It was not the case that the knights could charge from the beginning at their fastest speed, after all, horses were limited by their physical endurance, so they were only able to maintain their fastest speed for a short period of time. At a thousand or eight hundred meters they would begin to gradually increase their speed until they reached five hundred meters away from their mark, only when they came within two hundred meters would they would start galloping.
While in theory, the twelve-pound Napoleonic cannon had an effective range of up to 1,300 meters if it used solid shells. Maybe because it only had half the diameter than normal, Roland’s cannon only had an effective range of a thousand meters. As a result, the furthest distance his artillery group were allowed to open fire at was at eight hundred meters. At this distance, reaching the target area could be guaranteed, while at the same time the cannon balls would also bounce forward after hitting the ground. Resulting in line damage, with a high chance to kill multiple targets with a single shot.
In order to let the mercenary attack first, Duke Ryan had ordered his knight to step to the side – letting them wait in an absolutely safe area, meaning an area where bows and crossbows were unable to reach the knights, but this distance was still close enough for an effective knight charge to be launched. Knowing of the low efficiency of the mercenaries, the knights were always ready to pull the horse’s reins, waiting for any resistance in one place. However, like this, they became an almost fixed target, for the artillery group.
But the Duke certainly did not realise that by the time he ordered his troops to step aside , that they had already stepped onto Roland’s prepared battlefield. While the middle of the road might have been flat and spacious, both of its sides were crammed with leaves and with other vegetation. What seemed from afar to be just ordinary grass, was in truth actually thick vines covered by a knee-deep layer of weeds, it was like a road plastered with natural tripwire. If the cavalry wanted to start a flanking assault on the defensive line, they would only be able to move forwards with a very slow degree of progress. The thousand-meter distance was clearly marked on the ground, it may not have been visible for the people on the ground, but to Lighting flying in the sky, it was clearly visible. The battlefield was precisely divided into several segments, and every differently colored mark represented a different distance – the enemy was now just a ruler moving about on a chess board, which permitted the artillery group to shoot without having to calculate the barrel’s angle. They only had to go through the steps as they had implemented them during their training.
The cannon of Van’er’s group was the first to roar with fury.
A large amount of gas generated by the detonation of the gunpowder pushed the projectile outwards, and at the moment it flew out of the muzzle, it had already reached a speed of more than four hundred meters per second, so after two seconds, the shell had already almost reached the knights. Directly flowing through the group of knights and boring itself into the ground beside the road. Splashing soil and gravel into every direction and creating panic amongst the horses, one knight reacted a little too late and fell from his horse.
The following next two shells also missed their target and only created a lot of dust.
But the last group was able to get a lucky hit – originally there was no one in its flight path, but a knight who was unable to gain back the control over his frightened horse happened to pass right into it. In front of this huge amount of kinetic energy, his armor existed in name only. The cannonball simultaneously pierced through the thin iron and human flesh, and after it bounced off the ground, it then hit another knight, cutting off his calf. Furthermore, it ended up penetrating through the horse’s chest under the knight’s hip and spreading its internal organs all over the ground.
If the Knight were in their normal phase of attack, the artillery group would need to adjust the angle of their shot, but the sudden blow had apparently shocked the whole coalition of the Duke’s forces. They didn’t know what had hit them, how could they – the shell was too fast to be seen with the human eye. So the knights didn’t receive the command to attack, instead, they were still pacing back and forth in their original location, trying to appease their skittish mounts.