Chapter 44 Test 2
Yu Xiaotian himself was also worried. He observed it carefully and touched it with his hand. At this time, the temperature of the gun body rose a lot after firing, and it felt a little hot.
But after careful observation, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, because the gun was really competitive. Although it used a reduced charge and only filled with one and a half catties of gunpowder, at least it still withstood the pressure. There were no cracks in the gun body as a whole and successfully resisted the first test.
Yu Xiaotian felt slightly satisfied and nodded, "This time I will change two catties of medicine bag and try again..."
There was another loud noise, and the gun rack was pushed far away by the recoil again. This time, the gunner learned a lesson and lowered the muzzle a little. Everyone clearly saw that the shell accurately hit the first mound 100 meters away in an instant.
After the newly built mound was shot, the earth and rocks suddenly flew, and even if a piece collapsed, the shell was blocked in the mound.
This time, everyone cheered again, once again flocked to the side of the cannon, and another careful inspection inside and outside.
The result of the second test of two catties of the gun was that the artillery once again withstood such a test, and there was still no problem with the gun body as a whole, which also made everyone more confident.
Yu Xiaotian also breathed a long sigh of relief, because at this time, he can basically rest assured. After all, he used the method of iron model casting cannon, avoiding many drawbacks of mud model casting cannon, so that when casting the gun body, the quality itself is much higher than the clay model casting method, so under normal circumstances, this There should be no problem with the cannon.
So next, Yu Xiaotian ordered to continue the test gun. In addition to constantly increasing the amount of charge and testing the endurance of the artillery, he also constantly adjusted the gun frame to test the range and shooting accuracy.
A few gunners are unlucky. Under the order of Xiaotian, they keep clearing, loading, aiming and firing...
In this era, playing cannons is pure physical work. Among other things, the work of constantly repositioning the gun car is absolutely heavy physical work. After more than a dozen cannons are shot down, several gunners are basically tired.
Yu Xiaotian wanted to replace people, but Lei Blacksmith stopped and quickly stopped him and said, "The big master is slow. I can't beat him!" If this gun is fired again, it will be red! Let's take a break! Otherwise, there will be life!"
Yu Xiaotian only cares about happiness and forgets this stubble. There is nothing to dissipate heat in this era. It all depends on natural heat dissipation. If it is fired continuously, the temperature of the gun body will become higher and higher. It is not allowed to continue to fight. As soon as the medicine bag is filled into the gun, it will be ignited because the temperature is too high. Then the gunner operating the cannon It's bad luck.
So he only gave his head and promised to let the gunners take a break and let the cannon cool down by the way.
Throughout the day, the sound of the gun at the shooting range of the test stopped from time to time, and he basically did not idle. After a whole day of test the gun, Yu Xiaotian finally got the first-hand information of the gun.
After repeated test firing, this gun is better than expected. In the plan, this gun can be loaded with two and a half catties of gunpowder, but in fact, they loaded four catties of gunpowder, and there was no explosion. It can be seen that the casting quality of this gun is far higher than the casting quality of ordinary artillery.
And the accuracy of this gun is also good. Within 300 meters, it can basically be guaranteed to hit the target of four meters by four meters square. It can control the effective range of about 500 meters, and it can also hit a house-sized target at a distance of 500 meters, but the hit rate reaches this distance. When you leave, it is already very low.
When it was full of four catties of medicine, Yu Xiaotian also did a test of extreme range. He fired a shot when the muzzle was too high to 45 degrees and was half-up fired. As a result, the gun actually hit the six catties of shell five miles away, even beyond the range of the shooting range of the shooting range, and directly hit the shell. Go to the sea.
Such a range made everyone smack their tongues and even shouted fiercely. They were so happy that they couldn't wait to hug the cannon and sleep.
As the leaders who led the army, they were even more overjoyed. They surrounded and patted the body of the gun to show their love for the cannon. Of course, the result was very sad. These guys forgot that they fired a few more shots of the gun. The temperature of the gun body was already very high. They were hot and screamed strangely one by one and shook their hands around the cannon. Jump.
Yu Xiaotian couldn't help laughing, but this kind of longest-range test is meaningless in actual combat, because there is no sharpness in fighting so far. Where can the shell fall depends on luck and can't be controlled at all. If you hit the enemy ship or the enemy, it is simply let God take care of it. .
So under normal circumstances, the effective range of this gun can only be controlled at about 400 meters.
And after such a high-intensity test, the cannon still remained intact and there was no explosion, which made Yu Xiaotian want to twist his buttocks to celebrate.
After the day came later, Yu Xiaotian ordered to rest on the spot and continued the test the next day.
That night, Yu Xiaotian made an exception and asked people to set up a banquet at the test site, entertained the participants, and also praised the thunder blacksmith and other gunsmiths. However, he did not announce the reward on the spot, but said that he would not reward them until the next day after the test.
Even so, it made these gunners happy, and they got up again before dawn the next morning to prepare for the test.
On the second day of the test gun, people were no longer worried about whether the cannon would explode. The medicine bag was also replaced by a standard medicine bag weighing three catties, which was higher than the expected two and a half catties of charge, but less than four catties of charge. In this way, it not only increased the power and range of the artillery, but also ensured the safety of the artillery, and no longer used long leads to enter. If you launch, you can directly use the torch to light the fire. Anyway, it will not blow up and hurt people.
However, the next day's test gun no longer tested the range, but turned to test the power of the artillery. Yu Xiaotian pulled some dismantled old ship plates from the boat and placed them on the shooting range, setting a distance of 150 steps, that is, about 100 meters away.
Then use this gun to bombard these old shipboards to test the penetration of the artillery. As a result, after repeated tests, it was finally concluded that when the gun uses a standard three-pound charge, it can effectively penetrate the six-inch thick ordinary shipboard. Even if it is very hard wood, it can effectively break through four inches thick wooden boards, so that Its power is quite good. It can be said that it is more than enough to deal with ordinary ships.
Even if it is dealing with the current Ming navy warship, it can make a hole to effectively break through their hull and cause great damage to the other side.
While testing, Yu Xiaotian also ordered the gunners and gunners to improve the current gun rack according to the range of the gun, modify the gun rack, calibrate the upper range, re-groov the gun rack, and divide it into several gears. Under the condition that the loading amount is equal, you only need to adjust the gun body to the gear and insert it into the mat. The range is adjusted to simplify the aiming steps, so that the gunner in actual combat can quickly adjust the elevation angle of the muzzle and increase the rate of fire according to visual inspection.
The test gun lasted for about a week. In addition to the land test, the gun was also installed on Yu Xiaotian's ship Sea Wolf for two days. It even selected a broken ship and pulled it to the sea as a target to sink the broken ship.
In a few days, the cannon fired more than 300 shells, almost cutting off a group of gunners, but the results achieved also made Yu Xiaotian particularly satisfied. At least, the quality of the casting of this cannon can completely reassure him. After three days of high-intensity test, the cannon did not show cracks and other questions. Question, the gun body is still strong and can continue to be used.
And during the test, some design problems of the gun rack were also found, and it can be further improved to make it more convenient to operate after the gun is installed.
With this kind of artillery, once it is put into production in large quantities, the strength of the sea wolf will be rapidly improved again.
In the past, except for the two Hongyi cannons captured from the Shark Gang, the other miscellaneous guns are poorly shot and powerful. In order to ensure the shooting effect, when fighting with people at sea, they can only fire at a distance of dozens of meters from the enemy ships, and they can't cause a lot to the other party. Loss.
However, once they are equipped with a large number of their own new cannons, they can distance the enemy more than 100 meters or even two or three hundred meters at sea to bombard the enemy. The opponents can't beat them at all by relying on those junk goods, but they can effectively kill and injuring the enemy. In the future, they can be more horizontal in this area. Let's go.
So after the end of the test gun, Yu Xiaotian immediately rewarded the thunder blacksmith, Zhang blacksmith and other craftsmen who participated in the casting of the cannon, 500 taels of silver, which were distributed according to the division of labor and merit.
Such a reward made these gunners all overjoyed. They smiled and hugged the silver given to them, leaving only giggle. It was estimated that when they couldn't sleep for a few days, they would sleep with the silver in their arms every night.
And for the people of the Sea Wolf Department, this incident also makes them cheer, because they are not stupid. They know what the benefits of this new cannon is for them. Who doesn't want them to be more powerful? Who should they be afraid of after having these cannons? So one or two of those leaders stretched out their necks and waited for the new cannon to reach their ship.
Even Li Dazui and Meng Fei's soldiers stretched their necks and waited for Yu Xiaotian to issue them a few such cannons to make them more majestic.
Li Dazui even blocked Yu Xiaotian's residence with Meng Fei's shy face. He insisted that Yu Xiaotian also distribute such artillery for them, but their two requests were rejected by Yu Xiaotian and drove them back to the war camp.