The 4th Cuirassiers, which many people were looking forward to or curious about, finally arrived at the front line of Shanhaiguan on the seventh day of March.

However, they did not enter Shanhaiguan City directly, but were stationed about four kilometers north of Shanhaiguan. This is also the main area where other Guards troops are stationed.

The third group army's defense area is actually not just a Shanhaiguan city, but a long defense line extending from the Bohai Sea to Ji Town, which is hundreds of kilometers long.

It's just that the troops in Shanhaiguan area are relatively dense.

However, this density is only relatively high. In the Shanhaiguan City and the surrounding areas for a few kilometers, which is the relatively flat terrain at the eastern end of the Western Liaoning Corridor, the total number of troops deployed is only about 50,000...mainly the Ninth Army and

Troops directly under the group army.

To the north of the Ninth Army is the Guards' defense area.

To the north of the Guards is the defense area of ​​the Eighth Army.

The above three combined, spread about 30 kilometers, with Shanhaiguan City as the core, the Great Wall as the support, and many small and medium-sized cities and fortresses as support along the way.

After the arrival of the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment, many generals from nearby friendly forces came over to take a look.

The main reason is that the name of heavy cavalry is too deceptive...

Even though cuirassiers are actually just simplified versions of heavy cavalry, they are not heavy cavalry. Their battlefield assault capabilities are unmatched by light cavalry.

There are not too many cavalry in the Chu army, mainly traditional cavalry and dragoons, as well as hussars who also just appeared.

And these cavalry are all typical light cavalry!

What is a light cavalry? It is a cavalry with poor protection capabilities...

Although the Chu army's cavalry pays more attention to protection and basically wears armor, their armor is very thin, even thinner than the light half-body armor of the musketeers!

This kind of light half-body armor can only protect against mid- to long-range bows and arrows, and it cannot even protect against relatively close-range heavy arrows.

This kind of light cavalry is basically unreliable in battlefield assault operations.

Of course, this is not just the case for the Chu army. The cavalry of the Eastern Captives on the opposite side, regardless of whether they are cavalry from the Manchu Eight Banners, the Liaoxi cavalry from the Han Eight Banners, or the cavalry from the Mongolian Eight Banners, are actually this kind of light cavalry, and even

Soon they won't even wear fake armor like this... As for heavy cavalry in the traditional sense, they don't even have them!

On the one hand, the traditional oriental classical heavy cavalry is no longer suitable for the battlefield, and secondly, the cost performance is too low and the cost is too high.

The most critical thing is that the war horse is not good enough, resulting in a flaw in mobility!

The Fourth Cuirassier Regiment of the Guards is actually a compromise unit that actively reduces its protective capabilities in order to ensure mobility.

This is despite the fact that the horses attached to the 4th Cuirassier Regiment are all excellent Central Asian horses.

The Central Asian horses attached to the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment of the Guards are quite good. They are all excellent war horses directly imported from the Western Regions from the Great Chu Empire. After carefully selecting hundreds of war horses, it is said that they are only one in a hundred.

It has passed, but there is still no problem with one out of ten.

From a group of Central Asian Mali horses whose shoulder heights are generally over 1.35 meters, this group of excellent war horses with an average shoulder height of 1.4 meters were selected.

This shoulder height is actually comparable to the Arabian horse, which is most suitable for use as a war horse among the original horse breeds.

In fact, horses bred in Central Asia still generally have Arabian horse blood.

These Central Asian horses have an average shoulder height of 1.4 meters, and some excellent ones can even reach a shoulder height of 1.45 meters, which is much better than the Mongolian horse in terms of load-bearing capacity.

Therefore, these war horses can actually carry heavily armored cavalry in combat.

Not to mention these excellent war horses, even the Mongolian horses used by the Eastern captives can still select a group of excellent war horses to serve as mounts for heavy armored cavalry. However, in the case of small horses pulling large carts, their maneuverability is very poor.

That’s it.

If you use a Mongolian horse as a heavy cavalry horse, you basically can't expect it to be able to sprint for a few hundred meters with a cavalry wearing dozens of kilograms of armor...

The batch of Central Asian horses used by the Chu army are in a similar situation. They can barely be used as heavy cavalry, but they are very restrictive and seriously affect their mobility.

This is unacceptable to the Chu army.

Therefore, the generals of the Guards, namely Lieutenant General Qian Tai and several other cavalry generals, thought about it and simply abandoned their heavy armor.

Of course, there are several other reasons for the Guards to completely abandon the heavy armored cavalry.

For example, even if you wear full-body heavy armor, even if this heavy armor is the latest plate armor produced by the Industrial Department of the Dachu Empire, it still cannot stop muskets... let alone artillery.

Because the weight of a soldier is limited, this means that the weight of the armor can only be controlled to a certain extent. When the weight is limited, the larger the protective area, the thinner the armor can only be made.
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If the plate armor is thin, it will naturally not be able to stop bullets.

As for why there can't be better plate armor, it's because the smelting strength of the Da Chu Empire is just that, and it can't make steel plates that surpass the times for processing plate armor. Now the Ministry of Industry has begun small batch production, and limited equipment or elite infantry are not available.

Even the grenadier's plate armor is made of only average steel...the hardness barely reaches the level of low carbon steel, and it also contains a lot of impurities. If you use modern observation techniques, you can even find it.

There are so many bubbles and cavities.

If this kind of broken material were placed in the 21st century, no one would want it if you produced it. If developers dare to use this kind of material to build houses or bridges, they will be arrested...

But... in the mid-17th century, this kind of junk was definitely a high-end material!

If it can be mass produced on a large scale and the price can be controlled, that would be even more amazing.

In fact, even the largest iron smelting plant with the most advanced technology in the Chu Empire could not bring down the price when mass-producing this kind of low-carbon steel.

How did the large iron smelting plant produce this kind of low-carbon steel, and also achieve a high output, and start using it in the production of plate armor?

Is there any other way? If technology is not good, just rely on scale!

The large iron smelting plant was based on the original small manual production model, and then changed most of the repetitive and monotonous processes to machinery. Now it can expand production with limited skilled craftsmen.

As for the cost, it was much higher than hand-made in the early days, but now it is barely the same... As for the cost, which is lower than hand-made, you can wait.

Because labor costs are cheaper than machinery these days... If you use machinery for large-scale mass production, it would be cheaper to hire thousands of skilled craftsmen to forge iron.

The problem lies here. Daye Iron and Steel Plant cannot find and train so many skilled blacksmiths!

As for why Chu Jun is not made of better stainless steel... it is still due to mass production problems. If the steel with a little rubbish can still be replaced by mechanical equipment instead of manpower, just pile up the number of machines and start violent mass production.

But fine steel, this thing cannot be mass-produced... For details, you can refer to the various knives used in the industrial system of the Dachu Empire. Although the materials used in these knives are just like that from the perspective of later generations... But it is already this era.

The best steel in the world.

How are these steels with the best performance produced?

They are all made by top skilled craftsmen bit by bit. The craftsmen use their rich experience to control the quality.

You cannot replace the experience, feel and even intuition of top craftsmen with simple machinery, at least not with the current processing level of the Dachu Empire.

Even in the 21st century, many precision machinery parts are made by hand... For example, the photolithography machine for making chips that the Chinese are very concerned about has lenses in it.

This ultra-high-precision lens is processed bit by bit by veteran engineers at Zeiss who have been playing with lenses for decades using advanced instruments... The output is extremely low.

If the same instruments and equipment were given to other ordinary engineers, they would still be unable to process such top-notch lenses.

Although times are different, things are different, and even standards are different, the essence is still the same.

As for the Da Chu Empire, these things that cannot be mass-produced are destined to be used only in some special industries and cannot be used in industries with mass production.

National defense products are all mass-produced. If you come up with something that cannot be mass-produced, it will not make much sense to the Chu army, which has hundreds of thousands of troops.

And those plate armors that can barely reach the level of low carbon steel, if you want to be fireproof, it must be very thick, at least six or seven millimeters, or even higher.

However, making full-body armor with such a thickness would be too heavy, and neither soldiers nor horses could bear it.

Therefore, the problem facing the Chu army is to either reduce the protective area or reduce the thickness of the armor.

The Chu army actually advanced on both routes...

The army's elite grenadiers and hussars have actually begun to equip small batches of new armor, namely plate armor.

Of course, it's not the kind of iron can that covers head to toe that the knights in those TV movies wear, it's just an ordinary plate armor.

Among them, the grenadiers are equipped with a kind of full-body plate armor, which is relatively thin and has a large protective area. Generally speaking, the protective performance is much better than the previous wrought iron full-body armor, but it still cannot stop medium and short-range bullets.<

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For the hussars, a few units are equipped with light half-body plate armor, which is about the same thickness as the grenadiers, but because the protective area is smaller, the weight is also lighter.

The breastplate of the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment, because it gave up more protective area and focused on the protection of the front torso, is thicker, with the thickest part in the middle reaching seven millimeters.

Can effectively resist medium and long distance bullets.

If it is a bullet at close range, multiple live ammunition tests have shown that it will be penetrated most of the time. Even if it is not penetrated, the huge impact of the bullet will cause the plate armor to dent, thereby causing trauma to the human body.

The purpose of this kind of breastplate is very simple and pure, which is to block mid- to long-range bullets.

As for the protection against cold weapons, it is actually not as good as the light half-body armor of the hussars. Although the light half-body armor of the hussars is as thin as paper, it is still no problem in blocking bows and arrows at ordinary distances. It can cut down cold weapons.

It can also prevent thorns and the like, and the protective area is larger. In addition to the torso, it can also protect the cavalry's hands and thighs.

Unlike the breastplate, there is only a single piece of plate armor on the torso, and only the front is thick, while the breastplate on the back is very thin.

The hands and thighs are not protected either.

However, the reason why the Fourth Cuirassier Regiment is still equipped with cuirass is that the top brass of the Guards believe that the future... is wrong, the world is already dominated by guns and cannons.

Except for some indigenous losers, who else is stupid enough to use bows, arrows, swords and spears!

Even on the opposite side, Dongduo used matchlocks and artillery on a large scale.

Under such circumstances, bullet protection is even more important.

As for protection against cold weapons, the opponents are using swords, spears, and bows and arrows. Why are you stupid enough to rush up on horseback and engage in hand-to-hand combat with them?

Why don't you use cavalry cannons and cavalry flintlocks to do this from afar?

The Ming army decades ago knew how to use firearms to deal with cold weapon troops...Qi Jiguang was the cavalryman who used light artillery and three-eyed blunderbuss to defeat the Mongolian cavalry.

It makes no sense that the Chu army's cavalry troops are like mentally retarded, insisting on giving up their advantage in firearms, and then rushing forward to engage in hand-to-hand combat with an enemy who only has cold weapons!

Especially when the firepower of the Chu Army’s cavalry troops is abnormal!

Each of the three cavalry divisions on the front line of Shanhaiguan is assigned a cavalry artillery regiment, equipped with twenty-four two-and-a-half-pound and five-pound cavalry cannons. This firepower can directly defeat the frontier troops in the Qi Jiguang era. Well, by the way,

It can defeat other armies of this era, including infantry firepower and so on.

When the East captured people on the western front line of Liaoning, the army of hundreds of thousands had only about 200 long-barreled artillery pieces, but the three cavalry divisions of the Chu army could pull out dozens of artillery pieces with 10,000 men.
To be continued...