The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 95 Cannons and Hunters

Zhu Linming continued: "Although the iron-cast heavy artillery has a great risk, if it is not done well, it may explode."

"However," he changed the subject, "as long as there is a suitable casting method, and the quality of the iron in our iron yard is very high, I can guarantee that the heavy cannon made of iron will never be inferior to the one made of copper."

The biggest difficulty in casting a gun with pig iron is the cooling of the barrel.Because the barrel wall of the heavy gun is very thick, the cooling rate inside and outside the tube wall is inconsistent.And usually the outer layer cools and shrinks first, while the inner layer is still in a state of thermal expansion, causing the outer layer to crack.

In addition, the cooling speed of the gun barrel is too fast, which will lead to the production of white iron.The so-called white iron refers to the combination of carbon in iron and iron to form iron carbide, which will make the whole metal brittle and easily cracked.

Although Zhu Linmei is not a casting major, she still has a clear understanding of these basic metal processing knowledge.

The best solution to the cold shrinkage problem of the gun barrel is the Rodman casting method. Water cooling is applied to the inner wall of the gun barrel to let the inner wall cool and shrink first. After the outer wall cools, it can also form a "clamp" effect on the inner wall. More reliable than bronze cannons.

But the Rodman method, a nineteenth-century technology, has extremely high requirements for water-cooling control, with tens of thousands of parameters, it is impossible for Zhu Linmi to remember.

His solution is layered casting.The gun barrel with half the thickness is cast first. Due to the small thickness, the problem of shrinkage cracks in the outer layer is avoided.

After the barrel cools down, cast the outer layer to make the barrel reach the required thickness.At this time, the outer layer will not be cracked when it cools down, and there is even a part of the tightening effect of the Rodman method.

In fact, if it wasn't for the lack of steel production in the iron field, he really wanted to make steel cannons directly, and the quality would absolutely kill all artillery in this era.

In addition, layered casting can effectively solve the problem of white iron.For white iron, in fact, it only needs to be calcined to make it gray.The carbon in gray iron exists in the form of graphite, which can greatly improve the toughness of iron.

But if the cannon body is too thick, it will not be able to completely burn through. Only the surface layer will be grayed, and the inside will still be white iron.Layered casting can cast one layer, calcined one layer, and almost the whole cannon can be turned into gray iron.

But the craftsmen present didn't know that he had such a plan in mind, they all thought that the boss was rushing to the doctor because he couldn't get copper.

After Zhu Linmi explained the layered casting method to them, all the craftsmen were in a daze, thinking about what the owner said to do.

Only Song Yingxing's eyes were shining, and he was desperately copying with a pen. He had never heard of white iron, gray mouth, cooling and cracking. It opened a door to the new world of cannon casting for him.

Zhu Linmi drew the blueprint of the iron mold of the artillery again, and began to arrange specific matters, "The iron mold required for layered casting should also be divided into two layers."

The form-making craftsmen have been in Suji Iron Works for several months, and they will recognize this kind of standard industrial drawings long ago. With the guidance of Song Yingxing, by the next day, the inner and outer two-layer mud forms of the 24-pound cannon have been made. become.

Zhu Linmei immediately took out the two sets of blueprints drawn last night and handed them to the craftsmen.They are the clay models of a six-pounder and a nine-pounder.

Although there is a pair of iron six-pounders in the iron yard, they are used to cast copper guns. Cast iron guns require thicker barrels, so they must be remade.

Since the establishment of the artillery battalion, the Dragon Guard has four companies of artillery.However, due to the inability to replenish artillery during overseas expeditions, there have always been only 8 six-pound guns.

This matching ratio is very unreasonable. Zhu Linmi has always planned to equip the artillery battalion with 16 six-pound guns, plus four nine-pound guns to achieve full staffing.In this way, the firepower is nearly three times that of before!
After all, the opponent he will face is the more powerful Manchu Eight Banners soldiers.In particular, their cavalry shooting and "pig jumping" abilities are extremely strong, and their lethality cannot be underestimated. How many Ming's troops were defeated by these two moves.

Although the use of the infantry hollow phalanx can effectively resist the Jianlu cavalry, if the enemy is determined to go all out, the Dragon Guards will also pay huge losses.

Moreover, Zhu Linming is going to bring the new barracks to the battlefield this time. Although their training level is reassuring, he can't guarantee that no one will be stage fright.

As long as one piece of the phalanx cannot withstand it, the entire phalanx will be overwhelmed by the cavalry and face massacres.

So artillery will be the focus of this reinforcement!To deal with cavalry charging in formation, use nine-pound guns to disrupt the formation at a long distance, and then concentrate a large number of six-pound guns to form crossfire.After the cavalry approached, all the artillery were replaced with shotguns to kill.

Under such ferocious shelling, even the elite cavalry could not maintain a good formation.The scattered cavalry is much easier to deal with, at least the impact on the infantry phalanx will be doubled.

Even in the history of European warfare, cavalry often collapsed directly under the bombardment of such cannons.

As for the three three-pound guns, Zhu Linming planned to throw them directly to the infantry to increase their firepower, and the battalion-level officers would call them.

Just as the 24-pound gun mud fan was sent into the shade shed, Xu Erlu came.Due to the great importance of casting the cannon, Yang Tinglin sent him to help.

After saluting, he said to Zhu Lin: "The students are eager to listen to His Highness's instruction, so they came here on horseback first. There are nearly 200 craftsmen who will arrive the day after tomorrow."

"It's far away, you came just in time." Zhu Linmi immediately told Xu Erlu about letting his four brothers come to Gezhi Academy to teach.

Xu Erlu was also very excited when he learned that a school was going to be built to teach Gezhi, and he said that he would write to his family immediately, and his four elder brothers would definitely not refuse.

With Xu Erlu as a cannon-casting expert, Zhu Linmi entrusted him with the task of making the molds with confidence, and asked him to lead the craftsmen to make two more sets of clay molds for backup when the firing failed.

It will take some time for the mud fan to dry in the shade, so Zhu Linmi then rushed to the firearms workshop.

In addition to enhancing artillery firepower, this time he also planned to make an important infantry weapon-rifled guns.

After several times of actual combat training, the Dragon Guards have emerged many shooters with excellent marksmanship.Zhu Linming plans to select some outstanding ones, equip them with rifles, and form a hunting team.

As the name suggests, the rifled gun is engraved with several spiral grooves on the inside of the barrel, and the edge of the bullet is embedded in the spiral groove, so that the bullet will rotate at a high speed after being shot out of the barrel.

Compared with smoothbore guns with no accurate heads, the bullets of rifled guns can maintain a straight flight trajectory due to the rotation effect, and the shooting accuracy is extremely high.At the same time, the armor-piercing ability of the rotating bullet is far stronger than that of ordinary lead bullets.

In addition, the effective range of the rifled gun is more than double that of the smoothbore gun. As long as the marksmanship is accurate, one shot can kill nearly two hundred steps away.

In fact, rifled guns appeared in Europe as early as the sixteenth century, but they were never installed on a large scale.The main reason is that if the edge of the bullet can be embedded in the spiral groove, the diameter of the lead bullet must be slightly thicker than the barrel.

This made loading extremely difficult. Early rifled guns needed to use a hammer to smash lead bullets into the barrel. Not only was the speed slow, but it was also easy to damage the barrel and cause the chamber to explode.

(End of this chapter)