Chapter 406: One small step for Ming Dynasty, one giant leap for mankind (please vote for me!)

The artillery factory of the General Administration of Manufacturing is now large or small, with eighty foundry workshops and two thousand workers, which can produce eighty cannons at the same time.

After moving to Yingtianfu, the artillery factory was located in a remote location because it needed a site to test artillery!

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

At present, under the coordination of Su Laocheng, significant results have been achieved. As long as the test is successful, it will soon be installed on a large scale.

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

The new cannon is actually a front-loading rifled cannon.

Like the electrostatic rifle, also known as the Migne rifle, the muzzle-loading rifled gun was also a short-lived product in the history of human warfare.

It was first deployed in actual combat troops during the American Civil War. However, because the breech-loading rifled gun dominated the battlefield in a short period of time after the emergence of the front-loading rifled gun, this artillery has a low status in the history of war.

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

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

Zhu Kezang looked at the tail of the cannonball and found that the lead holder at the tail had the same dent as the Mini bullet.

Zhu Kezang saw a dozen large artillery pieces covered with black cloth in a warehouse. Obviously, the current artillery factory can produce larger-caliber Polu artillery pieces!

The Armstrong front-loading gun, with a caliber of 120mm, was manufactured by the British Armstrong Arsenal and was introduced on a large scale by the Beiyang Navy of the Qing Dynasty.

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

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

Su Laocheng walked to another warehouse and took out a 36-pound conical artillery projectile.

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

The front of the cannonball is made of steel and has a pointed warhead, which looks extremely impactful.

"Wei Chen will go and make arrangements now. Please go out and wait, Your Majesty!"

He turned to Su Laocheng and asked: "How many rifled guns are there currently in stock? How many can be produced every month?"

Obviously, the reason why this kind of projectile can engage with the rifling is the same as that of the Minie projectile.

Even from a distance of one or two miles, this front-mounted rifled gun can penetrate the 40-centimetre-thick ship hull without any suspense.

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

The fuse of the artillery shell is on the side, and like the round shell, propellant is used to ignite the fuse.

Caliber:120mm

Length: 22 times caliber

Obviously, with such cannons, the armor of large European battleships can be easily broken, and in the future competition for hegemony in the Americas and even the Atlantic Ocean, their battleships will be easily ravaged.

Bullet weight: 18.1kg (40 pounds)

Muzzle velocity: 461 meters/second

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

For a target four meters long and wide eight hundred meters away, the rifled gun can aim without any pressure.

Bore length: 2647mm

Gun weight: 1.32 tons

The previous short and heavy artillery could produce such an effect, but the range of the short and heavy artillery was too short. Now the Ming Navy will have a range of about three thousand meters!

Of course, the front-loaded rifled cannon in the first battle will definitely be used to bully the Tatars.

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

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

Not only can the rifled cannon use conical shells, but the conical shells also rotate and advance in the air, and their trajectory is more stable than the circular smoothbore cannon shells, so the hit accuracy is much higher than that of the smoothbore cannon!

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

The 40-cm-long teak hull had been completely penetrated, and a large circular hole one-meter wide was knocked out in the middle.

Everyone rode horses and walked to the target to watch the armor-piercing effect of the artillery shells.

For today's Ming Dynasty, the front-loaded rifled cannon is a simple, crude and easy-to-install product, and it is also a powerful enough product to defeat the Tatars in the seventeenth century with ease, even if their tactical thinking has improved.

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

If it were the Qing Navy at the end of the 19th century, they would definitely find that this is the Armstrong front-loading cannon.

The shell pierced directly into the earth wall behind the hull, and its head sank nearly half a meter into the earth wall, almost penetrating the earth wall.

In fact, the penetrating power of this shell is far beyond the level of penetrating a 40-centimeter ship hull.

Different from ordinary artillery, the breech of this cannon is very thick. It does not thin linearly from the breech to the muzzle, but becomes thinner at a geometric multiple speed.

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.

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

Effective range: 3000 meters

Cannons of this caliber were basically invincible on the sea in the seventeenth century, and they were invincible when used to attack cities and defend them.

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

Zhu Kezang looked at the cone-shaped cannonballs on the earth wall, his eyes bright. He looked around the cannonballs, but he was afraid that the cannonballs were too hot and he did not dare to touch them.

There was only a loud bang, and the cannon jerked back, spitting out a huge spark at the muzzle.

The tail of the cannonball is a lead sabot, which is stuck at the tail of the steel warhead.

Su Laocheng led Zhu Kezang through the workshop of the foundry and walked to the warehouse.

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

Everyone was talking around the cannonball and they were very happy.

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

Those Westerners can't even touch the edges.

Su Laocheng said: "Your Majesty, there are currently about a hundred artillery pieces in stock in the warehouse, and they can all be pulled out for use immediately. If there are not enough, the artillery factory will go all out to produce this kind of rifled cannon. It can produce more than two hundred artillery pieces a month."

Rifled guns are different from smoothbore guns. Smoothbore guns only need to be cast in a mold to be formed, and then boring and other steps are performed to complete the process, but rifled guns also need to be rifled.

Although the current machine tools of the Ming Dynasty are widely driven by steam engines, and their efficiency is dozens of times that of other forces in this era, rifling for rifled cannons is a delicate job that is prone to problems. Slow work and careful work still take some time.

"Very good, go all out in production, the Ming Dynasty will soon have a battle with the Tatars!"
Chapter completed!