Chapter 1004 Fuzes

That day, Lin Shenhe and Jiang Ye conducted several mechanical tests on the press—using inert powder with physical properties similar to black powder, proving all machinery was operating completely normally. Jiang Ye then added sufficient lubrication to all moving parts to ensure trouble-free operation.

This wasn't the first time the Machinery Department had manufactured specialized presses for pyrotechnics—they had used them when manufacturing brown powder propellant cakes. But never before had they performed such high-pressure, high-density pressing.

Early the next morning, Lin Shenhe and the naturalized citizen workers who had volunteered to assist donned blast-resistant suits and specialized helmets supplied by Pan Da, then shuffled step by step toward the machine.

Room temperature held steady at thirteen degrees; the hygrometer showed ninety percent humidity.

"Everything normal." A naturalized citizen worker specifically assigned to monitor the thermometer and hygrometer made the hand signal.

Lin Shenhe drew a deep breath and opened the sealed barrel containing gunpowder.

Inside was newly made powdered black powder—Lingao's black powder was generally granulated for storage, since powdered black powder in storage tended to cause component settling and separation.

He carefully scooped gunpowder from the barrel with a copper measuring spoon, precisely weighing out one thousand grams on the table scale. He poured it into a large porcelain container, then added alcohol solution of specified concentration. A naturalized citizen worker began slowly stirring with a wooden stick until the mixture was completely uniform.

"Seventy-five-gram charge." Lin Shenhe instructed. So far, everything remained normal—this was also the safest stage. What followed would be critical.

Following his instructions, the naturalized citizen worker retrieved the corresponding mold from its box and fixed it on the base. There were several molds corresponding to different charge column shapes and masses, all fashioned from copper.

After the mixed black powder was precisely weighed and loaded into the mold, Lin Shenhe, trusting no one else with this step, personally operated the press. The press's pressure device drove the hydraulic cylinder through a manual wheel, slowly applying pressure to the screw.

He turned the wheel slowly and evenly, ensuring pressure wasn't transmitted too fast—too fast or too hard could easily trigger an explosion. Inside the blast suit it was stuffy and hot; his mood was extremely tense, and before long he was dripping with sweat. This gave him the illusion that the room temperature had risen.

"Check temperature!"

"Temperature fourteen point five degrees, humidity ninety percent! Normal!"

He had specially calculated the seventy-five-gram charge column dimensions using formulas to ensure no over-pressing. However, this was only theoretical—whether reality would match, he wasn't fully confident. As dimensions approached closer and closer to the target, the sweat beads on Lin Shenhe's forehead multiplied. He turned the wheel several more rotations until the powder surface dropped to the marked line—the first charge column was formed.

Lin Shenhe carefully removed the charge column from the mold and placed it on a fixing tray—next came waiting for it to dry naturally.

The explosives building had a dedicated drying room, but this experimental product of unknown properties couldn't be mixed with production items for drying. So the laboratory had a separate drying room where air humidity and temperature were likewise controlled; charge columns dried naturally at room temperature below forty degrees.

"On to the next!" Lin Shenhe's confidence surged. Since no accidents occurred during pressing, the entire process was clearly working.

He pressed charge columns of various sizes and masses, including ones prepared for filling grenades—current grenades in terms of power were merely large firecrackers, with negligible lethality, what Americans called "concussion grenades."

Another use for pressed charge columns was as rocket propellant. Charge columns of consistent shape and density were essential for rocket ballistic consistency, holding considerable significance. By his estimate, after switching to these new pressed charge columns, both the range and accuracy of Hale rockets could reach new levels.

Of course, the greatest application for high-density black powder charge columns was filling artillery shells, bringing originally decorative explosive shells to a genuinely formidable level of power. Lin Shenhe believed that although the twelve-pounder and twenty-four-pounder smoothbore cannons widely used by the army had advantages—simple manufacture, straightforward operation, and suitability for low-tech-level armies—in the long run, the inherent disadvantages of smoothbores' relatively low power and slow firing rate couldn't be overcome. They weren't, as some enthusiasts proclaimed, "useful for twenty years."

Mass manufacturing and equipping rifled artillery was an inevitable choice for the Senate's military system. Currently, only the Navy and coastal artillery used some rifled cannons—both muzzle-loading and breech-loading—but none had become standard equipment, only sporadically installed in an experimental capacity. The main obstacle, besides cost, was that rifled cannon bore pressure ran far higher than smoothbores. Spherical shell fuzes couldn't be used on rifled cannons, so to date all rifled cannons could only use solid shot.

The conical solid shot fired by rifled cannons produced killing effects far inferior to smoothbores' spherical shot—the latter could still kill during bouncing and rolling after landing, while conical solid shot simply embedded itself in the ground. The advantage was extremely strong penetration, very powerful against city fortifications and warships.

To let rifled cannons demonstrate sufficient power, the fuze problem had to be solved first.

While waiting for charge columns to dry, Lin Shenhe had people manufacture fuzes.

He had long wanted to solve the fuze problem. The main obstacle he faced was this: the materials branch of the Senate's industrial system was in very poor condition. Manufacturing safe, reliable fuzes inevitably required springs.

Springs were inconspicuous items in the old dimension, but in Lingao, manufacturing springs was genuinely high technology. Springs usable in rifled cannon fuzes were crystallizations of industrial capability: encompassing steel smelting, alloy materials, and specialized heat treatment techniques. Lingao's industry could produce springs, but from materials to manufacturing, they were extremely low-end products, barely adequate for simple applications like carriages and sofas—and even then with shorter lifespans and more frequent replacement. Used in artillery shells, at best they would fail to detonate on impact, affecting combat; at worst they would suddenly explode, causing major accidents.

Because of this problem, whether Lin Shenhe, Wang Ruixiang, or the various Senator military enthusiasts, all had wanted to solve this issue, yet none had succeeded. No matter what conception they developed, they ultimately couldn't surmount the threshold of "qualified springs."

Fuzes were consumables; costs had to be low enough for mass production and use. Simultaneously, the Senate's machining industry workers generally lacked high skill levels; technical difficulty in processing and production had to be reduced as much as possible to ensure uniform production quality.

On this issue, Lin Shenhe specifically reviewed extensive materials, finally deciding to design based on the Japanese Type 91 rifle grenade fuze. This was a structurally simple impact-detonation type, relying on the inertia of the warhead moving forward upon target impact to overcome anti-creep spring resistance and achieve ignition. The safety measure was a safety pin pulled before firing. The entire fuze design required only one anti-creep spring, with low spring performance requirements—highly suitable for Lingao's current industrial capacity.

In this fuze, the detonator tube was situated at the fuze's base; the fuze's front end housed a long rod-shaped inertia body with striker. The inertia body was separated from the detonator tube by the anti-creep spring and fixed with a laterally inserted safety pin. To ensure firing rate, the inertia body had a crown-shaped pressure plate at the top in a long rod structure. Before firing, pulling the safety pin armed the fuze into combat state. During cannon firing, the inertia body remained at the front under anti-creep spring action, ensuring no premature detonation; after target impact, under warhead inertia, the anti-creep spring was compressed, the striker struck the firing element, and the fuze detonated.

The machinery factory quickly manufactured a hundred fuzes according to his design drawings—half made by Senators, half by naturalized citizen technical workers. Lin Shenhe wanted to know what pass rate the naturalized citizen workers would achieve during formal production.

Visual inspection and simple experimental acceptance results showed naturalized citizen workers achieved approximately forty percent pass rate. This ratio was roughly acceptable to Lin Shenhe—this was manual assembly; during mass production with extensive use of specialized process equipment and workers becoming more skilled, the pass rate would increase greatly.

Lin Shenhe believed that according to his design, the fuze's performance requirements for the anti-creep spring itself weren't demanding; the highest-grade phosphor bronze springs currently produced in Lingao should suffice. He conducted dozens of trials in the laboratory with phosphor bronze spring fuzes—every time the phosphor bronze spring responded correctly.

However, the laboratory lacked specialized equipment to simulate the high-temperature, high-pressure environment when shells were fired, nor could it simulate the high-overload conditions shells experienced during flight. Simple weighted drop tests couldn't reflect true fuze performance. Lingao's military engineers could only use the simplest method: live-fire testing to verify their designs.

Lin Shenhe borrowed a rifled cannon from Ying Yu—one of the seventy-millimeter breech-loading rifled cannons originally manufactured by the military-industrial department for the four 8154 vessels. After being removed from ships, it had remained in storage.

Since seventy-millimeter rifled cannons had never manufactured explosive shells, Lin Shenhe first had the machinery factory produce twenty explosive shells, fitted them with fuzes, and used sand as weighted substitute for explosives.

He carefully marked and separated shells fitted with Senator-made fuzes from those with naturalized citizen-made fuzes, then borrowed horses to tow the cannon to the range for experimental firing.

Lin Shenhe personally served as gunner. Propellant used was brown powder, which offered better firing safety. For the first firing, Lin Shenhe didn't use full charge—only reduced charge.

The firing range sites included hard soil surface, medium soil, and wetland environments. The first round of firing achieved excellent results. After excluding failures caused by fuze manufacturing quality itself, on hard and medium soil the fuzes achieved ninety percent firing rate; in wetland environments, they still achieved over seventy percent. From a practical combat effectiveness standpoint, completely qualified—current smoothbore cannon explosive shells averaged only seventy percent detonation rate.

(End of Chapter)