"Knock them down!"

The cavalry of the Qing army broke out and shouted together, and their momentum increased greatly.

In the shouts of the Qing army, the Ming army was too quiet.

The artillery company Anderson did not pay any attention to the Qing cavalry rushing from afar, and he was seriously directing his artillery to push the artillery to the designated firing position.

Anderson stared at his artillery, his eyes full of fanaticism. As a hired gunner from Sweden to the East, he was very familiar with all kinds of artillery, but whether it was in Sweden or later in the Netherlands, he had served in many armies, but in the armies of various countries, gunners were a very embarrassing existence, not valued, not even a professional army, just the same existence as craftsmen.

After being captured by the Ming army in Taiwan, he continued to serve the Ming army, and was the commander of the artillery company at the beginning, but later made a bet with his deputy company commander, a Ming gunner, and lost the position of company commander, but fortunately, the artillery of the Ming army was expanded later, and he became the company commander again when he arrived at the first combat brigade.

"The artillery of the Hydra is the largest artillery unit in the world today, with the world's advanced artillery, as well as the world's leading artillery shells."

Anderson was not hesitant to admire the new owner, especially when he touched the new guns, as excited as an old bachelor touched the hand of a young girl.

It was a twelve-pounder gun of a 4.7-inch caliber, and this was not an ordinary cannon, nor an ordinary howitzer, but a new type of artillery unique to the Nine-Headed Bird, the cannon howitzer.

"It's a world first of its kind and a groundbreaking invention!" Anderson touched the bronze cannon in amazement. Anderson has served in the armies of many European powers and has seen a wide variety of artillery, especially the Swedish artillery unit being the lightest, most agile and fierce.

However, the armies of various countries are at least a hundred years behind the nine-headed bird in terms of artillery technology and application. Anderson firmly believes that the artillery of various countries today is mainly based on cannons, and cannons have long barrels. The elevation angle of the shell is small, the trajectory is low and flat, it can be fired directly, and the muzzle velocity of the shell is high.

This kind of artillery is also generally called a front-mounted sliding tire frame retreat cannon, naval guns, siege guns, and field guns, all of which are mainly cannons. While naval guns and siege guns generally have longer barrels and are also known as long cannons, field guns have shorter barrels and lighter weight, and are called short canons.

Cannon is the mainstream of artillery in various countries today. It is known for its long range and strong firepower, but it is also heavy and difficult to move.

In addition to cannons, there are also howitzers, which have a small barrel and caliber, small muzzle velocity, short range, and curved trajectory, which is suitable for shooting hidden targets or large-area targets. In particular, the action explosive bomb can explode twice.

However, this howitzer, although countries have long had it. But it has never been mainstream. The biggest reason is that although this howitzer can launch explosive shells because of low chamber pressure, it has a very short range, resulting in a weak killing effect, especially at this time, the explosive bombs of various countries are relatively simple. In addition, the performance of the delayed fuze is not good, and the explosion time is not well controlled, so the explosive shells fired by the howitzer often cannot explode at the accurate time. After the explosion, there are few fragments, the lethal effect is low, and the firing range is short. Finally, howitzers are often used to fire shotshots directly.

In the nine-headed bird, they have made a strong improvement on the flowering shell, which has given the howitzer a new vitality. The invention of the metal disc fuse made the delay detonation time of the flowering bomb of the nine-headed bird quite accurate, and the invention of the wooden cartridge made it possible to hold the breath more effectively and improve the utilization rate of gunpowder.

Coupled with the fact that the delayed fuse can be ignited when the propellant burns and explodes as early as the wooden fuse, it can be said that the explosive bomb of the Hydra is already a completely new bomb. And the Hydra improved the bomb not only that, they also used the technology of casting the explosive shell as a whole, and many small shotguns were already loaded into the explosive bomb.

The original explosive bomb only had gunpowder in it, and before it was fired, the fire rope on it was lit first, and then fired, and finally exploded, with a short range and weak killing effect.

Now, with a number of improvements to the Hydra, this explosive bomb has a metal disc delay fuse, and the explosion time is more accurately controlled. The explosive bomb has a wooden support, so that the propellant burns and explodes to the hollow shell with a buffer, and at the same time avoids the high temperature chamber pressure gas directly acting on the surface of the sphere, and the wooden cartridge butt can also hold the air more effectively, improve the utilization rate of gunpowder, and the wooden butt can fix the shell so that the shell will not roll irregularly when moving in the chamber.

In addition, the new shell casting technology can make the shell break into more fragments when the bomb explodes, and the small shotgun contained in it will be multiplied.

This is no longer a simple explosive bomb, not a simple grenade, this is a shrapnel.

Because of the invention of this howitzer, the howitzer is finally no longer a dispensable and embarrassing artillery.

At Anderson's strong request, before this expedition, the artillery factory cast a batch of new guns according to his requirements. In fact, the original howitzer is lengthened barrel, the barrel reaches ten times the caliber, this new type of artillery, it can both flat and curved fire, it is shorter than the cannon barrel, but the angle of fire is large; It is longer than the howitzer barrel, but it has a long range.

Its barrel weighs less than 90 times the weight of a bullet, uses only one-eighth the weight of a projectile, and has a range of 1,600 yards. Compared with the large weight of the field short cannon barrel with a barrel of 110 times the weight of the projectile, this new cannon howitzer has the length of both cannon and howitzer, but is not bulky and has a short range.

The 32-pound 6.4-inch cannon howitzer, with a barrel length of 1.62 meters and a weight of 1,300 kilograms, can fire 32-pound solid shells, can also fire 28-pound howitzers, and can also fire shotguns directly, using only three pounds of propellant, and has an elevation range of 1,600 yards at six degrees.

This is the real weapon of field warfare, with the shrapnel and howitzer, the situation of the war will change, and it will not be less than the appearance of the cannon to shock the world.

Stroking the bronze cannon body, Anderson glanced up at the Qing cavalry that was still accelerating. Snorted coldly, let me show you today, what is artillery, from today onwards, artillery will rise.

"If it weren't for the fact that the chamber pressure of the cannon was too high, the hollow explosive shell was unbearable, and the shrapnel was fired from the cannon, it would be everyone's nightmare, alas. For the time being, this cannon howitzer can only be cast. ”

This 32-pound howitzer weighs only about 2,200 catties when the barrel is converted into a kilogram, and the gun carriage will not exceed 4,000 kilograms even if it is connected to the front trailer and shells.

The howitzer, which had eight gunners, was pushed to the designated position without much effort on the part of the gunners, and after a routine inspection, the gunners began to load.

Anderson was very strict with the management of his artillery company, and he required not only that each gunner be familiar with his own position, but also that they should also be familiar with the positions of the other gunners, and do what he said. A group of well-trained gunners. Even if there are only two people left in the battle, the artillery will still be able to continue firing.

When he was in the Swedish army, there was a time when he and another gunner were left in a gun crew, but they still fought to the end, allowing the guns to continue firing.

As an artillery company commander, Anderson had a telescope, which he held to observe, and when the Qing cavalry had already galloped close, he gave orders to Wood, who was the artillery commander.

"Twelve-pounder field guns. Reload solid bullets at a distance of two thousand yards! ”

The gunner, standing next to the cart loading the ammunition box, did not need to look at the table attached to the cart and knew the angle of fire required for this distance.

But he still glanced at the confirmation and shouted, "Ten degrees of shooting!" ”

Wood, who received the answer, immediately inserted the quadrant into the muzzle. Command the two gunners standing on the left and right sides of the gun tail to adjust the gun to the correct angle, and then raise the hand stick at the tail of the gun carriage to aim the direction of the fire.

At the same time, several other gunners began to carry the shells to the gun, and another gunner loaded the shells into the barrel.

After continuing with several preparatory procedures. Anderson gave the order to launch.

Everyone retreated to the side of the artillery, and with a loud bang, the cannon was enveloped in a huge cloud of smoke. Then the gun, propelled by the huge recoil, scurried a foot or so far behind.

The muzzle velocity of the shell of the twelve-pounder Canon field gun was fast, but Anderson still caught the trajectory of the shell with his eyes. The cannonball, with a faint puff of white smoke, shot in an arc towards the cavalry group a thousand yards away.

At the same time that Anderson's company's twelve-pounder field guns were fired, the other five twelve-pounder field guns owned by the remaining five batteries were fired almost simultaneously.

Six flew in the air for a moment and smashed into the ground hundreds of yards away, then kicked up a cloud of dust and bounced into the air to continue flying, finally falling into a predetermined distance of a thousand yards.

Anderson saw that his cannonball smashed directly into the rolling cavalry, knocking down a cavalryman and horse, and then continued to bounce forward a few times, smashed a few more, and finally rolled forward, causing the formation to roll on their backs.

Seeing the target, the gunners, including Wood, high-fived and cheered. Anderson didn't have a look of overly surprised, although it was a thousand yards away, if it was a cavalryman, he would definitely not be able to hit. But on the opposite side, more than 1,000 people rushed in a cavalry group, and it was really self-defeating.

If it was Anderson's previous artillery crew in Sweden, operating such a twelve-pounder gun, a thousand yards away, he could hit the city gates, and now he can hit a cavalry group of more than a thousand people, there is nothing surprising.

"Keep firing!" Anderson watched as the shelling caused some confusion to the Qing cavalry, but these people still rushed again, and he was ready to fire another shot.

The gunners began to struggle to push the cannon back into its firing position, which had just retreated more than a foot to the rear. Mounted guns all have the characteristic of withdrawing far back after each shell, for which the West uses a two-wheeled gun carriage with a long rod that slides on the ground to reduce recoil. The common practice of other armies in the Ming Dynasty was to increase the weight of the gun wheels. In comparison, it is better to have a two-wheeled gun mount in the West, which does not increase the burden of transportation and reduces recoil.

As soon as the cannon was in position again, the gunner, who was holding the brush, ran to the cannon with a bucket of water, and began to take one end of the spiral metal rod used for chambering and insert it into the chamber and stir it vigorously a few times, and then hooked out a piece of charred and tattered linen.

Theoretically, the linen used to wrap the propellant should be burned along with the propellant when fired, but it turns out that even with nitrified wrapping, there is still some residue left, so the breezer rod has become one of the indispensable equipment for artillerymen.

He then reversed the brush, dipped it in the bucket, inserted it into the barrel and began to pump repeatedly to clean the chamber, on the one hand, to avoid the burning gunpowder residue from igniting the charged charge, on the other hand, to cool the chamber that became hot after firing, and finally to keep the chamber as clean as possible to ensure consistent internal ballistic characteristics.

In the second firing, the two actions of gun return and cleaning the chamber were added to the first fire, and the rest were the same. As the command to fire again sounded, another shell was fired again not long apart.

The Nine-Headed Bird's artillery had to be cooled for one hour after firing forty rounds, and in order to ensure the performance of the artillery, it fired an average of up to eight rounds per hour, and a maximum of one hundred rounds per cannon per day. And such a cannon can maintain the life of a thousand rounds.

The second shell was a little more accurate than the first, and after bouncing twice on the ground, the shell successfully flew over the head of the cavalry in front of it and landed in the middle of the formation.

Anderson clearly saw through the telescope that the second twelve-pound iron ball they fired directly smashed half of a cavalryman's body, and then tore a big hole in the mount he stepped on and fell to the ground.

On that line, more than a dozen horsemen and horses were killed and injured, and even the seemingly low-speed rolling behind still injured a few horses, smashing the horse's legs to pieces.

This is the power of a twelve-pounder field gun, and those who stand in the way will die.

Anderson sneered, this is the battle between artillery and cavalry, the knights who were once invincible, after encountering the musket artillery, can no longer be king.

He glanced at the artillery, "I can still fire about two rounds, so I'll have to stop and cool down for a while." ”

"Twelve-pounder, eight-pounder field guns, loaded with solid shells, target eight hundred and twenty yards!"

"The angle of fire is four degrees and twelve minutes!" The gunner responded loudly.

The roar sounded again, and the Anderson artillery company fired one twelve-gun gun, two eight-pounder field guns in turn, and three iron balls shot eight hundred yards away.

"Keep shooting!"

The gunners quickly began to push back the guns, cleaning the chambers.

Adjust the angle, align the direction, reload the shells, fire again, and three more shells whistle out of the chamber! (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for the support of the fourth young man of the Feng family!