Chapter 252: 3 pound gun

Obviously, the reason why Marin formed the Black Shirt Cavaliers was to deal with the Saxon plate armor knights and artillery positions.
Saxony has strong financial resources and can pull out thousands of plate armor knights. How terrible is the charge of thousands of plate knights on the battlefield? The bunch of tin cans rushed and the earth shuddered.
I changed to a general infantry team and was smashed by several thousand plate armor knights. It is because Marin has a Spanish square that restrains plate knights, so he dares to face the Saxons.
However, thinking of Saxon artillery, Marin could not help but frown ...
In this era, artillery shells were still not popular. Because European iron prices are not too cheap. In this period, because no blast furnace has appeared in Europe, the iron output is not high and the unit price is also relatively expensive. Therefore, during this period, artillery used a lot of stone bombs.
There are dozens of Saxon artillery guns, according to Marin. Moreover, most of them are light rear-mounted cannons that are easy to transport, which is what the Ming Dynasty called Fran machine guns. Its manufacturing materials are also bronze.
Because of the backward steel technology, most of the light artillery in Europe now uses bronze. Because for the same caliber artillery, bronze guns are much lighter than cast iron guns. Moreover, now that the furnace temperature is not high enough (mainly coke has not been used), Europe lacks wrought iron, pig iron cast cannons, which are similar to Ming Dynasty iron cannons, and have frequent fry chambers. Even King James II of Scotland died because of an iron cannon.
Because the early pig iron guns were so dangerous, later, the Europeans were generally equipped with bronze guns as field guns. However, early copper was too expensive. At the end of the 15th century, the price of silver and copper was about 1:15. In other words, casting a 600-pound, 3-pound bronze cannon costs 40 pounds of silver, which is simply too expensive.
In short, in this era, artillery was a lot of fun to play, poorer than the aristocracy, can not afford the artillery. Even the Swiss couldn't afford artillery at the beginning. In the Swabian war, they seized dozens of artillery pieces from the emperor before they had artillery. Of course, this is the Swabian War in history. Because of the arrival of Marin, the emperor did not fall into the pit between the Swabian League and Switzerland, but did not lose dozens of artillery pieces.
Marin attaches great importance to the dozens of rear-mounted bronze guns of the Principality of Saxony, because the artillery is too destructive to the Spanish side. A musket can only hit one person, while an artillery can hit a line.
Even the less powerful three-pound cannon can kill 15 opponents in a straight line. The more powerful Napoleon cannon can penetrate each other's platoon ...
Fortunately, the rear-mounted bronze guns used by the Saxons are only 2 pounds and 3 pounds, which is not very powerful. It is mainly the largest artillery. The body is too heavy, and the artillery is not convenient to lift ...
Yes, it is not convenient to lift ...
In this era, artillery was transported on horse-drawn carriages. On the battlefield, the artillery had to lift the artillery gun body, fixed it in front of the battlefield, and then fired.
General countries play this way, so the gun body cannot be too heavy. The body of the three-pound gun has weighed five to six hundred pounds, and it has been very difficult to lift it. If a six-pound gun weighs 500 kilograms, it will be more difficult to lift, and even machinery is needed.
However, the situation on the battlefield is critical and changeable. Where can I have time to raise your gun slowly? Moreover, the artillery angle and direction also need to be adjusted at any time. Therefore, for the convenience of lifting the gun, the gun body should not be too heavy. Therefore, a three-pound gun weighing five to six hundred pounds is already considered as the limit to which the artillery can move. No matter how big a gun is, it is usually a ship gun and a fortress gun.
Only in France, a craftsman invented a gun ear and invented a four-wheeled carriage type carriage, which is a little more convenient than other countries. However, it is still not as convenient as the two-wheel fixed gun mount that became popular later.
Of course, another important reason for using small caliber artillery is that gunpowder is too expensive. For example, a 3-pound cannon consumes nearly 1 pound of gunpowder each time it is fired. The value of a pound of gunpowder is almost 1 shilling. If dozens of artillery pieces are bombarded together, then the money will flow rushing away ...
石 The current use of stone bombs in European countries is also due to cost considerations. Before the emergence of modern blast furnaces in 1709, the smelting of steel was carried out in small furnaces, and the cost was relatively high. Iron ball shells also cost a lot of money. Therefore, generally on the battlefield, when hitting people, use more stone bombs. In the face of flesh and blood, stone bullets are enough even if they wear plate armor. Iron cannonballs are used when bombarding solid walls and fortifications. After all, by breaking open the stone walls and the sturdy gates, the ability of stone bullets to break defense is not comparable to iron balls. However, there are also a large number of nobles, who basically use iron ball shells.
The 3 pound rear-mounted bronze cannon used by the Saxons, Marin learned that even with iron ball shells, the effective range is less than 200 yards. Because they use powdered powder. In addition, because of process problems, the airtightness of rear-mounted artillery in this era is relatively poor. Therefore, the effective range of the rear mounted bronze guns is generally less than 200 yards.
即使 But even so, the Saxon's rear-mounted bronze cannon is enough to pose a huge threat to Marin's Spanish formation. The iron ball flew, and ten smashed East Frisian fighters, the threat was very great.
Therefore, Marin came up with a way to use the black shirt knight to attack the opposing artillery position. However, Marin thought about it, and found it unsafe to do so.
公 The Duke of Saxony is an old-fashioned fox. Unlike the silly Prince George, the Duke of Saxony will be fully prepared since he wants to play against himself.
The artillery positions of the opponent will surely be protected by the enemy's regiment. It's okay to use 800 black shirt knights to fight those chased out plate knights, but it is unrealistic to completely solve the artillery position of the opponent.
The best way is to use more powerful artillery to knock down the opponent's artillery position. Originally, Marin intended to use the musketeer to move forward and use the musket to solve the opposite artillery. However, considering that musketeers need the protection of a thousand gun trenches. Otherwise, the quack was overwhelmed and slaughtered by the opponent's plate knight. Therefore, after much deliberation, it is more practical to use more powerful artillery to bombard.
Therefore, Marin decided to make a batch of 3-pound artillery to attack the opponent's artillery and at the same time attack the opponent's battle array.
The reason why I also chose a three-pound cannon is actually very simple: one is to save gunpowder; the other is to facilitate transportation ... Finally, it is to save copper ...
However, the three-pound gun Marin intended to use was not a rear-mounted bronze gun, but a front-mounted gun, similar to the three-pound gun in the American Revolutionary War.
Because of time constraints, using clay mold cannons is too late. Therefore, Marin planned to use the iron mold to cast the cannon to cast the cannon.
Because the iron mold cannon is very efficient. Forging a cannon, if you use a clay mold, you have to wait for several months for the clay mold to air dry. The war between Marin and the Saxons will soon break out. So, you are too slow.
The use of iron mold cannons is very fast, and a few can be cast in a day instead of a few months. However, the use of iron mold cannons is fast and fast, but it is not a small defect. In the past, Marin read a lot of analysis articles on the Internet, and said that if iron molds are used to cast iron cannons, the speed is happy, but the performance of artillery will have problems. For example, the whitening of the iron on the surface of the artillery is serious, resulting in increased brittleness and easier blasting. Because the iron mold dissipates heat too quickly, the cementite in the molten iron is too late to precipitate, and the graphite solidifies. Therefore, cementite in iron mainly exists in the form of iron carbide, which is white iron. In order to be safe, the artillery cast by the iron mold cannon must be much thicker than the mud mold cannon to be safe.
However, field guns used by the Army must be lightweight. Therefore, the heavy artillery cast by the iron mold cannon is not suitable for the army, and it is mostly used for naval guns and fortress guns. Because naval guns and fortress guns can not pay attention to the issue of portability.
However, the shortcomings of iron mold cannons are for cast iron cannons. For bronze guns, there is no problem in this regard. Therefore, the use of iron mold casting guns to cast bronze guns is absolutely no problem. Fast speed and good quality.
Because of time constraints, Marin can't wait for the clay mold to dry. Therefore, he decided to use the iron mold casting method to cast a 3-pound front-mounted bronze gun to confront the Saxony army.
In the past, Marin saw a translated American television program broadcast on BTV. He knew that the caliber of the 1776 three-pound gun was 74mm, the length of the gun was 0.65 meters, and the use of granular gunpowder had an effective range of up to 365 meters, far exceeding the Saxon army. 200 yards for the rear mounted bronze cannon. The use of such bronze guns and the Saxony army against the bomber, it is clear that this front-loaded gun won.
The only thing that hurt Marin a bit was the huge overhead required to make the bronze cannon. Forging a 1776-type three-pound front-mounted bronze cannon requires three to four hundred pounds of bronze. Now the price of copper is so expensive, it is almost terrible ...
This is why Marin didn't cast the more powerful 6-pound cannon and 12-pound Napoleon cannon-copper is too expensive to cast ...
Marin plans to cast 50 front-mounted bronze guns. Then, the cost of copper materials is as much as 20,000 pounds, which will cost about 1333.33 pounds of silver, which is almost 111.11 pounds of gold, which is more than 14,000 gold coins. This is only the cost of materials. It also requires the craftsman's expenses and transportation costs, and 20,000 gold coins cannot be beaten.
However, this is just the beginning. Because after the artillery was cast, a lot of iron ball shells were needed. Marin was reluctant to hit the stone. The large gap of the stone bullet ~ EbookFREE.me ~ is even worse for air tightness. Therefore, the effective range of Saxony's artillery can only reach less than 200 yards. If you change to an iron ball, you should be able to play farther and be more powerful.
As for the iron ball casting, it is actually relatively simple, just a simple sand casting. Make a sand box, two halves above and below, first put the iron ball as a standard mold in the sand box to press out the stamp, then remove the iron ball, and pour molten iron into the space pressed by the iron ball from the funnel and channel, , An iron ball is made.
Fast sand casting, although the use of wet sand may cause some honeycomb structures in the iron due to water vapor evaporation, resulting in a tight structure. It would not work if the artillery was cast like this, because it would easily explode. But it is no problem to cast iron ball cannonballs. What is the iron honeycomb structure? Can you use worse stone bombs? Anyway, it's just something used to smash people, not so demanding.
So, the casting of iron ball shells is very easy. The only problem is the cost of iron. At present, Marin's iron materials are basically imported from Britain, and the price is not cheap. Therefore, the cost is relatively high.
However, compared with defeating the Saxons and standing up to the prestige, this investment is still worth it. Therefore, Marin did not hesitate and decided to use the iron ball cannonballs to smash the Saxons to a slum ...
In fact, iron are not much. The cost of gunpowder is the most amazing. One shot is one pound of gunpowder, and one shilling is gone. If dozens of guns are fired every day and 50 guns are fired at the same time, the speed of gold coin consumption is almost as direct as the waterfall ...
不管 But anyway, as long as you can win, this investment is also worth it. Now that Marin is fantasizing, defeating the Saxony army and capturing the Duke of Albrecht, how much ransom is more appropriate ...