The development of artillery shells can be described as "without delay".
This is mainly determined by the organization of the artillery force.
If the artillery unit is as small as Shen Bing thought before, that is, one artillery only requires a dozen people and a few horses, then it doesn't matter whether we need to develop more powerful artillery shells.
One cannon has more than a dozen people, and twenty cannons only have more than 200 people.
If there is an emergency, the two hundred people can be covered by the main force.
But now one cannon requires fifty people, and twenty cannons have become a large force of one thousand people... This is a long line in the marching team.
Moreover, because these artillery units are the main transport force, they must be lightly armed and simple:
They are either responsible for the maneuvering and control of artillery, or the transportation of medicine packages and shells. They can't hold a spear in one hand and push it with the other, or carry several quivers on their backs!
The best he can carry is a bronze sword for self-defense.
What if they were attacked by Huns on the way?
Does that mean there is no defense capability at all?
Although we were going to attack the city, it was still more than a thousand miles away, and the Xiongnu still had 60,000 cavalry watching from the side.
I don't know when I will have a fight with the Huns cavalry in the desert.
Thinking of this, Shen Bing no longer hesitated and immediately drew a sketch and gave it to Qian for production.
High-explosive bombs with high explosive charges are actually not complicated.
The difficulty here is actually the fuze.
The original high-explosive bomb was to directly attach the shell to the fuse, ignite it, stuff it into the artillery, and then ignite the powder package to launch it.
Needless to say, there are shortcomings of this method of launch.
First of all, it is too dangerous.
The cannonball with the fuse lit is in the barrel ready to be fired. What if something happens and it fails to be fired?
For example, if the propellant pack is damp, the fuse is damp, or the fuse burns slowly...then it will blow up with a "boom".
Another disadvantage is the high misfire rate.
The lit fuse was probably destroyed when the shell fell to the ground... If the side of the fuse happened to be facing the ground, it would become a dumb bomb with a heavy blow.
Therefore, this is almost like firing artillery shells at the expense of the lives of artillerymen, and at least one-third of the shells will not explode.
No need to think about this plan, it was immediately abandoned by Shen Bing.
Another safer and more scientific solution is to make a wooden fuse.
This wooden fuse is a long tapered wooden stick as thick as a little finger, with a hollow in the middle filled with hard powder that burns very stably.
When you want to use it, insert it into the fuze hole reserved for the shell, and insert it directly into the gun bore without igniting it.
When the cannon is fired, the burning powder pack will ignite the fuse, and then the shell will fly to the enemy's position and explode.
If there is any trouble, it is that it must ensure that the fuze end faces away from the medicine bag.
Otherwise, the huge impact force when the charge pack is ignited will "stuff" the entire wooden fuze into the shell, igniting the shell and exploding the barrel.
The way to solve this problem is to fix the cannonball on a cylindrical wooden support with grooves.
The cannonball produced in this way is generally similar to a modern pistol bullet.
It actually slides into the barrel so that one end of the fuze is always facing the other side.
After the cannon is ignited, the barrel will be instantly filled with flames, and the fuse will be lit before the shell is pushed out of the barrel.
This type of artillery shell was still in use until the American Civil War.
What Shen Bing wants is this cannonball.
It only requires a few simple steps:
1. Hollow sphere.
2. Cylindrical wooden support with grooves.
Three, fuze.
The first two are relatively easy, but the fuze is a little more difficult.
The difficulty is that there is no hard powder that can burn stably.
But Shen Bing quickly found an alternative:
The fuze is made into two layers, the outer layer is the same size, and the middle is hollow.
The inner layer was originally supposed to be stuffed with hard gunpowder, but Shen Bing replaced it with an ordinary fuse wrapped around a wooden tube.
The disadvantage of ordinary fuses is that they burn too fast and at different speeds... The way to solve this problem is to carve spiral grooves into the inner wooden tube, and the fuse spirals up along the grooves.
So the fuse seems to be only as long as the fuze, but in fact it goes down in circles around its circumference to extend the detonation time.
The production of this cannonball will be more complicated than ordinary solid bullets, and it also requires a combination of blacksmith, carpenter and gunpowder.
But it was a trivial matter for the waiters, and within a few days dozens of them were made according to Shen Bing's requirements.
Shen Bing tried it several times and was very satisfied with the situation.
Of course, this so-called "test" is not a test with a cannonball, but a test of the burning time of the fuse... The key here is whether the burning time of the fuse is slow enough.
So what Shen Bing had to do was just pick out a few fuses at random, then light one end and see how long it took for it to burn to the other end.
Qian reported to Shen Bing:
"The subordinates will strictly follow the general's requirements and do not dare to slack off in the slightest."
"In order to make the fuze burn more slowly, the gunpowder in the fuze has been significantly reduced."
Shen Bing nodded.
The speed of the fuze can be said to be "it is better to have less than too much", which means that it is better to have the fuze fail to ignite than to allow it to ignite the explosive too quickly.
Otherwise, if you are not careful, you will be destroyed and people will be killed.
Fortunately, the Qin army had extremely strict requirements on craftsmen and equipment production.
For example, these fuzes are recorded in detail which craftsmen made them and who supervised their production... Fuzes, shells and the like are different from ordinary equipment.
For common equipment such as bows, shields, helmets, etc., the Qin Army would mark the manufacturer on the equipment, and if there were quality problems, they would be directly held accountable.
But the artillery shells and the engraved fuses were useless. The last time they were used, they exploded to pieces. Even if they tried to find the person responsible, they couldn't find them.
So the supervisor will register it in a register and put it in boxes. For example, the fuse made by so-and-so is packed in this box. If something goes wrong... The seriousness of this accident is that all the craftsmen will be killed.
Therefore, craftsmen do not dare to make shoddy work, and every step is made strictly according to the requirements.
This also provides safety guarantee for the use of artillery.
Then Shen Bing fired a few more artillery shells... As soon as the shells passed by, they exploded with a "boom" a few hundred steps away.
Wang Ben and others who were watching around did not understand why Shen Bing was tossing this and that at first. Only then did they understand the power of this cannonball.
They were stunned for a while and then cheered excitedly:
Wang Ben shouted excitedly:
"General, this thing... this thing can actually explode like a 'thunderbolt fireball'?"
Li Yan looked at the smoke blown up in the distance with an incredible expression and said:
"It's not just a 'thunderbolt fireball'."
"It's probably several times more powerful than the 'Thunderbolt Fireball'!"
Li Yan is right, it is indeed several times more powerful than the "Thunderbolt Fireball".
Because this shell has a larger charge and a different gunpowder ratio, plus there are exploding and flying shrapnel...