This is only one aspect of the progress of armor plate technology, so how can a piece of iron gada become a marine armor steel plate?

The armor steel used on ships was no small feat, in Germany in 1902, for example, when Krupp used 130 tons of cast steel ingots with a thickness of 3 feet (44 cm) to roll steel plates 43 feet (cm) long, 11 feet (28 cm) wide, and 12 inches (48 cm) thick.

130 tons of steel ingots with a thickness of almost one meter, that is a whole, not a bunch of small steel ingots, such a large thing to produce, it needs the most advanced steel complex at that time to produce.

The high-quality nickel-chromium alloy steel ingots produced by the steelmaking plant must first go through the rolling process to make it into a steel plate that meets the density, thickness and shape, and the rolling of such a large armor plate is not over, but also through the surface carburizing and hardening technology, such a large piece of armor plate for heat treatment of the heating furnace and annealing furnace and other heat treatment processes, the minimum needs more than 20 meters long, more than five meters wide heat treatment furnace, and in order to carry out continuous production, there can not be only one furnace, Instead, a series of heat treatment furnaces are required.

The heat treatment of the steel plate is not a touch, it takes a certain amount of time, usually calculated by hours, and different heat treatment furnaces because of different functions, the structure used is not the same, which leads to the need for heat treatment furnaces with different functions to carry out separately, which requires four fires of steel heat treatment, normalizing, annealing, quenching, tempering and so on. If you add other heat treatment processes that are combined with four fires, then you need more heat treatment furnaces to process, just to arrange these huge heat treatment furnaces according to the process and install them in a workshop to form a heat treatment workshop, you can imagine how big this heat treatment workshop is.

At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, large-scale steel production was a labor-intensive industry, not a modern rolling mill like a few kittens, all mechanized and automated, the rolling workshop of the steelmaking mill at that time basically required a large group of people next to each other, holding a long steel tong in their hands and carrying a steel plate weighing dozens of tons to move back and forth.

Before the steel plate is carburized, the surface and edge of the steel plate must be trimmed before the steel plate can be carburized, and after the treatment, it will be processed into a variety of different shapes according to the needs of use, and then the edge will be planed and grooved according to the needs of assembly, and then the quenching process will be carried out again to drill out the holes required to fix the bolts or the holes that the rivets pass through, and the armor plates that pass the test can be transported to the shipyard by guò railway.

Is it over? No, it is not so easy to install such a large piece of armor plate on the battleship, first of all, you have to have a crane that can lift such a heavy steel plate, the development of power technology in that era has not yet reached the era when cranes can use electric motors, the power equipment of the crane is a steam engine, and the welding process is not there, there are only two kinds of rivet connection and bolt connection, and it is not so easy for the armor plate to be firmly embedded in the keel of the hull. The sides were then flattened with a steam riveting air hammer and a fast armor plate was riveted to the hull.

Those rivets are not fun, the sinking of the Titanic cruise ship is because of the quality of the rivets, in a low temperature environment, after being squeezed and broken, causing a large area of water into the ship and sinking.

These require experienced skilled workers, very, very experienced skilled workers, in that era industrial production was built on the basis of countless huge skilled workers, and just to train a skilled rivet worker takes several years, training a rolling workshop worker is also a few years, even more than ten years, in the late World War I Britain because of the lack of skilled workers in the shipyard can not complete the construction of the warship on the slipway.

What is heavy industry, what is light industry, and why people say that heavy industry is the backbone of a country.

Okay, let's just chat. A journeyman in light industry, a worker in an assembly electronics workshop, how long do you need to train, one day, three days, a week is enough, from a beginner to a journeyman in one month, two months If you don't train him, you can kick him out.

But don't think about playing heavy industry, the lathe of the old-fashioned lathe, apprenticeship for three years, this is just an apprentice, three years later is a second-level worker, and so he will be at least four or five years to the fourth-level worker, during which he will continue to change the station, in order to learn the processing of different parts, the sixth-level lathe does not have a ten-year or eight-year work experience accumulation Don't think about it, the eighth-level lathe, that is a national treasure, and this national treasure is built on the huge base of ordinary lathes.

This is heavy industry, not to talk about investment, not to talk about the construction cycle, but in terms of employees, it is incomparable to light industry. It is likely that some people will say that now that it is the era of numerical control, there is no need for those eighth-level workers, sixth-level workers, and they are all computer-operated.

Yes, the development of modern science and technology for some simple machining, does not need those senior workers, but those operators who engage in CNC operations also need to be trained, not to give you a CNC equipment you will use, that is also necessary to input a variety of parameters, but also need to be trained, and the operator's educational requirements are higher, at least to graduate from high school or more also need more than three years of professional and technical training, this is just an operator, not a technician who can calculate various parameter settings according to the drawings. And according to the design of different parts processing methods and parameter settings, at least to graduate from college and is a graduate of machining to play, this is not a child peeing and mud want to play how to play.

It takes at least ten years for a large heavy industry enterprise to start building to develop in an all-round way, and this is not counting the training time of high-skilled workers, if you count the training of those high-skilled workers, there is no twenty years of accumulation, or wash and sleep, imagine that it is okay, it is okay to have fun and laugh, don't be too, don't say that you will catch up with the Premier League and the United States in ten years, even if you have a technical advantage, but if you are given another ten years, you can only be on par with others.

Look at the third-line construction, it took China 20 years to complete the construction of the national defense project at that time, and the third-line construction was actually a copy of China's heavy industry system at that time, which was heavy industry, which was still built on the basis of a large number of skilled workers.

Since it's here, let's finish it all at once, and let's tear off the basic processing industry of heavy industry, forging equipment.

The following is a small part of the history of forging equipment, which may not be right.

People who have not entered a large factory, especially the production workshop of heavy industrial factories, don't mess around, the construction cycle of a large heavy industry factory is usually calculated by years, a few years for the first phase of the project, a few years for the second phase, and how many years for the third phase, when you stand in front of those behemoths, like an ant, you know how small people are, especially the kind of awe and pride in machinery can not be expressed in words.

There is also an extra-large rolling mill for the manufacture of battleship armor plates and a large forging press for battleship artillery, which are necessary equipment for the manufacture of large warships.

Without these things, it was impossible to process ship armor plates and large-caliber guns.

In 1859, the Austro-Hungarian Empire began to have the first (7,000kn) 700 tonnes, 10,000 kN (1,000 tons) and 1,200 ton hydraulic presses for metalworking (presumably for the calibration of rails), and the hydraulic presses for forging were installed in 1863 at the Cookloops factory in England.

However, most of the factories at that time were using steam forging hammers, and hydraulic presses were usually used as bending and leveling steel plates, in 1884, in Manchester, England, the first forged hydraulic press for forging steel ingots, it has many advantages compared with forging hammers, the moving part is not so heavy, and the vibration is small, so the development speed is very fast.

Before 1880, the United States created its own forging enterprise to provide hardware for the four-wheeled carriage manufacturing industry, and was also one of the first two production plants to provide 15-wheeled carriages, and by the end of the 19th century, the United States made a 126,000kn (12,600 tons) free forging hydraulic press, which was also the world's first 10,000-ton hydraulic press. (Our country made its own 10,000-ton hydraulic press in 1962). How many years apart, everyone calculates for themselves, why do you say that Mao is great, this is what he is great.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Germany made great progress in forging equipment and craftsmanship and became the new leader. In 1907, Germany made the first integral rotor forging, which opened the first page in the history of generator forging, and in 1911, Krupp in Germany forged 32 tons with a hydraulic press, and the weight of the heavy integral generator rotor forging was estimated to be more than 50 tons.

In 1907, Japan launched a joint venture project between two British companies and a Japanese company for the purpose of manufacturing weapons, which is currently recognized as the world's highest-level large forging manufacturer, the Japan Muroran Steel Works (JSW).

In 1934, Germany manufactured a 70mn die forging hydraulic press, and from 1938 to 1944, it manufactured three 150mn forging hydraulic presses and a 300mn large die forging hydraulic press, and Germany's forging equipment and technology level and product capacity ranked first in the world.

In 1935, the Soviet Union built a 150,000-ton free-forging hydraulic press.

In 1940, Nippon Steel imported a 140,000-ton free forging hydraulic press from Germany.

Don't mention old China, pitiful! In 1894, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau imported a 2,000-ton hydraulic press imported from Britain and installed it, which was the first hydraulic press installed and used in China, and the fate of this hydraulic press was also confusing, as if it was lost during the great retreat when the devils attacked Shanghai.

After the 918 Incident in 1931, Japan established machinery factories in Shenyang and Dalian and installed 20mn and 40mn free hydraulic presses to produce large forgings, (about 2200 tons and 4400 tons, (the mechanical measurement unit in this is not very clear, MN should be meganewtons, commonly found on the extruder, how to find the information on the forging press, there is a supplement to know) Later, these things were dismantled by friendly forces after the defeat of Japan.

We won't say how many things Lao Maozi demolished in the Northeast, they are all an international to do this kind of thing, which is also a reason for being unhappy with it after the founding of New China. How many things Lao Maozi dismantled, let's find Du Niang, if you want to know a country, just look at what they have done to your motherland.

New China is really very pitiful in heavy industry, very pitiful, in 1949 China has a forging press, only a batch of forging equipment compensated by Japan, there are 10mn, 12mn, 20mn free forging hydraulic presses, 30mn free forging hydraulic presses two, 5t steam hammer two and 3t below the steam hammer about five, these small forging equipment is still the "national treasure" at that time, and these "national treasures" since 1945 after Japan compensated us, has been lying in the warehouse to sleep, Subsequently, New China began to repair, design and build factories, masonry heating furnaces, heat treatment furnaces and other supporting facilities.

In 1953, the first Japanese compensation scattered in Anshan 20MN free forging hydraulic press repair, installed and put into operation in Shenyang Heavy Machinery Factory, this is the first enterprise in China to produce large forgings, but also the training of large forging production management cadres, skilled workers and workers of the cradle, through guò to Japan compensation hydraulic press repair work has become the first enterprise in China to design and manufacture forging hydraulic presses.

From 1953 to 1957, in China's first five-year plan, among the several enterprises aided by the Soviet Union, there were about 8mn, 5mn, 20mn, 30mn, 60mn free forging hydraulic presses, and then in 1961, we produced the 10,000-ton free forging hydraulic press.

In February 1959, Jiangnan Shipyard established a 10,000-ton hydraulic press work team, which opened the prelude to a hard battle of processing and manufacturing.

The 10,000-ton hydraulic press has two major characteristics, one is large and heavy; The height of the machine is 65 meters, and there are 13 oversized parts on the machine, namely 3 beams, 4 columns and 6 working cylinders. The weight of the 3 beams is 100~300 tons, like a hill, and the heaviest lower beam is made of more than 100 steel plates; The four columns are each 18 meters long, 1 meter in diameter, and weigh 80 tons, and even the screw caps on the columns weigh five or six tons.

The second is precision: the processed parts are required to have high precision, otherwise they cannot be installed.

The total weight of the entire hydraulic press is about 2,200 tons, and the foundation alone has to hit people 40 meters underground.

Three or four years! From the project to the trial operation, the construction of a 10,000-ton hydraulic press took such a long time, not to mention other heavy industries, especially large chemical enterprises compared with mechanical processing enterprises and iron and steel enterprises The construction cycle is longer, the technology is more complex, and the workers have higher requirements.