Last time, I mentioned that Zhu Youzhen and Zhu Youxiao were very interested in the "rifled gun" used by Xu Guangqi when training recruits, and couldn't help but ask about some related matters.

The shortcomings of the "smoothbore gun" are also fatal, in addition to the low "accuracy", that is, the firing range is too close and it is difficult to reload gunpowder, but history is not necessarily the same. However, in the early 17th century on the European continent, there were already "rifled guns" with longer range and higher accuracy, which were commonly known as "rifled guns", but the armies of European countries at that time still preferred unrifled "smoothbore guns". Why is that? Because of security and cost performance.

Perhaps many people will think that it is because the "rifled gun" appeared relatively late and did not catch up with the trend of updating weapons in European armies? Indeed, the "rifled gun" appeared a little later than the "smoothbore gun", after all, the "rifle" was also derived from the basis of the "smoothbore".

But the problem is that as early as 1420 AD, that is, in the early 15th century, in a blacksmith shop in Nuremberg, Germany, the world's first "rifled gun" with "rifling" had been invented, but the "rifling" of this period was still straight, not the later "spiral" curved line.

Because when this blacksmith made the "rifling" at that time, he did not consider improving the stability of the projectile when it was discharged, but in order to reduce the "friction" when loading the projectile, so as to increase the loading speed, that is to say, he did not think of the epoch-making significance of the "rifled gun", it was just arbitrary.

After all, the "breech gun" that loaded ammunition from the back of the gun only appeared in the eighteenth century, and before that, ammunition was loaded from the front of the barrel, and the gunpowder and projectile had to be compacted with a "feeding stick", which was extremely cumbersome, and the whole process was tossed down, and it was already efficient to fire once a minute.

It was not until 1476 that the spiral "rifling" appeared in Italian literature, which means that from the end of the fifteenth century, the characteristics of "rifling" to increase the range and accuracy have begun to be prominent. This happened to be the last years of the Ming Dynasty in the ancient Oriental country, and firearms were used in large quantities.

The time when Europe generally assembled "flintlock pistols" had to be postponed to the middle of the 17th century, that is, the period of communication between the Ming and Qing dynasties. So, in the nearly 200 years from the end of the 15th century to the mid-17th century, there was no army in the world that used "rifled guns" on a large scale?

Needless to say, there are still naturally, because the Danish army was equipped with "rifled guns" in the early seventeenth century, but in the end the "rifled guns" were not popularized on the battlefield, because the "rifled guns" at that time had not been improved to "breech loading", and the "front loading" mode was still used, which was inefficient.

It stands to reason that the "rifled gun" obviously has the advantages of long range and high accuracy, and it should quickly become popular all over Europe and even the world, right? Why was it not until the middle of the 19th century that it was gradually accepted and popularized by European armies? Because the disadvantage of the original "rifled gun" was inferior to the "smoothbore gun" in terms of loading speed!

Although compared with the "smoothbore gun" with a simpler barrel structure, the essence of the "rifled gun" lies in the barrel structure, and the spiral "rifling" also makes its requirements for the manufacturing process more demanding, and both the time cost and labor cost are greater. This is actually an important reason.

Then, in the end, the cost of the "rifled gun" is more expensive than the "smoothbore gun". However, looking at the history of war in Europe, these countries in Europe seem to have never cared about how high the cost of a weapon is, and they are more concerned about the performance of the weapon, or in other words, they are more concerned about the performance of the weapon, or in other words, they are seeking refinement rather than more. It's like the "knightly" trend in the Middle Ages in Europe.

Are Europeans looking for the so-called "knightly glory" and "chivalry" or something? The same as the spiritual narcissism of "Don Quixote".

First of all, whether it is knightly glory or chivalry, it is actually a product derived after the appearance of knights. And the birth of the "knight" is a real product of war. In order to pursue the so-called "absolute crush", the pursuit of higher defense and higher attack power.

The aristocracy of the European Middle Ages implemented the "vassal system" and the "mining system" with great fanfare, and spared no effort to create expensive but armed "heavy knights" to the teeth. Another example is the "Paris Cannon" developed by Germany at the end of World War I.

The cannon was large and extremely expensive, but these were secondary, because the "Paris Cannon" perfectly reflected the Germans' pursuit of "extreme range" at that time with its range of nearly 120 kilometers! This range was long, but it was surpassed by later generations of "rocket artillery" or short-range "missiles"!

And at that time, the range of ordinary artillery at that time could reach 20 kilometers was already a very good result. If we look at it this way, if the cost disadvantage of the "rifled gun" is far beyond the range and accuracy of the "smoothbore gun", then it is really not a disadvantage but an advantage. There must be another reason.

After all, after the projectile is discharged, it can have a longer range and higher accuracy, which means that its actual "effective range" must also be improved by leaps and bounds, and it will also increase the "destructive power" after hitting, which is not a revolutionary effect that can be brought by the simple "longest range"!

Therefore, the real reason why European armies preferred "smoothbore guns" during the period from the 17th century to the 19th century must have other reasons in addition to the relatively higher cost, otherwise it is just a few rifling wires on the barrel, and where can the cost be higher?

This starts with the shortcomings of the "rifled gun". Strictly speaking, it is not actually a defect, because this defect does not come from the "rifled gun" itself, but from the good partner of the "rifled gun", that is, the so-called "projectile". To say "guns" without "ammunition" is to speak in vain.

As we all know, before the advent of modern "pointed bullets", in that era when "arquebuses" and "flintlock guns" were popular, the shape of bullets was "round" small steel balls or small lead pellets, that is, the "projectile" form commonly used in Chinese and Western firearms for a long time.

And the muzzle of the "rifled gun" under the influence of "rifling" is not a complete "circle" like the "smoothbore gun", but a round gear-like muzzle divided into "yin line" and "yang line". The so-called "yin line" is the bottom of the part where the rifling line is concave, and the "yang line" is the top of the part where the rifling line is protruding.

This also means that if the caliber is calculated by using the "yang line" to the "yang line" as it is now, there will inevitably be the problem of "energy leakage" of black powder, resulting in poor muzzle sealing, which will affect the firing range of the "rifled gun".

As a result, at that time, in fact, the caliber of the rifled gun was judged according to the distance from the "Yin line" to the "Yin line", that is, the projectile used in the "rifled gun" was actually slightly larger than the actual caliber.

As a result, when the soldier loads the ammunition into the "rifled gun" through the muzzle, it is often more difficult than the ammunition of the "smoothbore gun", and he has to constantly use the "feeding stick" to repeatedly hit the projectile, otherwise it is possible that the projectile will not reach the bottom of the barrel.

After this back and forth, the already slow reloading speed of the "flintlock pistol" was naturally even slower. But this is not the end, because there is a bigger problem, under the knocking back and forth, the projectile made of lead will inevitably be deformed, and even directly stuck in the "groove" of the "rifling", then there is often a risk of "blowing up the bore", after all, its "caliber" does not match. "Blowing up" is not fun, it will kill people immediately!

On the other hand, the muzzle of the "smoothbore gun" is rounded, and the caliber is as much as it is, as long as the projectile is not selected wrong and the barrel is not deformed, then it is basically impossible to have the risk that the projectile cannot be loaded or "explode" because of the deformation of the bullet, so the safety factor is far more than that of the "rifled gun" of the same period.

Well, in this case, the "rifled gun" has a long range and high accuracy, but because it is slow to reload, it is easier to blow up than a "smoothbore gun", so it is not popular. Although the "smoothbore gun" has a short range and low accuracy, it is faster to reload than the "rifled gun" and is not easy to explode, so it won for the time being.

This shows that the "smoothbore gun" was more cost-effective than the "rifled gun" at that time, especially when the infantry and cavalry were in confrontation, the rate of fire was very important! After all, war is a group, and it is true that there is an advantage in range, but life is more important, and as for accuracy, in the context of large-scale wars, it is not as important as security!

In the process of infantry against cavalry, the accuracy and range of the "smoothbore gun" are far less accurate and far than the "rifled gun", but in the face of a large number of large-scale cavalry group charges, although it may not be able to accurately hit the intended target, but it is guaranteed to hit the enemy next to the target!

Therefore, the "smoothbore gun" surpassed the "rifled gun" that had not been improved in many aspects, and it was not until the 19th century that it ushered in a new life, because the captain of the French Orleans Chasseur "Claude Edirne Migne" improved the "projectile" of the rifled gun and invented a new type of "projectile" called the "Migne bullet".

Judging from the shape alone, it is actually very close to the "round-headed bullet" of the pistol of later generations, the difference is that the gunpowder and the bullet are still separated. However, the characteristic of the "Minne bullet" is that the caliber of the projectile is slightly smaller than that of the "rifled gun", but there is no "energy leakage" and it is easy to load.

This is because there is a cone-like groove behind the warhead of the "Migne", and there is also an oak plug, and after igniting the gunpowder, the instantaneous pressure generated by the gunpowder and the impact force of the oak will cause the groove to expand outward, so as to match the rifling on the barrel to a suitable shape. In fact, this is very close to the single-shot "bullet" produced by large-scale standardization in the "arsenal" of later generations.

It is precisely by virtue of the improvement of the "projectile" that the "Migne-type front-loading rifled gun" equipped with the "Migne bullet" has also won an excellent shooting result with a maximum range of 918 meters and can accurately hit the target within 500 meters. At that time, the firing range of the "smoothbore gun" was still about 200 meters.

As for the "smoothbore guns" that were still used in later generations, they became synonymous with "shotguns", "shotguns", "explosion-proof guns" or "flare guns" and other firearms that did not pay much attention to "range" and "accuracy". Of course, "smoothbore guns" cannot be counted, after all, "muskets" and "artillery" are completely different things!

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Haha, thank you for your attention, collection, recommendation, subscription and review of this book! As an author, I am very happy and honored to provide readers with a novel that meets the needs of the general public. As the saying goes, "Life is short, but the tip of the pen is slender." "Therefore, the road to cultivation is long, where to find immortality? There is nowhere to go for troubles, and read the people in the book!

This story is pure fiction, if there are similarities, it is a coincidence! Friends, the part-time job is hard, the time is urgent, the creation is not easy, like the collection, by the way, forward, want to know the plot? Next time I break it down!