Chapter 332 Shenwu Cannon

【Today's Fourth Update】

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In addition to the Jaguar and Jaguar, the Army Department also equipped the Army's Third Division.

The Third Division of the Army is a descendant of Emperor Shenwu and a unit with strong combat effectiveness in the Army.

The 3rd Infantry Division of the Army, equipped with advanced weaponry. The first is the musket used by the infantry, at this time, the General Armament Department of the Chinese Empire can already realize the production of muskets on its own, if it is not so, it does not dare to offend the Spaniards, because the main equipment of the army in the past is the heavy Mushket musket of the Spaniards.

Of course, there are also French-made dog-lock muskets, but the French stopped exporting dog-lock muskets three years ago in preparation for the Thirty Years' War in Europe, and all of them were used to equip their own troops. Because the French had to face the powerful Spaniards, and in the first years of the war between France and Spain, the French were defeated all the way, very passive. Therefore, muskets are not exported anymore.

Fortunately, the Imperial Chinese Army used to import a large number of Spanish Mushkert muskets every time it traded, so that after the Spaniards also stopped exporting muskets to China, the Chinese Imperial Army could still use muskets.

However, muskets were consumables after all, and the number of spare muskets in the Chinese Empire dropped dramatically as firearms aged and worn, as well as damaged and lost in battle.

Therefore, as early as five years ago, when Deng Haonan was the regent of the prison country, he began to imitate muskets. However, at that time, the imitation of muskets was carried out in the military war bureau in Beijing.

Among the legacies left to Deng Haonan by the Ming Dynasty, Deng Haonan was the happiest in the war bureau. A large number of talents there can be said to be experts and originators in the field of firearms. Although the Ming people at that time began to develop firearms after learning Western science, it has to be said that the Ming people were smart and quickly imitated the advanced weapons of the West. But what is even smarter is that the Ming people were able to draw inferences from one another, and on the basis of advanced Western technology, they quickly drummed up more advanced Eastern weapons.

The Tongzhi two-year musket was developed on the basis of the French dog-lock musket, and was modified to make it lighter, longer and more powerful.

After continuous testing, Xu Guangqi and Bi Maoliang successfully developed a reliable and perfect firing mechanism and insurance mechanism, and continued to use the tunnel impact method of the dog-lock musket, but the improvement of the barrel and sights made the Tongzhi two-year musket the best performance gun at that time.

The barrel of the Tongzhi two-year-old musket was made of reinforced stainless steel, and the advancement of the hydraulic press brought extremely high strength and hardness to the steel used in the steel pipe of the firearm. The stainless steel barrel with the addition of nickel-chromium reduces the corrosion of gunpowder on the chamber and prolongs the service life of the barrel.

And the first improvement of the sight is proud of the ... The principle of the first line, a front sight is installed in the muzzle of the barrel, and a sight is installed in the body of the gun. The notched door, barley crosshair, and inverted V allow soldiers to shoot accurately.

But the Tongzhi two-year-old musket was not approved for mass production by Deng Haonan, but has been experimenting. The original reason was that steel was expensive, a musket cost as much as a hundred taels of silver, and it was too expensive to equip the army on a large scale.

As a result, this type of musket has been experimenting, and it has been continuously improved by Xu Guangqi and them, and the cost has been continuously reduced.

It was not until the second year of Shenwu, with the continuous improvement of the empire's iron and steel technology, and the continuous progress of steel smelting and forging equipment, that the cost of the musket was finally charged, and it was only less than ninety silver dollars, less than half the price of the previous one. Xu Guangqi said that if it is mass-produced, the cost will be lower, and it will eventually be controlled at about 70 silver dollars.

At this time, the empire had run out of reserves on muskets, so Deng Haonan approved the construction.

However, the name of the Tongzhi two-year musket was canceled and changed to the Shenwu two-year rifle.

Changing the musket into a rifle was something Deng Haonan insisted on. At this time, the propellant in the musket was no longer ignited by an open flame, but was completely changed to a powerful firing type. At the same time, the European war will soon lead to the popularity of the tunnel-type musket, and it will soon be renamed a rifle, so Deng Haonan changed the musket used by the imperial army to a rifle in order to preempt other countries.

Shenwu two-year rifle, Western code name 30 tunnel pistol, there are two kinds of infantry tunnel pistol and cavalry flintlock pistol, the former caliber is 18 mm, the gun length is 1460 mm, The gun weighs 4.29 kg, the projectile weighs 32.1 grams, the firing range is 500 meters, the effective range is 230 meters, and it is equipped with a 430 mm long bayonet, which is detachable, the latter has a caliber of 17.3 mm, the gun is 1210 mm long, the gun weighs 3.6 kg, the projectile weighs 21.3 grams, the firing range is 350 meters, the effective range is 150 meters, and it is equipped with a 400 mm long bayonet, which is detachable.

The use of lead projectiles is extremely powerful, and can penetrate the heavy cuirass worn by knights at a distance of 100 meters, or the bodies of two warhorses or three or four people. At this time, most weapons of the same weight in Europe could hardly cause any damage at a distance of 100 meters.

The Shenwu two-year rifle, due to the use of high-strength stainless steel tubes in the chamber, has significantly enhanced the chamber pressure resistance, reaching the chamber pressure level of the Spanish Mushkert arquebus, but it is much lighter. The latter generally needs to be mounted on a stand to continue fighting after half an hour of use, while the Shenwu two-year rifle is close to the weight of modern muskets, although it still seems heavy, but it is enough for soldiers to support a high-intensity battle.

The improvement on gunpowder has little effect, except for equipping soldiers with a small bottle of quantitative gunpowder, it is not easy to increase the power of gunpowder. This was mainly due to Deng Haonan being too lazy to continue his chemical practice and not being able to get advanced gunpowder. Of course, as the emperor of a country, Deng Haonan has a lot of things to do every day, and he just has no time.

However, at present, although the gunpowder has not been improved, but the existing machinery manufacturing technology is improved, in disguise to make up for the lack of gunpowder, for a long time in the future, Deng Haonan believes that the weapons of the Chinese Empire are leading the world, so he is not worried about this.

Of course, Deng Haonan does not study gunpowder, which does not mean that he does not care. Many alchemists from Imperial University, that is, future chemists, were instructed by Deng Haonan to study more powerful gunpowder. Therefore, even if Deng Haonan didn't study it himself, he didn't let others be idle.

In addition to rifles, the 3rd Infantry Division was armed with revolving rifles, which Deng called machine guns.

This is Xu Guang enlightened, he according to the principle of the European revolving rifle, put forward the idea that the rifle can also do continuous projectiles, and thus invented a kind of bead milling similar to the shape of the sepa, the gunpowder and projectiles of the bead are stored in the back of the gun, a total of 30 rounds, with two wheels to open and close, when the first machine is triggered, the gunpowder and lead projectile automatically fall into the barrel, the second machine rotates randomly, rubs the flint, ignites the gunpowder and launches the lead projectile. In fact, the principle of this kind of machine gun is very similar to that of modern mechanical machine guns, so Deng Haonan called it a machine gun, which is a century earlier than the earliest machine guns in the West.

Rifles have advanced, and infantry artillery has also advanced.

Shenwu cannon, also known as Shenwu three-year infantry gun, Western code name 31 infantry gun.

Shenwu three-year infantry gun, caliber 100 mm, 20 times diameter, effective range: live ammunition 1500 meters/shotgun 1800 meters, bullet weight: live ammunition 6 kg/shotgun 10 kg, rate of fire 1 round/min, gun carriage weight 180 kg.

In addition to increasing the caliber to 100 millimeters and increasing the diameter to 20 to increase the firing range, the most striking feature of the Shenwu three-year infantry gun is that it has achieved rear-loading ammunition.

The ability to achieve rear-loading ammunition is a breech-loading gun. This progress is two hundred years ahead of the world. Of course, it is not the leadership of the technical level, but the leadership of the concept. The rear-loading gun has long been proposed, but it has not been adopted due to many problems. First of all, there is the problem of steel, and the bolt technology required for rear loading is very complex.

Europeans also use the cost of fine iron to build, but the cost will be relatively high, so Europeans are generally unable to manufacture it because of the high cost. Of course, more countries are still due to the fact that there is no concept of rear-loading guns, such as the current France, which already has the technical conditions to manufacture post-loading equipment, but they have not thought of using rear-loading guns.

Of course, the biggest problem with the breech is the bolt, which must be strong enough to withstand the huge impact of the explosion of gunpowder in the breech. Once the strength of the cannon bolt is not up to par, and the cannon does not wait to hit the enemy, and his own people hang up first, it will be a joke.

This is one of the main reasons for the scruples of Europeans, because their steel is not strong enough, or it is too expensive to build.

The strength of the steel of the Chinese Empire had already passed, so the first and biggest problem of the rear loading gun was solved.

That's not enough, though. The problem of the bolt was solved, but there was another huge problem with the breech gun, that is, the bolt when the gun was reloaded, and the corresponding anti-recoil device needed to be changed. Previously fired with a front-loading gun, behind it was a huge cannon butt, and his weight was enough to stabilize the gun. However, when taking the rear-loading gun latch, due to the precise design of the gun latch, it is not possible to leave it alone when firing recoil as before, and the big butt will not be damaged. But today's latches cannot be hit by such recoil, so this problem must be solved.

The anti-recoil device was then born, and the previous gun body was connected to the gun carriage through the guò trunnion, and the gun carriage of this kind of gun was called the Ganglian gun mount. The rigid gun mount is heavily stressed when the gun is fired, the gun is bulky, the mobility is poor, the aiming is destroyed when firing, the firing speed is slow, and the increase in power is limited.

Under the guidance of Deng Haonan, the artillery experts of the Chinese Empire used the working principle of the hydraulic press to realize the anti-recoil device.

The Shenwu three-year infantry gun implements an anti-recoil device, and the gun body is connected to the gun mount, and the gun carriage of this kind of gun is called the elastic gun mount. Experts built an anti-recoil device on the Shenwu three-year infantry gun, that is, a water-pressure gas stationary retreat and re-entry machine. The machine pushes the hydraulic press backwards, so that when the elastic gun mount gun is fired, due to the cushioning of the anti-recoil device, the force acting on the gun mount is greatly reduced, the weight of the gun is reduced, the gun will not be displaced when firing, the gun bolt will not be damaged by hitting other hard objects, and the firing speed will be increased at the same time. The use of elastic artillery mounts alleviated the contradiction between increasing the power of artillery and improving mobility, and the artillery structure tended to be perfected, which was a major breakthrough in the history of artillery development and a major boost to the dominance of the Chinese imperial army.

The manufacturers and designers of the artillery of the Chinese Empire constantly verified the comprehensive performance of the new design of the gun, the diameter of the breech, the thickness of the barrel wall, the explosive charge of the shell, and the weight of the projectile. As a result, the variety of artillery models made the supply of ammunition an extremely heavy burden, and as a result, the importance of artillery in field warfare was reduced. In an attempt to change this, shortly before the mid-16th century, King Charles V of Spain ordered the standardization of all empire-made cannons into seven models. Soon King Henry II of France followed Spain's lead and prescribed the French cannon as six standard models.

Before the advent of the Shenmu cannon, there was also such a problem, and experts experimented with guns of various calibers and multiple diameters, as well as barrels of different thicknesses. There are as many as 43 sample cannons for Shenwu cannons, and the military department actually wants to produce all the models.

In this regard, Deng Haonan directly criticized the War Department.

However, these experts were reluctant to allow their sample cannons to be displayed or destroyed. As a result, trial production continued, and many new models were added to the original standard models, but they were finally more systematic and planned than before.

In order to solve this problem, Deng Haonan finally had to spend time to establish a list of rules and regulations such as artillery caliber and multiple. In order to stipulate and restrict researchers from indiscriminately testing models.

At this time, only Spain in Europe had a fixed table system, and many European countries had many guns that were modeled after Spanish designs, but the models of guns have always been different from country to country.

During this period in Europe, artillery weapons began to be combined into three main types as prototypes of modern artillery: the first was the long gun type, which was equivalent to modern artillery; The second category is the cannon, that is, the prototype of the howitzer; The third type is a gun with a thinner barrel wall and a higher ballistic.

The long gun is similar to modern field artillery, with a long barrel (about 30 times the caliber) and a fast muzzle velocity, so it has a low trajectory, a long firing range, and high accuracy. In order to make the shell reach the required muzzle velocity without causing the barrel to explode and kill the gunner, the barrel of the long gun is very thick, resulting in a large weight of the cannon and poor mobility. Therefore, large-caliber long guns could only be used in siege operations.

The second type of gun, which has a lighter and shorter body, is used to fire heavier projectiles, but at a shorter range. Although this cannon sacrificed range and accuracy, it gained greater mobility without reducing its power. This is called a cannon. Its barrel length is about 20 times the caliber, which is roughly equivalent to a modern howitzer. However, early cannons were even less mobile than long guns, and some were actually larger and bulkier than the largest long guns.

The Shenmu three-year infantry gun is just a type of cannon that is neither long nor short between European standards, and can be classified as a cannon type, but the mobility is much higher than that of the cannon, and it is much lighter.

The first batch of Shenwu three-year infantry guns was produced with a unit price of 400,000 silver dollars, and 50 were equipped for the Imperial Guard, and the remaining 100 were directly shipped to the Americas and equipped for the Third Infantry Division, hoping that the Third Infantry Division could withstand the fighting of Western armies in the Americas.

The cost of the three-year infantry gun of Shenwu is very high, because the army transports the infantry gun and needs an anti-recoil device, and this anti-recoil device is quite expensive, equivalent to a small hydraulic press, so the cost of the infantry gun is high.

However, Deng Haonan has always been very generous on the issue of artillery, which may have something to do with the fact that he was an artillery expert in his previous life, and he has a soft spot for artillery, so he can drag the rifle, but the artillery never drags. The military department is well aware that their Shenwu Emperor has this preference, so when it comes to artillery, the military department has always been a lion's mouth.

After such a huge improvement in the army-type infantry artillery, it was natural for the Admiralty to intervene. The War Department soon received a request from the Admiralty to develop a new naval gun for the Navy, which had made great contributions to the Empire.

Although the cabinet was dissatisfied with the huge amount of money spent on the production of artillery, the emperor quickly approved it, so the Ministry of Finance had to allocate funds to the Ministry of War for the development and mass production of naval guns.

Navy naval guns used to use God of War artillery, although this kind of God of War artillery is fast, but because of the small caliber, the use of sub-guns causes the air tightness of the gun chamber to be insufficient, and the power is small. The army infantry artillery is already capable of hitting 1800 meters, so the naval artillery must be improved.

There is no way, the navy and the army have always been working against each other, not giving in to each other, despising each other, and comparing each other, which seems to have doomed the opposition between them since the day the navy and army were divided.

It was much easier to study the naval guns for the Admiralty, and it was done that year. Therefore, it is also called the Shenwu three-year naval gun.

Shenwu three-year naval naval gun, also known as Type 31 naval naval gun, is equipped with a caliber of 130 mm, 20 times the diameter, effective range: live ammunition 1500 meters/shotgun 1800 meters, bullet weight: live ammunition 7 kg/shotgun 10 kg, rate of fire 1 round/min, gun truck weight 200 kg.

The second-tier gun deck was equipped with guns of a caliber of one hundred and fifty millimeters, twenty times the caliber, and a firing range of 2000 meters. The three-tier gun deck was armed with 200 mm, 20 times caliber guns with a firing range of 2500 meters. The effective firing range of the three calibers is basically the same, and the large-caliber guns are farther, the weight of the shells has also increased a lot, and of course the lethality is much stronger.

Similarly, naval guns are equipped with sights and crosshairs to increase the accuracy of fire.

The Navy gun was not as expensive as the Army type, because the Navy version used a gun carriage and did not need a gun carriage with an anti-recoil device like the Army type, so the cost was cut in half. However, since the Imperial Royal Navy has now begun to build large-scale warships of the cruiser rank and above, which are generally double-decked, the large-caliber guns used in the second-tier gun deck, and the larger-caliber guns used in the future third-tier gun decks, will increase due to the increase in caliber, so in the later period, it will be more expensive for the navy.

Of course, the navy is an expensive service.

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