The live ammunition test of the artillery began soon, and the first one was an army's small-caliber artillery!
This is a small breech-mounted cannon that the Army is planning to equip. The caliber is not large, only fifty millimeters. At the same time, in order to control the weight, the range will not be too far. The effective range is expected to be only about one thousand meters.
Li Xuan looked at this small artillery through the telescope. Under the operation of the artillery of the Guards, he performed a series of operations of loading, aiming, and then firing. In the end, he only heard a bang and the shell was fired.
It was a decent live-fire exercise, and after Li Xuan looked at the data in his hand, he was not optimistic about the future of this artillery.
The range is sufficient, but the caliber of 50 mm is too small, the power is seriously insufficient, and the weight is not light. It is not suitable for use as an infantry support artillery at medium and short range. To put it bluntly, the actual combat value of this thing is not as good as the two currently in service.
The two-pound shotgun is good. Although the two-pound shotgun has a front-mounted shotgun, its destructive power is very high. One shot can hit a large area on the opposite side!
And the most important thing is that it is very light, so two soldiers can drag it around.
Li Xuan originally wanted to instruct them to build a mortar or something, but when he saw the mortar they pushed up next, he consciously kept his mouth shut.
The mortars he talks about are actually no different from the mortars the Army talks about. They are nothing more than performance, and performance is closely related to technology.
The Army said that the mortar that was launched next was intended to be used in fortified operations. Although the Army was talking about parapets, field trenches, etc., Li Xuan thought about it and realized that this was similar to the mortar's tactical positioning.
This mortar is front-loaded with metal fixed-loading ammunition. Because it is used for attacking fortresses, the caliber is definitely not small. It is a full 100 millimeters. The explosive power is also full, but the range is a bit bleak, that is.
About a thousand meters.
Next, there is the 100mm field gun, which Li Xuan is looking forward to and attaches great importance to, because if nothing unexpected happens, this artillery will become the army's main long-range suppression artillery for many years to come.
It has become the main artillery of many independent artillery brigades and regiments.
As for the design of the artillery, there is not much to say. Nowadays, the breech-mounted artillery of the Tang Dynasty, regardless of the navy or the army, is actually the same. They all use the same set of technical standards, such as all plug-in gun bolts.
All steel cannons, even the rifling processing is the same...
The only difference is actually the caliber and magnification, and then different gun mounts are built to meet different combat needs.
After firing a few live rounds of this 100mm field gun, Li Xuan also showed a satisfied look. When launching the new grenade, the maximum effective range can reach 7,500 meters. Li Xuan is already quite satisfied with this data.
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The last thing the Army made its debut was the 120mm howitzer, which they were still developing and had just produced several prototypes.
In order to control weight, this thing adopts a short-barreled design, so its effective range is relatively average, only 5,500 meters, which is not as good as the 75 field gun.
But they are so powerful!
Caliber is justice. With a caliber of 120 mm, the explosive power is not comparable to that of a 75-caliber artillery.
After seeing the 120mm howitzer, the Army's affairs were over. Originally, they planned to bring out the 150mm heavy howitzer. Unfortunately, there were many problems with the prototype. In order not to lose face in front of the Holy Emperor, they decided to
So I didn’t dare to take it out for live ammunition testing.
The natural navy appears next.
The Navy has many new types of artillery currently in service and about to be equipped.
For example, the 300mm 30x naval gun is a super monster with an effective range of up to ten kilometers.
Then there are 250 mm artillery, 200 mm artillery, and naval guns of different calibers such as 150 mm, 120 mm, 100 mm, and 75 mm.
And they are all long-barreled cannons. They are not divided into field guns and howitzers like the army.
These naval artillery are significantly larger in size and weight than army artillery, and their range is longer and their accuracy is higher.
If it fires solid armor-piercing projectiles, its armor-piercing capability is just right.
The most shocking thing among them is naturally the 300mm cannon shot.
It’s a pleasure to watch for Li Xuan!
He saw with his own eyes the 300mm cannon shells falling on the wasteland opposite, making a big crater!
It wasn't blown up, it was smashed!
When conducting the maximum range test, Li Xuan said that he had no idea where the cannonball flew because it had already flown out of sight.
The effective range of ten kilometers is not a small number.
The weapons displays over the past few days can be regarded as the achievements of Datang's defense industry in the past ten years.
It mainly focused on the development and application of rifled weapons, and these were based on the industrial development achievements of the Tang Empire in the past ten years.
The Tang Dynasty has been industrializing for more than 20 years. Basically since the Tang Dynasty moved south to Guangdong and Guangxi, Li Xuan began to support the development of industry and commerce, focusing on supporting industry.
At the same time, priority is given to supporting the development of heavy industry.
This also led to the defense industry of the Tang Empire being ahead of the general industry, much ahead.
The results of more than 20 years of industrial construction, and the large-scale use of high-pressure steam engines in industrial production and transportation, have allowed Datang's industry and commerce to develop explosively in the past ten years.
This not only refers to industrial production capacity, but also is reflected in the improvement of industrial technology.
However, compared with the improvement of heavy industry represented by the national defense industry, the development speed of light industry and medical industry is slower.
There is no way, the core of the empire supports heavy industry, while light industry mainly relies on private capital no matter how high it is, and medical care is even more difficult.
But even so, Li Xuan was very satisfied.
Even if you have guns and cannons, you still have to be scared!
When the troops are equipped with rifled weapons on a large scale and the railway is continued to be built westward, sooner or later all the Tatars will be wiped out and the threat from the West will be completely eliminated.
A month later, the Army once again submitted a report on a new breech-loading rifle to Li Xuan, saying that they organized three major weapons companies and the Royal Institute of Technology to conduct joint research and development, based on the original experimental rifles.
Comprehensive trade-offs.
At present, the design of the new rifle has been completed.
Li Xuan also attached great importance to the new gun data report and the two sample guns submitted by the Army. After letting the guards test it with live ammunition, Li Xuan fired a few shots himself. He felt that although this gun was not as good as the Li Fu rifle, it was better than the previous Hanyang
The experimental gun from the arsenal is much more powerful.
And a very important point is that the production cost has been controlled. The Army estimates that for a complete set, including guns, bayonets and other accessories, the initial production cost is expected to be controlled at 18 yuan each.
If mass production is carried out later and the costs are spread over time, the price can be controlled even lower.
At present, the production cost of the flintlock muskets exported by the Tang Empire is about five yuan each, while the cost of mini rifles is higher, about twelve yuan.
Although the current production cost of 18 yuan is a bit high, it is not too exaggerated. It is estimated that it can be reduced to about 15 yuan in the future.
While controlling costs, its performance is also good.
It has a caliber of 11 mm, a total length of 1.31 meters, and a weight of 4.6 kilograms. The effective range can reach 800 meters. It uses a single-shot loading and ammunition supply, and also uses paper-cased fixed-loading ammunition.
The effective range of 800 meters here is only theoretical. It is impossible to hit such a distant target in actual combat. Referring to the experience of using Mini rifles, the military focuses on the hit accuracy of 300 meters, and this
The rifle has indeed achieved this. The accuracy between 200 meters and 300 meters is no less than that of the Li Fu rifle. However, after 300 meters, the accuracy begins to decrease. After 500 meters, the accuracy is no longer noticeable.
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In addition, the reason why metal fixed-loading ammunition and magazine supply are not used, but paper-cased fixed-loading ammunition and single-shot loading and ammunition design are used. That is because copper is too expensive and the manufacturing process is also more demanding. In the end, the ammunition
The cost will be higher.
The military can already predict that after adopting this kind of breech-loading rifle, the ammunition consumption will increase several times or even more than ten times, which will bring heavy pressure on ammunition supply.
In order to control the cost of use, the military gave up metal fixed-loading ammunition on its own.
Anyway, the enemies of the Tang Dynasty either used flintlock guns or matchlock guns. The front-loaded rifled Minie rifle was already very bullying, let alone the current breech-loaded rifled gun.
There is no need to spend huge costs to use metal fixed-loading ammunition.
Anyway, no matter what kind of breech-loading gun you use in the Tang Dynasty, the natives and Tatars are very calm and have the same attitude, and they can't beat them!
Therefore, in the face of performance, the military simply chose cost!
After Li Xuan personally experienced it, he thought it was quite good, so he approved the Army's equipment plan with a stroke of a pen.
The Army quickly finalized the prototype and placed an order for production.
The model is the Type 34 rifle, also known as the combined rifle!
Why is it a combined rifle? Because this rifle was developed by the Army, organized by three major weapons companies, and the Royal Institute of Technology. As in the past, the rifles were all independently developed by a certain institution. Because of the joint research and development, it is also called
It's called the Combined Rifle.
The multiple patents involved belong to different companies or institutions. The Army has deep pockets and directly bought out the patents, then authorized them to be produced by major arsenals and placed orders at the same time.
The Army's appetite was huge. The first batch of orders was for 100,000 units. However, half a month later, the Army placed an additional order of 300,000 units, including 100,000 units of the cavalry version, which was the short-barreled version.
The first two batches of orders alone have reached a huge amount of 400,000...