Struggle in Russia

Li Xiao really didn't expect that Grand Duke Constantine would be so crazy and hysterical, completely turning into a smaller version of Nicholas I. He wrote that article with the intention of protecting himself, but it was considered a provocation by the Grand Duke. Under the personal instruction of the Grand Duke, the Grand Duke's henchman in the Navy Department is concocting various despicable methods to deal with him and Leonid.

At this time, Li Xiao was sitting at his desk and continued to perfect the design and improvement of the new rifle. Although this work was considered unnecessary by Vishniak and Boris.

These two good friends were very satisfied with Li Xiao's previous improvement, and thought it was the best rifle in the world, but Li Xiao's new design idea was obviously "detoured" and "totally unnecessary".

Li Xiao smiled wryly at this. Sure enough, one step ahead of the times is a genius, and three steps ahead of the times is a devil. But Li Xiao still insisted on his devil's design, because all-metal fixed-load ammunition is too important, and that is where the historical trend lies.

The 1847 bullet is still full of the style of the Napoleonic era. Even the British, who are a little ahead, use front-loading Minie bullets, and the shells wrapped in gunpowder are still made of paper. After a few years, when breech-loading rifles become popular, metal primers and needle-pricked rifles will gradually develop. Fire rifle rounds.

But whether it is an edge-fired bullet or a needle-fired bullet, the performance is not very ideal. In the end, it was the center-fired bullets with all-metal casings that dominated the rivers and lakes. And this is exactly what Li Xiao is designing now.

In fact, it is not appropriate to say that the design is inappropriate. Because he doesn't have that ability, he just refers to the bullets that have appeared in history and is just a copy of the document.

Of course, this Wenchaogong is not so easy to do. Because there are too many choices, the middle of the 19th century is an era of rapid technological changes and various inventions. All kinds of new and trendy designs, such as Guo Jiangzhiqing, are too numerous to count.

The same goes for firearms and bullets. This made Li Xiao feel a little bit at a loss, because Russia's foundation is too poor, and it is not so sure to copy any one, which really makes people cry.

Such as all metal center fire bullets. With the current Russian technical strength, the only thing that can be handled is black powder. This thing is ready-made, just put it in the metal bullet case. As for others, such as the processing technology of metal bullet casings, such as the formula and manufacturing technology of the primer. Even warhead Russia may not be able to handle it.

Don't think these things are simple. For example, all-metal bullet casings cannot be made without sufficient technology. How to stamp a small piece of copper into a bullet casing is enough to write a technical paper of 18,000 words.

Then there is the primer, which involves not only metal processing technology, but also chemistry. Although the Scottish priest Alexander Forsyth discovered thunder mercury as early as 1793, and invented the world's first percussion rifle with James Watt in 1807, and later established the Forsyth Firearms Company to produce Famous perfume bottle percussion gun.

The percussion gun, called a perfume bottle, uses a vessel filled with sensitive fulminol. When using the thormer in the perfume bottle, sprinkle it on the primer plate of the firearm, and then pull the trigger and the hammer will hit the primer plate. Under the action of the impact force, the thormer detonates and ignites the black powder to push the projectile.

In 1814, American Qishua Shaw invented a more advanced copper fire cap. In 1825, American Delinger invented a new type of percussion gun using a flash cap. This new weapon was the weapon that killed Lincoln later.

The invention of the flash cap can be said to be groundbreaking. It not only greatly improved the reliability of firearm shooting, but also increased the probability of misfire from once every seven shots to once every two hundred shots. More importantly, the flash cap is not as afraid of water as the flintlock.

Historically, during the anti-British struggle in Sanyuanli, the British army sent companies using Baker-style percussion rifles to rescue the siege in the torrential rain. This was unimaginable a few decades ago. In the Napoleon era, the fusiliers were completely useless when it rained heavily.

Let the big guys fight with bayonets.

To be honest, Russia is not a little behind in this regard, and the old flintlock musket still prevails. There are very few percussion rifles that use flash caps. A whole nation of soldiers lived in 1812, refusing to go one step further.

This directly leads to the pitiful application of all new technologies in Russia. Li Xiao couldn't find a few factories in St. Petersburg, Moscow, or Tula that could supply enough flash caps. There are only a few firearms enthusiasts around St. Petersburg who have opened miniature workshops to produce a few pitiful flash caps. The supply, let alone 748 regiments, is only enough for a few nobles to hunt occasionally.

This made Li Xiao extremely distressed. Even if the gun factory he and Duke Mikhail jointly established could produce a new type of rifle, what about the bullets? Is it possible to import edge-fired bullets and needle-fired bullets from Britain and France?

This is definitely unrealistic. After all, in the Crimean War a few years later, Britain and France stood directly on the opposite side of Russia. How could it be possible to export bullets to Russia while fighting.

Therefore, it is very necessary to fix the bullet production line. Mechanical equipment and technicians can be hired from the outside for the time being.

The real question is the one mentioned earlier, which bullet is more suitable for Russia's national conditions? This new type of bullet must be simple in production technology, suitable for production by the backward Russian organization, but at the same time must be advanced enough to not use those cheap ones with paper shells and metal primers, because they will be obsolete in a few years, and they are easy to be affected by moisture. Performance.

Of course, the most important thing is to be cheap enough. After all, copper is not cheap, it is considered a precious metal. With Russia's financial resources, the widespread use of copper-cased ammunition can go bankrupt in minutes.

Steel instead of copper?

This idea lingered in Li Xiao's mind for a long time, but finally gave up. Because although steel shells are indeed cheaper than copper shells, the problem is that the steelmaking technology in Russia or the world today is really not good.

In this era, most of the steel smelted was still pig iron and wrought iron. It was better to go to bed for direct steelmaking. The bottom-blowing acid converter steelmaking method had not yet been invented! That thing was only born in 1856, although it was not a few years away, but Li Xiao knew that it was in Britain, which has a strong industrial foundation, and it would be useless in Russia.

Moreover, the bottom-blowing acidic converter steelmaking method invented by Besmart still has a big problem. The phosphorus and sulfur in the ore cannot be removed, and the performance of the steel produced is not satisfactory and is not suitable for making guns and cannons.

Not only does Russia not have enough steelmaking technology and steel factories, metal processing is even more difficult. The ductility of steel is not as good as that of copper, and the stamping process is very troublesome, which is not something that a technical dwarf in Russia can handle.

Anyway, Li Xiao is suffering from extreme headaches. He now has a lot of excellent designs, but due to Russia's poor technical reserves, there are piles of problems that cannot be solved in each implementation process.

In short, Russia has no industrial base, and it is obviously a dream to build tall buildings in a technological vacuum...