C2743 Severely wounded Pyrenees (1/2)

”Look!” Pyrenees raised the damaged flag! They also sent a signal... I've been hit by a bullet in the coal bin and am now entering the water! ”

Huo Fu stared dumbstruck at the lighting signal that the Pyrenees had sent over. His mouth was filled with a bitter ”Damn it! Are the Chinese and Prussian crazy? Why did they need to install artillery with such large caliber? ”Why?!”

The 210-caliber cannon was the dominant cannon in the world at that time. It seemed that apart from the mortars used by the army, no other cannon could match this caliber.

The 210 calibre that was created from the musket gun was, in the military ideologies of the time, a complete countercurrent!

Why didn't Britain and France have guns of this level? It was actually related to the theoretical direction of the navy at that time!

In the mainstream military theory of the time, it was considered foolish to think that the caliber of artillery exceeded 200.

The first point was that the cannons produced by large caliber would increase the difficulty of metal processing. Generally, small countries would not have this ability, and it would be difficult to even obtain the Steel plant s of English and French.

However, he had never expected that Prussia, through the accumulation of long-term basic compulsory education, had already accumulated a large number of basic scientific workers. At this time, Prussia's smelting and processing techniques were the best in the world.

But the English and the French did not admit it, and their pride blinded them!

Secondly, even if large caliber cannons could be processed, there was a problem with their actual usage in combat!

Why did he say that? The larger the caliber of the cannon, the greater the quality of the projectile and the higher the load of the propellant cartridge.

This created a problem of rifling wear. Although rifling was good, it had a problem of wear and tear. Wear caused by long term and artillery shells would make rifling thin, and even cause air leakage and accuracy drop.

The smaller the weapon, the more durable the rifled gun was. For example, the gun might not have any problems using a rifled gun for a lifetime, while the field gun would only shoot at the rifled gun more than a thousand times before the rifled gun would be gone.

For huge cannons like the Zhiyuan Warship, which had a diameter of 210 caliber, usually had to fire four to five hundred rounds of ammunition, so the rifling line was pretty much worn out!

At that time, the British naval experts said, if there was a further explosion or a drop in accuracy in the war, would it affect the outcome of the war?

Needless to say, this kind of thinking really affected many politicians and generals. This also caused many Western countries to be very cautious in building giant cannon battleships, and they even thought that the Zhiyuan Warship was a heretic!

Thirdly, there was the issue of money. The cost of maintaining and replacing the components for this kind of cannon was too much. The cost of a single cannon was enough to make 50 ordinary 140-caliber cannons.

Although the country is big, you still have to spend some money to live!

Because of all these factors, the armies of the various countries of nineteenth century did not have a large scale artillery with large caliber. However, they forgot that war is on the verge of imminent disaster, and war is not something the scholars could even dream of.

This was a land of blood and fire, a playground of the god of death. Any small thing would cause countless deaths, and today, Zhiyuan Warship, who was a battleship that had existed for fifty years before the era, had taught them a lesson.

The first of the Pyrenees ships was ambushed and over 30 people were killed, the two cannons were completely destroyed and could not be launched, the flames were still not extinguished.

Another armor piercing bullet pierced the lower deck of the coal bunker, and the water that came gushing out of the bunker instantly turned it into a black ocean.

The sea water mixed with coal slag flowed inside the boat. Pyrenees had a watertight compartment design, and the boiler room was right next to the coal bin. The Navy soldiers could only desperately close the cabin door and cover up all the gaps with cloth strips.

However, water wasn't something that could be filled easily. Almost all the cracks were seeping in, and soon, the boiler room was filled with three inches of water.