Although the firepower of the Qingyang-class frigates could not satisfy the observation officers sent by the navy's top brass, it is undeniable.
This is not because the Qingyang-class frigates are weak, but because the navy's top brass are too ambitious, and they even want to replace part of the combat effectiveness of cruisers with frigates that were originally positioned for miscellaneous purposes.
Moreover, it is also land bombardment that requires extremely high caliber of naval guns.
When it comes to land artillery operations, caliber is justice and charge is truth!
The caliber is not small, the shell charge is too small, and other factors such as the rate of fire, range, and accuracy are pie in the sky.
The hit is fast, but the hit has no effect, so what's the use?
Otherwise, why doesn't the Da Chu Empire Navy use cheaper, faster-firing small-caliber naval guns to carry out land bombardment operations?
For example, a 75mm naval gun or even a smaller caliber 55mm naval gun has a faster rate of fire because the gun is smaller.
But these artillery are very useful against enemy ships, and they are okay for dealing with the living forces on the shore, but they are not enough to deal with the solid fortifications on land.
Don't think that the natives in the 17th century didn't know how to build fortifications. They also built castles and various defenses. For example, bastions were pretty good at defending against artillery.
In addition, the rise of the Chu Empire was not just a year or two, but more than thirty years ago. It has been in intensive exchanges with European colonists for more than twenty years. European countries have long known that the Chu army's grenades are powerful. More than ten or twenty years ago, the Portuguese and the Dutch knew how to dig trenches and build artillery defenses to resist the Chu army's grenades.
At the same time, these Europeans themselves gradually used relatively primitive grenades, that is, the early matchlock fuses, fired with ultra-short-barreled mortars, just like the Chu army during the Unification War.
After this kind of mortar began to appear and be equipped on a large scale in Europe, it also prompted European countries to start paying attention to anti-howitzer shelling in the construction of fortifications.
Over the past twenty years, the Europeans have made great progress in artillery defense fortifications... Although the defense fortifications are still not very good, some key defense areas, such as coastal defense forts and fortresses, and other strategic places, can resist small-caliber The grenade is still no problem.
If you want to knock down a fortress with one shot, or completely cripple a coastal defense fort with a few rounds of shelling, you still need large-caliber artillery.
This is also the reason why the Qingyang-class frigate performed poorly when bombarding the Tangier coastal defense fort... The reason is very simple. When launching grenades, the caliber is too small, the charge is insufficient, and the explosion power is insufficient, making it difficult to directly rely on the explosion shock wave. Destroy these fortifications.
When it comes to firing semi-armor-piercing projectiles, the Spaniards are not stupid. The fronts of these coastal defense forts are very thick. They are generally made of stone walls on the outside and soil on the inside. They have little effect on resisting solid ball shells. At the same time, The semi-armor-piercing used to resist the Chu army is actually quite effective. At least the small-caliber semi-armor-piercing cannot penetrate...
The most important thing is that even if it can barely penetrate, the small-caliber semi-armor-piercing weapon has a pitiful amount of explosives, and the explosion after being penetrated has little power.
After the frigate Shiquan used its 120mm 45x25 breech-loaded rifled gun to fire several rounds at the solid coastal defense fort, the observing officer was very dissatisfied...especially with the 150mm shells fired by the cruiser Qiongzhou next door. In comparison, the gap is too big.
How should I put it, the effect is not non-existent, in fact it is, and it is quite good. If you can't kill it with one shot, it's just a matter of firing a few more shots.
But this is still far from the expectations of the top brass of the Navy... The top brass of the Navy want the 120mm naval gun to take the lead, but this is such a good thing in this world.
Firepower is one point of firepower per millimeter caliber. If the caliber is smaller, the explosion power will not be as high.
After the observation, the Dachu Empire Navy simply stopped letting the Shiquan frigate bombard the shore defense forts, and instead focused on the port area, castle area and other areas.
Although the 120mm 25x breech-loading rifled gun on the Shiquan is adequate for firing turrets, and the same purpose can be achieved by firing a few more rounds, it is a waste of ammunition and barrel life.
Not to mention ammunition, the new artillery shells used in rifled guns are inherently expensive, and every bullet and every shell used in the fleet needs to be transported from the mainland nearly 30,000 kilometers away, and the freight is very expensive.
What's more important is that it takes too long, and the transportation time can easily be several months.
Ammunition replenishment is troublesome, which also forces the expedition fleet to use ammunition sparingly.
In addition, the barrel life of rifled cannons these days is not very good. The basic technology of the Chu Empire is actually just like that. Although it is possible to produce a triple-expansion steam engine and a rifled cannon at the rear, being able to do so does not mean that it is The technology is very complete.
Especially for breech-loading rifled guns, being able to make them and making them well are two different things.
The low-pressure field guns used by the Army are better. For example, the main 75mm breech-loading field gun currently in service can reach about 3,000 rounds.
However, the high-pressure naval guns used by the navy have very short barrel lifespan.
The main naval gun used by the navy on frigates is the 120mm L25 breech-mounted rifled naval gun of the 1934 type. The barrel life of this thing is actually only more than a thousand rounds.
The cruiser's main gun with a larger caliber, the 150L25 naval gun, has a pitiful barrel life of only more than 800 rounds.
What's even worse is that the 250L25 giant gun prepared for the new generation of 10,000-ton battleships, the Jinling-class battleships, has a barrel life of only more than 300 rounds.
This is because the industrial base capabilities are not enough, but the result of forcing high chamber pressure rifled artillery... to obtain greater chamber pressure at the expense of barrel life.
The chamber pressure represents the muzzle velocity of the shell, which means the maximum range and armor-piercing ability.
These are all important for naval guns.
On the contrary, the artillery used by the Army has lower performance requirements. Even if it seems to have the same caliber, in fact the chamber pressure of Army field cannons is lower than that of naval guns. In many cases, if the range is relatively short, the charge is even reduced. launch, further extending the life of the barrel.
To a certain extent, the 120mm or larger breech-loading rifled guns currently equipped by the Chu Army, which are the first generation of breech-loading rifled naval guns, are actually drug-addicted cannons... by sacrificing the life of the barrel. Get greater performance.
It’s just that someone within the Navy has already proposed that this idea seems to achieve better naval gun performance, but it also leads to higher subsequent use costs of the warship, and its lifetime use cost will increase a lot. It is better to directly use the standard Artillery, in order to increase the life of the barrel and reduce the cost of full life use.
As for the power, it is enough. To deal with a group of indigenous sampans and land artillery operations, there is no need for any drug cannon.
It's just that there are many people in the Navy who stubbornly pursue the power of naval guns, believing that larger caliber, faster rate of fire, and greater power can protect the security of the empire... Well, it is not used to deal with foreign enemies, but to protect it. The empire is safe.
Under what circumstances does the security of the empire need to be protected? Naturally, it’s time for the army or the guardsmen to rebel!
In the navy, quite a few officers regard the army and even the Guards as imaginary enemies.
Without powerful enough advanced warships, how could they fight all the way to the Yangtze River and kill those turtle-shell offshore battleships of the Guards? Kill the Jiangyin Fort guarded by the Army and the Zhenjiang Fort guarded by the Guards.
There are three large fortress groups in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, namely the Wusong Fort where the navy is stationed, the Jiangyin Fort where the army is stationed, and the Zhenjiang Fort where the Guards are stationed.
They are all made of turtle shells and are equipped with a large number of heavy artillery.
Among them, the Zhenjiang Fort stationed by the Guards is now being equipped with 250mm breech-mounted rifled guns... and the Jinling-class battleships in the Navy equipped with 250mm breech-mounted naval guns have not even completed the hull, and are far from being put into service. Three or four years.
In addition, the Army is also working on a train cannon project. It plans to use trains to carry cannons for maneuver and combat, and train cannons carrying 170 mm or even 200 mm cannons...
It goes without saying that these forts, these train guns, and the offshore battleships of the Guards... Needless to say, they are all aimed at dealing with the navy.
How could the Navy have no countermeasures to this?
As for the overseas barbarians and natives, those scumbags can overwhelm them with just a few armed merchant ships.
It is simply not worth the efforts and huge sums of money spent by the Navy to build various advanced warships, and the pursuit of expanding the size of the Marine Corps and equipping the Marine Corps with the most advanced weapons.
The reason why quite a few generals in the navy are keen on building an advanced navy is because they want to protect the Qinwang in the future.
For this reason, the Navy even fantasizes about bringing warships ashore... to design, develop and equip a war weapon such as a "land battleship".
In the future, once the Army or the Guards rebel, the Navy will drive land warships ashore and use powerful naval guns to clear the ground for the Army or Guards!
This is why the Navy has been funding the three major steam engine manufacturers to conduct in-depth research and development of steam engines. They are trying to obtain a super-efficient steam engine with a higher thrust-to-weight ratio as the power for the land cruiser.
Therefore, don’t think that the Navy’s internal land warship plan is just a joke. The Navy has actually established and promoted the project... but it is still far away from success.
The Navy even has project plans for land warships. It is natural to engage in drug-fueled cannons and other operations. However, the issue of barrel life has also attracted attention. The Navy also has a so-called low-pressure naval gun project. However, the main purpose of this project's naval guns is to be used in overseas colonies to reduce the cost of overseas operations.
As for the main local warships, they will naturally continue to be equipped with various high-end naval guns, otherwise they will not be able to provide enough deterrence to the army and the Guards.
Once the navy is unable to effectively deter the army and the Guards, in the words of some senior navy generals: This is a sign that the foundation of the empire is unstable!
Even Emperor Luo Zhixue has heard this kind of thing... Sometimes he can't even figure out whether the conflict between the three armies is really that big, or whether the navy is simply competing for military spending.
The giant ships and cannons pursued by the Navy cost more than 2 million apiece... and this is without obvious external enemies. The Navy actually cannot give many reasons to persuade the country to let the navy build such expensive toys.
Luo Zhixue felt that the Navy had forcibly created so-called enemies for itself when there were no external enemies.
Well, a similar situation occurs with the Army and Guards.
The Guards blatantly set the imaginary enemies as the army and navy. All military equipment and even tactical training were tit-for-tat. They never targeted overseas indigenous people, but the army and navy as combat targets.
Otherwise, what do you think the Guards Fleet is doing by building a batch of offshore battleships and hoarding them in the Yangtze River?
That is specifically used to resist naval fleets.
Moreover, the Guards are also equipped with a bunch of 120mm field guns and 150mm field guns that the army is reluctant to equip, or it is difficult to maneuver and important.
The purpose is to comprehensively suppress the army's field firepower and ensure firepower superiority.
The Guards claims to be His Majesty's last line of defense, so it naturally needs to have the ability to comprehensively suppress all potential enemies. However, due to the limited strength of the Guards, the quality of its weapons and equipment must be improved.
It also stockpiled a large number of advanced weapons and equipment, and built a complete mobilization system in Gyeonggi and nearby areas with Yingtianfu as the core.
Once the army and navy rebel, the Guards can be expanded from the existing more than 80,000 people to more than 300,000 at any time, and they will all be equipped with active main weapons.
There are multiple Guards war preparation warehouses in Yingtian Mansion, which store enough weapons and ammunition to equip an army of 200,000 people all year round... These weapons and ammunition reserves are also being gradually replaced with new breech-loading rifled guns.
Only the Guards can directly throw the newly purchased Type 18 rifles into the warehouse as strategic reserves.
You must know that many of the main forces in the army are not yet equipped with Type 18 rifles, but the Guards have completed a comprehensive replacement and begun to hoard strategic reserves on a large scale.
At the same time, the Guards also adopts a system of multiple deputy positions. Under the main position, there are often multiple deputy positions.
At the same time, the proportion of non-commissioned officers among soldiers is very large, almost three times that of the army.
This is so that enough officers and non-commissioned officers can be drawn out at any time to form the backbone of a new unit, and the mobilized soldiers can quickly form an army in a short time.
The Army side is relatively calm, after all, they have the largest number of people...
Moreover, most of the most elite first-class divisions in the army are actually in the country, and they are all deployed in transportation hubs and can be quickly transferred to other places by train.
According to the Army's deployment, once there is a change in the capital, it will be in a state of first-class combat readiness all year round, with a large number of trains on standby at any time. The 11th Infantry Division deployed at Hukou, Jiujiang, will be able to rush to the aid of the capital within one day.
The 9th Infantry Division deployed in Xuzhou in the north of the Yangtze River, the 2nd Cavalry Division in Anlu and Hefei and other Jiangbei troops can basically attack Pukou, Gyeonggi Province within two days.
The elite first-class troops deployed farther away, in Zhengzhou in the Central Plains, Tianjin in Hebei, Hantian in the capital, Guangzhou in Guangdong and other places, can also quickly rush to the aid of the capital in as short as a few days or as long as half a month.
To use the non-public private speeches of some senior army generals: Once His Majesty gives the order, our Chu Empire Army will be able to mobilize at least 300,000 elite troops to Gyeonggi within half a month.
All first-class troops suppress all disobedience!
Today's military construction within the Da Chu Empire, in addition to external expansion, is also aimed at each other's internal affairs.
And the superior Luo Zhixue has no objection to this... It is better for the three armed forces to compete in military construction within a controllable range than to be useless.
However, Luo Zhixue knew better that all the so-called competition between the three armies as imaginary enemies was actually superficial. The real reason was nothing more than the competition among the three armies for military expenditures.
As a military institution that does not need to create profits, how can it reflect the importance of its own institution and dominate the power of its generals?
Especially in peacetime.
It is nothing more than the personnel and funds within the organization.
For the military, military expenditure is a very good measure.
No matter how awesome you are, the military budget is only a little. Internally, a group of officers and even ordinary soldiers dislike you and think you are useless.
You can't even win funding, so everyone is following you and drinking the northwest wind?
And when you walk outside, the money-hungry profiteers in the defense industry won't even look at you... Without money, there will be no military procurement, and without military procurement, let alone the defense industry, no one in the entire industrial system will bother to look at you. : Poor guy, go play with your eggs, don't be an eyesore here.
Many times, the senior generals in the three armies, especially the leading ones, are forced by their subordinates and the outside world to move forward step by step... This is also the case in the budget meetings of the Great Chu Empire over the years, between the military and the cabinet, and within the military. There are always huge conflicts between the three armies.
To sum it up, there is only one sentence: Without funds, it’s nothing!
This is why in the three armies of the Great Chu Empire, among the small group of senior generals in each, there will always be a few people who are in high positions of power who do not fight without permission, but who are very powerful in scheming and fighting for funds.
For example, the current Minister of Military and Political Affairs of the Army, Army General Hong Xuesong, has never been on a serious battlefield in his entire life in the army.
He has been working in the munitions department since he joined the army. He has been working in various army departments and group army headquarters in Jinling City for a long time. He is also responsible for administrative affairs.
However, he gradually rose to a high position, and finally became the Minister of Military and Political Affairs and the Co-organizer of the Imperial Study Room.
He was well received within the army. When the post of Minister of Military and Political Affairs was vacant last year, a number of big shots in the army supported his appointment. Even Field Marshal Zuo Yingzhe, who had not held an actual position for many years, personally recommended him to the palace.
Why? Because he competes for a lot of funds for the Army!
This man is not good at fighting, nor is he good at logistics, but he is good at playing intrigues, threatening and luring, and forcing the cabinet, the navy, and the Guards to make concessions on funding.
Although this man is a general, all he did during his military career were civilian officials...
Therefore, the military construction of the contemporary Da Chu Empire cannot be viewed from a conventional perspective, otherwise you will find it very strange: a general who cannot fight and has never been on the battlefield is in a high position, in charge of military and political affairs, and even more so. As the co-organizer of the imperial study, he became the active second-in-command of the army.
But when you consider the internal and external environment of the Dachu Empire in detail, you will find that all this is natural.
This slightly bizarre army-building strategy was also reflected in its overseas expansion. When it landed in Tangier, the Navy tried to use frigates to replace cruisers to perform some combat missions... It turned out to be unreliable, and it was all about using drugs and cannons. The pursuit of high chamber pressure also leads to high combat costs.
This made several naval observation officers have to think, are the "low-cost and high-power warships" currently being developed within the navy specifically for overseas operations the future?
If this thing were placed in the navy of any modern country in the original time and space, it would be scolded... But in the navy of the Da Chu Empire, the feasibility of this kind of warship was seriously considered and prepared to be built on a large scale.
The reason why today's large-caliber naval guns are expensive is because of the pursuit of rate of fire and muzzle velocity. However, if you give up these pursuits, you can completely imitate the Army's field guns, reduce the bore pressure, and develop low-bore pressure large-caliber naval guns. Then the high cost of naval guns can be reduced a lot.
The low-pressure large-caliber naval gun is also effective in land bombardment.
The Army was previously equipped with an ultra-short-barreled howitzer with a caliber of 200 millimeters. The barrel may seem short, but the caliber is large enough. The heavy artillery shells fired can hit solid fortifications accurately.
Lower the standard of naval guns, and then lower the standard of the hull and power system, such as speed and so on. It does not need pure steam power to run at sixteen or fourteen knots. It is not impossible to have twelve or even ten knots... continue to use it. Sail power, just use the sail for daily sailing.
The hull doesn't need any steel armor. Just continue to use cheap and mature wrought iron and add a wooden board. Other hull designs can save it.
After this is finally done, it is still very feasible to create a low-cost and powerful warship. It is naturally unreliable to use it to fight other battleships in active service in the navy, but it can be used to deal with various indigenous people and carry out attacks on overseas indigenous people. The land target bombardment mission is still very reliable.
While these naval observation officers sent by Jinling were thinking about the feasibility of overseas low-cost and powerful warships, the landing troops sent by the army also landed one after another in small boats under the cover of the warships.
The Spaniards in the city once tried to counterattack and blocked the Chu army on the beach, but most of them were blown away before they even started to take action.
To deal with these vocal targets, not to mention 150 mm naval guns, even the 75 mm caliber naval guns used as secondary guns on battleships, and even the 50 mm naval guns used as self-defense firepower on transport ships can effectively kill these living targets.
As a result, the Spaniards who wanted to attack were often bombed to pieces as soon as they left the city, and then ran back to the city.
But the city was not safe either. Various artillery shells continued to fall, and there were rumbling explosions everywhere.
The three warships had a total of dozens of large and small artillery pieces. They bombarded such a small ancient city with a population of only 10,000 people. It did not say that it had full coverage, but it could at least cover many key areas.
Moreover, during the bombardment, the Chu army did not fire blindly. Instead, the three warships each raised their sighting hot-air balloons. They used the hot-air balloons to find high-value targets and fired at them. The result was very accurate.
In particular, several buildings in the city that were suspected of being military camps were quickly shelled by intensive shelling, and then some more prominent buildings that looked like the Governor's Palace were also shelled by intensive shelling.
After discovering the Spanish garrison of nearly a thousand people leaving the city, a frigate targeted them. Even though they retreated back to the city and seemed to be protected by the city wall, there were still continuous cannonballs falling among them. .
The more people there are, the more shells they will hit.
After all, the Chu Army's lookout was on a hot air balloon more than a hundred meters high, observing with high-power telescopes. They could basically see any larger movements of the Spanish garrison in Tangier City.
This also allows the Spanish to garrison more than a thousand troops, whether they are leaving the city or entering the city.
In short, they were bombed everywhere and all the time. In the end, there were heavy casualties among the bombed people, and the remaining people were also confused. Some smart people discovered that the more people gathered, the easier it was to be bombed, so they separated from the large army and fled for their lives.
In this way, when the landing force of the Dachu Empire Army, that is, the second battalion of the 211th Infantry Regiment of the 53rd Division and an artillery company strengthened to allocate them, complete the landing and advance to the gate of Tangier City when nearby.
In fact, the Spanish garrison in Tangier had completely collapsed, and there was no organized force to resist.
Looking at the collapsed city gate in front and the indigenous corpses and wounded on the ground, the leading captain couldn't help but frown: "Those rustics in the Navy are so unethical!"
The lieutenant and deputy company commander next to him also looked unhappy: "Damn it, they just eat meat and don't even leave any soup for our army."
"We must protest sternly later. We made it clear before setting off that we would leave some meat for our landing troops. We cannot kill them all, only to have them kill them all again..."
"This is not the first time. The navy has gone back on its word several times along the way!"
"We, the Imperial Army, came all the way to Europe, not to clean the battlefield for a bunch of thugs!"
After a group of people from the Army landed, they were very unhappy...but there was nothing they could do about it. The Spaniards were too scumbag, and the Navy, in order to test the combat effectiveness of new frigates and compare them, hit them harder, so that after the Army landed, they were stunned. It's the slightest bit of fighting... not even in name.
I'm so dizzy. I corrected a typo before publishing. I wrote hundreds more words after correcting them. I accidentally missed the 12 o'clock update time. My perfect attendance...
