Although the 10-kilogram mountain howitzer has a 117mm caliber barrel (the caliber of the old smoothbore gun has always been larger than the rifled gun) can fire the same shells as the ordinary 10-kilogram howitzer (the double diameter is longer than the mountain howitzer, but less than the double diameter of the cannon, which is a type of ordinary field artillery).

But, at the same time, a full 10-pound mountain grenade - including the gun body, gun carriage and wheels. The body of this mountain howitzer plus the weight of all the accessories is much lighter than the gun body of the 10-pound howitzer, the army lightened version of the 10-pound naval gun developed by Chen Xin that year.

A 10-pound ordinary howitzer needs at least a trailer pulled by 6 horses to pull it.

And a 10-pound mountain howitzer, plus two ammunition boxes, can all be placed on the backs of three mules to climb mountains, cross forests, wade through water, and even be completely unrestricted by roads.

The 10-kilogram mountain grenade, that is, the 12-pound mountain howitzer of the U.S. Army imitated by China, is not only lightweight, but also has the advantage of being extremely cheap.

At the beginning of the Civil War in the United States, the price of a brass barrel was only a measly $165.

The gun at this price is indeed not expensive, you must know that the Springfield-style front-loading rifled gun, which was the most equipped in the American Civil War, was about $15 to $20 at the factory, and the Spencer Lancer model was also $25, and the famous Sharps rear-loading rifled carbine was $30 in 1852.

The cost of a cannon is equal to that of 7 or 8 guns, which is not only unimaginable in the era before Chen Xin's crossing, but even in the present era of the early 17th century, it cannot be believed by countries other than China.

Of course, the unimaginable reason is that in the 21st century, the technology required for artillery was too high, and in the 17th century, it was because the technology of muskets was too low, and it was only in the 19th century, when various weapons were competing to appear, that such strange things could occur.

To get back to the point, later in the United States, due to the trade blockade and sabotage of the two sides of the civil war, which cut off trade, the American military factory was extremely short of copper, so they switched to cast iron barrels, which were much cheaper than copper barrels. It's just that, with the quality of cast iron at that time, it was easy to burst and was not more durable than brass barrels.

The 10-kilogram mountain howitzer imitated by Huaxia is a model with a cast iron barrel. The service life of the brass barrel was about 1,000 rounds, and the iron cannon was slightly lower, which was enough in this era.

What's more, the quality of the cast iron imitated by the Huaxia Army is definitely much better than that of the cast iron during the old American Civil War, at least, now Huaxia has a hydraulic press of more than 100 tons, and the smelting technology is not bad.

All the parts of the 10-kilogram mountain grenade are reduced in equal proportions on the basis of the 10-kilogram howitzer. If you want to have a clearer understanding of the situation of the 10-pound mountain howitzer, you can compare it with the most widely used 1857 Type 12-pounder bronze smoothbore gun in the American Civil War, that is, the kind of artillery designed by order of Napoleon III and introduced by the United States in 1857, commonly known as the Napoleon cannon.

In fact, this Napoleon cannon is also one of the large number of imitation artillery pieces of the Chinese Army, known as the 10-kilogram smoothbore gun, which was the main artillery used by the Navy in the early years, and even now, it is still the main artillery in the coast guard and batteries.

The 10-kilogram smoothbore gun has a length of 167cm, which is a type of cannon and weighs 557 kg. The diameter of the wheels is 145 cm, and the total weight of the gun body, gun carriage and wheels reaches 1115 kg.

The standard propellant of this artillery weighs about 1 kilogram, and if a solid bullet is used and an angle of fire of 5 degrees is used, its firing range is about 1460 meters, and the muzzle velocity can reach 432 meters per second.

Historically, in 1861 the barrel cost about $500. Although rifled guns at that time were more complex to manufacture than smoothbore guns, they were not expensive, because cast or wrought iron for rifled guns was cheaper than bronze for smoothbore guns.

In 1861, for example, the barrel of a cast-iron 10-pounder rifled gun cost only $180, a wrought-iron 10-pounder rifled gun cost $330, and a bronze 10-pound Napoleon gun cost $490.

The record for the accuracy of Napoleon's artillery in the American Civil War was recorded in a battle on December 13, 1862, when a major and an artillery lieutenant of the Confederate Army fired a spherical solid bullet at a Confederate standard-bearer 1,460 meters away.

When the first shot was fired, they knocked down a soldier next to the standard-bearer, and when the second shot was fired, it hit the target standard-bearer directly.

The smoothbore Napoleon cannon was much inferior to the rifled cannon in terms of range and accuracy. In layman's terms, Napoleonic cannons can hit barns 1460 meters away. And a 10-pound rifled gun can hit the gate of the barn 1,900 meters away.

The gun body of the 10-kilogram mountain howitzer is 97cm long, the wall thickness is 4cm, the weight is 100 kg, the wheel diameter is 97cm, and the total weight is 230 kg. It can be said that it is extremely lightweight. After Chen Xin imitated the mountain howitzer, he also improved the gun mount and reduced a certain weight, so that the full weight of this mountain howitzer was almost as light as the infantry gun.

But the short, lightweight barrel also comes at a cost, that is, the range is greatly reduced, and when it fires a solid spherical projectile at a 5-degree angle, the range is only 914 meters, and when the grenade is fired, it is only 800 meters.

In this case, most of the field artillery was able to suppress it beyond the range of a 10-pound mountain howitzer.

Chen Xin remembers that before crossing the crossing, he had read a related article that recorded an example of the battle of New Mexico in the 1862 American Civil War, and the defeat of General Sibrie of the Southern Army was largely due to the short range of the 10-pound mountain grenade he relied on.

Probably the only gun lighter than the Mountain Grenade at the time was a mortar, a scaled-down version of the M1838 24-pounder mortar, which fired 10-pound shells.

The barrel of the 10-kilogram mortar weighed about 34 kilograms, and the base made of oak weighed 32 kilograms.

In the American Civil War, 10 catties of mountain grenades were mainly used for rapid cavalry attacks. You know, for cavalry. An ordinary field cannon that would have to be carried by six horses was too cumbersome.

If it is equipped with ordinary field artillery, not only will it not be able to keep up with the speed of the cavalry's advance, but it will also expose the route of the cavalry on the road, which is simply a disaster, and the mountain howitzer will not be like this at all.

A brigadier general of the U.S. Southern Army once enthusiastically praised the 10-pound mountain howitzer, saying, "There is no more suitable cavalry artillery than it, although it can't hit far, but in the cavalry battles I have experienced, its range is completely sufficient." It can go wherever the horses can go, and it can be pulled into the line of fire by soldiers on foot with manpower. ”