The cost of building these two boats was astonishingly high. They were all made of good stuff. The copper contained in it could be used to mint coins in the Ming Dynasty, and Yang Fan used it to stick to the bottom of the boat. The one centimeter thick plate was almost equivalent to adding a layer of armor to the boat.
More difficult to sink.
The hull near the waterline, where waves often hit, and below the waterline are covered with copper plates, and the sides above the waterline are riveted with one-centimeter-thick steel plates to the outside of the load-carrying planks to protect the gun compartments.
These two ships originally had keels and steel ribs made of steel components. According to shipbuilding terminology, they should be regarded as iron-rib wooden hull ships. The structural strength is far greater than that of ships with wooden keels and ribs. Now the sides are made of one-centimeter steel plates.
By making armor, you are basically immune to the artillery of this era.
The hardness of these carburized steel plates is very high. In this era, only Yang Fan can produce them in the whole world. This will definitely crush all sailing warships.
As the chief engineer, Chen Liang introduced every part of the ship to Yang Fan in detail.
"Sir, you see, we have changed all the sharp corners on the deck into rounded corners to prevent people from falling and getting injured in heavy waves. Also, you see, this deck is made of Burmese teak flooring. It is made of heavy-duty pressure and is very strong.
It’s durable and won’t need to be replaced for thirty years.”
Yang Fan walked and looked all the way. This ship also cost him a lot of effort and energy. Even when it was carrying the decisive battle with the Haraqin people on the grassland, he also stayed up late at night to approve the report from the shipyard. For each report,
Give your own opinion on a design and configuration.
He also communicated with everyone in the Guns and Roses Friendship Group. There are many fans of sailing battleships in this group. Their opinions are very insightful. After all, they are the rise and fall of later generations summarized hundreds of years later.
Success or failure can save you a lot of detours.
Xiao Niangpi was in charge of the executive power, and she often complained to him that the shipyard was a bottomless pit.
Because almost all equipment is newly developed. For almost every component and equipment, a new workshop needs to be built, and then equipped with workers and engineers.
This is not simply building two ships, this is building a complete new shipbuilding industry system.
Yang Fan patiently convinced her that these things were mainly time-consuming and laborious in research and development, and once they were developed, they would reap technological dividends for decades.
These workshops and specialized production workshops will not only provide spare parts for warships, but also produce components for civilian ships in the future, because the technologies are all the same. Although we invest a lot in the early stage, we can make it back sooner or later, and we can still make profits in the long run.
.
Therefore, we should look at it from a development perspective and treat it as a long-term investment.
Every time at the end of the month, Xiao Niangpi uses the method she learned from Yang Fan to prepare a balance sheet, and sighs because the liabilities side is too ugly.
Yang Fan stood on the deck and carefully looked at the details of every piece of equipment.
The biggest difference between these two boats and the previous clipper boats is that there is a huge black smoke tube in the middle of the boat.
Because this ship is equipped with a marine steam engine, gearbox, drive shaft, propeller and other equipment. It is a hybrid ship. It is powered by sails during normal times. When there is no wind, or during combat, it is powered by a steam engine.
Over there in the morning light, three types of reciprocating steam engine prototypes have been built, namely small steam engines for automobiles, which are mainly lightweight, train steam engines for steam locomotives, and marine steam engines.
Three prototypes of marine steam engines were manufactured, one was kept at the Power Research Institute for testing, and the other two were installed on these two ships, both of which were large engines with a power of 1,000 horsepower.
These steam engines are the brainchild of more than 500 people at the Power Research Institute in the past two years. They have solved hundreds of parts problems and are now being installed on ships for testing. Marine steam engines can only be installed on ships for testing.
These steam engines can burn both coal and heavy oil. Yang Fan specially approved ten tons of fuel oil for this trial voyage.
Under the leadership of Ming Yan, Yang Fan came to the cabin.
None of Yang Fan's clipper ships have a particularly high freeboard. Because they are too high, the windward resistance is large, which affects the high-speed sailing of the clipper ship. It is also unsafe in high sea conditions and strong winds. The high center of gravity can easily capsize the ship.
The deck of Yang Fan's ship is downward, with only the gun deck, living deck and bottom warehouse.
Only one artillery deck was arranged. Because the artillery used by Yang Fan
Very large and powerful, so there is no need to use so many cannons. As long as they are powerful and destructive, there is no need to use so many cannons.
In addition to the power plant, another major improvement of this ship is the artillery.
Yang Fan decided not to follow the old European path. The sail battleship they built had three or four layers of artillery decks because the artillery was not powerful enough.
As a result, the maneuverability of the ship is very poor. The ship is fat and thick, has high speed, and has poor flexibility.
Too high freeboard is also detrimental to navigation safety in strong winds and high sea conditions.
In the 18th century, European sailing battleships reached their peak development and were divided into six levels according to the number of guns.
Top-level battleships generally have a displacement of about 5,000 tons, a length of less than 70 meters, and a width of about 15 meters.
For example, Spain's top battleship Santa Trinidad has a length of 61.3 meters, a width of 16.2 meters, a draft of 8.02 meters, a crew of 1050, a displacement of 4950 tons, and 136 guns.
At this time, Europe was still developing large galleys in the 17th century, and in 1670, Britain and France still used galleys to fight.
In this century, sailboats and galleys were used in parallel. Yang Fan's ship technology was far ahead of the curve.
Europe's top battleship of the 18th century, equipped with pound heavy guns on the bottom deck, pound guns on the middle deck, 12 pound guns on the upper deck, and six pound light guns on the quarter decks of the fore and aft fore and aft, used to deal with sneak attacks on small boats.
Because the armored planks on the sides are very thick, the battleship rarely sinks the opponent until the end. They all destroy the opponent's vitality, making them unable to fight anymore and surrender. Or they end up fighting hand-to-hand and capturing the enemy through occupation.
The reason for this is that the power of the artillery is too small, so it is necessary to arrange the artillery densely on the sides, with three or even four layers of artillery decks. Many warships must also be arranged in a line (battle line) to fight with the enemy one after another.
The enemy fleets passing by were bombarded.
Since the power is not enough, let's make up for it with quantity.
It's the same as the army tactic of queuing up to kill. Since the accuracy of muskets is not good, then rely on dense formations to shoot at close range with the opponent.
A solid shot put is not powerful enough to hit 0.6-meter-thick oak wood.
There is no way around this. In this era and even in the next two hundred years or so, this will still be the case. Ships and artillery are developing slowly without any qualitative breakthrough.
But Yang Fan had a better steel muzzle-loading cannon, as well as explosive bombs filled with fertilizer and explosives, as well as fuses and primers made of mercury fulminate.
With such good conditions, there is absolutely no need to adopt their tactics. Yang Fan should cast or forge large-caliber heavy artillery.
After entering the gun warehouse, Yang Fan saw the huge cast steel artillery.
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Please remember the domain name of this book: .Novel about Strange People of the Republic of China
