The navy and other breech-mounted rifled guns are already waiting eagerly. The battleship Guangdong has already completed the hull construction, and even the turret is ready, just waiting for the naval guns.
There are even voices from the Navy saying that the breech-loading rifled gun is too difficult to install, so it is better to install the front-loading rifled gun first.
The 300 mm caliber and 20 times barrel muzzle-loading rifled gun produced by the Foshan Gun Factory is a 300 mm muzzle-loading gun, although its armor-piercing capability is poorer and loading is more troublesome.
Otherwise, it is also possible to equip a 200mm breech-loading rifled gun. At that time, the 200mm breech-loading gun from the Shanghai Gun Factory was also barely available.
However, a group of naval generals represented by Dong Quankun insisted on a 300mm breech-mounted gun, so they could only keep delaying it.
Because of problems with naval guns, the Tang Navy did not place an order for a third large-tonnage battleship after building the Guangdong and Luzon.
It's not that the Navy doesn't want to, but it doesn't even have cannons now, so there's no point in placing orders to build them.
Therefore, in recent years, the navy's newly built main battleships are mainly the four-thousand-ton Guangxi-class battleships.
But now, the Shanghai Gun Factory has finally completely solved the problem of breech-mounted rifled guns, which allows the Navy to sit still.
After confirming that the new guns from the Shanghai Gun Factory were available, the order was placed directly.
The first order was naturally for a 300mm 25x breech-mounted gun. The Navy directly gave the military number and called it: 32-year-old 300mm 25x gun.
For this gun, the Navy directly placed an order for twenty artillery pieces. This is the main gun to be used on the Guangdong, Luzon and subsequent battleships. The quantity does not seem to be much, but the price of each of these huge guns is
They are all sky-high prices, so the price of the order is extremely expensive.
The second order is for a 150mm 30x breech-mounted gun. The military number given by the Navy is the 1932 model 150mm 30x naval gun. The number of this gun is larger.
, the Navy placed an order for 130 guns in one go, to serve as the main secondary guns for capital ships and the main naval guns for secondary auxiliary ships.
Because the Navy has a large number of warships equipped with guns of this caliber, the demand is also very large, and an order is only a small initial batch order. If the Navy is satisfied, more orders will be placed in the future.
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But within a few days, the Navy placed another batch of orders. This batch of orders included sixteen 300mm naval guns and two hundred 150mm naval guns.
In addition, they also gave the Shanghai Gun Factory a research and development contract to supervise the navy's research and development of other naval guns of 250 mm, 230 mm, 200 mm and 170 mm calibers.
Because in addition to the 300 mm and 150 mm naval guns, the navy actually needs a large number of other naval guns, especially those of more than 200 mm.
Because naval guns with a caliber of more than 150 mm to less than 300 mm can be equipped on a large number of battleships of several thousand tons. If it is considered for combat effectiveness, it is actually best for the Guangdong to have
Equipped with 200 mm level or at most 250 mm level naval guns.
But because of the strategic significance of the Guangdong, the navy did not agree.
But now, the Navy has changed its mind!
Because of the breakthrough in research and development of rear-mounted naval guns, the Navy has launched a new round of warship design and construction work, and has suspended the construction of new Guangxi-class battleships, Chang'an-class cruisers, Qinzhou-class frigates and other ships.
Not only these capital ships, but also river gunboats have suspended the construction of new ships.
The designers of the Naval Ship Administration Department are working overtime. At the same time, there are also many relevant shipbuilding technology experts from the Royal Institute of Technology who come to give guidance. At the same time, professors and experts from Jinling University, Jinling Institute of Technology, Jiangnan University, Shanghai Institute of Technology and other institutions are also
He was invited by the Navy to design and demonstrate the development of a new generation of naval warships.
With the introduction of breech-mounted guns into service, and with the development of rotatable turrets by the Tang Dynasty Navy, the combination of the two will cause huge changes in the navy's warship design.
During the sailing era of the Tang Dynasty, naval guns were deployed directly on the deck, and mainly on the sides of the ship. Although artillery was also deployed on the bow and bow, there were generally not many.
The battleships all lined up directly and then used their broadside cannons to bombard each other.
This arrangement of naval guns along the side of the ship lasted for a long time.
The Tang Dynasty Navy developed steam ships and even laid steel hulls on the ships in the first few years, but the newly built ships still had such a gun layout.
For example, this was the case with the Jiangnan-class battleships and Hangzhou-class cruisers of the year.
In the Shanxi-class battleship era, due to the influence of the full turret design of the Hebei battleship, although the Hebei battleship suffered a shameful failure, it still pointed out an important development path for the navy.
First of all, the navy at that time determined several major principles for subsequent development.
The first is that the naval gun must have a large caliber, a long barrel, and a rifled gun.
The second is that the naval gun must be able to rotate to increase the range of fire.
As for the third article, it confirms the Navy's measures to eliminate sails in subsequent battleships.
Of course, although such a principle had been established at that time, the design of the Shanxi-class battleship still followed the old path, with the turret being abandoned and sails still being equipped.
This is because the artillery at that time was still a smoothbore gun, and in order to control costs, the shipside gun layout continued to be used.
Therefore, although the Shanxi-class battleship is a 2,800-ton steam steel battleship, its overall layout and combat methods are still similar to traditional sail battleships.
In the era of Guangxi-class battleships, because the front-mounted rifled guns were in service, as the effective range of the naval guns increased, they could attack the enemy at a longer distance, so the naval guns also tended to have larger calibers to obtain greater firepower.
The power of long-range artillery fire.
From this time on, the Tang Navy believed that in future naval battles, only a few effective hits from large-caliber main gun shells would be needed to destroy enemy ships.
Therefore, the caliber of the artillery equipped is getting larger and larger. The main guns of the Guangxi-class battleships are four 200mm front-loading rifled guns. They are also equipped with a lot of 170mm and 150mm auxiliary guns.
gun.
The distribution of the overall naval gun is a method of deploying a small number of large-caliber artillery as the main gun and a large number of small and medium-caliber artillery as the secondary battery.
Because of their high power and to ensure the range of fire, large-caliber main guns are concentrated in the center of the battleship or on the turrets at the front and rear.
This kind of turret is an open-air and semi-hidden turret. The naval gun can also be rotated through a pulley when deployed. Of course, it can still only be driven by manpower and does not use unreliable steam power or other power.
As for a large number of secondary guns, they are concentrated on the protected gun gallery on the side of the ship.
This deployment method was called the rotating platform design by the Tang Dynasty Navy!
The two battleships Guangdong and Luzon were equipped with rear-mounted artillery from the beginning, so the main gun turret was only designed during the design.
However, the design of this turret is also very simple and primitive, with one in front and one in the back. Although the turret has armor protection, the armor is very weak. It is better to say that the turret is an upgraded version of the open-air rotating platform, with only one layer on the front.
The armor is relatively thick, and the sides are actually just steel plates, and the tail is even empty.
The original main goal of the turret design of these two ships was actually to allow the naval guns to quickly change direction, raise and lower the muzzles to fire. As for defending against the opponent's shelling, it was actually incidental.
Now, the Navy is preparing to improve the design of the new warship and design a warship that can truly exert its maximum combat effectiveness.
To this end, the Navy organized a large number of engineers to conduct demonstrations from various aspects.
However, when Emperor Sheng heard that the Navy was organizing experts to discuss the design of a new generation of warships, he found some technical information from the Navy and asked questions one by one.
Power, there is no problem. It is naturally impossible for a 10,000-ton giant ship to continue to use sails, but to use pure steam power. The steam engine technology of the Tang Empire is enough to provide about 7,000 horsepower for the hull of a 10,000-ton giant ship.
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Armor, there is no problem with this. We plan to use the latest armor steel newly developed by Jiangnan Iron and Steel Company. It is not the previous iron-wood composite armor, but a surface-hardened armor steel.
On the turret, the Navy said that it can already use electric-powered turrets. At the same time, the Navy also has a backup turret technology reserve, which uses hydraulic means to promote the rotation of the turret.
As for artillery, the breech-loading rifled gun has been successfully developed and can be installed on ships.
When the Holy Emperor Li Xuan read the technical information, he realized that by accident, his Tang Empire had already developed so many technologies.
With so many new technologies, it is completely possible to build a real steel battleship!
Immediately, he directly instructed the navy to stop bothering so many people and just do what I said.
Immediately I made a basic concept drawing of the modern battleship in my memory.
This is a type of main gun firing that deploys a turret at the front and rear of the central axis and is equipped with four main guns. On both sides of the hull, small secondary gun turrets are deployed and equipped with secondary guns.
The battleship design Li Xuan created is the pre-dreadnought design in later generations!
Equip a small number of large-caliber main guns to serve as can openers, and equip a large number of medium-caliber secondary guns to supplement the problem of the slow rate of fire of large-caliber naval guns.
After the Navy received the concept drawings, a group of experts conducted detailed designs and quickly came up with a complete design.
There is a main turret at the front and rear. Each turret adopts a twin-mounted layout and is equipped with a total of four 300mm main guns with a power of 25 times.
On both sides of the hull, eight 170mm secondary guns are deployed.
Then, in other places, a large number of 150mm, 120mm, and 75mm secondary guns were deployed.
To Li Xuan, the entire design looked like a hedgehog with a barrel full of guns!
In order to deploy so many artillery pieces, the armor thickness of the gun is actually very average, and its power can only be said to be average.
However, considering that the only enemy of the Datang Navy in the world is the Datang Army, it is basically impossible for the navies of other countries to pose any actual threat to the Datang Navy.
So there is no problem if the protective ability is weaker.
There are so many artillery pieces and their power is huge. When the time comes to launch a salvo in Europe, it will probably scare the Europeans to death.
After the detailed design was finalized, the Navy officially placed an order for a new warship to the Hong Kong Ding Shing Shipyard. The new warship was named Wan Dan.