Hidden Dragon in Qing Dynasty

"Look!" Pyrenees raised the damaged flag! They also sent a signal... I've been hit by a bullet in the coal bin and am now entering the water! "

Huo Fu stared dumbstruck at the lighting signal that the Pyrenees had sent over. His mouth was filled with a bitter "Damn it! Are the Chinese and Prussian crazy? Why did they need to install artillery with such large caliber? "Why?!"

The 210-caliber cannon was the dominant cannon in the world at that time. It seemed that apart from the mortars used by the army, no other cannon could match this caliber.

The 210 calibre that was created from the musket gun was, in the military ideologies of the time, a complete countercurrent!

Why didn't Britain and France have guns of this level? It was actually related to the theoretical direction of the navy at that time!

In the mainstream military theory of the time, it was considered foolish to think that the caliber of artillery exceeded 200.

The first point was that the cannons produced by large caliber would increase the difficulty of metal processing. Generally, small countries would not have this ability, and it would be difficult to even obtain the Steel plant s of English and French.

However, he had never expected that Prussia, through the accumulation of long-term basic compulsory education, had already accumulated a large number of basic scientific workers. At this time, Prussia's smelting and processing techniques were the best in the world.

But the English and the French did not admit it, and their pride blinded them!

Secondly, even if large caliber cannons could be processed, there was a problem with their actual usage in combat!

Why did he say that? The larger the caliber of the cannon, the greater the quality of the projectile and the higher the load of the propellant cartridge.

This created a problem of rifling wear. Although rifling was good, it had a problem of wear and tear. Wear caused by long term and artillery shells would make rifling thin, and even cause air leakage and accuracy drop.

The smaller the weapon, the more durable the rifled gun was. For example, the gun might not have any problems using a rifled gun for a lifetime, while the field gun would only shoot at the rifled gun more than a thousand times before the rifled gun would be gone.

For huge cannons like the Zhiyuan Warship, which had a diameter of 210 caliber, usually had to fire four to five hundred rounds of ammunition, so the rifling line was pretty much worn out!

At that time, the British naval experts said, if there was a further explosion or a drop in accuracy in the war, would it affect the outcome of the war?

Needless to say, this kind of thinking really affected many politicians and generals. This also caused many Western countries to be very cautious in building giant cannon battleships, and they even thought that the Zhiyuan Warship was a heretic!

Thirdly, there was the issue of money. The cost of maintaining and replacing the components for this kind of cannon was too much. The cost of a single cannon was enough to make 50 ordinary 140-caliber cannons.

Although the country is big, you still have to spend some money to live!

Because of all these factors, the armies of the various countries of nineteenth century did not have a large scale artillery with large caliber. However, they forgot that war is on the verge of imminent disaster, and war is not something the scholars could even dream of.

This was a land of blood and fire, a playground of the god of death. Any small thing would cause countless deaths, and today, Zhiyuan Warship, who was a battleship that had existed for fifty years before the era, had taught them a lesson.

The first of the Pyrenees ships was ambushed and over 30 people were killed, the two cannons were completely destroyed and could not be launched, the flames were still not extinguished.

Another armor piercing bullet pierced the lower deck of the coal bunker, and the water that came gushing out of the bunker instantly turned it into a black ocean.

The sea water mixed with coal slag flowed inside the boat. Pyrenees had a watertight compartment design, and the boiler room was right next to the coal bin. The Navy soldiers could only desperately close the cabin door and cover up all the gaps with cloth strips.

However, water wasn't something that could be filled easily. Almost all the cracks were seeping in, and soon, the boiler room was filled with three inches of water.

"The pumps! Turn on water pump... "If we don't pump the boiler, we're done for!"

"This won't do. All the doors to the coal bin have been blocked. No one dares to open it!"

"Don't worry about the water for now …" "There's only enough coal in the boiler room to burn for three hours. If the door of the coal bin is not opened for three hours, we will have nothing to burn!"

"The waves are too big... We have to pull back and stop by the shore to block the break, to pump water … "

"Shut up! We withdrew without firing a single shot, and God will punish us! "

The entire internal cabin of the battleship was in chaos.

Just as they were debating whether they should retreat out of the battle, the Zhiyuan Warship was already staring closely at the injured lamb, the entire ship's firepower was already aimed at him.

"Get close!" Close to the distance! He would rather injure his ten fingers, then cut them off! I don't want him to escape with his wounds, I want him to sink into the sea! "

"F * ck!" If you're injured and running away, you can repair it again, but when I sink, let's see if you can salvage it and use it again! "

"Fire!" The armor piercing bullets! "

The Zhiyuan main cannon had a hydraulic loading machine, so it only had a loading time of two and a half minutes. On one side, the Pyrenees had just raised the fault flag, but on the other side, the two parallel cannons were already aiming at it with murderous intent …

At this time, the battleship had already reached a distance of 1200 metres, and the accuracy had increased by a large margin. Following Lin Zhen's command, the main cannon roared once again.

Boom! Boom! This time, the shots were even more accurate. Two shots directly hit the Pyrenees, one shot through the kitchen and the other one struck through the Navy Room.

Amidst the huge tremors, French soldiers fell to the ground. All of the pots and pans in the kitchen fell to the ground, and the armor piercing bullet caused the chef to be turned into a sieve.

The wave that burst out of the hole directly extinguished the fire in the stove!

The crew room was in an even worse state. Bai Lang rushed into the cabin and swept everything in his path. Soon, the water waves rushed into the corridor, spreading out in all directions along the path of the battleship.

"The ship is sinking!" The ship is going to sink! " There were wails of despair everywhere, and there were fleeing soldiers everywhere.

And at this time, the prelude to the storm became even more violent, a huge wave directly slammed over, hitting the Pyrenees below.

Huo Fu bit his lips, swallowed the fresh blood into his stomach, suppressed his emotions and said coldly, "Don't worry about the Pyrenees, give up on helping!"

"The other battleships are accelerating!" Attach, attach and fire! "

"This is our only strategy!"

Boom! Boom! Boom! At this moment, French Fleet had finally completed the clockwise transformation. Although the formation was still a bit chaotic, the entire fleet of Left side had finally arrived.

The French battleship started firing all the cannons without waiting for orders. A red line suddenly shot out of the entire sea.

The blast from all the cannons formed a line, and the cannons flew towards the Zhiyuan Warship like hail!