The cost of building these two boats is frighteningly high. All good stuff used. The copper contained in the Ming Dynasty could be used to mint money. Yang Fan used it to stick to the bottom of the ship. The one centimeter thick plate was almost equivalent to adding a layer of armor to the ship. More difficult to sink.
The hull near the waterline, where waves often hit, and below the waterline are covered with copper plates, and the sides above the waterline are riveted with one-centimeter-thick steel plates to the outside of the load-carrying planks to protect the gun bays.
These two ships were originally made of steel components with keels and steel ribs. According to shipbuilding terms, it should be regarded as an iron-ribbed wooden hull ship. The structural strength of ships far exceeds that of wooden keels and ribs. Now the sides are armored with one centimeter steel plates, which basically makes them immune to the artillery of this era.
The hardness of these carburized steel plates is very high. In this era, only Yang Fan can produce them in the whole world. This will definitely crush all sailing warships.
As the chief engineer, Chen Liang introduced every part of the ship to Yang Fan in detail.
"Sir, you see, we have changed all the sharp corners on the deck into rounded corners to prevent people from falling and getting injured in heavy waves. Also, you see, this deck is made of Burmese teak flooring. It is made of heavy-duty technology and is very strong. It is durable and does not need to be replaced for thirty years.”
Yang Fan walked and looked all the way. This boat also cost him a lot of effort and energy. Even during the decisive battle with the Haraqin people on the grassland, he stayed up late at night to approve reports from the shipyard. Give your opinion on every design and configuration.
He also communicated with everyone in the Guns and Roses friend group. There are many fans of sailing battleships in this group. Their opinions and suggestions are very insightful. After all, it is the rise and fall of success and failure that will be summarized by future generations hundreds of years later. You can avoid many detours.
Xiao Niangpi was in charge of the executive affairs and often complained to him that the shipyard was a bottomless pit.
Because almost all the equipment is newly developed. For almost every component and equipment, a new workshop needs to be built, and then equipped with workers and engineers.
This is not simply building two ships, but building a complete new shipbuilding industry system.
Yang Fan patiently convinced her that these things were mainly time-consuming and laborious in research and development. As long as they were developed, they would reap technological dividends for decades.
These workshops and specialized production workshops will not only be able to provide spare parts for warships in the future, but also produce components for civilian ships, because the technologies are all connected. Although we invested a lot in the early stage, we can make it back sooner or later, and we can still make profits in the long term.
Therefore, we should look at it from a development perspective and treat it as a long-term investment.
Every time at the end of the month, Xiao Niangpi used what she learned from Yang Fan to prepare a balance sheet, and she would sigh because the liabilities side was too ugly.
Yang Fan stood on the deck and carefully looked at the details of every piece of equipment.
The biggest difference between these two boats and the previous clipper boats is that there is a huge black smoke tube in the middle of the boat.
Because this ship is equipped with marine steam engines, gearboxes, drive shafts, propellers and other equipment. This is a hybrid boat. Usually the sail is used as power. When there is no wind, or when fighting, the steam engine is used as power.
Over there in the morning light, three types of reciprocating steam engine prototypes were produced, including small steam engines for automobiles, which were mainly lightweight. Steam locomotive train steam engine. There is also a marine steam engine.
Three prototypes of marine steam engines were built, one was left at the Power Research Institute for testing, and the other two were installed on the two ships, both of which were large machines with a power of 1,000 horsepower.
These steam engines are the brainchild of more than 500 people at the Power Research Institute over the past two years. They have solved problems with hundreds of parts and are now being tested on ships. Marine steam engines can only be tested on ships.
These steam engines can burn both coal and heavy oil. Yang Fan specially approved ten tons of fuel oil for this trial voyage.
Under the leadership of Ming Yan, Yang Fan came to the cabin.
None of Yang Fan's clipper ships have a particularly high freeboard. Because they are too high, the windward resistance is large, which affects the high-speed sailing of the clipper ship. It is also unsafe in high sea conditions and strong winds. The high center of gravity can easily capsize the ship.
The deck of Yang Fan's ship is downward, with only the gun deck, living deck and bottom warehouse.
Only one gun deck was laid out. Because the artillery used by Yang Fan
Very big. It’s very powerful and doesn’t require so many quantities. As long as it is powerful and destructive, there is no need to use so many cannons.
In addition to the power plant, another major improvement to this ship is the artillery.
Yang Fan decided not to follow the old European path. The sail battleship they built had three or four layers of artillery decks because of insufficient artillery power.
As a result, the maneuverability of the ship was very poor. The boat is fat and thick, has full speed and poor agility.
Too high freeboard is also not conducive to safe navigation in strong winds and high sea conditions.
In the 18th century, European sailing battleships reached their peak development and were divided into six levels according to the number of guns.
Top-level battleships generally have a displacement of about 5,000 tons. The length is less than seventy meters, and the width is about fifteen meters.
For example, Spain's top battleship Santa Trinidad is 61.3 meters long, 16.2 meters wide, with a draft of 8.02 meters, a crew of 1,050, and a displacement of 4,950 tons. Carrying 136 guns,
At this time, Europe was still developing large galleys in the 17th century, and in 1670, Britain and France still used galleys to fight.
During this century sailing ships and galleys were used in parallel. Yang Fan's ship technology is already far ahead.
Europe's top battleship of the 18th century, equipped with 32-, 36-, and 42-pound heavy guns on the bottom deck. 18- and 24-pound guns are arranged on the middle deck. A 12-pounder gun was installed on the upper deck. Six-pounder light guns were placed on the fore and aft quarter decks. Used to deal with sneak attacks on small boats.
Because the armored planks on the sides are very thick, battleships rarely sink their opponents until the end of the battle. They all destroy the opponent's vitality, resulting in the inability to fight anymore and surrender. Or finally join a gang to fight in melee and capture them through occupation.
The reason for this is that the power of the artillery is too small, so the artillery needs to be densely arranged on the sides, with three or even four layers of artillery decks. It is also necessary to use numerous battleships to form a line (battle line) to attack the passing enemy fleets one after another.
Since power is not enough, let's make up for it with quantity.
Same as the Army tactic of lining up to shoot. Since the accuracy of muskets is not good, let's rely on dense formations and close-range shooting with the opponent.
A solid shot put is not powerful enough to hit 0.6-meter-thick oak wood.
There is no way around this. This will be the case in this era and even for more than two hundred years in the future. Ships and artillery are developing slowly without any qualitative breakthrough.
But Yang Fan had a better steel muzzle-loading cannon, explosive bombs filled with chemical fertilizer explosives, and fuses and primers made of mercury fulminate.
With such good conditions, there was no need to resort to their tactics. Yang Fan should cast or forge large-caliber heavy artillery.
After entering the gun warehouse, Yang Fan saw the huge cast steel artillery.
