Alphonse smiled. This is why he skipped the 9-pounder cannon and the 12-pounder cannon and directly developed the 16-pounder cannon. If the launch volume is large enough, he can suppress the opponent at a distance of about 500 meters.

If each other is saturated with fire, then the enemy's 12-pounder cannon and 9-pounder cannon can be completely ignored. As for the 24-pounder cannon, it is already the main force of the battle line. As Badis said, what the 24-pounder cannon needs is counterattack.

Use excess power to teach the enemy how to behave without him wandering around.

From this, we can also understand why Badis said that the strength of the fifth-level frigate is no different from that of an armed merchant ship, because the British and the Dutch use 18-pound guns as civilian-level guns. As long as they are willing to spend money, a single-deck armed merchant ship can

With ten 18-pound guns and eight 9-pound guns, no matter whether it is a 500-meter bombardment or a 300-meter fight, it will not be any worse than this fifth-level frigate...

"It seems that our ideas coincide. I am planning to launch a legal 16-pound naval gun based on the latest version in the near future. In your opinion, what aspects should I pay attention to?" Alphonse smiled and took this morning's gun from the side.

He handed the 16-pound wax paper that he had fine-tuned to Badis and said with a smile: "This is our first draft of the design. Take a look."

Badis quickly took the drawing and observed it carefully, without stopping to speak: "The caliber is 16 pounds and the length is 3.1 meters. Is this the same size as the naval gun used by the navy?"

"Indeed." Alphonse smiled.

"Although your barrel design increases the difficulty of casting, it also increases the elevation angle. Is it to increase the range from the beginning?" As a true master of gun use, Badis's opinion is more straightforward.

"My idea is to use the high hit rate of French artillery to suppress the front line from 300-500 meters to 400-600 meters. This can completely eliminate the power of artillery under 12 pounds." Alphonse laughed. In fact, he was

Beware of encountering your own rapid-fire cannon one day at sea. Once a ship with enough rapid-fire cannons approaches you, it will be a disaster.

"This is... a fusiliator? My God! If we have it, the French boy's hit rate can be increased by at least half!" Badis knocked on the fusilla machine on the drawing in surprise and continued: "With the fusilla machine

If the engine is fired, the loading speed and ignition speed will also be improved a lot. One artillery can save about 20 seconds, and it can fire three guns in almost 5 minutes. In other words, the original hit rate of five 18-pound guns in one hour is about

It is 5 rounds, but with this new artillery, the hit rate can be increased to 8 rounds!"

"This is exactly what I want. My idea is to make it into cast iron, so that its weight can be reduced by at least one-fifth compared to bronze. After all, it is the legal 16 pounds, so its recoil force is only 14 pounds at most.

The power of the Marigold is also the same. If it were me, I would replace all 16 cannons on both sides with it. In that way, more than 12 rounds could be hit on the enemy within an hour. As long as one shot hits the vital point, it would be fine.

Send them to hell." Alphonse smiled.

"You can really consider it... It's a pity that I can never go back to marigolds." Badis said with regret.

"It's nothing. If you join us, you will have a better ship than the Marigold. They are all fighting privateers anyway, right?" Alphonse took the opportunity to extend a hand of friendship again.

"Thank you." Badis was stunned for a moment, then firmly held Alphonse's hand.

"Welcome to join us, let's have lunch together, I will take you to the artillery factory in the afternoon..."

But when Badis was with him, Alphonse suddenly discovered that casting a cannon was unprecedentedly difficult, whether it was the thickening of the part of the barrel, the adjustment of the size of the muzzle, the reinforcement of the bottom, the adjustment of the proportion and the thickness of the barrel.

The compromise with strength made Alphonse, who obviously only wanted to imitate the 15th century cone-shaped cannon, surprised to find that the cannon was not as simple as imagined. Especially after having Badis, a "professional", share his experience and conclusions, Yasuo's back was

It straightened a lot in an instant, became thicker, thicker, stronger, and stronger. Just on paper data, it has been increased from about 4,600 pounds to more than 5,200 pounds...

"Direct cast iron cannon!" Alphonse, who was almost intolerable and couldn't argue better than Bardis and Yasuo in the "professional" field, could only use the face of a capitalist: "This cannon cannot be flexible or reduce recoil."

One of the advantages I give up is that I don’t need a perfect artillery. What I want is an artillery that can exert maximum combat effectiveness on the battlefield, that’s all!”

At this point, all the data were re-examined. After Alphonse emphasized rapid fire, flexibility, and low recoil, and personally participated in the design modification, it finally took 5 days to create a 16-pound gun that everyone was basically satisfied with.

Yueran paper: caliber 13cm, bottom caliber 15cm, length 3.2m, bell mouth, wall 7cm, thickened 2cm from the middle section, thickened 2cm from the lug of the center of gravity, overall rear quarter section thickened 4cm, equipped with a flint

engine, the overall estimated weight is only 3,400 pounds!

Just looking at the data, the weight of the gun body is only the same as that of the bronze 12-pound gun, and it is equipped with a flint engine to obtain rapid fire capabilities. In addition, the gun body is self-tightening. If this gun can really come to the world, it can basically replace the 12-pound gun.

It's just thrown into the old pile. After all, an 18-pounder cannon whose weight, recoil and rate of fire are basically the same as a 12-pounder cannon has already been released. What's the use of a 12-pounder cannon whose power is more than one-third different?

Of course, light is really light, and ugly is really ugly. The entire gun body is just a cross decorated with fleur-de-lis pattern printed on the middle of the gun and the middle of the gun lug.

The difficulty of casting the cannon requires some real practice. So after the drawings came out, at the strong request of the capitalist Alphonse, the outer mold was cast using two plaster outer molds, while the inner mold was cast using a customized

Instead, it took three days to customize a 3-meter-long Erlenmeyer flask with a diameter of only 12cm and a bottom diameter of 16cm. More than 200 of them were scrapped, which cost a full 35 livres!<

/p>

In addition, in order to reduce the bubbles of molten iron, the steel-making furnace this time was also specially made. The iron-making crucible that had been used was completely abandoned. Instead, a brand-new hanging furnace was used, with an outlet pipe for molten iron at the bottom.

It is sealed with plaster, and when the molten iron is tapped, the plaster seal is opened, and after the iron slag is discharged, highly pure iron without bubbles can be obtained. And similarly, this furnace alone cost Mr. Moller dozens of livres.

My silver coin. Fortunately, the production of this one is not difficult. It can be formed in one go, unlike the clay bottles where 200 pieces were wasted. Otherwise, Mr. Moller would have to vomit blood!

"Mr. Moller, Mr. Alfred has written, saying that there is a mysterious guest from Paris. Please return as soon as possible." Alphonse watched eagerly as the first prototype cannon, which had been struggling for nearly half a month, was about to be trial cast.

He said he had no idea why the mysterious guest from Paris gave up witnessing its birth, so he waved his hands to show that he understood, and began to signal Yasuo Chris and the others to install the mold and prepare for casting.

Because the earthenware bottle is too fragile and too long, it will crack or even explode as long as the internal air pressure is unbalanced or the temperature difference is too large. Therefore, the entire mold must be baked, heated from room temperature to thousands of degrees, and the pottery will appear.

The tube was red and might soften and deform at any time, so the red molten iron that had been waiting was poured in!

"The earthenware tube is fine! Okay! We succeeded! Turn off the heat and cool down!" Yasuo stared at the earthenware tube bottle with just a little head sticking out. He didn't dare to breathe. After all, this earthenware tube is not as strong as porcelain. If it weren't for

There is no way, it must not be used as a mold.

Alphonse was also sweating, staring at the mold that had turned off the fire and started to cool down. Yasuo even used a ladder to see the condensation of molten iron until gray spots appeared, and then ordered the pottery bottles to be removed.

Add water!

"Bang!" Although not much water was added, the entire barrel made a thunderous explosion in the next second, spraying out a large amount of water vapor, and blasting a large number of pottery shards directly out, directly in the workshop.

A big hole was cut in the roof, blowing more pottery pieces into the sky!

"Rescue the wounded!" Alfons couldn't care less about the condition of the artillery. The dozen or so people present were all old employees transferred from the Golden Anchor Workshop. They were the scheduled cannon-casting seedlings. Each of them was better than this.

A prototype gun is much more important!

Fortunately, except for Yasuo who climbed up the ladder and fell and two employees who were hit by pottery shards, the others, although embarrassed, stood far away and were not seriously injured.

"Let's take him to the doctor first." Alphonse waved his hand to signal Antoine to send the wounded away. Yasuo stood up and limped to Alphonse's side and said loudly: "I won't leave, this cannon

It’s hard to say whether it was exploded or not, and now is the best time to collect data.”

"Just let Old Kule and the others come." Alphonse said helplessly.

"No, I won't leave even if you kill me!" Yasuo replied with a stiff neck.

"How long does it take to cool down?" Alphonse looked at Old Culler, the second most experienced person present.

"Let me take a look." Old Culler quickly lifted up the ladder that had fallen to the ground and climbed up to look at the red barrel, which was still red, and scratched his head. What's going on? It doesn't seem to be cracked? "Mr. Moller

, the gun barrel seems to be fine, why don’t we continue to add water?”

"Add!" Before Alphonse could say anything, Yasuo shouted loudly. He estimated that he would be lucky this time. It was probably because the heat insulation of gypsum was relatively strong, so when he ordered to add water, the entire prototype cannon was the inner tube.

It cools down faster than the outer wall, and internal tightness has initially formed. After adding water, the ceramic tube explodes and forms a secondary internal tightness, but it is still within the range of the artillery. Then add water for quenching, and the quality of the cannon will be unprecedentedly high.

!

"Whew!" Since there was a history of steam explosions, the person who released the water was also frightened. The speed of releasing the water was very slow, and the water vapor formed quickly. It was like a volcanic eruption. The whirring water vapor shot straight into the sky against the broken ceiling.

The water added did not stop!

After about a few minutes, the artillery stopped emitting much smoke. Then I quickly stopped adding water, hoisted the entire gun mold down to an open space, pulled the blower over, and started blowing air to cool down. This was again speechless.

After waiting for half an hour, until basically no smoke could be seen, the whole gun mold was lifted and turned upside down, fixed on the prepared iron and wood posts, watered the mold, and began to unload the integrated plaster.

Mold.

It's a pity that due to the previous explosion, the plaster mold had cracked when it was removed and could not be used again, but the gun barrel, which was still as high as 60 or 70 degrees Celsius, seemed unscathed!

"Blower!" Yasuo shouted loudly. This was the treasure he cherished so much. Seeing that it was still intact after the disaster, he naturally wanted to hold it in his arms and study it carefully.

Although Alphonse was also jealous, after all, he was still not as professional as Yasuo, so he could only watch Yasuo jumping up and down. Unexpectedly, when the temperature cooled down enough that it was no longer hot, Yasuo immediately asked someone to hoist the cannon and put it down, while he held it

Sprinkle a magnifying glass on it and look for faults inch by inch...

"I'll do it." Instead, Badis stepped forward and pulled Yasuo away, picked up a hammer, struck it once to listen to the sound, only struck it seven or eight times, then put down the hammer and said: "There is no cracking."
Chapter completed!