1850 American Gold Tycoon

Chapter 664: The Secret Weapons of the Federation

At Fort Kearny, 100 kilometers away from Fort Gossen, a batch of secret weapons of the Northern Federation arrived at Fort Kearny via the Pacific Railway.

Brigadier General Mason, the supreme commander of the Kearny Fortress Group, personally inspected this batch of secret weapons. He had tried his best to obtain this batch of secret weapons from the War Department by mobilizing all the connections he could.

Mason had high hopes for this batch of secret weapons.

The Western Army was coming aggressively. In the current crisis, Mason did not think he had the ability to turn the tide and defend the Kearny Fortress Group without reinforcements.

In fact, Mason's goal was never to defend the Kearny Fortress Group, but to delay the Western Army's eastward advance as much as possible, inflict the greatest damage to the Western Army, and dampen the Western Army's sharp edge.

Mason knew that Lincoln and McClellan also thought so.

McClellan's delay in sending reinforcements to the Kearny Fortress Group was not entirely to avoid fighting, but to wait until the second batch of mobilized soldiers were trained and the supplies were in place before fighting a decisive battle with the main force of the Western Army with the advantage of numbers.

Although McClellan's actions were reasonable and in line with Lincoln's strategic plan, Mason still felt very unhappy. No one wanted to be the chess piece that was easily sacrificed.

The most relied-on weapon for guarding the fortresses was undoubtedly the cannon.

However, Mason understood that in terms of cannons, the standard artillery currently equipped by the federal army was not as good as the cannons of the Western Army.

This was the conclusion drawn by Mason based on his own personal experience, and it could also be said to be a bloody lesson.

Twelve years ago, Mason, who was still a colonel in the army, led his troops to attack California. At that time, he suffered a loss in front of the artillery of the California Regiment, the predecessor of the Western Army.

At that time, the artillery of the Western Army was already using the rifled Napoleon cannon, which had an advantage in range.

Mason still clearly remembers that the Western Army equipped with Napoleon rifled cannons defeated his troops in Jinshan Bay.

Twelve years later, the armament of the Northern Federal Army has not improved much compared to twelve years ago. The large and small Napoleon cannons are still the mainstay of the Federal Army's field artillery.

The fortress cannons used in the defense of the Northern Federal fortresses are mostly 24-pound and 32-pound smoothbore cannons produced based on the technology of the Napoleon cannon. Some important fortresses are equipped with 42-pound smoothbore cannons.

The situation of the Southern Confederacy is even worse than that of the Northern Union. After all, before the split, the Northern and Southern armies were under the same military system, and the equipment of the two armies was almost the same. Considering the weak military industry in the South, the Southern Federation was inferior to the Northern Army in the field of artillery.

Fort Kearny is one of the highest priority fortresses in the Federation. It is not only equipped with 24-pound, 32-pound, and 42-pound guns, but also with high-quality new guns. Some of them have been modified and rifled, so they can be used as rifled guns. There are plenty of shells and gunpowder.

Fort Kearny, where Mason is located, is equipped with 128 various fortress guns, including 12 13-inch mortars.

Even so, Mason still has no sense of security.

It is rumored that the 12-pound Sacramento gun equipped by the Western Army artillery has an effective range of an astonishing 4,000 yards. Mason doesn't know whether this is true or an exaggeration by the Western Army.

After all, the range of the same-level Napoleon cannon is only 1,600 yards (about 1,460 meters). After rifling, the improved rifled Napoleon cannon has a significantly longer range than the traditional smoothbore cannon, but its maximum range is only 2,000 to 2,500 yards (about 1,830 to 2,290 meters), which is still a long way from 4,000 yards.

In the spirit of believing it is better than not believing it, Mason still believes that the range of the Western Army's cannons can reach 4,000 yards, and prepares for defense work based on this standard.

According to this standard, the 128 fortress cannons in the Kearny Fortress at this stage are undoubtedly a pile of scrap copper and iron, and cannot gain an advantage in the confrontation with the Western Army artillery.

Even if they are high above and have the advantage of terrain, they can increase the range of some fortress cannons in disguise, but it is still difficult to narrow the performance gap between the two armies' artillery.

The gap between 1,600 yards and 4,000 yards is too big to be closed by relying on a little terrain advantage.

For this reason, Mason urgently needs a cannon with a range of 4,000 yards to guard his fortress.

After learning that the West Point Arsenal in Coldwell, New York, successfully trial-produced a cannon with a range of 4,500 yards, Mason was overjoyed and immediately asked the West Point Arsenal to manufacture a batch of new cannons and send them to the Kearny Fortress Group for actual combat testing.

Now Mason can't care about whether the new artillery technology is mature or not, and how reliable it is.

Considering the special status of the Kearny Fortress Group, the War Department also agreed to Mason's request and ordered the West Point Arsenal to work overtime to rush out a batch of new artillery and ammunition and deliver them to the Kearny Fortress as soon as possible.

The secret weapon that Mason was eagerly waiting for was this batch of Parrot guns. The first batch of Parrot guns sent to Fort Kearny totaled 60 guns, including 30 30-pound Parrot guns with a caliber of 4.2 inches, 20 20-pound Parrot guns with a caliber of 3.67 inches, and the remaining 10 10-pound Parrot guns with a caliber of 2.9 inches.

Not only 60 new Parrot guns were sent to Fort Kearny, but also the artillerymen who operated these new guns. This was a very thoughtful consideration of the War Department.

Perhaps because of his guilty conscience, or perhaps because the Western Army had already set out, and considering the relationship between the Kearny Fortress Group and Omaha, McClellan was finally generous this time. He waved his hand and allocated two fully trained militia regiments to the Kearny Fortress with the artillery of the West Point Arsenal, and handed them over to Mason for deployment.

The arrival of the long-awaited reinforcements and this batch of Patro artillery gave Mason more confidence, and he finally had some confidence.

With more than 4,000 people and 200 cannons, even if Liang Yao could finally take down the fortress, he would have to break several teeth, Mason thought.

This was the best day since he entered the Kearny Fortress Group. The reinforcements he had been waiting for for a long time finally came.

Although the militia cannot be compared with the regular corps and volunteer corps, and is not very useful in field battles, in the battle of defending the city, as long as the morale of the two regular corps in his Fort Kearny is not broken, the gap between the militia and the regular corps and volunteer corps is not as big as in the field battle, and it is not useless.

Therefore, Mason did not care too much that the reinforcements McClellan sent to him were militias, and it was very likely that they were second-line militias that McClellan, a stingy guy, looked down on, and Mason did not mind too much.

You know, Mason had urged for a month before, but McClellan did not give him any support. This time, he was allocated two regiments for the first time, so what else did he want?

"The Parrott gun is the first self-developed muzzle-loading rifled gun in my country. It uses special pointed bullets and has a maximum range of 4,500 yards (4,100 meters). The Parrott gun not only has a long range, but also has a higher accuracy than the rifled Napoleon gun."

Robert Parrot proudly introduced the gun named after him to Mason.

He is full of confidence in the gun he has worked so hard to develop. Parrott is ambitious. He hopes that this gun can replace the Napoleon gun and become the standard gun of the federal army.

Practical combat is the best GG. Parrott hopes that this gun can become famous in the battle of Fort Kearney, and then be favored by the War Department and receive a steady stream of orders.

Parrott is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, but he did not serve in the army after graduating from the military academy like many of his colleagues. Instead, he relied on his talents and talents in the field of ordnance manufacturing to enter the West Point Arsenal and became the director of ordnance all the way.

If the Parrott gun can become famous in this battle, Parrott will not only have a good chance of becoming the director of the West Point Arsenal, calling on more resources to give his technical talents a greater practical space, but he will also become one of the leading figures in the American military industry.

During the years as the director of ordnance at the West Point Arsenal, Parrott has long grown from a relatively pure technical talent to a compound talent, no longer just an engineer who only knows technology.

The Parrott gun can indeed reach an ultra-long range of 4,500 yards, but a more accurate and rigorous statement is that the 30-pound Parrott gun can reach a range of 4,500 yards when using special pointed bullets and the maximum charge.

The range of the 10-pound Parrott gun is only about 2,000 yards (about 1,830 meters), and the data of the 20-pound Parrott gun is about 4,000 yards (about 3,700 meters).

"4,500 yards!" Mason rubbed his hands excitedly, and it was obvious that he was still very satisfied with this range.

Several artillery officers around Mason were skeptical about the data provided by Parrot.

Mason was also very clear about the nature of these arms dealers, who liked to exaggerate the performance of their products. But Parrot personally sent this batch of guns to Fort Kearney, which showed that Parrot was still very confident in his products. At least the maximum caliber 30-pound gun had a range of 4,500 yards.

Rumor has it that the range of the large-caliber Sacramento gun is 4,000 yards. The maximum effective range of the Parrot gun of 4,500 yards is definitely enough in the fortress defense war.

Seeing that Mason and several officers around Mason were skeptical about his words, Parrot did not say much.

Facts speak louder than words, and he was ready to fire a few shots to open the eyes of Mason and several officers around Mason.

The 30-pound Parrot gun is an absolute heavy gun, and the weight of the cast iron barrel alone reaches an astonishing 4,200 pounds (about 1,905 kilograms).

Fortunately, Mason had already prepared a pulley crane to welcome the arrival of this batch of heavy artillery. After a lot of effort, they finally lifted the heavy artillery onto the thick and solid wall of Fort Kearny and set up the gun in a hurry.

After the heavy artillery was set up, Parrot commanded a gun crew to adjust the elevation angle to 38°. After the ammunition was loaded, Parrot fired the 30-pound heavy artillery himself.

Mason and his group of officers had already raised their telescopes and observed the landing point of the shells with anticipation.