Chapter 227 Distribution of Naval Shipbuilding Industry

Zhu Zhongliang attended the seven ceremonies held at the same time, and then began to visit everywhere in the shipyard.

The five ships that have been launched have all gone up to have a look in person.

I looked around inside the cabin, and several times I couldn't help but follow the crew and say:

"Spacious, really spacious. This is what Jingyuan is thinking.

“It’s not like the designers in the Ministry of Engineering in the past, who all worked hard.

"Those ships look depressing inside. Can the soldiers live comfortably? Can they display their combat effectiveness?"

Zhu Zhongliang complained carelessly, and the shipyard owners, managers, and craftsmen around him immediately echoed his words.

However, they couldn't help but complain and complain in their hearts.

Previous designers were stingy with tonnage, wasn't it because you were stuck with your shipbuilding share?

Your requirements for naval ships are always sufficient.

So much so that in order to get your permission, designers try to reduce the tonnage as much as possible when designing new ships.

Looking back now, I find that everyone has gone astray.

You, old man, are not stingy with the tonnage at all, but the ships you designed in the past cannot satisfy you.

That’s why I never wanted to build it on a large scale.

Zhu Zhongliang stood in the combat commander of the dreadnought cruiser, looking at this place that could be used as the headquarters of the large fleet, and said:

"It's better to be bigger. The bigger the ship is, the easier it is to use. Anyway, the cheapest thing on a warship is steel, right?"

The craftsmen around him nodded again and again. The most valuable thing on the battleship was the hull.

If there are no special regulations specifically limiting the size of a battleship, designers usually tend to build the ship slightly larger as long as the basic design requirements and usage requirements are met.

Greater space redundancy allows for more reserve buoyancy, more fuel and ammunition reserve space, and more comfortable living space and facilities, which means longer sustained combat capabilities.

There is also more room for upgrades and modifications.

The service life of a battleship starts with ten years. With the advancement of technology and the update of design ideas, continuous improvements, transformations, and equipment updates during the use of battleships have always been continuous.

There is no warship that can be built in one go and then scrapped, without any upgrades or modifications.

The relatively larger hull space also makes it easier for designers to perform, makes shipyard construction more smooth, and ultimately makes the navy more comfortable to use.

Apart from spending more money, it can be said that everyone is happy.

Besides, even if you spend more money, it doesn't actually cost much, it's just mass-produced steel.

Of course, it can't be too big. If you have to add more turbines in order to maintain the speed, the gain outweighs the loss.

While the craftsmen were feeling so emotional, they once again thought of Zhu Jingyuan far away in the Persian Gulf.

It would be better for His Highness Prince Dashi to order so many battleships in one go.

The design requirements and ideas he gave were all in the direction that everyone was happy with.

Zhu Zhongliang went around on several ships and returned to the rest room on land to rest for two days.

Then we started to visit the surrounding supporting factories.

What the shipyard is building are all integrated products of existing technologies, while the items in the supporting factories, in addition to existing products, also include products that are being developed and tested to prepare for the future.

There are countless civilian shipyards in the Ming Dynasty. Almost all coastal cities have large and small shipyards. There are also many inland shipyards in inland cities along the Yangtze River and Pearl River.

There are three large military shipbuilding bases, namely Liaodong, Suzhou, Guangzhou.

In Edo (Tokyo) and Lion City (Singapore), there are two large shipyards.

However, the three large -scale shipbuilding bases all have a complete warship construction industry chain.

Steel smelting, armored forging, boiler production, rocket assembly, artillery and equipment, artillery and turrets, motors and cables, and pipelines, observation equipment and ballistic computing equipment, etc.

Distributed in several prefectures and counties around the area where the shipyard is located.

Liaodong, Suzhou, and Guangzhou have their own independent systems, that is, three complete industrial chains.

The local area of ​​Edo and Lion City is only large shipyard and conventional raw materials that can be produced in the surrounding areas.

However, the core power system, artillery and observation equipment must be supplied from the local industrial chain.

Among them, Liaodong's industrial chain, as well as the Edo factory, directly manage the Ministry of Industry.

The industrial chain of Suzhou and Guangzhou, as well as the factories in Lion City, are all subordinate institutions of the Royal Consortium.

After Zhu Zhongliang left the shipyard, first went to the nearby artillery manufacturer.

I watched all kinds of firearms and artillery from small to large.

In the past thirty years of Zhu Zhongliang's emperor, in addition to the navy and the army condolences, they can turn around and around the artillery on all kinds of warships and to ask some simple questions on the surface.

In a state of relaxation, you can contact these things up close, that is, you have only had a chance until now.

Daming's firearm diameter is currently the minimum of 8 mm, with 12 mm, 16 mm, 20 mm, a total of four calibers, one level per 4 mm.

The diameter of the artillery from 40 mm to 240 mm, one level per 40 mm, currently has a total of six main calibers.

These are cruisers at all levels, destroyers, gunboats, torpedo boats, and the caliber used by the army.

More than 240 millimeters are the main vessels of the main ship. At present, it is expanding upwards at a level of 60 mm.

300 mm is an active caliber, the 360 ​​mm has been developed, and the 420 mm has begun to develop.

There are data on the caliber above 420 mm, but it is not a artillery, but a torpedo.

The torpedo boats below 500 tons use 480 mm torpedo. The destroyer and cruisers use 520 mm torpedo.

The current aviation torpedo continues to adopt a lighter 480 mm caliber.

The Navy is developing a larger 600 mm torpedo, ready to be used for destroyers and above ships.

Originally, there were still many cannon diameter used by Daming, and the original data was not so regular.

Mainly in the era of the smoothbore gun, the weight of the artillery is used to use the weight of the shells.

When entering the era of the wire cannon, I started to use the cannon caliber to indicate the artillery level.

Use the original artillery to directly convert the method of representation, and the directly formed cannon caliber numbers are fragmented in one place.

Not only are most of the integer, but even many of them with decimal.

At that time, the emperor may have obsessive -compulsive disorder. When the military industry was upgraded, all the cannon caliber was unified.

Under the guidance of the shopkeeper and craftsman of the artillery factory, Zhu Zhongliang paid attention to several artillery in design and testing.

Quad-mounted 40mm anti-aircraft guns, twin-mounted 80mm and 120mm high-level dual-purpose guns.

And the 420 mm 50 times caliber naval gun under testing.

The old emperor stood in front of a gun barrel on the shelf, looking at the barrel that could fit an entire adult, looking at the smooth threads and gate, and curiously asked the shopkeepers and craftsmen of the factory around him:

"Now that this new artillery has been produced, has it been subjected to actual testing? How was the testing?"

The factory worker came forward, cupped his hands and reported:

"To report to the Supreme Emperor, the barrel of the new cannon trial production has been individually tested.

"Using a lighter artillery shell weighing one thousand kilograms, the muzzle velocity can reach about 800 meters per second.

"Under these parameters, more than 150 rounds can be fired stably and continuously.

"But Prince Dashi requires the production of cannonballs that weigh more than 1,300 kilograms, preferably 1,500 kilograms.

“We also need to achieve a muzzle velocity of more than 760 meters per second.

“When we tried a 1,300-kilogram artillery shell, an explosion occurred during the continuous firing test.

"To meet the requirements of His Highness Prince Dashi, we must continue to optimize the production process..."

The test data of the naval guns trial-produced by the artillery factory are similar to the early naval guns of the 1918 Lexington-class battleship cruisers, Nagato-class and Colorado-class battleships.

Zhu Jingyuan's requirements were based on the Iowa-class MK7 naval gun.

The MK7 naval gun is a 406 mm caliber, 1225 kg super heavy shell.

After scaling up to 420 mm, the weight of the artillery shell should be about 1360 kg.

Zhu Jingyuan gave a range between 1,300 kilograms and 1,500 kilograms, and continued to go higher.

After hearing the craftsman's report, Zhu Zhongliang asked in surprise:

"Fifteen hundred kilograms of artillery shells? Is this standard a bit too high?"

The master craftsman of the artillery factory nodded in agreement and said:

"What the Emperor said is true, these 1,500 kilograms of artillery shells are more suitable for a main gun of about 460 millimeters.

"Putting it in a 420mm naval gun, it is an extremely overweight shell.

"One thousand three hundred kilograms can be considered a heavy bomb.

"The requirements for the barrel production process are too high. We estimate that we will have to knead this barrel for several more years..."
To be continued...