"The first meeting of the leading group for the production of artillery begins now!"

In the simple but spacious office of the machine factory, a blackboard was erected, and weapons enthusiasts led by the mechanical team leader Zhan Wuya gathered. The atmosphere was extremely hot, and everyone was discussing which kind of artillery to use.

"Now, let me introduce the attendees." Zhan Wuya introduced the people who participated in the meeting, the main backbone of the mechanical group, such as Wang Luobin, Jiang Ye, Xiao Bailang, needless to say, there are also some people who don't know much about machinery, but belong to weapon lovers, including Zhang Bolin, who has repeatedly proclaimed himself "artillery general" on his lips, Wang Ruixiang, who likes to wield an axe, and Li Yunxing, who has served as a mechanical crossbow structure design and on-site construction guide, and White Feather ...... of the Armored Corps Command Specialty Zuihou is a classmate of Lin Shenhe, and he has a lot of practical experience.

The purpose of this meeting was not to arrange production, but to determine the Jishu route, so it should be called the "Jishu Route Seminar".

"Let's not think about what 12-pounder mountain grenade is better or 92 infantry guns, let's start from a practical point of view and the level of manufacturing." Zhan Wuya set the tone for the discussion.

In terms of the machining ability possessed by the traverser, the level of processing is above every civilization in this shijie. Now that steel has been smelted again, there is no longer much of a jishu problem in making a simple steel rifled rear-loading gun. Of course, there is a spring bottleneck that is difficult to solve, but there is no problem with the cannon.

Even the industrial level of the mid-19th century was enough to create a cannon of 15-inch caliber, not even steel was needed, and many super-caliber coastal cannons were cast-iron cannons. The traverser does not have an ironclad cruiser to fight, and naturally there is no need to create such a perverted monster.

What are the needs of the traverser? According to the recommendations of the staff group, the main thing was to equip the ships and batteries of the Navy with artillery.

"Naturally, it's rifled and reloaded! There are so many advantages. Li Yunxing was the first to speak.

According to the general people's thinking, the firing range of artillery is naturally as far away as possible, and a problem arises here, the firing range of modern artillery is getting farther and farther, which is built on the basis of modern sighting and fire control systems. It is impossible to achieve a traverser no more than the industrial level of the late 19th century. Even if it is realized with equipment pulled from time and space in the 21st century, it is temporary.

A 24-pounder breech heavy gun, with an effective range of no more than 900 meters, was installed on a battleship, and because of its stability, the effective range was reduced by at least half. The British Royal Navy's shooting doctrine in the 18th ~ 19th centuries clearly stipulated that the maximum firing distance of a 24-pounder gun was 400 yards. Its effective range was large enough compared to the more 32-pounder short-caliber guns on the battleship. In actual combat, the warships of both sides often hit each other within 100 meters.

The artillery of the 17th century, for sure, will not surpass this level. The Voyager's naval breech-loading rifled guns are not designed for high power and long range, but for rapid-fire and weight reduction. Even if the firing range has increased due to rifling, it should be controlled within 2000 meters. Beyond this range, there may be some value on land, but hitting a moving point target on the sea surface becomes meaningless in terms of the fire control level of the traverser, and excessive range becomes a complete waste.

Since the range requirements are not high, the barrel of the gun can be shortened to save its weight and manufacturing costs.

Another advantage of using a breech-loading rifled gun was that the rifled gun used pointed shells instead of round rounds. The pointed projectile is not only more stable in the air than a round projectile, but also has a relationship in shape - it is elongated, can be developed backwards, and the weight can be adjusted under the same caliber. The caliber of the former is only about 70% of that of the latter. If we are concerned with cross-section machines, only 49%. That is to say, if both have the same muzzle velocity, then the impact kinetic energy of the sharp bullet is concentrated in half of the cross-sectional area, and the unit energy density is twice that of the round projectile. Considering the low resistance of the conical projectile, the armor-piercing power of the projectile of the same weight reaches more than 3 times that of a round projectile.

This means that a 12-pound pointed bullet (caliber of about 70mm) of the breech-loading rifled gun will have an effective range much higher than that of a 12-pound round bullet under the premise of using the same propellant and charge, and the armor-piercing power is equivalent to that of a 24-pound round heavy gun!

The 70mm rear-loading rifled gun, with a diameter of 16~18, is a very small gun in the past and in modern times, weighing only about 400~500 kg, and can be installed on a 300-ton sailing ship, and can also be installed on a 150-ton boat if the tube is withdrawn. This means that this medium-sized sailing ship equipped with 70mm breech-loading guns is completely in opposition to the British Navy's first-class battleships in the heyday of sail warships.

Considering its rate of fire much higher than that of a 24-pounder front-loading cannon, combined with its advantage in effective range, the result was that the large sail battleships were not only helpless against them, but also likely to be raped.

That is, in the early 17th century, it was quite enough to develop and produce such a small-sized rear-loading gun. In the face of any naval pirate at that time already had an overwhelming advantage.

"Then we can just copy the 92 infantry gun?" After listening to this exposition of the benefits of rifled rear-loading guns, someone said, "The 92 infantry gun has a caliber of 75mm and a maximum firing range of 2800 meters, which is exactly in line with the performance mentioned above." And the weight of the 92 gun is only 210 kg, which is less than the estimated 500 kg. ”

"The problem with the 92 infantry gun is that the double diameter is too small, only 6, which causes its muzzle velocity to be too small. As a naval gun, the straighter the ballistic, the better. The 92 infantry guns were very good for the army. ”

Wang Luobin proposed that this naval gun could adopt the structure of the Armstrong gun, which is a relatively mature and reliable, but relatively simple breech gun. Compared with the previous breech guns and front-loading rifled guns, the special feature is the introduction of threaded gun latches and occlusions for breech guns. With the bolt removed, the Armstronggun was very close to a breech gun with the tail open. The casting process of the body tube is also similar.

The disadvantage of Armstrong is that it adopts the early type of latching design, the structure is very complex, the stability is low, and the failure rate is high. The traverser naturally won't blindly imitate.,You can take a threaded bolt.,Jishu level is not too high.,Basically, the screws should be made.。

"It's easy to say," Xiao Bailang poured a basin of cold water down, "Who knows how to make a cannon?" I think you've only read a few books, right? Needless to say, the 92 infantry guns are all made of ready-made seamless tubes, where can I find such a thick seamless tube now? ”

"Naturally, it's mainly cannon casting. After all, there are no large-scale forging machines, and if you want to use the deep drilling method, you have to manufacture special equipment. Lin Shenhe said, "I have cast cannons in the United States, but they are all smoothbore cannons." ”

Bai Yu said: "Actually, what I'm worried about is not whether the cannon can be built, but the ammunition problem. All sorts of explanations about the benefits of the breech guns in front, I agree with them. But one thing seems to be unclear - the shells of breech guns, which are much more difficult to make than the breech guns themselves. It's just that solid armor-piercing bullets are good to say, but if it's a grenade or shrapnel, how to make it? How to solve the problem of metal extension process used in the manufacture of pointed shell shells? And the fuses of the shells, all problems. ”

Jiang Ye said: "There is no problem with the manufacture of artillery shells, and our equipment can be made. ”

"That's just what you can make, not what you can do in batches. A bullet production line has more than 30 sets of special equipment, and more shells are needed, and the industrial capacity is obviously not enough to get on such a production line. ”

"That's right," Zhan Wuya admitted, "and the materials don't necessarily pass." "Whether the missile body is cold drawn or hot-drawn, it must have a special round bar material, and it also needs to manufacture special equipment. It's not that the industrial sector can't do it, but that it requires a whole industrial system to support it, otherwise the cost is unimaginably high.

"No, the old-fashioned pointed shells are not so complicated," Lin Shenhe said, "The body of the early breech shells was cast iron, covered with lead, and the fuse was blown up with a simple type, and the bullet was filled with black fire, and the black fire yao bag was used as the propellant, without a cartridge or a primer, and it was also ignited with an ignition device when fired." Most of the shells produced before 1890 fell into this category. This kind of shell will not work on the 92 infantry gun, and there will be no problem with it on the Armstrong gun. ”

The reason why rifled artillery shells should be coated with lead is to embed the shell body into the rifling, and the cast iron or steel is too hard to wear out the rifling. So even modern shells are 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 is some problem with lead, I remember that when 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-loading rifled guns was that when the Armstrong gun fired, due to the poor adhesion between the hot-dip lead and the iron, the torn lead fragments would be scattered in front of the muzzle for a short distance and cause injury to their own soldiers." ”

"I don't think it's a particularly serious problem," Mr. Lin said, "and I think people in the mechanical department can come up with a way to solve it." ”

"In addition, I personally think that smoothbore guns can also be made." Lin Shenhe said.

The smoothbore gun process is simple, and there are not too many requirements for materials, if the steel is not enough, cast iron can be used directly. Early breech-loading rifled guns, such as the Armstrong gun, were similar in casting process. Except for Lin Shenhe, no one has any experience in casting guns, and it is a good choice to practice with a relatively simple smoothbore gun and be familiar with the casting process.

"I suggest that the commercial sector include smoothbore guns in the catalogue of export goods. The Portuguese have now become arms dealers of the Ming Dynasty, and this silver cannot be earned by them! ”

Note: The commentary in this chapter on the casting of rifled guns in the 17th century is all from SANJYSAN of the SB forum, and the description of the Armstrong cannon is provided by Wang Luobin himself