Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 166 Artillery
"boom!"

As the artillery roared violently, a solid shell flew into the distance at a speed beyond the reach of the naked eye, landed in the wilderness six or seven hundred meters away, and slammed heavily into the soil.

"The deviation seems a bit large!" Zhang Lifeng, the head of the Marine Corps artillery squad standing at the back, put down the telescope, smacked his lips, and said very dissatisfiedly.

"Well, the deviation is quite large." Zhang Ruosong nodded and said with a wry smile, "How accurate can you expect this smoothbore cannon to be? You have to know that without the support of rifling, the fired projectile can only rely on the flight direction given by the barrel to fly towards the general target. In this situation, the projectile is easily affected by the Magnus effect and its random rotation, which in turn affects its shooting accuracy."

"Also, the seal between the shell and the barrel isn't very tight, so the gunpowder easily leaks out once it ignites, reducing the gunpowder thrust. This reduces the shell's range and makes its accuracy less reliable."

"Can we engrave rifling on this cannon?" asked Zhang Lifeng.

"Of course we can engrave the rifling, but you artillerymen will have to wait a little longer."

"How long will it take?"

"At least five or six years, at most ten or eight. ... Yeah, maybe twenty years."

"..." Zhang Lifeng looked over with resentment upon hearing this. "Hey, Instructor Zhang, we share the same surname, so we're actually from the same family. You can't play this on me! If we wait five or six years, or even ten or eight years, the Spanish would have already knocked on our door!"

"Haha..." Zhang Ruosong chuckled twice, shook his head and said, "You're clearly teasing me with your question! Don't you think about it? With our current situation, where can I find a boring machine to engrave the rifling for this cannon? Besides, I'm not a military expert!"

"You're the only one in our group who understands mechanics the best," Zhang Lifeng said with a smile. "Manufacturing artillery and military equipment almost all involves mechanical principles. You should work hard to maximize the power of our weapons, especially the artillery, so that our Marines will have an absolute firepower advantage when facing the Spanish. We're outnumbered and can't withstand their attrition. Only by relying on advanced weaponry can we defeat the Spanish, who are so much more numerous and powerful."

"Look at what you're saying." Zhang Ruosong took a few steps forward, walked over to the cannon, and patted the gun carriage. "Do you know that in order to cast these two 8-pound imitation Napoleon cannons, our entire industrial team spent half a year to cast two qualified cannons. In this way, we used up one-third of our accumulated copper materials."

"Why not use steel to make cannons?"

"At present, we haven't fully mastered the technology for casting steel cannons, and their reliability is relatively low. Further exploration and testing are needed," said Zhang Ruosong. "Bronze cannons, on the other hand, are relatively simple to cast. Furthermore, bronze has excellent mechanical properties and can withstand high chamber pressures without breaking, making them stronger and more durable. Of course, bronze's corrosion resistance also ensures the cannons maintain stability and reliability in various environments, extending their service life accordingly."

"Is that so? But our Qiming Island doesn't seem to produce copper, so we can't guarantee the raw material." Zhang Lifeng said, "We'll definitely need more than just these two or three cannons in the future. Given the size of our artillery squad, we'll have to equip at least three. Add in spares, and that means we'll have to build six or seven cannons at once."

"So, next year, when we go to Spanish America for trade and smuggling, we'll have to purchase a large amount of copper from our partner, Pedro." Zhang Ruosong sighed. "Actually, we all know that cannons made from cast iron and steel are the correct path for future artillery development. If we can create rifling, we'll definitely have a crushing advantage on the battlefield."

"However, our current cannon casting technology still needs improvement. For the time being, we are unable to use cast iron to produce highly mobile land combat artillery for you. We can only use this bronze Napoleon cannon as a temporary solution. After all, the bronze cannon is slightly simpler to produce, allowing us to quickly produce and deploy it."

"Tsk tsk, using bronze to cast a cannon, that's a bit expensive, isn't it?"

"Of course not!" Zhang Ruosong said. "This imitation Napoleon cannon has a caliber of 95mm, a barrel length of 1.55 meters, 16.3 times the caliber, and weighs 392 kilograms. ... If this were minted in Ming Dynasty copper coins, it would be worth tens of thousands of taels. Well, if converted into silver, it would be around two or three hundred taels."

"So expensive!" Zhang Lifeng was shocked. "If we equip more than a dozen guns, wouldn't it cost several thousand taels of silver? Moreover, this price doesn't seem to have any cost advantage over the artillery purchased from Macau!"

"Your words make me feel incredibly ashamed!" Zhang Ruosong said with a smile, "These two bronze cannons are a bit heavy due to their thick barrels, but in this era, they are the lightest of their kind in land warfare artillery, maintaining exceptional mobility. And among many highly mobile artillery pieces, they also possess the most ferocious firepower."

"Because it's made of bronze, it's extremely strong and can withstand the explosive force of heavy or double charges without breaking. When firing at a five-degree elevation angle, the gun has a range of over eight hundred meters. When adjusted to ten degrees, the range reaches an astonishing one thousand two hundred meters."

"Just think about it. Your Marines can fire before the enemy's artillery reaches range. And with just a few shells, you can disable an entire company of enemies, forcing them to endure several rounds of bombardment on their way forward. How devastated would that be for the enemy!"

He reached out and patted the gun carriage, then proudly declared, "This gun carriage weighs approximately 165 kilograms and has a simple structure. It can be roughly divided into four parts: the wheels, the main shaft, the breech block, and the elevation mechanism. Aside from the elevation mechanism, which is all metal, everything else is made of pine wood."

"When the artillery fires, the recoil is transmitted directly to the carriage through the gun ears, pushing the carriage backward. Look at this breech block. We've made it into a skid to prevent it from piercing the ground and breaking if the recoil is too strong. Furthermore, to ensure your artillery's wheels aren't damaged when they're traveling over harsh roads, we've also covered them with a layer of iron."

"Actually, in my opinion, your army doesn't need to produce too many artillery pieces for now. Because, given our current state of development, we simply won't be able to proactively provoke a foreign war in the next few years. Therefore, your Marines will basically be guarding our doorsteps and acting as a defensive force. Even if we were to conquer the Indian tribes on the mainland, we wouldn't need artillery."

"In the coming days, we will begin casting large-caliber coastal defense artillery to provide sufficient artillery for the upcoming artillery positions. As for the two 8-pound land battle guns, you will use them for now and strive to train the rookie gunners recruited by your artillery team into excellent and skilled gunners."

"Okay." Zhang Lifeng nodded and said, "When will you make us explosive bombs to further enhance our firepower advantage?"

"..." Zhang Ruosong paused, then smiled bitterly, "Wait a little longer. This thing is quite dangerous, and we can't make it yet. With these solid bullets, you will be able to deal with any situation."

During this period, artillery bombardments generally used solid bullets as the main weapon, supplemented by a small amount of explosive shells and shotgun shells.

However, the explosive bombs at that time had very low reliability because they did not contain fulminate of mercury.

Typically, a hollow iron ball filled with gunpowder exploded, creating several or even dozens of shrapnel fragments. However, since it was impossible to control which part of the spherical projectile struck the ground first, the impact could not be used to ignite the fuse. Therefore, a small hole was drilled in the hollow iron ball to install a time fuse. After being fired from the cannon, the fuse would detonate the explosives inside the ball, thereby causing the explosion to kill or injure personnel.

But in this case, the time for the fuse to detonate the explosives is often not fixed. Some explode prematurely while in flight, and some fall among the enemy and there is no movement for a long time.

What's worse, the fuse will suddenly go out after the shell is fired, turning it into a hollow iron bullet that hits the enemy camp.

However, the power of this unexploded hollow bullet will be very limited, and the killing effect will be very poor.

Solid bullets, on the other hand, can attack important enemy targets such as artillery positions, dense line formations of soldiers, and similar large targets (such as buildings) at a long distance.

A single solid bullet was enough to reduce a large group of infantrymen to a bloody mess of broken bodies and arms.

Don't be fooled by the fact that this shell looks like it's flying very slowly (especially after flying a long distance) and seems like you can catch it with your hand.

In fact, this is a terrible illusion.

If a soldier on the battlefield cannot avoid a shell even when its momentum is almost exhausted, he will be "blown (or should be chopped)" to pieces, and his chances of survival will be slim.

"Captain, Artillery Squadron 2 requests to fire."

The gunner of a nearby artillery piece saw that their captain and Commissioner Zhang were chatting endlessly and seemed to have forgotten that their group had not yet started artillery shooting practice, so he boldly requested to fire.

This thing is very exciting to watch. When the cannon is fired, the sky collapses and the earth is destroyed.

For more than half a month, they had been practicing the artillery shooting techniques around a wooden cannon barrel for a long time. Now they finally have the opportunity to "play" with the real thing. If they don't fire a shot quickly, they will be doing themselves a disservice.

"Start firing!" Zhang Lifeng turned around and ordered loudly.

After receiving the order, gunner No. 1, holding the bullet pusher and gun brush, immediately walked to the muzzle and stood still. Gunner No. 2 stood on the left side of the muzzle, ready to receive shells and powder bags and stuff them into the barrel. Gunner No. 3's position was on the right side of the breech. One of his important tasks was to protect the gun's vent while cleaning the barrel with a gun brush during the loading process.

The fourth gunner stood on the left side of the breech, ready to punch a hole in the powder bag through the firing port, insert the fuse after loading the powder bag, and ignite the fuse to fire the gun after hearing the order from the gunner.

Gunner No. 5 stood behind the gun carriage, carrying ammunition.

The sixth gunner was the busiest during the entire artillery firing process, because he had to keep cutting the fuses and inserting them into the powder bags one by one, and help the fifth gunner carry the ammunition when there was a gap.

"Reload!"

"A solid bullet!"

"Target, straight ahead!"

"Six hundred and fifty meters away!"

After receiving the order to fire, the gunner immediately gave the order to load and indicated the type of shells and the range of the target.

"Ready, request to fire!"

"fire!"

"boom!"

The huge roar was deafening. The heat, noise and black smoke generated by the firing of the shells immediately plunged the entire gun position into fog, making it difficult to figure out when the shells flew out of the muzzle.

"...we need to record the artillery's firing elevation angle, range, and impact point deviation, and then adjust the artillery's sighting according to the wind direction and wind speed."

"..."

"...Continue the second round of launch drills!"

(End of this chapter)