As the head of the Ordnance Department, Wang Lai could get this kind of information out of his mouth, and he could speak it clearly without any special preparation:
"The armor used by our navy can be roughly divided into five generations.
“The first generation of armor was wrought iron armor, and the warships at that time were also collectively called ironclads.
“The second-generation armor is a composite armor made of steel on the outside and wrought iron on the inside.
“The third generation of armor adds nickel elements to steel to form tough alloy steel armor.
“The fourth-generation armor is based on the third-generation armor and uses surface carburizing hardening technology.
“During the manufacturing process, carbon is evenly infiltrated into the armor surface, increasing the carbon content of the armor steel surface layer, making the armor surface harder.
"At the same time, the carbon content of the inner layer of the armor remains unchanged, so it can maintain its original toughness, strengthen its defense capabilities while maintaining installation performance.
“The fifth-generation armor, based on the fourth-generation armor, adds additional chromium elements to form nickel-chromium alloy steel, which improves the performance of the armor again.
“At the same time, the carburizing treatment method has also been changed from carbon burial to carbon blowing, and the overall performance is even more superior.
"The surface-hardened armor that everyone usually talks about now usually refers to the fifth-generation armor, whose full name is 'nickel-chromium alloy steel armor using surface carburizing hardening treatment'.
“The current 160 mm thick fifth-generation armor has a defensive effect equivalent to 430 mm thick wrought iron armor.
“The most important thing is that the surface hardened layer of the armor can break the tip of traditional artillery shells, causing the shells to explode directly outside, or simply fail.
“At the beginning of the war, our fifth-generation armor had just been applied, and the armored cruisers built in the Daqin Sea all used 160 mm thick fifth-generation armor.
“After the war started, we discovered that even the 300mm main gun shells of the Xiyi battleship could not penetrate our armored cruiser.
"On the contrary, a large number of Western cruisers and a large number of medium-caliber naval guns can often smash the surface of our warships, and we have to run back to the port for repairs.
“So the battleships designed at that time could only be equipped with fifth-generation armor that was 240 mm thick at most, and there was no need for thicker armor because the enemy couldn’t penetrate it anyway.
"However, later on, we and Xiyi summarized their combat experience and each invented the 'capped armor-piercing bullet', which greatly reduced the armor advantage.
"The latest battleships now have armor that is 300 millimeters thick, otherwise it would be a bit dangerous to engage in close-range firefights."
Zhu Jingyuan listened to Wang Lai's introduction, and compared the relevant memories from his previous life, he had a rough judgment on the armor craftsmanship of the Ming Dynasty.
Ming Dynasty’s current fifth-generation armor steel is almost the standard armor of the dreadnought era.
The full name is that long string, commonly known as Krupp Steel.
Because the German company Krupp was the first to add chromium to nickel alloy steel and use the carbon blowing method, it is the owner of this phased patent.
After other countries purchased patents, they made different optimizations based on their respective situations.
These armor steels were used until the end of World War I.
The development of armor technology after World War I was mainly based on Krupp steel and continued to add molybdenum and copper elements.
Continue to improve strength, toughness, and corrosion resistance.
According to Ming Dynasty's current generational classification standards, these can be regarded as sixth-generation armor.
This armor was used until the end of World War II.
The last generation of battleships on Earth basically used this type of armor.
The development of armor technology after World War II gradually penetrated into trace element control and more advanced production processes.
The final product is the support structure and pressure hull of a nuclear submarine, as well as the flight deck of a modern aircraft carrier.
Zhu Jingyuan, a keyboard politician and amateur military fan, did not understand the specific production process of armor steel. He only knew the general direction and remembered a few main ingredients.
With the Ming Dynasty's current technological level, the new armor formulas that emerged after World War I should be ready for research and development.
There is no upper limit to the pursuit of naval armor performance. There is no limit even if the enemy's capital ship cannot penetrate the armor of one's own cruiser.
Better armor defense capabilities per unit thickness can further reduce armor thickness and weight while ensuring the original defense capabilities.
It allows secondary battleships to have better defense and allows capital ships to gain greater speed.
So Zhu Jingyuan nodded slightly, affirmed Wang Lai's introduction, and at the same time directly made his request:
“Now we can start trying new alloy formulas, which can be regarded as the exploration of the sixth generation armor.
"There should already be manganese in the current armor alloy materials, right?
“If not, add it in, the ratio is about three thousandths.
“Then try to add molybdenum, the ratio is about 6 parts per thousand.
“Finally there is copper, the ratio is about two thousandths.
“If the steel uses a silicon-containing deoxidizer, control the silicon content to about three thousandths.
"Anyway, let's see if there is any good effect."
Wang Lai and the remaining craftsmen from the Armor R&D Bureau carefully recorded Zhu Jingyuan's requirements and formulas, and prepared to have them tested immediately.
They were obviously looking forward to it very much.
Things in materials science are often a bit chaotic.
It is difficult to predict what kind of effect new ingredients will have when added to the original materials without direct physical experiments.
Most of the materials with excellent performance are not only produced through endless experiments and spending money, but also many are accidentally produced during experiments.
The exploration of new armor materials is theoretically the most important task of the Armor Bureau.
Routine exploration is also ongoing, and people in the materials department are testing various solutions all day long.
However, there has been little substantive progress in the past ten years or so, and we can only constantly optimize the process based on the original formula.
Zhu Jingyuan now specially mentioned several new material formulas, which are to add a few more items to the daily test list, which will not affect the daily work of the Armor R&D Bureau.
If the formula provided by Zhu Jingyuan shows obvious excellent performance, it would be an absolute surprise.
Then the subsequent research and development work will immediately move closer to the refinement of these formulas, and the priority of other things will be lowered.
Since Zhu Jingyuan participated in the affairs of the Ministry of Industry, the ideas he proposed often have very good results. The most typical representative is aircraft design.
If Zhu Jingyuan can still come up with very effective ideas in materials science that is full of chaos, it will be more surprising than other normal research.
Although they didn't know whether these materials would be effective, Wang Lai, the head of the Ship Department, and the craftsmen of the Armor R&D Bureau were still full of expectations.
Zhu Jingyuan's mentality was relatively calm, and he did not expect very good results immediately.
Because the formula most likely requires craftsmanship, I am not sure whether Daming's craftsmanship can achieve the functions of those formulas, so I don't say anything too harshly.
