Chapter 83 Sea Test

After the 32-pound Karon gun was tested, the shooting range became lively. For many days, the shooting range was full of gunshots. The new gun was repeatedly tested by a group of gunners.

Through a series of shooting tests, the sea wolf gunners gradually figured out the temperament and performance of this new gun, found the maximum charge of the gun, verified its maximum range, and made a shooting table to prepare for future use on warships.

When this Calon gun increases the loading capacity to four catties, it takes a 30-degree angle to shoot, which can shoot 30 catties of solid shells to about 500 steps. At 40 degrees, the shell can be shot to 600 steps, but the dispersion is too large and can only be controlled within 400 steps, so that it is more sure to hit the eye. However, this is the data obtained from land tests. When used on ships, there will be large variables according to different sea conditions, and the effective range will be greatly reduced, but it is estimated that it can basically ensure the shooting accuracy of about 200 meters at a certain elevation.

Although this range is far less than the effective range of the long-bombed artillery, such a range is enough at sea. This gun itself is a killer used when approaching enemy ships. Generally, it will not bombard enemy ships from a long distance, as long as it can be approached under the cover of other ships. At about 100 meters, the enemy ship can give full play to the advantage of this kind of cannon. Whoever encounters it is unlucky. Even if the Western-style big splint ship meets this thing, it can't withstand a few shots.

After the land experiment, another newly cast Caron gun was cast, transported to the dock, hoisted on the prepared flying speedboat, and began the loading test.

A group of gunners were transferred from the shooting range to the ship and began to test the new gun at sea.

At this time, the third ship that had an accident had been put into the water. This time, the water was relatively smooth, and nothing happened.

The No. 12 ship that went into the water first has passed the mooring test, adjusted the ballast stone, and installed the sails. First, it was tested inside the freshwater estuary. After there was no problem, it sailed out of the estuary into the wide water surface of the strait for a trial voyage.

Because of the experience of the previous flying size fastships, such a trial voyage has become much simpler. On the whole, the center of gravity of the ship's structure has not changed much, and minor changes will not have any impact on the performance of the ship, so such a trial voyage is much simpler. After renovate the existing problems, these ships can Delivered to the waterman for use.

However, because the No. 2 ship was going to test the Karon gun, it had to stay on the side of Tamsui City for the time being. After the Karon gun was tested on land, it was loaded on this ship and began to test at sea.

For many consecutive days, this flying-shaped fast ship has repeatedly tested the gun in the northern sea of the freshwater estuary, constantly testing the performance of this gun on the ship.

In the end, the performance of this gun was standardized. When shelling the enemy ship on the sea, it is best to control the range within 150 meters. If conditions permit, try to close the distance to within 100 meters and charge four catties to hit the enemy ship more accurately.

When using shotguns, the effective range is also about 100 meters, which can exert maximum efficiency. As long as the accuracy is not too bad, the deck of an enemy ship can often be cleared with one shot, which is really quite powerful.

Moreover, after this gun is installed on a flying speedboat, it has little impact on the flying speedboat. Not only can such a Caron gun be arranged behind the mast, but there are also conditions to arrange another cannon on the bow deck, but the other guns loaded on the ship need to be streamlined, and only four more can be loaded on the lower deck. No. 5 reference gun, no matter how many it is, the flying-shaped Clippers can't afford it.

However, even if the loading of the No. 5 gun is reduced, as long as two 32-pound Caron guns are loaded on this ship, it will still make the firepower of this flying fast ship quite strong, and the firepower has been greatly improved. Once it is played with people, it can exert considerable power.

So Yu Xiaotian immediately ordered the freshwater cannon to be used on this side, to start mass production of this Calon gun, equip it with marine warships, and ordered the shell field to start casting a large number of shells of this new cannon, and to maximize the tolerance of the shells, so as not to cause excessive tolerance and seriously affect the accuracy of shelling.

In addition, because of its large caliber, it is more convenient to use some new shells, such as the grape shells that the sea wolf has now been equipped with in large quantities. When shooting with this new cannon, it is quite powerful. If you use it to deal with those Chinese sailboats commonly used by peers, you don't need to use solid bullets. , directly use grape shells composed of twelve small shells to bombard the enemy ship. With almost one shot, it can basically smash the enemy ship to a lot of holes.

In addition, the large caliber of this Karon gun also provides great convenience for testing flowering grenades.

In fact, detonable grenades have long been invented in this era, and have been adopted by both China and the West. Moreover, because this kind of grenade is still a round shell, and no one in the world has developed*, it is impossible to use nearly modern fuse devices.

The structure of this grenade is very simple. It is just a hollow round shell with a small hole with a platform on it, which goes into the inside of the shell and is filled inside *. In this hole, a hollow wooden plug is stuffed into it, and the wooden plug is equipped with slow-burning gunpowder. This is the grenade.

When this grenade is used, it must turn the mouth of the fuse pipe to the bottom of the gun, and rely on the gunpowder generated by the gunpowder of the gun to ignite the fuse in the fuse tube. When the grenade flies to the target, it will fall to the ground and explode. In fact, this kind of fuse is a timed fuse.

However, so far, this grenade has not been widely used, because it has many shortcomings. It is very unsafe when used for the first time. If you are not careful, it may explode when the shell does not fly out of the gun, causing a serious bomb accident. In addition, the gunner may be too nervous to properly install the shell. Entering the gun, it cannot be detonated. In addition, the production cost of this kind of shell is high, which is more troublesome to make.

The most important thing is that this kind of grenade is not very powerful. The hollow shell can't hold much gunpowder inside. Even if it is successfully detonated, it can't blow up many shrapnel. At most, it can blow up a few or more dozen pieces. The lethality is not very strong, and even the power of the grape bomb may not be as good as it.

So in this era, even if this kind of grenade is invented, its use is extremely limited, and the number of large-caliber artillery in the Ming Dynasty itself is not very large. At best, the largest Hongyi cannon, that is, more than ten pounds of shells of shells. If such shells are used with howitzers, it is really powerful It's not good.

But now Yu Xiaotian has made this 32-pound Karon cannon, which makes the shell much larger. Under the premise of ensuring the strength of the shell, more * can be loaded inside the shell, which can increase the explosive power of the shell and make it possible to equip grenades.

So Yu Xiaotian told the craftsmen on the structure of the grenade field, and asked them to do experiments with 12-pound guns, try some 12-pound hollow grenades, and test fire until they find a mature process and ensure safety, and then try to produce 32-pound grenades.

In addition, this kind of Karon gun has a large trajectory. When shelling enemy ships at a distance, the shells fall on the enemy ship with arc ballistics. There is no big problem in penetrating the deck of the enemy ship, but it cannot cause greater casualties to enemy ships, so when starting a war, you can also use * to attack enemy ships. .

As for *, it is not the kind of filling all kinds of hollow shells that can burn violently in later generations. In fact, * in this era, before using solid shells, first put them on the stove to burn red, and then let the gunner use a special clip to pick up the red-burning shells and put them into the chamber.

In order to prevent the red-burning shell from causing the filled gunpowder in the gunbore and causing spontaneous accidents, it is very dangerous to put a wet mud cake between the gunpowder and the cannonball before filling the red-burning shell. It is also very dangerous to let the heat of the cannonball ignite the gunpowder through the mud cake. The method.

However, this method is very effective for attacking enemy ships. When the shell hits the enemy ship, in addition to first relying on its own weight to cause damage to the enemy ship, the red-hot shell can also ignite the enemy ship after stopping, and even burn through the lower deck of the enemy ship until it falls into the lower compartment of the enemy ship, causing a fire of the enemy ship.

However, such a * preparation time is very long. It takes a lot of time to burn red shells first, and it also takes a charcoal stove on the ship, which is very dangerous. You must be careful to operate. In addition, after the red shell is loaded into the gun barrel, the gun will be heated before firing, so that the gun warms up quickly and cannot continue to enter. Shelling must be used * and cooled before continuing to fire.

However, since this method is effective, Yu Xiaotian still decided not to waste food because of choking. He still let the gunners in the sea wolf sailors practice the use of this *, strictly train it, and formulate strict operating specifications, so as not to blow themselves up the enemy ship once it is used.

Chen Sheng received this order and immediately began to arrange it, and began to personally test the use of * to determine the use specifications of *. Next, with the equipment of the 32-pound Karon gun, it will be promoted in the fleet.

In late February, after some intense preparations, the Danshui City Road Construction Project finally began. According to the "survey" of the dispatched personnel, they planned a road network centered on Tamshamian City and radiating to the surrounding immigrant villages.

This road network connects all the immigrant villages. In addition to the direct access from the immigrant village to the freshwater city, the connecting roads between the immigrant villages are also planned.

And with the participation of Xiaotian, in order to reduce a certain amount of construction, these roads are divided into two levels. The first-level road is ten steps wide, which can be used for four ox carts to travel side by side. It is mainly used to transport materials on the main road, only reaching a few key nodes of the immigrant village to ensure that large quantities of materials can be smooth on this road. Unimpeded.

The secondary road is a rural road, which is six steps wide and can accommodate two ox carts in parallel. It is mainly used for roads connecting villages and main roads, which can meet the needs of rural travel and easily transport the materials in the village out of the village.