Lu Ming

Chapter 227

"Is this the 17th century version of the 'full-mounted light artillery'?" The fat and white Wang Xiaohui stood on the bow of the "Youguang", watching the Napoleon cannon being slowly dropped by the steel cable, and could not help but click his tongue , shaking his head and showing a smirk.

"Come on, what do you know about the army?" Mu Longcheng, the captain of the "Youguang" in a straight white uniform, cast a glance at this fellow.

"Hey, hey, let me tell you, we are now the chief of staff of the Joint Command. We are compatible with sea and land, so we can be considered a part of the navy, okay?" Wang Xiaohui was dissatisfied now.

"Two-way plug." Mu Longcheng muttered in a low voice.

Of course Wang Xiaohui was a member of the army before, but this gentleman's theoretical level in maritime affairs is also not low-the Fengfan Mouth Gun Party.Later, due to the lack of people in the transport fleet to Hangzhou, he temporarily took a few shifts.After going back and forth like this, this guy actually got an impression of "higher overall quality" in the eyes of the people in the big office.

Then, in a flash, he became the chief of staff of the newly established joint combat command not long ago, responsible for formulating the upcoming battle plan for the coastal bandit suppression war in Fujian.
As the most important armament work at present, the outfitting project of "Youguang" was launched as soon as the typhoon passed through.There are not only practical pressures to do so: the faster outfitting can be done, the longer it will take for the Navy to get used to it.On the other hand, it is a bit tragic: Brother Chen Youguang died because he was worrying about the outfitting work, so this work must be completed as soon as possible to comfort the deceased.

The construction of Youguang actually started more than four months ago.However, because the Youguang is actually a verification ship, some theoretical differences have always existed, which has led to a delay in the construction progress.When those small "destroyers" were already attacking Zheng Zhilong on the sea, Youguang was still lying in the dock.

In the end, all the differences disappeared after the destroyers brought back the first-hand actual combat data of the Cormorant Island naval battle.

According to the battle situation at that time and subsequent measurements, the 12-pound Napoleon gun processed by the industrial equipment of later generations is fully capable of breaking the Fuchuan deck at a distance of 1000 meters and penetrating enemy ships at a distance of 500 meters.

In other words, it turns out that even Zheng Zhilong’s ship lacks ship ribs and is an old-fashioned Fuchuan structure with a single-layer plank: the arc-shaped ballistic iron ball, as long as the angle is right, can guarantee to penetrate the deck within 500 meters and bottom plate, causing flooding of the vessel.This effect is also effective within 1000 meters, but the probability is lower.

Actual combat is the best way to test theory.Now that the answer has been revealed, there is a conclusion about the final naval gun configuration of the Youguang: there is no need to install a small number of larger-caliber naval guns, and as many 12-pound guns as possible are enough.

Youguang is a 400-ton motor sail gunship. The original intention of building this class of ships was to deal with the Chinese pirates headed by Zheng Zhilong.The reason why the ship has not been outfitted is largely because of the ongoing debate on the layout of the naval guns: the debate between the full 12-pounder Napoleon guns and the larger caliber guns.

Now the controversy is finally over: the "full light artillery" faction has won the final victory.

The British battleship "Dreadnought", launched in February 1906, was the first truly modern battleship: it was the first capital ship equipped with steam turbines, and its speed reached an astonishing 2 knots.

However, this is not the most important thing. The most important thing is: In addition to some small-caliber rapid-fire guns against torpedo boats, the "Dreadnought" is only equipped with 10 12-inch main guns, and has no medium-caliber guns at all.

This caused the long-range large-caliber firepower of the "Dreadnought" to be one and a half times stronger than other battleships; the artillery firing director ensured that its large-caliber artillery still had a high hit rate at the maximum range.

It is precisely because of this unique "full armor and heavy artillery" layout that the "Dreadnought" has epoch-making significance and has become synonymous with the 150 modern battleships built around the world after that.

And some of the "full light artillery" layouts proposed by the arty travelers, in a sense, also borrowed from the design ideas of dreadnought ships: all the deck space is reserved for 12-pound Napoleon guns, and small-caliber secondary guns are no longer arranged. All The work of the secondary artillery at close range is done by the musket.

This naval gun layout can maximize the traverser's advantages in firepower, observation and aiming, and rate of fire.But this layout also has flaws: Youguang's imaginary enemy can only be the Chinese pirates driving the Fuchuan Guangzhou Ship, and they can't chew on European ships.

Youguang is 44 meters long and 7.5 meters wide. The shape of the ship is not much different from the previous flying-shear bow and streamlined destroyers, except that the tonnage has been enlarged to 400 tons.And a warship of the level of Youguang can only be regarded as a fourth-class ship in Europe, and its tonnage is too small.

The 17th century was the time when the Age of Discovery was in full swing, and Europeans had left other nations far behind in the field of ships.All European-style ships that can cross the ocean to East Asia, even pure merchant ships, are far superior to Chinese-style ships with single-layer hull structure in terms of hull structure: without thick hulls and ribs, navigators have long been in the sea. Feed the fish in the storm.

And in the lair of these Europeans, powerful warships are emerging one after another on the sea.Even in the battle of the Armada 30 years ago, the British and Spanish fleets headed by the Triumph and the San Juan already had many 1000-ton Gallion-style warships.The thick oak hulls and ribs of these battleships are even more difficult for the 12-pound gun on the Youguang to penetrate easily.

Therefore, while Youguang determined the layout of the naval guns, it also clarified its own grade: it only fights pirates.

After determining the layout of the naval gun, the outfitting work officially began.

The outfitting of ships in this era is different from that of later generations.It usually takes half a year for the battleships of the later generations to outfit - it is not so easy to install hundreds of tons of gun mounts and 15-inch cannons.

However, it only took 5 days to complete the outfitting of Youguang.

Outfitting was simple: first a gas power system was installed in the engine room at the stern.Since the displacement of Youguang is only 400 tons, there is no need to lower the hull first and then install the turbine.

The practice of the shipyard is to hoist the equipment directly on the ship frame.

After the gas furnace, engine, propeller, and a small boiler were hoisted into the stern cabin, the engineers headed by Qiao Zhengtai spent two days running this small turbine system.

After the test run, the ship was launched.The next step is to hoist the Napoleon gun on the designed gun position.

A total of 10 artillery positions are set up on the deck with Guang.

The gun positions are all concentrated on the center line of the ship, separated by the ship building arranged in the middle of the deck, with 5 guns at the front and rear.The gun position is a 360-degree chassis steering design, and there is a retractable canopy above the head.

In order to save the deck space to the maximum extent, this time, the large circular slide rail was not installed on the gun position of Youguang, but replaced by the gun well.

The position of the gun well is just below the gun position, and it is composed of steel reinforcement ribs and a slide rail system.When the artillery above the head is fired, the huge recoil force will be transmitted along the steel cable and slide rail system. At this time, the sear placed between the slide rails will be forcibly raised like an elevator to consume the recoil force of the artillery.

The gun well is an extremely advanced system, which can completely offset the recoil of the naval gun, so that the gun crew does not need to adjust the gun position again when firing rapidly: the circular slide rail cannot do this.

Moreover, the existence of gun wells also reduces the number of gun crews.Generally speaking, for a land Napoleon artillery team, the standard number of artillery crew should be 6-8 people.

The reason for the large number of people is the weight: whether it is marching, laying out, or shooting, the artillery crew needs to cooperate at any time to move the heavy artillery hoe, and move back and forth between the ammunition carts behind them.

But now with this system, the artillery crew on Youguang immediately became a 3+1 combination. The 3 people are responsible for a series of simplified shooting procedures on the deck, while the members in the gun well are responsible for the replacement and delivery of ammunition overhead.

In short, the recoil is solved, and the deck can become concise and tidy.Under the command of the walkie-talkies and tweeters on the command building, all gun positions can not only fire in salvo, but also be divided into two groups to shoot at different targets.

In this case, it is very difficult for an enemy Chinese ship to break into the range of 300 meters of Youguang unless there are a large number of enemy ships.However, the speed of ships passing through forces has never been a problem, not to mention the sky-defying propellers to solve the problem of headwinds, so the enemy cannot form an enveloping formation.

As the price of maximizing the accumulation of artillery, there is also a weakness in the light: the mast.There are only a mainmast and a foremast of average height on the ship, and there is no mizzenmast.This kind of design indicates that Youguang is a motor sailing ship that pays a lot of attention to fuel, and the utilization rate of turbines and sails is almost equal.

You must know that the previous destroyers did not use propellers most of the time.The Youguang is different: a large amount of equipment fuel in the bilge and armaments on the deck, coupled with the reduced mast, make the downwind cruising speed of the Youguang only about 8 knots, and if the turbine is turned on, the ship's speed will be reduced. The maximum can only reach 14 knots.

Of course, this speed is enough, or that sentence, now is the 17th century.

Including the electronic equipment in the command building, the machine gun nest, and the motor system that assists in the lifting and lowering of the sails, all the outfitting projects of the Youguang took only 24 days with the continuous efforts of a large number of workers in the shipyard. It's all over.

There is plenty of time now: after the Navy takes over the new ship, it will have at least 10-20 days for running-in and training.And people like Wang Xiaohui can let go of their worries and formally use Youguang as the core flagship to design a plan to wipe out the pirates.

(End of this chapter)