In the west of Dinghai, the depths of the Inner Mongolia steppe in later generations, the land here is vast and sparsely populated, mainly animal husbandry, after the emergence of corn-based feed, the proportion of grassland stocking is relatively low, mainly to provide high-end meat, as well as a large number of dairy cows, if you eat feed, it will make the milk quality and meat quality decline, which is not conducive to the demand for high-end.

In the 11th century in China, the environment had not deteriorated to the extent of later generations, and the grassland coverage was relatively high, and there were few deserts, but there were not no deserts.

The grassland itself is the product of two climate shocks, the precipitation is much less than that of the forest area, only the structure of grass and trees can live under such water conditions, and even a little worse, forming a semi-desert and semi-grassland climate, which is considered very normal.

When looking for an area to test, on the one hand, it needs to be empty enough, and on the other hand, it is necessary to have a railway.

The huge size of the 400 mm artillery, even if it is a train, it needs at least 3 carriages or more to be able to bear the future, and other land means of transportation have no way to take him, without a railway, such artillery has no actual combat value at all.

These conditions, this grassland has been reached, this is a grassland and desert combination of place, not far from the vicinity, there is a railway passing, this is from Shenyang, into Inner Mongolia, and then connect to the northwest of the trunk railway, is one of the main arteries of the north of the Dinghai Navy.

Of course, such a test cannot be carried out on the main railway, but here, there used to be a railway, but it was only built for more than 40 kilometers, and due to changes in climate and geological conditions, it could not be built and rerouted.

After the diversion, the geographical environment here is also more suitable for the existence of training grounds and experimental bases, so it stayed, along more than 40 kilometers of railway, continue to build, about 150 kilometers or so, here formed a single-line railway, all the way from the city on the grassland, deep into this desert area.

Some weapons that need to be tested in the navy, unconventional, or powerful, are generally put here for testing.

Now, the armored train waiting for it is still the most high-end, enough to be used as a battleship, or even a super dreadnought, with the main naval guns, of course, the test items prepared for it are also perfect to the extreme.

Armored trains, from artillery to design, already have a little bit of basic indicators, and at the same time, the recoil of artillery tests is also recorded, even after a series of layouts such as unfolding and reducing recoil, not every place can withstand it.

It is necessary to find a piece of hard ground, preferably rock formations, which are easier to find in the mountains, but more difficult in plains and meadows.

After getting some basic indicators of this armored train, for this area, hardening, setting up 4 areas that can be tested, surface hardening, and building a large number of railways at the same time.

Armored trains rely on locomotives to maneuver, and perhaps in the outside world, there are such and such restrictions, and there is no way to be flexible, but here, it is a test site, which can be laid, and at least it can ensure that the armored train can face targets in all directions.

At the same time, in addition to building these things, it is also necessary to prepare a target for the armored train, and the Navy is not very well prepared in this regard, and the test site itself is just a regular preparation, according to the artillery, at most, it is enlarged and the target is also written, similar to targeting.

This bill, after being submitted to the Dinghai Navy, went quite smoothly, but when it came to Zhao Xin, it was vetoed.

Generally speaking, Zhao Xin does not interfere too much in the scientific and technological research and development of the Dinghai Navy, to a certain extent, Zhao Xin wants to ensure the vitality of the Dinghai Navy and the independence of research and development, but this is for most of the research and development, and a small number are not among them.

In some of the more critical, for example, polymer composite materials, such as steam engine rubber and other research, these are very important for the Dinghai Navy, and if they have problems, they will affect the future development of the Dinghai Navy's projects, Zhao Xin generally speaking, the use of direct intervention, almost everything, needs to be reported to him.

Whether it is the project of 400 mm artillery or the project of the armored train later, these are all projects with great power and great impact on the Dinghai Navy, and Zhao Xin is also concerned about the whole process.

After seeing this plan, there was no direct veto, but a sentence was added to the experimental project to verify the armor-piercing ability of the guns of armored trains.

Armor-piercing ability, which only appeared in the era of thermal weapons, the old era of heavy infantry and heavy cavalry, their armor, almost immune to most of the attacks on the battlefield, this is also the source of the terrible of these troops, can deal with heavy cavalry, only heavy cavalry, or heavy weapons such as catapults.

Artillery, in the beginning, is irregular shells, such shells, his power can be imagined, even the direction of attack is uncontrollable, and finally, with the gradual development, artillery shells, into round shells, at this time, there is no armor-piercing or flowering shells, the power of artillery, deterrence is higher than lethality.

From the beginning of the Dinghai, in addition to the initial time, when the artillery was basically completed, the study of artillery shells began, and the conical shells were more suitable for the modern shells of later generations, and similarly, the appearance of flowering shells and armor-piercing shells.

The former, representing the lethality of the surface, with the dual effect of the delay lead and the impact lead, the ground explosion, and the time to explode, this can make the artillery explode.

The shells of the early artillery were round, and under the impetus of gunpowder, they moved in a straight line, and they were so powerful that they could tear apart everything that stood in their way.

The flowering projectile is pushed by gunpowder, so that the shell can quickly reach the location of the attack, in the air, or through impact, explode, not relying on the shell itself to produce lethality, but the lethality of the exploding shrapnel attack, resulting in surface damage.

As for the armor-piercing projectile, it is the opposite of the flowering bullet, the flowering bullet is to kill the infantry and the scattered target, but the armor-piercing projectile is not aimed at the infantry target from the moment it is made, it is aimed at armored targets, buildings, or others, and the armor-piercing bullet is used to hit a single infantryman, and the loss is lost.

The characteristics of armor-piercing bullets are the use of pure steel, or a stronger warhead, driven by kinetic energy, to produce the effect of impact, to produce armor-piercing to the target, in order to achieve the effect of killing the target after the armor.

The weight of the 400 mm gun is very large, even after the armor is removed, it has a weight of nearly 1.5 tons, and this weight, if you use flowering shells, can cover a fairly large area, maybe thousands, or even tens of thousands of square meters, producing huge lethality.

The weight of the projectile alone and the power of the propellant are enough to do all this, and if a 1.5-ton artillery shell is equipped with a propellant according to one-third, or even one-quarter, the power generated by the final explosion of the propellant is also huge, so there is no need to consider this aspect.

The problem of armor piercing, in fact, is rarely used in the navy, and these shells will only be used under the premise that ships, especially iron-ribbed warships, are used as imaginary enemies.

This purpose is very narrow, and even outside the Dinghai Navy, no one has a huge battleship at all, and the role of this artillery is almost minimal, which is also the designer, who never thought about it, to test the armor-piercing effect of the entire gun with a target.

Zhao Xin knew very well that although the 400 mm gun was reluctantly installed on the train, Zhao Xin knew very well in his heart that the biggest application of such a 400 mm gun was on the battleship.

Now, the navies of all countries in the world have hardly appeared, that is, in the Mediterranean, there are some small sailing ships, in the Arabian Peninsula, there are some Arab ships, these ships, they are still in the time of broadside battle, not to mention the capital ships composed of Spanish warships, even if they are non-main Spanish warships, equipped with 10 guns armed merchant ships, they can easily deal with them.

The opponent can't even beat the Spanish battleship, let alone the all-steel battleship, and even what Zhao Xin is preparing next is to eliminate all the dreadnoughts of the former dreadnoughts, all-heavy artillery battleships, which represents an epoch-making battleship.

Of course Zhao Xin knew this, at this time, the Spanish battleships were enough, why bother to make such a huge ship, but in his love for battleships, he still did it, so the test of armor-piercing shells was inevitable.

Zhao Xin put forward an opinion, which made many people very incomprehensible, but his ability to control the entire Dinghai Navy and the direction of science and technology is still very strong, and he made an order to let the test personnel make test preparations, even if there is something they can't figure out, they can only execute it.

After a period of consideration, another proposal was submitted, in addition to all the previous projects, there is also a special project, this project is a target building, the largest, is a reinforced concrete structure almost 5 meters high, more than 10 meters in circumference.

This thing, although it is said that the thickness is about 5 meters, but in terms of defensive strength, it has surpassed the fortress, and to put it bluntly, it is all the highest standard of steel and cement, which is more than 20 tons of steel bar alone, and a large number of high-standard cement.

Reinforced concrete structure, in the Dinghai Navy just established, has been studied, this basic building materials, in the gradual development of the Dinghai Navy, occupies a very important role, there is a lot of research on this, whether it is cement, or steel, any breakthrough, will make the reinforced concrete structure, slowly upgraded, now, it will not be much worse than steel.

This means that the power of this naval gun is tested with 5 meters thick and 5,000 mm armor similar to steel plates.

From the construction of the railway, to the construction of this reinforced concrete structure, which can be carried out at the same time, there is enough railway support, a large number of trains, enough materials and personnel have been transported, and the buildings for these targets have been built as quickly as possible, and when the construction is completed in a month or two, the tests will start at any time.

Zhao Xin himself wanted to come over in person and participate in this test, but he was persuaded that now the Dinghai Navy has controlled a huge area, whether it is the population or the city, it has far exceeded that of the Northern Song Dynasty, even if it has gone through a lot of separations and many people to help deal with it, but the work he needs every day is still too much.

If it is something of great significance, perhaps, it can be pushed off, this artillery, although very powerful, is the icing on the cake, at least in the minds of the vast majority of courtiers, this is not very useful.

Zhao Xin had no choice, he could only give up coming, and even this time the test was carried out, even the army only came to a lieutenant general, and there were many researchers at that time, and they needed to comprehensively test the overall power, including materials, including the overall system, and needed to find some objective laws from the test.

The final test results, but everyone was speechless, this is an epoch-making product, extremely powerful, the emergence of heavy artillery, but also means, the complete obsolescence of the fortress.

In fact, after the appearance of heavy artillery, the fortress has fallen behind, the army's largest artillery 155 mm artillery, these guns, not as powerful as 400 mm artillery armor-piercing shells, but can destroy the fortress step by step, at most it is a matter of time.

However, 400 mm, when using the latest and largest armor-piercing projectile of the Dinghai Navy, when hitting a 5-meter-thick reinforced concrete, it can penetrate at least about 3 meters, that is, 3000 mm of armor-piercing ability.

Although the battleship was not made, to a certain extent, the largest part of the battleship was solved, artillery and armor, which is the biggest problem of the battleship's attack and defense, although it is said that there are still many problems in the navy that have not been solved, which is already very powerful, and after that, once the ship's research has entered the peak, and the power problem has been successfully solved, the emergence of the battleship has not had any problems.

To be honest, before the steel battleship, a battleship solved all the problems, that did not exist, large and small warships, more small ships, more ants to bite the elephant, also existed, but in the era of dreadnoughts, it is equivalent to saying that before, all the former dreadnoughts, regardless of size, regardless of tonnage, are all outdated, this is the terrible thing about dreadnoughts.

In this era, the enemy is simply a wooden ship that engages in the battle, and even the Spanish sailing ship and the flying clipper ship cannot reach the premise that the battleship can almost kill the other party without damage, and even sometimes, without the need for artillery to go over, it can be directly rammed into the past, his appearance, for the Dinghai Navy, in fact, has little impact, but in Zhao Xin's heart, it represents the battleship dream, a big step forward, perhaps, along this development, it can really be built.

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