As the reserve Prussian Cavalry and the Hilde Cavalry Camp charged with covering the right flank of the artillery quickly received their orders, they swiftly began to assemble their ranks, preparing to annihilate the group of daring French Cavalry Artillerymen who had brazenly advanced to the forefront of both armies’ battle lines.
Meanwhile, the French Cavalry Artillery Barracks had completed their firing preparations, the horses had been driven a hundred meters away, and the cannons adjusted for the firing angle.
The orderly officer of the artillery camp ran swiftly past the temporary artillery position, shouting loudly, “Solid shot. Prepare to adjust fire!”
The gunners skillfully loaded the gunpowder into the muzzle, rammed it down, and then inserted a six-pound iron ball.
The captains of each company sequentially received reports of readiness, and the command flags not far off were then lowered.
The firers immediately pulled the lanyards, and the hammers at the rear of the cannons heavily struck the percussion caps, igniting the gunpowder in the chambers.
Yes, the cannons equipped by the Guard Corps’ Cavalry Artillerymen had all been switched to percussion cap firing. In fact, after the caplock gun technology matured, it was easily transferrable to cannons, with the only requirements being repeated adjustments to the structural strength of the touch hole, and the trial production of slightly larger specialized percussion caps. The Royal Armory had basically completed these tasks at the beginning of the year.
With a thunderous rumble, billows of black smoke rose from the muzzles, and twelve iron balls whistled towards the South Netherlands Army, nearly two hundred paces away.
Under the close-range bombardment, about one third of the cannonballs passed accurately through the infantry line formations. The immense force, when sweeping over a human body, was like hitting a water-filled balloon, causing the flesh to burst forth explosively, with blood and black, sticky substance scattering in a fan shape to a distance of seven to eight meters behind.
Even the flying bone fragments had terrifying lethal power, almost no different from being hit by a bullet. Essentially within a one-meter radius on either side of a cannonball’s trajectory was an absolute death zone, while soldiers within a two-meter radius were likely to be killed or wounded.
The cannonballs left four gaps in the infantry line formations, and after landing, they bounced and continued to roll for a distance, and even at this point, a mere graze by the dark iron balls resulted in the immediate price of broken limbs.
Even one cannonball, due to a gunner setting the firing angle a bit too high, rolled all the way to the second line of the Dutch infantry in the rear, crushing the leg of a drummer.
The captains of each Cavalry Artillery company of the Guard Corps observed the effect of the recent firing through their binoculars and swiftly instructed the gunners to adjust the firing angle.
After nearly half a minute, the order from the commander of the Cavalry Artillery Camp came, “Grapeshot!”
When it came to killing infantry, solid shot was merely a tickle; grapeshot was the true nightmare.
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However, grapeshot had a shorter range, which meant it was often not usable during artillery duels—it would be utterly suppressed by the longer-range solid shot from the opposition. But at this moment, the Cavalry Artillerymen of the Guard Corps were almost at the face of the Dutch infantry line, close enough to use grapeshot.
After the powder men rammed down the gunpowder, the ammunition handlers took a cylindrical “iron can” from the ammunition wagon and carefully placed it into the muzzle, before ramming it down again.
Following the firing command, the twelve six-pound cannons once again belched thick smoke, but this time, what flew towards the Dutch infantry line was not the solid iron balls, but spinning cylindrical cans.
In many films and television shows, what is often shown being fired upon the command of “fire grapeshot” is buckshot, but in reality, there’s a significant difference between the two.
Although grapeshot also relies on multiple small projectiles for impact, it isn’t merely a matter of stuffing a bunch of small pellets into a cannon. Instead, items like ropes and sheet iron are used to fix a large number of small iron balls together, usually with multiple layers involved.
With this method, cannonballs can rely on their collective inertia to travel far—farther than simple buckshot—and upon nearing the enemy, the fragile casing wrapping the projectiles would tear under the force, allowing the pellets inside to scatter in all directions.
The infantry lines of the Southern Netherlands were suddenly filled with hellish screams of terror.
Thanks to the previous round of firing, almost a hundred walnut-sized bullets swept through the crowd from all around, like a vast fly-swatter, instantly smashing forty or fifty soldiers into pieces.
Netherlands officers hastily shouted, “Grapeshot! Get down! Don’t run around, maintain formation!”
The distance to the French infantry lines was not far, and if they scattered to avoid the cannons now, by the time the French charged, the Netherlands army might not be able to reassemble, so they had no choice but to grit their teeth and endure.
“Don’t worry, at this short distance, our cavalry will quickly take care of those cannons!”
“Once we’ve dealt with the French cannons, victory will be ours!”
The Netherlands soldiers looked back and saw their own cavalry had almost completed assembling, which greatly boosted their confidence, and they began busily filling the gaps left by their fallen comrades.
But merely less than twenty seconds later, the French mounted artillery’s cannons fired again.
Still grapeshot, it whizzed with a strange, piercing scream unlike that of regular cannonballs, stopping abruptly midway – that was the shell breaking apart, scattering the bullets inside.
Another cloud of blood mist rose, but since the Netherlands soldiers had crouched to avoid fire at their officers’ command, only more than thirty people were hit, yet even such casualties were enough to trigger panic in the infantry lines.
It should be noted that in this era of smoothbore guns and muzzle-loading cannons, even a close-range volley fire between infantry lines would at most cause casualties in the tens.
Few had witnessed such a bloody, gruesome scene.
Major Hilde merely had to look up to see the tragic sights on the Netherlands infantry lines. Turning to see his cavalry roughly assembled, he couldn’t wait to point forward with his riding whip and bellowed, “Follow me and teach those damned French gunners a good lesson!”
Instantly, over 800 horses trotted out—this was already against the cavalry drill manual. Normally, a trot would begin when closing in at about 300 paces, and a charge was only permitted within 100 paces.
At this moment, Hilde’s cavalry camp was still at least 700 paces from the French mounted artillery, and this action would severely deplete the horses’ strength.
But Hilde could no longer care about that, if he didn’t deal with those cannons now, the Dutch would be bombarded to breaking point by grapeshot!
And at such a close distance, the cannons wouldn’t have time to flee; he just had to charge over, and he could easily reap a rich reward of over a dozen cannons. Compared to the infantry losses, this was nothing.
However, almost as soon as his cavalry had begun their rapid charge, those French gunners at the very front of the battlefield started to gather their loading tools and “fumbled” to hitch the cannons onto horses.
Seeing this, Hilde couldn’t help but smirk coldly. Those foolish French, daring to pull their cannons so far forward! Even the most skilled gunners would need at least 5 minutes to hitch the cannons to horses and start retreating. And to withdraw within the firing range of their own infantry would take several more minutes.
Such a long time was enough for him to slaughter all the gunners, spike every cannon’s breech, and leisurely light a cigarette!