1850 American Gold Tycoon

Chapter 663 Kearny Fort Group

The so-called Kearny Fort Group is composed of five star-shaped forts of different sizes along the Pacific Railway and the Platte River east of North Platte. In the final analysis, it is a variant of the bastion.

The five forts are Fort Gossen, Fort Cozad, Fort Lexington, Fort Kearny and Fort Grand from the nearest to the farthest from North Platte.

Among them, Fort Gossen, Fort Cozad, and Fort Lexington are small and medium-sized forts, and Fort Kearny and Fort Grand are large forts. The defense system constructed by these five forts is called the Kearny Fort Group, and the command center is located in Fort Kearny.

The five forts take advantage of the hilly terrain and are built on hills with higher altitudes. They overlook the Platte River and control the Platte River waterway and the Pacific Railway.

This is why, after the intensification of the conflict between the West and the North, the Western Army failed to take control of the Pacific Railway from North Platte to Omaha, which clearly belonged to the California Railway Company: the Northern Federation built a fortress next to the railway and could cut off the railway at any time.

Of course, this is also why Liang Yao had to fight this battle. The Pacific Railway is the lifeline of transportation connecting the East and the West. Without completely controlling this railway, there is no way to talk about immigration and development of the Great Plains.

The five fortresses of the Kearny Fortress Group are not located at a very high altitude, and it is impossible to achieve a one-man defense against ten thousand men, but as long as the strategy is proper, the quality of the troops and weapons of the offensive and defensive sides is at the same level, and one man can still achieve a one-man defense against ten men.

There are two main types of fortresses in the United States. One is a coastal fortress, which usually has a wall 5 to 8 feet (about 1.5 to 2.5 meters) thick.

The imaginary enemy of the coastal forts at the beginning of their design was the powerful British Royal Navy, and they needed to resist the bombardment from naval guns, especially the powerful 32-pound or larger caliber cannons at that time. Therefore, the walls of coastal forts in the United States are usually very thick, and expensive and hard bricks and stones are chosen as building materials.

More than a month ago, Fort Sumter attacked by the Confederate Army was an expensive coastal fortress.

To be fair, as far as Fort Sumter itself is concerned, the performance of the fortress is not bad, and it can even be called the conscience of the American civil engineering community.

As an unfinished fortress, Sumter withstood the bombardment of tens of thousands of shells, almost consuming all the shells in South Carolina's inventory.

If the Confederates had not been lucky enough to hit the ammunition depot of Fort Sumter with one shot (there is also a saying that Anderson set the ammunition depot on Fort Sumter on fire in order to surrender legitimately), plus Anderson himself and his soldiers were in low morale and had no determination to defend Fort Sumter.

The Confederates might not have been able to take down Fort Sumter, a half-finished sea fortress, so quickly. Fort McHenry, where the Northern Army was stationed to control the situation in Maryland, is also a typical coastal fortress in the United States.

Another type of fortress is the inland fortress. The Kearny Fort Group that the Western Army is now asking to attack is a representative of the inland fortresses in the United States.

Compared with coastal fortresses, the wall thickness of inland fortresses is relatively thinner, usually 2 to 5 feet (about 0.6 to 1.5 meters), because the imaginary enemies of the inland fortresses in the United States are the Indians and the Mexican and Canadian colonial armies.

These imaginary enemies rarely have heavy weapons, so the walls of the inland fortresses are only required to be able to withstand the bombardment of 12-pound artillery. Only some important inland fortresses on the US-Mexico and US-Canada borders will have this design indicator raised to be able to withstand the bombardment of 24-pound heavy artillery.

In terms of the choice of building materials, inland fortresses are mostly built with civil engineering for cost-saving considerations. The three small forts, Fort Gossen, Fort Cozad, and Fort Lexington, use civil engineering as the building materials.

According to the information obtained by Liang Yao, the federal government has a plan to wrap the walls of all the fortresses in the Kearny Fortress Group with bricks and stones, but due to limited time, insufficient funds, insufficient manpower and other objective reasons.

Among the five fortresses in the Kearny Fortress Group, only Fort Kearny used bricks and stones to wrap the outer walls. After all, the cost of building brick and stone fortresses in the central frontier area is several times that of civil engineering fortresses.

As for the introduction of iron, steel and concrete as building materials in large quantities for the reinforcement and construction of fortresses, it would have to wait until the late Civil War at the earliest.

The three small forts of Fort Gossen, Fort Cozad, and Fort Lexington are very close to each other, so it is relatively easy to attack them. Therefore, in the combat plan formulated by the General Staff, the first ones to be attacked are Fort Gossen, Fort Cozad, and Fort Lexington.

As small forts, Fort Gossen, Fort Cozad, and Fort Lexington do not have many garrisons. Except for Fort Gossen, which is located at the forefront and has three companies of garrisons, Fort Cozad and Fort Lexington only have two companies of garrisons.

The participating troops advanced by land and water, and each unit quickly arrived at the designated location and began to set up camp.

Major Alex of Fort Gossen was so scared when he saw a large number of Western troops going east that he quickly sent someone to the telegraph room to send a telegram to shake people.

The Western troops who went east by train and boat were a huge group, with at least 30,000 to 40,000 people. With only three companies of troops under his command, even if he occupied the advantageous terrain of Fort Gossen, it would be difficult to stop these main forces of the Western Army.

Alex sent an envoy to negotiate with the Western Army, warning them that they had entered federal territory and demanding that they withdraw immediately.

After the North and the West became enemies, a vague boundary spontaneously formed in the Nebraska region, which was roughly 20 kilometers east of Fort Goshen.

Of course, this boundary is only a conventional boundary, and there is no explicit stipulation that this is the official boundary between the American Republic and the Northern Federation.

The Western Army naturally ignored Alex's warnings and protests, and continued to do what they had to do and act according to the original plan.

Seeing that the Western Army had openly set up camp six or seven kilometers away from Goshenburg, Alex ordered the cannon to be fired as a warning after obtaining Mason's authorization.

After just a few shells, the Western Army did not take it seriously at all. Instead, they set up field artillery, calibrated the firing parameters, and slowly fired back three shots at the defenders of Goshenburg. The last shot even hit the temporary earth embankment built outside Goshenburg, smashing a big hole in the earth embankment.

Now, the federal defenders in Goshenburg finally behaved.

These three shots made Major Alex think that his eyes were dazzled for a time, and he couldn't believe that this scene was real.

The field gun that fired at them just now was at least 5,000 yards (4,600 meters) away from the earthen embankment that was hit, but the enemy hit it easily.

The Northern Union Army did not lack cannons with a range of 5,000 yards, but the Union Army really did not have field guns with a range of 5,000 yards.

In addition to the exaggerated range, the firing rate of the Western Army's artillery also impressed Alex.

Alex was an officer from the artillery, and he was more sensitive to the performance parameters of artillery.

Just now, the Western Army fired three shots in a row, which took only about 45 seconds. For heavy field artillery, this is an extremely exaggerated firing rate.

Alex used the Napoleon Cannon (12-pound heavy smoothbore cannon howitzer) in his early years. The Napoleon Cannon is still the main field artillery equipped by the Northern Union Army and the Southern Confederate Army.

The only difference is that the number of Napoleon cannons in the North is greater, especially the number of large Napoleon cannons is far greater than that in the South. The Napoleon cannons equipped by the Southern Army are mainly 6-pound small Napoleon cannons, and heavy cannons are relatively rare.

According to Alex's past experience, an experienced large Napoleon cannon crew can maintain a firing rate of about 2 rounds per minute under good combat conditions.

But in a stressful combat environment, as the crew's physical strength is exhausted, its firing rate will soon drop to 1 round per minute. Being able to fire a stable firing rate of 1 round per minute during wartime is already an elite artillery crew of the Federal Army.

Alex has heard that the Sacramento cannons used by the Western Army are extremely excellent, with no disadvantages except for the high cost and expensive shells.

It's just that the Sacramento cannon has always been equipped only in the artillery of the Western Army. No one in the Northern Federal Army has ever seen or touched the Sacramento cannon. In addition, there are many people in the Northern Federal Army who think highly of themselves, and they look down on the Western Army from the bottom of their hearts.

Therefore, most officers of the Northern Union Army did not pay much attention to the Sacrato gun. Almost no one knew the specific performance parameters of this gun. They just thought that the Western Army exaggerated the performance of their own guns and tried to sell their own guns to the War Department and Congress.

Now it seems that the Western Army not only did not exaggerate the performance of their own guns, but was concealing the performance of their own guns.

Alex thought this was extremely important information. He quickly ran to the telegraph room and reported the situation to Brigadier General Mason at Fort Kearny.