And it has to be said that although the R&D personnel of various manufacturers affiliated to the three major weapons companies of Datang may be said to have far less technical capabilities than the professors at the Royal Institute of Technology.
But his imagination is quite big, and there are all kinds of messy designs. Li Xuan even saw an artillery project, and planned to use hydraulic reset on the gun mount to increase the rate of fire.
When Li Xuan took a look, wasn't this the early artillery retractor that used springs or hydraulic pressure to reset the gun carriage? It was also the rapid-fire cannon mounted on early warships!
When Li Xuan became interested, he asked if they could conduct a test firing. The R&D personnel on the opposite side just pushed back and forth, and finally took the plunge and carried out the test firing.
The result is very interesting. After firing the first shot, their hydraulic reset device, which was huge and complicated and probably difficult to install on a warship, was destroyed!
On the contrary, an artillery project next door that uses a spring return device performed better. It was not finished when the first shot was fired, but was finished when the second shot was fired!
As a result, Li Xuan was completely too lazy to continue reading.
The rapid-fire cannon needs to continue to undergo technical research, and it is impossible to put it into practical use in its current form.
As for more advanced tube-retracting artillery, we have to wait even longer.
The only thing that makes Li Xuan happy is that the empire's new artillery designs have basically entered the era of breech-loaded rifled guns.
The newly built warships of the Navy in the past two years have basically adopted breech-mounted artillery. From small river battleships to large 10,000-ton battleships, they have all entered the era of breech-mounted rifled guns.
It's just that most of these warships are still on the slipway, and not many of them have actually entered service.
But even this is of great significance and practical significance.
The navy is like this, and the army is not willing to lag behind. As the first army breech-loaded rifled gun, the 75 howitzer has entered the army and begun service.
The Army has high hopes for this artillery, hoping that this artillery can assume the role of the main division-level artillery force of the Army.
In addition, there is the 75th Field Artillery of the same caliber. This artillery has also entered the mass production stage. Although the Army has not yet equipped it, the Guards has already equipped two battalions with it.
Then the 100mm field gun, a long-range suppression artillery, has also entered the small-scale trial production stage. Now the Guards has begun to equip a small amount of equipment for early live ammunition testing.
The 100mm field gun is naturally more powerful and has a longer range than the 75mm gun. Of course, the weight will definitely be greater. The Army uses this artillery as a military-level support artillery.
Firepower is mainly used by equipping each artillery brigade or independent artillery regiment.
This 100mm artillery, coupled with two 75mm artillery, basically shows the Army's operating ideas for artillery.
The 75 grenade is used as division and brigade level infantry support firepower.
The 75th Field Artillery is used as division and brigade level artillery suppressive firepower.
The 100mm field gun is used as suppressive firepower for military-level artillery.
There are only three types of artillery in total, but they are enough to cover most of the current combat needs.
Of course, the Army is still not satisfied. They also need a lighter weight and more mobile artillery as infantry support artillery.
In addition, a large-caliber howitzer between 120 mm and 130 mm is needed that is more powerful, but the weight must be controlled and can be effectively maneuvered.
As for siege heavy artillery and the like, the Army also has related plans.
The Army was previously equipped with front-loaded smoothbore heavy artillery with a bomb weight of 48 kilograms and a caliber of 200 millimeters. This large-caliber heavy artillery is very powerful and is a powerful siege weapon.
Naturally, we will not give up even in the rifled era.
The Army already has research and development plans for 150mm or even 200mm breech-loaded rifled heavy artillery.
However, Li Xuan did not see these army heavy artillery experiments today.
After seeing these messy artillery pieces, Li Xuan began to inspect another highlight of the day.
That's the rifle!
Now the Army of the Tang Dynasty has begun to equip front-loading rifled guns, which are the 32-year-old rifles, also known as Mini rifles.
However, the Army has always believed that this thing is at best a transitional weapon.
What the Army always wanted was a breech-loading rifle.
Today's various new rifles are basically breech-loading rifles.
At first glance, one might have thought that Datang's scientific research technology was already advanced enough to be developed, but after a closer look, one would find that the dozens of rifles here are all laboratory products.
There are various designs, but there are common problems such as high production process requirements, high cost, and unstable performance.
There is no problem in crafting one or two of this so-called new breech-loading rifled rifle as handicrafts, but if you want to mass-produce them and use them as the army's standard rifle, then there is no problem.
When a large number of testers were conducting tests in front of them, many of the so-called new rifles on the spot encountered various problems after firing a few shots.
However, Li Xuan did not show any disappointment. Most of these dozens of designs are destined to have no practical value.
But that doesn’t mean that all guns are worthless. There are several new rifles with good designs.
Three of them, in Li Xuan's opinion, already look like later generations of breech-loading rifled rifles.
To some extent, this weapons exhibition was specifically held for three of the more mature breech-loading rifles.
If nothing else, one of them will be selected today as the Army’s next-generation standard rifle.
The Army has waited too long. They are unwilling to spend too much energy on excessive weapons such as front-loading rifles. In the past two years, they have invested heavily in the development of breech-loading rifles.
With the money in place and the current industrial base of Datang, since it can produce Mini rifles, in fact, purely from an industrial base point of view, it already has the ability to manufacture breech-loading rifled guns.
Army General Ye Xiyuan, the Minister of the Ordnance Department of the Army Privy Council, personally explained these three new rifles to the Holy Emperor Li Xuan!
"These breech-loading rifles developed by the Jinling Weapons Bureau use a striker-fired and bolt-action design, and the rate of fire can reach more than twelve rounds per minute."
"This is a rifle developed by Hanyang Arsenal. Their breech-loading rifle also uses a striker to fire, but they put the primer behind the bullet, so the striker is shortened and the length of the striker is shortened. In order to prevent air leakage, they also use
Rubber."
"This is the work of Professor Li Fu of the Royal Institute of Technology. It uses all-metal bullets, magazine design, and bolt-action design. Its performance in all aspects is the most superior among the three rifles. Although the caliber is only eight millimeters, its effective range is sufficient.
Reaching more than one thousand meters, the accuracy is very high.
But the requirements for craftsmanship are too high, and we have judged that the cost of producing this rifle with the current technical conditions will be very high!"
The three rifles now in front of Li Xuan were actually selected by the Army after repeated tests. As for today's other messy designs, they are all here to accompany them. The Army has already made them
It was decided internally that the next generation of rifles will be chosen from these three models.
These three rifles actually have a lot in common, such as caliber. Because they are going to use maroon gunpowder, this gunpowder is better. After using the new propellant, smaller calibers can also gain the power of previous calibers.
At the same time, considering that the enemies of the Tang Dynasty, especially the Tatars, were basically equipped with flintlock guns, and generally gave up on equipping defensive equipment such as plate armor.
The Army already put forward a series of performance requirements for the new rifle two years ago:
Rear loading, rifled, the effective range must be more than 500 meters, the caliber cannot exceed 11 mm, in order to increase the loading speed, fixed charge bullets must be used, the weight cannot exceed 5 kilograms, the gun length cannot be too long or too short, only
It can be between 1.3 and 1.4 meters. If it is shorter, it will be a disadvantage when using a bayonet. If it is longer, it will be inconvenient to carry.
The above-mentioned many requirements are added together, which actually leads to the fact that the general design of many rifles is similar, and the difference lies in the details, especially the difference in bolt technology.
The three models in front of me all meet the requirements, but it is difficult to choose which one.
There is no doubt that the rifle with the best performance is the rifle designed by Professor Li Fu. In Li Xuan's opinion, this rifle is almost the same as the rifle used in later World War I. Well, the caliber is larger.
This is because maroon gunpowder is inferior to smokeless gunpowder.
And if Li Xuan can see it, others can also see it.
But here comes the problem. Many things are not just agreed upon, cost must also be considered.
Professor Li Fu is a professor at the Royal Institute of Technology. He is naturally at the forefront of research on firearms, and he is always at the forefront of developing new technologies.
Apart from anything else, the processing accuracy of this gun alone is a super difficult problem!
At present, among all the musket manufacturers in China, basically no one can meet its high requirements.
The rifle designed by Professor Li Fu is good, but it is currently impossible to mass-produce it. Even if it costs a lot of money to improve the technology, the final cost of manufacturing it will be extremely high.
.
The Army once asked several arsenals to provide the cost. Without considering the patent, the pure production cost, the cost of this rifle is probably more than fifty yuan. If the patent, arsenal profit and other costs are added, the cost will be more than 50 yuan.
, the ex-factory price will reach more than 60 yuan.
This number is completely unacceptable to the Army!
You have to know that the cost of producing a flintlock rifle in Datang these days was only seven or eight yuan. The cost of producing a minie rifle was higher, but it only cost more than ten yuan.
The price is so expensive that the Army cannot afford the equipment!
Therefore, what the Army actually wants more is the design from Hanyang Arsenal. Although the performance is a bit inferior in all aspects, it is barely usable and cheap enough.