"What's the way," Li Jing hurriedly asked.

"Keel components are cast in steel, then riveted into keels, and even ship ribs from steel, if financial means allow." Chen Zhong said, and at the same time looked at Li Jing worriedly. After all, the idea is crazy. There is no ship in this world that makes keels and ribs out of steel.

Li Jing originally wanted to build a wooden boat for a while and train the team, but he didn't expect Chen Zhong to be in front. It's okay, let it be, Li Jing will only be happy.

"The war is coming, at present the steel is mainly supplied to military supplies, and when this war is over, I can allocate you enough steel, now I will first allocate you a quota of two hundred tons of steel, you can go to Ma'anshan, let them cooperate with you, cast keel components, first build two small ships of dozens of tons to try, and then gradually enlarge, and finally use large warships and merchant ships. Run in small steps, each boat has progress, and gradually scale up to reduce risk. ”

"Great, with this steel, coupled with the manpower allocated by Ma'anshan to cooperate with my experiment, we will definitely be able to successfully cast qualified keel components."

"Have you made any recent progress on the shells?" Li Jing asked.

"Recently, mainly at the request of the fleet, ammunition for the destruction of sails and masts was studied, and we designed chain and bar bombs."

"The structure of the chain shell is very simple, consisting of two solid spherical shells connected by an iron chain. In general, the spherical projectile used in chain shells will be smaller than ordinary solid shells in order to reduce the total mass of the shell and reduce the pressure in the chamber. And in order to ensure that the chain projectile will rotate during flight, the chain projectile will make two spherical projectiles into a large and a small shape. ”

"After the bore is fired, due to the friction between the projectile and the inner wall of the barrel, the two projectiles will rotate at high speed around the center of mass of the projectile, cutting or smashing all obstacles in its path until all the kinetic energy it carries is consumed. For the Navy, when it is necessary to deal with the sail lines and masts of the opposing side, chain bombs with a powerful cutting effect are an excellent choice. ”

Li Jing nodded in agreement with Chen Chong's view. Continue to ask: "Is there any technical difficulty".

"The iron chain between the two spherical projectiles had to be made as strong as possible because of the centrifugal force they had to bear. At the same time, in order to avoid the excessive increase in the total weight of the shell caused by the iron chain, the chain bullet will make the connecting iron chain between the two projectiles very short. Because the longer the connecting chain, the greater the centrifugal force generated by the rotation of the shell, which will not only lead to a serious decrease in the accuracy of the shell, but also put forward higher requirements for the strength of the connecting chain itself, resulting in having to thicken the diameter of the connecting chain, which is the direct consequence of the increase in the total weight of the shell. In order to avoid this, after trial and error, it was found that the length of the connecting chain used on the chain projectile should generally not exceed four times the caliber of the gun. ”

"What is the current situation of the bar bomb, I don't know this type of bomb." Li Jing continued to ask.

"The two spherical bodies of the bar bullet are not connected by an iron chain but by an iron rod, so the chain bullet has an innate strength advantage over the chain bullet. And because the friction between the connecting chain and the chamber does not occur like chain shells, the impact of rod shells on the life of the gun is not as severe as that of chain shells. Theoretically, because the strength of the iron rod is much higher than that of the iron chain, the bar bullet can be made very long, and the killing range is also larger than that of the chain bullet; However, in fact, due to a series of reasons such as limited loading space, the length of the bar bullets used on the ship is often limited to four times the caliber of the gun, and it is understood that the length of most common bar bullets of the Fran machine man is even only 2.5 times the caliber of the gun. ”

"What are the ballistic characteristics of the barbar?" Li Jing is concerned about the more professional issues.

"Since the barrel of the cartridge is fired, the chain and bar shells rotate around the center of their mass and rotate perpendicular to the axis of the connecting chain or connecting rod, and their rotation direction is completely unpredictable, so when using these two types of ammunition, the muzzle of the gun must be left at a certain height with the ground or water surface to avoid collision."

There are no experiments at the moment. How many rounds of live ammunition were fired, and what was the effect?" Li Jing said.

"Thousands of rounds were fired with live ammunition, and real retired merchant ships were used as target ships. Also due to the existence of this kind of spin, the accuracy of chain bullets and bar bullets is outrageously low, and their trajectory often produces an error of more than several meters with that of solid bullets of the same caliber, which is why a large number of chain bullets or bar bullets fired in the test cannot destroy the opponent's sail cable and mast. At the same time, the unpredictability of its spin direction further increases the difficulty of predicting the trajectory. In addition, the spin greatly exacerbates the energy expenditure in flight, further reducing its effective range. According to actual measurements, the effective range of the chain bullet fired by the 18-pounder naval gun was only 453 meters. The effective range of the 24-pounder gun did not exceed 630 meters, and the effective range of the 36-pounder gun was only 750 meters. “

"The chain rotates after ejecting the chamber, and it mostly rotates horizontally. Have you figured out the reason?' asked Li Jing.

"It's just a natural level of stability. Even if it is a vertically rotating chain projectile, it will quickly adjust to horizontal rotation due to the inertia provided by the gravitational interference of the upper and lower projectiles during the vertical rotation process, and it will be quickly adjusted to horizontal rotation due to the influence of gravity and inertia during the rotation process, that is, the gyroscopic effect. A simple experiment can be explained, throw up a rope with a heavy object tied to one end, you want it to rotate horizontally, you only need two directions of force, such as forward and backward motion, or left and right movement, you can do it, but if you want it to rotate vertically, you need more directional force, this is because the inertia of the falling point and the rising point of the heavy object in the vertical motion is different because of the gravitational force, but the inertia is the same in the horizontal motion. ”

"Understood, gravitational acceleration is related to distance from the ground. It is impossible to maintain vertical rotation. Can chain bullets and bar bullets be used against infantry phalanxes?" asked Li Jing.

"It is very difficult, which involves the problem of cost performance, the cost of chain bullets is higher than that of solid bullets, but the launch efficiency is lower than that of solid bullets, and the effect of large-scale application is not as good as that of solid bullets. Chain shells and bar shells, one more ball and one chain than ordinary spherical shells, which cost three times more. Therefore, it is generally used as special ammunition and will not be used to hit low-value privates. There is also the problem of efficiency, because of the special structure of the chain bullet, its loading charge is different from that of the solid bullet, which is very particular, which is not very good for our army in standardization, want / operate this kind of shell well requires the artillery to have more experience, that is, it needs high-value (experienced) soldiers to operate, which means that the value of the entire artillery group increases. ”

"It seems that it makes sense that this weapon has been used in naval warfare," Li Jing said helplessly.