Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1623 Overture to War ([-]) Grenade Three-Stage Strike

Because there is no reloading time for cavalry combat, high pragmatism believed a long time ago that cavalry troops could only use portable disposable firearms before the burst firearms matured.

What is portable?It's just that this thing is small and easy to carry; disposable... well, this needs no explanation.

What counts as a portable disposable firearm?Of course it is a grenade, also called a palm mine.

It was mentioned a long time ago that Daming has many types of firearms. In terms of explosive firearms alone, Daming has many strange and weird products, so it is obvious that the simplest grenade-type products are of course indispensable.

It's just that... the grenade in the black powder era is not very powerful in reason, so the actual application effect of these things is relatively mediocre, so that often "the explosion is not enough to make up the poisonous smoke", and many of them go astray.

Products such as grenades are not "original" by Jinghua, and their earliest origin can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty.At the end of the Tang Dynasty, gunpowder was officially applied to the military field, and rockets (arrows carrying gunpowder) and artillery (catapults throwing gunpowder) appeared, which was the origin of "throwing firearms".

Then in the Song Dynasty, all kinds of fireballs came out one after another, including thunderbolt fireballs, grasshopper fireballs, poison fireballs, smoke balls, and sparking fireballs, etc. These fireballs were the real prototypes of grenades and hand grenades.

By the Ming Dynasty, the types and techniques of fireballs had been further developed.It is a pity that it stagnated in the Qing Dynasty for hundreds of years, and the development of hand grenades and grenades in China has also remained at the level of the Ming Dynasty—perhaps it has dropped a lot.

After the rise of the West, a discourse system centered on Western thinking has been established around the world. The history of the Chinese people's first throwing firearms was almost annihilated. Therefore, many people in later generations—especially Westerners basically do not recognize it. They think These are their originals.

The earliest grenades with black powder appeared in the West around the 15th century, when they were mainly used for fortress defense and prisons.It was not until the middle of the 17th century that grenades began to equip the army.However, in the 19th century, with the development of guns and the reduction of castle battles, grenades were neglected for a while, and then in the American Civil War, grenades were valued again.

The originator of Chinese hand grenades and hand grenades should be Zhentianlei, which was invented in the late Northern Song Dynasty. The shell is made of pig iron, with black powder inside and a fuze. After the explosion, the fragments are used to kill the enemy.Yue Fei used this thing before, but unfortunately for some reason—maybe the power of black powder is not enough, in short, it seems that there was no further development in the Southern Song Dynasty.

The earliest professional grenadiers in Europe were reformed by the French army during the time of Louis XIV.The new grenadiers use traditional musket gun tactics to use grenades, that is, stand in a horizontal line and fire (throw) grenades, so as to make up for the lack of power of a single grenade with quantity.

Soon, the British also began to train two guard regiments as grenadier regiments, and major European countries such as Prussia, Austria, Spain, and Russia quickly followed suit.The grenadiers of that era were actually soldiers who stood in a row and threw grenades - of course, they also had the muskets of ordinary line soldiers, and they could also complete all the tactical tasks that ordinary line soldiers completed.

This is obviously different from the Chinese. The Chinese did not create a special arm for grenades and grenades, while Europe not only specialized in the "Grenadier Regiment", but the Grenadier Regiment had a higher level than ordinary soldiers at the beginning of its founding. Established and considered elite.

Gao Wushi has also pondered why this phenomenon occurs, and he thinks there may be the following reasons:
First of all, the biggest difference between the grenade at that time and the military grenade of later generations is that even if the safety bolt of the military grenade of later generations is pulled out, as long as the hand does not let go, the fuze will not be ignited, even if you hold it in your hand for a minute.At that time, the grenade was simply a shrunken howitzer projectile. After igniting it and watching its fuze burn rapidly, you had to keep calm and not slip your hands. You had to follow the command of the sergeant and throw it far enough. The enemy's lead bullets are constantly flying by...

This can only be achieved by experienced battlefield veterans, or at least recruits who have undergone long-term training. Therefore, at the beginning of its founding, the European Grenadier regiments were basically all guards/guards or other elite regiments.

Moreover, the Europeans also used black powder at that time. In order to ensure the power, the grenades had to be made larger, and the weight was really heavy. Therefore, the soldiers of the Grenadier Regiment were basically tall and strong. You should have guessed that the most extreme of this is Mao Zi.

At the time of Alexander I, the recruits were directly arranged according to their height after enlisting in the army. Only the tallest and strongest could become grenadiers, while the shortest and most suitable for hiding in the grass would participate in light infantry training.For these reasons, it can be said that the grenadiers have a higher status than the general line infantry from the beginning.

Secondly, although the grenade "throwing together" of the grenadier has a shorter range than the salvo of the musket gun, as long as it is within reach, it is a very deterrent attack method.No matter how powerful a musket is, it can only hit soldiers one or two rows in front of the line, while the power of a grenade can directly kill and injure an entire column of enemy soldiers. Cause panic and even collapse in the enemy's rear row of soldiers.

In addition to this, grenadiers are stronger than ordinary soldiers as a whole, so in the era of queuing up to shoot, grenadiers are usually used as an offensive force, the most important blow to reverse the situation of a local battlefield or crush the enemy. in use.

The tactical arrangement is generally like this: first line up the guns, then advance in line, wait until the throwing distance is reached, throw the bombs, and then charge directly with the bayonet.Don't look at this paradigm as if it is very rigid, and it doesn't feel like an "art of war" at all, but in fact, when you really fight to this level, the opponent is often collapsed or on the verge of collapse, and finally sees a circle taller than yourself. The savage men from the sky charge forward with bayonets, and it is obviously a good choice to raise their hands and surrender.

This function is a bit like the shock troops in World War I and World War II. Of course, there are exceptions. For example, in the Battle of Bunker Hill, the British elite grenadiers were blocked by the Continental Army several times.

But no matter what, the grenadiers often have more chances to earn military exploits than ordinary soldiers, and of course they are also more dangerous, so it is worthy of the name to be regarded as the elite.

By the way, Maozi's group of weirdos once again used the Grenadier to the extreme: relying on the long-range firepower advantage brought by the Unicorn Cannon, plus they have always been short of ammunition, even the Grenadier has not received much shooting training, Coupled with Suvorov's 300-yard bayonet charge tactics... So the Maozi Grenadier Regiment basically ignored the shooting, and even didn't bother to throw the bullets, just put the bayonet "Ula" on it and it was done. It turned out that this trick was very good for the French efficient.

Daming's use of these fancy firearms is more fancy than the fancy firearms themselves, and there is basically no fixed usage. In other words, the weapon development and production system and the tactical command system of this era are not compatible at all, and they are completely out of touch.

Generally speaking, the craftsmen in the rear "developed" new firearms according to their own imagination, and the generals in the front couldn't figure out how and when to use each of the dozens of firearms they carried. In fact, when it comes to the battlefield, they often mess around, almost letting the low-level officers command blindly, or even the soldiers themselves play freely.

This situation did not change until Qi Jiguang was born. Many firearms that seemed extremely fancy were ignored by Qi Jiguang, and he chose some more effective weapons to match and use.However, although Qi Jiguang used explosive weapons and spent a lot of effort to improve them, the scope of their final use is still not large.The reason is obvious, the explosive power is not enough, and the limitations of use are too great.

In this situation, with the progress of Jinghua's gunpowder technology, grenades began to be slowly equipped into Jinghua's own armed force system.As for the Ming army, the imperial guards purchased some, but not many, and the other nine regions have not yet purchased large-scale purchases—not because of other reasons, but because the frontier army is not as rich as the imperial guards. We are working hard to expand the scale of the cavalry and complete the evolution of the "gun and bayonet soldiers" of the entire army.

The progress of Jinghua’s gunpowder technology has made the grenades it produces do not need the size of the early European grenades (or grenades). Since the size is small, the requirements for the size of soldiers can naturally be reduced accordingly. Therefore, after Jinghua’s internal testing for a period of time, except for In addition to the number of grenades that the elite infantry will equip soldiers, they also equip cavalry with this weapon on a large scale, because it is a typical "portable disposable firearm".

On this night, when the moon appeared and disappeared, Jinghua grenade was used on a large scale for the first time and its reputation was established.Gao Jiang led the cavalry under his command, ignoring the Chahar Mongolian cavalry who were preparing for a tactical raid, ignoring their sideways movement from not far away, but continued to load ammunition and fired a second round of musket salvo, The Mongols who were backed by the Laoha River on the west side killed and wounded hundreds of people.

At this time, the Mongolian army, which was in front of them by the river, had already avoided the north and south sides respectively. One was to facilitate the execution of Brihatu's siege order, and the other was to avoid the frontal attack of the muskets.From their point of view, Gao Jiang's move was quite irrational, and he kept hitting the river. Could it be that you just want to be surrounded?

Well, to a certain extent, Gao Jiang does mean "wanting to be surrounded", but the fundamental reason is that he hopes to shorten the front contact area so that he can concentrate firepower for key attacks-since the opponent wants to surround himself, the kind of The practice of deliberately widening the distance between the teams to prevent the intensive firepower of the musket array will not work.

Moreover, since the killing distance of Jinghua's muskets has exceeded that of the Mongols' arrows, the Mongols must concentrate their forces and charge directly, striving to directly encircle and strangle Gaojiang's troops.

The Mongols got out of the way by the river, but Gao Jiang didn't chase after him. Instead, he went to the river to take over this "position", and then subconsciously prepared to order another round of ammunition.

However, this time it seemed that it was too late. The Chahar Mongolian army circled and surrounded them too fast. At this moment, they had already formed a dense formation and started to launch a centripetal offensive.

Gao Jiang himself was a cavalry general, and he could tell at a glance that it was not enough to finish the next round of musket loading before the Mongols rushed in front of them, so he shouted: "Hang up all guns! Follow my flag and drive the horses gradually faster! Palm Lei three consecutive shots are ready!"

Three orders, the first is to hang the gun, that is, hang the cavalry musket back to the leather buckle on the left side of the horse's buttocks; the second is to give the target direction first, and then "gradually speed up", that is, to ask the whole army to prepare The run-up before the sprint; the third is to prepare for the attack, and you must be prepared to shoot three grenades in a row.

This kind of tactic is called "grenade three-stage strike" in the Jinghua cavalry unit. It was not developed by Gao Yushi, because Gao Yushi didn't understand cavalry combat and didn't dare to arrange tactics randomly.

In fact, this is a tactic developed by the cavalry leaders themselves. Its main method of combat is not to charge directly into the formation, throwing grenades three times in a row, but still adhering to the tactical characteristics of cavalry's habit of obliquely inserting into the battlefield. In the way of cutting in, throw grenades three times in front of the side.

There are several purposes for doing this, and the two key points actually lie in the word "distance".One is that it can prevent the distance between the warring parties from getting closer too quickly, causing the thrown grenade to injure one's own people; the other is that the oblique opening is more conducive to the commander's temporary adjustment of follow-up tactics according to changes in the battlefield situation.

This point may need to be explained, that is, after one, two or three oblique throws, if the enemy's overall chaos or even a sign of collapse appears at any time, our army can change from oblique cutting to rushing formation and carry out the final blow ; if the three throws fail to shake and collapse the enemy army, then our army will give full play to the characteristics of cavalry, go away with one hit, quickly open the distance, come back in a circle, and see if we can do another "three-stage grenade strike" ".

All in all, this tactic is actually the same idea as the fringe harassing shooting used by Mongolian cavalry, but because the distance of throwing grenades is shorter than that of arrows, it is relatively limited to use. Usually, it is necessary to use the first wave of musket shooting to force It is best used when the opponent gives up competing with long-range bow and arrow shooting and instead conducts a charge attack.

Right now it looks like this kind of opportunity, but although this tactic has been repeatedly studied by Jinghua, it seems that there is no big problem in theory, but there is sometimes a gap between theory and reality...

Jinghua Qiding's first wave of bomb-throwing was very effective. The unprepared Chahar Mongolian army was blown away one after another amidst the rumbling explosions. All the horses were frightened, and even two centurions who had been tested on the battlefield were thrown off their horses. God knows if they were trampled to death by their horses.

This round of grenade offensive even alarmed Brihatu and Tumen Khan, who were watching and commanding the battle in the south of the battlefield.Tumen Khan was taken aback, and said, "Is this explosives? I mean...the mine you mentioned earlier?"

"No, this is not a mine. It looks like a palm mine, but it is much more powerful than the previous palm mines." Brihatu replied extremely fast.

This person is really powerful. Not only did he see what the Jinghua cavalry's weapon was, but he didn't even intend to discuss it with Da Khan. Formation! Take the middle army of the Ming army straight for me, hurry, must hurry!"
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PS: I had a stiff neck last night, and I couldn’t keep my head up. Does anyone who knows orthopedics have any useful home remedies?

(End of this chapter)