The Iron and Steel Frenzy of the Republic of China

Whether the combat power of a battleship is good enough or not depends on the quality of its main guns besides a strong enough hull. In many cases, the design of the hull has to accommodate the main guns and turrets. This is the cannon doctrine of giant ships. principles that must be followed.

Naturally, the "Taishan-class" battleships should also fully consider these aspects.The only difference is that the initial model of the battleship was simulated by Zhu Bin with a computer after seeing the American battleship for the first time. He is not a professional himself, and there are inevitably many deviations, but they are mainly reflected in some weapons. On the details of equipment and power system.

In large aspects, such as the coordination of the hull, defense standards, stability, and reasonable structure, etc., it is very advanced. Anyway, I am also a master who has personally modified the spaceship. Chapter 355. 406mm naval gun test, how to fully Using space, how to ensure the structural strength, rationality and coordination to the greatest extent, with the convenience of virtual modeling, compared with contemporary ship designers relying on experience and continuous tinkering on drawings, and even improving after a ship is built Rebuilding a second ship will not increase the efficiency by ten or eight times.A big guy with a displacement of tens of thousands of tons can be flexibly divided into hundreds of modules and manufactured in sections, which is also very easy.

But there is one thing that Zhu Bin can't solve, that is, the research and manufacture of turrets and main guns, which are not within his professional scope, and the generation gap is too great.Therefore, in the four years since the establishment of the Haizhuang Institute, it has gathered the hard work of professionals from Germany, the United States, and China, borrowed from the designs of many countries, and combined its own advantages in metallurgical capabilities and design verification conditions to come up with a suitable naval gun. before hull construction.Just make a sample first and start testing.

Of course, Chen Shaokuan and Jiang Baili couldn't wait to see the main weapons and equipment of the battleship in advance. Following Zhu Bin to another workshop, they immediately saw a main gun that was undergoing final rifling work.Standing at the tail of the gun barrel as high as a person.The two people had to look up to see the whole picture. The 18.7-meter-long steel giant made people feel the shock of the 355mm naval gun test in Chapter 406!

It was the first time for Jiang Baili to come into close contact with the most ferocious weapon in the world. He stretched out his head and took a look at the spinning and winding rifling in the barrel that could fit a person. He was dizzy and exclaimed: "Good guy! When the monster launches, I really don’t know how overbearing and mighty it is! It looks like it must weigh about a hundred tons, how can such a big thing be made?!”

Chen Shaokuan said in admiration: "It is not easy to produce this thing. It can be called the pinnacle of today's industrial technology!"

You can guess one or two by looking at the various large-scale equipment in the workshop.

The manufacture of cannons is really not something that can be done by just blowing your mouth. It requires a very comprehensive industrial foundation.It must have good enough steelmaking and metallurgical manufacturing technology, be able to build a large enough steelmaking furnace and a sufficiently pure alloy, like the cannon in front of you.Its own weight is only 98 tons, and the production of rough embryos weighs about 140 tons. This requires at least four electroslag remelting furnaces, two 200-ton cranes, 300-ton, 1000-ton, 3000-ton or even 5000-ton hydraulic forging presses and Smashing machine and so on.

With the world's leading metallurgical technology.All special steels and alloys in Guangming Iron and Steel Works are served by electroslag remelting furnaces. The quality of the alloys produced is much better, and the nickel and chromium content is increased at all costs, and trace elements are doped.The strength of the alloy is enhanced again, and the raw material is already higher.Naval guns of the same weight are stronger, have a longer lifespan, and can withstand faster and larger charges.

After 140 tons of rough embryos are rolled into a relatively uniform long stick by a 3000-ton hydraulic press like kneading dough.Anneal to relieve stress, cut off the unnecessary parts at both ends, drill holes on a large drilling machine, preheat and then forge to the designed length, then anneal to relieve stress, polish the outer layer, bore and mill the inner wall, and then go to a large three-dimensional heat treatment furnace to carry out Surface hardening.

These steps are simple to say, but not easy to do. The large heating furnaces, annealing furnaces, drilling machines, and milling machines involved in the process can only be manufactured in a few countries, and the surface hardening process is basically unknown. Like the formula and carburizing process of special armor steel, they are all regarded as housekeeping treasures.For example, Zhu Bin exclusively masters the laser surface hardening treatment process, which is unique in the world.

A gun barrel is not a straight tube from the beginning to the end. In order to ensure that it can withstand the impact of a huge amount of explosives, it needs to be reinforced with two sleeves on the outer layer, and at least four pieces of the muzzle sleeve are required.

After all the processing is completed in strict accordance with the procedures, they are carefully assembled with the help of a large hoisting machine, that is, several barrels are integrated layer by layer.The general manufacturing process adopts heating and expansion, socketing, and automatic tightening and extrusion after cooling. If the strength cannot be guaranteed due to the technical level, steel wires must be wound on the outer layer of the gun barrel, such as the 410mm main gun of the Japanese "Nagato-class" battleship. Cannon, a gun barrel is actually wrapped with 300 kilometers of steel wire!One can imagine the trouble of production!

Zhu Bin doesn't need to work so hard here. After electroslag remelting, high-strength alloy materials, better hydraulic forging process, and laser surface hardening treatment, the strength of the gun barrel is already overbearing. One more hydraulic self-tightening treatment process is added, and then each part of the gun barrel is adjusted for thermal expansion and contraction in the ultra-low temperature treatment tower and high-temperature treatment furnace, so that it can reach a higher level of quality, and finally it is socketed and formed.

After it is finished, even if the barrel embryo is finished, it is not finished yet.Then use the milling machine to turn the outer layer out of the design standard shape, and the inner bore is turned out to the standard size for the last time, engraved with rifling, chrome-plated and hardened, and the gun barrel is completed.

The total cost required to manufacture such a gun barrel is almost equivalent to a gunboat, and the entire turret weighs thousands of tons, and its value is equivalent to that of a large destroyer, but its lifespan is only a few hundred rounds. dead expensive!

Even with the acceleration of many advanced technologies, this dedicated cannon production workshop can't make many pipes in a year. It is mainly responsible for the manufacture of cannons with a caliber of 203mm or more. Several production plants made it.

Chen Shaokuan didn't care about the details. He stared at this huge monster and could barely move his legs, wishing he could pick it up and install it on a certain turret right away.Spewing fury at the ocean.

It took him a long time to realize that it seemed that Zhu Bin asked him if he wanted to see the test shot, so he quickly asked again: "Is this the first gun barrel?"

Zhu Bin shook his head: "Of course not, this is already the fourth one. Different experiments have been done on the first three. Now they have been installed in three different places and are about to be tested and verified. If you are interested, we Go and see for yourself?"

Needless to say, no matter how much you see on the production line, it is not as satisfying as witnessing the grand occasion of the launch!Now, following Zhu Bin’s transition again, he arrived at Lunlunshan, a small mountain not far from the giant tower in Gulouzui. The railway and giant wall surrounding Guzhenkouwan led to this place. On the top of the mountain, a turret testing ground was set up.

On the top of the mountain less than 406 meters high.An open and airy large factory building stands majestically, facing the sea is an open and thick stone foundation, and a majestic fort overlooking the water is in the middle.A [-]mm cannon has already been installed, and the muzzle is pointing at the mountain shooting range of Lingshan Island [-] kilometers away.

Zhu Bin introduced: "In order to fully test the performance of various cannons, we have established experimental fields here, Langyatai Mountain, and Xiangzimen by the sea, respectively, to test ranges of 10 kilometers, 15 kilometers, 20 kilometers, and 30 kilometers. The various performance indexes of the artillery below."

Chen Shaokuan stood in front, holding the binoculars in his hand to watch from afar.It can be clearly seen that on the 200-meter-high hillside of Lingshan Island, 50 kilometers away, five huge targets are clearly marked. The diameter is estimated to be [-] meters, and the circles are very eye-catching.It is full of bumps and scars, and it has obviously been bombarded countless times.

A group of madmen from the Artillery Design Institute saw that the Minister of the Navy and the Principal of the University of Lu were both present.Immediately knowing that there was an opportunity to fire a cannon, a dozen or so people rushed up with a whimper.Grinning his mouth and rubbing his hands, he smiled and suggested: "The two officers are here to inspect our cannon research results? It's very easy to know, come and have a cannon!"

This is so right, why does it sound so obscene and ambiguous?The corners of Zhu Bin's mouth twitched in anger at these 50-[-]-year-old and unscrupulous guys. After all, he didn't shout, and waved his hands indiscriminately: "Then let the two officers see the results of your work."

"Okay!" Shen Chongji, the top domestic cannon designer, waved his hand, and a group of old, middle-aged and young Huayang researchers flocked to calibrate the angle and height of the cannon manually. Liu Donglai, the cannonball expert, rolled up his sleeves himself. Leading several young and strong young officers to use a small trolley to transport a round of uncharged armor-piercing bullets weighing 1200 kilograms, shaking the mechanical arm to push the barrel, and stuffing three large rolls of explosives wrapped in natural silk one after another. They locked the locks, put on their earphones, and stared at Zhu Bin eagerly.

The corner of Zhu Bin's mouth twitched again, and he secretly scolded these old and young in his heart, everyone is so keen on shooting cannons, don't you think about how expensive this cannonball is!When the serious cannon is fired, the golden ten thousand taels!Don't dare to say, even this kind of solid test bomb costs five thousand dollars!And the full version of the grenade costs at least more than 1 U.S. dollars, how expensive it is to let it go!

However, when it comes to this, he has to grit his teeth and stand up, he can't drop the price in front of the two bosses, can he?I personally divided the earmuffs for the two, and hid in a room protected by thick bulletproof glass tens of meters away to see that everyone was hiding in the bunker, and a small flag was raised outside to warn the passing ships. Then Shen Chongji yelled: "Fire!"

Chen Shaokuan's fingers trembled, and he pressed the electric switch suddenly, and saw the buttocks of the thick gun barrel sink, and there was an earth-shattering "boom", and the whole mountain shook suddenly as if it had been hit by a [-]-ton giant hammer , the people in the bunker "buzzed" in their heads, as if they had received a heavy blow out of thin air, their brains were shaken to pieces, and their hearts stopped beating!

The steel cart supporting the cannon abruptly tumbled more than ten meters. Relying on the giant hydraulic buffer and the tension spring to remove the recoil force, a piece of air visible to the naked eye was wrinkled like water waves in front of the cannon, which could not be covered by a person alone. It rippled like a wave, and under the suspended mountain top, a piece of dust was abruptly hung down by the muzzle wind and lifted into the sky!

The huge flame rushed out more than ten meters away, and the slender armor-piercing bullets that were much taller than adults whizzed out, just like a train passing through a tunnel at high speed, pulling out a deafening roar, and pulling out a huge shock into the sky The wave line is heading towards the mountain wall [-] kilometers away at nearly three times the speed of sound!

Half a minute later, on the mountain wall in the distance, a huge round target burst out a thick cloud of smoke, and a rake wall built with 500mm thick steel plates pierced through a large hole as thick as a water tank! ! ! !