290. Artillery ranging

Chapter 290 – Artillery Ranging
“What? Suspend the mapping operations and have us return to Lakeheart Town?”

The students were dumbfounded, the news came too suddenly.

Joss helplessly spread his hands to them, “It’s an order from above, we just received it as well.”

In his heart, he secretly complained, why did I have to be the one to deliver this unflattering news.

“Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we will be heading for the start to the south to engage the enemy, leaving only the necessary garrison here, and we may not be able to take care of guaranteeing your safety.”

The lead student was the first to respond, whispering, “Mr. Joss …… perhaps we can ……”

Before the words were finished, Jos shook his head like a rattle drum: “I’m just a private, I can’t decide anything, if you have any ideas you can go to the two adults, Bryce or Joyce, only they can decide whether you stay or go.”

The lead student nodded, “Thank you for the reminder, we’ll discuss it on our end first ……”

Joyce said goodnight and left the room, leaving the students who were discussing things in low voices.

“We can’t just leave, the mapping is only a fraction of the way done.”

“If we go back so gray, our group will be at the bottom of the list.”

“What bad luck, drawing lots for such a place.”

“Let’s go discuss this with Lord Blass and Lord Joyce tomorrow.”

……

Early in the morning of the next day, Blaise and Joyce were discussing the matter of going south, originally scheduled to leave today, but then realized that there were still a lot of unplanned preparations that needed to be made.

A guard standing outside came to report that a student from the Ves Academy had requested to see them.

Blaise thought for a moment, “Those students? Let them in”, the Earl still valued these students.

“What? No way!”

The students came in and made a request that surprised Bryce – they actually wanted to stay here to finish their mapping assignments.

“Lakewood has repeatedly asked us to keep you safe, and I can’t have you wandering around without guards.”

The leading student-the leader of their group-whose name was Nick, had an anxious look on his face as he begged once again, “Lord Bryce, thank you for your concern for our safety, but mapping is a very important work, it won’t do to give up halfway. Alda is developing its mining industry, and maps are indispensable for mineral exploration. Maps can also provide convenience for merchants to travel around the world and promote the development of commerce. Maps are also very important to your army, with accurate maps, it will be much more convenient for you to organize your troops and make battle plans. The lord’s house attaches great importance to this matter, otherwise it wouldn’t have sent us students who haven’t finished our studies out.”

Bryce only shook his head, “Even if you guys have ten thousand reasons, I can’t let you guys run around.”

The two sides were at a stalemate for a while, but no one could convince anyone.

A student suddenly suggested, “Since we can’t be left alone in the rear, let’s follow you to the south as well! The geography there will have to be mapped sooner or later anyway.”

“Hey? That’s a good idea! Please let us follow you guys!”

Nick favored this idea of his classmate, and the other students nodded their heads.

“Still fooling around! We’re going to war, though? You guys think you’re going on a cruise?”

Bryce frowned as he continued to object, although he had one hundred percent confidence in his troops and was feinting, the battlefield was ever-changing and he couldn’t guarantee that one man or two wouldn’t make a mess.

Seeing that he couldn’t convince Bryce, Nick tapped his head and came up with a great idea.

“Lord Bryce, how about this? If you take us there, we’ll teach the artillerymen under your command a simple method of ranging, standing at the gun position without having to move can accurately …… uh…… be a relatively precise measurement of the distance to the target.”

“Oh?” Bryce and Joyce’s ears perked up at the same time, Nick’s suggestion hitting a sore spot.

The artillery units of the Arda army relied on the naked eye to estimate the distance to the target when aiming, which required a high level of experience from the gunners. Some experienced gunners with a high degree of “artillery talent” could estimate the distance with a single glance, fire a test shot, and then slightly adjust the pitch angle or the amount of charge to fire the second shot steadily and securely. But such talent was rare, and most gunners – especially rookies – had to move the point of impact closer to the target, shot by shot.

If there really were a way to range relatively accurately while standing in a gun position, that would take the role of the artilleryman to the next level.

Nick smiled smugly as the two officers had their appetites whetted.

Bryce asked, “Tell me what the method is.”

Nick shook his head, “Then you have to promise us that you can follow the troops south.”

Bryce was a bit annoyed, asshole kid, his hair is not even long enough to dare to negotiate with me, like artillery ranging such an important skill, I directly deducted your lord lord has no words.

But think about his own hall of a lieutenant colonel and a bunch of half a big boy angry a little joke, so suppress the unhappy mood.

He looked to Joyce, not much older than these students, the third battalion commander’s eyes were filled with [agree].

“Ahem!” Bryce cleared his throat, “Alright, I agree that you guys go with the troops.”

“Is Lord Lieutenant Colonel telling the truth?”

Bryce blew his beard and glared, “Would I, the commander of the 1st Battalion, lie to you kids? On the contrary, you, first tell me how the ranging was done!”

“Yeah!”

A bunch of students cheered, their ranging assignment could continue.

Joyce, who was now serving as the battalion commander but was also young as Schroeder’s previous knight squire, was touched to see this group of students, who were a few years younger than him, cheering.

He fetched a pen and paper and placed it on the desktop, and said to Nick with a smile, “Congratulations, our Commander Bryce is not normally a good talker. But don’t be too busy celebrating, let’s give us some insight first, if I guess correctly, 80% of them are utilizing the so-called [Math] again, right?”

“Pah!” Nick snapped his fingers and nodded, “Indeed!”

He picked up the paper and drew on it, “This is the method we often use when mapping ……”

The crowd put their heads together, only to see that Nick had drawn a triangle on the paper, but this triangle was a bit special in that two of its sides intersected vertically, and one of those two sides was exceptionally long and one was exceptionally short.

The students recognized that it was called a right triangle.

“Suppose your artillery is deployed here!” Nick drew a circle at right angles.

Then he controlled the tip of the pen to move slowly from the right angle along the longer right angle side (the strand) to the smaller, acute angle, finally stopping at the tip of the corner, “This is the target of your bombardment.”

“This line segment,” Nick traced thickly the very long right-angled edge (strand line) that the tip of the pen passed over, “is the distance between the artillery and the target. “

“And this line segment,” Nick thickened the very short right-angled edge (the ticking line), “is a known fixed distance directly to the side of the gun, which for ease of calculation can be taken as an integer, such as one or two meters, and which can be referred to as the [baseline].”

“Now, just measure the size of this angle,” Nick circled the larger acute angle, “and combine it with this known fixed distance of one or two meters ……”

“Then you can measure the straight line distance between the gun and the target.”

He heaved a few strokes of the very long right-angled edge (the strand).

“That’s the line!”

(End of chapter)