located, and they themselves are half intelligence officers, if they are stupid, they don't know much about military knowledge, and they can't do it at all.

Now the high casualty rate, they can also see that it is caused by the more powerful rifled guns.

In the past, the accuracy of smoothbore guns was poor, and the purpose of using dense formations was to increase the density of firepower, and it was unlikely that more than half of the people would die from bullets under shots from smoothbore guns with an effective range of only 50 meters. However, the effective firing range of rifled rifles equipped by various countries has reached 400 meters, and they still concentrate their firepower in a dense queue, and the shooting effect achieved at a distance of two or three hundred meters is actually similar to the thin red line tactic of the British shooting within 20 meters, and it is no wonder that the lethality is not high.

Ten years, just ten years, even the Russians were equipped with rifled guns, the main reason was that the British had innovated rifle technology, making rifled guns easier to operate.

In the past, rifled rifles, because the barrel was engraved and the bullet had to be kept close to the chamber, so it was particularly difficult to load, and it was necessary to use a mallet to knock the lead bullet into the chamber, and the loading speed was very slow, so only the elite marksman would be equipped with rifled guns to snipe the most important targets, such as officers. That's why Woolf, the British commander in the Seven Years' War, wore a soldier's uniform, and during the American Revolution, American sharpshooters sniped at a large number of British commanders. The disadvantages of rifled guns still make it only a supplementary weapon, not a main battle gun.

The British refinement of rifled guns was based primarily on bullets, and not on the guns themselves. In fact, it was the later famous Minnie bullet, but the Mini bullet was designed by the French, and Minnie is a French name, so there is the name of Minnie bullet. But the earliest innovation was made by the British, but in history the British did not adopt their own design, not because the design was flawed, but because the British bureaucracy was conservative, as a result, France took the lead in equipping, and after France was equipped with Mini bullets, the bureaucrats of the British Ordnance Bureau instead allocated a huge amount of money to buy patents from the French. But in fact, the British made the same design twenty years ago.

The reason why the innovation was first made by the British is that the British threw the greatest invention and creation of this era into the country where it was born, and secondly, the principle of the new ammunition is the traditional weapon from India. In some tribes in southern British India, there was a weapon called blow arrows, which was based on the principle of blowing out a flying needle with a blowpipe to hurt people. Many children will make this kind of toy, but the power is limited, because the blowpipe obviously cannot be kept close to the flying needle, and in the case of a large amount of air leakage, it can blow a few meters even if the lung capacity is large.

But the Indian flying needle is a murderous weapon, perhaps because of the loss of the flying needle, the British military officers have studied this weapon with interest, and found that they rely on the tail of the flying needle made of soft and elastic wood pith to ensure air tightness, when the soldier blows air into the blowpipe, the hollow wood pith expands, and then clings to the blowpipe, resulting in a large increase in range.

Inspired by this, in 1823 Captain Norton of the British 34th Regiment applied it to the musket projectile, creating a conical bottom expansion projectile, the lead bullet was processed into a hollow tail and a conical head style, after firing, the gunpowder gas entered the tail, and the lead bullet began to expand under pressure, and then clinged to the rifle. In this way, the bullet can be made smaller than the barrel and easy to load, which solves the loading difficulty of the rifled gun.

Norton's design still has a big flaw, because hollow lead bullets are easy to deform, and they don't necessarily jam the rifle, and they will still leak. By 1836, Greene, a gunsmith in London, had improved Captain Norton's projectile by adding a conical wooden bolt to its base. The gunpowder first squeezes the wooden bolt, and the conical wooden bolt drills into the conical projectile of the empty gun, allowing the projectile to expand and get close to the rifle. In fact, it is already the same as the Minny bomb designed by the French in 1849, and historically, the British inventors were very active, but the bureaucracy was often conservative, and in the end, the French were the first to equip it.

But the last war changed everything, and war often has a driving effect on weapons, and they all try to gain an advantage on the battlefield, and Greener's design just coincided with that war, and due to the relative shortage of military supplies during the war, Britain purchased a batch of his bullets to equip the front-line shooting corps.

As a result, the British army, which was armed with a small number of Greenell lead bullets, showed a great advantage, allowing the rapid development of this type of bullet.

China suffers a loss, of course, it will be studied, and then equipped. China began to equip a large number of people, and the Russian army, which was under pressure from the Chinese army, also immediately carried out large-scale equipment, and as a result, the last war led to the large-scale popularization of rifled guns and conical shells around the world.

And then caused a huge toll on this war.

"It would be crazy if future wars were all with such high casualties!"

The French military attache lamented.

"Then pray that war will not break out."

The Swiss military attache sighed. Switzerland is a permanently neutral country, although at the beginning of its founding, the land was magically taken from the hands of the Habsburgs, and Swiss mercenaries have also been active in the European theater for a long time, so that Europeans know that these countries composed of Swiss from the mountains are not easy to mess with. But by the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Switzerland had understood that modern warfare was no longer for them.

War has always been the biggest driving force behind technological and tactical innovations in weapons, with rifled guns popularized by the Army and ironclad ships promoted by the Navy.

In this war, the Russian navy was able to win because its opponents, the Ottoman Empire, were generally wooden battleships, and Austria had fewer ironclad ships than Russia, and the Russian army won. Although the level of weapons and equipment of the two sides is comparable, the Russian army is still advancing step by step, at least in the direction of the Black Sea, and everyone is beginning to be optimistic about Russia.

"If the Russian army can continue to advance, I am afraid that Austria will soon have to sue for peace."

The Frenchman sighed.

Most of the military attachés nodded in agreement, and they found it strange that Austria was fighting on its own soil and had little home advantage, and that the locals were generally in favor of Russia.

Because the lower Danube region was inhabited by Dacians in history, and later the Romans established colonies in the lower Danube River, which was suitable for agriculture, and Romanized the Dacians, so the people here later called themselves Romanians, which is actually the meaning of Romans. Later, the Bulgars in the Volga valley were squeezed by the Mongol Empire and migrated from the lower Volga along the Black Sea to Bulgaria, establishing a Bulgarian empire that stretched from the lower Volga to near Byzantium. During this period, the Dacian Romans were Slavized by the Bolgars, but their language was preserved, similar to Greek, the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire, and can be seen as a dialect of classical Greek. Faithfully assimilated by the Greeks, they believed in Greek Orthodoxy. Thus, during the Ottoman Empire, the peoples of the Danube were still known as Greeks.

The Russians have always been the protectorate of the Orthodox Church, with the right to protect the Orthodox Church in Jerusalem and other holy places, albeit in name only from the Ottoman Empire, but it has also made the Orthodox nation generally more pro-Russian. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Russians have the support of the local Greek-speaking Orthodox people.

On the one hand, with the support of the locals, on the other hand, with the control of the sea, coupled with stronger strength, no one doubted the victory of Russia.

"I heard that Russia is not fighting well on the Crimean peninsula!"

Lin Ao thought of another question.

"The Ottoman Empire is impressive this time, the Ottoman army in the Crimea was commanded by a Prussian officer, a Prussian captain, called Moltke! This may be the reason, the Prussian army is still trustworthy. ”

said the British military attaché.

The French military attache snorted coldly: "Prussians, the discipline is commendable, but the level of command, I am not optimistic." Perhaps the Russian officers who attacked the Crimea were equally reckless. ”

As the military attache of France, who had crushed Prussia, he was qualified to suppress the rebellion in this way, and in the war with Napoleon, the Prussian command was not brilliant, or compared to Napoleon's military talent, the officers of the entire era were overshadowed.

Lin Ao does not have any superstitions about the European military, but can evaluate it more objectively.

"If Russia is unable to capture the Crimean Peninsula, their rear will always be threatened, and the Ottoman army on the Crimean Peninsula can cut the Dnieper at any time. The Russian army will not be able to advance on a large scale, and it is unlikely that they will advance into the heart of Austria until the Crimean peninsula is captured by the Russian army! ”

"Isn't it a matter of time, maybe while we are talking, the Russians have already captured the Crimean peninsula and are already snorting champagne in the Sevastopol fortress. After all, they held the control of the sea, and the fortress was now under siege. ”

The French military attache said that the French military attaché was very sure that the Ottoman army would not be able to support it for long with the control of the sea.

In fact, each has its own position, although France is now relatively united because of the restoration of the Bonaparte family, especially the army, which is once again jubilant to be able to stand under the banner of Napoleon, but because Prussia and Austria support the restoration of the Bonaparte family, France cannot intervene in this war, once Prussia wins, it will be able to greatly expand in the direction of Poland, and Austria can also expand in the direction of Ukraine. As a neighboring country, Austro-Prussia has always been a direct competitor of France on land, and France does not want to see Austro-Prussia strong.

However, because of the current smooth advance of Russia, Britain hoped that the Ottoman army led by Prussian officers could block the advance of the Russian army, so that Russia would not expand easily.

But no one can say it, as the Crimean peninsula became crucial after Russia established its occupation of the lower Danube delta.