Even after aircraft carriers completely eliminated the status of battleships, big ships and huge guns are still sought after by countless people. This has to be said to be a quite interesting point.
If iron-blooded romance is too superficial, is there a deeper meaning and reason?
The answer is yes.
Because the life of the Longshuo's main gun has been exhausted, it will soon sail into the dock to undergo maintenance work to replace the inner barrel of the gun barrel.
So now, several engineers and technicians are setting up ladders to investigate the ablation and wear conditions inside the gun barrel.
"...That's right. Depending on the number of powder packets used each time it fires, more than 200 to 400 kilograms of propellant will explode in an instant, and a shell of more than 1,900 kilograms will be exploded by gunpowder. The gas is pushed out, rotates at high speed under the squeeze of the eighty-eight rifling lines, and flies out at a speed of more than 700 meters per second..."
When firing with a full charge, the inner wall of the gun bore bears an average of nearly three tons of pressure on an area of 2,900 kilograms per square centimeter and the size of a thumbnail.
The entire triple turret weighs 1,340 tons, but the hydraulic mechanism can drive it to rotate half a circle in one minute.
As the first battleship to apply a high-temperature and high-pressure steam turbine system, the boiler operating pressure can reach 30 kilograms per square centimeter, and the steam superheater can increase the steam temperature to 400 degrees.
Eight boilers and four steam turbines can output more than 130,000 horsepower, allowing the battleship with a standard displacement of 35,000 tons to reach a speed of nearly 30 knots.
The length of the optical rangefinder is more than eleven meters. It cooperates with the complex mechanical shooting calculation equipment and can control the nine giant cannons to accurately strike enemy ships dozens of miles away.
It can be said that the battleship is not only a symbol of naval warfare, but also a product of the combination of human beliefs, theories, technology, and organizational capabilities.
They are designed by the best talents and integrate the most advanced technology. They are the well-deserved crystallization of wisdom and practice and are truly important weapons of the country.
"...Compared to the Americans, we have much more freedom in the design of this kind of capital ship, at least not restricted."
"Huh? What do you say?"
Lin Xunzhen and Zhou Changfeng walked through the cabins and corridors. The former took a leisurely stroll as if taking a walk, while the latter was already confused by the extremely complicated internal "traffic."
How many cabins have you just passed through? Where did you turn? Why are every place so similar?
"The Panama Canal." Lin Xunzhen, with an expression like "You don't know this", explained slowly: "After all, it is excavated manually. The width and depth are limited, and the size of the locks is also there. One hundred and ten feet (33.53m). Therefore, the American battleship design must strictly follow the limit, and the side width must not exceed thirty-two meters."
"Oh, this, I thought it was something else."
This is essentially a matter of trade-offs. If the limit is exceeded, the battleships will not be able to travel between the Pacific and the Atlantic via the Panama Canal, and will have to go south and bypass the entire South America.
You can imagine what a waste of fuel and time that would be.
Maybe Americans with deep pockets don't care about the oil, but time for strategic deployment and deployment is priceless.
On the way to the bridge control tower, Lin Xunzhen introduced to Zhou Changfeng the special features of the Longshuo.
"This ship is more like a test subject of new technology, with new boilers and engines, new main guns, new mine protection armor, well...even the flue and chimney layout are new."
There is only one Longshuo-class battleship, and there is no construction plan for the second ship. Obviously, the Ming Navy is unwilling to spend more budget to build constrained treaty-type battleships in recent years, so they have applied the technologies that have made breakthroughs and progress in the past ten years. He boarded the Longshuo and used her as a technology verification platform.
In this way, as soon as the naval treaty expires, battleships with better overall performance can be built without restrictions.
The Longshuo is a ship with a long forecastle, a hyperbolic S-shaped bow, and a pointed stern.
Her power configuration is eight new high-temperature and high-pressure boilers, four steam turbines, and four-shaft propulsion. The normal maximum output power is 132,000 horsepower and the maximum speed is 29.4 knots; the power can reach 144,000 horsepower during overload operation.
The main gun is a Type 35 twelve-and-a-half-inch (400㎜) triple mount, with a diameter of 46 times. The armor-piercing projectile weighs 982kg, has a muzzle velocity of 770m/s, and has a horizontal and vertical penetration depth of 380mm at 15km and 200mm at 30km. It's not satisfactory and can pose a sufficient threat to the Colorado-class battleship.
Zhou Changfeng, who was in the command tower, felt like a child who had just gone to school, full of curiosity about everything.
The last time he was in Guangzhou, he had never entered the bridge. This time could be said to be the first time in his previous life.
"What is this? Such a big one." He asked, pointing to a steel object like a large freezer next to him.
Lin Xunzhen was looking through a copy of the artillery almanac. When he heard this, he casually replied: "Oh, that's the artillery calculator, and the one next to it is the shot calculator."
Every firing of the battleship's main gun must be recorded in a book, and that big book is called the gun almanac.
Bombardment calculator? It should be a mechanical computer, right?
To be honest, Zhou Changfeng feels that this purely mechanical computing device has a unique charm. Is this the so-called steampunk aesthetic?
Seeing that he was very interested in it, Lin Xunzhen gave a brief explanation.
"To establish a coordinate system on a plane and solve for the radial and tangential velocity components of the enemy ship relative to our ship, hand calculations must be very slow. It is very fast with this, the mechanical component solver and the differential calculation gear can be used in just a few clicks Out."
"Then, to calculate the elevation angle of the main gun and the flight time of the shell in the air, to solve this problem, we need to use a ball-and-plate integral calculator to calculate the integral."
"Okay, now that the flight time of the cannonball is obtained, it is time to calculate the azimuth change based on the measured speed and heading of the enemy ship. The tangential velocity divided by the distance is the angular velocity. Then calculate the integral to know the change of the enemy ship. position."
【Component Solver and Integral Calculator】
It can be said that mechanical computers are the pinnacle of human wisdom before the invention of electronic computers. These types of calculators were designed by outstanding teachers and students from the Department of Mathematics and Department of Mechanical Engineering of Sunchon Polytechnic University and Imperial Gezhi University.
The fire control system they constitute weighs several kilograms, and the manufacturing cost exceeds 90,000 yuan, which is equivalent to more than 10 million yuan in later generations.
Visiting such a maze-like steel fortress is undoubtedly very time-consuming, but Zhou Changfeng, who is full of interest, is full of energy.
Since he had something to do, Lin Xunzhen asked a captain to take Zhou Changfeng to continue shopping, and said that he would stay for dinner in the evening.
Oh? It is said that the navy is an aristocratic branch, and there are many nobles or descendants of powerful people on the main ships of the Ming Navy. The food must be luxurious, right?
Zhou Changfeng, who was obsessed with food, naturally agreed. He was very unhappy that he didn't even eat strawberries yesterday, so he wanted to have a big meal today.
Is it reasonable for us Chinese to pursue delicious food?
So Zhou Changfeng asked the captain openly: "By the way, how is the meal configuration on this ship?"
Apparently the latter misunderstood what he meant. He was stunned for a moment and replied: "There is an officer's kitchen and two soldier's kitchens. There are refrigerators, peelers, rice washers, and dishwashers... Oh, and there is also an ice cream machine." "
faint! I mean food!
I found gifs of the two-component solver and the integral calculator.
(End of chapter)
