Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796

Chapter 325 027 The Russian Army Likes Hand-to-Hand Combat

Although there is a perception that "bayonet is a hero", Soloviev believes that at this time, sometimes it is a bit of a waste to use tall grenadiers to fight with bayonets.

The drill manual of the Guards has changed, and the training outline has also changed, but this progress is far from enough, and it can't catch up with the approaching war anyway.

The latest order issued by War Minister Sergei Kuzmich also added the collection of shooting, queues and bayonet tactics.

Speaking of which, this aspect is considered to be what Soloviev is good at, but no one expected that the subject he chose was not the shooting subject he had been doing, but something related to bayonet fighting.

When he led the troops to launch a pursuit and bayonet charge on the battlefield, he didn't feel anything at the time, because when the French encountered the Russian bayonet attack, they would generally retreat. This is also the convention of hand-to-hand combat in this era. The attacked party will always choose a suitable way to retreat and reorganize, and in turn suppress the opponent with shooting.

The problem the Russian army encountered in the battle was the French's accurate shooting, which was used to deal with the impact of the tall Russian soldiers.

Of course, because of the help of the Austrian skirmishers who were good at shooting cold guns and the Russian army's own selected light infantry in the Italian campaign, the French were always suppressed.

This is also thanks to Scherer who sent away many elite Italian corps in the Italian campaign, and the battle line was shaken, resulting in Moreau having few people available. At the same time, MacDonald had to return to his division, and then it collapsed completely, sending back most of the territory that Napoleon conquered during his first expedition to Italy.

The two sides were obviously fighting under unequal conditions, and this battle that might come in 1805 was full of uncertainties.

Solovyov also said this when he was called by Grand Duke Constantine.

"How should the problems mentioned in your report be solved?"

"We need to conduct hand-to-hand combat training, just like the methods used by the Ulan Lancers to deal with cavalry and infantry. And we also need to enable the infantry to deal with nearby cavalry and infantry in battles and engage in hand-to-hand combat in smaller units below the battalion, such as companies or platoons, or even "squads."

"But you still need to emphasize shooting, Misha, both aspects need to be considered."

Grand Duke Constantine said this, and Komarovsky on the side also spoke up: "Yes, there are many things to consider."

"In fact, Your Highness, and General Komarovsky, our shooting training, except for the chasseur squad, the number of additional shooting training for general infantry is really very limited, and the situation of grenadiers is slightly better."

Of course, the Russians' opponents and friendly forces are in a similar situation.

But there are still other contents that can be trained.

The parts that need to be adjusted and corrected have been done many times since the beginning of shooting training.

Now Solovyov came back to catch hand-to-hand combat, mainly because most of the Russian officers were unwilling to abandon this tradition, and it was carried on until 1945.

There will be no rolling waves of people in the future, only five-wheel and six-wheel "Ura".

In Solovyov's mind, the theater will always turn far away, and he needs to suppress this "divergent" thinking.

Now I want to mention that although bayonet charges are also popular in European armies, they are just like suppressing mobs, using bayonets to drive away the enemy. If it is a bayonet fight, it is still a little worse.

At this time, in fact, some people who live a tight life are really needed, they like to play this.

But the distance is too far, and the shogunate is not friendly to the Russian global exploration fleet that just passed by, and the Nagasaki magistrate also blackmailed Russian ships.

Now, we can only do it based on the materials we have now.

While he was thinking about this, Grand Duke Constantine continued the topic.

"That's not what we're talking about. What should we do now?"

When asked this, Solovyov knew that he was asked to explain clearly. He couldn't just dig a hole and then not fill it back.

"In the early days of fighting in line infantry, I remember that the Swedes still had spearmen, and the Spanish even had the 'large square', right?"

"Indeed, you mean there was something wrong with our past fighting methods?"

"Indeed, but I hope Your Highness can watch me and General Komarovsky standing here to demonstrate."

"Do you want me to show you how to fight with a bayonet? You, the 'prancing soldier', are still advantageous when fighting with a bayonet because you are tall and strong."

"Of course, but my current height is not the 'prancing soldier' ​​you mentioned. What's more, for the French, they are still in Gaul, in Carrhae."

Crassus' classic failure, in addition to the fact that he was filled with molten gold, some of the Roman combat troops in this battle still showed a high degree of courage. It was the commander's incompetence and arrogance that ruined the army.

"What are you going to say?"

"What those Gauls did was to die with the enemy. They knocked down the Parthian cavalry from horseback. Apparently, their attack method was like this. If we were grenadiers, we wouldn't even need bayonets to fight them. Using fists might be enough."

The height of the leaping soldiers was never over 1.6 meters, and they looked quite funny on the battlefield, especially when they met the tall and strong Russian grenadiers. The height comparison was unbearable.

"But if the bayonet technique is proper, our internal training can also show what the bayonet effect is."

Solovyov came to Konstantin's office with a "music box" on his back. After opening it, he saw what was inside.

"This is a wooden sword, and this is protective gear. If bamboo was not too difficult to find in Russia, I would use a bamboo sword."

In order to let the two older sisters, Yulia and Adela, have some self-defense ability, he also took this set of things to let her practice with Adela when Yulia went home.

Speaking of which, Mao Mei's fighting power is also very strong, and Adela, a French girl, is not a vegetarian. It is also fun for the two girls to practice wearing protective gear, which also indirectly proves that this training method is still effective.

What he showed to Grand Duke Constantine and General Komarovsky was a set of "house props" for soldiers, not for little girls.

"It looks good. Your Highness and I are about the same size, and you are taller than the hunter now. Is this your protective gear?"

"Yes, soldiers can use this for sparring. You can also add a cover on the top of the wooden stick to make the "gun head" non-lethal, and it can also be used this way."

"I think this will work, Your Highness."

"I already knew this trick of his."

"How did you know?"

Constantine is a very straightforward person. He never tells the "secret" like his big brother, the Tsar.

"This guy gave me a translation manuscript, which contains such a story, the Khitan 700 years ago."

"Your Highness, to be precise, that was not the Khitan. The real Khitan was to the north of the Song Dynasty."

"Haha, there is no way, it is a convention. If you are the editor-in-chief of the next edition of the Russian dictionary, you can use this. But your Russian level is not necessarily higher than that of the empress."

Louisa's Russian level is officially certified, and she may even master the language faster than the empress did.

As for Constantine's digression, there is one thing we can know, that is, the Golovkin mission has set off for China.

The things mentioned here are just like that. Constantine took the translation of "Water Margin" which was still in the manuscript stage, but with his level, he was just watching the fun like ordinary readers.

The good thing is that he should not be able to see the surrender for the time being.

But there is one thing he said quite accurately, that is, these "Khitan bandits" are indeed a bit like Pugachev back then.

Komarovsky and Solovyov had already dressed up for this kind of sparring in the study of the Constantine Marble Palace, and were going to compete in the hall.

The Marble Palace was a very important venue for the Russian Federation to hold meetings in St. Petersburg in the future, but now it had become a scene for two senior officers to spar.

Komarovsky had never expected that Solovyov was not only good at shooting with long and short guns, but also good at bayonet fighting.

This was purely the result of personal technical development. He was not one of those guards who had nothing to do and went looking for trouble. Recently, he was busy with military and official duties, so he tried to turn down literary salons and various social events.

As for the evidence of the result of the competition, Solovyov made Komarovsky dye his clothes white. Although he was not as tall as him in height and arm span, he was stabbed in a few places.

"It seems that there is some effect."

"Also, let our soldiers participate in killing pigs, and set up targets for practicing bayonet fighting in the barracks."

Catching pigs is not that easy. If there are really 50,000 pigs, it will take a lot of time to catch them.

After all, pigs will not surrender, they will just run around.

And the combat training itself also has an outline. For the Russian army, which is already keen on "Ura" in hand-to-hand combat, many officers will definitely support it.

After all, they fight two wars every year in peacetime, one is the big brawl on Carnival, and the other is the snow war in winter. The snow war played by Solovyov in Smolensk is quite different.

For this, Grand Duke Constantine asked Sergei Kuzmich, and called the regiment masters and commanders of the garrisons in Petersburg and Vyborg - except for the Tsar and Nicholas, these people also expressed their support.

For this reason, Sergei Kuzmich had to present a memorial to the Tsar to explain the training of this kind of hand-to-hand combat.

After reading it, Alexander himself quickly replied that it was possible to train in this way.

However, for the Russian army, except for the elite troops of the Guards and Grenadiers, the newly formed troops and ordinary troops must undergo a period of training before the final training results can be reflected.

In this regard, Solovyov still knows how to play tricks. The rifles of the Guards Chasseur Regiment all use his design.

Therefore, instead of a ring bayonet, a bayonet with a snap is used. It is just because of the problem of processing technology that the reliability is still relatively poor, but it can also be changed back to a ring bayonet.

This can be easily completed by the gunsmith modifying the structure under the muzzle, but many legions do not do a good job of maintaining their firearms. No matter what kind of weapon is used for bayonet fighting, the connection is not reliable.

Grand Duke Constantine saw that most of the soldiers of the Guards had well-maintained weapons, including these bayonets.

However, the bayonets of ordinary troops, such as the Ingria Regiment and some musketeer regiments, were not well maintained. Even during the bayonet training, there were bayonets stuck in the scarecrows.

But at this time, the family skills of Russian veterans such as Suvorov can be used.

When there is no bayonet, you can also use the butt of the gun to hit. Some officers and sergeants carrying cold weapons can also use their swords, spears and halberds to join the hand-to-hand combat.

Of course, such large-scale bayonet training is at least very impressive.

For a while, the nobles around the training ground, as long as they were not military, would think that the Guards disturbed the people, and those ordinary troops now began to shout and kill on the training ground every day.

This reminded everyone that Russia was indeed preparing for war.

However, this kind of training will also become a tradition in the future. It may be considered as sharpening the gun before the battle in 1805, but it will always be useful in future wars.

Moreover, for Russian officers and soldiers, training does not have to be confined to repetitive and tedious subjects such as queues and barrel pulling. After adding bayonet fighting, whether it is practicing with wooden sticks cut into the shape of rifles or using real weapons to stab scarecrows, it always makes daily training more abundant.

It’s just that Solovyov’s training in the Guards Chasseur Regiment focuses on uniformity and standardized movements.

But other Russian combat units do a variety of things.

In fact, the most outrageous thing he has seen is the training demonstration of the 8th Chasseur Regiment.

After watching it, Solovyov was too impressed by this kind of display in his mind.

This is not the usual performance of Russians at all. Those who don’t know would think it’s the Indian way of playing.

The various training subjects of Indians are quite outrageous. After watching it, you have to hold your forehead.

But this is still a minority after all. Most of the Russian army's bayonet fighting standards, general musketeers and hunters are trained according to the training subjects of the Semenovsky Regiment, and grenadiers are trained according to the methods of the General Regiment.

This makes the Soloviev regiment look quite different.

However, after seeing it, Grand Duke Constantine was very satisfied.

"Your regiment is really well trained, and every subject is excellent. It can be said that it is well prepared. However, when we go to the battlefield, it will be a real test."

Yes, the battlefield is the real test.