The Rise of the European Emperor

Both use artillery, but the technical levels of the two sides are different. The artillery used by the Allied Forces of the Eight Kingdoms has a bare barrel and no movable gun mount.

Therefore, when setting up the artillery, the Allied Forces of the Eight Kingdoms princes will send several soldiers to the front of the battle with the barrels of the artillery. Then, let people dig soil in front of the formation, leaving a hollow place for the gun barrel to be fixed. Then, the barrel goes forward.

In order to offset the strong recoil of the artillery, the bottom of the coalition artillery barrels are sunk into the pits. In this way, when the gun is fired, the reaction force of the gun can be transmitted to the ground and absorbed by the ground to prevent the gun from shifting.

But in this way, this old-fashioned artillery layout method inevitably raises the muzzle, making it difficult to shoot flat, and can only shoot curved. But curved shooting is a test of the experience of the gunner.

The artillery of Beihai Kingdom is quite different. The artillery of Beihai Kingdom generally has cannon lugs. Moreover, infantry guns are mounted on wheeled gun mounts. The tripod behind the gun mount rests directly on the ground, but the bottom of the tripod has tines to increase friction with the ground.

This kind of artillery with a gun mount is very simple to aim, just push it directly to the front of the formation and lay it flat forward. Then, the gunner aimed at the target from the back of the gun barrel with the Wangshan aperture perpendicular to the gun body, and then fired flat fire.

After firing, the entire gun will retreat because of the recoil. The tines under the tripod will rub against the ground and then retreat, counteracting the recoil of the artillery.

After that, the gunner will hold the gun mount to push the gun to the previous position to reload, and then use Wangshan to aim and shoot...

Therefore, the artillery of Beihai Kingdom, although it was arranged after the artillery of the Allied Forces of the Eight Kingdoms, was deployed first. At this time, the gunners of the Eight-Power Allied Forces are still digging holes to adjust the artillery...

...

The Beihai army brought a total of 45 three-pounders this time. Originally, Marin wanted to bring more, and even planned to bring a few Caron guns. However, considering the inconvenience of transportation, I only brought a light three-pounder gun. Anyway, the power of the three-pounder is enough.

Although the effective range of the three-pounder was only 365 meters, the opponent's infantry artillery had an even worse range. Coalition gunpowder, mostly one or two pound light guns. Moreover, it is a rear-mounted Fran cannon. Because the breath is not good, the range is even worse. Its effective range is up to 200 meters. Therefore, the three-pounder gun that Marin brought is enough to crush the opponent.

Moreover, this artillery battle is very interesting. Because the shells on both sides are not iron balls...

Yes, the shells used by both sides this time are spherical shells, but they are not iron balls.

Nor is it any other metal ball.

The artillery shells used by the allied forces of the eight kingdoms are spherical shells polished with stones. And the shells of Beihai Kingdom are all cement shells...

why? Because, in this era, there was no iron-smelting blast furnace in Europe, and iron was produced by small workshops. Small workshops produce iron, and the unit of measurement is pounds, not tons. Therefore, in this era, the cost of iron balls is very high, and ordinary people cannot afford them. Even if Marin built a simple blast furnace for iron smelting, the daily output of iron was only 10 tons. Because iron production is low, it is expensive. Therefore, European artillery, at this time in combat, mostly use stone bullets instead of iron balls. The application of iron ball artillery shells is mainly used in combat situations such as ship confrontation and bombardment of city gates. Under normal circumstances, everyone uses stone bullets as cannonballs. Especially in field battles, whether it is an iron ball or a stone ball, the person who hits it is a fart anyway, and it is obviously more economical to use a stone ball.

And the cement shells of Beihai Kingdom are more economical...

To process stone balls and shells, it is also time-consuming and laborious for masons to select stones of suitable shape for manual grinding. And Beihai Kingdom's cement cannonballs are very simple to process - just mix the cement and put it into the hollow ball mold that is divided into two. Then, squeeze hard. After extrusion, it can be directly sun-dried and air-dried. In terms of cost, it is much lower than the stone ball cannonball. Also, it is faster to make and the quality is guaranteed. Of course, shells made in summer need to take into account the coefficient of expansion. After all, it expands with heat and shrinks with cold.

For shells, the most important thing is to fit the barrel. If the shell is larger than the caliber, it will not be loaded. If it is smaller than the caliber, it is not good to hold the breath.

The three-pounder guns of Beihai Kingdom are all bronze guns cast with iron molds, which not only have a fast casting speed, but also have a relatively consistent caliber. Therefore, Beihai Kingdom only needs to pay attention to controlling the size of the mold, and can quickly produce a large number of shells that meet the requirements. The artillery pieces assembled by the princes of the Eight Kingdoms often have errors in caliber because of the craftsmanship. Therefore, each artillery must be matched with suitable stone bullets, which is very troublesome.

Therefore, the artillerymen of the Allied Forces of the Eight Kingdoms and Princes need to match each cannon with corresponding cannonballs. Make no mistake, lest the artillery and the cannonballs do not match.

The artillery of Beihai Kingdom is more convenient. As long as it is an artillery of the same caliber, the shells can be used in common...

...

While the artillerymen of the Allied Forces of the Eight Kingdoms were still digging holes and laying out their artillery, the artillerymen of Beihai Kingdom had already aimed a row of three-pounders at them...

Marin has always believed that the greatest threat in the Allied Forces of the Eight Kingdoms is probably their artillery. As for those arquebuses, they are definitely not the opponents of the North Sea country musketeers. But these artillery pieces are different. No matter how stupid the artillery pieces are, they can take away the lives of several soldiers with one shot. The threat of 40 artillery pieces is simply overwhelming. It was Marin, in order to avoid being caught by enemy artillery, he specially stood on the high platform behind the formation to watch the battle, at least three or four hundred meters away from the enemy artillery, to ensure that he was out of range of the enemy artillery. Otherwise, if you are hit by a one- or two-pound stone bullet from the enemy, even a traverser will have to die.

Therefore, in this battle, the biggest task that Marin handed over to the Central Route Army was to suppress and destroy the enemy's artillery positions and make the opponent's artillery "misfire".

With an order, the artillerymen of Beihai Kingdom immediately moved. The artillerymen in charge of charging the guns first opened the oil-paper bags and took out a certain amount of gunpowder particles. Then, pour into the barrel that is slightly upturned by placing the tripod in the dug hole. Then, take a cement ball, stuff it into the barrel, and push it all the way with a push rod...

Afterwards, the artillerymen pushed the artillery cart forward, came to the predetermined location, and began to aim at the opponent's artillery position...

"aim!"

Following the order of the artillery officer, the artilleryman in charge of aiming half squatted behind the gun barrel, looked forward from Wangshan behind the gun barrel, used a simple "three points and one line" visual inspection, and aimed at the enemy's artillery in front. position……

"ignition!"

With the order of the artillery commander, more than 40 torches stretched out to the fuse on the fire hole behind the artillery...

With the rapid burning sound of the gunpowder of "Chi Chi", the fuse quickly burned out. Then, more than 40 artillery pieces roared. And on the artillery position, there are also bursts of gunpowder smoke...

The cannonball made of cement, after leaving the barrel, whistled to the enemy's position. Under the terrified attention of the enemy artillery, the cement spherical shells flew closer and closer, until they smashed into the artillery positions of the Allied Forces of the Eight Kingdoms...