The live firing gun was a four-pound gun, and the projectile was a four-pound iron projectile.

The test firing of the artillery, Donner also saw and arranged it for the first time, so he was not sure how many particles of gunpowder needed to be filled.

There was no way, so he had to ask the gunner to estimate the filling with a wooden spoon, and he made a record on the side, and kept it for later to slowly experiment to find the most suitable filling amount.

The fuse at the butt of the gun was lit, which ignited the particle powder in the chamber. The granular gunpowder burned violently in the barrel, producing a large amount of gas, and with a bang, the four-pound iron bullet was pushed out of the barrel.

Everyone present had heard the sound of gunpowder exploding, whether it was an arquebus, a dynamite bag, or a grenade, but when the cannon sounded, it still startled them.

The sound like thunder made everyone cover their ears, and several gunners were shocked to take a few steps back, looking at the artillery in front of them in shock.

This is an enlarged version of the musket, and it's so powerful!

The recoil of the gun was not ordinarily large, and the huge impact pushed the entire gun mount back nearly a meter away, and if there was no support under the gun mount against the dirt, this distance might have been even farther.

The black powder burned and produced a thick smoke, and the cannonballs turned into black dots and disappeared from sight before everyone's eyes.

Donner looked at the direction of the artillery and said to one of the gunners next to him: "Go and look for it, see where the projectile has landed, and when you find it, don't touch the iron bullet yet, and stick this little flag next to the shell." Then continue to walk back, find the first landing point of the projectile, also plant a small flag in the crater, after planting the flag, you return from the first crater, follow the straight line, count how many steps. ”

The gunner gave a military salute and immediately ran towards the area where the shell landed.

The only weeds in the training ground were trimmed to a height of several inches, so it looked relatively empty, and the view was good, and it didn't take long for the gunners to find the shells.

On Donner's orders, he planted a small flag next to the shell and walked back.

The projectile is pushed out of the barrel and continues to bounce when it hits the ground, then it crushes a visible trail on the grass. The gunner followed the bullet marks and immediately found the first drop point.

After planting the flag, the gunner walked back step by step according to the pace of training, silently counting the steps in his heart. When he returned to the artillery firing place, he immediately reported to Donner: "Report to the regimental commander, a total of six hundred and fifty-six steps." ”

Donner took out a paper and quill pen, wrote the data behind the amount of gunpowder, and then converted it.

According to the stride length of the escort team's usual training and walking in unison, it is about seventy-five centimeters, counting the error, rounding or something, six hundred and fifty-six steps is about five hundred meters, which is about four hundred and sixty yards.

The artillery was fired at a flat range, a range that, according to the data that Donner remembered, was not close, but not far either.

Donner thought for a moment and said to a few gunners: "Clean the barrel and continue the test firing, this time adjusting the amount of gunpowder a little." ”

The five gunners immediately took action, and at this time the barrel was still a little hot, and the two of them took turns to poke into the barrel of the gun with two brushes to clean it, and then waited for the barrel to cool down a little naturally before continuing to reload the ammunition.

Firing, firing, cleaning the chamber, and then changing the amount of gunpowder, Donner recorded in detail the data of the gun's test firing.

The natural heat dissipation of the barrel is not fast enough, and after firing several times in a row, it will be more hot, and there is a danger of exploding the bore if it continues to fire.

The others didn't quite understand, but Donner knew it, so he temporarily stopped the test of the four-pound cannon and switched to the test firing of the six-pound gun.

Do the same thing all over again, from start to finish, and then record the data. It was only after testing all the data of the four guns that the flat fire data was completed that the amount of gunpowder was accurately determined.

At noon, even lunch was sent to the training camp, and everyone hastily ate lunch and continued to test fire artillery.

At this time, the barrel of the four-pound gun had cooled naturally, and Donner asked the gunner to adjust the firing angle and continue the test.

There were winches and wooden gears on the gun carriage to adjust the firing angle, and the gunner, on the orders of Donner, adjusted the angle to five degrees, then loaded the ammunition and began firing.

Every fifth test, Donner recorded the data and drew a table of what angle and how far the maximum range was.

With this primitive artillery, if you want to get a relatively accurate range, you can only use this method of death.

The registered data is also convenient for future gunners to use as a reference. With the accuracy of the artillery, I dare not say where to hit in the future actual combat, at least so that the gunners can have an approximate reference range.

In this era, the power of artillery is relatively terrifying, but there are still many flaws that are difficult to hide.

The firing of artillery is to ignite the fuse by ignition, so it is difficult to exert the power of the cannon on rainy days.

The heat dissipation of another gun is a hard injury, which greatly limits the firing speed and the number of consecutive firing of the gun.

Therefore, just for testing, I have been busy for two days before testing the basic data of the artillery.

The maximum firing range of the four-kilogram cannon was about 2,500 yards, that of the six-kilogram cannon was 3,500 yards, that of the eight-kilogram cannon was 4,050 yards, and that of the largest twelve-pound artillery had a maximum range of 6,000 yards.

As for the effective range of several guns, it is not possible to obtain detailed data for the time being. Downer plans to build a few walls at the training ground, or retrofit it on a sea vessel for further testing at sea.

On the training ground, Donner put away the artillery data in his hand, and said to Hans and the others with a smile: "How is it, what do you think about artillery?"

Several people glanced at each other and shook their heads, they didn't know what to say, it looked like it was powerful, but they didn't have a real battle, how did they know the true power of this thing.

"That's it for today. Donner beckoned to a few people. "Bring the artillery back to the training camp and continue training tomorrow. ”

"By the way, Hans, you guys go ahead and pick some people out of the convoy. Donner tilted his head to the few people behind him, "A cannon needs five people to operate on land, well, by the way, the cannon still needs to be loaded onto the ship, so it also needs at least three people to operate." ”

"So, hurry up and pick some people out, these days, let them practice well, don't wait until the artillery is built, but there are no gunners. Donner paused, "Now, all the work on Cancer Island is on the right track, as long as it is done step by step, there is no chaos, and the development will continue steadily." ”

Donner looked up at the sky: "It's been a long time to stay quietly on Cancer Island, it's time to go out for a walk." ”

"For example, the surrounding pirates need to be cleaned up, and in my opinion, there are no pirates allowed in the eastern seas. ”

"Also, it's time to go to the mainland, find a few more trade channels, you can't pin everything on Count Elinor's Mansion, this is not good!"