Chapter 148: Armstrong Cannon

The projectile soared past the four-hundred-meter mound and carved a smoking crater thirty centimeters deep into the earth. The iron ball sat in its freshly gouged pit, wisps of heat still curling from its surface.

"The soil here is fairly soft," Lin Shenhe observed. "Harder ground would produce a ricochet effect—far more devastating in a real engagement."

Zhang Bailin paced out and measured the distance: from the stake marking four hundred meters to the crater's edge, the actual range came to four hundred sixty meters.

"Acceptable range," Lin Shenhe nodded with satisfaction. "Acceptable accuracy as well."

"This is acceptable?" Ying Yu stared in disbelief. "We didn't hit a single target! This is supposed to be a cannon—a direct-fire weapon!"

"Correct. Smoothbores perform exactly this way. Against a dense infantry formation, one shot would cut down at least a dozen men."

They continued test-firing with varied angles and powder charges, expending over a dozen rounds in total. The range fluctuated between four hundred and twelve hundred meters; at maximum forty-five-degree elevation, projectiles reached out to fifteen hundred. Beyond four hundred meters, however, any pretense of accuracy vanished—the cannonball simply flew in a general direction and hoped for the best. Throughout the entire barrage, only four of the target mounds actually took hits. The cannon's barrel glowed red-hot but remained stable, showing no signs of cracking. As a precaution, after fifteen rounds, Lin Shenhe ordered a cease-fire to swap in a fresh gun.

"More firing?" The artillerymen collapsed against their equipment, gasping for breath. Everything else was manageable, but manhandling the gun back into position after each recoil was backbreaking work. Then came the physical toll of realigning the direction and elevation all over again.

"We desperately need recoil systems," Zhang Bailin wheezed, bent double with his hands on his knees. "Otherwise we'll die of exhaustion before the enemy even shows up."

"Recoil mechanisms require springs from the Industrial Department first," Lin Shenhe replied, equally winded. "Until they can produce those, don't even dream about it."

After a rest, they moved on to test-fire the clay-mold cast cannon. Its range fell slightly shorter than the iron-mold versions, but overall performance remained within acceptable bounds.

In the days that followed, the Artillery Group employed iron molds combined with the Rodman method to cast a full arsenal: twelve-pounder howitzers, twelve-pounder mountain guns, twelve-pounder field cannons, and various other calibers. With their light artillery experience now secure, they scaled up to naval thirty-two-pounder long guns and thirty-two-pounder carronades—the stubby, hard-hitting direct-fire weapons invented by the British Navy. Every variant passed its test-firing successfully. The skies above Lingao Point thundered daily with artillery reports, clouds of gunsmoke drifting across the landscape.

Once sufficient casting experience had been accumulated, the Artillery Group turned their attention to a more ambitious project. Using the Armstrong cannon drawings and technical explanations stored in their resource library, they began designing an improved screw-breech Armstrong.

Rifled cannons were an entirely different beast from smoothbores. Although their thirty-two-pounder naval guns had reached a caliber of 120mm during casting, the designers proceeded cautiously, setting the first Armstrong at a conservative 70mm bore.

The barrel would be cast steel—routine work for the Artillery Group by now. The real challenge lay in rifling. A proper arsenal would use specialized machinery, or at minimum specialized tooling, to cut the spiral grooves. Manufacturing such machines on short notice was impossible. Fortunately, the transmigrators had worthy role models to emulate: the ordnance workers of the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies. With the crudest machinery and simple hand tools, those resourceful craftsmen had successfully manufactured rifles and cannons under wartime conditions. After poring through the archives, Zhan Wuya decided to imitate Wu Yunduo's ingenious rifling technique: an olive-shaped steel cutter scored with spiral grooves around its circumference, which would be forced through the barrel under pressure.

As for fabricating this cutter—Wu Yunduo's writings offered only a general description without detailed specifications. The Artillery Group summoned every machinist and draftsman they had for an overnight session of heated debate and sketching, eventually producing workable design drawings. Jiang Ye supervised the execution: first sand-casting the rough form, then precision-machining the steel die on a lathe.

The extrusion method proved effective. Days later, the first Armstrong barrel emerged from the workshop, its bore spiraling with clean rifling. The breechblock presented greater difficulties, but through the combined efforts of Jiang Ye and Xiao Bailang, a screw breechblock was completed and successfully installed. Assembled and polished to a mirror sheen, the cannon looked sleek and deadly. Everyone gathered around to stroke and admire the smooth metal, their expressions bordering on the obscene.

The shells were cast-iron elongated pointed solid shot. However, fuzes for the rifled cannon presented an immediate problem.

Fuzes—whether equipped with safety mechanisms or not—were fundamentally of the spring-and-striker type. This required two components: primers and springs. Compared to the primer's fulminate of mercury, springs actually posed the greater obstacle. Manufacturing springs themselves wasn't difficult; the materials were. Modern springs demanded alloy steel—something their small converters simply couldn't produce. The Mechanical Group maintained reserves of spring steel, but shell fuzes were consumables. They couldn't afford to deplete finite stockpiles.

"What about chemical fuzes?" Zhang Bailin suggested, struck by sudden inspiration.

"Meaning what, exactly?"

"Using chemical reactions to detonate the shells." Zhang Bailin's concept was straightforward: glass or ceramic vials containing one chemical, surrounded by another reactive compound. Upon impact, the vial would shatter, the chemicals would mix violently, and the explosive charge would detonate.

"Not particularly safe," Xiao Bailang countered. "Shells are constantly being moved and transported. What happens if a vial breaks in transit?"

"Separate transport. Keep the fuze and shell apart—install only immediately before use."

Wang Luobin shook his head emphatically. "The concept is sound, but you're forgetting something critical: chamber pressure in a rifled breechloader runs far higher than in smoothbores. The fuze must withstand tremendous forces. Glass tubes would shatter the instant of firing—and the result would be a burst barrel."

Zhang Bailin's face fell. He hadn't considered the brutal acceleration forces involved.

"Cannons aren't quite as simple as you imagined, are they?" Ying Yu patted his shoulder sympathetically.

"This fuze design might work for other explosives," Lin Shenhe allowed, "but absolutely not for artillery shells."

"So even with advanced cannons, we're still not where we need to be." Wang Luobin smiled bitterly. Smoothbore high-explosive shells posed no real technical difficulty, but that technology couldn't be directly transplanted to rifled guns.

"Carbon steel can also make springs," Jiang Ye mused aloud, trying to recall where he'd seen carbon steel springs used.

"It can work—0.6% carbon steel is viable. Whether the performance will prove sufficient is unknown," Ji Wusheng said. "Worth attempting. I'll research the heat treatment requirements."

"Can you actually handle the heat treatment?" Zhan Wuya asked, his tone uncertain. His own experience was limited to simple heat-treatment work.

"I'm not certain either—I only have books and experiments to guide me."

"This won't be trivial work. We're talking weeks, not days."

After much fruitless deliberation, Lin Shenhe finally proposed a compromise: since their initial Armstrong deployment would be naval, and anti-ship missions still prioritized armor-piercing capability above all else, solid cast-iron shot would suffice for the time being.

"What about shore bombardment missions?"

"We'll use mortars for that," Lin Shenhe said.

Mortars were the ancestors of modern trench mortars—manufacturing them was considerably simpler, and the accompanying explosive shells were easy to produce. The downside was a high dud rate, but imperfect ordnance beat none at all.

"How do we address the lead coating problem?" Wang Luobin raised another concern. Historically, Armstrong cannons had been withdrawn from Royal Navy service because lead fragments stripping away at the muzzle caused casualties among the gun crews.

"I read somewhere that electroplating the lead coating would solve this issue," Wang Luobin offered his potential solution.

Early rifled cannon shells employed Minié ball-type technology—expanding gas forced the shell base outward into the rifling grooves. The shell bodies required a soft metal coating to properly engage the rifling, and lead was the ideal material. The problem was that cast-iron bodies and lead skins bonded poorly. Without hydraulic presses to force a secure bond, the result was exactly what the Royal Navy had discovered: Armstrong-style lead fragment injuries.

"Electroplating is currently too resource-intensive for us—and our technical capability is insufficient anyway," Zhan Wuya said.

"I have one idea that might work. The Americans used it on three-inch Schenkl cannon shells."

Since the lead skin kept falling off and injuring crew members, and they had no means to prevent that, the most practical solution was to substitute a material that wouldn't cause injury when it inevitably detached.

Schenkl shells utilized papier-mâché driving bands on their bases—essentially a paper-pulp composite. It possessed sufficient strength and flexibility to engage the rifling properly, yet the fragments that broke away at muzzle exit simply disintegrated harmlessly.

"Is this paper pulp difficult to manufacture?"

"It's 1860s technology—shouldn't be particularly challenging. Just paper pulp and adhesive. We don't have a ready formula, though. Experimentation will be necessary."

"Assign it to the Chemistry Group—they have experience with this sort of compound work."

Their discussion was interrupted when He Ming from the Military Group suddenly burst through the door, his face grim.

"What's happened?" Wang Luobin sensed trouble immediately.

"According to prisoner confessions—pirates will likely attack us soon." He handed over a document. "This is the Security Group's interrogation bulletin."

(End of Chapter)