I Am the Crown Prince in France

Chapter 326 Confidence and Adventure

The Prussian cavalry as the reserve and the Hilde Cavalry Battalion responsible for covering the right-wing artillery soon received orders and quickly began to assemble to annihilate the group of French cavalry artillery who dared to confront the two armies.

69𝖘𝖍𝖚𝖝.𝖓𝖊𝖙】

At the same time, the French cavalry artillery battalion had completed its shooting preparations, the horses were driven more than a hundred meters away, and the cannons adjusted the shooting angle.

The messenger of the artillery battalion ran quickly in front of the temporary artillery position, shouting loudly: "Solid bullets. Prepare for calibration!"

The gunners skillfully filled the gunpowder into the muzzle, pestled it, and then stuffed it with a 6-pound iron ball.

The company commanders received the report of preparation one after another, and the command flag not far away fell immediately.

The igniter immediately pulled the firing rope, and the hammer at the rear of the cannon hit the primer heavily, igniting the gunpowder in the barrel.

Yes, the cannons equipped by the Guards Cavalry have all been replaced with percussion caps. In fact, after the percussion cap gun matured, the percussion cap firing technology can be easily transplanted to the cannon. All that is needed is to repeatedly adjust the structural strength of the firing port and to trial-produce a slightly larger special percussion cap. These things were basically completed by the Royal Ordnance Factory at the beginning of the year.

With a loud rumble, a large amount of black smoke rose from the muzzle, and 12 iron balls whizzed towards the Southern Netherlands Army nearly 200 steps away.

Under the close-range bombardment, nearly one-third of the shells accurately passed through the infantry line. The huge impact force swept through the human body like hitting a balloon filled with water, causing the flesh and blood to burst, and the red and black sticky substances were fanned out to a distance of seven or eight meters.

Even the broken bones thrown out have terrible lethality, and the person who was stabbed is not much different from being hit by a bullet. Basically, the 1-meter range on both sides of the flight trajectory of a shell is an absolute dead zone, and soldiers within 2 meters may be killed.

The shells left four gaps in the infantry line, and after landing, they bounced and continued to roll out. Even at this time, if they were hit by the black iron ball, they would immediately pay the price of broken limbs.

There was even a shell that rolled to the second infantry line behind the Dutch army because the gunner raised the firing angle a little too high, crushing the calf of a drummer.

The captains of the cavalry artillery companies of the Guards Corps observed the shooting effect just now through the telescope and quickly ordered the gunners to adjust the shooting angle.

Nearly half a minute later, the commander of the cavalry artillery battalion ordered, "Grapeshot!"

For killing infantry, solid bullets are just tickling, and grapeshot is the real nightmare.

It's just that the range of grapeshot is short, so it is difficult to use it when the artillery of both sides bombards each other - it will be suppressed by the solid bullets with a longer range on the opposite side. At this time, the cavalry artillery of the Guards Corps has almost hit the face of the Dutch infantry, enough to use grapeshot.

After the loader pounded the gunpowder, he took a cylindrical "iron barrel" from the ammunition cart, carefully filled it into the muzzle, and then pounded it again.

As the firing order was issued, the 12 six-pound guns spewed out thick smoke again, and this time it was not solid iron balls that flew towards the Dutch infantry line, but spinning cylindrical barrels.

Many movies and TV series shoot shotgun shells when shouting to fire grapeshot, but in fact there is a big difference between the two.

Although grapeshot also relies on shotgun shells to kill, it is not simply a bunch of small projectiles stuffed into the cannon, but a large number of small iron balls are fixed together with ropes, iron sheets, etc., and usually wrapped in multiple layers.

After being treated in this way, the shells can fly far away by relying on the overall inertia - compared to simple shotgun shells - when approaching the enemy, the fragile shell wrapped around the projectile will be torn under the impact, and the projectile inside will then fly out.

The Southern Netherlands Infantry Line suddenly uttered a terrifying scream from hell.

Thanks to the previous calibration, nearly a hundred walnut-sized projectiles swept around the crowd, like a huge fly swatter, instantly smashing forty or fifty soldiers into pieces.

The Dutch officer hurriedly shouted: "It's grapeshot! Pay attention to lying down! Don't run around, keep the formation!"

The French infantry line opposite was not far away. If they were to disperse and avoid the cannons at this time, when the French rushed up, the Dutch army might not be able to complete the formation, so they could only grit their teeth and hold on.

"Don't worry, at such a close distance, our cavalry will soon deal with those cannons!"

"Once we deal with the French cannons, victory will be ours!"

The Dutch soldiers turned their heads and saw that their cavalry had basically completed the formation. They immediately gained confidence and began to fill the gaps left by their dead teammates.

Less than twenty seconds later, the cannons of the French cavalry artillery sounded again.

It was still grapeshot, flying with a strange whistling sound different from ordinary artillery shells, but it stopped abruptly halfway - the shell broke and threw out the projectile inside.

Another bloody mist rose up, but because the Dutch soldiers deliberately ducked under the command of the officers, only more than 30 people were hit, but such a large number of casualties was enough to cause panic in the infantry line.

You know, in this era of smoothbore guns + muzzle-loading guns, even if the infantry lines of both sides fired at close range, at most dozens of casualties could be caused.

Few people have seen such a bloody and tragic scene.

Major Hilde could see the tragic scene on the Dutch infantry line when he looked up. He turned around and saw that his cavalry had been roughly organized. He immediately pointed his whip forward and shouted angrily: "Follow me to teach those French artillerymen who are looking for death a lesson!"

Immediately, more than 800 war horses trotted out - this was already a violation of the cavalry manual. Generally speaking, trotting will start when approaching about 300 steps, and charging is allowed within 100 steps.

At this time, Hilde's cavalry battalion was at least 700 steps away from the French cavalry artillery, and doing so would seriously consume the horses' physical strength.

But Hilde couldn't care about it at this time. If he didn't deal with those cannons, the Dutch would be bombarded by grapeshot and collapsed!

And at such a close distance, the cannons had no time to escape. He only needed to rush over and easily reap the fruitful results of more than a dozen cannons. In comparison, the few infantry lost before were nothing.

However, almost as soon as his cavalry galloped out, the French artillerymen at the forefront of the battlefield began to gather their firing tools and "frantically" put the cannons on the horses.

Seeing this, Hilde sneered. These stupid Frenchmen dared to pull the cannons so far forward! Even the most skilled gunners would take at least 5 minutes to put the cannons on the horses and start to retreat. And it would take several minutes to retreat to the range of their own infantry.

Such a long time is enough for him to kill all these gunners, nail all the gun ports, and then smoke a cigarette comfortably!