CHAPTER 32 - Weapon testing.
Mid-June 1538, Capital city, Dharanikota Kingdom.
Parade grounds.
A large crowd of soldiers gathered in a training ground, which was recently renamed parade grounds. They were gathered to watch a man in the center of the crescent-shaped group. The man had a musket in his arms and was in the process of loading it.
The soldiers themselves were there in the training area to get trained with the musket. But because of the lack of muskets, they were only being trained with wooden replicas, in things like formation tactics and marching.
Rudra was the man in the middle of the gathered group. He figured that, as the maker of the first flintlock, he needed to be the one to test it out. It was not like he never fired them before. He fired his share of matchlocks, from the refurbished oldstock. So the effects of performance pressure of being watched by hundreds of subordinates was minimal.
The loading of a musket was both a simple and a complicated task. To a stranger, it will seem relatively simple, but for someone with knowledge of modern rifles and small arms, it will seem like a cumbersome and complicated process.
As the barrel was empty, Rudra first added gunpowder and used a Ramrod to stuff it inside. Then he added a lead ball, made specifically for that barrel into it, and jammed it again using the ramrod. He also added some gunpowder into the pan of the flintlock system.
That was it, the loading process was complete. If it was after firing a shot, the barrel has to be first checked for any remnant particles from the previous shot, as it can ignite the current gunpowder.
Care must also be taken to ensure that, an appropriate amount of gunpowder is added, to the shot in the barrel. If additional powder is added by mistake, or an extra shot is placed inside, the unequal expansion of gases will make the barrel explode like a pipe bomb.
For Rudra, those worries were not on his mind. He was currently focused on firing that musket for the first time. This test would be definitive proof that he can rely on the memories in his brain.
His target was a white cotton cloth, of about 1m*1m length, at a distance of 100m. It was not groundbreaking by any means, and archers could hit targets much farther than that. But this was only a weapons test, this was not about comparison with archery.
Rudra aimed the musket at the piece of white cloth down the range. The flintlock was just a prototype and did not have any visual aids such as iron sights. He looked down the barrel, aligned the weapon with the target, and took a deep breath.
'BANG!!'
A cloud of smoke obstructed his vision, while his ears rang from the sound. The trigger mechanism worked. The flintlock fired the bullet. Half of the process was now done. Within a few moments, the smoke cleared and the target was visible again.
Because the target was so far away, Rudra could not visually confirm whether the shot was hit or not. A soldier was dispatched to bring back the target cloth, from down the shooting range.
Rudra, and all the other soldiers, waited patiently for the cloth to be retrieved. The soldier returned and, bowed to his king while giving the cloth. In the folds of the cloth, there it was. A hole, about the size of a coin. The first shot was a confirmed hit.
"It's a hit!" Rudra shouted to the soldiers, and they cheered in celebration. The proof of concept was, complete, and they will soon get production variants.
But for Rudra, the work was not done. One shot doesn't prove anything. He sent the soldier back again, to set the target cloth, and started to reload the musket. Clean, Add Gunpowder, Stuff it, Add Shot, Stuff it, Fire, Repeat.
'BANG!!'
'BANG!!'
'BANG!!'
'BANG!!'
Over the next hour, after ordering the soldiers to disperse, he kept firing the gun, repeatedly, to find any flaws in it. He did find many of them, but nothing that indicated catastrophic failures. The core firing mechanism was working as intended.
Not all shots were a hit. But on average, at a distance of 100m, about 50 percent of the shots hit the square meter-sized target. Without rifling, marksmanship with these weapons was a dream. The smoothbore muskets worked well in groups when delivering hundreds of shots down the range, in practiced volley shots.
This test was more about testing the flintlock system than the accuracy of the barrel. There was not much difference between the already existing matchlocks and his new flintlocks other than the firing mechanism.
His rate of fire was about 1 shot for every 40 seconds, i.e. 1.5 shots/minute. It was not that bad for an untrained man, even if he was somewhat assisted by the older memories. If he practiced, he was confident that he could bring that figure to less than 15 seconds.
One has to note that, matchlock muskets of the 15th and 16th centuries were very different beasts when compared to the ones that came later. They were much heavier and cumbersome, designed to shoot a larger shot, at the rate of about 1 shot per 2 minutes.
The arquebus was more contemporary to the later flintlock muskets, and on average, it shot about 1 shot per minute. In both cases, the matchlock mechanism slowed down the heavy musket and arquebus.
Those were the average numbers, and some could shoot at a much faster rate, but sustained fire over a longer time was more important. So the fact that Rudra could start at 1.5 shots/min was very impressive.
After putting down the musket and folding the target cloth with a lot of holes ( he wanted to take it as a souvenir), Rudra turned to look at the small number of people gathered there. They were, of course, the officers in charge of the soldiers' training.
Kadhumalla, Colonels Venkata Naidu Pemmisani, and Bheema, Cavalry leader Nanda Nayaka, were there silently, waiting for Rudra to be done. The king very much preferred the calmness, and they were happy to oblige.
"So, How was it?" Rudra asked them, hoping to hear feedback. Taking feedback was very important, as it can help mitigate flaws.
"It Looks more complex than the matchlocks we have. Will it cause problems during maintenance?" Colonel Venkat asked, his interest in logistics shining through.
"We don't have experience in the field maintenance of matchlocks either. Besides, even though this is more complex, It is simple enough to repair it on the go, while not needing to bother about the matches." Rudra answered back. It was a fair question and proved that Venkat knew what he was talking about.
In the last three months, after the battle for Dharanikota, Rudra became a lot closer with the 3 officers, much to the envy of the generals. Their postings at the border meant that they would be far away from the capital, and would have much less opportunity to further their agendas.
"Forgive me for asking this, but why are we not focusing on training more archers? I see many merits in this new weapon, but I need to answer to my soldiers, especially archers if the skill they have trained on for years will be replaced with a firestick, that is not even half as accurate." Bheema asked the important question.
"Are they feeling left out or what? War is everchanging, Bheema. The kingdom cannot afford to wait for them to catch up. Let us do this, then." Rudra said to Bheema and turned to his assistant, standing there with his guards.
"Vasekar, Send this announcement, to all the military camps in the kingdom. Inform them that the flintlock concept is successful, and after some time, production will begin. Obviously, we will equip the soldiers in this camp here first, but interested members can sign up after that. Kadhumalla you help him prepare the notice after this." He said to them.
"I have a question. What about the cavalry, Your Majesty? We obviously can't use these muskets, from a horse." Nanda questioned his concerns about his soldiers.
Cavalry was expensive, and too much budget was already spent on that. There were obvious benefits to investing in the cavalry as that was a decisive force, but the time for it was not now.
"I have plans for the cavalry, Nanda. But it will take time. We cannot rush things, so we can tackle that after we complete infantry reforms." Rudra explained to the cavalry leader. The general equipment of flintlocks would take some time, and other changes can only come after that.
"How much time would it take for the total infantry forces to be equipped with this? I have asked around with people trailing with matchlocks, and they are making one in about a week. Even if we recruit 100 craftsmen to work on this full-time, it will take years, to equip the whole army." Colonel Venkat, once again asked a crucial question.
"We have yet to complete the final design, Venkat. After that, I plan on introducing some changes. If everything goes according to my plan, we will equip two-fifths of the forces by this time next year, and the full infantry force by a year after that. But these are only estimates. This may change when put into action." He answered back, to the logistics-loving man.
Many problems need to be solved before the musket can go into full-scale production. Currently, the iron the kingdom produced was sufficient for low-scale, work-shop-level production of the muskets. It needs massive improvements, for it to be sufficient for all the plans he has in the future. Especially, for metal-intensive products like cannon production.
Even if the metal production is solved, it will not improve the speed at which the muskets are produced. A basic factory system needs to be implemented, where each role is properly assigned, and for time-intensive tasks like gun barrel making, some basic machinery is needed.
"Kadhumalla, I assume the formation training is going well. What about the training of pikemen? We need them to protect the musketeers from enemy cavalry." Rudra asked the man in charge of training the soldiers. Kadhumalla already had some basic ideas about the formations the muskets would be useful in.
'Pike and shot' would be the tactic they are going to use until all of the soldiers are equipped with muskets. He also has plans on equipping them with bayonets from the beginning, so the only reason pikemen would be needed is to defend the musketeers before the whole conversion.
"Soldiers at other camps are being trained in pike formations as you ordered Your Majesty. They will do their duty to the Kingdom when it is needed!" Kadhumalla answered with a salute.
"Alright then. That is it for this meeting. I now have to meet the Blacksmiths who have been experimenting with the matchlocks, for the past few months. I need to explain how the matchlock works, and some other basic gun design principles to them." Rudra said to the gathered officers and watched them disperse to go back to their duties.
Rudra already arranged with the members of the Advisory Council this morning, and they will handle any problems for the next few days. Rudra has committed these days to those blacksmiths.
He plans to explain the intricacies involved in the basics of gun design, to them. Especially the younger craftsmen, who will be the pioneers of it in the future. He needs many people working on this to make the whole thing possible.
A few hours later.
Standing before Rudra were the blacksmiths he had distributed the old matchlock muskets to and also provided the basic diagrams on how the more complex matchlock system works.
Out of a few dozen skilled blacksmiths he selected initially, the twenty people before him were the ones successful in replicating the matchlocks. On the tables before them, were the guns they produced.
While some were exact copies of the original, a lot of them had added their personal touches. As each original sample provided was also unique, a lot of variations on the same concept were present among the guns present there.
Apprentice blacksmiths, who will be assisting these people, in the assembly line production were also there in the lecture hall. Under each of the blacksmiths, there will be 4 apprentices, and a carpenter( for the stock).
"Hello Everyone. All of you present here are very skilled in their own right. I want you to do me a favor and forget all your skills, for the duration of this. In the next few weeks, I will be teaching you about Gun design, standardization, and basic assembly line production. All of you may not be here by the end of this, but those who complete it will be the founding employees of the Royal Arms Factory. Let us begin, shall we?"