Chapter 1629: Cannons: No grass grows within 100 meters
For the Shanghai Gun Factory, the most important thing now is the 300mm breech-loading gun, because only by developing this artillery can we expect to get the navy's huge 250mm, 200mm, 150mm, etc.
Orders for breech-loading rifled guns of other calibers.
The Navy has already issued a fatal order that the main gun of the new battleship must be a 300 mm large-caliber naval gun, not even one millimeter less!
Even the navy's internal ship management department and the Shanghai Gun Factory have reminded the navy that with the 7,000-ton hull of the Guangdong, it is barely equipped with a 300 mm breech-mounted gun. It cannot be equipped with much, at most.
That's just two doors. If there are more, it won't fit at all.
Only a 10,000-ton battleship like the Luzon under construction is more suitable to be equipped with a 300mm breech-mounted gun.
But the navy doesn’t care!
What people want is a 300mm cannon. No matter how many guns are installed, they need a 300mm breech-loaded cannon.
As for you talking to him about cost performance or actual combat effectiveness, the navy will look at you with contempt!
Who told you that battleships were used to fight wars?
In the eyes of many senior leaders of the Navy, these battleships of seven to eight thousand tons or even ten thousand tons are not used for fighting at all. They have only one function, and that is to show off!
Demonstrate the prestige of the Tang Dynasty and highlight the momentum of the navy!
As for fighting the enemy's navy, the Datang Navy had a large number of frigates and cruisers of one to two thousand tons, and not to mention the three to four thousand ton Shanxi and Guangxi class battleships.
Is it necessary to use giants like the Guangdong and Luzon?
The navy has never considered actual combat performance at all, so it firmly and persistently requires that it must be equipped with the largest naval gun.
As for the naval guns currently produced by the Tang Empire, the largest caliber is naturally the 300 mm naval gun, regardless of whether it is a front-loading rifled gun or a breech-loading rifled gun.
Coupled with the quarrel with the Army in recent years, the Army has been waiting to see the Navy's jokes.
Therefore, for the navy, the 300mm breech-mounted gun is not a matter of combat effectiveness or cost-effectiveness at all, but a matter of face and reputation!
If the Shanghai Gun Factory can produce this artillery.
The navy was happy, even though the number of giant battleships was not too many, and each ship could not be equipped with a few huge cannons, so the navy could not purchase a few cannons for the general attack.
But it’s okay. The Navy never treats manufacturers they value badly. There are no orders for 300mm breech-mounted guns, but the Navy has a lot of orders for other small and medium-caliber artillery.
On the other hand, if the Shanghai Gun Factory can't handle it, the Navy will be unhappy and won't even give you an order for small-caliber naval guns. The Navy has already threatened you like this, several times.
Therefore, if you want to compete for the Navy's orders for rifled breech-loading guns of other calibers, you have to get the 300mm breech-loading guns first, and then talk about it later if you make the Navy look bad!
Otherwise, there is no need to discuss it!
In fact, the Navy also made the same promise to the Foshan Gun Factory and Tianjin Gun Factory. They used other artillery orders as bargaining chips and dangled them in front of major manufacturers, asking them to work hard to develop 300 mm breech-loading guns!
After the Navy entered the rifled gun era three years ago, although it is still equipped with a large number of smoothbore guns, they are all old guns equipped on old ships, and the newly built warships are basically all equipped with front-loaded rifled guns.
However, for the Navy, front-loading rifled guns are just a transition. What they want is to be fully equipped with breech-loading rifled guns. However, domestic artillery manufacturers were not strong enough before, and they could not produce a usable rear-mounted rifled gun after all the hard work.
Mount rifled cannon.
However, the navy's intention to comprehensively upgrade its breech-mounted cannons is something that everyone in the Tang Dynasty knows.
And this means a huge market!
And the biggest market is not the top 300mm breech-loading cannon, but a large number of medium-caliber breech-loading cannons.
According to the new era artillery classification formulated by the Navy three years ago, the previous classification methods based on the weight of the shells such as five kilograms, seven kilograms, nine kilograms, fourteen kilograms, seventeen kilograms, twenty-four kilograms, etc. have been cancelled. Instead, they have been classified based on the weight of the shells.
Caliber size and barrel length are the classification methods.
Currently, among the newly built warships of the Tang Navy, medium-caliber naval guns are actually in greatest demand.
Several hundred tons of offshore patrol ships, 1,000-ton frigates, 2,000-ton cruisers, and 4,000-ton battleships. Each of the above-mentioned ships requires a large number of 75 mm, 100 mm, and 120 mm.
There are a large number of medium-caliber naval guns of 150 mm and 170 mm. In addition, the demand for 200 mm, 230 mm and 250 mm naval guns is not small.
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Especially for 150mm naval guns, whether it is a front-loading rifled gun currently equipped or a breech-loading rifled gun planned to be equipped in the future, the demand is extremely huge.
Because this is the main gun of frigates and cruisers, and also the main secondary gun of large-tonnage battleships, the number is very large.
In the era of front-loading rifled guns, the Shanghai Gun Factory was almost completely defeated, but in the future era of breech-loading rifled guns, they want to make a comeback.
The stepping stone is the 300mm breech-loading rifled gun.
The production of prototype guns was very fast, because the Shanghai Gun Factory spent a lot of manpower and material resources to manufacture prototype guns at almost any cost in order to compete for time. At the same time, they also accumulated a lot of experience in the field of breech-loading guns.
Even if they are all failed experiences, they are still experiences.
After their prototype guns came out, the Foshan Gun Factory and Tianjin Gun Factory were only belatedly aware that Professor Wei Qingxin from the Royal Institute of Technology had solved the problem of the gun bolt, so they hurried to the Royal Institute of Technology to buy it.
When a patent is granted.
People from the Shanghai Gun Factory have invited navy generals to watch the live ammunition test of the prototype gun again.
In the test field on the outskirts of the Shanghai Gun Factory, Ji Haifan said with worry: "Mr. Luo, there will be no problem with the next test. I gave a guarantee with the Navy that this time the test will definitely be successful, and
The Navy also requires a strong charge test!"
Luo Guangjian said: "Don't worry, we have already tested the live ammunition yesterday. There is no problem with the standard charge. We have also tested the strong charge three times, and there is no problem!"
"As long as there is no problem!" Although Ji Haifan said this, he was still a little worried.
As the deputy general manager of Jiangnan Weapons Company, he is mainly responsible for the artillery business in Jiangnan Weapons Company, and the Shanghai Gun Factory is the leading artillery factory in Jiangnan Weapons Company, responsible for most of the medium and large calibers of Jiangnan Weapons Company.
Artillery R&D and production tasks.
If it weren't for the Shanghai Gun Factory being so important, he wouldn't have traveled from Jinling City to Shanghai again and again.
The success of the factory is his political achievement, but if it fails, there is no doubt that he will also be responsible.
Worried, he once again raised his head and looked at the huge cannon in front of him. This was the 300mm 25x breech-loading rifled gun just manufactured by the Shanghai Gun Factory.
This is a huge thing. Not to mention the artillery itself, even the shells it fires weigh more than three hundred kilograms.
Although its huge barrel is twenty-five times the length of the caliber, the huge barrel still makes the gun look relatively bulky and not as slender as the small-caliber long-barreled artillery.
Seeing such a large artillery piece and the fact that it had been tested live five times yesterday and all of them were successful, he felt a little relieved.
Everyone didn't wait long, and soon saw a group of four-wheeled carriages coming in from outside. It was the Navy's observation group.
The leader is none other than Admiral Wang Haiqing, the head of the Naval Ship Affairs Department, and the others are also senior navy generals.
Today, more than twenty generals, including commodore and above, came!
This shows that the Navy attaches great importance to this gun!
However, the more the Navy paid attention to it, the more worried Ji Haifan became. If he had known that he would not swear to the Navy a few days ago that the artillery was completely successful, the Navy could rest assured.
He didn't leave any room for words at that time, and what he did now makes Ji Haifan extremely worried.
Admiral Wang Haiqing brought his people over. After the two sides greeted each other, they went directly to see the giant cannon in front of them.
At this time, Luo Guangjian, as the designer of the gun, was naturally responsible for explaining the technical parameters in person, and many technical parameters were not important. The key point was that they used a new type of gun bolt, which completely solved the gun bolt problem.
As for other aspects, the technology is actually very mature, such as gun barrels. The Shanghai Gun Factory has been playing with artillery for so many years and has long overcome the technical difficulties of manufacturing large-caliber gun barrels. Let alone them. In fact, Foshan Gun Factory and
Tianjin Gun Factory can also produce this kind of 300 mm 25 times caliber gun barrel.
In today's test, the important thing is to test the new gun bolt, not the gun barrel and other things.
Although Wang Haiqing is not a naval admiral with a technical background, since he can be the Minister of Ship Administration, he is naturally quite capable. Without Luo Guangjian's explanation, he can see the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of this artillery from the technical information he obtained before.
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Regarding this artillery, the performance instructions given by the Shanghai Gun Factory make it very clear that the gun weighs about 35 tons. When firing at an elevation angle of 13 degrees, its maximum range can reach an astonishing eight thousand meters. The firing cylinder
When shaped into a cannonball, the power is astonishing.
Needless to say, the armor-breaking capability of using solid armor-piercing projectiles. Except for the thick armor on the battleship Luzon under construction, other battleships in the Tang Navy, including the Guangdong, cannot withstand it.
As for the wooden ships of other navies, let alone them, they can be directly punched through!
And when a grenade is fired, its explosive power is even greater.
Wang Haiqing has long known how powerful the 300mm grenade is. In the past, the Tang Dynasty Navy has also developed several 300mm front-loading or breech-loading rifled guns. Although they have not been actually equipped, they were fired during testing.
too much.
Although the artillery is different, the shells are basically the same. They are all 300mm cylindrical howitzer shells, and they also use the latest collision fuse produced by Xuzhou Precision Machinery Company.
As for how powerful a 300mm howitzer shell is?
Luo Guangjian’s statement is very interesting:
Not a blade of grass grows within a hundred meters!