Chapter 63 The Sixty-Third Artillery (2)
"Does the metallurgical department have a way to solve this technical problem?" Tao Donglai looked at the camp of the Ministry of Industry. The people here today are all experts in related industries among the traveling public, so that they can answer questions on the spot immediately when problems arise and clear out some unrealizable solutions as soon as possible.
The technical director of metallurgy is Liu Xingli. He graduated from the Iron and Steel Metallurgy Department of the School of Metallurgical Engineering and Technology of China Metallurgical University in 2007. Before crossing over, he worked as a field technician in Shougang. He has a serious academic background and is one of the professionals that the Executive Committee attaches most importance to. Currently, Metallurgical It was he who took the initiative to set up the workshop. Such a small problem naturally did not trouble him, so he nodded and said: "Of course there is a way. In industrial production, this problem is usually solved by electroplating lead, but this requires the chemical industry department to provide fluoroboric acid as the plating solution. OK.”
Chemical expert Qiao Zhiya raised his hand and said in half-baked Chinese: "To make fluoroboric acid, first we have to find borax ores. As far as I know, the main producing areas of that stuff in China are Qinghai, Tibet and Shaanxi. I think it's short We probably won’t be able to capture those places within that time.”
There was a sigh in the crowd. It seemed that the road was blocked. But Qiao Zhiya immediately continued: "But fortunately you have met me as a professional, because I happen to know some alternatives, such as potassium sodium tartrate lead plating and triethanolamine lead plating commonly used in car batteries, as well as methyl sulfonate Acid lead plating, perchlorate lead plating, sulfamate lead plating..."
"Stop, stop, stop talking about such detailed technical terms, most people in this room can't understand it." Tao Donglai quickly stopped Qiao Zhiya's showoff: "Just tell me if there is anything suitable for our current situation. Is there a processing method that can produce lead-plated cannonballs on a large scale? ”
"Yes! But..."
"But what?" Tao Donglai was also a little anxious. Whether this technical problem can be solved will affect the development path of the future artillery through time. In the long run, it will even affect the lives of quite a few people. He has no choice but to Feel nervous.
"But you have to build a laboratory for me to perfect this process first. After all, I have never actually operated it before. In addition, I have to remind everyone that this electroplating process consumes an estimated 100% of electricity during large-scale processing. It's very big, and maybe you will have to stop some other electricity production projects." Qiao Zhiya made his request unhurriedly.
"Okay, no problem. I have specially approved this matter on behalf of the Executive Committee." After a short discussion, Tao Donglai immediately announced the Executive Committee's decision: "The other issue is lead. I remember that there seems to be lead mines in Hainan. ?”
Ning Qi immediately opened his laptop and connected to the large database: "Yes, there are two places in Ledong and Changjiang. The reserve of lead-zinc mine in Ledong alone is close to 100,000 tons, but the problem is that we have nothing to do in the short term. Go mine there.”
"If we can't go, we can hire people to go and offer a price, and let Yazhou organize people to dig for ore." Tao Donglai immediately thought of a solution: "And we also brought hundreds of kilograms of lead ourselves..."< br>
"The lead must be reserved for making rifle bullets." Ning Qi reminded Tao Donglai softly.
Tao Donglai slapped his forehead and stopped talking about this topic. The current cannon-making plan is only one aspect. The plan to make flintlock muskets and arm the local troops has also been put on the agenda. The small lead reserve in the Executive Committee's hands cannot be used casually.
The discussions so far have only theoretically approved the possibility of manufacturing and equipping breech-loading guns, and established the development route for artillery manufacturing in the future. But in actual operation, it is basically impossible to build the kind of artillery that everyone just discussed in one step. The reason is simple, because among all the time travelers, no one has actually made a cannon. Including the six members of the North American Gang who are weapons experts, at most they have personally fired old-fashioned front-loading smoothbore cannons and know some of the technical parameters of the artillery, but they are also laymen in the art of gun casting. So after discussing it for a long time, the topic returned to the beginning - we still had to build a few small-caliber front-loading smoothbore cannons with the least technical difficulty to practice our skills. If you can't even get smoothbore cannons, then let's not talk about fully equipping them with breech-loading rifled cannons for the time being. This was not the only reason for choosing to make smoothbore cannons in the first place. There were two other important reasons that prompted the Executive Committee to make such a choice.
The first reason is that the Ming Dynasty spent a lot of time purchasing arms due to frequent wars during this period. The best example in history of making a fortune by selling arms to the Ming Dynasty was the Portuguese. Due to the backwardness of its own cannon-casting technology, most of the Hongyi cannons equipped in the army in the late Ming Dynasty were traded with the Portuguese in Macau. Because the Ming Dynasty had a huge demand for artillery, the Portuguese production capacity could not meet it. They even acted as middlemen, reselling British ship-borne cannons to the Ming Dynasty. In addition, the Dutch also had a share of such arms transactions. It was only after the Ming Dynasty had an enmity with the Dutch over the Taiwan issue that the arms transactions between the two parties stopped.
Although these red barbarian cannons imported from the Portuguese are bulky in appearance, their price is proportional to their weight, easily costing thousands of silver. With such a large arms business, the Executive Committee did not intend to give the Portuguese a benefit in vain. Whether it is military technology, tactical level, or the grasp of historical trends and key events, the Chuangzhuang have incomparable advantages. To be an invincible transnational arms dealer in this era, I am afraid no one can compare with this group of people from the 20s. People who have traveled through time in the first century are more qualified. The Thirty Years' War in Europe is now in full swing, and there are still twenty years of war to be fought. There are people in the travel community who have long been clamoring to export arms to Europe as soon as possible, so that the white-skinned people can kill more brutally. Some, so that they have no time to worry about the battle for control of the sea in the east.
Since there is an intention to sell arms, this involves the second reason, which is also an important principle in the arms business - the most advanced weapons must not be sold. In the executive committee's long-term plan for arms exports, there should be at least one generation gap between export-type weapons and self-use weapons. This way, in the event that a disloyal customer becomes an opponent, the army that has traveled through the world can still maintain sufficient battlefield suppression capabilities by virtue of its weapon advantages. .
This principle of generation difference is not only for future arms output targets, but also for the armies that the time-travelers themselves want to build in the future. This principle must also be applied appropriately.
The rapid pace of expansion in the coming decades will definitely be unprecedented in history, and it will be difficult for the military's organizational construction to be very solid in this accelerated development, even if the political work is done better. Well, it is inevitable that some people in some marginalized armies will have ambitions. But if the weapon generation difference is maintained, even if someone makes a rebellion, they will not have the ability to come back. In addition, armies that use firearms are very dependent on logistics. As long as the supply of ammunition is cut off, the ability to continue operations will drop sharply. Controlling the source of arms manufacturing and supply is also one of the ways to effectively control the military.
For this purpose of control, weapons of various technological levels will be manufactured simultaneously as planned and used separately. For example, Chuanchuanzhong has already built a breech-loading cannon, so it can sell the low-tech "Haihan Cannon" to the Ming Dynasty. When the indigenous troops across the country are equipped with Minie rifles, the obsolete old-fashioned flintlocks can appear on the arms export list.
Exporting arms actually has a more obscure purpose, which the Executive Committee has not publicly announced. In fact, this purpose was set by the Executive Committee after being inspired by the arms export policies of certain major powers in later generations. That is to weaken the weapons research and development capabilities of arms importing countries through continuous targeted arms exports. If things go on like this, the arms exporting countries will have a negative impact on the arms exporting countries. There has to be a strong dependence, whether it is after-sales maintenance of weapons, supply of ammunition, training of personnel, etc., they will be severely restricted by arms exporting countries. For example, India, a large country in South Asia in later generations, was nicknamed the Arsenal of All Nations. Its main weapons, land, sea and air were basically imported from different countries. The disadvantages are self-evident. It often takes decades to develop your own weapons. When it finally looks like a sample is ready, the arms exporting country will launch weapons of the same level with much lower production costs in a "timely" manner. The laborious development of weapons had to be abandoned halfway.
After this kind of control over arms technology reaches a certain stage, it will be easy for the arms exporting country to establish a military alliance with its customers. From time to time, they can also find excuses such as "joint research and development of weapons" to allow the importing country to The money is used as scientific research funding for the exporting country. Of course, the weapon that the person who pays will get in the end will still only be a castrated version with generation differences. The Executive Committee believes that this soft suppression of military technology is more cost-effective than hard confrontation on the frontal battlefield. Besides making money, you don’t have to fight all the time. When you really want to fight, you can also recruit a bunch of younger brothers to serve as cannon fodder. What do you think? Good deal. And these weak countries that provide people and money are often very active in kneeling and licking their father's country in various positions in exchange for being able to maintain their place in a powerful military alliance.
The reason why these ideas have not been publicly released is because the Executive Committee has considered that the number of naturalized citizens will increase in the future. Once this theory spreads, it will not be conducive to internal unity on the one hand, and it will also affect future armaments. adversely affect exports.
After discussing the general development direction, the next step is to deal with some technical details.
(End of chapter)