Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 262 Rockets and Mortars

When the 15-jin cannon entered the first parallel trench, it was only an hour and a half before dawn, and the auxiliary soldiers and gunners hurried forward. At this time, the second parallel trench had been dug, and twenty simple temporary artillery forts were built in front.

As the artillery crew had not had a rest for a day and a night, Lin Hai temporarily transferred 20 artillery crews from the Navy Department, and after daybreak they began firing at the remaining battlements of Xiamen's east city wall.

In less than one morning, the entire city wall was completely destroyed, the outer battlements were all cleared out, and even the inner parapet was collapsed in many places, making it impossible for people to stand on the city wall.

The power of the 15-jin cannon is still much stronger than that of the 7-jin cannon, and the trajectory of the heavy artillery is straighter, which is good for aiming, and the hit rate of point-fire on the battlements is greatly improved.

After the city wall was bald, the Zheng army on the city stopped shelling that afternoon. The difference in firepower between the two sides was too great, and at this time the protection of the Zheng army's artillerymen was not as good as the simple artillery forts under the city.

In view of this, Wang Mengxiong advised Zheng Zhilong: "Master, I think there is no need to fight with Lin the bandit. We will deal with him when he attacks the city."

However, Huiyou Company did not launch a violent attack. Lin Hai ordered to continue digging a diagonal communication trench to connect the second parallel trench with the trench dug by the pirates.

The reason why they still had to dig trenches was mainly because it was not difficult to repair the battlements. Zheng's army had repaired a part of it last night under the cover of darkness, but the temporary repair was not as solid as the original one.

The trench dug by the pirates was only seventy steps away from the city wall, which was already within the effective range of the three-cent bird gun. If the battlements on the city were not cleared in advance, the trench repair work at this stage would undoubtedly cause considerable casualties and the progress would be seriously disrupted.

But now that the Zheng army's archers did not dare to show up, Lin Hai directly adopted the digging mode called "Flying Sap" by Vauban.

In this mode, earthwork workers no longer stand in the trench and dig forward, but line up along the predetermined trench direction, with each person only responsible for digging the part in front of him, just like digging the first parallel trench.

The efficiency of the "flying ditch" mode will naturally be greatly improved, but the prerequisite is that the artillery on the city wall can be suppressed, otherwise the trench builders will be no different from the cannon fodder driven by the Later Jin to fill the trench.

At dusk, the setting sun fell to the west of Qiming Gate. Looking from the Huiyou Company camp, the city of Xiamen was shrouded in blood-red sunset.

"Commander-in-chief, the trenches and artillery positions have been repaired." Lin Hai was awakened by Viper. As the commander-in-chief, he could not sleep all night during the war. Every day he fell asleep whenever he had nothing to do, and was immediately woken up when something happened.

"Pass my order, order Chief Sentinel Jiang to lead his troops into the trenches and begin shelling tonight!"

"Order General Huang Bai to select ten teams of auxiliary soldiers to stand by and take turns launching rockets at night!"

Lin Hai took out two command arrows and handed them to Viper. The reorganization of the Army Department at the beginning of the year greatly increased the proportion of musketeers. Rockets had been withdrawn from the combat sequence of the Combat Bureau and were instead equipped by auxiliary troops.

This change means that rockets, weapons with poor accuracy, will no longer be used in battles, and will only be used for long-range harassment or burning castles. The Qi family army half a century ago also experienced this change. The positioning of rockets in "Jixiao Xinshu" and "Lianbing Shiji" is very different.

Due to the geographical restrictions of the southern Ming Dynasty and Southeast Asia, Huiyou Company is not equipped with rocket vehicles at present. Rockets are still launched by individual soldiers, which is very convenient for advancing in trenches. Mortars are a little more complicated. The gun body, base, and ammunition are carried by a strong mule respectively. After arriving at the artillery position, the gun body is installed on the base.

Compared with naval guns, this is much more convenient, mainly because this type of 10-jin mortar is very light. The Prussian army in later generations was equipped with light mortars carried by mules. When moving short distances on the battlefield, mules were not needed. Four soldiers could carry the gun and the base.

Of course, the power of this mortar is very small, it can only be said to be better than nothing, and the weight of the heavy mortar is also terrifying. Lin Hai's current requirement for the army is to be able to adapt to mountain warfare, and all equipment must obey this principle. The caliber of the Weiyuan Cannon is roughly equivalent to a mountain cannon in Europe, but it has not been lengthened yet.

The mortar currently used by the Army's artillery posts has a caliber multiple of only 1.5, which is roughly equivalent to the ten-jin cannon used by the Navy Department, so it is called a ten-jin mortar.

The so-called "several kilograms" of cannon is named based on the weight of a solid lead bullet, which does not mean that the actual weight of the bullet is ten kilograms. The iron bullets used in naval guns have a lower density than lead bullets and require a larger clearance, so the actual weight is much lighter.

As for mortars, they generally use shrapnel shells, and the cast iron shells are filled with black powder, which is even worse.

The shrapnel shells used by the artillery posts are different from the grenades used by the vanguard bureau in terms of fuses. Although both are primitive delay fuses, the fuse is wrapped in a wooden delay thread marked with scales, and the delay time can be quantitatively adjusted according to the distance of the range.

When the range is short and the flight time of the shell is short, screwing the wooden threaded fuse down part way can reduce the burning time of the fuse and ensure that the shell explodes soon after it hits the ground.

When the range is longer and the flight time of the shell is longer, the opposite is done to avoid the shell setting off fireworks in the sky before it hits the ground.

This type of wooden threaded fuse appeared at the latest during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. In comparison, the fuse of European shrapnel was still a fuse until two hundred years later. Obviously, the risk of exploding in the barrel was much higher.

However, the threaded fuze also brings a new problem, that is, the shell will rotate in the barrel. Once it turns to an angle where the fuze is facing the chamber, the chamber pressure may push it deep into the shell, which will also cause the shrapnel shell to explode prematurely.

This problem did not exist in the Ming Dynasty, because the early Ming Dynasty artillery that fired shrapnel were all in the shape of a bowl-shaped gun that was thick at the front and thin at the back. The shells flew out as soon as they were loaded into the bowl-shaped mouth and it was impossible for them to rotate at all.

During the Chongzhen period, the Ming army introduced Western-style mortars to imitate the Feibiao gun (5 times the diameter), and this problem was only exposed at that time.

In view of this, the Ming army no longer used wooden spiral fuses when firing shrapnel shells with Feibiao guns, but still used primitive gun twisters. The loading procedure of this type of shrapnel shell was also relatively complicated, requiring the wooden horse to be loaded first, then the soil to be cushioned, and then the shell to be loaded, with a layer of wet soil on the outside.

Later, the Weiyuan General Cannon and Chongtian Cannon of the Qing Dynasty were similar to the Feibiao Gun, with the same loading method. They were still very dangerous, so they would not be used unless absolutely necessary.

The shape of Huiyou Company's mortar is similar to Feibiao gun, but it uses the wooden threaded fuse of the bowl-mouth gun shrapnel. Although the caliber is only 1.5, the problem of the shrapnel rotating in the chamber is not prominent, but just in case, the Construction Department still installed a wooden shell at the bottom of the shell.

The idea of ​​adding a bullet support was also proposed by Zuo Wuwei of the Institute, which completely solved the problem of combining the Western mortar with the Ming army's shrapnel fuse. He also had the sudden idea of ​​designing a new time-delay fuse that could be ignited by the gas produced by the propellant, thus eliminating the step of igniting the shrapnel fuse.

(End of this chapter)