The production of iron birch armor was much simpler than Liu Xiang imagined. With hacksaws and grinding tools, iron birch wood was made into various armor pieces. After testing, the defensive power of the armor pieces under the same weight was no less than cold
Forged armor.
But there is a problem. Iron birch is nine times lighter than steel. With the same defensive power, its volume is nine times that of iron armor. It is difficult to walk wearing such armor.
It is not suitable for heavy armor, and its ductility is not as good as steel. Armor pieces that are too thin are easily broken, so it is not suitable for light armor either.
"In other words, this kind of ironwood armor can neither replace cold forged armor nor leather armor?" Liu Xiang asked.
The armor engineer thought for a while and replied: "Based on my humble experience, it cannot replace cold-forged heavy armor, but it can replace leather armor and iron armor. The protective power of about twenty kilograms of iron and wood armor is comparable to ordinary iron armor. It is best to
The armor is three-thirds thick and weighs about fifteen kilograms. It has decent defense, is light and flexible, and will not hinder combat."
Iron armor plates in the Han Dynasty were generally about one minute thick, which is a little over two millimeters, and three points is already seven millimeters. A bottom layer of leather must be added under the armor plates. If it is thicker, it will really affect movement. After all, armor is used for combat.
Yeah, you can't wear a thick layer and make a slow-moving wooden dummy. It's too clumsy.
"Which type of armor do you think is suitable for this kind of iron wood?" Liu Xiang weighed the light armor pieces and felt that they were not suitable for scale armor.
Part of the defensive ability of fish scale armor is that the weight of the armor makes them stick together to form a common defense body. Can such thick and light armor really be able to do this? He was a little confused.
The engineer's answer confirmed his suspicion: "For armor pricking, the nail pieces are too light and are not suitable for scale armor. They need large nail pieces. The nail pieces are too small and difficult to cut and are afraid of fire."
"Let's make a pair of adult armor first and see how effective it is in dealing with bows and crossbows."
"only."
Leaving behind the iron birch war equipment, Liu Xiang went to the shipyard downstream of the small town in Hainan.
There are two shipyards in Youzhou, one at the seaport of Haiyang County and one at the seaport of Quanzhou County. Both of these shipyards disappointed him. After more than two years of establishment, they still could not build main warships.
On the one hand, the keel splicing technology is not mastered well, and the large ships built are not strong enough to adapt to the violent collisions during water battles. On the other hand, with the development of offshore trade, the demand for cargo ships is too great, and selling ships is very profitable.
Attention is divided.
These two shipyards made Liu Xiang a lot of money. Yunfanying actually relied on the shipyards to support himself, and his investment was really not large.
The main force for felling wood is hard labor. Other steel nails, tung oil, and lime are all produced in government-run workshops. The government-run workshop in Youzhou is Liu Xiang's private property. Even the first batch of shipbuilding materials were snatched by him.
Therefore, the cost is extremely low, and the merchant who ordered the ship pays a lot, and the profit can be measured in units of ten thousand times.
But this did not delay his disappointment in the shipyard and the Navy.
There is no other way. Shipwrights are easy to recruit, and even a few engineers can be hired at high prices. But the master craftsmen cannot be found, and even if you want to kidnap them, you can't find a chance. This is equivalent to Youzhou only having shipbuilders and no designers, and technically it is not as good as
Shipyards in Yangzhou and Jingzhou are not allowed.
Liu Xiang glanced at the few logs he had pulled over. They were logs found in the inner city that had not yet been made into weapons.
Maybe we need to find another way.
The main warships of the navy in the Han Dynasty were warships, fighting ships and tower ships. The warships were fast ships over ten feet tall, covered with cowhide on the roof, and were responsible for attacking the enemy fleet formation. Fighting ships were fifteen to twenty feet long.
It is a large war ship, with parapets and shanties built on board. Bows and crossbows are the main means of combat. When necessary, it can also engage in side-to-side combat.
Tower ships are the main force among the main force. Tower ships are generally more than twenty feet tall and built with three-story towers. They can carry troops ranging from a few hundred to one or two thousand, and can be used at both distance and distance. They even have trebuchets, which are the great weapons of this era.
In the future, Liu Xiang will face thousands of these three types of main warships. Can he not rush to build a navy? Unless he does not go south of the Yangtze River.
Youzhou's shipbuilding technology cannot keep up with the mainstream of the Han Dynasty, so we can only find the weaknesses of the main battleships and find new ways to target the weaknesses.
The weakness is that these three ship types are all flat-bottomed boats with slow speed and are not suitable for naval battles.
Under ordinary hydrological conditions, the speed of large ships and fighting ships is about the same as walking. It is only a hundred miles a day. According to modern sailing speed, it is between three and five knots. Hurry up, it is only six knots at most.
Therefore, he wanted to try if he could build a pointed-bottomed galley and use its speed and flexibility to play wolf pack tactics. Moreover, the pointed-bottomed boat was more stable and more adaptable in naval battles, but it had a small load capacity and was not suitable for cargo ships.
.
"Do you know the skeleton of an animal?" he asked the shipyard engineer.
"If you reply to the general, I know."
"The bottom of the ship is funnel-shaped. The spine is the main keel of the hull, which is connected to the ship pillars front and rear. The ribs are ship ribs. Two side keels are added on both sides of the main keel to connect with the ribs. On top of the side keels, keel ribs are added to fix the ribs.
This is the main frame of the bottom of the ship. The rest is the same as the flat-bottomed ship, covering the ship's planks, caulking to prevent water seepage, and dividing the cabins to serve as watertight compartments."
The engineer followed Liu Xiang's instructions and made a model of the ship's bottom frame, which was more than two feet long, just like a long woven basket with a pointed bottom.
He felt very awkward. Wouldn't this kind of boat sink? Is it unstable?
But he didn't dare to say it. He and others couldn't build a warship. They all knew that the general was dissatisfied.
Liu Xiang ignored him and continued: "The bow is pointed and the stern is narrowed. It is ten feet long and one foot six feet wide. It has two masts, a fore-mast and a mizzen-mast, and water boards are installed on both sides of the hull.
It can slow down the transverse movement and stabilize the hull, assuming one oar and ten pairs of oars. Is it possible?"
The engineer thought for a long time. It was possible to build a 10-foot ship. They had already built a lot of 15-foot cargo ships, but the pointed-bottomed ship made him feel awkward. Moreover, the ship was too thin and the keel was too strenuous. He hesitated.
He replied: "General, we can build a ten-foot-long ship, but this ship is thinner than a stern. The keel may not be able to withstand the force and break easily. And the bottom of the ship is so sharp, will it really not roll over?"
"If the center of gravity is here on the main keel, it will not roll over. The two sides must be symmetrical. When building a flat-bottomed boat, it must also be stable on the central axis. This is the same principle. Do you understand?" Liu Xiang wanted to talk about the principle of the tumbler.
, but I didn’t know how to organize the language, so I had to take the punt as an example.
Shipyard engineers certainly know how to make a flat-bottomed boat stable, but when building a ship, they still need to make the keel "loyal"? How can this dead thing be loyal?
Or is there any other way of saying it? And the word symmetry is also unheard of. I wonder if both sides mean exactly the same thing?
Seeing that his eyes were confused and he hesitated to speak, Liu Xiang said, "If you have anything to say, just say it. If you have any questions, ask them quickly."
"How does the general make the dragon's bones loyal? What secret technique is needed? What is the meaning of this symmetry?"
"Symmetry means that both sides are equally heavy. Both sides are equally heavy, and the force falls on the keel. The keel is the heaviest place. This is the heart of weight, not the heart of loyalty."
The engineer suddenly realized that with experience in building flat-bottomed boats, he understood the method of stability.
But the question came again: "The keel is too strenuous, how can we prevent it from breaking?"
Liu Xiang pointed to the iron birch that was brought in: "This wood is as tough as iron. Use it to make the keel. The side keels, ribs, and ribs are also made of it, and the rest of the wood is made of oak. The longest of these is only six feet.
, I will first build a seven-foot-long pointed-bottomed boat to test. If I can find nearly ten feet of wood, I will send it to you later."
The shipbuilder couldn't resist the temptation of good wood. When Liu Xiang started talking, the engineer was looking at the iron birch wood. As soon as he finished speaking, he threw himself on the wood and started groping about it, forgetting to even reply.
After trying it out with axes, saws, chisels and planers, the shipyard engineers were almost drooling.
"What a treasure, what a treasure. This is a natural ship material. No warship built with it can withstand a collision with it!"
Liu Xiang rolled his eyes: "Only big ships can use ramming tactics. Will small boats commit suicide by ramming into them? Let's try to build one first, and we'll talk about the rest later."
The engineer hesitated and said: "General, can the whole ship use this material? Although oak is strong, it is not as strong as this. Confusing the two would not be an insult to such good wood."
In spite of your size, how can you get so much iron birch wood?
"It's not easy to harvest, and the quantity is limited. This wood is used for the bottom of the ship. The rest of the wood should be oak. Oak is an extremely tough wood. Aren't you usually reluctant to use oak to make cargo ships? Why do you dislike it now?"
"It's different, it's different." The engineer shook his head and sighed: "What a pity."
"It's no pity. Even if a small boat of six or seven feet is made of fine steel, it can't beat a big ship. Big ships are the way to go!"