"Tom Purdom-Dragon Drill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

the command to fire as the dragon passed over their platoons.
Hundreds of muskets cracked. The dragon screamed and veered away from the formation. It banked
like a big, awkward bird and settled to earth a few steps from the position it had just left.
 Von Wogenfer signaled to the cannon on his right. Both guns fired simultaneously. A long red line
appeared on the dragon's side, just in front of its right wing -- the mark of a cannon ball that had raked it
like an invisible file.
"It's hit!" Alsten blurted. "We can hurt it! It turned away from the musket fire, too. The musket balls
may not penetrate its armor but they must sting! If they can't kill it -- at least they can keep it away. It's
even possible they can herd it! If they could drive it... like cows..."
Von Wogenfer waved him to silence. The infantry who had dropped to one knee had already stood
up and completed their reloading drill.
The whole concept of attack from the air had given him the feeling he had stepped into a world in
which nothing he knew could help him. You could arrange your forces in solid ranks, with every
approach blocked by masses of disciplined infantry -- and your enemy could still descend on you, like
the sun or the rain, in spite of all your preparations.
Some of the men had looked puzzled when he had made them spend hours dropping to the ground
and firing into the air. Now they understood.
***


An infantry battalion was a maneuverable concentration of fire power. Its tactics were determined by
the limitations of its basic weapon -- the smoothbore, muzzle loading musket. There were soldiers in the
world who were trained to use rifled weapons, but they were specialists, and it took them a minute to
load and fire each shot. Prussian troops could load and fire three times a minute in the face of the enemy.
There was, however, no guarantee that any particular shot would actually hit something. Musket balls
could be loaded with such efficiency because they were a hair smaller than the musket barrel. They
jiggled ever so slightly as they were propelled toward the muzzle. Air resistance added other
inaccuracies. One hundred paces was considered an extreme range. If two battalions exchanged volleys
at fifty paces, most of the soldiers in both units would still be standing when the smoke cleared.
Soldiers fought in massed ranks partly because it was an efficient way to move them around the
battlefield and partly because it was their primary defense against cavalry. If you tried to oppose
horsemen with firearms, your initial volley would topple a few riders -- but the rest would smash into the
line while the infantry were still reloading. Only the bayonet could frustrate a charge. Horses halted as
soon as they found themselves faced with a hedge of bayonets. But it had to be a hedge -- an unbroken
line formed by men standing shoulder to shoulder, two and three ranks deep. If you cut even the smallest
hole in that line, if anyone wavered or ran, a few horsemen would slip through, swords would hack at the
line from the rear, more cavalry would pour through, the formation would disintegrate, and the
impregnable human wall would be transformed into a field of isolated foot soldiers futilely thrusting their
bayonets at mounted furies who rode at them from every direction.
The dragons of legend had faced craftsmen -- swordsmen and archers who spent their lives studying
the subtleties of their art. This creature was challenging the army of a modern, rationally organized
kingdom -- a monarchy in which ordinary, untalented louts could defeat the greatest heroes of antiquity
by performing simple, repetitive acts.
***


They had decided they would have to think of the animal as a kind of moving fortress. They would
have to batter it until something gave way. In the myths, Alsten had noted, it had usually been killed by
puncture weapons, such as lances There was even a legend that the elephant was its natural enemy. It
was reasonable to think, therefore, that it might avoid the bayonet. Cannon balls and musket balls might