The beetle saddle in the protagonist's mind is a saddle similar to that of an elephant, not a saddle similar to that of a war horse. After all, in terms of body size, the ratio of medium-sized beetles to big-headed ants is close to the ratio of African elephants to humans.

A saddle is a seat made of a leather-clad wooden frame, stuffed with soft stuff, shaped to fit the rider's hips, and raised front and rear. It plays the role of a fixed position, which can effectively prevent the danger of the rider falling from the horse. It is stuffed with soft objects and shaped to fit the rider's hips, which also reduces fatigue from long-term riding.

There are different types of elephant saddles, including a saddle-like cushion that allows the rider to ride north of the elephant in a sitting position. There is also a tower saddle that stands high on the back of an elephant to give riders and archers above better protection and a more stable platform. In the war between Rome and Carthage, the African war elephants on the Carthaginian side often used this tower elephant saddle, causing a lot of trouble for the Roman legions.

Only the much larger African elephant can carry such a huge tower saddle and the warriors on it. Asian war elephants tend not to use this saddle.

And the warrior that the protagonist intends to equip on the back of the beetle is precisely the slinger of long-range attack who needs a stable platform. As insects, beetles are proportionally more burdened than elephants. So, the protagonist plans to install a platform saddle of the right size for the beetle.

Compared to the tower elephant saddle, the platform saddle is also made of wood, but it has only one platform and eliminates the surrounding walls. Because humans are erect animals, and ants tend to be on all six or four legs, having a wall will cover themselves.

The wooden platform is tied to the beetle's back by means of ant silk and ropes, which can be removed on weekdays.

Depending on the beetle's size, each combat beetle will have a commander, two worker ant riders and warriors ranging from a few to a dozen, and one or two worker ant messengers on its back.

The commander is responsible for commanding the entire team of beetles. The pilot, on the other hand, is located on the head of the beetle, and according to the commander's command, controls the beetle's movement by controlling the beetle's tentacles or issuing simple commands directly into the tentacles that it was already familiar with at the time of domestication. The warrior stays on the platform on the beetle's back and is responsible for attacking distant enemies with a sling, as well as defending against enemy attempts to climb the beetle's back. The herald had to convey the commander's commands, both to the riders and warriors, as well as to the accompanying infantry, on a wide beetle back.

To make it easier for heralds to get on and off the beetles quickly, ropes hang to the ground to the left, right, and rear of the platform for climbing.

In addition to having long-range firepower, the tactics of the Beetle Legion that the protagonist is currently preparing and training are basically based on the blueprint provided by the Big-headed Ant Remnants.

Although if the problem is exposed in actual combat in the future, the protagonist will definitely find a way to solve it. However, even now, the protagonist sees some of the shortcomings of the Beetle Legion.

For example, a beetle squad is centered on a beetle, but it is difficult to achieve tacit cooperation between the accompanying infantry and the beetle.

To tell the truth, step-tank coordination has always been a difficult problem for the military, especially when communication technology is not developed.

In World War I, even the inside of the tank could not communicate effectively in battle, and without radio, the commander could only give orders by kicking the driver's left and right shoulders.

During World War II, the problem of poor communication between tanks and accompanying infantry was still serious, and tank commanders often needed probes to communicate with the infantry next to the vehicle. And when the battle is at its most intense, it can only rely on the tacit understanding of both sides and the training of peacetime.

Some countries will equip tanks with wired telephones, and infantry can communicate with the inside of the vehicle through the telephone outside the vehicle, which is a more effective solution to this problem.

And between the beetle and the accompanying infantry, it is obvious that there is also a problem of this coordination. The solution of the big-headed ant remnants is to use the beetle as the core of the squad, and the infantry must follow the beetle to act, and cannot make their own decisions.

This is a feasible approach in desperation, but it is relatively rigid. If the Beetle Commander fails to see the larger threat that the infantry has already seen, he may be putting the entire squad in danger.

The improvement method of the protagonist is to equip the beetle with a full-time herald, which makes up for the information barrier in coordination to a certain extent, and indirectly improves the communication efficiency between the beetle commander and the pilot. And this kind of full-time herald is only effective when it has the ability to move up and down quickly, and the key is the rope hanging from the back of the three beetles, which is the creation of the protagonist, and there is no beetle on the big-headed ant remnant.

However, the herald is not as good as the telephone, just as flags and carrier pigeons were commonly used in World War II to compensate for communication barriers, and finally electronic tools were used.

Do ants have electronic tools? No! Is there a similar tool? Yes!

The protagonist thinks that the meeting room of the ants can realize the common exchange of information between many ants, so is there a way to put this set of communication tools on the beetle?

The protagonist once researched that the communication of information in the conference room mainly relies on the white pebbles on the ground, which look ordinary and are mainly composed of quartz, feldspar, mica, etc. But it is this pebble that can carry the communication signal of ants like a telephone line.

And there is no need for a whole pebble, as long as the different pebbles are close together, the same effect can be achieved.

However, it is also unrealistic to lay a circle of "communication lines" on the beetle with pebbles, not to mention the difficulty of processing pebbles to become the right size, how to fix many pebbles on the beetle and keep them firm, and how much burden it will cause with so many extra stones on the beetle's back.

However, it is not necessary to find a more qualified alternative to pebbles. Since the protagonist speculates that the communication signals between ants are similar to electrical signals, and pebbles are similar to conductors, is there any other material that can be easily processed as conductors?

Like metal? Metal is almost an excellent material for easy electrical and thermal conduction, and can also conduct ant communication signals?

Although the protagonist does not yet have the ability to process and refine metals, there are still some metal elements in nature, such as gold, which is found in some mountain streams, even if the yield is not high and has no mining significance for humans, but it is enough for ants.

There are also metals that are easy to refine, such as copper, which can be easily refined and processed using the kiln where the pottery is fired.

Copper ore is also very common, for example, the protagonist knows that the Big-headed Ant Kingdom has a secondary nest that produces beautiful green stones, and these stones will be sent to "Qingqiu City" to decorate the queen ant and male ant dormitories.

These beautiful green stones are malachite, a type of copper ore!