Li Xuan knew very well that plate armor, especially heavy body and half-body armor, had little lifespan in the history of war. The reason why he still strongly promoted the large-scale equipment of plate armor was very simple. The Ming army now did not have heavy muskets!
Since the Ming army does not have plate armor yet, it is natural to take this opportunity to use the plate armor to harvest a wave!
However, in this era, modern European armies have begun to equip heavy muskets on a large scale to fight against increasingly thick plate armor, the most typical of which are Spanish heavy muskets.
The emergence of heavy muskets will make plate armor, especially full-body armor and half-body armor, completely withdraw from the stage of war, because to resist such heavy muskets, plate armor needs to be very thick, and when the thickness increases, the weight will not be able to
What was avoided came up.
So in the end, the infantry simply stopped equipping plate armor and went into battle wearing civilian clothes. Only the cavalry continued to equip breastplates that were thickened to the limit!
This is also the reason why Li Xuan asked the Ministry of Industry to make technical reserves and even production preparations for heavy muskets. That is, the development of heavy muskets is inevitable.
Even if the full body armor has withdrawn from the war stage, the ultra-thick breastplate will still be active in the war arena for a long time, and to deal with the breastplate, the existing small-caliber muskets cannot be used.
If you use a small-caliber musket and the cavalry rushes over wearing breastplates, your small-caliber musket will be blinded!
Although the nine-pound artillery and even plate armor have not yet begun large-scale production, the Guards, which is stationed in Zhaoqing and has a relatively special political status, is close to the water and received the first batch of small-scale production in the name of testing.
Trial production of the nine-pound cannon and plate armor.
Among them were the three nine-pound cannons that were tested in front of Li Xuan, plus the three nine-pound cannons that were recently produced on a small scale, allowing the Guards Artillery Regiment to form a nine-pound artillery team.
.
And I also got more than a hundred sets of plate armor, including full body armor, half body armor and breastplate!
Full body armor is used to equip sword and shield soldiers, half body armor is used to equip spear soldiers, and breastplate is used to equip cavalry. At the same time, they are also trying to equip musketeers with breastplates!
But because the plate armor made in the Tang Dynasty, including the breastplate, was relatively thick, it basically followed the development path of contemporary European plate armor: it was made thicker and thicker to resist matchlock guns!
Even the breastplate weighs more than ten kilograms!
When musketeers wear these breastplates to fight, their mobility is greatly affected!
In the end, after trying for a period of time, the Guards was the first to give up the attempt to equip musketeers with breastplates. The army on one side had not tried it yet, but after seeing the test results of the Guards, they gave up directly.
, but the Army raised another possibility.
That is, since the existing breastplate is too heavy and affects combat, can we just abandon the back and leave only the front? How about developing a frontal breastplate?
Such an idea was presented to Li Xuan. Li Xuan was speechless when he saw it. These people have even made bulletproof vests for future generations!
The front breastplate envisioned by the Army is actually not a smooth plate armor, but a thick cloth bag, and a steel plate is inserted into it directly for bulletproof use. The weight is reduced, but after the weight reduction, it is still useless.
In live ammunition tests, existing 14mm muskets can penetrate at medium distances. Even if they cannot penetrate, the huge impact of the bullet will still dent the steel plate, causing huge trauma to the human body!
Therefore, after trying the equipment, the musketeers of the Tang Army were still quite dissatisfied with this kind of bulletproof steel plate. Damn, although the real engagement time in line combat may only be a few minutes, but when lining up and adjusting the formation, it will
It lasts for tens of minutes or even several hours, and you have to run around. Wearing this thing will be exhausting.
And because the thickness of the steel plate is reduced, the bulletproof effect of this thing is not very good. Wearing this, they might as well wear an extremely heavy breastplate. Although the thing is heavy, it is still somewhat bulletproof!
In the end, Li Xuan personally ordered that this kind of bulletproof steel plate, which the Army calls the front breastplate, can continue to be researched, but it will not be equipped!
Faced with the idea of these generals bent on equipping the musketeers with plate armor, Li Xuan was quite upset. This was the age of muskets. In Li Xuan's opinion, plate armor could only be used in the past few years.
From now on, except for cavalry who are equipped with breastplates, all other arms will not be equipped with plate armor, because it is useless if worn.
The Guards are the first unit to be equipped with nine-pound artillery and plate armor. This is related to their political status. They also undertake certain equipment testing tasks, but this is not an actual combat test!
The troops equipped with nine-pound artillery and plate armor for actual combat testing are actually the First Army!
On the eighth day of February, outside Shaoyang City, more than 20,000 troops of the First Army, after many days of marching and continuous peripheral operations, had successfully approached Shaoyang and completely surrounded the Ming army in the city.
At this time, two nine-pound artillery pieces and a hundred sets of plate armor that had been transported from the rear also arrived outside Shaoyang City.
Most of the armors that arrived were half-body armors, and the rest were full-body armors. As for the breastplates, there weren't many!
After seeing these new equipment, Hao Bainian decided on the spot to equip all these plate armors to the heavy armored infantry under the First Army, especially the heavy armored sword and shield soldiers responsible for the battle on the city, whether it was full body armor or half body armor.
Or maybe it's breastplates. Anyway, these plate armors are much better than the various iron armors and cotton iron armors currently equipped.
And these more than a hundred heavy infantrymen equipped with plate armor will be the first batch of soldiers to use plate armor in large-scale actual combat on the East Asian battlefield!
And Quan Laoliu is one of them!
As a senior heavy armored sword and shield soldier who served in the 1st Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division, he was a gangster in his early years. He was physically strong and had superb sword skills. After joining the army, although he had a gangster spirit and was often reprimanded by his superiors, he still
Gradually he accumulated merit and reached the rank of sergeant, and became a platoon leader in the heavy armored sword and shield soldiers.
When he received a set of full-body plate armor, he immediately couldn't wait to ask his comrades to help him put it on. The first feeling he felt after putting it on was that of safety!
Damn, your whole body, including your hands and feet, is wrapped in steel plates. It’s hard not to feel safe!
The second feeling is weight!
As a fierce man who often wears double armor when fighting, with a set of cotton armor on the inside and a set of chain mail on the outside, he feels that this full-body armor is very heavy, and so does everyone else.
It feels even heavier.
With the sword and shield in hand, even a fierce man like Quan Laoliu wouldn't be able to last long in combat with this equipment.
Because the first batch of plate armor produced focused too much on defensive performance, it was very heavy. Only these strong men who used to be heavy armored infantry could equip it, and the full-body plate armor needed to be selected from heavy armored infantry.
, can be selected.
After Hao Bainian discovered this situation, he said to his subordinates: "Although this plate armor has good defense, it is still too heavy. I suggest to the Ordnance Department that the thickness of the plate armor should be appropriately reduced, especially the thickness of non-lethal parts!"
No matter how well-defended the plate armor is, it is just a toy if the soldiers cannot wear it, or if a large number of soldiers cannot wear it.
Plate armor that cannot be equipped on a large scale is of little value.
This group of heavy armored infantry equipped with full body armor and half body armor will become the vanguard troops to attack Shaoyang City!
According to past management, when attacking such a fortified city, the Tang Army deployed heavy armored infantry and grenadiers from various units to form two temporary assault battalions.
But what is different from the past is that these assault battalions are equipped with nearly a hundred heavy armored infantry equipped with plate armor!
Having fought so many battles against fortified cities, the Tang Army's tactics for attacking fortified cities are now quite perfect. They still rely on shelling, digging tunnels and blasting!
The only difference is that the two newly brought nine-pound cannons are astonishingly powerful. The heavy shells hit the city wall with astonishing power!
What disappointed Hao Bainian at that time was that the nine-pound artillery was still not powerful enough to destroy those extremely thick city walls!
There is no way, even if it is a nine-pound artillery, in terms of its own weight and power, it is still considered a field artillery. To blast through these walls that are often seven or eight meters thick, you have to use more than eighteen kilograms or even twenty or thirty kilograms.
Artillery will do!
Nine-pound artillery can't break through the city wall, so naturally it relies on blasting. After the blasting, the assault battalion began to charge under the cover of muskets, bows and arrows, and artillery!
At this time, if the opponent has a large number of artillery as defensive firepower, Hao Bainian will definitely not do this, but Shaoyang City is not Hengyang City. There are not many medium and large-caliber artillery on the city, and our own artillery fire can completely suppress it.
The opponent's firepower.
Only then did Hao Bainian dare to send out the assault battalion!
Quan Laoliu was one of more than 20 heavy armored sword and shield soldiers with full plate armor. Although he could not take the lead due to the heavy armor, he trotted forward with a steady pace and then climbed up the city wall.
As soon as they reached the city wall, Sergeant Ming, who was hiding behind the battlements, seemed to have been prepared for it. He stabbed him directly with a spear. This shocked Quan Laoliu, but he soon realized that he was in trouble.
No, I couldn't help shouting: "Kill!"
Quan Lao Liu Company, who was wearing full body armor and wrapped himself up like an iron can, didn't even bother to raise his shield. He just strode forward with a long sword in his hand. Then he beat the enemy's swords several times and raised the sword directly.
Falling, the sword cut the nearest Ming Saber Shield Hand in half.
After him, two more heavy armored infantrymen wearing half-body armor also followed. These three people, with Quan Laoliu as the front core, and two people on the left and one on the right, killed more than a dozen Ming troops on the opposite side.