The three tiger crouching cannons were cast with bronze pouring molds, cast with mild steel pouring molds, and forged from mild steel.
The most expensive one is bronze, and the most labor-intensive one is forging.
Liu Xiang knew that with the technical level of the Han Dynasty, the best gun barrel was to drill holes in forged steel, but that thing could not be completed in a few days. It might take several months or even a year to get one.
The barrel is too laborious.
And the probability of scrapping and recycling is very high.
It is not applicable until there is a breakthrough in drilling technology.
He had never seen industrial machinery such as lathes since he was a child. He really didn't know how to do it, and he didn't even have an idea.
The gun casting technology he is most optimistic about is to forge low-carbon steel into a steel plate, and then use an iron rod as the core to continue to bend and forge it into a gun barrel. In the process, the inner wall of the gun bore can also be carburized. Guns with this technology
The pipe has the ductility of low carbon steel and the hardness of high carbon steel.
It is much stronger than casting because there are fewer bubbles and impurities, making it less likely to explode, and steel is also cheaper than copper.
He can already make steel from coke, so he wants to skip the bronze cannon stage and directly let the big man enter the era of steel cannon barrels.
But ideas are ideas and reality is reality. Everything depends on the experimental results.
After inspection, half a kilogram of propellant powder did not explode or crack, and three kilograms of bulk cannons walked between 150 and 300 paces. The grass target was shot through, the wooden stakes were hit with holes, and the iron plate was
There are white marks left on it and not many pits.
Using stones to make cannonballs saves money, but it is indeed a little less powerful, but this is the only method that a big man can afford.
However, his requirements for the Crouching Tiger Artillery are to kill enemy soldiers, be light in weight, easy to carry, and able to follow the army in field battles or even fight with cavalry. Other requirements can be fulfilled by other artillery pieces.
"The charge is one kilogram, the cannon is five kilograms, replace the target, and continue the test firing." He wanted to test the limit of the tiger squat.
After three shots, the cast-iron cannon was useless. The barrel was not exploded, but obvious cracks could be seen. Sure enough, this cheap and fast technology could not produce good products.
Reports from the shooting range were also sent back. The maximum range was four hundred steps, but the area with the highest damage was around two hundred steps.
It can basically meet the field requirements.
"The charge is two kilograms, the cannon is five kilograms, let's continue the test firing."
After another test firing, both guns failed. The bronze gun exploded, and cracks appeared in the seams of the forged iron gun. Although the seams were overlapped and forged, the overall structure was still poor.
As for the bronze cannon's chamber explosion, that was because the formula used was not professional gun metal at all. Fortunately, the five iron hoops on the barrel were not broken, which prevented the gun body from turning into a large fragmentation grenade, and no casualties were caused.
.
In contrast, forging barrels is the most suitable technology for manufacturing Tiger Crouching Cannons.
"Pull the mother cannon for test firing."
The Zimu Cannon is the Flange Machine Cannon during the Ming Dynasty. Since it was introduced from the Portuguese, we transliterated the name of Portugal as "Flange Machine" and named the cannon Flange Machine Cannon. This man has never seen it before.
The Portuguese naturally had to be given another name.
Because the Fran cannon is a breech-loaded smoothbore cannon, the whole gun is divided into three parts, the barrel, the belly, and the sub-cannon, so it is named the sub-cannon.
When firing, first fill the gunpowder and projectiles into the sub-cannon, then load the sub-cannon into the barrel, ignite the sub-cannon fire door and fire.
There are many advantages. First, the rate of fire is fast. One main cannon is equipped with multiple sub-cannons. The sub-cannons are pre-loaded and can be loaded into the belly of the gun in turn to fire. In terms of rate of fire, it is several times faster than the front-loaded artillery.
The second is fast heat dissipation. Since the breech-loaded gun is connected from front to back, air can circulate, and the barrel is thin, making it easy to dissipate heat. Fast heat dissipation can increase the gun's ability to continue shooting and also reduce the possibility of self-ignition of gunpowder.
Third, the sub-cannon has a certain capacity, so it will not explode due to overfilling.
Fourth, the sub-cannon can bear part of the gunpowder pressure, extending the life of the barrel. In addition, if one or two sub-cannons are damaged, it will not affect the artillery's continued shooting.
There are advantages but also disadvantages. The gap between the sub-cannon and the barrel makes the air tightness poor when launching, so the range will be affected.
Liu Xiang chose to try it out
It is a small cannon, slightly longer than the diameter of the main cannon. The total gun is five feet long, weighs one hundred kilograms, has a caliber of two inches, one kilogram of projectiles, and one kilogram of propellant.
The three bronze, cast iron, and wrought iron cannons were carried to the gun position. The target area was set on the back hill outside the palace. The test firing procedures were already familiar. Loading the sub-cannons, three rounds of volley fire, nine consecutive gunshots, three
The cannons were all intact, the target area was reported, and the projectile spread was between one and a half to two miles.
There was no answer from the comparison. There was no limit to the multi-fill propellant test for the mother-child cannon, but Liu Xiang was still very happy because it proved that this type of gun was successful.
He has great hopes for the double-cell cannon, because this type of gun is really versatile.
It can be made into an artillery cart, follow the infantry in combat, use shotguns to hit the infantry, and can also use projectiles to attack fortresses. The wooden city gates in this period of the Han Dynasty could not withstand its bombardment.
It can also be used as a naval gun.
In Liu Xiang's vision, the multi-part cannon was very suitable as a deck gun for a battleship. The multi-part cannon used a very high rate of fire to fire out a shower of shotgun barrages to clear the enemy's deck of sailors.
If it hadn't been a test of the cannon just now, with the firing speed of the two-part cannon, it would have been able to complete three rounds in half a minute.
What if it is equipped with six sub-cannons?
Six consecutive shots at the beginning.
That would be a nightmare for the enemy.
He happily ordered the engineer: "Let the bronze cannon and cast iron cannon be returned to the furnace. From now on, the main cannon will be cast from forged iron, and a second main cannon seven feet long, weighing two hundred kilograms, and having a caliber of two inches will be built for test firing."
It is customized for battleships, and it is impossible to just test it a few times. In the future, Taiyi Palace will continue to test it to see the limit of use.
"Zhao Jing, from now on, you will lead a team of accompanying knights to conduct test firings. Not only will you test the limits of the artillery, but you will also try to shoot accurately. You can explore it yourself."
Artillery shooting was so professional that Liu Xiang couldn't give him any advice, so he could only practice it slowly. He wouldn't point them to the battlefield anyway, so he had plenty of time.
"Wei." Engineer and Zhao Jing bowed their hands and accepted the order.
"Hurry up and bring up the Falcon Cannon. It will get dark soon." The Falcon Cannon is the Hongyi Cannon. Because of its long range, it is named Falcon.
This is a cannon with a long barrel and a spindle-shaped structure. The barrel is long, the tube wall is thick, and the caliber is large. The overall shape gradually becomes thicker from the muzzle to the breech, which is in line with the principle that the chamber pressure changes from high to low when gunpowder is burned.
At the center of gravity of the gun body, cylindrical lugs are installed on both sides. The gun can adjust the firing angle based on this axis, and change the range according to the amount of gunpowder used.
Liu Xiang's prototype was a small cannon, only eight feet long, or one meter eighty-four meters, weighing six hundred kilograms, with a caliber of three inches and a projectile of five kilograms.
The ideal type in his mind is a large artillery that is three meters long and weighs more than one ton. It is used to make fortress guns and naval guns. However, the current forging technology cannot splice such a thick barrel. For the time being, it can only make 600 kilograms of iron.
gun.
Therefore, the other two cannon casting technologies can only cast cannons of the same type for comparison.
Filling is done in a familiar way. Five kilograms of propellant is loaded into the barrel, the projectile is pushed in, and the fuse is ignited.
The roar of heavy artillery is different, more like thunder ringing in the ears, and the dust that the shock wave stirs up in an instant can be clearly seen on the ground.
But this time the gun test did not go well. Two of the three guns exploded.