Eight hundred and fiftieth chapters change the flintlock gun
The military camp of the Guards Army in Jinling City is home to a large number of Guards troops and is also the headquarters of the Guards Army. At this time, a batch of relatively special equipment was welcomed into the headquarters of the Guards Army.
These equipment are the first flintlock guns produced in small batches in the Tang Dynasty!
Since the last time Li Xuan inspected the Jiangnan Arsenal and watched the live ammunition test of the flintlock rifle, he confirmed on the spot that the flintlock rifle would be the next generation standard rifle for the Tang Navy and Army.
And named it the five-year-old rifle!
The initial model of this five-year-old rifle was developed specifically for infantry. Later, the Royal Institute of Technology and multiple arsenals of the Ministry of Industry will work with the military to develop new products for different arms and usage environments.
Different rifles, including mounted rifles and naval rifles.
However, that is not the point. The point is that after confirming that the five-year-old rifle will become the new generation of standard rifle, the Guards relied on its unique and incomparable advantages to take the lead in obtaining the first batch of trial-production flintlock rifles.
Because the Guards belong to the Royal Guards, all kinds of funds and even the supply of firearms are given priority. They also give priority to support various new equipment. The former nine-pound artillery, heavy howitzers, and plate armor are actually the Guards.
Large-scale equipment is first deployed, and then the army and navy take their turn.
The same is true for the flintlock muskets this time. Even though the Army and Navy had placed orders, the first batch of about 300 flintlock muskets that had just been produced was delivered to the Guards without any accidents.
Here it comes.
The Third Infantry Battalion of the Guards also became the first large-scale unit equipped with flintlock muskets in the entire Tang Army, and even in all armies around the world.
Three hundred flintlock muskets are naturally far from enough for a large Guards infantry battalion, and are just enough to equip two infantry teams.
Today is the day when the two infantry teams of the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Guards are equipped with flintlock muskets. After the soldiers got this type of flintlock musket, they are still not used to it because the operation method is completely different from the previous matchlock muskets.
different.
So after getting the flintlock gun, I immediately conducted a lot of new training and conducted various tests during the training.
And this kind of testing, that is, actual combat testing, finds problems in actual use, and then feeds the problems back to the Ministry of Industry, which then adjusts and improves the weapons and equipment based on the troops' response to use.
Because to a certain extent, the Guards are also responsible for the actual combat testing of various new equipment.
After the initial training, the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Guards conducted new application tactics training and research on flintlock muskets. Although people from the Ministry of Works previously said that using this kind of muskets would allow the musketeers to be arranged more closely, but
How to use it specifically is still a question.
Although there are still relatively few flintlock muskets, the Guards have already conducted a lot of research in order to better utilize some of the advantages of flintlock muskets and apply them to new tactics.
After several days of testing, the Guards discovered that by equipping them with flintlock muskets, the musketeers' queue could be simplified from the previous six rows to the current six rows to three rows.
After being simplified to three rows, an infantry team can concentrate more intensive firepower within the width of the unit!
At the same time, the reloading speed is faster. After using the flintlock gun, the combat effectiveness of the same number of musketeers can be more than doubled!
And there is another feature, that is, after equipping flintlock rifles, the ranks of musketeers are closer and the anti-impact ability is stronger, which is enough to not need the protection of spearmen.
In a simulated confrontation organized by the Guards, the 3rd Infantry Battalion, which was composed entirely of fusiliers and completely abandoned spearmen, shieldmen, and archers, almost completely suppressed the 3rd Infantry Battalion, which was still equipped with traditional matchlocks and long rifles.
2nd Infantry Battalion with Spear, Sword and Shield.
Moreover, the heavily armored spearmen, sword and shield bearers in the 2nd Infantry Battalion were almost useless, because they simply could not break through the fire blockade composed of almost a thousand flintlock muskets.
However, according to tests, the 14mm-caliber flintlock gun has poor penetrating power against heavy plate armor. Regarding this point, the Guards did not hesitate to propose that they need a more powerful flintlock gun!
At the same time, a suggestion was also made. Since everyone is planning to abandon the spear and use pure firepower to kill, can the barrel be shortened to ensure more convenient loading, increase the loading speed, and, um, reduce costs by the way.
Regarding the many issues raised by the Guards' equipment testing, the Royal Institute of Technology quickly responded that increasing the caliber would not be a problem at all. Within a few days, they came up with an 18mm caliber flintlock design, and used the prototype gun
During the test, all armors, including those heavy plate armors, were defeated by this 18mm flintlock gun without exception!
As for shortening the barrel design, they also said that it is okay, but after shortening the barrel, the length of the musket will be shortened, which will have a certain impact on hand-to-hand combat. Whether it is necessary or not, your military will consider it yourself, but the design is absolutely
No problem.
The Ministry of Industry also responded quickly. There was no problem with the production, and there was no problem with the production of large-caliber flintlock guns. There was also no problem with shortening the barrel, because they had previously produced heavy matchlocks, as well as cavalry and the navy.
Short-barreled version of the matchlock gun.
Based on the actual use test results of the Guards, Li Xuan personally issued an imperial edict, excluding honor guard troops, personal guards and other special units, in the future all the main infantry battalions of the Guards will completely disband cold weapons and all be converted into flintlocks.
gun!
The Army also quickly followed up. Although they have not yet obtained a large number of flintlock muskets, they have successively obtained nearly a hundred flintlock muskets for testing, and the test results are similar to those of the Guards.
This also led to a result. The Privy Council Training Department issued the latest training order to several new battalions and supplementary brigades. From now on, except for special needs, the training of spearmen will be stopped, and the spearmen will be changed to musketeers.
At the same time, the Army also reorganized the 9th Infantry Division and the 10th Infantry Division that were being organized, directly interrupting the training of spearmen, and instead training as musketeers. If nothing else, these two
The army will also become the first pure musketeer unit of the Tang Army.
However, due to the large scale of the army, and the production of flintlock guns is not expected to keep up for a while, the army is still relatively cautious. Many new barracks and supplementary brigades are still training spearmen to supplement them.
In addition, many of the existing main forces are not planning to adapt them directly, but plan to do it step by step.
The size of the Army is huge, which is naturally different from that of the Guards. The total strength of the Guards is only more than 10,000 people. To say that it has been completely redressed is to say that it has been completely redressed. But the Army is not just about scale.
It is huge, and many troops are still engaged in combat missions, so they cannot move easily.
But no matter what, the Tang Army has now officially entered the era of flintlock muskets. As for when the full replacement will be completed, it depends on the output of flintlock muskets from the Ministry of Industry.
After receiving a large number of orders for flintlock muskets from the Guards, Army, and Navy, and having almost all orders for matchlocks canceled, the arsenal at the Ministry of Industry also began to fully convert to the production of flintlock muskets.
At this time, some of the special advantages of the five-year-old rifle were revealed. This rifle is almost not much different from the first-year matchlock gun. Except for the bolt, the other parts are almost exactly the same.
This greatly eases the difficulty of switching production.
After switching to the production of flintlock muskets, many branches in the arsenal were able to continue producing these parts without stopping production. The only large-scale modification required was to build the gun mechanism.
The most difficult part in making a gun is spring steel, and the production of spring steel is not the task of major arsenals. It is the task of steel plants. After Jiangnan Steel Plant is put into operation, the most important task is to produce this type of spring on a large scale.
steel.
At the same time, the production process and even the process of spring steel are kept extremely confidential. The produced spring steel will be directly processed into springs for flintlock guns. External sales of this kind of spring steel are prohibited, and then the entire process will be escorted by the army and navy to major arsenals.
Proceed to assemble.
This is to ensure that spring steel technology is not leaked and to prevent leakage of large quantities of finished products.
Moreover, even though Li Xuan knew that this kind of spring steel could be used in many fields, these applications were not worth mentioning compared to maintaining the advantages of weapons.
Anyway, Li Xuan didn't plan to leak the spring steel technology in the past few years, and he didn't even want to sell the finished product. He wanted to see if the Ming Dynasty could imitate the flintlock gun this time.
The entire Tang Dynasty's defense-related enterprises were operating at the same time. The power was quite huge. All kinds of machinery and equipment and raw materials were supplied with priority. Only half a month later, the Ministry of Industry reported.
The latest musket production line of Jiangnan Arsenal is fully prepared for production conversion and can start large-scale mass production of flintlock muskets.
The conversion of other major arsenals is also ongoing.
Moreover, when the production line was modified, the production of various parts of the flintlock gun did not stop. Therefore, a large number of parts of the flintlock gun were stored. When the modification of the production line was completed, huge production capacity could be quickly exploded.
The Ministry of Industry estimates that next month, the combined output of various arsenals under the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty will reach 3,000 flintlock muskets.
Two months later, the output can climb to 4,000 pieces. By next year, the output will stabilize at 5,000 pieces per month, and the annual output will reach 60,000 pieces.
However, even so, it is still far from enough for the Tang Dynasty's army, navy, and guards, which are getting larger and larger, have urgent needs for replacement, and are still at war!