Daming Crazy Emperor

Chapter 305 What determines the range

Armed Forces City, Cannon Factory.

Taichang and Sun Yuanhua looked at the two cannons in front of them, frowned and fell silent.

Taichang saw that the machine tools for mass production of steam engines had been developed, and the ironclad warships could not be trial-produced for the time being, so they brought Sun Yuanhua over to develop a new type of artillery.

And the two cannons in front of them were a [-]-jin Thor cannon, and the other was a cannon dismantled from a Dutch gunboat.

The Dutch artillery has been weighed by someone, and it is about 270 catties.

That said, the gun weighs almost half that of a medium Thor.

However, its range is about the same as a medium Thor cannon.

What is the reason for this?

Sun Yuanhua was really racking his brains.

And Taichang is racking his brains to recall.

In fact, his knowledge of artillery in his previous life is extremely limited. Even if there are images of artillery, there is no data of artillery. After all, he is not specialized in designing artillery.

However, there seems to be some vague outlines in some of the novels.

For example, the ratio of the caliber of the gun to the length of the barrel, and the rifling on the inner wall of the barrel, all of which have a great impact on the range of the gun.

After a careful comparison, he found that the reason why the Dutch's artillery had a long range should be due to the ratio of the caliber of the artillery to the length of the barrel.

Because the barrels of the Dutch are relatively slender, the barrels of their more than 200-jin cannons are almost as long as the barrels of the [-]-jin Thor cannons, and their muzzles are not half as big as the muzzles of the Thor cannons.

This may be the root cause of the long range of the Dutch artillery.

So, did the Dutch artillery have rifling engraved in the barrel?

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but lower his head, put his eyes close to the muzzle of the gun, and looked inside.

It's a pity that it's so dark inside that you can't see anything.

There are not many flashlights and searchlights these days, and it seems impossible to see the inner wall of the gun barrel clearly from the outside.

Fortunately, though, there are hammers these days.

He raised his head directly, and said to Sun Yuanhua who was beside him with a curious face: "Chuyang, let someone bring a sledgehammer over and smash the Dutchman's cannon open."

what?
Sun Yuanhua couldn't help being taken aback when he heard this.

Does this research artillery have to be opened to see?

However, he reacted quickly.

In fact, it doesn't matter much to break open one door, because this time they captured more than 200 doors.

Just smash it, anyway, these artillery are not very useful.

Thinking of this, he quickly waved his hands and said, "Go, order someone to come over with a sledgehammer, and by the way, bring over a cannon mount."

Soon, several strong craftsmen came over with a sledgehammer and a cannon mount.

Sun Yuanhua pointed at the Dutchman's cannon without hesitation and said, "Small this cannon."

Well, if you say smash it, then smash it.

Several craftsmen hurriedly lifted the Dutchman's cannon onto the iron base and put it in place. Immediately afterwards, the craftsman with the sledgehammer swung the hammer and slammed it down.

There was a loud bang, and the gun barrel was smashed open by his hammer.

It seems that the casting technology of the Dutch is not very good. The strength of the cast iron barrel is not as strong as their copper-cast barrel.

Taichang picked up a fragment of the gun barrel and looked at it carefully, a strange look appeared on his face.

The Dutch guns didn't even have rifling engraved inside!

What does this mean?

Is the range of the artillery determined by the length of the barrel and the caliber ratio of the artillery?

Or did the Dutch not know that rifling the inner wall of the barrel can increase the range of the gun?

Alas, it seems that we still have to spend a little time to make some samples and try them out.

He thought for a while, then waved and said, "Let's go, Chu Yang, let's discuss it and make some samples for a try."

Sun Yuanhua hurriedly brought Taichang to a room specially designed for drawing.

There is also a large table and a circle of stools in this room, which is very convenient for drawing.

Taichang directly pulled Sun Yuanhua to sit down, and then asked: "How big is the muzzle and the length of the barrel of the [-]-jin Thunder God Cannon?"

Sun Yuanhua said without hesitation: "The five-hundred-jin Thor cannon has a five-inch muzzle and a five-foot barrel."

This design is rather simple, the gun caliber and barrel length are directly one to ten.

Taichang nodded slightly, and then explained: "You have also seen the Dutch cannons. Their barrels are thin and long, which should be the reason why their cannons have a longer range than cannons of the same weight. That is to say, Comparing the size of the muzzle with the length of the barrel, the greater the multiple, the farther the range will be. As for the relationship between the multiple and the range, we can make some samples and try it out.”

When Sun Yuanhua heard this, he couldn't help nodding his head and said: "Your Majesty is wise, it should be for this reason, what kind of samples should we make to test the relationship between the multiple and the shooting range?"

Naturally, Taichang has already considered this
He said without hesitation: "Let's just make two kinds and compare them. One has a two-and-a-half-inch muzzle and a five-foot barrel, and the other has a five-inch muzzle and a seven-and-a-half-foot barrel. .”

Hearing this, Sun Yuanhua thought for a while, and then asked, "Your Majesty, should we measure according to the thickness of the existing barrel or the weight? If we measure the thickness of the existing barrel, the weight of these two types of artillery will It's not five hundred catties."

Taichang said without hesitation: "Of course it is based on the thickness of the existing gun barrel. If the barrel is too thick, it will waste materials. If the barrel is too thin, it may explode. As for the weight, it doesn't matter much. It is heavy. , anyway, we are just making a quick sample.”

Sun Yuanhua thought for a while, and then asked: "Your Majesty, should we try one of each or a few more?"

Without hesitation, Taichang said: "Let's make a few more, because we still want to test other things. For the time being, we will make five of each one first, and prepare five [-]-jin Thor cannons."

The other thing he was talking about was rifling, which he was going to try as well.

So, how to engrave the rifling on the inner wall of the barrel?

If you really use a carving knife to carve it, it will naturally be impossible to carve it, because the inner wall of the barrel is basically invisible from the outside, and the barrel is so big that there is no room for a carving knife inside.

Fortunately, he had a vague memory in his mind that the rifling seemed to be pulled out with a special broaching bed.

This pull means to pull over at once.

That is to make a tool similar to a reamer and pull it through the rotating barrel at a constant speed.

In this way, the inner wall of the gun barrel will be pulled out into a uniform thread.

Naturally, this kind of reamer is not the kind of reamer that reams the inner wall of the gun barrel extremely smooth. This kind of reamer must have several edges and corners so that the rifling can be pulled out on the inner wall of the gun barrel.

As for the specific structure of the breech bed, it doesn't matter much. Anyway, it is rotating the barrel at a constant speed while pulling the angular reamer at a constant speed.

While Sun Yuanhua was painting artillery samples, he also began to paint breech beds and reamers.

Of course, all he drew were schematic diagrams, and he couldn't draw any detailed drawings.

Fortunately, steam engines have already been popularized and applied, and many kinds of steam machine tools have been developed. Several disciples of Sun Yuanhua are quite familiar with steam machine tools.

Taichang just called them over and explained casually, and they understood.

The broaching bed is actually very simple, and it only needs to be slightly modified on the lathe.

Because the lathe can rotate with the gun barrel clamped, you only need to change the gear to make the gun barrel turn slower.

Moreover, there are racks on the lathe at the moment, which can just make the reamer of the rifling line move at a constant speed. You only need to connect several racks, and then lengthen the slide rail of the slider to make its stroke longer. Just click.

This kind of small modification doesn't even need to call Wang Zheng, a machine tool expert, and a few disciples of Sun Yuanhua can complete it.

(End of this chapter)