Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Chapter 382: Chapter 37: Muskets and Spears_2

“Next!”

Another militiaman who had left camp without permission was tied to the whipping post, and the chilling sound of lashing echoed once again.

Colonel Jeska even didn’t show up, having too many people to meet after twelve years of overseas deployment.

While Lieutenant Montaigne was vigorously wielding the whip, the colonel was toasting with classmates and friends.

…

…

The day after the flogging.

The sun shone warmly, and the air was slightly cool.

On the parade ground outside the Shuangqiao Main Camp, the sound of muskets firing in unison could be heard from time to time.

Sparks flew, and smoke filled the air.

Winters bellowed, “Stow the fork rests!”

The musketeers who had just fired hastily pulled the wooden fork rests out of the ground. A fork rest was a sharpened wooden stick with an iron hook at one end to support the gun barrel.

“Gun on the shoulder!”

On hearing the order, the musketeers hurriedly stood the muskets upright and shouldered them.

If a militiaman carelessly pointed his gun sideways at someone else while shouldering his weapon, the supervising sergeant behind him would rush over and land a fierce blow with his stick.

“Never point your gun at anyone but the enemy!” Winters caught sight of the commotion and shouted, “You never know if that lead ball was fired from the barrel before inspection!”

The militiamen held their muskets, not daring to move.

“Lower your guns! Check the barrel!” Winters continued to command.

The musketeers placed the butts of their guns on the ground and pulled out their ramrods, carefully poking them into the barrel.

“Sir!” A militiaman reported with a downcast face, “My ramrod isn’t reaching properly, it seems like a misfire.”

A misfire was common for muskets; sparks would fly from the external pan, but the priming charge inside the barrel would not ignite.

Often, musketeers were too nervous to notice a misfire and would stuff new powder and a lead ball on top of the first one.

Someone once found a musket on the Vicksburg battlefield with seven unfired lead balls stuffed in the barrel.

If they loaded repeatedly, at best there would be another misfire; at worst, it could burst the barrel.

That’s why there was a mark on the musketeers’ ramrods: if the ramrod reached the deepest part of the barrel and the mark was at the muzzle, that meant the lead ball had been fired.

If there was a finger’s breadth between the mark and the muzzle, the musketeer was in trouble.

Winters walked over to the muted militiaman, taking the musket, “What’s there to panic about with a misfire? Just reload and fire again.”

He poured powder into the pan, closed the cover, and re-affixed the slow match—when the pan burned, the force could knock the slow match flying or even blow it out, which was the trouble with using matchlock guns.

Then, he opened the cover again and pulled the trigger. The smoldering end of the slow match ignited the powder in the pan, and it was blown off from the serpentine in an instant.

This time, the priming charge in the barrel ignited successfully, kicking up a small cloud of dust on the distant earth mound.

“There.” Winters tossed the musket back to the militiaman and gave a new order loudly, “Clean the barrel!”

The musketeers took out pieces of rag, wrapping them around their ramrods and started to scrub their barrels.

During battle, there was no need to clean the barrel after every shot, but now it was training, so of course the full procedure was necessary.

Watching the frantic militiamen, Winters sighed to himself.

In the revised infantry drill manual six years earlier, there were twenty-five steps in the firing sequence of a matchlock, further broken down into forty-two separate moves.

A complete firing sequence was a lot more complicated than just “load and fire.”

And the longest thing these militiamen had ever memorized in their lives… was probably the Lord’s Prayer.

Just keeping them from setting themselves on fire was enough to give Lieutenant Montaigne a headache.

But it wasn’t their fault; two months earlier, they were only diligent farmers, and many of them hadn’t even touched a musket until two days before.

They were not volunteers; they were simply the unfortunate ones chosen by the draft.

Winters waved his hand, “Next group!”@@novelbin@@

Another batch of militiamen came forward, carrying muskets. Rows of small wooden bottles hung across their chests, filled with pre-measured gunpowder.

Thank Heaven, Marshal Ned’s concept of “standardized charges” was proposed thirty years ago, along with the epoch-making invention of the ammunition bottle.

Otherwise, just teaching the militia how much gunpowder to pour for each loading might have vexed Lieutenant Montaigne to death.

“It seems the old marshal must have been driven to invent the ammunition bottle out of desperation,” Winters couldn’t help thinking.

Compared to the headaches Winters faced at the shooting range, Andre and Bard—who were responsible for training the spearmen—were much more at ease.

The spearmen were simply drilling simple formation changes on the training field, then practicing marching in column and turning, and finally practicing stabbing at wooden stakes.

Since the five-and-a-half-meter long spears had been replaced with two-and-a-half-meter spears, the militiamen found it much easier.

The extra-long spears were too long and needed special carrying equipment, which always made moving somewhat inconvenient.

Carrying a spear, on the other hand, was simple—just shouldering it was sufficient.

However, the weight was not much lighter than the extra-long spears, as a section of iron tubing had been added behind the spearhead to prevent the enemy from cutting off the pole.

Bard and Andre’s biggest hassle was teaching the militia to tell left from right and correcting mistakes in their step while marching.

Over two days, the spearmen became increasingly more presentable and spirited.

In contrast, Winters’ side was constantly beset with problems, with every imaginable mishap occurring.

Some even forgot to remove the ramrod after loading, eventually launching it with the lead bullet.

Fortunately, no burst barrels had occurred so far; otherwise, the militia would have grown even more fearful of the muskets they held.

The new militiamen held their muskets tentatively, wishing they could tilt their heads back as far as possible.

Frustrated, Winters lashed out with his riding whip and exclaimed sternly, “Put your chin on the stock! Aim carefully before you fire! Point the muzzle at the target! Do not close your eyes when you pull the trigger!”

The process of firing a musket ball is essentially an explosion—naturally, the further away, the better.

With an iron tube in hand that no one knew when might explode, hardly any militiamen dared to put their chin on the stock and take careful aim.

In fact, most people could shoot a musket much more accurately than they could shoot a bow and arrow, similar to how a crossbow is more accurate than a bow.

When shooting an arrow, people have to exert force, their arms shake, and the more they shoot, the more tired they get, with only a few exceptional archers able to hit whatever they aim at.

But compared to the inherent accuracy errors of a musket, even more misses resulted from the gunners’ reluctance to aim properly and their indiscriminate firing.

“Not bad,” Colonel Jeska remarked after watching at the edge of the shooting range for a while, “Those from the Land Academy really outdo those wild rogues I met overseas, so formal and proper they are.”

Hearing this, Winters didn’t know whether the colonel was mocking him or praising him.

“Sir,” Winters suggested helplessly, “how about changing guns instead of men? Let those who dare fire do the shooting, and the rest can handle the loading.”

“No,” Colonel Jeska shook his head, “If they’re not firing themselves, they won’t take the loading seriously, and that’s more likely to cause accidents. Moreover, changing guns but not men means letting the brave soldiers take on the most risk. If the courageous ones get shot or blown up, what are we going to do with the ones who are too scared to shoot? We need to make sure every soldier dares to fire.”

Winters was at a loss for words.

The one-eyed colonel said indifferently, “Keep training, don’t be impatient. You have good skills training troops, better than your two peers.”

After saying this, he turned his head and walked towards the other two lieutenants.

Although Colonel Jeska had lost an eye, it did not impair his sharp vision.

On the surface, Bard and Andre’s results seemed far more abundant than Winters’.

The neat and imposing ranks of the spearmen were a stark contrast to the continual problems on the musketeers’ side.

But in reality, it’s all a show, as training a spearman is much more difficult than training a musketeer.

A qualified spearman not only needs physical strength and skill but, most importantly, a tough will and thick nerves.

When faced with an enemy charge, the spearman first has to dare not to run away, only then is combat a possibility.

Training a swordsman with a shield is even more difficult than training a spearman.

After all, long weapons have the advantage of distance, whereas swordsmen must engage in close combat.

Those who can serve as swordsmen are the bravest of the elite. This is also why Colonel Jeska simply had the militia all switch to using spears.

Shooting at the enemy from a distance with muskets or crossbows is far simpler and less stressful than killing someone up close with cold steel—both physically and psychologically.

The training continued in full swing.

“Train hard!” Winters admonished with a touch of sorrow, “The sweat you hesitate to shed today is the blood you will have to spill tomorrow!”

He wondered silently, Does a farmer feed oats to pigs to make them happy?

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