Chapter 899 Cavalry Spear

"For Britain!"

The salty sea breeze blew from the blue sea, and Wesley raised his glass again. ReadМ

"For Britain!" Jason shouted, "Teach those yellow-skinned monkeys a lesson."

"We hanged them one by one. In fact, it was the monkey named King Yan." Wesley punched the table hard.

After staying at Buer Port for three days, the fleet once again headed towards Tianzhu in a mighty manner.

…

Yanzhou.

Liu Fu led the civil service officials to carry out vigorous institutional restructuring.

Zhao Xu and Yang Feng were inspecting the breech-loading guns prepared for delivery to the army at the Military Division Campus.

Just as he said in court.

The current focus of Dasong is development, while preparing for the coming war.

So after he was free, he turned his attention to armaments.

Furthermore, when he was in Jinling last time, Wang Ying wrote to him telling him that he had produced a breech-loading gun sample.

His reply was to let him build a production line and mass-produce it.

Now, the Department of War has stockpiled a large number of breech-loaded cannons, but it has not been delivered because the royal army and the Qin army are still fighting.

"Your Highness, both rifled guns and howitzers are now equipped with breech loading. According to Your Highness's design drawings, the caliber of the howitzer barrels was reduced and the barrel length was increased. The range of these howitzers can reach eight miles. "Wang Ying said, pointing to the howitzer in front of him.

Zhao Xu nodded. The style of the howitzer in front of him was already very close to the style of the contemporary howitzer from the First World War.

A problem has been fully exposed in previous wars.

That is, during a war, due to the short range of the howitzer, the howitzer can only be used to bombard the opponent's trenches after the rifled cannon has cleared the opponent's artillery.

This resulted in a significant reduction in the efficiency of the war.

Therefore, after solving the breech loading problem, a howitzer with a long range and a small caliber is needed to replace the howitzer with a large caliber and a short range.

Thus, this breech-loaded howitzer was born.

Currently, this howitzer weighs two tons, has a barrel length of 2.4 meters, a pitch angle of zero to 41 degrees, and a caliber of 155 mm. By lengthening the barrel, its maximum range reaches 4,000 meters.

The rate of fire per minute is the same as that of the Qin-style rifle, which can reach ten rounds, which is almost three times that of the old howitzer.

There are huge wheels on both sides of the barrel, and there is an iron plate between the barrel and the breech mechanism.

This was to protect the artillerymen from gunfire.

Generally speaking, the era of large-caliber, portable howitzers is over, and the era of heavy howitzers has ushered in.

After all, in the future, Dasong's army will face the Western-Turkish army, and it must ensure that the howitzers are outside the range of the opponent's artillery.

Zhao Xu glanced at the howitzer, and then looked at the rifled cannon.

Like the howitzer, there is an iron plate-like structure on the rifled gun.

Compared with howitzers, rifled guns have a very small elevation angle and a very long barrel.

Obviously also through the barrel, the range is increased.

"The effective range of this breech-loading rifled gun reaches sixteen miles." Wang Ying continued.

"Eight thousand meters." Zhao Xu looked satisfied.

During World War I, the range of howitzers alone could reach 16 kilometers, and rifled guns could easily reach more than 30 kilometers.

The reason why there is still a gap between the artillery of the Military Division and the artillery of World War I.

This is because electricity was already widely available during World War I.

On the one hand, it can produce oxygen, which is used for oxygen blowing during steelmaking in the converter. At the same time, with special gun steel, the gun bore can withstand more propellant.

But it was the improvement in machining accuracy that solved the problem of air leakage in the breech loading, and the range was greatly increased.

When electricity becomes popular in Dasong's workshops in the future, they will gradually be able to bring their weapons to World War I levels.

But even so, he was already satisfied.

He believed that both the range of field howitzers and field rifled guns currently surpassed those of Western countries because of their advanced design.

"It's amazing." Wang Ying's introduction made Yang Feng sigh with emotion, "But the range of the howitzer is so far, so there is no need to install rifled guns."

Zhao Xu and Wang Ying looked at each other and laughed.

Wang Ying said, "Although this is the case, the number of rifled cannons can be reduced, but cannot be eliminated. Simply put, compared to howitzers, rifled cannons are more efficient at clearing the opponent's fort."

Zhao Xu nodded and said that Wang Ying was right.

During World War I, howitzers were used to bombard trenches, and rifled guns were used to bomb enemy bunkers.

During World War II, it was used to fight tanks.

So although the range of the howitzer has been increased, rifled guns are still needed to solve the problem.

After circling the two artillery pieces, Zhao Xu said to Wang Ying, "In that case, try to deliver the two artillery pieces to the army."

"Yes, Your Highness," the king responded.

Afterwards, the two followed Wang Ying to the office.

In addition to inspecting the two breech-loading cannons, Zhao Xu came this time for another important purpose.

That is to ask the R&D Institute and the Military Division to cooperate to build a small power plant in the Military Division to ensure the electricity consumption of each workshop in the Military Division and to transform the machinery in the workshop for applicability.

In this way, the next step for the army can be to try the development of metal-cased ammunition and the cavalry's nemesis - machine guns.

In addition, there is another important thing, and it is also a task that can be carried out immediately, which is to create muskets and cavalry guns exclusive to the cavalry.

After the emergence of muskets, the cavalry tried to install muskets.

However, since the musket needs to be loaded from the front, the cavalry often loads the bullets before the battle and fires one shot at the battle, which is too inefficient.

Therefore, the musket did not become popular among the cavalry.

It was not until the 19th century, after the second industrial revolution, that the revolver appeared and the era of large-scale cavalry equipped with firearms came.

Later, with the emergence of breech-loading rifles, muskets designed specifically for cavalry and cavalry guns appeared.

This breech-loading rifled gun is much shorter than the rifle used by soldiers, which is convenient for cavalry to shoot.

Because the gun is short, the effective range is short.

Zhao Xu estimated that the cavalry gun manufactured by the current technical level of the Arms and Arms Department has an effective range of only about 250 meters at most.

This range is very poor for infantry, but it is more than enough for cavalry.

It is completely enough to use cavalry guns to fight against the Beidi light cavalry.

Since ancient times, the Central Plains dynasty has been inferior to the grassland people in horse archery.

The gap lies in the archery on horseback, but as long as the cavalry gun is equipped, the opponent's advantage will disappear.

From now on, the Dasong cavalry will no longer be afraid of the Beidi cavalry.

At present, the Beidi and the Western Tu people are mixed together, threatening the safety of Dasong.

Before the appearance of the machine gun, the cavalry destroyer, the cavalry gun is obviously a good transition.

Otherwise, how can he face the combination of the Beidi cavalry and the Russian infantry in the vast grassland.

In history, the grassland has never been conquered by infantry alone.