Finally, the resumption of the 854 modification project was approved, and the Executive Committee agreed to immediately start the construction of one Type 1630 cruiser, four 500-horsepower steam tugs, 12 200-ton barges, and six sail-steam hybrid 500-ton ships.
In addition, according to Wen Desi's suggestion: continue to mass-produce Type II spinnaker patrol boats. Change the single mast into a double-mast. The launch rate is at least 2 boats per month.
This shipbuilding plan became the first great leap forward for Lingao's shipbuilding industry. Prior to this, Lingao's shipbuilding industry had only built light ships with a tonnage of around 200 tons. However, through the previous phase of large-scale construction of single-mast/twin ships
For the jib patrol boat, Bobu Shipyard has accumulated considerable shipbuilding experience.
The Planning Institute has detailed plans for shipbuilding itself in the five-year plan. According to Ma Qianzhu and Wu De's ideas, large-scale shipbuilding will start one year before the end of the first five-year plan. According to the schedule, in
This year, the Travelers will fully occupy Hainan and expand their influence overseas.
Fortunately, the Planning Commission and later the Planning Institute still recognized that the shipbuilding industry was a long-term investment industry. Starting from the first year of the Five-Year Plan, the construction of the Bobu Shipyard began. This shipyard received continuous support from
The large number of shipbuilders and materials captured from Baitu Village have been greatly strengthened. The shipyard started by transforming ships, and then successfully copied the "America", completing the first step of homemade Western-style sailing ships.
Due to the lack of large keel materials, the shipyard began to unswervingly follow the path of iron bones after the launch of the "Zhenhai", a replica of the "America". Although it was difficult to decide whether to make the transition to an iron shell or a wooden shell,
There were certain disputes between these two technical routes. During this period, there was also a move to build large-scale cement ships.
The final use of wooden-hulled ships was mainly because the industrial base of the Chuanchuan Group was still too weak. According to the Navy's experiments in the pool, the hulls made of forged iron corroded very quickly in seawater, and Lingao's chemical industry also made
There was no paint that could be used to protect the outer shell of the ship. In the 19th century, the solution was to cover the bottom of the iron-hulled ship with a layer of wood, which was too labor-intensive. Although there are many wooden boards in the manufacture and use of iron-hulled ships,
The advantages that hull ships cannot match, and this unsolvable practical problem eventually made wooden hulls become the mainstream of shipbuilding.
As for the cement ship, it has also been supported by many people. As a cheap water transportation tool, the cement ship does have its advantages. Its advantage is that the materials are cheap and easy to obtain, and it hardly requires any specialized shipbuilding skills and construction workers.
It can be made with a little training, and does not require complicated ship material processing: steel bars and steel wire mesh can easily create the skeleton, and a few masons can pour cement, and a ship can be completed in a few days.
The world's first cement ship was built by Frenchman J?
During this period, due to the shortage of steel, there were two upsurges in building reinforced concrete ships.
China has built a large number of reinforced concrete ships and wire mesh cement ships since 1958, which are widely used as barges, small and medium-sized motorized cargo ships and inland river barges on inland and coastal areas, agricultural ships and fishing boats. The number of cement ships in China reaches millions of tons.
Ranking first in the world. In the 1960s, the United States, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and other countries began to trial-produce steel wire cement ships. Because cement ships have heavy weight, small cargo-carrying ratio, and excessive fuel consumption, their economical efficiency has never been up to standard, so they have been
There is no large-scale application. China once built a 5,773-ton coastal cement cargo ship in the 1970s. As a result, after completing the first cargo voyage, the voyage ended forever and was abandoned on the shore.
However, according to the advocacy of the cement ship party headed by Skade: cement ships are more resistant to impact than wooden ships. Their seaworthiness is equivalent to wooden ships and better than steel hull ships. They are also easy to repair. They do not rust or rot and have a long life. They are time travellers.
The best emergency shipbuilding solution.
The office director of the Ministry of Colonization and Trade, Skelder, was so enthusiastic about cement ships that he continued to preach how "great and honorable" cement ships were in the crossing business in his spare time. Not only did he work on the Executive Committee
He advocated the various benefits of cement ships at meetings, and often went to the shipyard to talk about the technical problems of cement ships. He confused several indigenous technicians in the shipyard and pestered the veterans of the shipyard and the navy.
Wanting to know what "building a ship like a house" was all about. Li Di was so annoyed that he simply ordered the sentry to not allow Skade to enter the shipyard again. He also declared that cement ships were "heresy."
Li Di hates cement ships - because cement ships are inconsistent with the glorious image of the navy. But Skade did not give up and submitted two so-called standardized ships that he personally designed to the Planning Institute - to facilitate mass production. One is the 250
The one-masted paddle-and-oar cement ship is an over-ton type, and the other is the 800-ton two-masted steam cement ship.
The cement ship is a shallow-draft horizontal-bottomed ship. Chinese-style sails are used for sailing equipment to simplify maintenance and reduce manpower consumption.
In terms of firepower, one or two standard retractable rotary gun mounts are designed. The barrel can be equipped with a 20-60 pound smoothbore gun or a 70mm-130mm rifled gun. There is 1 preset gun position on a small cement ship, which is not used at ordinary times, and 3 presets on a large cement ship.
-4 gun positions, only 1-2 guns are installed in normal times, and they are fully equipped in wartime.
Deck space is reserved on the ship, which can be used to install 12-20 pound guns and small rifled guns during wartime. Large ships can be equipped with 8-12 light cannons. Small ships can be equipped with 4 guns.
Skade enthusiastically showed the design drawings he drew to Wu De in the conference room, explaining the ideas for manufacturing and use.
"If we have a fleet of 100 ships and half of them are mobilized during the war, we can have 500 large and small cannons and dozens of typewriters. The firepower will exceed the British fleet during the Crow War. When we build a dozen or two
When the time comes, we should first find an opportunity to conduct a joint exercise publicly to shock the Guangzhou government and the Portuguese, and let them know that we can kill any city or fleet on the Pearl River with cargo ships!" Skade was foaming at the mouth, and Wu De was already gradually
He became impatient. He was born in the navy and had no interest in cement ships, which were not ships at all.
"...We first design and build the first ship in Lingao, and then move the cast-in-place and final assembly parts to Xiangshan'ao, with Lingao providing raw materials. Once we control the coal mines in the Xijiang Basin, we can move the cement plant to Xiangshan'ao
, when we control the high-grade iron ore in Zhaoqing, we can build a steel plant, and then we can build iron ships..."
Wu De said: "I have never seen a cement ship floating on the sea." He planned to use this to directly shoot the cement ship. "Besides, I remember that cement ships are not collision-resistant, and they are equipped with artillery? Once the cannon is fired, they will not be destroyed."
Is the hull cracked? It's also anti-cannon! When I was a kid, I used to ride on the cement boat in my hometown a lot, and I was very afraid of collisions."
"Actually, it's possible." Skade quickly cited France and China as examples, both of which had built thousand-ton cement ships, which showed that this was not impossible. He went on to say that the construction period of wooden ships was too long, and the wood for shipbuilding must be hardwood.
After three to five years of natural air-drying, it would have rotted away quickly, and the copper-clad bottom of the ship didn't have that much copper.
As for the issue of cannon firing and anti-cannon, the concrete shell should be more impact-resistant than wood. Wood has no lateral strength, and the steel bars are grid-like. If they are cracked, they can be repaired on site. The cannons at that time could not hit below the waterline, but at most the waterline.
It doesn't matter if you add a layer of steel mesh to enhance the impact of the artillery. If there is a base under the gun base, steel pre-embedded bolts and thick wooden squares are used for shock isolation...
Wu De patiently listened to the theory of "The Superiority of Cement Ships" which was a mixture of information he found from nowhere and conjectures collected, and then he spoke: "If cement ships are really so superior, why were they later eliminated?
?”
"No matter how superior it is, it can't be better than a steel ship." Skade said, "But it is definitely better than a wooden ship."
However, this is not the case. Wu De consulted many veterans who had a thorough understanding of shipbuilding technology, and almost all of them came to the conclusion that "cement ships are not worth developing."
The impact resistance of cement ships is very poor, whether it is steel bars or barbed wire. The crack resistance of cement ships with barbed wire frames is slightly better than that of reinforced concrete ships, but it is not revolutionary - so barbed wire cement ships are more impact resistant than wooden ships.
This is untenable.
The large-scale use of barbed wire in cement ship manufacturing is mainly to reduce costs rather than improve performance. Cement ships have a problem of small usable volume and huge dead weight - this problem has almost no solution. Heavy dead weight means high fuel consumption and cargo capacity.
Less. Therefore, cement ships are suitable for engineering ships and barges that require low dead weight, fixed berths or less movement, or they are a last resort substitute during periods of steel shortage.
In addition, the quantity of steel bars and cement cannot be compared with the relatively abundant forest resources in this time and space. The quality of the barbed wire and cement produced by Lingao Industry is still quite inferior.
In the end, the Planning Institute killed all initiatives to build cement ships and directly included cement ship technology in the "elimination projects".
Under the sunset in the first half of the 17th century, two people were sitting on a rock on the top of a hill. Pistols hung loosely beside them. A plastic sheet was spread in front of them, with several bottles of kvass stuffed on top.
A box of beer and ice, and a few cuts of beef.
Several plainclothes officers from the Political Security Bureau were looking around vigilantly. A man was roasting a leg of lamb and fish a little far away. At the foot of the mountain was a construction site, which even covered an area no bigger than a modern shipyard in another time and space.
It’s no less impressive. Ship hulls of various sizes that need to be repaired or are under construction are lined up along the river bank. From time to time, you can see the shining rails and the rising steam. The rattling sound of the steam crane when rotating and lifting is heard from time to time.
There are also shrill whistles to remind workers to pay attention to safety.
There are busy people wearing rattan hats of different colors. The only drawback is that although there is a certain distance, you can still smell some unpleasant smells. The smell of wood tar and coal tar is always lingering, not to mention those days and nights.
The steam engines and boilers are all spewing black smoke.
The scale of the shipyard far exceeds that of most industrial projects in Lingao. Since the first year of the Five-Year Plan, the Planning Commission and the Planning Institute have launched expansion and technical renovation projects for the shipyard every year. This place has already formed
A large-scale shipyard was built. The mangroves in the Bobu estuary area were cleared, and a large area of land in the estuary area belonged to the shipyard.
The shipyard has successively built new thousand-ton dry docks, large steam cranes, and multiple 100-ton slipways. It also installed a large forging machine in the forging workshop for Project 854 to forge keels, ship ribs and iron plates.
Other supporting workshops have also been built: the Timber Consortium has built a large wood fumigation kiln here to process shipbuilding wood. The "small" wood used in ship hulls can be processed in a drying kiln in about 3 days.
It is equivalent to the effect of natural drying in the shade for half a year. As for the keel and rib aniseed materials, it can also be processed within half a month. However, since the implementation of the iron frame wooden shell guidelines, the supply of aniseed materials has been relatively reduced a lot -
High-quality wood that could be used as keels and masts was rare on the southern coast of China at that time, and the price was also very expensive.
The wood processing workshop, which uses a full set of large-scale wood processing equipment made by Lingao Machinery Factory, has just been completed. The equipment inside stunned the indigenous craftsmen of the shipyard who are used to seeing "Australian miracles". This huge workshop is used to process materials used in shipbuilding.
Special planks. Large pieces of wood that have been treated in fumigation kilns, and woodworking circular saws and gang saws driven by steam engines, can be used to cut out in a few minutes the large quantities of ship planks and masts that would take dozens of workers a day to cut out.
The cuts were smooth and neat, with almost no waste. A few days later, they witnessed the inhuman and terrifying power of these machines. An apprentice was accidentally cut off by a circular saw during operation - half of his body was cut off.
It took less than half a minute for him to scream until he was dismembered.
The Indian jute used to make ropes was shipped from Goa in ships by Li Huamei. The jute was mixed with local hemp in the rope workshop and processed into huge ropes by mechanical rope making machines - although the iron anchor chain was
It is more convenient to use and corrosion-resistant. However, in order to save iron, most small and medium-sized ships in Lingao still use hemp ropes for their anchor chains, and these ropes are also used as sail cables.
A large number of tackles are needed on a sailing ship. The shipyard's dedicated tackle production workshop has five workers and uses simple lathes for production: the annual output is 80,000 tackles - although the navy and shipyards currently cannot consume so many. The outer shell of the tackle is made of elm wood.
, the hubs and rotating shafts are made of the best special hardwoods such as rosewood and green oak.
The sail is made of Lingao's self-made canvas. The cotton yarn comes from India. Indian merchants, in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Colonial Trade, customize the cotton yarn of the required specifications from the craftsmen, and then transport it to Lingao in packages. In Lingao
It was woven into canvas in the textile mills. Of course, the Ministry of Colonial Trade did not give up the opportunity to purchase canvas directly.
The workshop where the sails are sewn is an iron shed covered with reed mats - some of the roof will be lost during the typhoon season, but it doesn't matter if the forged iron trusses are intact and can be repaired quickly. The area of the workshop is half the size of a football field.
, dozens of specially trained female workers use semi-mechanized foot-operated sewing machines to sew the sails. However, the sails are still threaded with ropes by the female workers sitting on the benches.
The layout and setting of the entire shipyard are generally based on the settings of British shipyards in the data. The shipyard employs more than 800 workers. It is one of the largest large enterprises in Lingao.
"What's the use of such a big shipyard if it doesn't destroy ships? Is it going to be used as a theme park?" Wen Desi smashed the glass marbles on the beer, tilted his neck and took a few sips, sighing with satisfaction.
"It finally tastes better than beer." Wen Desi said, "Although this is a typical rice beer, I just made do with it."
"Ma Du Gong is dogmatist..."
"The navy, he doesn't know anything about it." Wen Desi waved his hand, "He is an amateur at shipbuilding. Hum, if Wu Kuangming hadn't told him that wood can be fumigated and dried, he would have thought it was all natural.
It has been dry for three years. This place in Lingao will not get better even if it is dry for thirty years."
Chen Haiyang took a sip of beer. He didn't want to comment more on Ma Qianxu's right and wrong. He changed the topic.
"Mr. Wen, what do you mean by suggesting building more patrol boats?"
"Divide the sea surface into many areas, use small and fast ships to patrol in groups, use radio to notify nearby warships to solve the problem after discovering the enemy, and then use special transport ships to send supplies and replacement personnel. This is because we currently have insufficient resources.
Countermeasures."
"Wolves on the sea."
"Similar, but not exactly. Our goal is not to destroy the enemy as much as possible, but to absolutely control this ocean. When it comes to this, Liu Xiang and Zheng Zhilong will take action against us sooner or later."
"It would be great if we could find Liu Xiang's lair and launch a Pearl Harbor-style surprise attack." Chen Haiyang said, "If we fight in the harbor, our advantage is not small."
"So we need to build more light patrol boats. These boats are fast and flexible, and have decent endurance. They are good at conducting investigations." Wen Desi narrowed his eyes and stared at the shipyard, "Those people in the Executive Committee are short-sighted! You know it.
Staring at the few resources in front of us and figuring out how to allocate them in order to cover everything, we are still talking about whether the resources are enough - I wonder if there will be an opportunity to make a windfall next year? If we want to make this windfall, we don’t have a ship, especially a big ship for a long voyage! "
"What opportunity to make a fortune?" Chen Haiyang became interested.
"You will know when the time comes." Wen Desi did not want to say more. He was still considering this proposal. Of course, there were more than one elders who had similar considerations to him, especially a group of people from the Great Library who were actively working on it.
Looking for historical data. The success or failure of this operation is directly related to the navy's combat power, transportation capacity and endurance.
"When I think about it, I will naturally discuss it with you." Wen Desi said, "It's not mature yet." (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to ***(***.
***) Vote for recommendation, ***, your support is my biggest motivation.)