Chapter 616 - New Weapons
Jiang Muzhi and Li Chiqi had improved the new gun carriage, solving the locking mechanism and switching to higher-quality ball bearings. It finally passed the range and fifty-kilometer march tests. This major improvement led the General Staff to decide that during the First Five-Year Plan, all newly manufactured cannon carriages would switch to metal carriages, with existing old wooden carriages also to be gradually modified. The Mechanical Department urgently manufactured new carriages for three field artillery batteries. Subsequently, even the gun limber frames were improved.
Despite the lack of sufficient horses requiring the use of human draft teams, the gun limber remained essential—not just for carrying ammunition, but mainly because cannons have a high center of gravity. When being towed, maintaining balance is difficult, and the slightest carelessness can cause the cannon to flip forward. The limber supports the gun carriage's trail during towing, balancing the center of gravity. It also distributes the pressure of the heavy gun barrel, so horses or men pulling the gun only need to provide forward pulling force.
"After improvement, the cannons move much more nimbly." Ying Yu inspected the new cannons lined up on the range. Under officers' commands, artillerymen constantly ran back and forth, simulating firing procedures. According to artillery training manual requirements, each gun's eight crew members had to cross-train in all positions, maintaining fire capability even with casualties. Per manual requirements: a well-trained crew should still be able to continue firing with only two men remaining. According to Lin Shenhe, during the American Civil War, there were examples of a single gunner keeping a cannon operational—though that was enough for a medal.
"If only we had horses." Lin Shenhe looked with some regret at the gunners running back and forth, training according to the artillery manual he had written. One hundred ten horses per battery! That was just a dream.
"You said you were working on new ammunition—any results? The gunners still need to familiarize themselves with loading and firing the new shells." Zhang Bolin came hurrying over wearing a tank top.
"Soon. The new shells are only easier to use than the old ones." Lin Shenhe yawned as he spoke—the laboratory would have its red lantern lit again this afternoon.
Originally, to simplify manufacturing, the army's cannons were only mass-equipped with two of the simplest ammunition types—solid shot and canister. Explosive shells were also produced in small quantities, but only for training, not stockpiled.
The explosive shells fired by smoothbore cannons all worked on similar principles: the cannon's propellant gases ignited a time fuse on the shell, which then detonated the shell. Loading required special care—the fuse hole had to face the muzzle. Otherwise, if burning gases rushed directly into the fuse hole, the shell would detonate in the barrel. To withstand the high chamber pressure, the shell casing had to be very thick. A 12-pounder spherical shell could only hold nine hundred grams of black powder. Its explosion produced fragments with an anti-personnel effect actually inferior to solid shot. Artillery equipped with explosive shells was mainly useful for attacking buildings and ships, plus for intimidation—explosive shells were still quite rare in this time-space.
What he was developing was shrapnel. Shrapnel had a more complex structure than other spherical shells: multiple iron or lead balls were loaded into the shell body along with a bursting charge, controlled by a time fuse to detonate at the appropriate altitude and distance. The bursting charge would blow open the shell body, and the balls inside would maintain their previous velocity as they flew toward enemies ahead—equivalent to a close-range canister shot.
Shrapnel's killing effect at medium to long range was far superior to solid shot or explosive shells, especially against enemy formations in dense array. If the fuse timing was well-controlled, it could instantly knock down large numbers of enemies. However, early shrapnel was neither accurate nor particularly safe—the balls inside the shell rubbing against each other during firing could easily prematurely detonate the gunpowder inside.
Lin Shenhe chose the shrapnel improved by British Army Captain Boxer in 1840. It had a greatly improved structure, though also more complex. The balls were loaded in the front of the shell body, separated from the bursting charge in the rear by an iron partition plate. The tail had a cup-shaped base pad that both prevented the shell from tumbling in the barrel and expanded under propellant gas pressure to seal the bore. This structure made the entire projectile heavy at the front and light at the rear. Combined with the unique shape from the base pad, the shell's flight was quite stable, with much better accuracy than contemporary shrapnel. When the time fuse ignited the bursting charge, as the shell body blew open, the iron partition would push the balls forward, ejecting them in a cone rather than scattering irregularly like other shrapnel—this further enhanced its killing power.
When firing shrapnel from a 12-pounder cannon, it was effective at eleven hundred meters—far superior to explosive shells that only produced twenty large fragments.
With this device, the Fubo Army could effectively kill rapidly moving cavalry formations at medium to long range, without waiting until two hundred meters to use canister.
Originally, there was no need to mass-produce shrapnel for dealing with the mainly infantry Guangdong Ming forces. But competing for the mainland was inevitable sooner or later. Might as well take advantage of the Ming punitive expedition to test it early.
Finally, he needed to improve the time-delay fuses used by artillery. With shrapnel, using safe and reliable fuses became very important.
Previously, Zhang Bolin's smoothbore artillery used the simplest time fuses when training with explosive shells—so simple that everyone thought it was too easy. A hollow wooden tube open at both ends—the transmigrators had even dispensed with the effort of processing hollow wooden tubes, directly using thin bamboo tubes—filled with slow-burning powder with a very stable burn rate. The fuse tube was marked with scales. When using, the gunner first estimated the firing distance, looked up the flight time corresponding to the distance and shell type in the artillery manual, cut the fuse to the corresponding length according to the scale, inserted it into the shell's fuse hole with one end exposed outside the shell body and the other end touching the explosive inside, then loaded the shell into the barrel, making sure the fuse faced forward. Later, they simply attached a wooden sabot directly to spherical shells using time fuses, ensuring correct orientation during loading.
This fuse was intuitive and convenient to operate, but because the fuse tube was inserted by hand, insertion depth affected the detonation result. Also, the fuse hole and fuse tube couldn't perfectly seal together, making it sometimes unsafe. Lin Shenhe decided to directly copy the Bormann fuse—the best, most reliable time fuse available for smoothbore cannons. It was a flat metal cylinder with external threads that screwed into the fuse hole. The top surface was marked with times; when using, you just punched a hole at the needed time mark, then screwed it into the shell's fuse port. The Bormann fuse had a maximum time of only 5.5 seconds, unsuitable for slow-velocity mortar shells.
After drawing the three-view diagram of the fuse, he handed the drawings to the Mechanical Department.
"This thing requires some precision to manufacture. I'll need transmigrators to make it," Zhan Wuya said after examining them. "Brass?"
"Yes."
"The size is fairly small. Brass won't consume too much." Zhan Wuya looked at the dimensions. "How about making a thousand first?"
"No problem. I imagine Zhang Bolin's gunners won't get the chance to fire a thousand explosive and shrapnel rounds."
"One more thing—since we're now mass-producing explosive shells and shrapnel, we can make fixed ammunition for these two types," Lin Shenhe said. "After all, fixed ammunition fires much faster."
So-called fixed ammunition meant attaching a cloth powder charge bag below the wooden sabot of explosive shells and shrapnel. This combined the previously separate steps of loading powder and loading shell into one.
On the range, cannons thundered as the army intensified preparations. The navy was also busy with new equipment trials. The navy's mission was blockade while also defending Lingao's coastline—especially the two key ports of Bopu and Maniao.
The navy would dispatch most of its ships for the maritime blockade mission while simultaneously continuing to transport supplies to Sanya. Ships directly protecting the ports would be greatly reduced. Bopu's defense system mainly relied on heavy guns with strong long-range firepower, but direct port defense was somewhat weak. Maniao had only one gun tower and one marine platoon—defense was even more sparse.
"Our garrison at Maniao is too thin," Chen Haiyang said at the operations meeting. "Maniao is our salt chemical raw materials supply base and has a modern salt refinery. The garrison is only one platoon and one gun tower—equipped with just a 12-pounder mountain howitzer. If the enemy breaks through the naval blockade and lands at Maniao—there's a steam salt refinery, windmills, boilers. Just one fire would cause severe losses."
Maniao had a shallow-water port, well-suited for the small-tonnage vessels the Ming forces used for infiltration landing operations.
"It's a bit late to talk about building fortifications now."
"No, one month would be enough," said Mei Wan, who had come to attend the meeting. "Give me sufficient resources. In one month, I can build a large bastion capable of housing an infantry company garrison, equipped with heavy artillery."
"Is that possible?" The attendees whispered among themselves. He Ming nodded: "I'll fight for it. But you must ensure completion within a month."
"I guarantee completion," Mei Wan said.
"Rather than building a bastion, why not manufacture some naval mines to blockade the port and defend against enemy ship infiltration?" As harbor master and fortress commander, Li Di was constantly thinking about mines.
"Mines? I'm more worried about blowing up our own ships." Chen Haiyang understood mine effectiveness well, which made him even more hesitant about using them.
Contact-triggered moored mines were technologically simple, but the navy had no minesweeping equipment. Once mines needed sweeping, it would be very inconvenient. If drifting mines broke loose from their anchors, given the width of Qiongzhou Strait, they would be an indiscriminate ship-destroying weapon.
Previously, the navy and Weapons Design Department had considered manufacturing command-detonated electrical mines for deployment in port channel defenses. But the problems of waterproofing and leakage of underwater electrical cables, plus mine anchor breakage, were never satisfactorily solved. Eventually, the electrical mine plan was abandoned.
Another option was the spar torpedo boat that Wen Desi had proposed. The initial design was an armored rowing boat with an armored deck covering, propelled by human rowers. After the explosive charge was fixed to the target's hull, an electrical wire would be let out connecting back to the spar torpedo boat. The boat would then quickly back-paddle to safe distance before electrically detonating the charge.
Though this design fully considered the spar torpedo boat's safety, actual simulated testing with rowing boats revealed that rowing was inconvenient. Sailors had difficulty maintaining a steady rowing rhythm under enemy fire. Human-powered spar torpedo boats weren't as maneuverable as imagined. And electrical detonation brought back the old problem: waterproof cables couldn't be solved. So the spar torpedo boat project had been shelved. Currently, inner harbor patrols were handled by a few transport boats equipped with typewriter chain guns—high firepower but insufficient power against large vessels.
"We can now mass-produce steam-powered Type-3 boats. We can completely modify existing equipment." Wen Desi was enthusiastic about this and began promoting his spar torpedo boats again.
The so-called Type-3 boats were standardized motorized boats manufactured by the shipyard for unified near-coastal and inland waterway small transport vessels. They came in three sizes according to volume: large, medium, and small.
Wen Desi's proposal was to use the wooden-hulled medium Type-3 boat as the base vessel. This boat had a full-load displacement of 15.5 tons, overall length of thirteen meters, beam of 2.9 meters, depth of 1.5 meters, and average draft of 0.78 meters. It was equipped with one Suichao-type small steam engine. Full-load speed was 4.5 knots. Though somewhat slow, maneuverability in ports and coastal inlets was more than adequate.
With mobility, the electrical ignition previously required for safety was no longer necessary.
This new spar torpedo boat used the steam-powered medium Type-3 boat as the base vessel, with sloped iron plating installed as armor—the iron didn't need to be very thick, just enough to stop arquebus fire. At the bow was a metal spar that could retract into the hull. The spar's tip had a detachable clasp that connected with the spar torpedo. The torpedo itself was a flat cylindrical wooden box containing thirty kilograms of black powder. Its front was flat with many barbed nails, designed to grip ship planking. The tail had a release mechanism connecting to the clasp at the spar's tip. Once attachment was complete, the crew inside immediately pulled the mechanism to separate torpedo from boat. The release mechanism on the spar was connected to a pull-cord on the firing device. Once released, the pull-cord was pulled by the separation force, and the friction igniter ignited the fuse, which began burning until the delay ended and detonated the spar torpedo.
The spar torpedo's ignition device used the wooden-handle hand grenade firing mechanism—simple and reliable. Manufacturing posed no difficulty for the transmigrator collective's industry.
After torpedo-boat separation, the spar torpedo boat could retreat to a safe zone, retract the spar into the hull, reload a new torpedo, and attack again when opportunity arose.
Because it used steam power, the spar torpedo boat's mobility was guaranteed. Though small tonnage and slow speed limited its usefulness on the open sea, it would be highly effective in chaotic close-quarters fighting in narrow inner harbors.
Mobility and armor ensured it couldn't be attacked or boarded in close-quarters melees, while the spar torpedo could be reloaded multiple times. These boats were inexpensive and could be rapidly mass-produced—perfect for protecting ports.
"Is the adhesion between torpedo and target ship reliable? You'd probably need considerable impact force to fix the torpedo to the hull."
"Rowing probably couldn't do it, but steam power should be sufficient. We can add something sticky—like tree gum—to increase adhesion."
"With this fully enclosed armor, how do the crew observe?"
"Armored louvered shutters," Wen Desi said. "See this circular armored turret protruding from the hull? The turret body has six armored observation windows arranged in a ring."
The control turret was two-person: a helmsman in front steering, the boat captain sitting slightly higher behind the helmsman. His seat could rotate, observing outside conditions through the louvered windows. The helmsman steered according to his commands. The captain could also direct the entire boat through internal speaking tubes.
"There are two engine room crew for the steam engine, two sailors to operate the spar torpedo, plus one backup—he can help with coal. Seven men total for the whole boat. Besides one pre-loaded torpedo, four more are carried in reserve." Wen Desi pointed at his design drawings.
According to Wen Desi's conception, until the transmigrators developed flywheel torpedoes, these spar torpedo boats would be perfectly adequate for port defense. They had at least greater destruction capability than machine gun boats—one spar torpedo was enough to destroy or severely damage a vessel of several hundred tons.
"Deploy four at Maniao, ten at Bopu. Half in steam-up ready status, half resting. Just destroying two or three enemy ships would be enough to send them fleeing in terror."
An immediate decision was made to submit an emergency shipbuilding request to the Planning Institute for sixteen spar torpedo boats and eight machine gun boats.
Wu De immediately approved this shipbuilding order. As for whether spar torpedo boats would actually be useful, in his view that wasn't a major problem—if useless, just strip off the armor and use them as transport boats. No waste.
Zhan Wuya received explicit orders from He Ming to organize militia in all factories. One hour daily for military training.
"Military training with spears?"
"Start with spears for bayonet drill and formation skills. Rifle handling can use training rifles for now. Also grenade throwing—Hailin has already transferred over several hundred practice grenades. Take a hundred for worker training," He Ming said. "I've already submitted a request to the Planning Institute for emergency expansion of rifle production. Then everyone will have rifles—you need to select the most politically reliable and resolute elements from the worker militia as core militia, ready for deployment at any time."
"What? You're going to send workers to fight?" Zhan Wuya was shocked. Industrial workers cultivated with such difficulty—even losing one would be a huge loss.
"They're to serve as reserves and garrison troops. They won't be deployed for offensive combat," He Ming explained. "Besides factories, communes and local villages also need mobilization. But worker self-defense forces will be the main force."
(End of Chapter)