Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 228 The Driving Role of the Military Industry

February 2th, the eighth day of the first lunar month of the Guiyou year, is the Grain Day Festival.

At 2:00 p.m., it was cloudy.

In a deserted testing ground outside Shixing City, the snow was white and the sky was covered with thick dark clouds.

In the distance, a simple stone fortress stood quietly in the wind. Several piles of sandbags and wooden boxes were scattered around the fortress, and the air was filled with a strong smell of gunpowder.

A short-barreled cannon was placed behind the stone fort. The cannon had a thick barrel and a slightly raised muzzle, pointing at a simulated city wall made of stones and soil hundreds of meters away.

Seven or eight gunners nearby were also busy making preparations for firing according to their superiors' orders.

Behind them, a group of military craftsmen and officers wearing heavy leather coats gathered. Their eyes kept scanning the cannon and a wooden box nearby, their faces filled with tension and anticipation.

Two craftsmen in leather aprons were bending over to make the final inspection of a special artillery shell in a wooden box. The shell was made of cast iron and had a rough surface. It was filled with 50% black powder and had a thin fuse tube at the nose.

"Are you ready?" Luo Zhenhui looked up at the artillery commander who came over to ask for instructions.

"We're ready!" Zhang Lifeng saluted.

"Then fire." Luo Zhenhui nodded and subconsciously looked towards the preset target in the distance.

"Yes!" Zhang Lifeng responded and then waved his arm towards the gun position.

A gunner immediately took the shell from the craftsman, lit the fuse, and immediately pushed it into the barrel, while another gunner used a long pole to compact the gunpowder bag.

The spotter made a final target confirmation, and the muzzle of the gun was already aimed at the distant city wall.

At this moment, a sense of tension suddenly arose in the air. Everyone covered their ears with their hands and looked towards the city wall, as if even the howling north wind had stopped.

"Fire!" the gunner gave the order.

A gunner immediately lit the powder charge fuse at the breech of the gun. Sparks instantly burst out and quickly spread along the fuse, making a thrilling hissing sound.

"boom!"

A deafening roar broke the silence of the wilderness, a blazing tongue of fire spurted out of the muzzle, and thick smoke rolled and spread in all directions.

The shells streaked across the sky like meteors, heading straight for the city wall with a faint whistling sound.

In an instant, the shells slammed into the city wall, making a dull roar.

Immediately afterwards, the gunpowder inside the shell exploded, and the huge impact force instantly tore off a corner of the city wall. Bricks and soil flew everywhere like raindrops, and smoke and dust rose into the sky.

The aftermath of the explosion swept across, shaking the ground. A pile of straw men and clay pots placed around were blown into the air and splashed everywhere.

The smoke and dust gradually dissipated, and military craftsmen and officers came to the explosion site to check the effects of the bombardment.

However, it was quite disappointing that this simple city wall did not seem to have suffered serious damage after being bombarded, and only the attached rammed earth and mud blocks were removed.

However, the straw men and clay pots that were used as imaginary defenders were hit and "corpses were scattered all over the ground", flying everywhere.

"This thing is obviously not as effective as solid bullets when used to attack castles and fortresses!" Luo Zhenhui patted the intact city wall and turned to everyone with a wry smile.

"...Director, the purpose of this explosive bomb isn't to attack fixed objects like city walls or fortresses. It's to inflict mass casualties on personnel, thereby creating a significant deterrent to the enemy." Gao Yifei, who had only taken over Xinhua Military Industry's R&D and production last May, quickly defended himself. "After all, under our current conditions, we can't yet produce the more powerful yellow gunpowder, let alone a new type of nitrated explosive."

"Furthermore, there haven't been any breakthroughs in fuse technology, which means this explosive bomb faces multiple limitations in materials, processes, and safety in practical applications. Having achieved this level of development is already ahead of its time. If the Spanish attack, we'll definitely give them a big surprise."

"But the probability of your shell exploding isn't very high!" Luo Zhenhui shook his head and said, "Can your military industry department find a way to produce mercury fulminate in advance?"

"Director, we in Xinhua have not yet produced sulfuric acid..." Gao Yifei said quietly.

"..." Luo Zhenhui was speechless when he heard this.

Yes, without sulfuric acid, nitric acid cannot be synthesized, and without nitric acid, mercury fulminate cannot be synthesized with mercury.

"However, Director, we have now standardized our gunpowder formula and granulated it, making it far more powerful than European countries," Gao Yifei consoled. "Under these circumstances, our muskets and artillery are far more lethal than the Spanish. Even without explosive bombs, we can still easily defeat the Spanish."

During this period, the formula of black powder had not yet been unified. The proportions of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal in the gunpowder of each country were different, which made the power of the gunpowder vary.

As time travelers, although they don’t think much of the power of black gunpowder, since they cannot make the more powerful yellow gunpowder, they can only hold their noses and play with black gunpowder with the people of this era.

However, no one knew the formula of black powder better than them. 75% saltpeter, 10% sulfur, and 15% charcoal, this ratio, which has long been proven to maximize the power of black powder, can make Xinhua's guns and artillery more lethal than any opponent.

Even the lead bullets and cast iron solid bullets fired.

The reason why we had to develop explosive bombs was purely because the navy department strongly requested it and we had to do it with all our might.

After the immigrant fleet returned to Shixing Port in September, naval generals led by Wei Yingbin were deeply shocked when they saw the Dongjiang Town Navy use the "Divine Fire Flying Crow" to destroy the rebel naval warships. They believed that after the navy ships were equipped with similar explosive bombs, they could completely defeat any enemy at sea.

Just a few explosive shells hitting the enemy ship can quickly ignite the wooden ship and the attached sails, turning the enemy ship into a huge torch on the sea.

It is not like today, when enemies at sea rely on solid bullets to bombard each other. Unless the bullet hits the waterline of the enemy ship, even if the battle lasts for a whole day, there may not be any results (for example, on August 1652, 8, the Battle of Plymouth between England and the Netherlands was very fierce, but at the end of the day no ship was sunk or captured by either side).

As for explosive bombs, they were actually equipped in small quantities in the army as early as the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty.

At that time, the Ming Dynasty army called it "flowering bomb" and used iron shell explosive bombs on the navy ships along the coast of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian to fight against the Japanese pirates.

However, the reliability of the fuse of this type of "shrapnel bomb" is extremely poor, and it often becomes a dud after being fired. It is mainly used for close-range attacks.

In Europe, during this period, the Dutch and Swedish armies also tried cast iron explosive bombs, but eventually chose to abandon them due to frequent explosion accidents.

In fact, with the current cast iron technology and fuse technology, if one wants to "seriously" develop and manufacture it, it is not impossible to make an explosive bomb that can "make a noise".

Some European countries, such as the UK and Sweden, have the capability to produce hollow projectiles, but the yield rate is low and the wall thickness is uneven, resulting in a less powerful explosion. As for fuse technology, it typically uses a pinewood or reed tube filled with a slow-burning gunpowder (a mixture of saltpeter and sulfur powder), about 5-8 cm long, with a burning time of 8-15 seconds.

By the way, during this period, the Thirty Years' War in Europe was in full swing, and there were already sporadic grenadiers. The primitive version of the grenade they threw was made of a clay pot filled with gunpowder and a simple fuse, which was used to disrupt the enemy's army formation.

Similarly, due to the lack of precise delay fuse control, it is not only dangerous when thrown, but also extremely limited in lethality.

Many times, the "grenade" exploded in mid-air before it was thrown into the enemy camp, or the fuse was extinguished after it landed, turning it into a dud.

The explosive bombs manufactured by Xinhua Military Industry Institute are made of cast iron and are cast using the mud mold method. The bomb body is about 15-20 mm thick and has a reserved fuse hole.

After making a hollow mold using clay, molten iron is poured on it and allowed to cool slowly to reduce stress.

In order to match the caliber of the gun barrel, the manufactured projectile body often needs to be finely turned and trimmed using a wooden manual lathe.

After making a qualified projectile, fill it with the prepared granular black powder, which takes up about half of the volume, and fill the remaining space with iron nails, broken porcelain pieces or lead balls as lethal fragments.

The inside of the projectile is isolated with wax paper to prevent moisture, and the top is sealed with a small wooden plug.

In order to reduce the strong impact force during firing and cause premature explosion of the shells, craftsmen added a layer of cork chips or wool between the gunpowder and the shell.

As for the gunpowder delay fuse, a pinewood tube was filled with a mixture of saltpeter and sulfur powder, which controlled the burning time to 8-10 seconds (taking into account the time it took to fire and load the artillery).

The fuze is inserted into the reserved hole in the projectile body and can be shortened or extended before firing according to the distance to the target.

After many rounds of testing, the reliability of explosive bombs was very poor, especially when fired from long-barreled heavy artillery. Because the shells were endowed with powerful kinetic energy, they often broke after leaving the barrel, causing the shells to fail to explode and be fired out like shotgun shells.

Later, the testers used short-barreled howitzers or mortars for testing, which slightly avoided this embarrassing problem.

Short-barreled howitzers or mortars have lower chamber pressure and slower initial velocity, which can reduce the risk of projectile rupture when fired.

At the same time, when launching explosive bombs, the amount of propellant must be reduced to 60%-70% of that of solid bullets of the same caliber, and the gap between the projectile body and the barrel must be wrapped with felt to increase the corresponding buffer.

Even so, there is still a certain risk when firing explosive shells from artillery due to the unreliability of the fuse.

If the gunner delays or operates carelessly, the explosive shell will explode in the barrel, causing a tragedy.

It can be said that the explosive bombs manufactured by Xinhua’s military industry department are not a very mature product and are in urgent need of improvement and upgrading.

Therefore, for safety reasons, the Navy Department has not dared to list it as an option for artillery launches.

If you are not careful and fail to destroy the enemy ship, but instead set your own ship on fire due to an accidental explosion, it would be a huge joke.

The Navy did not like this immature explosive bomb, but the Army immediately became interested after seeing its destructive power.

This thing can be used as a special weapon. During combat, using short-barreled artillery to concentrate bombardment on dense enemy formations or important targets at close range can definitely achieve unexpected results.

You can imagine that when the Spanish army was advancing slowly in a dense formation, they were suddenly hit by such an explosive bomb. The flying fragments and the huge impact of the explosion could disrupt their formation in an instant and plunge them into a brief chaos.

Only by using this weapon can it be continuously improved and upgraded, and eventually become a perfect killing weapon.

If we put it aside or even abandon it because we dislike its various problems or shortcomings, how can we improve the development and progress of Xinhua's military technology?

War technology is a noble and complex science. In the process, it will promote the application of more technologies, and continuously iterate and upgrade, thereby promoting the development of technology.

Nietzsche, who was called a madman, once said something very "philosophical": "The progress of mankind is the progress of killing technology!"

Well, Engels also famously said, "Evil is the lever of historical progress."

For example, frequent wars have promoted technological progress in Europe to some extent.

Gunpowder weapons are gradually replacing cold weapons such as swords, spears and so on.

As the power of artillery continued to increase, new types of defensive fortifications such as star-shaped forts came into being.

The struggle for overseas colonization and commercial power promoted the emergence of generations of new warships.

The demand for weapons and equipment stimulated the advancement of metallurgy and manufacturing technology.

The large-scale use of artillery promoted the study of ballistics and promoted the development of physics and mathematics.

The needs of war gave rise to military engineering (such as the later Vauban siege system) and influenced the subsequent scientific revolution.

In ancient times, the bow and arrow, as the first "machine" invented by humans, was itself a more efficient killing weapon.

The emergence of bows and arrows rewrote and dominated the history of warfare for some time until the emergence of guns and cannons thousands of years later.

Before the advent of firearms, warfare depended entirely on the soldiers' physical strength and movements, which required innate qualities and long-term training.

After the advent of firearms, physical skills are no longer important, and discipline, order and unconditional obedience become the key to determining the outcome of war.

In the agricultural age, barbaric nations could easily conquer advanced civilizations by relying on their physical advantages such as horse riding and archery, but in the industrial age, barbaric nations could only endure the dimensionality reduction attacks of advanced civilizations.

All wars are the process of exercising violence and a competition of violent techniques.

Compared with social construction, scientific and technological progress has a more significant impact on improving military capabilities.

Similarly, the military will in turn promote the advancement of science and technology.

In the future, in the industrial age, the so-called war will completely become a competition of industrial productivity and technological resources, and humans will only be the test subjects and sacrifices of technological progress.

Throughout human history, nothing has promoted technological innovation more than war.

(End of this chapter)