1850 American Gold Baron

Chapter 348 Technical Sergeant

After looking at rifles and pistols, it’s the cannon’s turn.

This batch of arms orders from Guangdong came very timely. If this order can be completed smoothly, Liang Yao can invest less money in the Sacramento Arsenal this year, and the money saved can also be used for other purposes.

The Sacramento Arsenal, formally established in 1851, was finally able to open its doors and opened up an overseas market.

This is a milestone for California's military industry.

Liang Yao asked the staff of the arsenal to select one of each type of artillery currently produced by the Sacramento arsenal and bring it to the test site for testing.

Accompanying the test were four Armstrong cannons obtained from special channels.

In this test, Liang Yao was not only trying to sell the artillery produced by the Sacramento Arsenal to Hong Mingxiang and others, but also to compare the performance of the Armstrong gun with these old artillery and transitional artillery.

Finally, the future R&D and production focus of the Sacramento Arsenal Artillery Department will be decided.

Participating in the test were a 6-pound front-loading smoothbore cannon (little Napoleon gun), a 6-pound front-loading rifled cannon, a 6-pound breech-loading rifled cannon, a 10-pound front-loading smoothbore cannon, a 10-pound front-loading rifled cannon, and a 12-pound front-loading smoothbore cannon.

Cannon, 12-pounder muzzle-loading rifled gun.

These are all artillery models currently produced by the Sacramento Arsenal.

The main artillery parameters of this test are range, rate of fire, and lethality.

The first thing to be tested were various types of 6-pound guns. Because the 6-pound guns are relatively lightweight, flexible, and powerful, they are currently the field guns equipped by artillery companies.

According to the establishment of the federal army's army artillery, a 6-pounder gun consists of an artillery team of 3 to 5 people serving one artillery piece.

1 to 2 soldiers hold the worm and ejector rod and are responsible for cleaning the barrel and pushing the ammunition, 1 to 2 soldiers are responsible for passing the loading ammunition, and one soldier is responsible for pulling the gun and launching it.

Compared with the establishment of the federal army's artillery regiment, Liang Yao's 6-pounder artillery team consisted of 6 people.

That is, each artillery is equipped with a gunner with the rank of sergeant with T, who is responsible for the aiming and correction of the artillery.

The so-called "T" means that the military rank mark has a letter T, which is the first letter of Technology.

The military rank with T means technical sergeant. This is the military rank system that Liang Yao implemented in his army based on the military ranks of the US Army in World War II.

After the Pearl Harbor incident, the United States officially entered the war and began an intensive military expansion, because the military's technical arms required a large number of relevant technical talents.

In order to attract engineers and technicians to join the army, on January 8, 1942, the U.S. Army officially added three technical posts at the non-commissioned officer level: Technical Sergeant Five (T-5), Technical Sergeant Four (T-4), and Technical Sergeant Three.

(T-3).

Those with driving skills, mechanics, radio skills, medical skills and military music-related skills can obtain the corresponding technical sergeant rank after passing recruit training and technical assessment.

The most intuitive benefit that technical sergeants can obtain compared to ordinary sergeants is higher wages. While attracting more relevant technical talents to actively sign up to join the army, this new military rank system does not disrupt the original command system.

Taking ordinary soldiers as an example, for the same recruit, the salary of a fully trained recruit with T is 25% higher than that of a fully trained recruit without T.

This system has been tested by war, and it has actually been proven that the third-level sergeant technical post system of the US Army during World War II was very successful.

Of course, the basis for implementing this system is that the country has completed industrialization and has sufficient domestic technical talent reserves.

Even if agricultural countries implement this system, they may not achieve the same results as the United States.

This is why Liang Yao spared no effort to attract industrial workers from the East and even Europe to find employment in California.

These industrial workers can not only create a large amount of real wealth in peacetime, but also represent greater war potential in wartime.

In Liang Yao's army, the salary of a sergeant with a T is 25% higher than that of a sergeant of the same level.

However, there are currently not many technical services in Liang Yao's army. Only one artillery company and one engineering company have technical sergeants.

At the same time, Liang Yao is still considering establishing a special communications company.

The technical sergeants of the artillery company are very luxuriously equipped. In addition to being equipped with sabers for self-defense and a Sacramento version of the Colt revolver, they are also specially equipped with a monocular telescope for observing the battlefield situation and artillery impact points.

It can be said that whether it is hardware or software, the technical sergeants of the artillery company are armed to the teeth.

Only Liang Yao's artillery company in the entire United States dared to be so arrogant in delegating expensive equipment such as telescopes to sergeant-level officers.

Among the three active artillery regiments in the United States, even lieutenants at the company commander level may not have popularized telescopes.

The gunners of the three artillery squads responsible for testing three 6-pound guns of various types first measured the range of the target, and then directed their soldiers to adjust the muzzle and elevation angle of the artillery.

After adjusting various parameters, the soldier holding the worm and ejector rod pushed one end of the worm into the gun bore and cleaned the residue in the gun bore in accordance with the provisions of the training manual.

Connze, who was watching on the sidelines, was impatiently waiting for the cannon to be fired, witnessing the power of Citigroup's foreign artillery. At the same time, he also hoped that the visit to the Sacramento Arsenal would end soon and that he could return to San Francisco to ride the foreign horse early.

The seemingly unnecessary actions of the gunnery soldiers made Kang Enze couldn't help complaining: "This is a newly pulled out cannon. The barrel must be clean. Furthermore, if there is any foreign matter in the barrel, can't you just take a quick look? Why bother?

A lot of trouble?"

"It's daytime now, and the foreign objects in the gun barrel may be visible with the eyes, but what if it's night? Do you also use your eyes to see it?" Liang Yao asked rhetorically.

"My artillerymen are very valuable. They are all fed with cannonballs. If the artillery is damaged due to the explosion of the barrel, my heart will bleed!"

Liang Yao is not exaggerating when he says this. Good infantry cannon fodder for filling the lines are easy to find and easy to train into an army.

But experienced artillerymen with combat experience are hard to find.

Liang Yao's artillerymen were all artillerymen with combat experience gathered from all over the place. He trained this only artillery company as future artillery sergeants or even lieutenants.

As long as he has this elite artillery company as his team, he can quickly expand an artillery company into an artillery regiment as quickly as possible during wartime.

An improper operation caused casualties to an artillery squad. It seemed that only one artillery squad was lost, but in fact it was the loss of an artillery company. Can he not feel distressed? Can his heart not bleed?

Liang Yao's soul question left Kang Enze speechless.

"Don't embarrass yourself by talking so much!" Hong Mingxiang kicked Kang Enze rudely, and then glanced at the accompanying confidants, "Take a good look at how General Liang's artillery fires, and open your eyes wide.

, I didn’t just bring you to California on foreign horses, you should learn some real skills from me when you go back, don’t waste my money!”

Hong Mingxiang's entourage and confidants were silent after being reprimanded by Hong Mingxiang. They had to concentrate and watch how Liang Yao's artillery was firing.

(End of chapter)