Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 246 Galleon Improvement 2.0th Edition

"Of course I know about the problem of longitudinal strength, and I have ways to solve it. There's no need for you to take advantage of your seniority and act like a teacher!" Pan Xuezhong was so angry that Master Song had been targeting him that he immediately retorted.

"How dare you! I think you're getting worse as you get older. Who taught you to speak so arrogantly and disrespect your teachers?" Without waiting for Old Song to speak, Director Pan stepped forward and scolded his son.

"Don't bid, don't bid, Old Pan, who dares to be the teacher of your Qianliju?" Old Song was so angry that he laughed and bowed to Pan Xuezhong and said, "I am stupid, Master Pan, please teach me, how do you plan to solve the problem of vertical strength?"

"It's very simple. Just remove the side arcs, and you don't have to cut the waist plate." Pan Xuezhong said, "If it doesn't work, just add a few more waist plates. As long as the side arcs are removed, it can be easily achieved."

The side arc that Pan Xuezhong mentioned is the galaxy of this era, and also includes the common characteristics of early battleships. It refers to the arc-shaped side of the ship, especially the upward tilt of the tail is very obvious, because the stern of the ship is generally occupied by important people, and the floor height is higher.

As for the waist plate, it is the longitudinal reinforcement rib on the hull, and its shape is also upturned like the side arc. This thing should have appeared after the carrack evolved into the galleon, mainly to strengthen the longitudinal strength after the length-to-width ratio increased.

But this was inconsistent with the arrangement of the broadside guns, because the gun deck could not be tilted upward like the waist board, which would affect the safety of the guns. In this way, there would inevitably be an intersection between the waist board and the gun port, which would require cutting the waist board at the gun port, destroying the longitudinal strength of the hull.

Of course, there is another way, which is to use a stepped deck and sink the gun deck half a level at the intersection of the two lines. In this way, the waist plate does not need to be cut, but the ammunition transportation and command on the gun deck will become more troublesome.

"Nonsense! How can there be a ship without side curves?" Director Pan pointed at his son's nose angrily.

"There is none on the notification ship I built, nor on the frigate built by Keelung Shipyard." Pan Xuezhong's tone was calm.

"How can a cruise ship and a frigate be the same?" Director Pan said the lines of Master Song, while Master Song sneered on the side.

Pan Xuezhong wanted to continue to argue, but Lin Hai waved his hand and said, "Alright, stop arguing! I am just raising the navy's demands. You are all professionals in shipbuilding, and I am an outsider. You can just design according to your own ideas, and the company will make a comprehensive evaluation when the time comes."

"Yes, Boss!" All the craftsmen bowed to Lin Hai.

"I have two more opinions, which I would like to put forward for your reference. It is up to you whether you adopt them or not..."

Lin Hai pointed with two fingers: "First, the beak is too low and flat, so it is easy to bury its head in the waves. Second, the structure of the bow and stern is too fragile and can be easily penetrated. You can consider whether these two problems can be solved when designing the cruiser."

Like the sheer, the two problems mentioned by Lin Hai were also common problems of galleons and early battleships. They were not solved more thoroughly until the late 18th century and early 19th century.

The problem of the bow being too low and too flat is gradually being improved. People are gradually making the beak of the Galen tilt upward, at the cost of the bow image being smaller and smaller. But the beak itself is a frame-like structure, and tilting it upward does not enhance the protection. In other words, the bow of this era is actually open, and there is only a thin wooden board called the beak bulkhead at the front of the upper deck, which is also a brittle structure and cannot be compared with the side supported by dense ribs.

The situation at the stern is similar, with only a few pieces of wood as the supporting frame, and thin wooden boards and windows on the outside - it is quite comfortable to live in, but the problem is that it is not durable!

What's more, the Western-style sailing ship has no bulkheads, and the gun deck is completely open. If the shells are fired from the bow or stern and enter the hull, it is very likely to hit the entire deck with a grand slam, smashing the gunners and gun carriages along the way. This may be another advantage of seizing the T-head in naval battles.

In fact, Lin Hai had no intention of raising these two opinions, mainly because he was not a complete novice and had great awe for building large ships.

A sailing ship is a wooden structure, which is made up of thousands of wooden components connected together. There are complex stresses that no one can explain. For example, when the British built ships, they would place the keel and rib frames on the slipway for a year after they were built. This way, the ships would have a longer lifespan and would not fall apart easily.

The key point here is that wood is not steel and is prone to deformation. The stress conditions between the components cannot be described analytically. The most fatal one is the keel deformation. Once the keel deforms too much, the ship is doomed and can only be overhauled or rebuilt, which is sometimes not much different.

The British were so crazy about preventing the keel from deforming too much that they used inferior materials as the keel when building the ship, and then knocked it off before launching it and replaced it with a real keel made of good materials! The reason for doing this was to reduce the deformation of the keel during the time it was on the slipway.

Therefore, if there are no blueprints of sailing warships of later generations, any changes to the existing hull structure may cause a chain reaction and involve unpredictable risks. The safest way is to rely on the experience of predecessors.

That's why Lin Hai only modified the sails and rudder system when refitting Dingyuan, and didn't dare to change the hull structure. He didn't even touch the bow beak, which looked very unpleasant. This thing can be said to be completely outfitting, and it should not have any impact on the main structure.

However, now that Pan Xuezhong mentioned the cancellation of the hull, Lin Hai simply pointed out the other shortcomings of the galleon. These are common problems of the galleons of current European countries, and he knows that they will be improved in the future.

"Finally, I have one more suggestion. Don't do those messy decorations!" Lin Hai said, "What I said before is just for reference. Only the point of not allowing random decorations is a requirement and must be implemented!"

Lin Hai is not so disgusted by the complicated decorations in Western European shipbuilding. Showing off is a common human need, but the problem is that the price is too high and it will inevitably hurt people.

Twenty years later, Britain's HMS Majesty of the Seas was an extremely luxurious warship, with gorgeous carvings everywhere and the entire surface covered in gold, so it was called the Golden Devil.

This warship with a displacement of 1600 tons cost a total of 65586 pounds, equivalent to about taels of silver. It is said that the cost of gold stamping alone exceeded one-tenth of the cost.

Ten days later, all the design drawings of the masters were handed over to Lin Hai. When he saw the drawings handed in by Pan Xuezhong, he was stunned:

This is a flat-deck warship with no side arcs, no protruding poop, and a closed bow!
(End of this chapter)