African Nationhood

Chapter 253 Military Industry (Part )

The bullet factory is not far from the smokeless gunpowder factory and can be reached in a few steps. When Shi Jintang and his team arrived, the workers in the factory were busy nervously.

The bullet factory is not large, with less than a hundred workers here.

"Currently, our bullet assembly capacity is not large, with a daily production of about 500 bullets. The main reason is that the production capacity of smokeless gunpowder cannot keep up."

Shi Jintang already knew about this, so he didn't say anything.

They walked around here and saw that workers were still using copper rolling machines to make bullets.

Although stamping machine tools have been invented long ago, people in this era have not yet explored the hot stamping technology of brass.

If bullet casings are stamped manually, at most about 50 bullet casings can be punched out in one hour.

It is far less efficient than rolling with brass leather, so the bullet production at this time was still mainly made of brass leather.

Engineers hired from Europe received a research project on hot stamping technology for brass cartridge cases.

The mission statement for this research and development clearly stated that mechanical automated stamping should be the standard.

As for when we can successfully tackle the problem?

Shi Jintang cannot guarantee it, but once this new technology is successful, it will definitely be an epoch-making technological breakthrough.

There was nothing interesting to see in the bullet packaging workshop. Rong Kui took the initiative to suggest: "Mr. Shi, let's go to the bullet testing workshop."

Shi Jintang nodded and followed Rong Kui to a large and empty workshop.

Most of the testers here are young people. When they found Shi Jintang arriving, they all had smiles on their faces and bowed to Shi Jintang.

Shi Jintang waved his hand and told everyone to ignore him and prioritize his work.

Then Shi Jintang followed Rong Kui's guidance and first came to a test project area. There was a sign here that read: Chamber Pressure Testing Area.

I saw a tester holding a "bore pressure gun" and testing the bore pressure of a new bullet.

The so-called "bore pressure gun" is to drill a hole in the shoulder of the gun barrel where the bullet normally fires. This hole must be able to insert a piston with a scale on the piston.

The rifle fires the bullet, and the high-pressure gas at the moment the bullet is fired impacts the piston, driving the piston to move. The scale on the piston can reflect the chamber pressure of the bullet.

Of course, this test must be done multiple times, and it is not safe during the test.

After watching the chamber pressure test project, Rong Kui took Shi Jintang to see how to test the initial velocity of the bullet out of the chamber.

“The most commonly used testing method currently is to place two identical discs on one axis, and the two discs continuously rotate with the mechanical axis.

Shooting at two discs with a rifle, we call the angle at which the bullet hits the first disc point a, and the angle at which the bullet hits the second disc is called point b.

In this way, based on the flight time and deflection angle of the bullet when it passes through the two discs at a fixed distance, the corresponding initial velocity can be calculated by applying the formula. "

After listening to Rong Kui's introduction, Shi Jintang basically understood the principle behind it.

The bullet is thrown horizontally between the two discs, and the angle difference between the two points can be used to calculate the flight time of the bullet at a fixed distance (the distance between the two discs).

Because the disk rotates at a constant speed, the time it takes to rotate the angle difference between two points can be easily calculated.

Now that we have the distance and time, we can easily calculate the rough initial velocity of the bullet.

If you want an accurate value, you must also include the angle of disc deflection. This is all a mathematical problem and is not difficult.

Then Rong Kui took Shi Jintang to look at the test items for testing the power and range of bullets. These were not difficult at all.

After shooting a few shots, you can see through comparison which bullet is more powerful.

But there are also those who don’t believe in evil. The little devils are very superstitious about the super-long-range lethality of Saka bullets (6.5*50mm).

But on the battlefield, because their bullets were too straight, they hit our soldiers at close range without hitting their vital points, causing mostly penetrating wounds, which were very low-injury.

However, after the Eighth Route Army seized the 38-type bullets, they just used a knife to score a few cuts on the Arisaka warhead. The damage caused by these bullets at close range was overwhelming, causing many casualties to the Japanese.

…    After seeing the bullet factory, Shi Jintang came to the mine and mortar factory.

There are not many workers here, just over a hundred, most of whom are from the artillery battalion of the Matabeleland Garrison Regiment.

They were not too excited to see their parents, everyone was doing their own thing.

“Today, our mortar shell production capacity is not high because our barrel and shell shell processing capabilities are still very low, and we currently only have more than 20000 shells stored.

But the output of mortars is a bit low. There are more than 100 barrels of two calibers each. "

Hearing the news, Shi Jintang sighed.

Special steel is required to process the barrel. This kind of steel is used by European and American countries to produce their own cannons and is strictly prohibited from export.

Nanhua Company can only have so many because they purchased them through the Herstal Arsenal in Belgium and transferred them to Southwest Africa.

Of course, you can also abandon the requirement of making the barrel lighter and directly make the barrel thicker. In this case, the original intention of manufacturing this kind of gun will be lost.

Shijintang will not use it unless it is absolutely necessary.

"Our steelmaking plant is about to be put into operation. When the steel plant is put into operation, we will find ways to experiment with our own special steel."

"OK, all right.

By the way, we have tested two kinds of shell charges. Picric acid is indeed better than TNT, but the instability of picric acid is too serious.

It will explode if you are not careful. After research, we feel that it is better to use TNT. "

Picric acid was invented in 1771, but it was not used as a high explosive for a long time.

In 1873, an unlucky dye shop owner in France was killed because he hit a dye barrel with a hammer. The explosion caused his dye workshop to be completely blown into ruins. The French realized the highly explosive nature of this dye.

In 1885, the French applied for a patent for this dye as an explosive, and then countries around the world began to study the feasibility of using this dye as an explosive for artillery shells.

The results were tragic, with reports of casualties caused by this dye explosive from countries all over the world.

Among them, the most painful lesson was the explosion in Halifax, Canada, on December 1917, 12, which killed more than 6 people.

Because this dye likes to react with metals to form picric acid salts, which are very sensitive and will explode upon slight impact.

Therefore, countries around the world love and hate it, but the Japanese have developed a way to avoid the reaction of this dye with metals. This is the origin of "Shitase Gunpowder".

The successful development of "Shimoze Gunpowder" made the Japanese Navy the first to use this explosive in warship shells.

As a result, the Qing Dynasty's Beiyang Navy was defeated, which ultimately led to the strong rise of Japan.

“When Trudeau and I were discussing how to prevent smokeless gunpowder from corroding the barrel of a gun in Belgium, we came to the conclusion that if you want to prevent two objects from coming into contact, create a barrier between them. Do you think this idea can Use it on our artillery shells?”

Rong Kui understood immediately upon hearing this. He smiled and nodded, "With you, Mr. Shi, we have really avoided a lot of detours."

Shi Jintang chuckled and saw that it was already getting late. He asked directly: "How is the production capacity of mines and grenades now?"

“We have cast nearly 100,000 of the three types of iron-cased mines, most of which have no charges.

One is the fear of damage caused by misoperation, and the other is that the previous explosive production capacity was too small.

If necessary we can complete the assembly within a week.

There are more than 10 grenades, and have been assembled.

If it takes a short time to complete the assembly, these assembly tasks are not difficult, and you can get started with a little training. "

Shi Jintang nodded. With these family backgrounds, he felt a little more at ease.

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  (End of this chapter)