Grenadiers, whose physical fitness is generally better than that of ordinary soldiers, have always been the elite troops in the Tang Army, not to mention, grenadiers not only have good physical fitness, but it is also more difficult to be selected as grenadiers.

Part of it is the period of recruit training, and I was directly selected because of all the conditions and excellent training performance, well, this is relatively rare!

More are selected into the grenadier unit after service, and after passing the hard condition of height and weight, the soldier is required to serve for at least one year or more, or have at least three or more combat experience.

As for why such strict requirements are needed, it is because they are grenadiers, and they need to go forward against enemy fire and then throw grenades, which requires soldiers to have great courage and discipline.

And now the grenades, which are very heavy, are not strong soldiers, and they still do not go far at all.

All kinds of conditions and restrictions have made the grenadiers the most elite infantry in the army, and there is no one.

The basic infantry battalion, whether it is an army or a marine, is almost the same, a team of 140 people, and a battalion has six teams, basically four ordinary infantry teams, a heavy musket team, and a grenadier team.

The infantry battalion of the Guards also has the above six teams, but the infantry battalion of the Guards, in order to maintain the consistent superiority in strength, at least let the infantry battalion of the Guards reach more than 1,000 people, so the advantage has an additional infantry team.

Armed with an 18mm musket and equipped with a half-body armor, this infantry unit is an upgraded version of a normal heavy musket unit.

As for whether the bust is useful or not, it doesn't really matter, because the Guards are thinking that these selected soldiers are physically fit anyway, and it's not impossible to equip them with half-body armor!

In short, it is better to have higher defense capabilities than none.

Of course, this is only the idea of the top brass of the Guards, in fact, in actual combat, there are no special circumstances, and many soldiers do not wear such heavy half-length armor at all.

For example, in the Battle of Malacca, the soldiers of the four heavy musket teams in the Second Provisional Regiment of the Guards threw away their heavy half-body armor while they were still on the ship, and directly wore cloth uniforms to land and march to set up defenses.

However, this situation is only temporary, and when the siege begins, and the Portuguese really fight, it is estimated that these people will wear them again.

After all, it is too dangerous to besiege the city, and it is good to have armor to wear, even if it is just a psychological comfort.

Moreover, the Portuguese soldiers were not all equipped with muskets, and they also had a large number of troops using cold weapons such as spears, swords and shields.

The transportation of artillery and materials from various units of the Seventh Army lasted for five days, and it was not easy to transport the artillery to the front line, and then the construction of artillery positions was much simpler.

When the artillery, especially a large number of heavy artillery, is in place, this is the announcement that the general attack on the city of Malacca is about to begin!

Around the city of Malacca, Ding Chenzhen commanded the artillery unit and built three large artillery positions, and the artillery in these three artillery positions added up to about 170 guns.

Among them, there are six 48-pound short-barreled howitzers, six 24-pound long-barreled heavy guns, 28 18-pound long-barreled heavy guns, and more than 40 14-pound heavy guns, and the rest are 9-pound or 5-pound field guns.

Among them, the heavy artillery of more than 14 catties was naturally the main artillery for this siege, because these guns had a long range and great power.

As for the nine-pound and five-pound field guns, although these cannons can also play a significant role, their power is still somewhat insufficient compared to a typical strong fortress like Malacca City.

For comparison, the Portuguese also deployed about 100 artillery pieces on the head of the city of Malacca!

Dozens of them are ordinary small and medium-caliber guns, which are also oriented towards the land, and there are dozens of guns, which are actually shore defense guns deployed at the head of Malacca, most of which are heavy guns of more than nine pounds, which were originally used to defend against enemy ships in the port, and whether they are ordinary guns or heavy artillery, in fact, most of them are guns removed from the fleet.

Although the Tang Navy thwarted the Portuguese attempt to put all the guns in the fleet on the head of Malacca to a certain extent by attacking the Portuguese fleet, they had already moved some of the guns on the city before.

In addition, the heavy coastal artillery on the port side of Malacca City was said to be facing the port before, but it is estimated that the Portuguese would move these heavy guns to other positions to defend the city if necessary.

After all, artillery is dead, people are alive, and these Portuguese are not stupid, so it is naturally impossible to watch a large number of heavy artillery pieces placed on the seaside and do nothing, but in other directions, it is the fact that it was hit by the Tang Army.

This siege battle in Malacca, to a certain extent, is an artillery battle between the two sides, as long as the artillery of one side can have an advantage, then it can occupy the initiative in the battle.

For example, if the artillery of the Tang Army can overwhelm the Portuguese in firepower, then it can give great support to the infantry troops, and even if this Malacca city is strong, it will be able to gnaw down.

On the other hand, if the Portuguese were able to suppress the artillery positions of the Tang Army outside the city through artillery battles, then they were also able to gain a great advantage.

Because without the support of artillery, the Tang Army outside the city could not attack the city at all.

To put it mildly, in the face of a fortified city like Malacca City, without the help of artillery, even if the three infantry regiments of the 19th Infantry Division were dead, they would not necessarily be able to rush forward.

This has nothing to do with the courage or even combat effectiveness of the soldiers, but only with the lack of artillery support.

This is also why Ding Chenzhen would rather drag it all the time, and go to great lengths to move the artillery to the city of Malacca, and also let the navy temporarily organize a naval heavy artillery battalion.

Artillery will be the core combat force of this siege of Malacca!

With the start of the construction of the three major artillery positions, in order to prevent the Portuguese at the head of the city from taking the opportunity to attack, the Seventh Army began to build artillery positions in concealment, and the artillerymen also took advantage of the night to pull the artillery up from the rear overnight, and dozens of people pulled the artillery to pull those heavy artillery down the artillery positions.

At this time, the Portuguese at the head of the city finally made their first real counterattack, landing on the night of the tenth day!

In order to prevent the Tang Army from building artillery positions and erecting artillery in a direction of about 500 meters outside the city, the Portuguese at the head of the city shelled the artillery positions of the Tang Army outside the city even at night.

The rumbling of artillery was sporadic from the evening, and the sound of shelling was occasionally heard almost throughout the night, but when it was dawn the next day, the Portuguese at the head of the city made a startling discovery.

Their sporadic shelling last night did not yield any real results, about 500 meters from the city, on a low hill, yesterday it was empty, but today there are complete artillery positions and dozens of artillery pieces.

Although the Portuguese were very vigilant and carried out artillery bombardment at night, it has to be said that their shelling did not bring the expected results, on the one hand, because at night, although it was said that when the Tang Army built artillery positions and transported artillery, it was not carried out in the dark, but carried out openly with torches, but the brightness of the torches was enough for the construction troops of the Tang Army, but not enough for the artillery units of the Portuguese.

Aiming at the light of the torch at night, this is actually a very unreliable thing, not to mention that in order to confuse the Portuguese, in fact, Ding Chenzhen also arranged a large number of personnel, and then hid behind the cover in various inconsequential places, and then held the cannon to confuse and lure the Portuguese to fire.

At the same time, the construction troops also have protective measures, the biggest protective measure is the use of anticline, the artillery of the Tang Army is not stupid, their artillery position, is chosen to build on the mountain, and the back of the mountain is the safest place.

The only thing that would be hit by the enemy was actually the hill, and on the hill, they used the method of digging trenches to directly build artillery positions, instead of stupidly running to the top of the hill and throwing the artillery on the ground and it was over.

A well-developed artillery position naturally requires corresponding protective fortifications.

In addition to the night, anti-slope, trench and other measures, coupled with the relatively long distance, it is almost close to the limit of the artillery's limited range, and the hit rate is not high there.

At a distance of 500 meters, this is almost the limit of the limited firing range of contemporary large-caliber artillery, and even many nine-pound artillery pieces barely hit this far, and there is no accuracy at all.

Although it is said that the artillery of this year can also extend the firing range by raising the elevation angle, this range is almost meaningless, based on the accuracy of modern artillery, if it exceeds 500 meters, God and his old man does not know where the shells will fly.

Also based on this reason, this is also why the Datang Army chose to deploy heavy artillery at a distance of 500 meters.

If the accuracy is sufficient, in fact, the Datang Army can shell Malacca City directly from the sea, or shell Malacca at the landing ground four kilometers away.

Doing so alone will hardly lead to any tangible results other than wasting shells.

Even if it is 500 meters, the Datang Army is only deploying heavy artillery, as for a large number of nine-jin and five-pound artillery, in fact, it has to continue to deploy forward, and the preliminarily selected direction is about 400 meters.