I want to be emperor

Chapter 715 Air Force Aerodrome Team

When the army invites bids for procurement, it often relies on its own procurement volume to squeeze the profits of enterprises to the limit. Many defense companies do not like the army very much.

After the cooperation, it seems that the order is huge, but it doesn't make much money.

And the army has a lot of shit.

Therefore, under the same circumstances, these defense companies would rather cooperate with the Navy and the Guards than deal with the army's poor ghosts.

For example, regarding steam engines, the Army actually has a lot of steam engine ship plans, but when purchasing steam engines, the price is very high. Among the three major steam engine manufacturers, Guangzhou Machinery Company directly ignores them, only Dangtu Machinery Company and Tianjin Machinery Company. To survive, you have to hold your nose and cooperate with the army!
And the navy is much more generous.

Two sets of 10,000+ Chu Yuan steam engines, the Navy does not bring bargaining!

army?

Nima, the price is only a thousand Chuyuan, and the steam engine used on the small inland transport ship will haggle with you for several months, and then say that there is a problem, and then there is a problem... Sometimes even the contract is signed I still despise this and despise that...

It's like an iron rooster going to a brothel, taking out three or five copper coins to find a young lady, but he is still not satisfied with arranging an aunt for him, so he insists on finding an oiran... Nima, just this few copper coins, who gave you the courage!
The most disgusting thing is that people will come here again next time!
The high-performance steam engine of Tianjin Machinery Company this time, did not think of going to the army to sell it... Even if it knows that the army needs a lot of small ship-borne steam engines.

But doing business with the army, there are many things to do without making money or talking shit. In front of the navy's local tyrants, the army can only sit in the back row...

This kind of good stuff with top performance is only worthy of a local tycoon like the navy. The army... will only drool and insist on asking you to reduce the price.

Tianjin Machinery Company has suffered a lot of this kind of wrongedness in the past few years, so now it does not serve the army's iron cocks.

Anyway, the potential market for this high-performance small steam engine is very large. This small multi-expansion steam engine is a whole series, covering the land self-transport market, that is, tractors, steam transport vehicles, and then to the train market and ship-borne civilian use. market, military market.

In the future, a complete series will be formed. Once the situation is opened, there is no need to worry about insufficient orders.

The reason why they were able to form a series is related to the research and development system of Tianjin Machinery Company. What they developed was not a single steam engine, but a new generation of steam engine core engine with new technology as the core, and then adapted according to the core engine. Equipped with research and development, such as increasing or reducing the size, adjusting the cylinder diameter, volume, steam pressure to expand or reduce the power, and adjusting the energy consumption level, service life, etc.

Finally, a multi-type situation of one machine is formed.

Today's high-performance small steam engine, the core engine, has many subdivision models. There are three subdivision models specially developed for Tangshan Machinery Company. Steam engines with different horsepower will be used in two different specifications of Tangshan Machinery Company. tractor.

Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company also has two suitable models.

For their own market, these two agricultural machinery companies also have different tractor technical routes, so they have different requirements for the size and layout of the steam engine, so they can only do it separately.

Instead, Sun Qi found several other steam engine R&D manufacturers in the south. These manufacturers did not have such a big appetite, and instead of adopting a customized method, they chose to purchase general-purpose models.

In addition, Tianjin Machinery Company is also preparing to develop and improve a steam engine as a steam engine for trains based on this small core engine, in order to prepare to cooperate with Tianjin Train Equipment Company next door to launch their brand new locomotive, so as to cooperate with Guangzhou Train Equipment under Guangzhou Machinery Company Manufacturing companies compete.

The composition of Tianjin Railway Equipment Company is relatively complicated. Its shareholders include Tianjin local official investment, investment from Lee's Iron and Steel Company, investment from Tianjin Machinery Company, Tianjin Iron and Steel Company, Liaodong Iron and Steel Company, and Liaohe Machinery Company.

This is a joint-stock company jointly established by multiple investors. It was established with only one purpose at the beginning, that is to break the monopoly of Guangzhou Machinery Company in the field of trains.

And the Imperial Railway Corporation is obviously not willing to be subject to such a supplier as Guangzhou Machinery Company, although Guangzhou Machinery Company has gradually abandoned the carriage manufacturing business in recent years and only focused on the field of locomotive manufacturing.

But in such a huge empire, with such a huge railway network, there is only one locomotive supplier, Guangzhou Machinery Company, which is obviously very dangerous.

To put it bluntly, if there is any problem with the train manufacturing plant under the Guangzhou Machinery Company, the operation of the huge railway network of the empire will be greatly affected.

Therefore, although the railway company is limited by the top management, it cannot directly invest in the establishment of railway-related equipment to avoid problems caused by self-production and self-sale, and can only purchase through external bidding.

But only when there are more suppliers, can they purchase externally!
In this way, Tianjin Railway Equipment Company came into being. Just after the company was established, the railway company has already placed a batch of pre-orders for support, even though their locomotives are not very good because they use steam engines from Tianjin Machinery Company. However, the railway company still placed orders for purchases.

It's for support!

In fact, besides the Tianjin Train Equipment Company, there is another train equipment manufacturing company supported by a railway company, namely Dangtu Train Equipment Company, which uses the steam engine of Dangtu Machinery Company.

It is worth noting that these three major train equipment companies basically rely on the three major steam engine manufacturers.

To some extent, this is actually the competition among the three major steam engine manufacturers.

As for the railway company, it needs competition from multiple train equipment manufacturing companies to maintain its detached position while continuing to lower procurement costs.

The 21-type locomotives of Guangzhou Machinery Company have passed for several years, and the output is getting bigger and bigger, but the price has not been lowered.

This situation must be contained!

This is why the performance of the locomotives produced by Tianjin Railway Equipment Company and Dangtu Train Equipment Company was not good, but the Railway Corporation still purchased some of them, just to support them.

In fact, in the future, if the double-expansion steam engine of Tianjin Machinery Company is successful and the performance of the locomotives produced by it is greatly improved, although the Railway Corporation will turn to purchase more locomotives for Tianjin train equipment, it will also not Give up support for Guangzhou Train Equipment Company and Dangtu Train Equipment Company.

The three train equipment companies compete with each other, and this is the situation that the Railway Corporation hopes to see.

This mode of operation is actually the choice of many super-large enterprises and even the military. When the Navy purchases warships, although it will tend to prefer shipyards and subsystem suppliers with stronger technical strength, it will also give those with mediocre technology Orders from shipyards and subsystem suppliers.

For example, the navy has completely stopped manufacturing pure sail warships in recent years, and has switched to building sail warships. Logically speaking, Guangzhou Shipyard has the most advanced technology on board sail warships, and the most powerful ship-borne steam engine technology is Guangzhou Machinery Co.

However, in addition to only adopting the above two suppliers for the new battleships, the Navy has also separated orders from other shipyards for a considerable number of cruisers, frigates, sailing ships, and a large number of auxiliary warships. For example, in recent years, the technology has not kept up with the times. The progressive Songjiang Naval Shipyard, Qingdao Naval Shipyard, Northeast Gaizhou Shipyard and the private Lishi Shipyard and Luohua Shipyard.

In addition to the above-mentioned first-rate shipyards, many second-rate shipyards can also obtain orders from the military for some offshore, inland river, and auxiliary warships.

The navy will not pursue a single-dominant procurement strategy, nor will it adopt a strategy of leveling the waters. Instead, it will support the lagging Cheng family under the condition of ensuring technological and cost advantages.

The same is true for the army. The army's large orders have always been split and ordered, because the Great Chu Empire currently has seven major weapon companies. Although these weapon companies are directly under the Ministry of Industry, their technology is advanced. There are also lags behind, and at the same time, the product line is also focused.

When the Army purchases, it will purchase according to the different focuses of each product line and support strategies.

The Army places orders for different arsenals through various subdivided types of firearms and artillery, and ultimately maintains the operation of the entire national defense system and stimulates them to compete with each other.

However, in order to unify logistics, it is also to support arsenals with backward technology.

The military also has a special policy, which is the forced OEM model, that is, after a certain arsenal wins the bid for weapons, if its own production capacity is insufficient, it needs to authorize other arsenals to make them.

Of course, the arsenal can still receive patent licensing fees.

For example, today's latest flash cap percussion rifle, because of the continuous advancement of technology, it is no longer necessary to distinguish between various northern versions and tropical versions, because the standard version already has many performance requirements such as cold resistance and salt resistance. In order to simplify logistics, To further improve combat capability, the Army only procures one standard rifle.

The original winning bid was the 21-year percussion rifle of Hantian Armory, but under the intervention of the military, Hantian Armory transferred all the patents of this rifle to other arsenals by transferring patents for a fee, allowing other arsenals to It is also possible to produce this type of rifle, but every time a rifle of this type is produced, a certain patent fee needs to be paid to Hantian Armory.

As with muskets, so with artillery.

Of course, if you only get military support orders and force OEM, you can only starve to death. If you want to develop further, you must come up with good things that can really impress the military.

This is also the reason why the seven major weapon companies in the Great Chu Empire all invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the research of rifled weapons.

Because everyone knows that the future is the era of rifled weapons, whether it is firearms or artillery.

In the future, whoever can take the lead in rifled weapons will be able to seize the opportunity in the future defense market.

It's just not easy.

Everyone knows the principle of rifled weapons. During the flight of the bullet, keeping the high-speed rotation will help maintain stability and improve shooting accuracy.

But the problem is how to make a rifled weapon... The rifle is not something you just carve a few rifling lines on the barrel.

There are a lot of technical issues here.

For example, the material requirements for the barrel are very high, so as to ensure that the rifling still exists after high-intensity shooting, rather than the rifling being polished.

A rifle that gets polished just by hitting a few bullets is not as good as a smoothbore gun.

Therefore, the strength of the rifling inside the barrel must be guaranteed, and this involves the most difficult material field...

Then, the rifled barrel must be protected, at least not rusted... Smoothbore guns don't care much about rust. Daily maintenance is good, and occasionally a little rust is actually easy to deal with.

But rifled barrels are not easy to handle.

This also involves a series of technical difficulties.

In the end, how to make the bullet fit the rifling and make the bullet rotate at a high speed when ejected from the chamber is also a troublesome thing... I tried to load the bullet directly before, but it was basically useless.

Nowadays, many designers want to make special bullets, that is, to make the bullet itself carry a certain amount of concave and convex to fit the same specially made rifling. However, in this case, it is very difficult to load, and it will not be loaded for several minutes.

Moreover, the processing costs of bullets and barrels are also very high, and it is impossible to equip them on a large scale.

This processing cost is high, and if you want to match the special bullets with the rifling, this requires very high processing accuracy. Now the Great Chu Empire does not mean that it cannot be processed, but the problem is that this kind of processing accuracy is for the Great Chu Empire. Belonging to top-level machining accuracy...the cost is high.

Therefore, the technical route of special bullets and special rifling is not feasible. Only a small number of firearms have been produced as collectibles, and no actual equipment has been used at all.

The above is just a series of technical difficulties for front-loading rifles, and the artillery has not yet been mentioned.

In short, with the current industrial technology level of the Great Chu Empire, it is very difficult to produce rifled weapons, even if they are designed, they cannot be manufactured, and if they are barely manufactured, they will be expensive and have no practical value at all.

After this situation was reported to Luo Zhixue, the emperor of the Great Chu Empire, Luo Zhixue also reminded them a little bit, don't make any messy designs, it will take time and effort, and just make standard rifled barrels. As for how to make the barrel and bullets It fits well and does not leak air. Make a small hole directly at the center of the bullet, and insert a cork into this small hole. When shooting in this way, the cork at the center will squeeze the lead bullet when it is under high pressure. , so that it is airtight and can also fit the rifling.

The design proposed by Luo Zhixue is actually the Minie rifle that is often used in many time-travel novels in later generations. Originally, Luo Zhixue thought that with this plan, the Minie rifle would be produced soon.

Unexpectedly, a group of technical experts under him were silent after carefully reading it.

Asked again, the technical experts said: The plan proposed by His Majesty is naturally a good plan, very, very good, and shocked the ministers...

but……

We can't make it!
This gadget has too high a requirement for machining accuracy, and the gap between the bullet and the barrel must be precisely controlled within a very small range.

In fact, this kind of gap has nothing to do with the size. The larger the gap, the smaller it is nothing more than affecting the initial velocity.It’s just about precision. It’s not unacceptable that the performance will be worse if the gap is large...

The real problem is that no matter how large the gap is, there must be a limit, otherwise the bullet will not get stuck in the rifling.

If you want to guarantee this minimum, you have to ensure that every gun and every bullet is under such a strict standard size, so that the bullets can be used universally on the battlefield.

Historically, the British p53 Mini rifle has a play of [-] inches, while the stamped bullets have an error of [-] inches.

Only in this way can the bullets be made universal and have the value of large-scale equipment. If this cannot be done, then you can only manufacture a batch of exclusive bullets for each rifle.

It was a disaster.

Why are the major weapon manufacturers of the Great Chu Empire researching for several years, but still can’t produce rifled weapons... In fact, they are limited by this problem. As for the design... To be honest, the technicians are not stupid. Similar designs too.

Because after knowing the principle of rifled weapons and having a systematic research and development system, there will be many technicians pondering various design schemes all day long. With so many designers and so many design schemes, there will always be reliable hits. of the design scheme.

But again...you can design it, or you can build a prototype or two in the lab, and it will perform really well!

But you just can't do mass production... because after large-scale processing, it is difficult to control such a small error.

This is the problem that plagues the defense industry of the Great Chu Empire.

The Mini rifle is different from the smoothbore rifle. If this thing is to be mass-produced, the requirements for the basic industry are too high.

You have to make sure to make a hundred thousand or even a million rifles and have them all be within a tenth of an inch of play, and you have to make tens of millions of rounds or more that are produced with zero tolerance Within one point zero one inch.

This is very difficult to do.

By the way, when the level of industrial technology reaches this level, in fact, there is no need to make a Mini rifle. You can directly mount some early models of breech-loading rifles...

The technical difficulty of the two is basically at the same level, and even the technical level of some early breech-loading rifles that used paper shell bullets is not as high as that of P53. For example, the German Dresser rifle, which was released in 1841 It has been finalized, but in terms of processing accuracy, it is not as good as the British Mini rifle P53.

However, the 21-year-style percussion rifles that are currently being mass-produced in the Great Chu Empire are far from reaching this processing accuracy... As for why the current 21-year-style percussion caps can also be used well...then It's because people don't have such high requirements for precision!
The 21-year-style flash cap percussion rifle of the Great Chu Empire, the processing accuracy of the barrel is actually not high, and the play is only about [-] inches. Of course, the size of the bullet is actually not very standard, and the error is huge... …soldiers at the front could mold lead bullets themselves.

In essence, there is no difference between the barrel and bullets of the 21-year-style flash cap percussion rifle and the 13-year-style flintlock rifle more than ten years ago.

This is why the production cost of the cap percussion rifle can be mass-produced and equipped, and it is also the reason why the old 13-year-old series of flintlock guns can be modified.

Because the only difference between the two is the firing mechanism, and there is not much difference in the others. The technology is very mature and the cost is very low.

But if you want to make a rifled rifle now, whether it is a Mini rifle or not, then the requirements for the barrel material and machining accuracy will immediately rise to a very high level, which is currently not possible for the Great Chu Empire.

When Luo Zhixue learned about these technical difficulties, he was not too disappointed. Anyway, the current percussion rifle is at least two generations ahead of the surrounding enemies and European counterparts. This Mini rifle will not be produced for a while. fine.

Since the basic technology is not up to standard, the processing accuracy cannot meet the requirements, and mass production and equipment cannot be realized, then wait slowly, and wait until the processing level meets the requirements before mass production and equipment.

But before that, it is possible to produce some on a small scale for collection and hunting, as well as for special operations.

After having this idea, Luo Zhixue ordered the Dangtu Armory next door to produce a batch of Mini rifles for a try first.

Large-scale mass production is not feasible, but it can be produced in a small-scale laboratory. The cost is expensive, and Luo Zhixue is not short of this money. That's it.

Looking back, Luo Zhixue took a few of his own collections, and they will be needed for subsequent hunting. The remaining hundreds can be equipped with the special forces of the Guards. Prepare for large-scale deployment of rifled rifles.

Regardless of when rifled rifles will be equipped on a large scale, in short, the experimental troops will start first!

This is not the first time that Luo Zhixue has engaged in such an experimental small-scale army. In fact, he has done similar things many times.

For example, last year, he ordered the establishment of a hot air balloon flight team in the Guards. Originally, Luo Zhixue wanted to build an airship, but he couldn't make an airship, so he had to use hot air balloons to make do.

The team is equipped with some hot air balloons in order to carry out reconnaissance, bombing missions...

The imagination is beautiful, but the reality is cruel. Let alone carrying out missions during wartime, sometimes they conduct training flights by themselves and plan to fly along a fixed route, but they deviate from their destination by hundreds of thousands of miles.

Even if they install human-powered propellers on hot air balloons...in order to obtain the ability to advance horizontally, they are still blown away by the wind.

The biggest function of this hot air balloon flight team is to perform hot air balloon flight performances to the public during holidays...

Well, it can only be in calm weather, because if there is a little wind, they will be blown away by the wind... The propulsion generated by the human propeller is only a little bit stronger than nothing!

However, although the hot air balloon flight team is very unbearable, it is always a new thing. Every time it performs a flight, it can attract many people to watch.

To be honest, although the Great Chu Empire does not have an air force yet, the air force performance flight team has already been set up first, and has won the love of many people. During some holidays, when the weather is calm, many people are willing to watch The performance of the hot air balloon team.

This can be regarded as a windfall.

(End of this chapter)