King of German Mercenaries

In the battle era before the trench warfare era, artillery bombardment was a very brutal process. Because the armies of both sides are standing there in a dense formation, which is very suitable for artillery damage. This is why Napoleon's "artillery doctrine" shines brightly.

Marin, who was watching with binoculars on the rear high platform, saw terrible results immediately after the artillery fired...

At the beginning, Marin's artillery was still adjusting, so the first round of artillery bombardment was just average. But even so, it brought horrific casualties to the Saxon army...

Because, the three-pound iron ball flew into the Saxon army, although the first round was poor. However, the 20,000 Saxon army is so densely packed that there are always unlucky ones who are hit by shells...

So, in Marin's binoculars, there appeared a terrifying scene of a knight in the front row of the Saxon army, pierced by a three-pound iron ball through four horses at once...

Because the artillery under Marin's command were all flat-fired, and they used powerful granular gunpowder. If it is used to attack infantry, it may penetrate 15 people. However, the body of the warhorse is very long. When the cannonball passes through the body of the warhorse, the long body of the warhorse will hinder the cannonball more than a person. Therefore, a three-pound iron ball that can pierce 15 people can only pierce 4 horses.

But even so, the Saxon knights were terrified...

The iron ball of the three-pounder, whistling, rushed towards the front of the Saxon formation, and one cannonball could pierce four warhorses. After the warhorse was pierced, he was stunned for a moment, and then the blood hole that was pierced suddenly spurted warm blood. Then, the warhorse fell to the ground with a whimper, threw the knights off the horse, and rolled on the ground...

And some artillery with a higher firing angle, the shell directly hit the knight on the horse. Although the knight wears full plate armor, however, it is of little use. In front of the ferocious three-pound iron ball, a hapless knight with a helmet on his head was smashed into the air by the three-pound iron ball. After that, the headless neck spewed out a lot of blood, splashing the knights around him... More than that, the shells that continued to fly hit the next knight again, smashing his plate armor, killing him on the spot...

This terrifying scene made the Saxon knights who saw them tremble with fear, for fear that the next unlucky person would be themselves. They wanted to move their horses sideways to avoid the range of artillery fire. However, the strict military discipline and the honor of knights made them bite the bullet and continue to stay in place, praying that the shells would not find themselves next time. On the contrary, the few knights whose war horses were killed and fell to the ground rushed to the rear of the battle formation to look for the horses. However, these people also made up their minds - the change of horses must be delayed, it is best to delay until the end of the artillery battle and then come back...

Next, the Marin artillerymen focused more on the artillerymen on the opposite side. Because, the artillery commander Gao Qi said, attacking the opposing artillery is the most important task of the artillery. Because the enemy's artillery can also bring great danger to this side.

So, after the adjustment, after the gunners loaded the shells, the artillerymen responsible for aiming, squatted down and observed the Wangshan behind the artillery, so that it was facing the opponent's artillery. Of course, Wangshan aimed at the head of the enemy artillery. But when the cannonball flew past, it was already lowered to the chest position...

After the observation was over, another gunner lifted the wooden stick tied with the match rope, blew the match rope, and after making the match rope burn more vigorously, the fuse on the fire hole was lit...

"Boom-boom-boom-" 50 three-pounder guns roared one after another...

Because of the more practice of flat shooting, the artillery's shooting accuracy is not bad. All of a sudden, among the Saxon gunners who were still adjusting their gun positions, more than a dozen artillerymen were killed by iron balls on the spot, and the death was tragic. Either the head was smashed, or the arms and legs were smashed by the iron balls... Anyway, I can't continue to use the artillery...

After being so frightened, the Saxon artillerymen shrank their heads in fright. However, under the orders of the officers,

Still started reloading and shooting...

The Saxon artillery is different from Marin's artillery. Marin's three-pounder guns are all front-loaded guns. Generally speaking, Marin's artillery can only fire one shot every 45 seconds. The Saxons use the "Fran cannon" with multiple "sub-guns", and the rate of fire is relatively fast, with an average of 20 to 30 seconds to fire a shot. However, Marin's artillery used the glue-bonded and processed granular gunpowder made from fish skin, while the Saxon artillery used ordinary powdered black gunpowder. Therefore, the power of the Saxon artillery is naturally smaller than that of the Marin artillery.

However, Saxony's artillery, the barrel length is relatively long, more than 1 meter. And Marin's three-pounder gun, the barrel length is only 0.65 meters. Generally speaking, the longer the barrel, the greater the range should be. It's just that the Saxon artillery has a gap between the rear loader and the barrel, and the air retention is not good. Plus powder gunpowder is used. Therefore, in the end, the effective range of the Saxon artillery is only 200 meters. And Marin's three-pounder, with an effective range of 365 meters, is more powerful.

When the artillery under Marin fired three rounds, the artillery of Saxony finally began to shell...

However, the Saxon artillery did not have a mountain view, so it was inconvenient to aim. So, although the Saxon artillery aimed at Marin's artillery as much as possible, it was not very accurate. However, after several rounds of shooting, Marin still lost more than a dozen artillerymen. But during this time, Marin's artillery caused dozens of casualties to the opponent's artillery. Because, Marin's artillery gun sights, it is easier to target the opponent's artillery.

As the shelling continued, many people on both sides died under the shells, and the deaths were tragic. It's just that Marin's artillery, because of its great power, has a stronger "piercing" effect and brings greater damage. The Saxon shells, when they hit the Marin phalanx, had insufficient kinetic energy, and at most penetrated the two or three people in the front row. After that, it won't work. As for the shells of Marin's three-pounder cannon, it could pierce through a few horses or a dozen people...

The Duke of Saxony took a look - this is still worth it, if the shelling continues like this, it must be himself who will suffer the most casualties in the end. So, he ordered to suspend the artillery fire and prepared to send knights to attack Marin's artillery positions, first kill all the artillery under Marin's command...

As a result, thousands of knights began to assemble under the signal of the Duke of Saxony, and began to accelerate slowly...

Seeing that the other party finally lost his temper, Marin was also very happy. He ordered loudly:

"The gunners continue to shell, the musketeers are ready!"

Then, a few loud voices passed Marin's orders with earth horns and said ahead...

The musketeers clamped the head of the match rope wrapped around the left arm to the musket trigger system. As for the ammunition, it has already been loaded, just waiting to shoot. When ready, the musketeers put their muskets flat on the wooden brackets in front of them to facilitate aiming...

However, without an order, they can't shoot without authorization...

When the Saxon knight rushed to a distance of 50 meters, the shooting was already relatively sure. So the commanders of the Musketeers shouted:

"Fire!"

"Fire!"

...

"Crack-Crack-Crack-Crack-"

The gunshots came one after another, and in front of the Marin army, there were bursts of white smoke and the pungent smell of burning sulfur...

After the shooting, the musketeers in the first row quickly retracted their arquebuses and retreated to the rear to start loading. And the shooters in the second row put the muskets that had been prepared long ago on the brackets arranged in the front, and began to aim...

In the first round of shooting, seventy or eighty Saxon knights were thrown off their horses by projectiles weighing 50 grams. Some were seriously injured on the spot, while some were not seriously injured, but were also smashed off their horses by the huge impact force, and they fell into the stars, and some fell directly and fainted...

Then, the second round of shooting came again...

This time, the musketeers were more accurate because of the closer distance. After a round of shooting, more than 150 Saxon knights fell...

Then came the third round of shooting...

In this round, 200 Saxon knights fell...

Of course, at this time, the Saxon knights also rushed to the front of the Marin army...

However, even if they were killed, they would never have imagined that on the seemingly flat ground in front of them, there were two covered trenches full of traps and malicious intent...

As a result, there were less than 600 Saxon knights left, and the first row of people, together with their horses, fell into the pit together. Many horses were directly inserted into the belly of wooden pickets... There were also many Saxon knights, who happened to be Getting stabbed by a wooden picket...

Moreover, when the knights rushed up, they couldn't stop the car at all. Even if the knights in the back row saw the people in the front row fall into the pit filled with wooden pickets, they could not restrain the horses in time, so they had to fall into the pit together...

Even the luckiest knight did not fall into the pit only because his own warhorse stepped on the warhorse of his comrades or himself. However, under the two large pits, the knights lost their balance and fell outside the pits... In the end, no knight could rush through the two trenches. Even with the steed of war horses, after crossing the two trenches, they still could not escape the tragic end of being blocked or even stabbed to death by the wooden pickets in front of the Marin formation...

For a time, most of the 1,000 Saxon knights and their war horses who charged in the first round were lying in or near the two trenches, looking miserable...

However, this is not the worst...

The musketeers in front of the Marin formation, some with great strength, swung the long-handled sledgehammers that had been placed in front of the formation, and through the wooden pickets, began to smash them into the second ditch next to the Marin formation. The Saxon knights...

The dull sound of "bang bang—" came frequently, and many Saxon knights were not stabbed to death by wooden pickets or fell to death, but were killed by sledgehammers...

That's not all, the musketeers with hammers saw that there were no more living people in Erdaogou, so they backed away and let the first row of musketeers who had retreated to the back and loaded the ammunition back to the formation. Before, start aiming at the Saxon knight lying near a ditch...

"P-P-P-P-P-" Once again a large number of hapless Saxon knights were killed...

...

In this way, the first thousand Saxon knights who charged over were easily damaged before Marin's phalanx, and not many survived. In the end, the ones who survived were the injured knights who were knocked off their horses by the muskets in the first and second batches... As for the more than 500 knights who rushed to the front, most of them were killed on the spot. Even if there are living ones, under the blow of heavy hammers and muskets, they are seriously injured, and they are not far from death...