Lu Ming

Chapter 411

Strictly speaking, the "Zhenman" iron-ribbed wood-hulled motor-sail gunboat was the product of a massacre.

As early as the beginning of the year, the Navy began a series of verification work in order to build future main battleships.

A newest light-class gunship, the "Monitor", was first modified, and an 18-pound naval gun was installed on board to test the damage effect of heavy guns on Western-style warships.

For this reason, the navy also specially spent money to buy a second-hand armed merchant ship from the Dutch, and added a 20 cm thick oak wood hull to simulate the main Western warship in the age of sail.

The results of the first test were not satisfactory.

Facts have proved that even the 18-pound naval cannon produced by the advanced metallurgical technology of later generations is still a bit weak when facing a "sandwich hot dog", that is, a western-style main battleship with a double-layer thick oak hull sandwiching a dense ship rib. Powerless.

After all, the cutting force of the iron ball is the same, and the kinetic energy of the cannon is lost quickly after being fired.

The final test result is that within the navy's ideal shelling distance of 2000 meters, the effective penetration rate of shelling is not high, only 60%; until the distance between the two sides of the test is shortened to 1000 meters, or even 800 meters, the 18-pound gun In order to effectively penetrate the opponent's hull.

This result is unacceptable to the Navy.

Because the Imperial Navy is currently taking the route of elite soldiers, in foreseeable future conflicts, a main battleship is likely to be besieged by a superior number of Western warships.In this situation, the importance of firepower is greatly enhanced: the battleship must quickly disable the enemy's combat effectiveness.

Although historically in East Asia, the colonists did not deploy first-class battleships like the "Sea King" and "Victory", but now that there is a huge variable crossing the crowd, no one can guarantee the future. historical trend.

Therefore, the navy must be lenient with the enemy, and take into account the highest possible combat effectiveness of the enemy from the very beginning.

As a result, the 18-pound gun plan was finally dropped by PASS, and the 24-pound gun made its debut.

After paying a huge price for the total weight, the weapon system of the new battleship finally satisfied the navy: within a distance of 2000 meters, the 24-pound naval cannon can penetrate any sailing ship on this plane.

After the most important weapon system was determined, the "Navy's 1629 Verification Type Capital Ship Plan" was officially implemented.

Because the wind direction at the beginning of the year was not good, the army was told to be patient, so the navy had no choice but to abandon the blueprints of multiple verification ships that were "running in small steps" and invested limited resources on this verification ship.

As a result, the verification ship originally designed to be 800 tons was pulled, and it was forced to increase to 1200 tons after it was launched overnight.

This figure is still somewhat challenging for the navy, which has always operated combat ships of less than 500 tons.

The problem is not so much the driving, but the design.

Regarding sailing, the current navy is very familiar with the operation of sailboats and motor sailboats. In this regard, the navy has sufficient experience and manpower, and enlarged motor sailboats are not a problem.

The real challenge is design.

If the original 800-ton plan is carried out, then the shipyard's time-travelers are still confident that they will have a light-level lift, follow the gourd's drawing, and get the new ship by themselves.

But after enlarging the new ship to 1200 tons overnight and changing the artillery to 24 pounds, those in the shipyard shrank their eggs.We must know that once any machine is enlarged to a certain extent, various problems will inevitably arise, which cannot be handled by a few non-professional designers.

In the end, according to the old method, the navy handed over the parameter requirements of the new ship to Emperor Cao, and then the emperor went back to the later generations to find a design company, first design, and then use a large computer to simulate sea conditions to find problems, and finally draw the map.

So what the Navy ended up with was a hard drive.

After starting the construction according to the drawings in the hard drive, the navy waited for more than eight months before the verification ship, which was planned to be named "Zhenman", could start sea trials.

And at this point in time, General Cao returned from Guangdong and was about to prepare for King Qin's affairs, so the sea trial plan of the Zhenman was very tight, and finally narrowly missed the mission to Shanghai.

As the core force to maintain the empire's hegemony for a period of time to come, the Zhenman received a brief naming ceremony before its first official voyage.The Emperor Cao Chuan visited the Zhenman at that time and gave a passionate speech at the bow of the ship.

And the Zhenman did not disappoint the travelers.Regardless of its majestic appearance or powerful combat effectiveness, this warship meets the public's "social expectations" and has become a new generation of powerful weapons for the country.

Since the [-]th century did not need to consider low visibility, stealth and anti-radar issues, so whether it was a land officer or a sea warship in this era, the appearance was extremely ostentatious, so that they could be seen by their own people on the chaotic battlefield.

The Zhenman is also unavoidable: the blue and gold hull painting, coupled with the white three-masted sails, not only makes the whole ship look amazing, but also highly recognizable. Can forget such a slender and beautiful battleship.

Speaking of slenderness, the designs from later generations naturally wouldn't design the battleships of Chuanzhong into the stubby shape with low aspect ratio in the seventeenth century.

In fact, including small frigates, warships across the public have always taken the path of large aspect ratio-excellent design and advanced hull structure ensure that the roll of the hull is controlled within the allowable range.

The standard displacement of the entire Zhenman is 1200 tons, and the full-load displacement is 1680 tons.This data has surpassed the British battleship King of the Seas in the same period.

Although the Sovereign weighs 1683 tons, it looks a little heavier than the Zhenman, but due to its own weight, the effective volume of the Sovereign is actually much worse than that of the Zhenman.

You must know that the load-bearing capacity and yield of wood are far inferior to steel. A seemingly "thin-skinned" steel warship is much higher than a seemingly thick wooden ship in terms of firmness and cargo volume.

For sailing battleships like the Sovereign, the total thickness of the double hull is usually around 40-46 cm.This data, together with the ship's ribs, actually exceeds half a meter in thickness.

Such a thick wooden shell, coupled with the fact that all other parts of the hull are made of wood, makes the warship's self-weight far exceed that of a steel warship of the same size.

As for the sail warship like the Zhenman, because the internal structure uses a lot of steel, it is not only stronger, but also has a much higher effective volume.

Another difference between the Zhenman and the sailing battleship is that this ship has two gun decks.

Generally speaking, large sailing battleships have three gun decks.

In order to lower the center of gravity, the guns with the largest caliber will be arranged on the lower gun deck, and the light guns will be arranged on the upper layer.This situation has led to a common problem of sailing warships: when the waves are high, the lower deck cannot open the gun port, otherwise sea water will flow back into the gun port.

However, the Zhenman, adhering to the usual "all-heavy artillery concept", therefore abandoned all light artillery, and the entire ship was equipped with only 40 24-pound long-barreled heavy artillery.

In this way, with the addition of coal and engines in the bilge, which maintain the center of gravity by the way, the Zhenman only has two gun decks, and the problem of seawater backflow does not exist.

In terms of firepower, 40 guns seem to be a small number, which is much less than the exaggerated 104 guns of the Sovereign, but the combat efficiency is much higher than the latter.

First of all, since the task of close-range shooting (if any) is handed over to muskets, wing ships and heavy machine guns that are not easily used, the number of 24-pound heavy guns on the Zhenman actually exceeds that of the sailing warship.

It is now the 17th century, and the western naval artillery of more than 24 pounds is still a short-barreled mortar with a very short range, which cannot threaten the Zhenman with a range of 2000 meters.

Secondly, with the assistance of advanced metallurgical technology and mechanical loading equipment, these 40 long-barreled heavy guns can fire accurately for a long time, and the damage effect is not comparable to that of the original artillery.

There is another point: the 40 guns on the Zhenman can fire at the same time from the left and right sides.

For traditional sailing warships, the gun positions should be divided by two—half on the left and right sides.This situation can play a role in the great melee at sea: bow left and right, anyway, there are enemies on all sides.

However, most of the time the gunboat still only uses one porthole to shoot.If it is necessary to bombard land targets for a long time, sailing warships sometimes even have to turn in circles in order to call the artillery on the other side to ensure shooting safety and prevent bombing.

In this way, the 100 guns on the Sovereign actually only have 50 on a single side. If you count all kinds of light guns, the total weight of the shells fired each salvo is far lower than that of the Zhenman.

Due to the advanced slide rail system of the Zhenman, and the increased cabin space brought about by the advanced structure and advanced materials, the 40 cannons can be easily moved back and forth on the left and right sides, and it takes less than a minute. .

In short, the advantages brought by technology are all aspects.In terms of ship type, weapons, protection, and power, the Zhenman far exceeds the Galen ship of the seventeenth century, and in some respects even surpasses the machine sail gunship in the late Qing Dynasty—except for the need to "import" some power components , the beautiful Zhenman is indeed a perfect "ideal warship".

This time, the Northward Fleet, with Zhenman as its flagship, departed for Shanghai Port on December 12th, the same day that Jin Yiwei Ma Baihu died.

Prior to this, the "Qinwang Transport Fleet" consisting of 10 new lock ships had already set off ahead of schedule 5 days ago.

After the battleship formation practiced various military subjects along the way, it successfully joined the transport formation in the sea off Shanghai Port on the seventh night of departure.

Then at the moment the sun rose the next morning, several gunboats in the fleet responsible for carrying a battalion of infantry had already entered the port, ready to unload the soldiers and reason with Wang Guerrilla who was surrounded outside the port.

So when Wang Guerrilla saw the giant blue-gold ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River, he actually missed more important information. There were more and more tiny black spots on the pier.

(End of this chapter)