Traveler Major League

Chapter 120 Artillery Plan
With enough high-quality steel, what is the long-range firearm that needs to be manufactured first?Is the difficulty relatively low?

The answer is artillery.

"We can only make guns now by casting." Liu Ze said at the office meeting of the steel factory.

Wei Jiahui blinked. He is the only reliable technician in the steelmaking industry, but he has never made cannons before. Sun Mo opened his eyes and listened carefully. These two are Liu Ze's steel industry and weapon manufacturing fields. Hum Ha Second General.

It was Wei Jiahui's greatest wish at the beginning of steelmaking. Unexpectedly, he had just completed the work of casting new cannons. In the past few months, the steel factory has obtained the greatest material and human resources. This time, every participant in this success has obtained a piece of gold. commemorative medal.

This medal was cast from the first furnace of molten steel. Its shape is just an ordinary round steel sheet with the words "The people will win the steelmaking battle" on it. There are no other decorations. There is a hole in the upper part that can be hung with a hemp rope. in the neck.

It is simple but priceless. During the more than 100 days and nights, the more than 600 people who followed Liu Ze became more acquainted with each other. In the bonfire talks every night, everyone talked about their experiences and experiences. In my hometown, the relationship with each other is more like brothers than just lip service.

Liu Ze has never built artillery before, but with good steel, the starting point is naturally higher.

Make a choice from limited memory. The first and easiest choice to make a gun is a front-mounted smoothbore gun, which uses black powder as the propellant. The original black powder artillery.

"This is our first time casting a cannon, so it's right to practice it, don't have a psychological burden." Looking at the nervous crowd, Liu Ze comforted.

"The principle is the same, it's not much different from casting this steel medal."

"Then use a mold? Clay mold? Lost wax method? Iron mold?" Wei Jiahui asked following Liu Ze's train of thought.

Now the commonly used casting method in the Ming Dynasty is clay mold, which can be said to be not much different from the technical principle of the ancient Bronze Age, and the iron mold is not a magic skill. In our textbooks, the iron mold casting cannon is not so good. Advanced, as early as the Warring States period, China had the application of iron mold casting hoes and farm tools.

Liu Ze nodded and said, "Clay molds and iron molds are not what we want to do, or they cannot be used alone."

The casting method of clay mold and iron mold was widely used in both the East and the West during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

The clay mold casting method uses extremely well pounded clay to make a mold and then slowly dry it in the shade, or slowly bake it thoroughly with charcoal fire. It takes at least one month and a maximum of three months to make the mold. Once the mold is shot, it cannot be reused. The most fatal point is that once the mold is not dry or the clay is not cooked, defective products will be cast.

The lost-wax casting method is to first fill the inner core of the cannon with a clay mold, dry it out, and then apply beeswax on the clay mold layer by layer to form the model of the cannon, and then coat the clay mold on the outside to form the outer mold.After the two layers of clay molds are completely dry and heated and baked, the middle wax mold is completely melted and lost, and the entire casting model becomes an empty shell, and molten iron is poured into it to cast a cannon.

However, the lost-wax casting method can only be used in winter, and the temperature in spring, summer and autumn is high, and the wax mold in the middle will melt before the clay mold is completely dry.

According to Gong Zhenlin's "Illustration of Casting Cannon Iron Molds", he described in detail the process and technical measures of iron mold casting cannons:
(1) First, according to the size of the iron cannon, divide it into 4-7 sections to make a clay cannon.

(2) According to the number of mud gun sections, iron mold clay molds are made. Each clay mold is divided into two parts, and the inner surface is rotated with a lathe to make the surface smooth and regular, and then dried for later use.The prefabricated handle is put into the clay mold, and it is integrated with the iron mold when pouring.

(3) When turning over the cast iron mold with clay, first invert the part of the muzzle on the mud plate, fill one of the petals with mud, after drying, cover the mud plate, tighten the mold, and pour it. Get a petal of the first iron mold.Then the filling mud is removed, and another iron mold can be cast in the same way.In this way, pouring section by section can be cast into a complete set of iron molds that are tenon-jointed layer by layer.

(4) When casting iron guns with iron molds, first paint the inner surface of the mold with a paint made of fine rice husk ash and fine sand mud, and then paint the second layer of paint prepared by very fine coal powder, and then hoop Tighten the iron mold, heat it, assemble the mud core, and pour molten iron.After solidification, take off the iron mold immediately, and remove the burrs and mud core while the cannon body is still red hot to obtain the finished product.

Gong Zhenlin also summarized seven advantages of casting iron molds in "Illustrations of Iron Molds for Casting Cannons".It mentioned that iron molds are characterized by multiple castings in one mold, low cost, and less working hours. The workload of the chamber; the casting mold does not contain moisture, has few air holes, can be stored after use, and is easy to maintain. If there is an emergency in wartime, it can be put into production quickly to meet emergency needs.

There is also a tricky method of casting cannons, which is to cast double-layer iron cannons.

This casting method is to forge the inner gun barrel with wrought iron first, and then cast the outer layer with ordinary cast iron on this basis, so that the outer cast iron only plays the role of strengthening the inner wrought iron barrel, even if there are flaws. Does not affect the overall use.

On this basis, there is also the manufacturing method of the double-layer gun barrel with the inner iron core and the outer copper body. These were extremely popular in the late Ming Dynasty, and their yield and quality were better than the single casting method.

However, this method also has inevitable defects. The double-layer casting method will make this kind of artillery heavier. Generally, it can only be used as a fixed artillery and cannot be used in field battles, and the caliber cannot be made too large.

In response to these shortcomings, Liu Ze chose the hollow casting technology, that is, casting around the inner core and cooling with running water in the middle.

This casting method allows the gun barrel to be cooled from the inside first, which will cause the outer metal to shrink inward when it cools, making the metal crystal structure more uniform, without internal stress, and making the barrel stronger.

The mold is also very simple, that is, there is a water pipe in the gun barrel, which is cooled by uninterrupted flowing water, and heated externally at the same time, so as to reduce the cooling speed of the outer layer.

For the popular army that lacks copper mines, this method of casting cannons is the most suitable, and the iron molds using this technology will play its advantages and avoid its disadvantages.

First, the iron female mold is cast by sand casting, and the core in the middle is also iron, but the inner core is hollow, and the built-in water pipe is cooled by flowing water.

"Brother Wei, I've told you everything I know about casting cannons. Use your imagination, don't be afraid of failure, and do your best." Liu Ze clasped his fists and saluted solemnly: "Please!"

In actual operation, Liu Ze can only provide suggestions and ideas if he doesn’t understand it, or he has to rely on these veteran craftsmen. This time, there is only one kind of artillery for the main research target:
The light smoothbore gun with a caliber of three inches has a length of 1.68 meters. All of them use improved standardized, generalized and modular gun carriages, ammunition boxes, and sights. The total weight is kept within [-] catties. Drag a fast-moving field gun with just a mule.

(End of this chapter)