"The first meeting of the artillery production leadership group begins now!"
In the simple but spacious office of the machinery factory, a blackboard was erected, and weapons enthusiasts led by the mechanical team leader Zhan Wuya gathered together. [No pop-up novel website] The atmosphere was extremely lively, and everyone was hotly discussing which type of artillery should be equipped.
"Now, let me introduce the participants first." Zhan Wuya introduced everyone who participated in the meeting. Not to mention the main backbone of the mechanical team, such as Wang Luobin, Jiang Ye, Xiao Bailang, etc., there were also some People who don't know much about mechanics but are weapons enthusiasts include Zhang Bolin who talks about "cannons, more cannons" and calls himself "artillery general" many times, Wang Ruixiang who likes to wield axes, and people who serve as Li Yunxing, who has experience in mechanical crossbow structural design and on-site construction guidance, Bai Yu, who majors in weapons design and engineering design, and armored force command... and finally Lin Shenhe, who has a lot of practical experience.
The purpose of this meeting is not to arrange production, but to determine the technical route, so it should be called "Technical Route Seminar".
"Let's not consider whether it is better to build a 12-pound mountain grenade or a 92-pound infantry gun. Let's discuss it from a practical perspective and manufacturing level." Zhan Wuya set the tone of the discussion.
In terms of the mechanical processing capabilities possessed by the time travellers, the processing level is superior to every civilization in the world. Now that steel has been refined again, there is no big technical problem in manufacturing a simple steel rifled breech-loading gun. Of course, there is a bottleneck in the spring that is difficult to solve when it comes to withdrawing the cannon, but there is no problem in setting up the cannon.
Even the level of industry in the mid-19th century was sufficient to build a 15-inch cannon that didn't even require steel, and many caliber coastal guns were cast iron. The time traveler does not have an armored cruiser to fight against, so there is no need to build such a perverted monster.
What are the needs of travelers? According to the recommendations of the staff group, the main purpose is to equip naval ships and forts with artillery.
"Of course it's a rifled breech-loaded gun! It has so many advantages." Li Yunxing was the first to say.
According to ordinary people's thinking, the farther the range of artillery is, the better. A problem arises here. The range of modern artillery is getting farther and farther, and it is based on modern sighting and fire control systems. The time-travelers were unable to achieve it at the industrial level of the late 19th century. Even if it can be realized with equipment pulled from the time and space of the 21st century, it will be temporary.
A 24-pound muzzleloader gun has an effective range of no more than 900 meters. If such a gun is installed on a battleship, the effective range will be reduced by at least half due to stability. The British Royal Navy's shooting instructions in the 18th and 19th centuries clearly stipulated that the maximum shooting distance of the 24-pound long gun was 4oo yards. Compared with the more 32-pound large-caliber short guns on battleships, its effective range is already large enough. In actual combat, the distance between warships of both sides when they bombard each other is often within 100 meters.
The artillery of the 17th century would definitely not exceed this level. The purpose of the time traveler's naval breech-mounted rifled gun is not high power and long range, but focus on shooting and weight reduction. Even if the firing range is increased due to the rifling, it should still be controlled within 2,000 meters. Beyond this range, it may still be of some value on the ground, but hitting moving point targets on the sea becomes meaningless based on the traverser's fire control level. The excessive range is completely a waste.
Since the range requirements are not high, the barrel of the artillery can be shortened to save its weight and manufacturing costs.
Another advantage of using a breech-loading rifled gun is that the rifled gun uses pointed bullets instead of round bullets. Pointed bullets are not only more stable in flying in the air than round bullets, but also have a shape relationship - they are elongated, can be spread backwards, and the weight can be adjusted for the same caliber. For pointed bullets and round bullets of the same weight, the caliber of the former is only about 70% of the latter. If we look at cross-section machines, it's only 49%. This means that if the two muzzles have the same initial shape, then the impact kinetic energy of the pointed bullet is concentrated on half of the cross-sectional area, and the unit energy density is twice that of the round bullet. Considering the low resistance of the pointed cone projectile, the armor-piercing power of the pointed projectile is more than three times that of the round projectile for the same weight.
This means that the effective range of a 12-pound pointed bullet (caliber about 7omm) for a breech-loaded rifled gun will be much higher than that of a 12-pound round bullet using the same propellant and charge. The power is equivalent to a 24-pound round bullet heavy artillery!
The 7omm breech-mounted rifled gun has a magnification of 16 to 18. It is a very small gun in the past and modern times. It weighs only about 4oo to 5oo kilograms and can be mounted on a 3oo ton sailboat. The device can also be installed on a 15o-ton boat. This means that this medium-sized sailing ship equipped with a 70mm breech-mounted gun is completely comparable to the first-class battleships of the British Navy during the heyday of sailing battleships.
Considering that its firing rate is much greater than that of the 24-pound front-loaded cannon, coupled with its advantage in effective range, the result is that the large sailing battleship is not only helpless against it, but is also likely to be raped and defeated by the Japanese.
In other words, in the early 17th century, it was enough to produce such a small breech-loading gun. It already had an overwhelming advantage against any naval pirates at that time.
"Then we can just imitate the 92 infantry gun?" After listening to the explanation of the benefits of the rifled breech-loading gun, someone said, "The 92 infantry gun has a 75mm caliber and a maximum range of 28oo meters, which is exactly in line with the performance mentioned above. And the 92 The weight of the cannon is only 210 kilograms, which is less than the estimated 500 kilograms."
"The problem with the 92 Infantry Cannon is that the magnification is too small, only 6, which results in a small first pass. As a naval gun, the straighter the ballistic trajectory is, the better. The 92 Infantry Cannon is very good for the military."
Wang Luobin suggested that this kind of naval gun could adopt the structure of an armstrong gun, which is a relatively mature and reliable breech-loaded gun with a relatively simple craftsmanship. Compared with various previous breech-loading guns and front-loading rifled guns, the unique feature is the introduction of threaded breech blocks and obturators for the breech-loading guns. The armstronggun with the breech removed is very close to a muzzleloader gun with the breech opened. The casting process of the body tube is also similar.
The disadvantage of armstrong is that it adopts an early type of locking design, which has a very complex structure, low stability and high failure rate. Naturally, the time traveler will not blindly imitate it. He can use threaded gun bolts. The technical level is not too high. Basically, if you can make screws, you should be able to make it.
"To put it simply," Xiao Bailang poured a basin of cold water down, "Who knows how to make a cannon? I think everyone has only read a few books, right? Needless to say, the 92 infantry cannon is all ready-made and seamless. No matter how good it is, where can I find such a thick seamless pipe now?”
"Of course the main focus is on casting cannons. After all, there are no large forging machines. If you want to use deep drilling, you have to make special equipment." Lin Shenhe said, "I have cast cannons in the United States, but they were all smoothbore cannons. "
Bai Yu said: "Actually, what I'm worried about is not whether the cannon can be built, but the issue of ammunition. I agree with all the previous explanations of the benefits of the breech-loading cannon. But one thing seems not to be made clear - the shells of the breech-loading cannon , this is much more difficult to make than the breech-loading gun itself. It's just a solid armor-piercing projectile. How to make it if it is a grenade or a shrapnel? How to solve the problem of using metal extension process to manufacture the pointed projectile body? There is also the fuse of the projectile. They are all problems.”
Jiang Ye said: "There is no problem in manufacturing the artillery shell body. Our equipment can make it."
"It's just that it can be made, but it doesn't mean that it can be manufactured in batches. A bullet production line has more than 30 pieces of special equipment, and artillery shells require more. The industrial capacity obviously cannot support such a production line."
"That's right," Zhan Wuya admitted, "and the materials may not necessarily pass the test." Whether the projectile is cold-drawn or hot-drawn, it requires special round bar material and special manufacturing equipment. It’s not that the industrial sector can’t do it, but it requires an entire industrial system to support it, otherwise the cost will be unimaginably high.
"No, the old-fashioned pointed bullets are not so complicated," Lin Shenhe said. "The early breech-loaded projectiles were made of cast iron, coated with lead on the outside, and used a simple impact fuse. The bullets were filled with black explosives and used black powder bags. As a propellant, it does not have a cartridge or a primer. When shooting, it is also ignited with an igniter. Most of the artillery shells produced before 189o fall into this category. This kind of artillery shell cannot be used in the 92 infantry gun and is used in the armstrong gun. No problem at all."
The reason why rifled gun shells need to be coated with lead is to embed the shell body into the rifling. Cast iron or steel that is too hard will seriously wear the rifling. So even modern artillery shells are made of steel bodies (the diameter is smaller than the inner diameter of the rifling) and copper belts (the diameter is slightly larger and can be embedded in the rifling).
Wang Luobin said: "But there are some problems with lead coating. I remember that the armstrong gun was decommissioned after a short period of equipment. One of the reasons why the British Empire went back to the route of front-loaded rifled guns was that when the armstrong gun fired, due to the hot-dip lead and iron The adhesion between them is not good, and the torn off lead fragments will be scattered in a short distance in front of the muzzle, causing damage to our own soldiers."
"I don't think this is a particularly serious problem," Lin Shenhe said. "I think people in the mechanical department can figure out a way to solve it."
"In addition, I personally think that smoothbore cannons can also be built." Lin Shenhe said.
The smoothbore cannon has a simple process and does not require much material. If steel is not enough, cast iron can be used directly. The casting techniques of early breech-loading rifled guns and smoothbore guns such as the Armstrong gun were almost the same. Except for Lin Shenhe, no one has experience in cannon casting. It is a good choice to practice with a relatively simple smoothbore cannon and become familiar with the cannon casting process.
"I suggest that the commercial department include smoothbore cannons in the export catalog. The Portuguese have now become the arms dealers of the Ming Dynasty, and they cannot let them earn this money!"
Note: The comments about the casting of rifled cannons in the 17th century in this chapter are all from sanjysan on the sb forum. The description of armstrong cannons is provided by Wang Luobin himself.
