The Rise of the European Emperor

The war was about to break out. In addition to urging all places to pay close attention to spring ploughing, Marin was constantly adjusting his tactics against the British army and replacing some weapons.

The English army was very different from the army on the Continent, so Marin needed to change some tactics. For example, the arquebusier troops, Marlin intended, would generally equip the arquebusiers in the front row with breastplates and helmets. Because, during the battle, England's huge number of longbowmen will definitely "fall like arrows". If you don't wear breastplate armor and helmets, you can easily be shot into hedgehogs by England's longbowmen. Because the speed of fire of the arquebusiers is far less than that of the English longbowmen.

In addition to the first three rows of musketeers and spearmen wearing chest plate armor and wearing iron helmets, the soldiers in the back row, Marin also intends to issue iron helmets. This is because the English longbowmen like to throw, and the arrows have a high chance of hitting the head. In order to prevent too many casualties, Marin transferred a large number of helmets from other armies to use by the English Expeditionary Force.

In addition, Marin has begun a planned replacement of the musketeers for the Musketeers. That is to say, the old-fashioned arquebus such as the Mushkert musket used by the musketeers was gradually replaced with a more advanced clockwork musket.

Since Leonardo da Vinci and others made simple carbon spring steel, the creation of clockwork and springs has become easier. The elasticity and toughness of spring steel are more suitable for making springs. The emergence of this material has greatly improved the production rate of clockwork.

Before the appearance of spring steel, Italian craftsmen made clockwork, usually by heating and beating a pig iron rod repeatedly. During the heating and forging, the impurities in the pig iron were removed and the transition from pig iron to steel was made. This is a physical (In ancient China, this was the so-called process of "forging pig iron into refined iron", which was very labor-intensive and material-intensive). It takes a long time to forge this iron rod, and finally it is forged into a slender "iron ruler". At this time, this "iron ruler" can no longer be regarded as pig iron. Because, in the heating forging, a lot of carbon elements are consumed, which reduces the carbon content of pig iron, making the iron ruler become a steel ruler.

Then, the craftsman heats the "iron ruler" at high temperature. After heating, it is bent and fixed on a fixed table, and is wound into a roll with difficulty. Then, it is put into an annealing furnace for stress relief annealing.

But the premise is that there is no problem with that "steel ruler". Because it is purely manual forging to remove carbon, it is difficult to control the carbon content of the steel ruler. After all, by hot forging to remove carbon, the quality is difficult to control. Therefore, using a pig iron rod to create a spring has a very low yield, generally less than 10%. Among them, the most difficult part is to hot forge the pig iron rod into a steel ruler with suitable carbon content. Only steel rulers of up to standard quality are suitable for making springs... The bending and annealing process behind it is not complicated. Therefore, such a low yield (which is still the yield of skilled craftsmen) has caused the price of clockwork to remain high.

Moreover, even if you know how the clockwork is made, it is difficult to make it successfully without a craftsman who has been immersed in it for many years. Because it is too difficult to control the carbon content of the iron ruler by manual hot forging, which requires extremely rich experience.

However, after Marin came up with ordinary carbon spring steel, the biggest problem in the manufacture of clockwork, the material problem, was solved directly.

Therefore, in the first stage, which was extremely difficult for the craftsmen, the stage of forging and forging iron rulers, it was directly replaced with cast iron rulers. Then, simply forging for a while (to make the steel ruler more solid and compact), it's ready to be used to wind the mainspring...

After repeated tests by the craftsmen, Marin found that after using spring steel, the process of making the mainspring became simpler, and the yield has increased from less than 10% of hot forging with pig iron bars to more than 80%...

In this way, the manufacturing cost and manufacturing time of the mainspring are greatly reduced...

certainly,

This process took a long time, and the craftsmen did it after repeated verification. Just when Marin was busy presiding over the spring ploughing, the clockwork foundry came to announce the good news.

Marin is naturally overjoyed, the cost of clockwork is greatly reduced, which means that the cost is greatly reduced. In this way, there are conditions for the large-scale installation of clockwork muskets.

Of course, Marin didn't forget to keep it secret. After rewarding those craftsmen with a lot of money, those craftsmen and their families were moved into a small town dedicated to secret units. This is somewhat similar to the military-industrial units established by the Republic in the mountains and deserts of the Midwest, and the confidentiality is very good. Moreover, people in this era have very low requirements for spiritual and cultural life. As long as they have enough food and clothing every day, those craftsmen and their families will be satisfied.

After calculation, after applying the spring steel and the new spring production technology, the cost of the spring has been reduced by about 7 times. Although the cost of a clockwork musket is still much higher than that of an arquebus, the significance is very significant.

Why? Because of the matchlock of the matchlock gun, the use of the gun is very inconvenient. In order to prevent the sparks on the arquebus from igniting the gunpowder of the comrades around him, in the Spanish phalanx, the distance between the arquebusiers must reach 1 meter. Otherwise, there will be major security risks.

The distance between each musketeer is one meter from each other, which does increase security. However, the shot density is also reduced. After all, the 1 meter gap in the middle can almost fit one more musketeer in.

Therefore, after the flintlock guns replaced the arquebuses, because they were all muskets, although the range did not change, the shooting density of the musketeers was greatly increased.

Even a musketeer using a flintlock can do a high-density three-row salvo of "stand in the back, bend over in the middle, and crouch in the front". Even if the musket hit rate is low, the hit rate is high when the three rows of musketeers are only firing together in salvos.

A clockwork musket is the same as a flintlock gun. It doesn't need a match, so it doesn't matter to keep a distance of 1 meter from each other. Therefore, if the clockwork musket is used on a large scale, it can also achieve high-density line-up shooting like a flintlock gun. In this way, the lethality of the musketeer will be improved to a certain extent.

Another point is that the clockwork musket is not afraid of wind and rain. As long as you cover the gunpowder from the rain when loading the ammunition, you can completely expose the musket to the wind and rain when shooting...

Historically, the black-shirted knights relied on the characteristics of the wind and rain, which made the French knights flee in embarrassment.

The reason why Marin replaced the musketeers with clockwork muskets was to increase the shooting density and prevent rainy weather.

The weather in England is different from that in Germany. Because it faces the warm Atlantic current, the climate in England is relatively humid and often rains. And once it rains, the arquebus will be completely scrapped and become a fire stick. (In fact, Ireland is really facing the warm North Atlantic Current, so the western part of the island of Ireland is very humid, and the rain is too much for agriculture, only grazing. Only the eastern rain "shaded area", that is, near Dublin, is suitable for agriculture. England The island is suitable for farming because the island of Ireland blocks the water vapor from the Atlantic Ocean. But even so, England has more rain and a wetter climate than Germany.)

If defending the city, Marin can also create a shooting canopy on the city wall to help shield the arquebus from the wind and rain. But now Marin is on the offensive side, the army needs to move frequently, there is no condition to get a shooting canopy, and it is not convenient to carry. Therefore, a musket like a clockwork musket that is not afraid of wind and rain and can increase the firing density is the best choice.

However, because of the high manufacturing cost, Marin was only equipped with black-shirt knight troops, and did not equip infantry musketeers. Now that the technical problems of cost and rapid mass production have been solved, Marin decided to explode production capacity, mass-produce clockwork muskets, and fully replace arquebuses.

However, it takes a certain amount of time, after all, it takes time to build a clockwork. Therefore, among the 20,000 troops who attacked England this time, only the musketeers of the First Corps (that is, the old main army of Marin) began to change their clockwork muskets. As for Saqqara's English Legion, the musket equipment rate was not high, and there were still many archers. Therefore, for the time being, it is not allowed to change the clockwork musket. Besides, because of the urgency of time, Marin can't get enough clockwork to change the clockwork muskets for the English Legion...

With enough chest plate armor and iron helmets to withstand bows and arrows, as well as enough clockwork muskets that are not afraid of wind and rain and can increase the shooting density, Marin feels that there should be no problem with the 7,000 English longbowmen in front of him. Well, even in the rain and fog of England...