Yang Fan walked into the first warehouse below the deck - the artillery warehouse.
This level is about two meters above the water, and the gun window is about three and a half meters above the water. Level 5 sea conditions have wave heights of 2.5-4 meters, which is barely usable. This is actually very good.
Yang Fan focused on the artillery, and Fu Laoliu quickly stepped forward to introduce it to Yang Fan. He is now Director of Artillery. All artillery was under his control, whether it was army artillery or naval artillery.
"Sir, each of these artillery pieces weighs 5 tons and is made of steel. The caliber is 203. There are three types of projectiles. The spherical solid projectiles are made of cast steel and weigh 50 pounds. They can penetrate oak armor behind 1.2 meters at a distance of 300 meters. It can penetrate 0.6 meter thick project armor at a distance of 500 meters. The maximum range can reach 2,000 meters."
Yang Fan nodded with satisfaction, this power was enough. Even in the 18th century, the thickness of the sides of top battleships above the waterline was only 60 centimeters, and some key parts were as thick as one meter.
Fu Laoliu continued: "The second type is a pointed cylindrical explosive bomb. It uses a cast steel body. The bomb weighs 30 kilograms and is filled with 10 kilograms of chemical fertilizer explosives. It uses a mercury-fulminate impact fuse. Before launching, twist the fuse. On the projectile body, they are usually stored separately. The number of this kind of shells is relatively small, and they are still being tested."
Yang Fan asked: "Does the mercury mercury fuse have a high fire rate and how reliable it is?"
This kind of pointed bullet is not like a spherical solid bullet. If it hits a flexible wooden board, it may penetrate it at close range. However, in many cases, it will bounce away or crack the board due to factors such as distance and angle.
But this will not happen with pointed cylindrical explosive bombs. Because the tip has strong penetrating power, it will directly penetrate the thick oak plank of the ship's side and explode inside the ship. Even if it is stuck inside the ship's side, the delayed explosion of explosives will be enough to tear the warship apart. Make a huge hole.
"The current land experiment has good results, and the fire rate can reach 90%. However, it is hard to say in the high salt spray environment at sea. We are not sure whether the fuze will malfunction during long-term storage. This requires step-by-step experiments." Mr. Fu Six tell the truth.
There is no way around this. The high salt spray at sea corrodes metal very badly.
The washbasins used on the ship are all made of copper. Every time the porthole is opened and the gun is used, it must be maintained on the same day, mainly scrubbing it with fresh water, then drying it and applying oil and oil seal.
"Well, then let's continue the experiment and strive to do it as soon as possible to ensure that it can have a 90% fire rate even if it is stored on the ship for a long time."
Yang Fan looked at these dark steel cannons carefully. I like it very much. These cannons are very beautifully made, with inscriptions engraved on them and metal plates with instructions for use and maintenance.
The artillery mount is equipped with small wheels that slide on slide rails. This is a simple rear seat device. Use the old large springs sent from modern times to make the return mechanism.
When the gun is fired, the spring is compressed and contracted when the gun recoils. After reaching the maximum recoil stroke, the spring rebounds and is pushed by the spring to reset the gun.
These springs were originally shock-absorbing springs used on train carriages. The strength of a dozen springs was enough to complete the reset of the artillery.
This greatly simplifies the complex pulley and rope mechanism used to pull the gun back on the gun emplacement.
"What type of ammunition is the last type of artillery shell?" Yang Fan asked.
"It's an explosive incendiary bomb filled with chemical fertilizers, explosives, aluminum powder, and sugar. We tried to use white phosphorus, but it was difficult to preserve and would spontaneously ignite at slightly higher temperatures. So we didn't use it."
"These two kinds of artillery shells are slowly improving, so don't worry. This kind of artillery shells are actually more suitable for the next generation of breech-loaded rifled guns. The powerful solid spherical bullets for front-loaded guns are enough," Yang Fan said.
There were not many guns in the gun warehouse, only 10 on each side. There are 20 artillery pieces in total. All are heavy artillery pieces of this kind. Yang Fan believed that light and medium artillery were meaningless. To deal with small boats and arson boats, it is better to use the 30 gatling gun.
The outside of the deck is surrounded by barbed wire, and a hand-operated heavy-duty Gatling gun is installed on the commanding heights. You can just jump to the gang and sleep. It was impossible to jump over, either being blocked by the barbed wire or getting hung up. Then he was beaten to pieces by the heavy-duty Gatling.
Yang Fan thought for a while and said: "The bow and stern of the ship
, equipped with two light, conscience-less cannons with rotating mechanisms for ejecting incendiary bombs at close range. "
The distance of artillery battles in this era was generally not too far. Because the accuracy is too poor. At a distance of one hundred meters, the cannonball can deflect twenty or thirty meters. It can definitely hit an enemy ship at a distance of 100 meters, but it will be useless if it hits there. Therefore, the common artillery battle distance in this era is about fifty meters, even a hundred meters is considered far.
Because the artillery and shells themselves have flaws in their design and quality. Cannonballs are spherical, with the center of gravity ideally at the center of the ball. First of all, with the technology of this era, it is impossible to process absolutely round cannonballs, and it is also difficult to control the center of gravity of solid metal to be at the center of the ball.
As a result, the cannonball was very randomly affected by air resistance during flight, and rolled randomly in all directions, causing the cannonball's flight trajectory to be very irregular.
For muzzle-loading guns, in order to smoothly load the shells from the muzzle, the inner diameter of the gun barrel has to be slightly larger than the shell, causing so-called "play". As a result, the gunpowder gas behind the shell continuously leaks out when it is fired, impacting the shell and randomly in the barrel. roll.
The barrel is cast using an inner and outer mold. The cast barrel is not necessarily straight. Due to the technological level of this era, the barrel is not smooth and precise. In this way, the cannonball rolls more irregularly in the barrel, and it is impossible to predict which direction it will fly when it comes out of the barrel.
The most important thing is the movement of the boat in the waves in six directions. Especially under high sea conditions, the undulations and swings of the artillery gun are very large. When aiming, light the fuse. When the gun is fired, the muzzle may have moved, and I don't know where the shot went.
Use a red-hot poker to pull it out of the fire, push it directly into the fire door, and you can start the fire immediately. Although this is more effective, using an open flame in a gun warehouse full of gunpowder is also an act of seeking death.
Yang Fan's cannonballs are better because the boring machine improves the accuracy of the barrel, and the inner bore of his barrel is straight. The milling machine cuts the surface of the spherical solid bullet into a round and smooth shape. The artillery has a trigger firing device because it has a mercury flash cap. You can install the flash cap on the fire door, and then use the pull cord to control the trigger and hammer.
Aim, pull the rope immediately, and you can fire immediately. These devices gave Yang Fan's heavy artillery an advantage in naval battles. At the same time, his spring return device also increases the rate of fire.
Yang Fan's explosive bombs also have advantages, because the black powder propellant chamber pressure of this era is low, so the body of the explosive bomb does not need to be too thick. You can load more explosives. Because the combat distance is close, a large muzzle velocity is not required, so the charge is small and the chamber pressure is also reduced.
