While the French triumphantly took the Tang Princess Wencheng cruise ship to Los Angeles to buy advanced arms from the Tang Republic, the British frowned. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoAlthough the war is over, the British have learned a hard lesson in this war. Both the army and the navy suffered a great defeat and lost a large part of the North American colonies.

Now that Britain's number one enemy, France, has actually embraced the Tang Dynasty, which was a headache for Britain, and tried to get new weapons from the Datang, it is impossible for the British not to be frightened.

The defeat in the war led to the fall of George III's long-favored Tories Party, and the Marquess of Rockingham, who had served as Prime Minister for one term, was dismissed. The Whig Party, represented by Watson Wentworth, came to power again. Although the Whigs and the Tories were at odds and diverged on many political views, there was one thing that the Tory Cabinet valued that the Marquis of Rockingham did not forget about, but cared more about.

That is the imitation work of Datang weapons. During the Battle of Long Island, Henry. Clinton won a resounding victory, capturing thousands of SC-2 muskets and a small number of bronze smoothbore guns that the Tang Dynasty had supplied to the Continental Army, and the British found that these weapons were much more advanced than those used by the British. After the Tang Expeditionary Force entered the war, it gave the British a full shock, the number of the Tang Expeditionary Force was very small, but the effectiveness of the output firepower was more than ten times stronger than that of the British Army, and the British Army, which showed strong combat power all over the world, was weak in front of the Tang Army, which plunged Britain into panic and shock.

The British attributed the defeat of the war to the backwardness of weapons and the surprise of the enemy, so in order to be able to compete for their own advantage, the British invested huge funds and manpower in the research and development of new weapons.

Even the Marquis of Rodkingham, who was very busy personally. He also found time in his busy schedule to personally observe the development of new weapons. The wise Marquis Rodgingham has come to his senses. Even if Britain is strong, once there is a shortcoming in the military, then Britain will suffer huge losses, so that it will constantly lose its own interests. The Marquis of Rockingham could not imagine that when Britain was competing for colonies in other countries, other countries were equipped with excellent weapons and could easily defeat the British.

Although the Tang did not sell the most advanced weapons, and the Tang-made muskets and artillery did not circulate widely in Europe. But the trend has already appeared, and the Spaniards and the French, who have a keen sense of smell, have successively found the arms merchants of the Tang Dynasty, and then the Prussians, Austrians, and Russians have followed. This situation is absolutely unimaginable to the British.

The British did not sit idly by, on the one hand, the British approached their Portuguese allies, hoping that the Portuguese merchants would find a way to buy a batch of SC-2 rifles and various other weapons that could be bought from the Tang Dynasty, and the price was negotiable. On the other hand, the British, who considered themselves to be leading the world in industrial strength, began to imitate and even improve Tang-made weapons.

Walsam. Abby Arsenal, one of the most important arsenals in the UK. Since the beginning of the last century, gunpowder and other weapons have been produced in large quantities for lobster soldiers. Two years ago, when the war was still going on, the British Royal Ordnance Bureau had already tendered private arsenals to start copying Datang rifles. Abby Arsenal is also a standout among them.

The Prime Minister, the Marquis Rodkingham, and the Director of the Ordnance Bureau, Tong Shende, visited the Abby Arsenal in the hope of seeing something that caught their eye.

The designer of the arsenal did not have too much restraint in the face of the two big bosses, he naturally took out a musket that looked almost exactly like the Datang SC-2 rifle and said: "Two gentlemen, there is no doubt that in the design and manufacture of ordnance, even I don't want to admit it, the Tang people have also made amazing achievements, and the SC-2 rifle they designed has an amazing performance on the battlefield, in fact, all of us are trying to imitate it." ”

Tang Shende interrupted him and said, "Sir, we are not here to listen to nonsense, just talk about the results. ”

The designer was unimpressed, and he said: "It's a pity that the imitation failed." ”

Marquis Luo Jinhan frowned and took the musket and asked, "In my opinion, this gun is not much different from the guns of the Tang people." ”

The designer said: "That's right, we have completely copied the structure, even if it is not as refined as the Tang people in some details, or there is a gap in the accuracy of shooting, but it can be fired." ”

Tang Shende said unhappily: "Then why do you say that your imitation failed?" ”

The designer glanced at Tang Shende and said, "Mr. Director, you must know that a gun needs to be shot, not only to have a gun but also to have bullets." We can make a replica of a gun, but the bullets that the Tang made for this gun, we have a hard time making them, bullets, black powder, and even nitrated paper shells, it's not a problem, the problem is the very unstable chemicals at the end, forgive us that there are no chemists in the arsenal, we still can't understand how to produce that thing in large quantities. ”

"Don't you know how to be flexible?" Something else, or a flintlock gun or something. ”

The designer looked at Thomson like an idiot, but he didn't say anything unpleasant, "Sir, forgive us for not being able to do it." ”

Marquis Rodkingham asked, "So, this rifle with a different structure from a flintlock pistol must be fired with the chemicals behind the special paper shells, right?" ”

The designer said, "That's right, Your Excellency Prime Minister. According to some materials sent by the General Ordnance Bureau, it is said that the Tang people used metal shells to wrap gunpowder and warheads, and I think that this paper shell bullet should be something similar to the principle. But even if the War Department had the money to make bullet casings out of brass in large quantities, and couldn't research the unstable chemistry and the more powerful propellant than black powder, we still wouldn't be able to make it. ”

The Marquis of Rockingham and Townsend looked at each other, both of them feeling very tricky. The captured soldiers have been released one after another, and some soldiers have picked up bullet casings of Tang soldiers on the battlefield, but even if they wanted to secretly save them, they were searched when they left the prisoner of war camp, so the British had no physical reference to them.

At the same time, as the designers of the military factory said, the cost of distributing a large number of bullets made of brass to the soldiers is too high, after all, the current Britain is not the United Kingdom in the second half of the nineteenth century, although Britain has money, but it is shocking to think about using metal as bullet casings, and knocking out a large amount of brass in every battle.

The designer took a real SC-2 and said: "Tang-made muskets are all rifled guns, their rifling is very good, the tolerances are extremely small, and their barrel strength is also good, so the performance of Tang-made weapons is excellent." Naturally, we can also process rifled guns, but drilling out of the rifling of any barrel is time-consuming and laborious, and it is very expensive. I heard that the Tang people sold an SC-2 musket for 100 Tang Yuan, that is, less than 14 pounds, in fact, it is really not expensive at all, assuming that we can make the same thing, there is no guarantee that it can be as perfect as the Tang people's manufacturing, and the price is absolutely impossible to be less than 20 pounds. ”

In fact, rifling the barrel of a musket was not an easy task, and even in the middle of the 19th century, Britain had basically completed industrialization, and there was a hard need for the Crimean War, and the British army could not guarantee a full replacement of rifled guns. The unusually boring and tiring work, combined with the suppression of workers' wages in order to reduce the cost of production, led to the strike of many British military factory workers at that time.

The Tang Dynasty was already an industrialized country, and had more advanced machines and management models, and was considered by the British to be a musket with a production cost of 20 pounds, and they may not even have a cost of 2 pounds to produce.

The British Red Shirts could not afford to be armed with a 20-pound musket, much to the dismay of the British.

At this time, the Prime Minister, Marquis Rodkingham, said: "Since you asked us to come here, you must have made something that can be used." ”

The designer nodded, took out another musket from under the table, and said: "This is what can be used, its prototype is the Tang Army's SC-1 musket, which is also a rifled gun, but there are fewer rifles, only four, and it is not loaded in the back with paper shells." It uses a more clever way to make the bullet spiral, making it relatively easy to load into the barrel, and its accuracy is far better than our P1756 and P1768, although the rate of fire cannot be compared with the rear-loading SC-2 rifle, but in our actual testing, the two rifles actually did not produce much difference. ”

"What about the cost of this rifle?" ”

"It's much cheaper, not much more expensive than the rifles we have now for the Army."

Marquis Rodgingham nodded and said, "Then this rifle should be produced immediately and equipped with our front-line troops." Also, what happened to the imitation of the cannon? ”

The designer said: "The production of the Tang Dynasty bronze cannon is not much better than ours, and we have absorbed some good designs that can be used in our own artillery, which is not a problem." It's just that I heard that the most powerful artillery of the Tang people is still their rifled guns, which not only have a long range, but also have great power, and I think if possible, I should get some samples over. ”

"It's not a problem." Marquis Rockingham said.

In fact, the Royal Ordnance Bureau has always been conservative, and on the other hand, Captain Norton of the British Army, after studying the principles of indigenous blowguns, made a round-headed cylindrical bullet with a hollowed-out bottom, and when he submitted his invention to the Ordnance Bureau, the Ordnance Bureau said: "The British army will not accept anything other than ball bullets." ”

Griner then modified Norton's design by stuffing cork into the hollow bottom to make the expansion more stable, making it a true Mini bullet. The British Ordnance Bureau replied, "This kind of bullet with a combination of two materials will increase the cost of manufacturing." ”

Ironically, thirteen years later, the British bought the exact same design from the Frenchman Mini for another £20,000......

Now the British can accept the new thing so quickly, and not because they were kicked in the ass so hard on the battlefield. (To be continued.) )