Grenadiers, whose physical fitness is generally better than that of ordinary soldiers, have always been an elite unit in the Tang Army. Not to mention, grenadiers not only have good physical fitness, but it is also difficult to be selected as a grenadier.
Part of it is during the training period for recruits. They are directly selected because of their excellent conditions and training performance. Well, this is relatively rare!
Most of them are selected into the grenadiers after serving. After passing the hard requirement of height and weight, the soldiers still need to serve for at least one year, or have at least three combat experiences.
As for why such strict requirements are needed, it is because they are grenadiers, a unit that needs to step forward with the enemy's firepower and then throw grenades, which requires soldiers to have great courage and discipline.
But today's hand grenades are very heavy, so even if a soldier is not strong and strong, he will not be able to go very far.
Various restrictions have made grenadiers one of the most elite infantry arms in the army.
Infantry battalions, whether they are from the Army or the Marine Corps, have the same basic infantry organization. They are all one team of 140 people. Each battalion has six teams, which are basically four ordinary infantry teams.
, a heavy musketeer team, a grenadier team.
The infantry battalion of the Guards also has the above six teams. However, in order to maintain its usual strength advantage, the infantry battalion of the Guards must at least reach a scale of more than a thousand people, so the advantage is to add additional troops.
formed an infantry unit.
This infantry team is equipped with 18mm muskets and half-body armor. It can be regarded as an upgraded version of the ordinary heavy musket team.
As for whether the half-body armor is useful, it actually doesn't matter, because what the Guards consider is that these selected soldiers are physically fit enough anyway, so it is not impossible to equip them with half-body armor!
In short, a higher defense capability is better than none.
Of course, this is just the idea of the top brass of the Guards. In fact, in actual combat, many soldiers do not wear such heavy half-body armor at all unless there are special circumstances.
For example, in the Battle of Malacca, the soldiers of the four heavy musketeers in the second temporary regiment of the Guards threw away their heavy half-armours while they were still on the ship, and directly wore civilian uniforms to land and march to set up defenses.
.
However, this situation is only temporary. When the siege begins and the Portuguese really start fighting, it is estimated that these people will wear them again.
After all, it is too dangerous to attack a city. It is good to wear armor, even if it is just for psychological comfort.
Moreover, not all Portuguese soldiers are equipped with muskets. They also have a large number of troops who use cold weapons such as spears, swords and shields.
The transportation of artillery and materials to various units of the Seventh Army lasted for five days. Only then was it finally possible to transport the artillery to the front line, and then the subsequent construction of artillery positions became much simpler.
When the artillery, especially a large number of heavy artillery, is in place, it is announced that the general attack on Malacca City is about to begin!
Around the city of Malacca, Ding Chenzhen commanded the artillery troops and built three large artillery positions. The total number of artillery in these three artillery positions was about 170.
Among them are six 48-pound short-barreled howitzers, six 24-pound long-barreled heavy guns, twenty-eight 18-pound long-barreled heavy guns, more than 40 14-pound heavy cannons, and the rest are nine-pound or more
Five pounds of field artillery.
Among them, the heavy artillery weighing more than 14 kilograms was naturally the main artillery in this siege, because these artillery had a long range and great power.
As for the nine-pound and five-pound field artillery, although these artillery can also play a considerable role, their power is still somewhat insufficient compared to a typical solid fortress like Malacca City.
For comparison, the Portuguese deployed nearly a hundred artillery pieces on top of the city of Malacca!
Dozens of them are ordinary small and medium-caliber artillery, also facing the land direction, and there are dozens of artillery, which are actually shore defense artillery deployed on the top of the city of Malacca. Most of them are heavy artillery of more than nine kilograms. They were originally used.
To defend against enemy ships in the port, whether they are ordinary artillery or heavy artillery, most of them are actually artillery dismantled from the fleet.
Although the Tang Navy's attack on the Portuguese fleet thwarted the Portuguese's attempt to move all the artillery in the fleet onto the city of Malacca to a certain extent, they had already moved some of the artillery onto the city.
In addition, the coastal defense heavy artillery on the side of Malacca City facing the port, although it was said that it was facing the port direction before, but when necessary, it is estimated that the Portuguese will move these heavy artillery to other positions for defense of the city.
After all, artillery is dead, people are alive, and these Portuguese are not stupid. Naturally, it is impossible for them to watch a large number of heavy artillery placed on the seaside and do nothing, but the fact that they are invaded by the Tang Army from other directions.
This siege of Malacca was, to a certain extent, a battle of artillery between the two sides. As long as one side's artillery could gain an advantage, it would be able to take the initiative in the battle.
For example, if the artillery of the Tang Army could outstrip the Portuguese in terms of firepower, it would be able to provide great support to the infantry. By then, no matter how strong the city of Malacca was, it would be able to chew it down.
On the other hand, if the Portuguese could suppress the Tang Army's artillery positions outside the city through artillery battles, they would also be able to gain a huge advantage.
Because without the support of artillery, the Tang army outside the city could not attack the city at all.
To put it bluntly, facing a solid city defense like Malacca City, without artillery support, even if all three infantry regiments of the 19th Infantry Division were killed, they might not be able to charge forward.
This has nothing to do with the courage or combat effectiveness of the soldiers, it is just due to the lack of artillery support.
This is why Ding Chenzhen would rather delay and put in all the effort to move the artillery to Malacca City, and also asked the navy to temporarily organize a naval heavy artillery battalion.
Artillery will be the core force of this Malacca siege!
As the construction of three major artillery positions began, in order to prevent the Portuguese on the city from taking the opportunity to attack, the Seventh Army initially built the artillery positions covertly. The artillerymen also took advantage of the darkness to pull up the artillery from the rear overnight, and dozens of people pulled it up.
Fire the artillery and pull the heavy artillery down to the artillery position.
At this time, the Portuguese on the city finally made their first real counterattack, landing on the night of the tenth day!
In order to prevent the Tang Army from building an artillery position and erecting artillery about 500 meters outside the city, the Portuguese on top of the city shelled the Datang Army artillery position outside the city even at night.
The rumbling sound of artillery started sporadically in the evening, and the sound of shelling could be heard occasionally throughout the night. However, when it dawned the next day, the Portuguese on the city made a shocking discovery.
Their sporadic shelling last night did not achieve any actual results. About five hundred meters from the city head, a low hilltop was empty yesterday, but today, a complete artillery position has appeared.
and dozens of artillery pieces.
Although the Portuguese were very vigilant and carried out artillery bombardment at night, it has to be said that their bombardment did not bring the expected results. On the one hand, it was because at night, although the Tang Army built artillery positions and transported artillery,
At that time, it was not carried out in the dark, but carried out openly and openly with torches. However, the brightness of the torches was enough for the construction troops of the Tang Army, but it was not enough for the Portuguese artillery troops.
It is actually very unreliable to shoot at the light of torches at night, not to mention that in order to confuse the Portuguese, Ding Chenzhen actually arranged a large number of people to hide in various insignificant places.
Behind the bunker, he held up his artillery to confuse and lure the Portuguese into firing.
At the same time, the construction troops also have protective measures. The biggest protective measure is the use of reverse slopes. The artillerymen of the Datang Army are not stupid. Their artillery positions are built on the top of the mountain, and the back of the mountain is the safest.
The place.
The only place that would be hit by the enemy was actually the top of the hill, and on the top of the hill, they used the method of digging trenches to directly build artillery positions, instead of stupidly running to the top of the hill and throwing the artillery on the ground.
A complete artillery position naturally requires corresponding protective fortifications.
In addition to measures such as night, reverse slopes, trenches, and the relatively long distance, it is almost close to the limited range of the artillery, and the hit rate is not that high in the first place.
A distance of five hundred meters is almost the limited range of contemporary large-caliber artillery. Even many nine-pound artillery can barely hit this far, and there is no accuracy at all.
Although artillery these days can also extend its range by raising its elevation angle, this range is almost meaningless. Based on the accuracy of contemporary artillery, if it exceeds 500 meters, God will not even know where the shells will fly.
Based on this same principle, this is why the Tang Army chose to deploy heavy artillery at a distance of 500 meters. If it is too close, it is risky, if it is too far, it will not matter. This distance is just right.
If the accuracy was sufficient, the Tang Army could actually bombard the city of Malacca directly from the sea, or bombard Malacca from a landing site four kilometers away. If the elevation angle was raised, the nine-pound field cannon could hit that far.
Just doing this will hardly achieve any practical results except wasting artillery shells.
Even at this five hundred meters, the Tang Army only deployed heavy artillery. As for the large number of nine-pound and five-pound artillery, they actually had to continue to be deployed forward. The initially selected direction was about four hundred meters. At this distance
, these nine-pound and five-pound artillery can exert their greatest power.