Chapter 969 Appetizers
Austria's latest anti-infantry rockets are divided into heavy and light models. The light ones weigh between 5 and 50 kilograms and can be launched by a single soldier.
Heavy anti-infantry rockets usually weigh more than 100 kilograms and require a launcher to launch, but their lethality is also amazing.
However, no matter which one it is, the original Congreve rocket cannot be compared, whether it is range, accuracy, or killing radius.
The French are no strangers to weapons such as rockets, because they have experienced the power of such weapons many times in previous siege battles.
This kind of flying explosive package is more terrifying than artillery in urban street fighting. Due to the difficulty of advancing in Celesta City, Bono de Cullen thought of the invincible barricades in France.
The people can use it, and the army can naturally use it. Bono de Coulen is indeed a French military genius. He easily analyzed the barricade method and improved it through his own understanding.
However, the invincible barricades in France were of no use against this brand-new weapon. This flying explosive charge can easily cross the barricade 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. Being hit by it is mostly due to bad luck.
So when they saw the sky full of rockets taking off, the French soldiers did not show too much panic.
Benoit Valentin, who had just returned from injury, was even in the mood to joke with Captain Pierre.
"Mr. Captain, how many unlucky ones do you think will go to heaven?"
"Shut up! Private, if these unlucky guys weren't here last time, you would have gone to see God!"
"Mr. Captain, this is the first time I've heard of an army using this kind of thing on a large scale on the battlefield. Aren't they afraid of blowing up their own people?"
Benoit Valentin asked curiously, and Captain Pierre was also confused, because he had never seen an army using this thing as its main weapon after fighting for so many years.
Congreve rockets are powerful in urban street fighting because there are buildings everywhere. After the rocket hits the ground and explodes, it will stir up gravel and sawdust to kill nearby soldiers.
If it were just the destructive power of a rocket explosion, it wouldn't be that amazing.
Bono de Cullen in the distance was also very confused. As an academic weapons expert, he naturally knew all the weapons on the battlefield.
The Congreve rocket weighs 14.5 kilograms, has an arrow length of 1.06 meters, a diameter of 0.1 meters, and is equipped with a 4.6-meter-long balance rod. It has a range of up to 1,800 meters and an error range of 1,500 meters.
The army textbooks of almost all countries, including the United Kingdom, mention it briefly, because in actual combat, this thing has no use at all unless it faces city-sized targets.
Then I thought about the identity of the opponent's coach, an idiot who grew up in the palace, a saint in the church's mouth, the largest patron of science in the Austrian Empire, and then thought of the bloodline of the Habsburg family.
Bono de Cullen was quickly relieved. There was no doubt that the commander-in-chief of the other side was a complete idiot.
He originally had a good impression of the magazines "Nature" and "Science", but he really hated the hypocrisy of the Austrians.
On the one hand, he shouted to crack down on academic fraud, and on the other hand, he wildly praised his crown prince. What's even more hateful is that they actually blatantly classify theology as a scientific category, and even publish a separate magazine called "Humanities".
In fact, the best-selling magazine in France is "Playboy", and there is even a local spin-off "Moulin Rouge".
The French in this era were too proud, and it was difficult for them to truly recognize foreign things. But this does not prevent them from using their critical eyes to spend a lot of money to buy new things that they "look down upon".
As for the name "Moulin Rouge", any French man can understand its meaning, and proud French people 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 nothing more than business common sense in modern times, but it was a great business initiative at the time.
As for how effective this strategy can be, you can know by looking at domestic BMW and Mercedes-Benz, which still firmly occupy the domestic mid-to-high-end car market to this day.
At this time, there are mainly two types of rockets appearing on the battlefield:
The Austrian-made Augustin-1 anti-infantry rocket weighs 30 kilograms and is equipped with prefabricated fragments and iron beads to enhance the power of the 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 of later generations.)
The overall rodless spin design is adopted, and the balance wing is used instead of the balance rod. The maximum range is up to 2700 meters, the error is no more than 10 meters within 500 meters, and the error is no more than 100 meters above 2000 meters.
The Austrian-produced Augustin III heavy anti-infantry rocket weighs 150 kilograms. Due to the sufficient amount of internal gunpowder, a multi-layered prefabricated fragmentation design was finally adopted after repeated trials.
The theoretical maximum range is up to five kilometers, and the error range is as small as 500 meters. The theoretical killing radius is 50 meters, the actual killing radius is 20 meters, and the fatality rate is extremely high.
It has been tested 131 times in conflicts between Africa and indigenous peoples. The explosion range is 21 meters and the indigenous people have 0 chance of survival.
So when those rockets landed, the French soldiers still took firm steps. But in the next second, the huge power directly cleared away the French soldiers near the impact point.
In the area hit by the heavy anti-infantry rocket, the French troops within five meters were directly blown to pieces. The scene of blood and flesh flying everywhere should not be too exciting.
However, the data from the Weapons Development Bureau is obviously wrong. There are 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 were unconscious, they were indeed still alive.
It has to be said that the dense phalanx is still beneficial. The soldiers in the front can block the fragments, while the soldiers behind can provide a buffer.
At the same time, the military uniforms on the French army also played a certain protective role, so they had better survivability than the indigenous soldiers on the African continent.
However, most of the French troops close to the center of the explosion lost the ability to continue fighting, which was enough for the war.
In fact, most of the time, wounded soldiers are more troublesome to an army than dead soldiers.
After all, dead people are just losses, while wounded soldiers will occupy the resources of the living.
Dozens of rockets exploded one after another in the French army's ranks, and patches of French troops were blown to pieces and flying all over the sky.
However, this still failed to stop the French army from advancing. After all, the fear of the French army supervisors had already been introduced into the bones of every French soldier.
Moreover, dozens of rockets are really insignificant to an army of tens of thousands of people, but this is just an appetizer prepared by Franz for the French.