Volume 1 Tigers in Southeast Asia Chapter 34 Automatic Rifle
Chen Fu and Yu Xi'er agreed and started asking everyone to move things. Cotton, cinnabar and saltpeter were transported to the chemical production area, while various mechanical processing equipment were transported to the metallurgical production area. The British businessmen also sent technicians to guide the installation for Yu Xi'er's sake, and they also went to the metallurgical production area.
A group of Filipinos came over, unloaded all the goods from the ship, put them on a cart, and then pushed the cart away. There were very few horses on the island, so they had to use manpower. Fortunately, the road had been built, otherwise it would have been impossible to transport goods on the original dirt road.
Lin Fei brought Chen Fu to the chemical production area and called Su Yunzhao and other technicians together. Su Yunzhao saw that Lin Fei had bought a lot of cinnabar and saltpeter, and asked the same question as Chen Fu: "What are you buying these things for?"
Lin Fei smiled and picked up a ball of cotton and said, "Does anyone know this thing?"
Everyone said, "Isn't this cotton? Why don't you recognize it?"
Lin Fei smiled and said, "Yes, this thing is cotton. What about this thing?" After saying that, Lin Fei took out a hemp rope from his pocket and handed it to everyone. Everyone said, "Isn't this a hemp rope?"
Lin Fei put the hemp rope and cotton together and asked with a smile: "What do you think are the similarities between these two things?"
Everyone shook their heads and asked, "What similarities can these two things have?"
Lin Fei said: "Cotton and hemp rope are made of cellulose. We will soak the cotton in nitric acid and the resulting substance will be nitrocellulose. After some further processing, we can get nitrocellulose gunpowder, which is a kind of propellant. We will load it into bullets in the future."
Everyone nodded. Lin Fei picked up a piece of red cinnabar and said, "This thing is called cinnabar, also known as 'chicken blood stone'. Everyone knows some Western chemistry knowledge. Do you know what its composition is?"
Su Yunzhao smiled bitterly and said, "We don't know."
Lin Fei said: "It is something called 'mercury sulfide'. After heating, it can produce 'mercury'. Then, by adding mercury to nitric acid, we get mercury fulminate. Mercury fulminate is an explosive used to ignite propellant. We use mercury fulminate to make the primer."
In Lin Fei's era, some other substances would be added to propellant and explosive to adjust the performance, such as adding potassium chlorate to mercury fulminate to improve ignition performance. However, Lin Fei of this era did not have those things and could only use the most primitive propellant and explosive.
After Lin Fei finished speaking, he emphasized again the matters that need attention during the processing, such as "mercury vapor is highly toxic", "nitrocellulose may explode", etc. Lin Fei also told the craftsmen the approximate ratios of various substances in the chemical reaction. Lin Fei could only tell them the approximate ratios, because in the chemical production of Lin Fei's era, the precise ratio was the core secret of each arsenal and was the key to maintaining the competitiveness of the arsenal. Lin Fei had no way of knowing it.
Probably the right ratio could produce what is needed, but the efficiency would not be very high. Lin Fei was not worried about this because these craftsmen could gain experience in actual production and determine a more efficient ratio.
After Lin Fei arranged the propellant and explosive of the bullet, he went to arrange the mechanical part of the gun and bullet. The gun and bullet can be divided into the chemical part and the mechanical part. The chemical part is the explosive and propellant, and the mechanical part is the parts that make up the gun.
Lin Fei came to Ling Xue's construction bureau and gathered all the craftsmen together with Liu Daming, Li Mingbai and others. Lin Fei first said: "I asked everyone to come here today to tell you something. We are going to make guns."
Li Mingbai first asked: "Why make guns? Don't we have guns now?"
Lin Fei said: "Our current guns are all manual, I want to make a rifle that can fire automatically."
Everyone was surprised. Li Mingbai said, "I heard there is a thing called a 'Maxim gun' that can fire bullets like a cannon. Captain, is the gun that can fire automatically the same as this?"
Lin Fei nodded and said, "That's roughly what I mean. Now let me explain the principle of this automatic rifle. Bring me a Mauser M1893."
A soldier took a gun and handed it to Lin Fei. Lin Fei pointed at the barrel and said, "The bullet is fired here. The gas generated by the propellant pushes the bullet out of the barrel, and then the gas is ejected from the barrel. Now we add a tube to the barrel to allow part of the gas to flow back through this tube. This part of the gas pushes a piston. The piston is connected to the bolt. When the piston is pushed, the bolt will move with it, automatically completing the actions of ejecting, loading, and locking. You don't need to move your hands anymore. You can just pull the trigger to fire the next bullet."
Everyone looked surprised, because they all understood that once this kind of gun was used on the battlefield, it would have an unparalleled advantage in firing rate!
Lin Fei went on to say: "One of the biggest difficulties in making this kind of gun is that spring steel is not easy to make. With the current capabilities of Lingji Construction Bureau, it is simply impossible to make it. Fortunately, I bought a batch of steelmaking open-hearth furnaces from the British, which can completely smelt spring steel. This kind of gun involves many parts and processes. These days I live in the construction factory and teach everyone how to use those machining tools to make these parts."
Liu Daming shouted, "This kind of gun must consume a lot of bullets. How can we make bullets?"
Lin Fei said, "I have already thought about the bullets. The material is brass, which Lingji Construction Factory can smelt. The bullet is divided into several parts, the warhead, the shell, the primer, the propellant and the explosive. The warhead is directly stamped out, and the shell and the primer are drawn and assembled with interference fit. I have already purchased the equipment."
Liu Daming nodded, and Lin Fei said, "Old Liu, your task now is to quickly train sailors and marines. It is not easy to train naval personnel. It takes a while to learn mathematics alone. Shooting and range finding in the navy are based on mathematics. People who don't know mathematics can't be in the navy at all."
Liu Daming agreed, and Lin Fei let everyone work on their own. In the next few days, Lin Fei taught the craftsmen in the Construction Bureau how to use punching machines, machine tools, grinders, milling machines and other mechanical processing equipment. These equipment were all driven by steam engines. Lin Fei wanted to use electricity to replace steam, but he did not have the ability, so he could only wait and see.
After five days of teaching day and night, Lin Fei finally taught the manufacturing process . However, Lin Fei still could not rest because he needed to calculate the ballistic characteristics of the rifle bullet to determine the height relationship between the sight and the front sight so that the sight could be used.
Lin Fei wrote down a long list of ballistic equations on paper. They were either differential equations or partial differential equations, and there was also a long page of matrix equations. In Lin Fei's time, there were computers and scientific computing software. One could input data and press the calculate button to get the result. But now, Lin Fei could only solve them silently by hand.
What made Lin Fei even more miserable was that many equations could not be solved analytically and had to be solved numerically. This increased the workload and made Lin Fei miserable. But he had to do it, because without relevant data, it would be impossible to shoot accurately. In that case, the lethality of the automatic rifle would be even worse than that of the ancient Chinese musket.
Lin Fei was busy calculating when there was a knock on the door. Lin Fei casually said "Come in". When the door opened, Lin Fei looked up and saw Ling Xue coming in. He casually said "Hello" and then lowered his head to calculate the data. Ling Xue smiled and walked to Lin Fei, sat opposite him, and watched him calculate the data. After a long while, she said, "Are you drawing talismans?"
Lin Fei smiled and stopped writing, saying, "I'm calculating the ballistic data."
Ling Xue said "Oh", and Lin Fei asked: "Do you have something to say?"
Ling Xue said: "I want to talk to you about Master Guan ."
Lin Fei asked, "What happened to Master Guan?"
Ling Xue said: "Although Master Guan has cheered up a bit and devoted himself to work, he is still in a bad mood. Logically speaking, you have killed Chief Makaipaslo to avenge his wife and daughter, so he should cheer up."
Lin Fei shook his head and said, "Even if we kill Chief Makaipaslo, his wife and daughter won't come back, so he can't cheer up. This knot in his heart can only be solved by himself. No matter what others say, it's useless."
Ling Xue said: "I suspect there must be something hidden here!"
Lin Fei asked hurriedly: "What's the secret?"
Ling Xue said: "It's hard to explain, but it's just that feeling."
Lin Fei said: "Take some time to talk to him, or find someone close to him to talk to. Tell us what he is hiding so that we can help him."
Ling Xue said "hmm" and stopped talking. Lin Fei lowered his head and continued to solve the problem. Ling Xue suddenly said, "Captain, do you think this thing looks good?"
Lin Fei looked up and saw that Ling Xue had a girl's purse in her hand. There were a few small flowers and two butterflies embroidered on the bag. Lin Fei exclaimed: "Did you make this? It's beautiful."
Ling Xue said, "Of course I did it," with a smug and proud look on her face. She put the purse in front of Lin Fei and said with a smile, "This is for you."
Lin Fei didn't think much about it and said directly: "I am a grown man, what's the use of this thing?"
Ling Xue smiled and said, "Don't you like these exquisite little things? For example, the knot, isn't the purse I made much more beautiful than that knot?"
Lin Fei recalled the scene when Chiyomika gave him the shurenna before the battle, and said with a smile: "That knot has a special meaning."
Ling Xue smiled and said, "So you just don't want to accept my gift?"
Lin Fei smiled and said, "How can that be? How can I let go of such a beautiful thing?" Lin Fei reached out and took the purse in his hand, smiling and saying, "I'll keep it."
Ling Xue smiled and nodded, then turned and said goodbye. When Ling Xue walked away, Lin Fei only heard Chen Jingui's voice outside: "Captain, the automatic rifle is ready!"
