The current muskets have an effective range of only a hundred meters. If the infantry wants to rush up and shoot, they will be blown to pieces by the artillery.
Even the front-loading rifled gun proposed by Hanyang Arsenal has an effective range of only about 400 meters. Although it seems far away, compared with current artillery, the gap is still too big.
Today's Army has become wild. They want a new breech-loading rifle with an effective range of at least 500 meters, and even 800 meters or even 1,000 meters.
As for whether the soldiers can aim and hit the enemy at such a long distance, the Army believes that this is not a problem. The worst is to fire a few more shots.
In short, the current Army believes that the longer the effective range of a rifle, the better.
There is another reason for the Army to abandon large-scale equipment of front-loading rifled guns, and that is that technically speaking, in fact, the technology of breech-loading rifled guns is not that advanced than that of front-loading rifled guns.
From a perspective, they are actually on the same level.
Professors from the Royal Institute of Technology have repeatedly pointed out that since a front-loading rifled gun can be made, a breech-loading rifled gun must also be made.
The industrial foundation in all aspects is sufficient, what is lacking is just the finishing touch.
The Army is now looking forward to someone being able to make this last-minute kick. Before anyone can make this last-minute kick, it will first equip muzzle-loading rifled guns in small batches.
However, this equipment is only limited to the frontline troops in Central Asia. As for other troops, it is a slow-down equipment.
The Army wants to directly equip breech-loading rifled rifles in one step, without having to equip front-loading rifled rifles for several years and then carry out large-scale replacement.
If you go back and forth like this, millions of dollars will be wasted.
No matter how rich the army is, it cannot afford to go through such trouble.
This also means that although most of the troops in the Tang Army still use muskets, some troops in Central Asia are already equipped with front-loading rifles, and the army's internal number is the 32-year-old rifle.
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Interestingly, this kind of gun was called the Mini rifle by the Holy Emperor.
As for why the Holy Emperor gave this gun a special nickname, the officials didn't know.
And Li Xuan wouldn't say it. He just let it slip at the time and told the name of future generations. Since the Holy Emperor has said it, other people think that they will be called this way.
Therefore, the name of this front-loading rifled gun in the army is not the 32-year-old rifle, but the Mini rifle.
The Third Cavalry Division of the First Cavalry Corps stationed in Central Asia was the first Army unit to be equipped with this rifle. Before them, only the Guards were equipped with Mini rifles.
The Guards have limited authority to equip various types of advanced weapons, whether it is rifles, artillery, artillery shells, etc. Basically, they will give priority to new things that the Guards can use.
Even naval guns are like this.
When the Navy installed front-loading rifled guns a few years ago, the Guards directly intervened and took away the first batch of front-loading rifled guns scheduled by the Navy, giving them to several of the Guards' own warships and multiple
An auxiliary warship was refitted.
Then they also moved a lot of 200mm front-loading rifled guns that were originally used as the main guns of the Guangxi-class battleships. What were they used for?
He moved directly to the outer fortress of Jinling City.
The same is true even for breech-loading guns. The Navy had just placed an order not long ago, but the Guards, who realized it later, couldn't sit still anymore. They went directly to the Shanghai Gun Factory and directly bought the more than ten 150 guns they had just produced.
The ten-millimeter breech-loading cannon was pulled away.
Under the circumstances at that time, the purchasing personnel of the Guards did not even sign the contract, they just threw down the check for the artillery purchase and took the artillery away.
The people in the navy were quite helpless about this, and they didn't even dare to complain.
Because everyone knows what kind of army the Guards is.
To put it bluntly, the Guards exist to suppress any possible rebellion in the army or navy.
Their priority in equipping them with various types of advanced weapons was also personally approved by Li Xuan.
The same goes for the front-loaded rifled gun, that is, the Mini rifle. The Army has just received 10,000 Mini rifles, and the Guards has already completed the entire army change.
The Guards will not worry about changing equipment at this time, and then changing to breech-loading rifles a few years later, which will cause a waste of funds.
They need to be equipped with the most advanced weapons at all times, so they would rather waste it than be surpassed by the army or navy in weapons and equipment.
In fact, if funds hadn't allowed it, the Guards would have even wanted to build a 10,000-ton battleship.
Today's Guards fleet is quite large.
They have a 3,000-ton offshore battleship. The reason why the word "offshore" is added is because although its tonnage is large, its draft is very shallow and it can completely enter and exit the Yangtze River.
It has a shallow draft and short endurance, but its protection level is very good, and its firepower is extremely powerful, far exceeding the tonnage of the Shanxi-class battleships of the Navy.
In addition, they also have three 1,500-ton offshore frigates, which are also special products with shallow draft, weak maneuverability, but outstanding protection and firepower.
There are four capital ships alone, a dozen other gunboats of several hundred tons, and dozens of other auxiliary warships, transport ships, and the like.
Therefore, the Guards fleet is not just a mere appearance. To be honest, it can compete with the Navy in the Yangtze River. If you add the Jiangyin Fortress garrisoned by the Guards, even if the Navy sends its main fleet to attack, it is estimated that
It is also difficult to break through the Guards' defense.
In recent months, they have also been thinking about building another offshore battleship, equipped with a 300mm breech-mounted gun, to serve as the dominant force on the Yangtze River!
The special characteristics of the Guards allowed them to be the first to be equipped with Mini rifles, but it was not them who were the first to use Mini rifles on the battlefield, but the Army.
The Third Cavalry Division of the First Cavalry Corps of the Tang Army was the first field unit in the army to be equipped with Mini rifles.
This cavalry division has been stationed in Central Asia for the past few years and has fought many battles with the Tatars. It has quite a lot of military exploits, but it is not the first unit equipped with this gun.
It's because of the division's special combat method!
Because compared to other cavalry units, the 3rd Cavalry Division prefers to use lances in combat. They not only use Suifa pistols for close-range charge operations on horseback, but they also frequently dismount to fight.
Many times, they dismounted directly and then used lances and cannons to attack the ground.
To put it bluntly, the cavalry division is more like infantry on horseback.
After being equipped with new weapons, the cavalry division went into battle many times and achieved fairly good results.
And today, they were ordered to intercept an enemy cavalry unit.
Friendly forces reported that a Tatar cavalry force of about 2,000 people attacked a railway construction site yesterday. As a result, they were intercepted by an infantry regiment of the 4th Infantry Division of the garrison that had been well prepared.
After the attack failed, the enemy cavalry chose to retreat.
But Shangfeng hopes to block them and then annihilate them.
How can it be that you can come and go at our Datang railway construction site as you please?
To this end, the frontline troops of the Western Expeditionary Army have urgently sent orders to three nearby cavalry divisions and an independent cavalry regiment to conduct search and interception.
The 3rd Cavalry Division is one of the units responsible for interception. They are responsible for search and interception in the southeast direction.
As for whether we can stop the enemy in the end, it depends on luck, because the Tatars may not go in their direction.
The grassland is so big that you can ride horses and gallop everywhere, and the Tatars can go wherever they like.
Otherwise, there would be no need for Shangfeng to deploy three divisions and one regiment, nearly 15,000 cavalry, to search and intercept a mere 2,000 enemy cavalry.
It's really because the grassland is too big and the cavalry is too flexible, so if we send too few people, we may not even be able to find the enemy anywhere.
In the evening of that day, a group of about ten outpost reconnaissance cavalry troops of the Third Division suddenly stopped. The leader, a lieutenant cavalry officer, looked serious, then leaned over and put his ear to the ground.
When other cavalrymen saw this, some looked around, and some also lay down and listened.
Soon the lieutenant officer raised his head and said: "There is movement in the east, at least a hundred riders!"
"There are no more of our people in the east, they are most likely Tatars!"
"Yes, our reconnaissance cavalry troops rarely exceed a hundred cavalry, and the main cavalry will not appear in the east!"
The lieutenant officer immediately said: "Dismount, lead the horse away, let's go over and have a look!"
Immediately, a group of people led the horses towards the east. Although many places in Central Asia are flat grasslands, it does not mean that the terrain is flat. Even the grasslands have undulations, and there are even hills in some places.
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So they can't see any enemies around them now.
After walking about three hundred meters toward the east, they climbed up a gentle slope.
After going up, their sights opened up, and they soon discovered a group of cavalry approaching slowly from the front.
There were at least hundreds of horses, but many of the horses had no people on their backs, and there were only twenty or thirty people. However, when they looked at them, the dozen or so soldiers of the Third Cavalry Division of the Tang Dynasty knew immediately,
They are Tatars.
Although there were only twenty or thirty cavalrymen, they brought horses for transfer, so there were more than a hundred horses.
Well, in fact, the same is true for the Tang cavalry. These more than ten Datang cavalry did not only have one horse, but were equipped with two horses, with a total of more than thirty horses.
"What do we do now?" asked a sergeant next to him.
The leading lieutenant officer said: "Let them pass, hide, and be careful!"
As soon as they heard what the leading officer said, the soldiers knew that their superior wanted to let the Tatar reconnaissance cavalry in front of them pass by, and then continue to move forward to find where their main cavalry was.
Immediately, everyone carefully hid.
At this time, the Tatar cavalry in front did not notice anything strange, and continued to advance, and soon passed the hiding place.
After the Tatar scouts had gone far away, the leading officer said: "Let's go and find the location of their main force!"