Although different reactionary academic authorities have pointed out various unforgivable shortcomings of muzzle-loading rifled guns, especially the "fatal" problems of muzzle-loading rifles: such as slow firing speed, large floor space and many other disadvantages, the Planning Institute believes that
, at this stage, these shortcomings will not pose a "life and death" risk to the Navy in combat.
The ordnance industry department is currently able to produce a small amount of the Armstrong breech-loaded gun equipped with the threaded gun bolt of the Coast Artillery, but it is not ideal in actual use. In particular, the locking of the gun bolt is difficult. In actual use, a hammer must be used to reach the locked position.
In addition to being breech-loading, the gun does not significantly surpass the Dahlgren rifled gun in terms of loading speed, gun range, and accuracy, but its production complexity is much greater.
As for the mature and reliable broken thread gun bolt, it will inevitably involve rubber and asbestos, which the industrial sector has always felt powerless - used to make air-locking plugs.
Although someone has proposed a new plan: a plan using a horizontal wedge bolt and a metal air-locking ring for the breech mechanism. It does not require rubber and can be produced with existing industrial capabilities. However, the Dahlgren gun suffers from the simplicity of the process and the materials.
It won again in terms of simplicity. Although the Planning Institute finally approved the experimental manufacture of two artillery pieces using a horizontal wedge bolt and a metal closed gas ring bolt, it is obviously not ready to mass-produce it in the near future.
Sun Xiao, a representative of the Planning Institute, explained the reasons why the Planning Institute chose Dahlgren rifled guns at a meeting of the General Staff Equipment Department: "Since the Navy uses smoothbore guns on sailing battleships and does not dislike the problem of slow reloading of the guns, we
I think the problem will not be serious when using rifled guns with far better range and accuracy than smoothbore guns on hybrid warships."
Behind the stinginess of the Planning Institute lies the production capacity bottleneck of the steel industry. Although the blast furnaces and open-hearth furnaces of the Ma Niao Steel Complex have been put into operation, the production conditions are not satisfactory. The lack of qualified workers and administrative personnel has seriously affected the further expansion of production capacity.
Lin Shenhe stopped the car outside the work shed and set it up. He saw a whole row of newly produced Dahlgren gun barrels placed on a special shelf in an open space. Although it was a cast iron barrel,
The surface of the gun body was regular and smooth. Lin Shenhe stopped his bicycle, touched the lower body tube and muzzle, and observed the rifling inside the lower body tube through the light of the car light. The craftsmanship of the mechanical and metallurgical departments was getting better and better.
Ma Niao Industrial Complex is now able to produce pig iron ingots of very good quality, and then uses a reverberatory furnace to refine the molten iron to produce extremely high quality molten iron for casting cannons - in the past, when Lingao did not have its own blast furnace, casting
The imported pig iron used in the cannon is refined through a reverberatory furnace.
Farther away were piles of gun mounts, rails, and metal parts for installation. The metallic light shone faintly in the dim light.
When he walked into the work shed, there was smoke inside, and drawings were spread out on the table in the work shed. Several people were discussing around the drawings.
Lin Shenhe greeted Zhou Ke and others.
"Loading the muzzle-loading cannon is really inconvenient." Although Zhou Ke is not a naval talent and does not know much about weapons, he only needs to walk around the deck and look at the drawings of the artillery and deck to understand that the muzzle-loading cannon
The problem lies.
After the front-loading gun is fired, the muzzle must be returned to the deck before it can be reloaded by the sailors. Therefore, the size of each exposed turret must be greater than the length of the gun body and gun mount. The diameter of a gun emplacement is at least 5 meters or more. Accounting for
The ground area is much larger than that of a breech-loaded gun.
"It doesn't matter, no matter how many problems there are with the front-loading cannon, it is also rifled. Besides, the cannon can be easily modified," Lin Shenhe said. "Right now, the Dahlgren cannon is usable, so that's enough."
"I can understand the Planning Institute's insistence on saving money, but it should still be considered one step at a time, instead of always upgrading technology..."
Lin Shenhe chuckled softly: "We're still one step ahead. Let's put it this way, if everyone hadn't been so vocal about grenades, rifled cannons, and fixed-loading rifles, the Planning Institute would probably have prepared 12-pound smoothbore cannons and Mini rifles to conquer the world.
"
"So economical..."
"I can understand Wu De's thinking." Lin Shenhe said, "Everyone just wants to be happy. No matter how happy he is and what to do after he is happy - he is now saving money to make a revolution."
"Hmm, I didn't expect that you still have an overall perspective." Zhou Ke said.
"No, no, I don't have an overall view. I'm just sharing my thoughts."
Zhou Ke said: "Let's go for a walk on the ship and check the situation on the spot." He picked up the phone and shook it twice: "Turn on the lights on the Navy Pier."
After a few minutes, all the lights on the entire Navy Pier were turned on, and the lights were bright. Although the intensity of the light was not enough to illuminate every angle of the ship, it could at least allow people to roughly see the outline of the object and avoid stumbling.
Looking under the light, it can be seen that the surface of the ship's hull is irregularly light black - this is the result of unskilled painters applying asphalt paint. The hull is made of lychee wood imported from Guangdong, Vietnam and other places.
, very strong. From the outside, it cannot be seen that the ribs and keels inside are made of iron - they are all covered by the outer plates of the hull.
On the deck, three masts stand. The three composite masts used by the 1630 class are shorter than its prototype - the Navy cannot train so many sailors who are skilled in climbing the mast and retracting and lowering the sails on the mast, so its
The sail rigging was kept as simple as possible, and steam auxiliary engines were used to retract and extend the sail ropes.
The sails have all been installed, the white canvas is rolled up, and the sail ropes made of jute are criss-crossed, and each one looks dark. Lin Shenhe casually wanted to touch it.
"Don't touch it, it's full of tar!" Zhou Ke quickly reminded him.
Lin Shenhe was startled and quickly retracted his hand. The deck was also smeared with tar of the same color. Even so, under the light, you could see beautiful patterns on it.
"It's made of imported teak from Southeast Asia." Zhou Ke said, "It's really luxurious."
Lin Shenhe, on the other hand, didn't take it seriously - it was not surprising in the past that teak was used on warship decks. Battleships and aircraft carriers in the 20th century still used this precious wood to lay their decks.
The layout of the 1630 class is in the shape of an island. The only chimney is located in the middle of the island. The black chimney is painted with a yellow marking strip, which is the only bright color painting on the whole ship.
The base of the exposed turret has already been installed at the location where the artillery is scheduled to be installed, and the rails, gun mounts and barrels are just waiting to be installed early the next morning.
Since the 1630 class is a sail-steam hybrid battleship, the existence of three masts severely limits the firing range of the artillery. The foremast and mizzen mast are just in front of the main gun's muzzle, making it impossible for the two main guns to be aligned forward and aft.
Directional shooting - for the sake of hull structure and center of gravity, the exposed turrets of the two main guns are set on the deck closer to the center of the ship. Therefore, the 0-degree firepower at the bow and stern is provided by the secondary guns arranged on both sides.
Provided. The only way to maximize the firepower of level 1630 is still to fire sideways volleys.
Lin Shenhe knew the location of the artillery well: he was one of the participants when the artillery layout was discussed. There was a heated debate about the artillery layout of 854 and 901. The final decision on the 854 modification plan was still based on the blueprint of that model.
Layout plan, slightly modified.
The artillery layout of the whole ship is that one exposed turret is installed along the center line of the bow and stern decks, and each turret is equipped with a 130mm caliber Dahlgren rifled gun. There are one gun profile on the left and right of the bow, middle and stern.
One 75mm caliber Dahlgren rifled gun and a total of 6 secondary guns are installed. The auxiliary weapons are 4 typewriters, which are installed on the decks on both sides of the ship. The artillery adopts circular orbit rotation, slide rail braking, manual leveling machine and height
machine.
According to the black powder destructive power test conducted by the navy and ordnance industry department on the shooting range, in order to effectively destroy the oak hull of the Galen ship at that time while also taking into account a certain level of bombardment power on the shore, the shell charge should be about 2 kilograms of high-density suppressed black powder.
, combined with the loading coefficient, the launched grenade weighs 25 to 35 kilograms, corresponding to a caliber of more than 120mm, so the 130mm rifled gun was finally chosen.
The exposed turret itself did not consider installing armor and only used steel baffles - only the ammunition magazine on the entire 1630-class ship was protected by a thin layer of steel plates. As for the boiler room, it was protected by the coal bunkers on both sides.
During normal times, the exposed fort uses a foldable canvas shed to shield it from the sun and rain, but it is removed during combat.
"Level 1630 is still a bit small, otherwise we can use a fully sealed turret and install mechanized loading equipment." Zhou Ke said with regret.
Lin Shenhe also feels the same - the small tonnage of the ship actually limits the size of naval artillery. According to Lingao's current industrial capabilities, it is not difficult to manufacture front-loading rifled guns of more than 200mm. In addition, due to the shells of the 130mm artillery
It is the limit of manual loading. No matter how large the artillery is, it requires a mechanically assisted loading system: this also requires sufficient ship space.
He walked into the bridge, and most of the equipment inside had been installed. However, some advanced navigation equipment was still "under development", and only installation locations were reserved. The navigation clocks were still brought from the old time and space. He
I noticed that there is a special shooting control tower on the bridge of the 1630-class ship. When I climbed up, I saw that it was empty. There was no fire control equipment except tables and chairs.
Zhou Ke said: The original plan was to install artillery observation scopes, rangefinders, calibration devices and mechanical ballistic computers.
"What -" Lin Shenhe was so surprised that he could hardly close his mouth. He originally thought that he was just going to buy some "fire control equipment" such as telescopes and rangefinders, but he didn't expect that there would be "advanced equipment" such as ballistic computers.
"——It's really a thousand miles. (To be continued)