Valley Emperor

Li Xuan is very clear that the plate armor, especially the heavy full body and half-body armor, has not had much life in the history of war. The reason why the large-scale equipment of plate armor is still strongly promoted is very simple. The Ming army does not have heavy muskets now!

Since the Ming army has no plate armor yet, it is natural to take advantage of this opportunity to use plate armor to harvest a wave!

However, in this era, the modern European army has begun to equip heavy muskets on a large scale to fight against increasingly thick plate armor, the most typical of which is the Spanish heavy musket.

The emergence of heavy muskets will make plate armor, especially full-body armor and half-body armor, completely withdraw from the arena of war, because to resist such heavy muskets, plate armor needs to be very thick, and after the thickness increases, the weight will not be enough Avoid it.

So much so that in the end, the infantry did not equip plate armor at all and went into battle directly in commoner clothes. Only the cavalry would continue to equip the cuirass that were thickened to the limit!

This is also the reason why Li Xuan wants the Ministry of Industry to prepare technical reserves and even production of heavy muskets. That is, the development of heavy muskets is inevitable.

Even if the full body armor has withdrawn from the stage of war, the super-thick breastplate will still be active on the stage of war for a long time, and to deal with the breastplate, these existing small-caliber muskets cannot be used.

In case you use a small-caliber musket, and the cavalry rushes in wearing a breastplate, your small-caliber musket will be blinded!

Although the nine-jin artillery and even the plate armor have not yet started mass production, they are stationed in Zhaoqing and have a special political status. Trial production of nine-jin artillery and plate armor.

Among them are the three nine-jin artillery pieces that were tested in front of Li Xuan, plus the three nine-jin artillery pieces produced on a small scale recently, making the Guards artillery regiment a nine-jin artillery team. .

And the plate armor also got more than 100 sets, including full body armor, half body armor and breastplate!

Full body armor is used to equip sword and shield soldiers, half body armor is used to equip spearmen, and cuirass is used to equip cavalry. At the same time, they are also trying to equip musketeers with cuirass!

However, because the plate armor made by the Tang Dynasty, including the breastplate, is relatively thick, it basically follows the development path of contemporary European plate armor: it is thicker and thicker in order to resist arquebuses!

Even the breastplate is more than ten kilograms!

When the musketeers wear these breastplates for combat, it greatly affects their mobility!

In the end, after only trying for a while, the Guards were the first to give up the attempt to equip the musketeers with breastplates. The army on one side had not tried it yet, but after seeing the test results of the Guards, they also gave up directly. , but the Army has raised another possibility.

That is, since the existing breastplate is too heavy to affect the battle, can you just give up the back and leave only the front? How about a frontal breastplate?

When such an idea was presented to Li Xuan, Li Xuan was a little speechless when he saw it. These people even came up with bulletproof vests for future generations!

The frontal breastplate envisaged by the Army is actually not a bare plate armor, but a thick cloth bag, and then a steel plate is inserted into it directly for bulletproof use.

In the live ammunition test, the existing 14mm muskets can penetrate at a medium distance. Even if they cannot penetrate, the huge impact force of the bullet will still cause the steel plate to dent, causing huge trauma to the human body!

Therefore, after trying the equipment, the musketeers of the Datang Army are still quite dissatisfied with this kind of bulletproof steel plate. Nima, although the real engagement time of the line battle may be only a few minutes, but when you line up and adjust the formation, you will It lasts for tens of minutes or even hours, and you have to run around. Wearing this stuff will be exhausting.

And because the thickness of the steel plate is reduced, the bulletproof effect of this thing is not very good. Wearing this, they might as well wear an extremely heavy breastplate. Although the thing is heavy, it still has a bit of bulletproof effect!

In the end, Li Xuan personally ordered that this kind of bulletproof steel plate, which the Army calls the frontal breastplate, can continue to be researched, but not equipped!

Faced with the idea that these generals want to equip the musketeers with plate armor, Li Xuan is quite annoyed. This year is the age of the muskete. In Li Xuan's opinion, the plate armor will only be available in the last few years. In the future, in addition to the cavalry equipped with breastplates, other arms will not be equipped with plate armor, because it is useless to wear them.

As the first unit to be equipped with nine-jin artillery and plate armor, the Guards have something to do with their political status. At the same time, they also undertake certain equipment testing tasks, but this is not an actual combat test!

The troops equipped with nine-jin artillery and plate armor for actual combat tests are the first army!

On the eighth day of the second month, outside the city of Shaoyang, more than 20,000 troops of the First Army had successfully approached Shaoyang after many days of marching and continuous peripheral operations, and completely surrounded the Ming army in the city.

At this time, the two nine-jin artillery pieces and a hundred sets of plate armor that were transported from the rear also arrived outside Shaoyang City.

Most of these shipped armors are half-body armors, and the others are full-body armors. As for the breastplates, there are not many!

After seeing these new equipment, Hao Bainian decided on the spot to equip all these plate armors to the heavy armored infantry under the First Army, especially the heavy armored sword and shield soldiers who were responsible for the battle on the city, whether it was full body armor or half body armor. Or the breastplate, anyway, these plate armors are much better than the various iron armors and cotton iron armors currently equipped.

And these more than 100 heavy armored infantrymen equipped with plate armor will be the first soldiers to use plate armor in large-scale actual combat on the East Asian battlefield!

And Quan Lao Liu is one of them!

As a senior heavy-armored sword and shield soldier serving in the 1st Infantry Division's 1st Infantry Regiment, he was born in a bandit in his early years. Gradually accumulated merit to the rank of sergeant and became a platoon leader in the heavy armored sword and shield soldiers.

When he received a set of full-body plate armor, he immediately asked his comrades to help him put it on. The first feeling of wearing it was safety!

Nima, the whole body, including the hands and feet, is wrapped in steel plates, it is difficult to feel insecure!

The second feeling is heavy!

As a fierce man who often wears double armor, a set of cotton and iron armor inside, and a set of chain armor on the outside, he feels that the whole body armor on his body is heavy, and the others It feels even heavier.

With the waist knife and shield, even a fierce man like Quan Laoliu wouldn't be able to last long during the battle.

Because the first batch of plate armor was too focused on defensive performance, it was very heavy, and only these strong men who used to be heavy armored infantry could be equipped, and the full body plate armor needed to be selected from the heavy armored infantry. , can be selected.

After Hao Bainian discovered this situation, he said to his subordinates: "Although this plate armor has good defense, it is still too heavy. I suggest to the Ordnance Department that the thickness of the plate armor should be appropriately reduced, especially the thickness of the non-lethal parts!"

Even if it is a well-defended plate armor, if the soldiers can't wear it, or a large number of soldiers can't wear it, it's just a plaything.

Plate armor that cannot be equipped on a large scale is of little value.

This group of heavy-armored infantry equipped with full-body armor and half-armor will become the vanguard troops to attack Shaoyang City!

According to the previous management, to attack such a fortified city, the Datang Army recruited heavy armored infantry and grenadiers from each unit to form two temporary assault battalions.

But unlike the past, these assault battalions were joined by nearly a hundred heavy armored infantry equipped with plate armor!

Having fought so many tough battles, the Datang Army's strategy for attacking the fortified city is now quite complete. It is still bombardment, tunnel digging and blasting!

The only difference is that the two newly brought nine-jin artillery pieces are surprisingly powerful, and the heavy shells hit the city wall with amazing power!

What disappointed Hao Bainian at the time was that the nine-pound artillery was still not powerful enough to knock down those incomparably thick city walls!

No way, even if it is a nine-jin artillery, its weight and power are still considered field artillery. Cannons do it!

Nine catties of artillery cannot break through the city wall, so it is natural to rely on blasting. After the blasting, the assault battalion began to charge under the cover of muskets, bows, and artillery!

At this time, if the opponent has a large number of artillery as defensive firepower, Hao Bainian will definitely not do this, but Shaoyang City is not Hengyang City. The opponent's firepower~www.wuxiaspot.com~ Hao Bainian dared to send out the assault battalion!

Quan Laoliu was one of more than 20 heavily armored sword and shield soldiers with full body plate armor. Although he couldn't take the lead due to the heavy armor, he trotted forward with a steady pace and then climbed up the city wall.

It was just on the city wall. The Ming sergeant who was hiding behind the battlements seemed to be well-prepared. With a spear, he stabbed it directly. This shocked Quan Laoliu, but he soon found out that he was doing nothing. No, I couldn't help shouting: "Kill!"

Relying on the full body armor, Quan Lao Liu, who wrapped himself into a tin can, was too lazy to raise his shield, so he just waved his long sword and stepped forward, and then smashed the enemy's several knives, and directly raised the knife with his hand. Falling, a knife is to split the nearest Ming saber shield in half.

After him, two more heavily armored infantrymen in half-armor also followed. These three people, with Quan Lao Liu as the frontal core, two people on the left and one on the right, killed more than a dozen Ming troops on the opposite side. There is no resistance at all.

The blood will soon be covered with the city head!