Chapter 969 Appetizer
Austria's latest anti-infantry rockets are divided into heavy and light models. The light weight is between 5 and 50 kilograms and can be fired by a single soldier.
The weight of heavy anti-infantry rockets is usually more than 100 kilograms and requires a launcher to fire, but its lethality is also very amazing.
However, neither of them can be compared with the original Congreve rocket, whether in terms of range, accuracy, or lethal radius.
The French are not unfamiliar with weapons such as rockets, because they have experienced the power of this weapon many times in the previous siege.
This flying explosive pack is more terrible than artillery in urban street fighting. Due to the difficulty of advancing in the city of Celesta, Bonnot de Couronne remembered the barricades that were invincible in France back then.
The people can use it, and the army can naturally use it. Bonnot de Couronne is worthy of being a French military genius. He easily analyzed the tactics of barricades and improved them through his own understanding.
However, the barricades that were invincible in France were useless in front of this new weapon. This flying explosive pack can easily pass over the barricades and kill the French troops behind.
However, its shortcomings are also obvious. The explosion power is not small, but the lethality is insufficient, and the hit rate is extremely low. Most of those who are hit by it are just unlucky.
So when the French soldiers saw the rockets flying into the sky, they did not show too much panic.
Benoit Valentin, who had just recovered from his injury, was even in the mood to tease Captain Pierre.
"Captain, how many unlucky guys do you think will go to heaven?"
"Shut up! Private, if these unlucky guys were there last time, you would have gone to see God!"
"Captain, this is the first time I have heard that an army has used this kind of thing on a large scale on the battlefield. Aren't they afraid of bombing their own people?"
Benoit Valentin asked curiously, and Captain Pierre was also confused, because he had fought for so many years and had never seen an army using this thing as a main weapon.
The Congreve rocket is powerful in urban street fighting because there are buildings everywhere. After the rocket lands and explodes, it will stir up gravel and wood chips to kill nearby soldiers.
If the lethality of the rocket explosion alone was not that amazing.
Bonno de Coulon in the distance was also very confused. As an academic weapons expert, he naturally knew all the weapons on the battlefield.
The Congreve rocket weighed 14.5 kg, the arrow was 1.06 meters long, the diameter was 0.1 meters, and it was equipped with a 4.6-meter-long balance rod. The range could reach 1,800 meters and the error range was 1,500 meters.
The army textbooks of almost all countries, including the United Kingdom, only mentioned it in passing, because this thing would be useless in actual combat unless facing a city-sized target.
He thought about the identity of the other side's commander, an idiot who grew up in the court, a saint in the eyes of the church, the biggest sponsor of the Austrian Empire's scientific community, and then thought of the bloodline of the Habsburg family.
Bonno de Coulon was soon relieved. The other side's commander was undoubtedly a complete idiot.
He had a good impression of the two magazines "Nature" and "Science", but he really hated the hypocrisy of the Austrians.
On the one hand, they shouted to fight against academic fraud, and on the other hand, they madly praised their crown prince. What's more hateful is that they openly listed theology as a scientific category, and even published a separate magazine called "Humanities".
In fact, the best-selling magazine in France is "Playboy" magazine, and there is even a local derivative version "Moulin Rouge".
The French of this era are too proud, and it is difficult for them to truly recognize foreign things. However, this does not prevent them from spending a lot of money to buy those new things that they "look down on" with a critical eye.
As for the name "Moulin Rouge", any French man can understand the meaning, and the proud French are naturally more willing to support domestic products.
But what they don't know is that the boss behind "Moulin Rouge" is also Franz. The localization strategy is just a business common sense in modern times, but it was a great business initiative at that time.
As for how much this strategy can play a role, just look at the domestic BMW and Mercedes-Benz, which still firmly occupy the domestic mid-to-high-end car market today.
At this time, the rockets that appeared on the battlefield were mainly divided into two types:
Austrian-made Augustine I anti-infantry rocket, weighing 30 kilograms, with prefabricated fragments and iron balls to enhance the power of fragments.
(Due to the limitations of the industrial level at that time, the number of steel balls may not be as many as some special grenades in later generations.)
The overall design adopts a rodless self-spinning design, with a balance wing instead of a balance rod. The maximum range can reach 2,700 meters, the error within 500 meters does not exceed 10 meters, and the error above 2,000 meters is not more than 100 meters.
Austrian-made Augustine III heavy anti-infantry rocket, weighing 150 kilograms, due to the sufficient amount of gunpowder inside, after repeated tests, a multi-layer prefabricated fragment design was finally adopted.
The theoretical maximum range can reach five kilometers, and the error range is less than 500 meters. The theoretical killing radius is 50 meters, and the actual killing radius is 20 meters, with an extremely high mortality rate.
It has been tested 131 times in conflicts with indigenous peoples in Africa, and the probability of survival of indigenous peoples with an explosion range of 21 meters is 0.
So when the rockets landed, the French soldiers still marched with firm steps. However, the next second, the huge power directly cleared out the French soldiers near the impact point in large numbers.
In the area hit by heavy anti-infantry rockets, the French troops within five meters were directly blown into pieces, and the scene of blood and flesh flying everywhere was simply too exciting.
However, the data of the Weapons Development Bureau was obviously wrong, and there were still many survivors within a range of 25 meters. Although most of these people were shocked to the point of bleeding from their mouths and noses and unconscious, they were indeed still alive.
It must be said that dense phalanxes still have advantages. The soldiers in the front can block the fragments, and the soldiers behind can provide a buffer.
At the same time, the uniforms on the French army also played a certain protective role, so they have stronger survivability than those indigenous soldiers on the African continent.
However, most of the French troops close to the center of the explosion also lost the ability to continue fighting, which is enough for the war.
In fact, most of the time, for an army, wounded soldiers are more troublesome than dead soldiers.
After all, the dead are just losses, and the wounded will occupy the living resources.
Dozens of rockets exploded in the French army column, and large groups of French soldiers were blown to pieces and flying all over the sky.
However, this still failed to stop the French army's advance. After all, the fear of the French military supervisors had already been introduced into the bones of every French soldier.
Moreover, dozens of rockets were really insignificant for an army of tens of thousands of people, but this was just an appetizer prepared by Franz for the French.