Liu Pei suppressed his excitement and said: "Even this situation is enough to illustrate the huge power of this artillery! It is very good and must be installed!"

You can’t blame Liu Pei for being excited. Because Liu Pei feels that in the near future, he will go to war with Zheng Zhilong! Both sides must decide whether to live or die! So the emergence of this kind of artillery is just a timely blessing!

Liu Pei continued: "It seems that there will be a new type of artillery in the model room of the Academy of Sciences! By the way, is this kind of artillery easy to make?"

Bao Dezhi said: "It's not much more difficult than other artillery. It's just too heavy. And I have asked the gun foundry to make every effort to cast this kind of artillery. It is estimated that in one and a half months, each ship of the Second Fleet will be equipped with at least one.

If you're lucky, you might be able to match two doors."

Liu Pei clapped his hands excitedly and said, "Great! With this kind of cannon, we will be even more confident in defeating Zheng Zhilong!"

Bao Dezhi said: "It seems that the commander-in-chief has fallen in love with this kind of cannon now?"

Liu Pei laughed and said: "Of course I like it! Who wouldn't like such a powerful thing?"

Bao Dezhi smiled slightly and recounted the history that he had not told Liu Pei a few days ago. It turned out that the large-caliber short cannon did not rise in a short period of time. Because the captains at the time did not like this kind of cannon as much as Liu Pei did.

I thought it was ugly and not worthy of my own boat.

In 1790, the Plymouth-based Board of Artillery reported to the Navy that most captains were unwilling to install such monsters on their warships. So the Navy's top brass spent a lot of time convincing those captains.

At the same time, Middleton was also vigorously promoting these artillery pieces. His view was that a warship equipped with 44 to 50 guns would be capable of being put into main fleet operations after being equipped with a sufficient number of large-caliber short guns.

So the Navy used the Rainbow, a fourth-tier battleship equipped with 44 guns, to conduct artillery effectiveness tests. When the Rainbow used large-caliber short guns to encounter the French cruiser Herb, under the powerful firepower, the British

The boarding team finally captured the French cruiser!

This completely silenced the screaming captains! Then they continued to clamor to equip large-caliber short guns. By 1801, large-caliber short guns had clearly become an important weapon for battleships! In some cases

On new ships, there are special bulwarks on the forecastle and poop to protect these guns and their gunners.

Later, large-caliber short guns became diverse in the Royal Navy. Most of the 74-gun battleships from 1808 to 1816 carried 10 2-pound short guns on the quarter deck, two 32-pound guns on the forecastle, and 6 6-pound guns on the poop.

18-pounder guns. A 50-gun battleship carries half of the 6-pounder cannon on the poop, and two 18-pounder cannons on the forecastle and quarter deck. One of the most famous warships -

--The Victory actually carried two 64-pound short guns on the deck!

In fact, the world's first cannon that could actually fire explosive shells, that is, a cannon that could fire shells filled with explosives and had a straight trajectory, was not invented by France until 1823. The very famous bombardment gun was designed

A naval gun that fires explosive shells. It is 2.8448 meters long and has a caliber of 22 centimeters (about 13 times the caliber. Strictly speaking, it is not an exaggeration to say it is a howitzer). It fires shells with black explosives and wooden holders, and weighs 59 pounds of spherical explosive shells.

, the barrel weighs about 7,400 pounds (at least 3.6 tons), which is what the artillery community calls a bombardment gun.

When Russia and Turkey fought in the Sinop Sea Battle, the Russian fleet battleships were equipped with a total of 76 such large-caliber bombardment guns, which smashed the Turkish wooden battleships to pieces... Since then, explosive bombs have completely eliminated the wooden sail battleships. This is also

The last elegy of the wooden sailing warships that have plied the seas for centuries.

In this battle, the power of blasting bombs was fully demonstrated. After that, ships were forced to become armored to resist the bombardment of blasting shells. During the Civil War, spherical blasting shells were powerless against armored steel plates, because the hollow structure of blasting shells of the same caliber had poor strength.

Low, low mass, weak armor-piercing ability, and often even break when hitting the steel plate. On the contrary, sometimes solid bullets can play a very good role.

After hearing this, Liu Pei said: "Mr. Bao, this is how unkind you are! If you told me about the power of this kind of cannon a few days ago, how could I not like him?"

Bao Dezhi shrugged his shoulders and said: "It's better to let the commander see it in person. Besides, don't those captains only like it when they see its true capabilities?"

Liu Pei nodded with emotion and said: "Yes! Seeing is believing! That's it, I will notify the second fleet to take turns to return to port for rest. When the time comes, the Academy of Sciences will cooperate with the shipyard and must install it for them.

This kind of artillery."

Bao Dezhi naturally nodded and agreed. At this time, Liu Pei suddenly pulled Bao Dezhi a few steps away, avoiding the others and whispered: "Mr. Bao, do you know what I thought of through this explosive bomb?"

Bao Dezhi whispered: "You are not thinking of grenades, are you?"

Liu Pei laughed and said: "That's right! It's a grenade! I actually forgot about such a powerful weapon. I shouldn't have!"

Bao Dezhi smiled and shook his head and said, "It's useless even if you think about it! You shouldn't think about it at this stage."

Liu Pei said in surprise: "Why? Isn't it very simple to make a grenade? Just put gunpowder in an iron case! At most, we can change the hair to an open flame to ignite it!"

Bao Dezhi said: "How can things be as simple as you think? The problem now is that the existing gunpowder simply cannot achieve enough power! The grenade is too small to explode.

The shell, the grenade that can explode the shell is slightly smaller than the explosive shell, where can it be used?"

Liu Pei was dumbfounded when he heard this! He murmured: "How could this happen? I thought I had come up with a good idea!"

Bao Dezhi said: "It's not the commander's fault! In fact, the Ming Dynasty already had prototypes of hand grenades, but they were only used for city defense. They were about the size of a human head and very difficult to use."

Liu Pei asked with interest: "What about Western grenades?"

Bao Dezhi said: "The hand grenades in the early West were not very good! But they had regarded the grenadiers as a separate branch and formed an independent army. However, the volume and weight of grenades at that time were no different from explosive shells, so they were all included in the infantry

Soldiers with great height and strength were selected to throw them. However, because the grenades were too heavy, they could not be thrown very far. Therefore, the soldiers at that time almost threw grenades at the enemy face to face. Therefore, the title of grenadier was given as a commendation in the European army.

Use honorary titles for brave soldiers fighting! For example, during the French First Empire during the Napoleonic Wars, the Grenadier Guards at that time were one of the oldest units in Napoleon's cavalry regiments and had never been defeated. They were experienced in hundreds of battles.

A veteran, he is also a tall and handsome knight. In addition to his outstanding military exploits, he is called the "gods"! He is the most elite and brave unit of the French army!"

Liu Pei nodded and said: "So there is still this history! It seems that I won't be able to equip the soldiers with grenades in a short time?"

Bao Dezhi nodded and said: "It's not just a short time, it will take a long time. Preliminary estimate is at least four to five years!"

Liu Pei said in surprise: "Why did it take so long? Technically speaking, isn't the craft of grenades very simple?"

Bao Dezhi shook his head and smiled bitterly and said: "I know that the commander-in-chief thinks this way! I still say that scientific progress is a system problem, good things don't just exist! Just talk about grenades, don't even think about using them.

Clay pots, those things break when they hit the ground and can only be viewed as fireworks! If the ones with iron shells want to reach the level of modern hand grenades, first our chemical industry must be systematically established! We can use a small amount of new gunpowder in the laboratory

Production, but industrial production is not possible. Industrial production requires a lot of acid-alkali-resistant and high-pressure-resistant containers. This involves steel smelting. And steel smelting involves formulas and mining. We have the formulas, but the ore needs to be mined.

To analyze the elements in the ore. We must know what to remove from the ore, what the pH is, and other data. This in turn requires improving our own elemental analysis capabilities! In general, let alone modern industry, it is the level of modern industry.
Chapter completed!