RPAGF #396 - The Salvation Army's cavalry was too perfunctory
#396 - The Salvation Army's cavalry was too perfunctory
The joy brought by the reinforcements lasted for less than a second before the hearts of everyone in Smallpool City were on edge again.
They couldn't believe their eyes; if they weren't mistaken, there were only thirty to fifty soldiers in the Savior Army's reinforcements.
But the Extraordinary Knights at the city gate numbered at least ten squads, more than one hundred and twenty knights.
The militiamen, who had been cheering just moments ago, saw the Holy Musket Cavalry, which was clearly less than half the number of knights, and their cheers seemed to be abruptly cut off, turning into thin, leaky sounds.
As the Holy Musket Cavalry approached in a loose formation, the militiamen who were still fighting fiercely at the city gate couldn't help but despair.
These Holy Musket Cavalrymen didn't wear brimmed helmets, and only had a half-body armor or even just a vest chest plate. Many of them didn't even have lobster-style plate arm guards, let alone thigh armor.
They didn't have high-held lances, but had two strange wooden sticks inserted into their knee-high riding boots, with only a slender saber and a hammer-mace hanging on either side of their saddles.
Seeing this scene, the militiamen's hanging hearts finally died. The Savior Army's reinforcements were too perfunctory.
Thirty-odd squire knights, besides being courageous, they couldn't think of any other adjectives to describe them.
"So they are, farmer cavalry," the leader of the Extraordinary Knights, an old knight, said in a mock, stereotypical farmer's accent, while laughing heartily.
Amidst the laughter, the citizens and artisans present felt even heavier, and some even began to despairingly question, "Holy Lord, must you treat us this way?"
"The Holy Lord will not stand on their side. Only when you give up on yourselves will the Holy Lord abandon you," Martin shouted at the questioner.
Seeing the wavering morale, Martin gritted his teeth, stood on a box on the ground, and shouted, "Cheer up, fellow believers! Even without aid, shall we not resist? Our home is behind us, where else can we retreat? We will not retreat a single step!"
Under Martin's shouts, the militiamen finally stood their ground and stopped wavering as before.
Armand calmly directed the Nature Priests to load their muskets, once again aiming their muzzles at the knights in front of the gate.
The old knight looked at the scene at the city gate and then at the rapidly approaching Holy Musket Cavalry, and quickly made a decision: "Kriegs, you take forty squire knights to stay behind and don't let them close the city gate. The rest of you, follow me."
In the calculations of the old knight Mauritz, forty squire knights were enough to ensure that the city gate would not be closed.
The eighty or so properly equipped Extraordinary Knights and squire knights mixed together under his command would have no problem defeating the thirty-odd squire knights in front of them.
The sound of hooves thundered at the city gate, and more than eighty knights suddenly left the crowded and narrow area in front of the gate, and charged towards the Holy Musket Cavalry not far away.
The remaining forty squire knights dismounted and began to shoot with bows, using the Kushites' innate archery skills to accurately snipe at the militiamen who were trying to close the gate.
As for the knights led by Mauritz, they sat upright on their horses, clamping the ends of their lances under their armpits, leveling their lances at the charging Holy Musket Cavalry.
In cavalry charge duels, the Kushite knights rarely used bows and arrows, because both sides were riding on horseback and charging fiercely.
It was unlikely that even one arrow out of ten would hit such a fast-moving target, and even if it did, it was estimated that it would not cause much damage.
More than eighty knights straightened their backs, yellow, red, and blue woolen trousers showing from the gaps in their armor, and huge feathers the length of a forearm fluttered in the wind.
The forged iron spearheads howled through the air, and the solid lances, which needed to be held with one hand, were more than five meters long, and only these knights with extraordinary power could wield them.
From the sky, the Kushite knights looked like a black river rushing through the fields, opening their mouths and revealing the fangs composed of lances, charging towards the neatly arranged three squads of twelve Holy Musket Cavalrymen.
"Skirmish gait to running! Prepare to fire Holy Wind!"
Jeanne's cold roar sounded, and although it was a girl's voice, the beast-like Holy Musket Cavalrymen obediently slowed down.
Unlike fighting infantry, musket cavalry would not issue commands to decide when to release Holy Wind.
Compared to cavalry warfare, which placed more emphasis on individual bravery, the timing of firing was controlled by the individual.
However, most Holy Musket Cavalrymen would still strictly follow the manual and fire at a distance of about twenty to ten steps.
This distance was precisely the distance at which one could see the other's face clearly.
"Bang! Bang bang bang!"
The chaotic gunshots rang out one after another.
An Extraordinary Knight who was charging felt a pain in his waist and abdomen, and warm blood mixed with internal organs gurgled out from the broken armor.
The 30g lead bullet easily broke through his plate armor, tore through his body, and left behind a shocking bloody hole.
Because cavalry combat was more dangerous than infantry combat (closer engagement, faster frequency), and it was almost impossible to reload the Holy Musket on horseback.
Therefore, each Holy Musket Cavalryman carried two muskets, pre-loaded, and then wound the spring and fired before the battle.
This meant that the Holy Musket Cavalrymen could fire at most two shots on the battlefield, so the Holy Power corresponding to the infantry musket had a surplus.
In order to maximize the power, under Haimertin's design, the content of the brass spring in the cavalry spring musket was more than twice that of ordinary infantry muskets.
This meant that both the cavalry and infantry brass springs were twisted ten times, but the muzzle velocity of the cavalry musket lead bullet was seven or eight percent higher than that of ordinary Holy Muskets.
At a distance of ten meters, even four millimeters of plate armor would be easily broken through.
Amidst the continuous gunshots and sparks from the gears turning, the blood of the previously rapidly galloping Extraordinary Knights and warhorses splattered, and organs and flesh stained the grass on the ground dark red.
The warhorses whose bodies were torn apart by lead bullets could no longer control their direction, and collided with other knights, horsehair, flesh and armor squeezing and tearing each other.
Knights fell to the ground one after another, and these fallen knights stumbled and stood up in the blood, pushing away the heavy warhorse corpses on their bodies.
The remaining knights desperately tightened their reins, as if they were waves crashing on a reef, bypassing the friendly troops on the ground and continuing to charge towards Jeanne.
These devilish things only killed seven or eight knights. Although the speed was reduced, as long as they got close, these cavalrymen were still no match for them.
"In the name of the Holy Father! Grant me lightning!" Jeanne's voice was still a girl's delicate shout, but it sounded like thunder in the ears of the Extraordinary Knights.
There was indeed thunder, and the dazzling white light made the leading cavalrymen squint.
Lightning snakes cut through the air, bypassed their bodies, and instead crashed into the warhorses under them.
The smell of rotten eggs and the aroma of charred horse meat wafted in the wind, and the limbs of the five warhorses that had been leaping nimbly suddenly stiffened.
The huge weight carried on the stiff horse's legs was transformed into an impact force on the joints of the legs the moment the hooves touched the ground.
Bones pierced through the flesh of the forelimbs, and the heads of the warhorses, with their black and pink tongues sticking out, drooped heavily to the ground.
The five most heroic knights in the front row even squinted, and inexplicably slid down the horse's neck like a slide and sat on the grass.
The five knights stumbled and tried to stand up, and when they looked up, they saw an iron gauntlet under the arm armor holding a gleaming hammer-mace and smashing down.
This kind of hammer-mace was a newly made six-sided page hammer, with a forged iron long thorn in front of the hammer head, which could inflict blunt damage through hammering and break armor through long thorns.
The heavy hammer-mace struck the helmets of the fallen knights, and the rapidly moving warhorse provided unparalleled impact force for the hammer-mace.
The moment Jeanne swung, the faces of the knights who were hit in the head were completely dented, and even under the huge impact force, they flew more than a meter away before rolling to the ground.
Under the leadership of the Holy Grail battle flag, three squads of Holy Musket Cavalrymen penetrated into the loose knights.