Now, the well-trained veteran gunners of the Huaxia Army can even remove all the parts of the artillery from the mule and assemble it in one minute, and then complete the loading, and then maintain a maximum rate of fire of 2-3 rounds per minute.

Whenever the gun is assembled and enters the preset gun position, the mule with the ammunition box will be pulled 15 meters behind the gun, and the other mules will be further back.

There are many interesting stories about the 10-pound mountain howitzer, for example, during the American Civil War, there are several incredible records - there are gunners who put mountain howitzers on the back of mules and fire, which frightened the mules to run around and roll all over the ground.

One of the more famous examples occurred in 1864 at Fort Benton, where gunners of mountain howitzers demonstrated the firing of artillery to visiting Indians.

A mountain howitzer, which was still saddled on the back of a mule, was not unloaded, but was filled with propellants and shells, and the gunners used a fuse instead of a fuse that could be fired immediately.

The "snort" sound of the arquebus as it burned frightened the poor mule, and it began to spin in circles, so that the muzzle of the cannon it was carrying on its body was also pointing in all directions.

As a result, all the people present quickly dispersed, and fell to the ground and hugged their heads, and even a few people, one by one, plunged into the Missouri River on the side.

Luckily, when the cannon was finally fired, the mule was arching its back, allowing the shell to hit the ground on one side, and there were no casualties. As for whether the unlucky mule was injured by the recoil of the artillery, it was not recorded on paper at all.

The artillery company of the Huaxia Army, which was equipped with 10 pounds of mountain howitzers, was also specially equipped with a small calciner, which could be packed into a crate box slightly larger than the ammunition box, so that the blacksmiths of the army could repair horseshoes and other iron parts in the field.

Generally, this kind of furnace and box together weigh less than 30 catties, and a bellows weighing more than ten catties is attached, plus two large bags weighing 10 catties each, containing horseshoes and nails, and more than 20 catties of charcoal, all these things can be carried by a mule.

Because mountain howitzers often have to walk in undulating mountainous terrain, their gun mounts and wheels are very vulnerable to damage and need to be repaired in a timely manner if you are in a hurry.

So, in the artillery company, there was also a mule, carrying two wooden boxes, which contained carpentry tools and some gunner's tools. These boxes and ammunition boxes are the same size, weighing 40 pounds each.

Such an artillery battery of 6 mountain howitzers, each of which required 5 mules, their tasks were to carry a pack barrel, a pack gun carriage and wheels, and three mules to carry a total of 48 shells in 6 ammunition boxes.

That's a full 30 mules. Add to that a mule carrying a spare gun carriage, a mule carrying blacksmith's tools, and a mule carrying carpenter's tools, which is exactly 33 head of livestock.

Compared with another 10-kilogram howitzer company prepared for infantry in the Huaxia Army, we can clearly understand the convenience of this artillery.

In a fully staffed 10-pound field artillery company, the company commander had to manage 151 subordinates, 154 horses, 12 ammunition trucks, 20 two-wheeled trailers, 1 transport vehicle and 1 blacksmith car.

Of course, this is just a paper establishment, whether it is during the Civil War in the United States that Chen Xin imitated and studied, or in the current period when the United States did not appear in China, because of the large-scale expansion of the army, the equipment in the army is very lacking, especially horses, and there are very few artillery companies with more than 100 horses.

Because there were no fewer horses to tow artillery, many of the men who were allowed to ride on horseback and carriage according to the regulations had to march on foot, but even in this case, they were still better than the infantry, because the artillerymen could put their own equipment on the carts.

Therefore, in the case of convenient transportation, even if the artillery is not in the form of a complete number and has a serious shortage of horses, its marching speed is much stronger than that of the infantry.

Historically, Pennsylvania Artillery Company E has been recorded as walking a maximum of about 21 miles (about 33.8 kilometers) a day when they were with a large force, but when they were marching alone, they were able to walk up to 37 miles (59.5 kilometers) a day.

According to the experience of the time, on hard roads, a horse could pull a weight of 2,700 pounds and walk 32-37 kilometers a day without losing its combat effectiveness due to overwork.

Under the ordinary road surface, if you want to maintain the same marching speed, then the pulling capacity must be reduced to 1700 catties.

When the road conditions are poor, the pulling capacity will be reduced to 1,000 catties. Even, if you carry one person at once, its pulling capacity will have to be halved again.

Before the advent of railways on a large scale, raising military horses was a very expensive affair, and according to the regulations of the army, artillery horses were supplied with 10 catties of hay and 13 catties of grain such as oats, corn and barley every day.

If you don't feed hay and grain, then the horses need to eat 70 catties of fresh grass every day to get the same nutrition as the food prescribed by the regulations.

According to the quartermaster report of an army group of about 100,000 men during the 1862 Peninsular Campaign, 360 tons of supplies were needed per day to feed the cattle alone.

Although the casualty rate of artillery is much lower than that of infantry and cavalry, in terms of the attrition rate of horses, artillery is about the same as cavalry.

According to the records of a light artillery company at that time, in the two and a half years that the light artillery company participated in the war, the number of horses in their company reached 157 non-combat deaths, of which 112 died of disease, and the other 45 horses were abolished due to the transition of service.

Of course, Chen Xin did not blindly imitate the U.S. military during the Civil War between the North and the South, because there are still many differences between the current China and the United States in the 19th century.

In 1861, an American artillery battery usually consisted of 4 cannons and 2 large-caliber howitzers. For example, a 6-pounder battery is armed with four 6-pounder cannons and two 12-pounder howitzers; The 12-pounder battery was armed with four 12-pounder cannons and two 24-pounder howitzers. Later, due to the shortage of personnel and artillery, a battery of 4 guns was also common.

Chen Xin is not blindly piling up artillery, and the Huaxia Army has been trying to unify the models of weapons as much as possible to reduce the workload of logistics and supply.