The yield rate of the 28-fold 14-pound artillery is lower, and the price is naturally more expensive. Therefore, the Army only purchases a small number of the 28-fold 14-pound artillery, which are equipped with a very small number of heavy-duty guns.
In artillery battalions, or simply deployed in fortresses.
In the army's field artillery unit, there are twenty times the number of fourteen-pound field guns and twenty-three times the number of fourteen-pound field guns.
Nowadays, outside the city of Malacca, it is rare to see a large number of twenty-eight times the 14-pound artillery. Before the war, considering that the city defense of Malacca was strong, the enemy's firepower was also relatively fierce. In order to gain the firepower advantage, it was also to achieve hit accuracy.
, the military department specially exchanged a twenty-eight times fourteen-pound artillery battalion with the original twenty-eight fourteen-pound artillery battalion of the Seventh Artillery Brigade. At the same time, the Navy also provided the two teams with twenty-eight times the ten-pound artillery battalion.
Four pounds of artillery.
This also resulted in the concentration of thirty of these long-barreled fourteen-pound artillery pieces outside the city of Malacca!
The high hit rate and long-distance effective range brought by this artillery, and the results brought by it, also amazed the top military officials!
This is what Ding Chenzhen said to his subordinates: "If this gun were cheaper and lighter, our army should all replace it with this kind of artillery!"
Qian Song next to him was completely speechless!
The cheaper and lighter 14-pound artillery would not be this kind of artillery, but the 14-pound artillery that was twenty times or twenty-three times more powerful!
If you want high accuracy and range, you also want light weight and low price. How can such a good thing be possible?
On the tenth day after landing, the Tang Dynasty siege troops outside the city used heavy artillery weighing more than 14 kilograms and began to bombard the city of Malacca. Of course, the Portuguese in the city did not sit still and wait for death. The same applies to the ones on the top of the city.
Artillery fires back.
However, the bombardment effects of the two sides were completely different.
The Portuguese mostly used solid bullets, and occasionally used grenades with external fuzes. However, in actual combat, and faced artillery bombardments from Datang outside the city, some Portuguese gunners made mistakes one after another, and grenades with external fuzes were used.
Once the grenade makes a mistake during launch, the scene will not be pretty.
After three consecutive explosion accidents occurred, killing and injuring dozens of people, many Portuguese gunners preferred to use solid shells instead of grenades with external fuzes, because they did not hit the enemy and were killed first.
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Due to the huge gap between the artillery shells of the two sides, although the Portuguese had strong city defenses and their forts were reinforced, they were still unable to withstand the artillery bombardment of the Tang siege troops.
Under the continuous bombardment of dozens of heavy artillery, the entire city defense of Malacca was riddled with holes, and more importantly, the gunners suffered heavy casualties.
The army of the Tang Dynasty did not use solid bullets. In fact, except for special occasions, the artillerymen of the Tang Dynasty rarely used solid bullets. They basically used grenades.
Under the intensive explosion of grenades, the Portuguese gunners who lacked effective defense against grenade fortifications suffered heavy casualties.
After the gunners suffered heavy casualties, although the Portuguese still had a large number of artillery and artillery shells, they could not find enough qualified gunners.
Gunners these days are still very valuable, and not just ordinary soldiers can serve as them.
In particular, the role of the gunner requires proficiency in various skills, because the accuracy of the artillery fire depends entirely on how well the gunner aims. Even in the Tang Dynasty military, gunners are extremely valuable technical talents, and basically all
It is staffed by senior non-commissioned officers.
In fact, even ordinary gunners, that is, ordinary gunners who load ammunition, need to undergo special training. Otherwise, the loading speed will become very slow, and it is also very easy to make mistakes.
After the Portuguese gunners suffered heavy casualties, there were not enough gunners, especially experienced gunners, which began to cause a large number of city defense artillery to misfire.
There are artillery, and there is no shortage of ammunition, but it is useless without gunners!
And this, presumably, is also a major feature of the Tang Army's siege operations. The purpose of artillery battles is not to destroy artillery or artillery positions. Artillery is a big iron lump, how can it be destroyed so easily.
Basically, the main purpose of artillery battles is to kill and injure enemy gunners.
After almost killing the enemy's artillery, the enemy's artillery unit will basically lose its combat effectiveness.
As the heavy artillery suppressed the enemy's artillery, other artillery units in Datang's siege force, namely a large number of five-pound and nine-pound artillery, also began to enter a distance of about four hundred meters or even three hundred meters, and moved toward
The city was heavily bombarded with ammunition.
Although these small and medium-caliber artillery are lacking in power when attacking a city, especially when attacking a solid city defense system such as a bastion, they cannot withstand large numbers and have a fast rate of fire.
There were hundreds of five-pound and nine-pound artillery pieces in the siege force. When they were pulled out and fired at the city of Malacca, the sound was even greater than the bombardment of heavy artillery!
At this time, these five-pound and nine-pound artillery had already taken over from the heavy artillery unit and assumed the task of suppressing enemy artillery. The heavy artillery unit, especially the twenty-four-pound and eighteen-pound heavy artillery, had already begun to replace them.
Loaded with solid bullets.
The purpose of replacing the solid bullets is very clear, that is, to bombard the city walls of Malacca, trying to use huge solid bullets carrying huge kinetic energy to smash the solid city walls.
On the thirteenth day after the landing, after many days of artillery battles, the artillery troops of the siege troops fired more than 10,000 rounds of grenades of various calibers and nearly 1,000 rounds of large-caliber solid shells on the city of Malacca.
The city defense artillery basically has no counterattack power.
Even a section of the city wall was destroyed!
After the artillery battle had progressed to this level, it could basically be declared that the siege troops had won the artillery battle. Next, Ding Chenzhen was considering launching a general attack.
Although it is almost impossible to capture Malacca without artillery, it is also impossible to capture Malacca only with artillery. In the end, a large number of infantry will still be needed for siege operations.
For this reason, on the thirteenth day after landing, Ding Chenzhen was worried about a large number of officers, especially the officers of the three infantry regiments under the 19th Infantry Division.
Not only senior officers participated in the combat meeting, but even the majors or lieutenant colonels of the infantry battalions also participated in the combat meeting.
The combat meeting is very simple, it is to deploy the general offensive expected to be launched tomorrow!
According to the combat plan jointly formulated by the military's operational staff and some senior generals, the general offensive will be launched simultaneously from two directions, namely the north and the east.
The 57th Infantry Regiment is responsible for the attack in the north. The north is also a key offensive area. In addition to the 57th Infantry Regiment, the 59th Infantry Regiment is also deployed in this area to serve as the reserve force of the 57th Regiment.
The 58th Infantry Regiment is responsible for the eastward attack. The attack here is a feint, and the 19th Baggage Regiment will serve as a reserve for this department.
As for why the baggage regiments were included, it was naturally because the baggage troops in the Tang Army were never simply troops that transported supplies, but were positioned to escort supplies.
Therefore, although the combat effectiveness of the 19th Baggage Regiment is not as good as the three main regiments, it can still be used as infantry if it is pulled out.
Other units, including the 19th Division's Cavalry Regiment, the 19th Engineer Battalion and other divisional units of the 19th Infantry Division, as well as the 7th Arkbridge Regiment, the 7th Reconnaissance Battalion and other units under the Seventh Army Headquarters, are
It is to stay behind and act as a strategic reserve.
It is worth noting that the cavalry regiment of the 19th Division has completely given up on fighting on horses, and instead uses muskets as infantry. There is no way, the horses are gone, so the cavalry can only be transformed into infantry.
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Another important fighting force in Malacca, the Second Temporary Guards Regiment, is not idle either. Although they are senior officials, they came to Malacca to gain military exploits. If they don't go to fight, what will happen?
Come for the military exploits.
The artillery battalion of the Second Temporary Guards Regiment has actually participated in artillery battles in the past few days!
In tomorrow's general attack, the second temporary regiment of the Guards will form an independent army, bypass the eastern city wall, then attack the port pier, and launch an attack on Malacca City from the port pier.
The reason why they chose this place to open the third battlefield is because in the past many days of artillery battles, the Portuguese had moved many of the coastal defense artillery near the sea to the east and north city walls for defense. In other words,
, in fact, the Malacca Coast Defense Fort near the port is now in name only.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have chosen this as the third point of attack.
At the same time, battleships, cruisers and other units in the joint landing fleet will provide artillery cover for the unit.
Therefore, the entire battle will be launched from three directions at the same time. At the beginning, in order to prevent the Portuguese from noticing the main attack direction, the intensity of the battle in each direction needs to be kept within a certain range until the battle breaks out to a certain level.
After a while, after all the Portuguese forces have been mobilized, the 57th Regiment will launch an attack with all its strength, and the 59th Infantry Regiment will also enter the battle.
This three-sided attack, leaving only the west side unattacked, sounds like encircling three sides, but this is not the case. In fact, the reason for not attacking from the west is purely because the terrain in the west is too complex, and it is simply not possible to attack from the west.
Not suitable for large-scale expansion.
Three sides launched attacks at the same time, leaving the enemy confused and arbitrarily mobilizing their troops. Then the 57th Infantry Regiment and the 59th Infantry Regiment launched a fierce attack from the back, breaking the city in one fell swoop.
This is the core of tomorrow's general offensive plan.
It sounds simple, but in fact the detailed tactical arrangements are very complicated. It doesn't mean that the commander at the front just waves his command knife and rushes forward.
The Portuguese's troop mobilization needs to be taken into consideration, as well as the time and intensity of one's own artillery support, etc.
In order to avoid any accidents, Ding Chenzhen led many officers to conduct many tactical drills around the sand table model of Malacca City.
This sand table model almost perfectly recreates every detail of Malacca City, because although Malacca City is a military fortress, it is also a port city. Businessmen from the Tang Dynasty came to Malacca to do business, not on the dock.
Yes, it was done inside the city.
In fact, when the Portuguese built the bastion here, they were always under the watchful eye of the intelligence personnel of the Tang Dynasty military. After the city of Malacca was built, the Tang Dynasty already had very detailed design drawings.