Steel Dynasty - Chapter 1054

[Chapter 1045 Mortar]

Ten days had passed since the war broke out when Xiao Ming received the battle report about Manila.

After carefully studying the details in the battle report, he frowned deeply. First of all, during this landing operation, the Dutch dug very deep trenches. Such trenches even required the Dutch to step on a bench to get their heads out of the trenches. .

This kind of trench reminded him of the trenches of the contemporary World War I, which were used by both sides to confront each other.

The emergence of such deep trenches was also the emergence of machine guns and the increase in the power of artillery. All of this seems to be happening again now. The only good thing is that even though the West has trenches, it does not yet have machine guns and Guards artillery. Weapons, otherwise war will really become a meat grinder.

He was not surprised that the Dutch used fire hedgehogs to fight back against the imperial soldiers, causing more casualties, because a normal commander would have thought of this method.

However, if there are deep trenches and this kind of shooting method, it will still be a headache when attacking. Of course, he believes that the imperial soldiers will win the final victory, but the casualties will also increase, which he does not want to see. , because any soldier is extremely precious now.

After all, the empire’s stalls are now very large. The occupied Korea and the country need garrison troops, and the colonies also need soldiers to maintain. The indigenous people there are civilizations still stuck in the barbaric era, and they will not reason with you at the negotiation table. Tribal leaders It may declare war on you at any time based on your preferences.

In addition, the land war between the Empire and Tsarist Russia has not really begun, and after crossing the Tianshan Mountains, the regional situation there is more complicated, whether it is Iran, which is still known as Persia, or Afghanistan, which is known as the Durrani Dynasty, and the huge The Ottoman Empire is not an easy ruler to deal with, and with the addition of Tsarist Russia, this place will become a powder keg at any time, ready to explode.

Therefore, he mentioned his idea when chatting with Yue Yun, which was to slow down the speed of expansion. Compared with the colonial system that the Europeans established over 200 years ago, he did it in just a few years.

As the saying goes, he bit off more than he can chew. Now he is facing this problem. A large territory has been conquered, but the construction on it is almost zero. In this way, these lands cannot provide any help to the empire’s economy, and this is Not happy to see it.

Nowadays, every war consumes huge amounts of bullets and ammunition. Extracting large amounts of domestic copper mines can indeed meet current needs, but it would be a fool not to dig up the resources after hard work on the territory gained.

Moreover, the empire now has mature ironclad ship construction technology. The next step is the construction of large steam merchant ships. In this way, the empire’s maritime transportation capacity will explode, which will make it easier to transport overseas resources to the country.

More importantly, even if he defeated the Western armies in Nanyang, he would not be able to land in Europe to attack Europe.

If it really reaches the level of landing operations, the potential for war in Europe is still terrible. Trench warfare will turn the war into a protracted war, which he cannot afford.

Therefore, the next war is still a battle for colonies and a maritime war in the process of establishing maritime hegemony.

Thinking of this, he gave Yue Yun an order to destroy the Western warships in the Indian Ocean after capturing Yagota.

This time, along with Yue Yun’s battle report, there was information provided by Wang Xuan. He had learned that Western troops were gathering in India to prepare for a war to retake Singapore, and at the same time to prevent the empire from conquering India.

But in Xiao Ming’s opinion, Westerners once again misguessed the actions he might take.

With the armored fleet, he would not go to confront them head-on. If they want to attack Singapore, at least their warships must be able to reach Singapore. Under the empire’s maritime hegemony, it is simply a fantasy to attack the empire’s colonies. , and the soldiers in India are waiting indefinitely for a ship to take them back.

He was thinking evilly when a sound of footsteps suddenly sounded.

After a while, Qian Dafu watched Chen Qi arrive at the Imperial Study Room and bowed. Chen Qi said, “Your Majesty, the improvement of the mortars has been completed. I came here to report to the Emperor.”

“So fast.” Xiao Ming was slightly surprised. Then he smiled and said, “Yes, yes, the soldiers fighting in Nanyang now need this artillery.”

After that, he stood up and walked out, “Let’s go and see the effect.”

Chen Qi followed with a smile, When he arrived at the military factory, he asked the technicians at the military factory to take out a short artillery piece.

“Your Majesty, this is an improved mortar. Now this mortar no longer requires two people to carry it. It can be carried by one soldier.” Chen Qi pointed to the green-painted short-barreled gun in front of him and said.

Xiao Ming nodded with satisfaction. In fact, the mortar is the predecessor of the mortar, and they are all cannons.

After the Guard Artillery appeared, he asked Chen Qi to improve the mortar, and the current mortar finally looked like a mortar.

“Your Majesty, the body of this mortar now weighs 9.4 kilograms, the gun frame weighs 5.8 kilograms, the shell weighs 2.18 kilograms, the effective killing radius is 17.8 meters, the maximum range is two thousand meters, and the caliber is 82 mm. Use it to attack enemies hiding behind obstacles. The effect is good,” Chen Qi said with a smile.

In fact, he had the idea of improving the mortar before, but the quality of the alloy steel at that time was not good. Now with the emergence of electricity, the School of Chemistry used pressurized condensation technology to create pure oxygen, which greatly improved the quality of the oxygen blown by the electric furnace. Improvement, thereby improving the quality of the refined steel a lot.

“The most important thing about a mortar is the shell. Are these shells qualified?” Xiao Ming did not immediately praise Chen Qi, but continued to ask.

Chen Qi said to the technician at this time, and then a box of mortar shells was moved in front of him.

Xiao Ming picked up an artillery shell and observed it. The firing of mortars was different from that of Guards artillery.

To put it simply, the launch of a mortar relies on the mass of the shell itself to allow the primer to hit the firing pin at the bottom of the barrel. When the primer is fired, it ignites the basic tube at the rear of the shell. In this way, the shell can explode with smokeless gunpowder. The power is projected very far, and then the fuse on the head of the shell is used to touch the bottom to ignite the explosive, and finally explodes.

Because of this principle, the difficulty of mortars is higher than that of ordinary artillery shells. It is mainly composed of four parts: the projectile body, the tail fin, the basic bottom tube and the fuze. At the same time, the body of the artillery shell also has a closed air ring to allow the shell to It perfectly fits the barrel, and the shells Xiao Ming is holding now meet the standards of mortar shells.

Clicking his tongue, Xiao Ming lamented that the empire’s industrial capabilities had really advanced by leaps and bounds, and now many technical bottlenecks in the technological crystals were disappearing.

PS: Three changes to tomorrow, sorry.

(End of chapter)