The first thousand four hundred and forty-seven chapters
Such a company that manufactures parts and components does not even have the qualifications to research and produce weapons. Its sudden cross-border development of artillery still makes outsiders think it is unreliable no matter how they look at it.
But this is just the view of ordinary outsiders, and officials of the Army Ordnance Department do not see it that way!
Dangtu Special Machinery Company may seem ordinary, but its boss and chief engineer is extraordinary. He is a retired professor from the Royal Institute of Technology.
This professor used to work in mechanics at the Royal Institute of Technology and was responsible for the development of many large-scale equipment.
Later, due to personal reasons, I left my job and started my own business. Well, I have to say that in recent years, there have been quite a few students or professors from the Royal Institute of Technology who have started their own business. This mechanical professor is just one of them.
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As for the company's weapons production qualifications, there is no problem at all, because they are not planning to develop any new artillery at all, they are only providing production process technology solutions for new artillery.
The one that is really preparing to develop and produce new artillery is actually another company, namely Dangtu Artillery Factory, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jiangnan Arms Company.
They did joint research and development with the Dangtu Artillery Factory, a subsidiary of Jiangnan Weapons Company. Dangtu Special Machinery Company provided production technical solutions, developed and produced the artillery, and it was the Dangtu Artillery Factory. Therefore, strictly speaking, the winning bidder was not Dangtu Special Machinery Company.
Instead, it was the Tu Artillery Factory.
As for why Jiangnan Arms Company has two artillery factories participating in the bidding at the same time, or even competing with each other, there is nothing surprising about it.
The many subsidiaries within the three major weapons companies have never been a whole. Although in terms of equity, they are all wholly owned by the headquarters of the three major weapons companies, the various internal subsidiaries are basically independent of each other. For example,
Jiangnan Artillery Factory and Dangtu Artillery Factory, apart from the fact that their equity is wholly owned by Jiangnan Arms Company, they have no relationship with each other. Even because they are both manufacturers of R&D and production of large-caliber artillery, they compete with each other, especially in
They are still direct competitors in the field of heavy artillery such as 24-pound or even 48-pound guns.
Although the three major weapons companies are all wholly owned by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, and their subsidiaries are all state-owned enterprises, Datang's enterprises under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises also pursue commercial management, and in addition to the head office
In addition to controlling major strategic issues, he basically does not interfere in the management and business strategies of his subsidiaries. He also basically ignores competition between subsidiaries, and even encourages mutual competition.
Therefore, those participating in the army's new artillery and shell bidding are not the three major arms companies, but the various subsidiaries below.
In order to improve its competitiveness, it is normal for the Dangtu Artillery Factory to directly approach Dangtu Special Company for technical cooperation.
But these are still not the key!
What really made the officials of the Ordnance Department break the rules and allow Dangtu Special Machinery Company to participate in the research and development of new artillery was the establishment plan they submitted.
This design plan is not an artillery design plan, but a technical implementation plan!
Dangtu Special Machinery Company put forward a series of ideas and finally established a production line capable of casting larger diameters!
If it can be built, then this production line can produce artillery with a caliber up to 200 millimeters and a barrel length up to 25 times the caliber!
It's not that the Tang Dynasty didn't have large-caliber artillery, it also had artillery with a caliber of 200 millimeters. For example, the 48-pound short-barreled howitzer actually had a caliber of 200 millimeters.
However, the point is not here. The point is that the diameter of its body tube can reach 25 times!
Among the artillery currently equipped by the Tang Dynasty military, basically those with a barrel diameter exceeding 25 times are considered long cannons. The most typical one is the 14-pound cannon with a diameter of 27 times.
However, the larger caliber 18-pound and 24-pound artillery pieces cannot reach this barrel diameter.
There is no other reason. The larger the diameter, the longer the barrel, and the higher the technical difficulty!
Even if it can be done with difficulty, the barrel is very thick and the overall weight of the artillery is unacceptable.
Therefore, it is still a blank for a large-caliber long-barreled artillery that can be put into practical use and capable of large-scale industrial production.
But now, Dangtu Special Machinery Company has launched a set of technical solutions, saying it can solve the production problem of large-caliber long-barreled artillery. Naturally, the military will not let it go.
Just give it a R&D contract and then talk about it.
It's best if it succeeds, but it doesn't matter if it doesn't. Anyway, whether it's the army or the navy, they have to throw out a lot of research and development contracts and a lot of research funds every year. In the end, most of them are actually wasted.
The only typical success story is probably the steam engine research and development project supported by the Navy.
But more failed projects are unknown to outsiders.
In order to obtain large-caliber siege artillery, the army cast nets everywhere to catch fish.
As for when it will be successful, only God knows.
On the contrary, new artillery shells, or to use the Army's accurate description, new armor-piercing artillery shells, is easier.
Since the penetrating power of current grenades is not very good, then the strength of the shells should be increased!
As for some people who have proposed using cylindrical pointed shells to increase the charge and increase the penetration, this argument is basically ignored, because the smoothbore cannon fires non-prototype irregular shells, and the trajectory cannot be guaranteed when fired, let alone the hit.
The rate is high, how far it can be pushed is a question.
If you don't pursue range, it's okay to use it purely as a shotgun, but it's basically impossible to use it as a field gun or even a cannon shell.
Today's cannonballs are all round cannonballs. Even if a wooden support is added behind them, they may look cylindrical, but in fact the cannonball itself is still a round cannonball, just like a solid cannonball. The wooden support is only used for
It only helps the shell resist chamber pressure and reduce air leakage. The moment the shell is ejected from the chamber, the wooden support will be separated from the shell itself.
There are technical prerequisites for making cannonballs with cylindrical tips, that is, the cannonball must be stable, and it is best to let the cannonball rotate on its own, and this involves rifled cannons.
With a rifled gun, the cylindrical shell can rotate on its own when firing the shell to improve accuracy.
But when the rifled cannon will come out, it is unclear.
The Navy has been working on rifled guns for a few years, but now there is not even a trace of them. The processing technology is not up to par, and it is basically impossible to make any rifled guns. If they are barely built, they will not be able to fire a few guns, and the rifling will be worn out.
Both the navy and the army attach great importance to artillery and shells, but Li Xuan doesn't pay much attention to it.
Anyway, it will be possible to do it after the technology improves. It is useless to think about it now. Now he is more concerned about the subsequent localization plan in Nanyang and the subsequent Indian strategy.
With the capture of Malacca, it also announced that Datang had completely controlled the Strait of Malacca and gained better access to and from the Indian Ocean. Instead of having to go around the Sunda Strait to enter and exit the Indian Ocean as before, this could greatly shorten the domestic journey to India.
's voyage.
Similarly, with the expulsion of the Portuguese from the Nanyang region, the Nanyang region has now become a veritable back garden of the Tang Empire.
Faced with such a huge back garden, it would be a shame to our ancestors if we did not develop it properly with immigrants.
However, it is very difficult to rely solely on official promotion to carry out large-scale immigration and development of Southeast Asian islands. The Immigration and Reclamation Department has worked hard for so many years, but now it has only developed the main island of Luzon and the western part of Banten Island.
, and in more places, just like the Portuguese, they set up a trading station, port, etc., and there is no large-scale immigration development.
Therefore, we have to borrow other forces, especially the power of the huge aristocratic group in the country.
After passing through the previous small-scale fiefdoms in the Nanyang region, Li Xuan was also preparing to ennoble various nobles on a large scale in the Nanyang region.
In a place as big as Nanyang, at least a hundred nobles can be arranged. When the time comes, these nobles will cooperate with the Immigration and Reclamation Department to carry out large-scale immigration and development of the islands in Nanyang.
After a trial of small-scale canonization in the Banten Mansion, the results were gratifying. Several nobles spared no effort to make their fiefdoms more prosperous, especially the private lands granted to them for development and cultivation.
They recruited immigrants from the country to their own fiefdoms, surrounded and suppressed the local indigenous people, and then developed the land.
This has also resulted in the immigration development in Banten and Luzon being accelerated a lot.
Immediately, Li Xuan was preparing to select dozens of nobles to colonize Nanyang!
He doesn't have to worry about choosing those people specifically. In Nanyang, there are some nobles who are willing to go, and there are some nobles who are unwilling to go, but it doesn't matter. Among the more than a thousand nobles, you can always choose the right one.
At the beginning of November, Li Xuan officially announced that he would grant fiefdoms to fifty-three nobles. The fiefdoms of these fifty-three nobles are all located in Luzon Prefecture and Wandan Prefecture!
Well, now all the islands in Southeast Asia are theoretically under the jurisdiction of these two overseas consular offices.
Most of these nobles are viscounts and barons, but there are also a few high-ranking nobles among them.
For example, the founding father of the Tang Dynasty was Fang Dongquan, who was at the top during the Huangzhushan period of the Tang Empire!
This bandit leader at that time was an important general in the early Tang Dynasty. Although he had been on the front line one after another during the Unification War and served as a sinecure in the Privy Council, he retired directly after the Unification War.
But Li Xuan didn’t treat him badly!
In this canonization, Li Xuan's kindness to Fang Dongquan exceeded everyone's imagination!