I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 1164 The Eve of the Military Industry Explosion

"You built it so quickly?"

Joseph looked at his proud father in surprise, then weighed the gun in his hand.

The gun is very heavy; it can be swung around like a hammer, exuding the heavy, metallic feel of the steam age.

Louis XVI said with delight, "Originally, the hammer connecting rod needed to be welded, and the strength was simply insufficient, but now it can be machined directly using this milling machine. As for the rotating breech, it would be difficult to achieve high airtightness by hand grinding."

He gestured towards the pistol: "This one, at least I can barely see a gap with my eyes."

He turned around and took out another chamber from the box he had brought: "This was filed out by Mr. Emeric; the contrast is quite obvious."

Joseph took the handcrafted rotary wheel and could see the file marks on it; its smoothness and edge finishing were far inferior to those produced by a rotary milling machine.

Industrialization truly is the most powerful force! He thought to himself, now that we have high-precision machine tools, there are suddenly many more new weapons that we can try to develop in the future.

The first thing that came to his mind was a breech-loading cannon.

The biggest challenge in manufacturing breech-loading cannons lies in ensuring the airtightness of the breechblock.

The easiest way to implement a breech-loading cannon is to use an iron block to plug the end of the barrel and then use an oversized screw to hold it in place to achieve a seal.

This requires that the iron block sealing the gun barrel fits tightly against the barrel without any gaps.

Then the bolts must not deform under the enormous pressure of the gun barrel, and must be able to be easily unscrewed and tightened at any time.

This cannot be achieved by handcrafting.

Of course, Joseph suspected that even the accuracy of the Royal I might not be sufficient, and Whitney would need to continue to make improvements.

However, once the breech-loading gun technology is mastered, the French army's combat effectiveness will increase exponentially.

First, the rate of fire of the breech-loading gun completely surpasses that of the muzzle-loading gun—the breech-loading gun can fire two to three times for every one shot fired by the muzzle-loading gun.

This is equivalent to increasing the firepower density by two or three times.

Secondly, breech-loading guns and rifling are a natural fit. The diameter of the projectile in a breech-loading gun must be slightly larger than the caliber of the gun so that it can be secured at the end of the barrel and facilitate the loading of gunpowder.

This way, after the projectile is fired, it can embed itself in the rifling and spin, resulting in incredibly high shooting accuracy.

The muzzle-loading rifled cannon was extremely difficult to load, because it took so long to slam a projectile, which was slightly larger than the muzzle, into the bottom of the cannon. Not to mention whether the soldier had enough strength, the time it took was enough for the enemy to fire several shots.

Finally, breech-loading cannons can be fitted with a gun shield, which is a large iron plate installed in the middle of the barrel. The artillerymen would hide behind this to operate the cannon without having to run to the muzzle.

This greatly improves the safety of artillery, making it much harder for enemy infantry to shoot them down.

At the same time, all the cannon's ammunition can be piled behind the gun shield, reducing the possibility of secondary explosions.

For the navy, breech-loading cannons are the ultimate weapons.

On land, artillerymen could circle around to the front of the cannons to load them. On warships, after firing, the cannons had to be moved back into the middle of the gun compartment, reloaded, and then pushed out of the firing port.

If a breech-loading gun is used, the gunner only needs to continuously reload and fire, and the rate of fire is more than three times higher than that of a muzzle-loading gun.

This makes the firepower density of Tier 5 cruisers almost approach that of Tier 3 battleships!

This doesn't even take into account the increased firepower brought about by the extremely high accuracy of rifled cannons.

Joseph was excitedly preparing to talk to his father about the breech-loading cannon when he suddenly saw the revolver in his hand.

He immediately realized that his father's efforts to manufacture this thing had likely delayed the development of the steam forging machine. Hmm, it's best not to distract the "steam forging machine project leader" with new weapons.

Let the development of the breech-loading gun be left to the engineering design institute and the Royal Ordnance Factory. After all, France's weapons development cannot always rely on His Majesty the King.

Moreover, this thing is much more complex than the previous firearms, and involves many fields that Dad is not good at, such as metal materials, casting, and chemistry. We need to assemble a professional R&D team to take charge of it.

Louis XVI was already learning how to operate a high-precision milling machine from Lenoir.

He fiddled with it until almost midnight before reluctantly signaling the latter to turn it off.

Joseph rushed forward and asked, "Dear Father, should we now..."

He meant to say, "Let's go back to Versailles to rest," but Louis XVI nodded excitedly and replied, "Yes, let's go to the firing range now and test the revolvers!"

"Ah..." Joseph had no choice but to force a smile and nod. "I'm also very eager to see how this unprecedented weapon performs."

On the way, Joseph subtly inquired about the progress of the steam forging machine's development. To his surprise, his father hadn't neglected his serious business while "playing with guns."

Currently, his project team has built a full-size, low-power prototype, but its reliability has not yet met the requirements.

"However, after seeing that milling machine, I already have many ideas for improvement," Louis XVI said excitedly. "For example, some load-bearing components can now be manufactured using a single-piece machining method, which will greatly improve their robustness. The airtightness of those piston components can also be improved a lot compared to before."

“Oh, and bearings too. I heard that the Namur ironworks produces a very wear-resistant steel that can improve the performance of bearings…”

As Joseph listened to his rambling, he suddenly felt that everything in the carriage was so warm and cozy—chatting about lighthearted topics with his loved ones and looking forward to a better tomorrow together.

This is the best reward for my years of hard work.

So, no one should try to break this peace and tranquility!

When Louis XVI mentioned the material of the anvil, the carriage slowly came to a stop. The king's attendant opened the carriage door, bowed, and said, "Your Majesty, we have arrived at the shooting range."

Joseph followed his father out of the car. The gaslights around them were already lit, making the place as bright as day.

Louis XVI walked familiarly to the shooting area, took out his prized revolver, loaded six rounds of ammunition into the barrel himself, and then handed the gun to the test shooter.

"I feel like I could just hold it and shoot it."

As Louis XVI was speaking, a loud bang came from the side, "Bang—".

The test shooter skillfully pulled back the bolt, inserted a percussion cap, and fired again.

"boom--"

"boom--"

In less than 8 seconds, he fired all 6 bullets, and white smoke rose around him.

The target reader in the distance poked his head out and shouted, "Six shots, all hit the target!"

Joseph squinted and saw that the thick wooden plank 25 meters away had been broken in half by bullets.

Yes, this revolver uses a rifled barrel, making it very accurate.

As for the difficulty in loading ammunition, it has almost no impact since six rounds can be loaded in advance.

In fact, a rate of fire of 6 shots in 8 seconds can already be considered a "submachine gun" of this era.

(End of this chapter)