Nanming: I can build wonders

Chapter 406 One small step for Ming, one giant leap for mankind
The current scale of the Artillery Factory of the General Administration of Manufacturing is not too big or small. There are [-] foundry workshops and [-] workers, which can produce [-] cannons at the same time.

After relocating to Yingtianfu, the artillery factory is located in a remote location, because a venue is needed to test the artillery!

Over the years, the artillery factory has not been idle. In addition to manufacturing short heavy artillery, Polu steel artillery, and mortars, it is also developing a brand new artillery.

At present, under the overall planning of Su Laocheng, major results have been achieved. As long as the test is successful, large-scale installation will soon be possible.

But Zhu Kezang came to the factory to see this new type of cannon.

The new cannon was actually a front-loading rifled gun.

Like the electric rifle, that is, the Minie rifle, the front-loading rifle is also a short-lived product in the history of human warfare.

His first deployment of actual combat troops was during the American Civil War, but because the rear-loaded rifled guns dominated the battlefield within a short period of time after the appearance of the front-loaded rifled guns, this kind of artillery has a low status in the history of warfare.

Many people don't even know that there is such a gun as a front-loading rifled gun. When it comes to rifled guns, many people's first reaction is the rear-loading gun.

However, the accuracy requirements of breech-loading rifles are higher than those of breech-loading rifles. With the current machine tool level of Ming Dynasty, the output of breech-loading guns will be quite low, so a more compromised front-loading rifle was chosen.

For the current Ming Dynasty, the front-loading rifled gun is a simple, rough and easy-to-mount product, and it is also a product that is powerful enough to deal with the Tartars in the seventeenth century with ease, even if their tactical thinking has improved.

Su Laocheng led Zhu Kezang through the workshop of the casting factory and into the warehouse.

The warehouse is very large, with all kinds of artillery, ranging from small to large, all covered with black cloth.

In a warehouse, Zhu Kezang saw more than a dozen large cannons also covered by the black cloth. Obviously, the current artillery factory can produce larger caliber Polu cannons!

Zhu Kezang went to the innermost warehouse, walked up to a huge cannon, and lifted the black cloth covering it.

A rifled gun with rifling engraved in the barrel appeared in front of everyone.

Unlike ordinary artillery, the tail of this cannon is very thick, and it does not become thinner linearly from the tail of the gun to the muzzle, but thins at a geometric multiple speed.

This made the cannon look very round. Su Laocheng approached the muzzle and introduced: "Your Majesty, this cannon is engraved with rifling, has stronger armor-piercing ability, and has a huge caliber!"

If it was the Qing Navy at the end of the [-]th century, it would definitely be discovered, isn't this the Armstrong front-loading gun?

Armstrong front-loading gun with a caliber of 120mm, manufactured by the Armstrong Arsenal in the United Kingdom, and imported on a large scale by the Beiyang Navy of the Qing Dynasty.

The front-loading gun of the General Administration of Manufacturing is not far from its data:

Caliber: 120mm
Length: 22 times the caliber

Bore length: 2647mm
Gun weight: 1.32 tons

Ammo weight: 18.1kg (40 lbs)
Muzzle velocity: 461 m/s

Effective range: 3000 meters

Cannons of this level were basically invincible on the sea in the seventeenth century, and they were also unrivaled in siege and defense.

Seeing the appearance of this cannon, Zhu Kezang smiled happily. This is one small step for Ming, one giant leap for mankind!

Su Laocheng went to another storeroom and took out a 36-jin conical cannon and ejected it.

The front of the shell is made of steel, with a pointed bullet, which looks extremely impactful.

The fuze of the shell is on the side, and the same as the round flower shell, the propellant is used to ignite the fuze.

The tail of the shell is a lead carrier, which is caught in the tail of the steel warhead.

Zhu Kezang looked at the tail of the shell and found that the lead bullet holder at the tail had a depression like the Mini shell.

Obviously, the reason why this kind of shell can bite into the rifling is the same as that of the Minie shell.

Zhu Kezang said: "Try it out, go to the school field to see how strong the armor-piercing ability of this new type of cannon is, and use Western battleships as imaginary enemies to see if they can penetrate their armor."

"I'll make arrangements now, Your Majesty, please go out and wait!"

Soon, the soldiers on the test site erected a forty-centimeter-thick hardwood hull in front of an earthen wall.

In order to simulate the defense of European warships, this hardwood hull is made of Burmese teak, which is very hard.

With a wave of his hand, a forty-pound rifled gun moved out and aimed at the target 800 meters away.

Rifled guns can not only use conical shells, but also conical shells rotate in the air, and the trajectory is more stable than round smoothbore shells, so the hit accuracy is much higher than that of smoothbore guns!

For a four-meter-long and wide target 800 meters away, the rifled gun has no pressure to aim.

The gunner turned the screw to adjust the muzzle and aimed at the target.

There was only a loud bang, and the cannon slammed back, spewing out a huge spark from the muzzle.

A huge cannonball was shot out, piercing the air like lightning, and hit the teak hull in front of the wooden wall with a bang.

This flowering bomb was not equipped with gunpowder for combat, so it did not explode after being plunged into the earth wall.

Everyone rode to the target to watch the armor-piercing effect of the shells.

The forty-centimeter teak hull has been completely pierced, and a large circular hole with a width of one meter was knocked out in the middle.

In fact, the penetration of this shell is far beyond the level of penetrating the [-] cm hull.

The cannonball pierced directly into the earth wall behind the hull, with its head submerged nearly half a meter into the earth wall, and almost penetrated the earth wall.

Everyone was discussing around the cannonball, very happy.

Obviously, with such a cannon, the armor of large European battleships can be easily pierced. In the future, the hegemony in the Americas, and even the Atlantic hegemony, will easily destroy their warships.

Even at a distance of one or two miles, this front-loading rifle can penetrate a [-]-centimeter-thick hull without any suspense.

One can imagine the scene of a cone-shaped flowering bomb weighing more than 30 kilograms exploding inside the battleship.

The previous short-heavy artillery can cause such an effect, but the range of the short-heavy artillery is too short. Now the Ming Navy will have a range of about 3000 meters!

Those Westerners can't even touch the edge.

Of course, the first battle with front-loading rifled guns must have been used to bully Ta Qing.

Zhu Kezang looked at the cone-shaped cannonballs on the earthen wall, his eyes were bright, he looked left and right around the cannonballs, but he was afraid that the cannonballs would be too hot, so he dared not touch them.

He turned to Su Laocheng and asked, "How much is this rifled gun currently in stock? How much can it produce every month?"

Su Laocheng said: "Your Majesty, there are currently about 200 artillery pieces in stock in the warehouse, all of which can be pulled out for use immediately. If not enough, the artillery factory will try its best to produce such rifled guns, and can produce more than [-] pieces a month."

The rifled gun is different from the smoothbore gun. The smoothbore gun only needs to be cast in a mold to form it, and then the steps such as boring are completed, but the rifled gun needs to draw the rifling.

Although Daming's current machine tools are widely driven by steam engines, the efficiency is dozens of times that of other forces in this era, but rifling rifled guns is a delicate job that is prone to problems, and it still takes a little time to work slowly.

"Very good, go all out, Daming will soon have a battle with the Tartars!"

(End of this chapter)