The group of people fled the foundry as if fleeing. Perhaps they had received orders from Hale, or he had been prepared. Several indigenous workers were already waiting outside with tea buckets. A little bit of black tea was imported from Lingao.
Sugar, chilled with well water, felt refreshing after drinking it. When the Spaniards had just taken a breath, Hale dragged them forward without stopping. The next target was the machining factory, adjacent to the river and the giant
It was built on a water wheel. Compared with the suffocating foundry and forging workshop, the workshop was filled with the pleasant smell of newly cut wood. The most indispensable thing in the Philippines is wood.
Thousands of striped hardwoods are sawn here to make machine tool supports, bases or drive shafts, and even cargo rails laid on the ground. What fills people's ears is the squeaking and clattering of drive shafts and gears, turning tools
, the screams of drill bits gnawing at metal made a loud noise. Although it was noisy and harsh, it was definitely not as deafening as the noise in the hellish foundry. The Spanish gentlemen seemed to have regained some energy and gathered around to make cannons.
The huge boring lathe was built and turned around in circles, sighing in admiration.
From time to time, there were some indigenous workers walking around the drilling and boring machines, holding wooden shovels, shoveling the falling iron filings into baskets, ready to be sent back for re-casting. Marcos knew that currently seventy-nine iron chips were imported into the Spanish Philippine colony.
More than 10% of the iron and nearly 90% of the copper are consumed in this factory. Of course, what the citizens of Manila are most concerned about is the large amount of silver pesos that it has devoured. But the Governor of Salamanca is just the opposite:
Regardless of iron, copper or silver, he tried to double his investment in the mouth of the gold-eating giant beast of the arms factory. As long as the golden eggs it laid could bring glory and promotion to himself and his allies in the officialdom. Commodore Don? Juanco?
This is why the Marquis de Bazin came.
The Marquis grabbed a handful of iron filings from the ground and rubbed them in his hands. A large black stain immediately appeared on his white satin gloves. They were covered with soapy water that acted as a lubricant and coolant, and they were greasy and made people feel uncomfortable.
The disgusting foam soaked into the gloves. The iron filings stuck on the skin of the palms, hard and rough, as if to remind him that they were sliced and peeled off from the mother body by a harder and sharper steel drill. As a senior navy man
The officer, the Marquis, is no stranger to the naval gun foundries in Seville and Lirgens. He has also traveled to France, Germany and Venice, and visited the weapons manufacturing factories there. These machines seem to be common in European factories.
A prototype can be found. But when it comes to scale, precision and high efficiency. Compared with the miracle work designed by this Japanese priest, those European products are barely considered children's toys. Even the most famous castings in Europe
Cannon experts, who would believe that you can use a drill rod to "take out" the barrel of a cannon from a solid iron blank?
The Marquis of Bazin threw down the dirty, dark and damp gloves. He picked up a pair of brand-new white silk gloves from the wooden tray that his entourage had been carrying. However, the excitement in his heart caused his hands to tremble and he could not put them on.
He threw the new gloves back on the wooden tray, "What is that?" he asked, crossing his hands and pointing to a machine tool equipped with a spiral reamer in front of him.
"It's a rifling machine."
"Rifling--" the Marquis of Bazin repeated this unfamiliar word. It was obvious that he was very interested, but he tried his best to maintain his solemn expression and prevent ignorant doubts from showing on his face.
The Japanese priest seemed to suddenly open up a chatterbox and began to talk endlessly about various scientific theories, ranging from the principle of Archimedean spiral to the rotational motion of the planet. The Commodore seemed to be in a fog, and he vaguely seemed
Let me understand: Rifling designed according to the principles of spiral and autobiography will increase the hit rate of the cannonball by more than ten times. If the gunner is equipped with a telescope, the rifled cannon can even accurately destroy a warship sailing one mile away.
Equipping a gunner with a telescope would be too extravagant. European telescopes were not cheap these days. However, having a range of over a league and being able to accurately hit a ship's cannon was astonishing in this era.
"The problem is the shell," said an artillery officer. "The spiral rifled cannon has proven its power in the Battle of Pangasinan. It is a terrible weapon invented by genius. It has only one shortcoming: its size and shape.
Cannonballs must be made very precisely to match the rifling. It is undoubtedly very difficult to manufacture such shells. We can also make do with the old round shells in new cannons, but in that case, it will be impossible to achieve what Mr. Paul claimed.
That kind of effect.
"You are absolutely right." Hale immediately took up the topic, "I have figured out a way to use precision machines to make precision utensils, which is far more efficient than relying on hand-made clumsy things. Gentlemen, please
Come with me to see how the machine is used to make cannonballs. Marcos, take us to the front."
There are two small lathes drawn by animal power in one corner of the machine shop. The shell blanks brought from the foundry are polished and shaped here, and the threads for installing the fuse are turned out. A few selected Chinese workers hold special cards.
The inspector carefully inspected the finished product. Hale took out one of the inspected projectiles and showed it to the guests, asking them to imagine that the hollow warhead was filled with gunpowder or shotgun shells, and the explosion was controlled by a message tube screwed through the head.
horrific scene.
"Helical rifled artillery must form a close match with the shells it is equipped with, and all its advantages stem from this. The most basic principle is that there must be no gap between the shells and the barrel, and all the thrust generated by the gunpowder explosion is used
It is used to push the projectile instead of leaking and wasting it from the gap like a smoothbore cannon. Only when the projectile body completely fits the gun bore can it obtain friction from the spiral rifling and form a stable spin motion perpendicular to the flight line.
As for the smoothbore cannon, because of the existence of the gap, it rolls along an irregular route in the barrel from the moment it is ignited. This irregular rolling will continue from the barrel into the air. In the end
The result is that it is impossible to predict where the shell will roll and land."
Hale became more and more excited as he talked. Since he came to this time and space, he has rarely had the opportunity to show his authority and advancement in the field of technology in front of everyone: "The front-loading rifled gun has two contradictory principles. It must be fast and not
Effortlessly loading the shell into the breech means that the friction between the two cannot be too great, but this violates the first principle that there must be no gap between the shell and the breech. If the breech-loading artillery does not exist, this contradiction will not exist.
All we have to do is make the shell slightly larger than the bore diameter, but we are still unable to make a reliable large breech-loaded cannon. In order to solve the problem, the first thing I thought of was chemical mortar-style shells - oh, you don't know what
Is it a chemical mortar? Well - it's a... in short, a pretty scary mortar. The shell is the long cone you saw at the Cavite Naval Fortress, with a steel plate inlaid at the bottom.
The disc and the cannonball are connected by a ring made of copper. When the explosive force of the gunpowder pushes the steel disc, it will press forward against the copper ring. As a result, the softer copper ring will expand outward and fit.
Bore."
"It's really amazing," the Marquis de Bazin was entranced and couldn't help but sigh.
"But it was still too complicated for production. So at first our shell production couldn't keep up with the number of new cannons. I kept trying to improve, and what you see here is the result of my latest idea. This shell looks like
Does it look a bit like an elongated water drop? You see, we have cut off a layer of the projectile below the centering part. This part of the projectile will be completely wrapped by a material that can expand under the action of thrust.
It's much cheaper than copper."
"What material is it?"
"Paper papier mache."
"Paper?" the brigadier general asked suspiciously, and several officers had expressions of disbelief on their faces.
"Yes, strictly speaking it's pulp."
The prepared concrete pulp is poured into a special mold to wrap the lower half of the projectile. After demoulding, it needs to be dried and pressed. Finally, workers will use a scraper to trim the surface of the concrete paper shell and use snap gauges to calibrate the outer surface of the warhead one by one.
diameter. After all this is completed, the shells will be sent to the charging workshop.
"Then Mr. Paul, may I take the liberty to congratulate you on solving the production problem of new artillery shells?" Standing next to the stove in the drying room, the Marquis of Bazin asked, looking at the densely packed warhead casings on the drying rack.
road.
"There are still some shortcomings in the current operation of the factory. First of all, there is a lack of labor, especially workers who are skilled in operating machines. So currently we can only produce about 100 explosive bombs and blooming shotshells a day." Marcos took a breath,
Hale's production figures include a large amount of unlaunchable scrap, and actual daily production is less than one-third.
The operational efficiency of the arsenal was very poor, and both Hale and Marx knew this very well.
Hale continued to brag calmly: "As long as we can supply enough manpower and materials, we can increase the production of artillery shells by 3 to 4 times. It would be best to have more Chinese people and train a Chinese person to operate the machine."
It takes 5 times less time and energy than training natives, and the work efficiency is 5 times higher. If His Majesty favors and grants European craftsmen who are familiar with instrument manufacturing techniques, that would be great. We have now recruited some Germans
Craftsmen undertake important technical work, but unfortunately there are still too few - there is only one instrument craftsman from Augsburg in the factory. All precision sighting instruments and artillery tubes rely on his skills, and he can also repair
Watches and clocks. I really don’t have much to say about my craftsmanship, but the problem is that I’m just too busy.” (To be continued…)