Chapter XXXVIII: The King of War

In the 21st century, although warplanes and tanks have long filled the sky and land on the battlefield. But when it comes to the "Lord of War", everyone still naturally thinks of artillery.

Because the weapon was so impressive in the two world wars, carpet artillery coverage often became a means used by all sides before every battle. Accompanied by a deafening roar, the brutality of war also made people more and more awe-inspiring about the existence of artillery.

Among these various types of artillery, as a nation that has experienced the eight-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, an active weapon from the Chinese army in World War II has left an extremely deep impression on the Chinese people.

It is the military standard 50mm caliber mortar, which is commonly known as the grenadier canister.

Thanks to its existence, on the Chinese battlefield in the early stage of World War II, a Chinese army brigade with only a few hundred men often dared to run around rampantly with an infantry division of the Kuomintang army lacking artillery equipment, and its mobility and combat capability can be seen from this.

Referring to this World War II weapon, the Avalanche military-industrial complex also developed its own ultra-light mortar after improvement.

The caliber is still 50mm, and due to the improvement of materials and processes, the service life of this mortar equipped by the Republic has been greatly improved compared with the former.

The mass-produced 50mm mortar is extremely lightweight, weighing no more than 7. 5 kg, the length of the barrel of the gun was also only 370 mm.

It will be an extremely convenient support weapon for the troops, and the gap between infantry grenades and infantry guns will be successfully solved.

As for the second type of 88mm mortars with a slightly larger caliber, in addition to better equipping mobile troops for combat, on the other hand, it is also because the firing curve of this type of artillery is very different from that of old artillery, and it can effectively solve targets behind obstacles.

The 88mm mortar produced with a sample barrel length of 1. 1 meter, 40 kilograms, and a range of 2 kilometers can be regarded as reaching the target set by Chen Zeyu.

In addition, due to some technical reasons, the artillery production plants in the military-industrial complex are still slightly behind Western countries in terms of large-caliber body barrels. As far as Chen Zeyu knows, the arsenals of Britain and France can now produce artillery with a maximum caliber of 16 inches, and the caliber of the Great Berta used by Germany during World War I is even more exaggerated to the point that the world is astonishing.

In addition, the avalanche military-industrial complex has not been precipitated for a long time like the ordnance industrial groups of European countries.

Artillery of various calibers, different types, and combat purposes, the materials used in each part of its body barrel, the optimal proportion of alloy formulas, and other optimized core data, excluding technical factors, these things also need to be tested again and again, and only the accumulation of long-term experience can finally catch up with the other party.

After all, Chen Zeyu is not omnipotent, and in the end he can only increase the investment of funds and technical manpower in the entire military industrial group, and set up special fund awards for this purpose to promote such technological inventions and creations.

Compared with the artillery projects that have yet to grow, the development of explosives within the military-industrial complex has been progressing smoothly.

The Avalanche Explosives R&D Factory mainly develops and manufactures various guns and shells, artillery shells and ammunition propellants and warhead filling explosives technology.

In this regard, the Republic once again has a leading position in the world because of Chen Zeyu's innate factors.

Chen Zeyu directly took out the formula of Heisuojin, which he had hidden in his mind for many years, the chemical name is triple methyl triammonium, the power of the king of explosives is not a joke, and the explosive power per unit mass is equivalent to 2 of TNT explosives. 5 times.

Unfortunately, due to the special demand for raw materials and post-production process of this explosive, its production cost has remained high, and the unit production cost is equivalent to more than 10 times that of TNT.

The explosives developers who were a little troubled by this incident could only report the situation to Chen Zeyu layer by layer, and Chen Zeyu was also a little dumbfounded when he got the news. At this time, he remembered that this thing is also expensive to produce in modern times, and there is no large-scale equipment in various countries.

After thinking about it, in the end, the avalanche explosives factory was replaced by another explosive product that was easier to produce on a large scale - picric acid.

This kind of chemical raw material that can be manufactured on a large scale in a dye factory in the modern textile industry, Chen Zeyu still knew something about it in his previous life.

Picric acid, also known as **, is frequently used in matches, dyes, pharmaceuticals and leather and other industries, in a word, it is a wide source of raw materials and low production costs.

However, this explosive also has certain disadvantages, that is, it is easy to get damp and has a poisonous surname. As a poisonous surname, Chen Zeyu doesn't care, once picric acid is used as a projectile loader, it will have a strong stimulation to the human body on the battlefield. However, Chen Zeyu is going to use it as a bomb to fill explosives, and it is better to have a poisonous surname, and it will be used on the enemy anyway.

As for the problem of post-damp instability, in this nineteenth century, perhaps only Chen Zeyu knew how to deal with it.

At this time, in the nineteenth century, Western countries had already incorporated the less expensive picric acid into military applications, but it was because of its susceptibility to moisture and instability, after several picric acid explosion accidents, these countries were helpless to start producing TNT explosives with higher costs one by one.

In fact, even in the late twentieth century, how to ensure the safety of picric acid in humid conditions has been a topic of intense research in various countries, and has been classified as a military secret for a long time since then.

Under the planned guidance of Chen Zeyu, the factory finally selected several suitable passivation preparations and added the picric acid explosive formula after successive tests, and finally conquered this explosive project. The unit power of the picric acid mixed explosive after finalization is about 1 of TNT. 6 times, Chen Zeyu gave it a cool nickname - Whirlwind Explosives to describe its great power.

With less money, he produced more powerful explosives of the same unit, and Chen Zeyu was very happy.

This alone has a potential value comparable to hundreds of tons of gold, Chen Zeyu is not so short-sighted, and naturally he will not take out this formula to make loss-making transactions with other countries.

Although the original black Suojin is no longer suitable for large-scale production, Chen Zeyu has not given up completely. After all, the power of the unit volume is there, and it is being produced in small quantities first, and it may be used in future special operations.

As for the follow-up research and development in this area, Chen Zeyu only left a topic within the military industrial group, and perhaps after a few decades, the cost of Heisuojin can be reduced to an acceptable level after the construction of various related industries is perfected. In a short period of time, he lost hope for this technical problem that no other country in later generations had overcome.

On the basis of the successful research and development of picric acid mixed explosives, the factory has successively added ingredients such as lithium, beryllium, boron, aluminum, magnesium, titanium, silicon and other ingredients to different products, and has successively formed a series of special explosives products of picric acid. In addition to the design improvement of the projectile body, the factory has continuously developed a variety of new types of armor-piercing bullets, flowering grenades, incendiary bombs, flares, tracer bombs, smoke bombs, signal flares and other types of ammunition.

Except for this explosive formula, the factory has not innovated in the choice of propellant, and it is still producing smokeless propellant that has been popularized long ago.

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