Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 149 Armstrong Cannon

The shell flew over the mound at a distance of 400 meters and smashed a hole 30 cm deep on the ground.The iron ball at the bottom of the pit was still emitting green smoke.

"The ground here is still relatively soft." Lin Shenhe looked at it, "If the ground is hard enough, it can produce a jumping effect, and the power will be even greater."

Zhang Bolin began to pull the tape measure, and the actual measured distance from the 400-meter pole to the crater was 460 meters.

"The range is acceptable." Lin Shenhe felt satisfied, "The accuracy is quite satisfactory."

"Satisfied with this? You didn't hit anything!" Ying Yu felt it was unbelievable, just this precision?This is a cannon, and it shoots directly.

"That's right, the smoothbore cannon is at this level. The enemy is in a dense formation, and this cannon can kill at least a dozen."

Then they fired more than a dozen rounds with different angles and charges, and the range ranged from 400 meters to 1200 meters.When the elevation angle reached the maximum of 45 degrees, the shell flew 1500 meters away.However, after the shooting range exceeds 400 meters, the aiming head is completely gone, basically you can only look in the general direction, and a total of 4 mounds were hit during the whole process.The cannon became red and hot, but the barrel was stable without cracks.To be on the safe side, after firing fifteen times, Lin Shenhe declared a ceasefire and switched to another cannon.

"Still fighting? I'm almost exhausted." All the artillerymen were so tired that they couldn't breathe.Other things are fine, the reset of the artillery after each firing is laborious.Moreover, there are always some problems with the direction and angle after reset, and it needs to be adjusted again.Physical exertion is particularly high.

"It's still necessary to withdraw the cannon from the upper tube, so you have to stop breathing." Zhang Bolin was panting like a cow, almost collapsing to the ground.

"Just wait until the industrial sector releases the cannon." Lin Shenhe was also exhausted. "Don't even think about it before then."

After the break, the cannons cast in clay molds were tested again, and the range was slightly shorter than that of the cannons cast in die casting.The performance is also not bad.

Subsequently, the artillery team used iron molds and the Rodman method to cast artillery of various calibers, including 12-pound howitzers, 12-pound mountain howitzers, and 12-pound cannons. The 32-pound cannon and 32-pound naval gun (Note: This is a direct-firing short gun, invented and used by the British Navy).These various artillery pieces were all successful in the test firing, and all day near Lingaojiao, the cannons were booming and the smoke filled the air.

After accumulating enough casting experience, the artillery team designed an improved version of the Armstrong cannon with a threaded bolt according to the drawings and instructions of the Armstrong cannon in the database.

Rifled guns are no better than smoothbore guns. Although the caliber of the long gun (cannon) had reached 32mm when the artillery team cast the 120-pound cannon, the designers of the artillery team cautiously set the caliber of the first Armstrong cannon to 70mm.

The gun is made of cast steel.Casting is no longer difficult for the already familiar artillery team.The main problem is the machining of the rifling.In the arsenal, this requires special machines, or at least special tooling.It is too late to build it right away, but fortunately, the traversers have predecessors who can emulate—military industrial soldiers from the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army.Under the simplest mechanical equipment and manual conditions, they also produced rifles and artillery.After looking through the materials, Zhan Wuya decided to imitate the rifling technology that Wu Yunduo used when manufacturing flat-fire guns.That is, use an olive-shaped steel column, engrave concave and convex oblique lines on the circumference, and then hard wedge the steel column into the barrel.

How to make this steel column, Wu Yunduo just gave a general idea, without a specific drawing.The artillery team convened all the talents who knew about machinery and drawing, held discussions and research overnight, and drew out the design drawings. Jiang Ye was in charge. First, they used sand casting, and then used a lathe to make steel molds.

In the end, this extrusion method proved to be effective. A few days later, the barrel of the first Armstrong cannon was finished. The threaded bolt was finally completed and installed successfully.The assembled and polished cannon looked smooth and smooth, and everyone looked and touched it with lewd looks on their faces.

The artillery shells are cast iron long-pointed solid ammunition, but the shell fuze of the rifled gun is very difficult to solve.

Regardless of whether the fuze has a safety device or not, the basic structure is a spring striker type.This requires two things: ** and springs.Compared with the thunder mercury used in guns, the spring is actually a big problem they face.Spring manufacturing itself is not difficult, the rare thing is the material - modern springs are generally made of alloy steel, which cannot be produced with a small converter. The mechanical group has a reserve of spring steel in hand, but the shell fuse is a consumable , cannot rely on the materials in reserve.

"How about the chemical fuze?" Zhang Bolin suddenly thought.

"How to say?"

"Use chemical reactions to detonate shells." Zhang Bolin's idea is simple: use a glass or porcelain vial filled with a chemical, surrounded by another chemical that can react violently with it. For medicine, when the shell was hit, the glass bottle shattered, and the two medicines mixed together to react violently, detonating the zha powder in the shell.

"It's not very safe." Xiao Bailang said, "The shells have to be constantly moved and transported. What if the glass bottle is broken?"

"Separately shipped. Fuzes and shells shipped separately, and reloaded when needed."

Wang Luobin shook his head again and again: "This idea is good, but you have forgotten one thing: the chamber pressure of the breech-loading rifle gun is much higher than that of the smoothbore gun, and the fuze must be strong enough. The glass tube will definitely break at the moment of firing. That’s right—exploding the chamber.”

Zhang Bolin was dumbfounded, he hadn't thought about this question at all.

"How is it? Cannon is not as easy to play as expected?" Ying Yu patted him on the shoulder.

"It's not impossible to use this fuze on other explosives," Lin Shenhe said, "but absolutely not for shells."

"It seems that advanced cannons are not enough." Wang Luobin smiled wryly.There is no technical difficulty in the blooming bullets of smoothbore guns, but this technology cannot be used on rifled guns.

"Carbon steel can also be used to make springs." Jiang Ye thought for a long time, and recalled that he seemed to have seen carbon steel springs.

"Yes, you can use 0.6% carbon steel. I just don't know if the performance is enough." Ji Wusheng said, "You can try it. I will check the book to see how the heat treatment is done."

"Can you do heat treatment?" Zhan Wuya himself was not sure, so he did some simple work with a heat treatment furnace.

"I'm not sure, I can only rely on books and experiments."

"This matter is probably not simple, and it cannot be done in a day or two."

Several people pondered for a long time without any results, and finally Lin Shenhe suggested: Since the first batch of Armstrong cannons were used by the navy, armor-piercing projectiles should be the main anti-ship projectiles.A solid cast iron bullet will do.

"What about shore bombardment missions?"

"Use a mortar." Lin Shenhe said.

The mortar is the predecessor of the mortar. The manufacturing technology is much simpler than that of the mortar, and the grenade used is also very easy to manufacture.The disadvantage is that the non-explosion rate of grenades is relatively high, which can only be said to be better than nothing.

"How to solve the problem of lead plating?" Wang Luobin asked.In history, the Armstrong cannon was kicked out of the battleship by the British Navy because the lead flakes on the projectile splashed and caused casualties when the cannon was ejected from the chamber.

"I read the information that someone proposed to use the electroplating method to plate lead so that this problem would not occur—" Wang Luobin said the solution he had mastered.

Early rifled gun shells were based on a technology similar to the Minie rifle shell, using explosive gases to expand the bottom of the shell to fit into the rifling.Therefore, the outside of the projectile must be wrapped with a soft metal, and lead is the most suitable metal.The problem came immediately - the combination between the cast iron projectile and the lead skin was difficult, especially in the absence of a hydraulic machine, the result of the reluctant combination was like the Armstrong gun of the Royal Navy, and the lead skin flew off.

"Electroplating is too extravagant right now, and the technology is not enough." Zhan Wuya said.

"There is a way of thinking. I don't know if it is feasible. It was used on the shells of the American 3-inch Shenkl guns."

Since the lead skin can easily hurt people if it falls, and they have no way to stop it from falling, the best way is to change it to something that won't hurt people when it splashes out.

Shenkl's shell is to surround the lower part of the shell with papier-mache, which is a belt made of coagulated pulp, which has enough strength and toughness to be inserted into the rifling, and will not be broken due to the breakage when it comes out of the shell. Fly down and hurt people.

"Is this parchment difficult?"

"Science and technology in 1860 shouldn't be difficult. It's nothing more than pulp and glue. It's not as easy to use as a ready-made recipe. You can only rely on the experimentalists."

"This task can be handed over to the chemical industry group, they have experience in this."

Just as he was talking, He Ming from the military team suddenly broke in with a serious look on his face.

"What's the matter?" Wang Luobin felt a little bad.

"According to the prisoner's statement, the pirates are likely to attack us in the near future!" He said and handed over a document, "This is the prisoner interrogation report issued by the security team."

(End of this chapter)