Chapter 66 Artillery (5)

The inspection Liu Xingli mentioned did not mean dragging the newly released cannon out for test firing immediately. Instead, the Military and Police Department, as the designer, checked the appearance and dimensions of the product against the design drawings to see if it complied with the design standards.

Yan Chujie took out a tape measure and started to check every size, length, caliber, barrel wall thickness, and barrel depth of the two guns against the design drawings. During the measurement process, he also checked the smoothness and smoothness of the surface of the gun body, and also marked the

The flashlight scanned the inside of the gun barrel. Five minutes later, Yan Chujie said that the dimensional accuracy of the two guns had fully met the design requirements, and there were no obvious flaws in their appearance.

However, the strict inspection procedures do not end here. The Ministry of Industry also brought a portable ultrasonic flaw detector to check whether there are cracks, pores and other internal defects in the two guns. This is not a fuss made by the Ministry of Industry.

, but Liu Xingli took the initiative to request it. This is the first time for everyone to cast a cannon, and Liu Xingli is not completely sure about it. If there is any mistake, the consequences may become very serious. Of course, if

If the quality of these two cannons meets the standard, then today's cannon casting process will be carried out as a standardized procedure, and there will no longer be such troublesome detailed inspections when casting cannons in the future.

While people from the Ministry of Industry were inspecting it, Yan Chujie asked Liu Xingli: "I just touched the barrel with my hand. It feels flat, but it's not smooth yet. Should I use a boring machine to process the barrel again?"

Liu Xingli shook his head and said: "The smoothbore cannon's bore does not need to be processed so carefully. After the shape is finalized, we will use the central cooling casting method. The smoothness of the cannon bore will be better than it is now. It will not be too late to finish the bore after installing the breech-loading rifled cannon.

Having said that, there is nothing I can do to deal with it now. Our horizontal boring machine is still on board the New World, and we don’t know when it will be put to use.”

Yan Chujie nodded when he heard this, turned to Bai Kesi and said, "Mr. Bai, your machine tools have been installed on the ship but have not been unloaded. When will they be ready for use?"

There was a small metal processing factory before Bai Kesi traveled through, so almost all the processing equipment of the Executive Committee was organized by him. When Bai Kesi heard Yan Chujie's question, his expression was also very helpless: "The ship can be unloaded at any time, but the problem is that it can be unloaded at any time.

Where do you put it? Before installing the machine tools, the floor of the factory building needs to be hardened. Now almost everyone in the Ministry of Construction is busy with the hydropower station, and the cement production capacity is not enough. No one can help me build the factory! Besides, even if

The machine tool has been installed, but there is not enough power available now. I think we have to wait until the hydropower station is put into operation at the earliest."

Several technical backbones from the Ministry of Construction did not come here today. Among those present, only Tao Donglai still had a temporary job in the Ministry of Construction, so the job of explaining for the Ministry of Construction fell on him: "This hydropower station project

There is no way to hurry up. Although the labor force is sufficient now, the cement and concrete have to take time to wait for them to dry out, so there is no point in rushing."

Yan Chujie let out a long sigh and said: "It was so lively last night and we decided to mount a breech-loading cannon. I went back after the meeting and was so excited that I couldn't sleep. In the end, I had to use this clumsy old-fashioned artillery."

Tao Donglai patted him on the shoulder and comforted him: "Okay, these old-fashioned cannons were not made in vain. They will be used to train artillerymen in the future and practice basic techniques and tactics. They can be sold to the Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty when the artillery is replaced."

.”

The two guns themselves are not large in size. People from the Ministry of Industry quickly completed the flaw detection and found no abnormalities. At this point, the on-site acceptance phase of the guns has come to an end, and the next step is to take them to the field for test firing.

In order to avoid causing unnecessary disturbances, the preset shooting range of the Military and Police Department was not near Tiandu's No. 2 Base, but was placed on the large sandbank at the mouth of the Tiandu River to the east of Victory Port. The last time pirates attacked

Later, Yan Chujie led a team to that place to hunt down the escaped pirates. He found that the terrain was flat and uninhabited. The east side was full of mountains, which was very suitable for setting up a shooting range. So at his suggestion, the military

The police department has used this place as a recent artillery and gun test firing range.

The two cannons were finally weighed before leaving the factory. They were both around 220 kilograms, with a weight difference of less than 200 grams. Compared with the weight of cannons of the same caliber in this era, which often differed by several kilograms or even dozens of kilograms, the metallurgical workshop

These newbies can already be called masters.

A few local workers in the metallurgical workshop carried the two cannons and more than 30 rounds of shells to the dock on trolleys and loaded them onto the ship. The irrelevant people dispersed. Basically, the only people left to go to the shooting range were the military and police.

Department and several people from chemical engineering groups.

The reason why there are people from the chemical engineering team is because they have to go to the site to see how well the gunpowder is used. The chemical engineering team is slightly luckier than the people in the metallurgical workshop. They have already obtained military supplies a few days ago.

The police department informed that the trial-produced artillery fired gunpowder. A group of people hurriedly hurriedly rushed under the simple conditions, but they handed over 50 kilograms of granular black powder as scheduled before the artillery test-firing. For ease of use, the price was 250 per package.

Gram was packaged.

Judging from the technological level of this era, silk is undoubtedly the most suitable material for artillery propellant packs. However, at present, Chuanzhong does not have a large number of channels to import silk, and cannot use this expensive commodity to make powder packs, so it can only

It is temporarily replaced by rough paper. But even this is already at the internationally advanced level. You must know that the most powerful gunners in the Ming Dynasty only rely on personal experience to roughly judge how many kilograms or taels of powder are needed before launching, and do not

The concept of rationing and packaging of gunpowder and making standardized powder bags.

Of course, the power of the products produced by the chemical industry team are still calculated on paper for the time being, and the real effect can only be reflected in the actual launch. But at least in the two aspects of gunpowder granulation and customization

In this direction, the chemical engineering group is already far ahead of its peers in this era.

In addition to saving gunpowder, saving time and increasing the firing speed of artillery on the battlefield, the use of standardized fixed gunpowder also has two very important functions.

The first is to determine the optimal charge for the artillery. The so-called ideal charge means that when all the gunpowder in the barrel is burned, it will just push the shell out of the muzzle. If there is too much charge, the gunpowder is not enough.

After burning, the shell has left the barrel, so part of the gunpowder is actually wasted. If the charge is too small and the shell is still in the chamber when the gunpowder is burned out, the friction between the shell and the barrel will reduce the muzzle velocity out of the chamber.

Considering that the gravitational influence exerted on the artillery shell by different firing angles of the artillery will change, this ideal charge amount is not static, so it is even more necessary to customize the powder package to simplify the operation process of artillery firing.

The second function is that with the help of the ideal gun charge, a very practical firing table can be formulated, that is, the relationship between the shooting angle, the charge and the firing range. In actual combat, gunners only need to directly refer to the artillery firing table to adjust the shooting angle.

and the amount of gunpowder can effectively hit the target at a certain distance, and the fixed gunpowder can be said to be born for this artillery tactic. With this tactic, the gunners no longer need to rely on experience to try their luck when firing.

All that has to be done is to determine the range of fire, and then bombard the target according to the firing table. The real lethality of the artillery on the battlefield will be greatly enhanced as a result.

This method of calculating the range and maximizing the performance of artillery by adjusting the amount of gunpowder has actually appeared in Europe as early as the 16th century. European gunsmiths would even attach a gun to the cannons shipped from the factory specifically to measure the amount of gunpowder.

scale. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, when the Portuguese sold artillery to China, they also exported their artillery tactics and sent some artillery instructors to the Ming Dynasty army to teach this more advanced combat concept. However, the gunners who mastered this technology immediately

They regarded it as a unique secret technique to keep their own jobs, which resulted in the failure of this "advanced technology" to spread widely among the artillery troops.

Along with the artillery arrived at the shooting range, there was also a gun mount sent by the wood workshop. Because the size of the artillery was determined at midnight last night, the wood workshop, which has been busy with production recently, only came out with one gun mount. But this gun mount is strong.

However, the military and police department was very satisfied with it. Its weight alone reached nearly two hundred kilograms, and four solid wood wheels were installed underneath for easy movement. Cai Hongzhan even patted his chest and confirmed that if the gun mount was tested

There was a falling out during the shooting, so he immediately resigned from his current position as carpentry foreman. Of course, everyone did not take his swearing to heart. He was just such a leading old carpenter in Chuanchuan. If he were to resign, where would he find someone else?

Sit in the carpentry room.

In order to measure the range and accuracy of the artillery, people from the Military and Police Department had come here early in the morning to set up earthen targets at different distances. Starting from 300 meters to 1,000 meters, there was a target every 100 meters away.

A half-meter-high, three-meter-long mound serves as a target and distance mark. The mound is marked with white lime, which can be clearly seen from a distance. Behind the artillery erection position, a specially made mark of earth is used.

A small reverse slope was piled up so that the gun carriage could reset itself after the artillery was fired.

A semi-encircled U-shaped trench was dug out to the side and rear of the artillery erection position. This was for safety reasons and allowed observers to enter the trench during artillery test firings, effectively shielding their bodies.

Seeing that everything was almost ready, Tao Donglai signaled Yan Chujie to start the artillery test firing. Today, the gunners responsible for test firing the artillery, in addition to Yan Chujie personally going into battle, there was also Wang Tom, who had experience in firing front-loaded artillery.

Qiao Zhiya and Morgan.
Chapter completed!