Judging from the expressions of these people, I am afraid that these people firmly believe that they can defeat all enemies, even if the enemy's army is several times or even dozens of times their size!
As for what their actual thoughts are, no one knows!
But at least there is no fear on their faces, and their hands and feet don't tremble like ordinary infantry!
This alone makes them worthy of their reputation as the most elite unit in the New Army of the Tang Dynasty!
The grenadiers were advancing, but when they advanced, they actually did not hold their muskets like the musketeers. Their muskets were still on their shoulders, and they were not even loaded in advance.
Although the grenadiers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty were also equipped with muskets, in fact the generals of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty rarely used them as ordinary musketeers on the spot, and did not even use them to line up and use muskets to shoot.
The generals of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty preferred to put the grenadiers into the battlefield at the most critical time, through intensive killing of the enemy and the huge deterrent effect produced when the grenades exploded in unison, to shake the enemy's morale and morale, and then throw in the spears.
Soldiers, and even ordinary musketeers launched a hand-to-hand charge.
Basically, the use of grenadiers is actually similar to the last volley of musketeers!
And because grenadiers are a relatively scarce elite force, under normal circumstances, the commanders of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty would not throw grenadiers into the battlefield at will, causing unnecessary losses.
Generally speaking, the grenadiers in the new army of the Tang Dynasty are a precious unit after all. In the hearts of senior generals, they are not much worse than the cavalry, which is also small in number. They are all units that can change the situation of the battle at critical moments.
Judging from the current history of many battles between the New Army of the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Army, the grenadiers have indeed lived up to expectations, defeating powerful enemies many times, creating favorable conditions for the army's final charge!
Grenadiers use grenades as their main weapon, and their muskets are often just a backup weapon!
Therefore, they did not hold their muskets in their hands, but still carried them on their backs. What they held in their hands were black grenades, and they also carried four grenades in the cloth bags on their backs.
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The weight of grenades is not light. Grenadiers carry five grenades with them whether they are marching or fighting. For a short period of time, this load may not seem like much, but over time, this is actually a heavy load for the soldiers.
It's a heavy burden, and if it were replaced by ordinary infantry, I'm afraid it would cause endless suffering.
After all, in addition to the weapons they carry, soldiers also carry other things, such as dry food, drinking water, even a change of military uniforms, quilts to keep out the cold, and some odds and ends.
The musketeers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty had a lot of equipment, including a complete set of military uniforms, including underwear, jackets, shoes, socks, leggings, belts, etc., as well as a quilt and a backpack.
At the same time, he will carry a musket, a bayonet, a gun bar, an ammunition bag containing prepackaged gunpowder and lead bullets, as well as a match rope, a bamboo kettle, a wooden lunch box, etc.
The weight of this whole set of things is not too small!
Moreover, these things are carried by soldiers, and the baggage troops will not help you transport these things when you are marching!
Only before entering the battlefield, soldiers will take off things that have nothing to do with the battle and hand them over to the care of the troops responsible for their care. Then they will go to the battlefield with only weapons and ammunition.
In addition to having the same equipment as ordinary musketeers, grenadiers also have to carry five additional grenades. These five grenades, plus other things, make the grenadier's load not too small during the march.
Of course, when a grenadier enters the battlefield, he will not foolishly bring anything else besides ammunition and weapons.
After the grenadiers came out, they did not rush directly to the front. After they entered the battlefield, they stopped behind the 8th Infantry Battalion.
In this battle, they will not be the first to fight the enemy, but the ordinary infantry phalanx.
This grenadier is the most elite force under Song Tianbiao. He needs to use this force at the most critical moment instead of consuming them in early battles!
Whether or not the grenadiers go into battle requires him, the commander of the Third Infantry Regiment, to make his own decision and order!
After the Third Infantry Regiment actively adjusted its formation, it formed a huge phalanx consisting of five phalanxes!
In front are two main infantry battalions, basically in a straight line. Each infantry battalion has spearmen in the middle and musketeers on both sides.
Directly behind these two main infantry battalions is the third main infantry battalion.
These three main infantry battalions formed an inverted shape and were the core combat strength of the Third Infantry Regiment in this battle!
Behind these three infantry battalions is a reserve battalion that has just been established. This reserve battalion is a pure cold weapon unit with spearmen as the core and is equipped with sword and shield soldiers and archers.
According to the establishment, the Third Infantry Regiment should have a reserve battalion, but currently the reserve battalion of the Datang New Army has not been fully expanded, so the second reserve battalion of the Third Infantry Regiment is not attached.
This reserve battalion is also used as the last line of defense to protect the artillery and regiment positions, because behind them are the cavalry and artillery directly under the regiment headquarters.
This formation configuration, especially the inverted-pin formation configuration, is actually a formation used by the New Army of the Tang Dynasty in the Battle of Tonggu Acropolis. It allows the three main infantry battalions of an infantry regiment to cooperate with each other, and
Use maximum frontal firepower!
Because the third infantry battalion is located behind the two infantry battalions, it can not only cover the rear and even the flanks of the two infantry battalions in front, but also does not affect their frontal firepower.
In such a square formation, about 250 people can be gathered in front of the three main infantry battalions to face the enemy head-on, and there are a total of six lines behind them!
This data is not too good, but it is not too bad either. If you want to increase this number, there is only one way, and that is to increase the production of muskets and increase the proportion of musketeers, so that the number of musketeers in an infantry battalion will not
There will be only two teams, but there will be three teams, or even more.
An infantry regiment's infantry regiment would not only have less than 700 musketeers, but would have more than a thousand or more musketeers.
When the Third Infantry Regiment faced the enemy in a dense formation, the Ming army finally launched an attack on the Third Infantry Regiment!
The nearly 5,000 Ming troops also formed several infantry phalanxes, and began to launch a tidal wave of attacks towards the new army of the Tang Dynasty!
The speed of the Ming army's advance is not very fast. Of course, this has nothing to do with the strength of the Ming army's combat effectiveness, because in this kind of battle in formation, it is impossible for both sides to start running as soon as they enter the battlefield.
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Generals always try their best to conserve the physical strength of their soldiers before launching the final charge. Otherwise, if they keep running around, they will easily tire themselves to death before they reach the enemy.
After all, the soldiers of this era, even semi-modern armies like the New Army of the Tang Dynasty that have adopted line tactics, still have many soldiers wearing heavy armor.
Running like this consumes too much physical energy!
The current five thousand Ming troops are slowly approaching, and further behind them, more Ming troops are also maintaining a slowly advancing rhythm, trying to form a formation that cooperates with each other and can support forward operations at any time.
On the other hand, the new army of the Tang Dynasty did not make much changes after setting up the battle formation. It was as firmly nailed in place as a nail, blocking the Ming army's access to Liping City!
Although the forwards of the Ming army were not very fast, they still covered the distance of only a few hundred meters very quickly!
When he saw that the Ming army had entered a distance of 150 meters, Song Tianbiao immediately said: "The battalion artillery team opens fire!"
Following Song Tianbiao's order, the two 150-pound shotguns in the battalion's artillery team were immediately lit with fuses, followed by a loud roar, and suddenly a thick white spray was sprayed from the muzzles.
Smoke, and in the white smoke, many iron nails, iron pieces and other objects were shot out.
These tiny iron nails and iron pieces flew over a distance of more than a hundred meters and soon fell into the Ming army's forward array.
However, there was no accident. A large number of soldiers in the front row of the Ming army fell down!
Even many of these front row soldiers are wearing armor!
But in the face of artillery fire, these armors actually have little effect!
Although the iron nails, iron pieces, etc. shot by artillery shot are not large, their power is incomparable to the lead bullets shot by muskets.
At a distance of more than 100 meters, soldiers wearing dozens of kilograms of heavy armor, especially cotton armor and iron armor combined with cotton armor, can block lead bullets.
But being able to block lead bullets does not mean being able to block artillery fire.
It is a pity that the New Army of the Tang Dynasty only has two artillery pieces that can shoot at a distance of 150 meters. The remaining four are bowl-mouth cannons weighing only a hundred kilograms. The effective range of these bowl-mouth cannons is relatively short.
, only about seventy or eighty meters.
Otherwise, if the battalion artillery team had six 150-pound shotguns firing a salvo, the Ming army on the opposite side would probably suffer heavy casualties. If they were hit by several more rounds of shelling, they would not be able to rush to the formation before they could reach the formation.
Before that, it was estimated that hundreds of people would be killed or injured.
Artillery, from the day it appeared on the battlefield, has become a major killer on the battlefield.
Especially with the development of technology and the continuous improvement of artillery, after the 16th century, which is roughly the same time period as today, the styles and even tactics of modern artillery have been determined, so artillery has become more important on the battlefield.
It has even more important status.
After the 19th century, he could even be called the God of War!