Regarding plate armor, Luo Zhixue has some ideas, but they are just small ideas.

But compared to plate armor, he actually pays more attention to the mass production of steel and the processing technology itself.

If steel can be mass-produced, even if it is only the small-scale mass production in modern times, and can be processed on a large scale, then it will be of great use.

Whether it is machinery, military or many other aspects, it can be greatly promoted.

It's just that it is too difficult to directly produce steel on a large scale like modern industrial countries. What is needed behind this is a complete industrial system, which is far less than what Luo Zhixue can do now.

Therefore, Luo Zhixue also focused on some of the steelmaking methods commonly used by people today, such as the steelmaking method used by Song Blacksmith and others.

Luo Zhixue had seen that they had made steel in Sanshui Village before. Generally, they used wrought iron as the raw material and put pig iron on it. The high temperature caused the pig iron to melt and penetrate into the wrought iron, thereby obtaining crude steel.

The whole operation method is actually quite simple. Just set up a stove and a bellows and you can do it.

However, the output of this indigenous method of steelmaking is very low, at least not related to the large-scale mass production of steel that Luo Zhixue had in mind.

Low output also means high prices, making it difficult to promote large-scale use.

Luo Zhixue plans to work with Blacksmith Song later to improve the existing iron-making and steel-making technologies and processes, striving to further increase steel production capacity and reduce costs.

If the cost is reduced to a certain level, Luo Zhixue would not mind directly using the steel produced by traditional methods to create knives, spears, plate armor and other weapons and equipment to equip elite troops.

——

After seeing the production of armor, Luo Zhixue led people to continue to inspect the arrow factory and ammunition factory. The arrow factory has nothing to say. It is a place where arrows are made. There is no special advanced technology. It is just used.

Just some primitive machinery for processing.

These are mainly used to save manpower and are used in processes that are highly repetitive and require little effort, such as grinding and drilling.

The ammunition factory mainly produces solid cannonballs, shotshells, and lead bullets. It is also trying to make its own gunpowder. However, the raw materials for self-made gunpowder also need to be purchased from outside, and saltpeter and sulfur are also very expensive. The only thing worth noting is that

,Luo Zhixue slightly improved the black powder formula.

As for raw material purification, gunpowder granulation and other processes, the Ming Dynasty was actually very complete, and it was similar to that in Europe at the same time. The only difference was that many of their European counterparts used hydraulic machinery for processing, which improved production efficiency, while the Ming Dynasty's

Most of the craftsmen are still in the manpower stage.

If there is a large demand for production in the future, the ammunition factory here in Baoxiangying can also use hydraulic machinery in the gunpowder production process.

There is no technical difficulty, it just depends on the demand. The main thing is that building a complete set of hydraulic machinery for gunpowder production is also time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the cost is not low. If the demand is not too urgent, it is better to do it manually.

And now the gunpowder production here in Baoxiangying is naturally a small workshop among small workshops. There are not many raw materials and not many people who need it. Now it is very good to be able to produce several hundred kilograms of gunpowder a month. What are you going to do?

Hydraulic machinery is directly produced manually, and at most it can be done with some auxiliary mechanical tools.

After seeing the production of arrows and ammunition, Luo Zhixue did not stop, but continued to the artillery factory. However, there is nothing interesting to see in the artillery factory now. After all, the production of artillery only lasts for several months, and it is still in the production stage.

Mold stage.

Luo Zhixue just went for a walk, emphasized once again that the quantity of gunpowder for casting must be maintained, and then turned back to the musket factory.

The musket factory is the highlight of Luo Zhixue's inspection of the weapons workshop today.

Because according to Luo Zhixue's reform of the infantry, the demand for muskets will be very large in the future, and one infantry sentry will need 60 muskets.

If the existing five infantry posts are completely reformed and re-equipped, 300 muskets will be needed.

But now there are only more than fifty muskets seized in the Baoxiang camp, in addition to more than a dozen muskets that were tried to be made in the past few months.

However, these more than ten self-made muskets are mostly used for various tests, and they even have several calibers.

Blacksmith Song still explained in front of Luo Zhixue: "After comparative testing of more than ten muskets we built in the early stage, we finally selected a medium-sized musket for production."

Luo Zhixue is naturally no stranger to this. In fact, he personally decided on the final selection of the musket, and the most important data was the 18mm caliber.

The Ming army used different calibers of bird guns these days. The small ones were only eight or nine millimeters, and the large ones were about thirteen millimeters. In addition, there were some large bird guns, which were heavy matchlock guns with tripods, and the caliber was about nineteen nineteen millimeters.

About millimeters.

After a preliminary comparative test, Luo Zhixue believed that although the caliber was too small, although it had a high muzzle velocity and could shoot far, the musketeers always fired within a hundred meters, so a musket that could shoot hundreds of meters was meaningless.

And those heavy matchlock guns with longer barrels are not of much significance to the Baoxiang camp. If you have the time to play heavy matchlock guns, you might as well just push a few 200-pound light cannons over, and they will all fall on the opposite side with one blast.

Next piece...

In the end, Luo Zhixue chose an 18mm matchlock gun. It was not a heavy matchlock gun with a long barrel, but was about the same size as an individual blunderbuss, just with a larger caliber.

After all, when the size and weight are acceptable, it is naturally better to have a larger caliber, so that the armor-breaking ability within the effective range will be more powerful.

This kind of musket can penetrate all kinds of armor in East Asia within a hundred meters, regardless of whether it is European plate armor, East Asian piercing armor, fish scale armor, cloth armor, or cotton armor, as long as it is not too abnormal,

Armor that is so thick that soldiers cannot wear it, after all, one hole is made every time, and another hole is still left...

During the actual test, within 100 meters, this kind of musket directly penetrated a piece of steel armor made by Baoxiang Camp using its own indigenous steel material. The protective ability of this steel piece was much stronger than that of various iron armors, but

Still can’t bear it!

Luo Zhixue still attaches great importance to this new matchlock gun. In order to mass-produce it as soon as possible, Luo Zhixue provides almost unlimited support to the musket factory.

The limited supply of iron materials was limited, and water hammers were used first. Excellent craftsmen were directly transferred there. In addition, a group of young people were recruited to work. No wages were paid, and there were a lot of young people rushing to come if they were given food.
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He also personally designed a lot of auxiliary mechanical equipment with Blacksmith Song and Carpenter Huang, and divided the various processes of making matchlock guns and arranged different people to be responsible for different processes.

In order to ensure that parts manufactured by division of labor can still be used universally, we personally formulated a set of strict unified measurement standards and tools.

It can be said that the things used in other branches of the weapons workshop were originally made by Luo Zhixue to build matchlock guns.

This is especially true for various auxiliary mechanical equipment. These lathes, boring machines, etc., which have wood and iron as their main structures and only have the most basic processing capabilities, are actually designed specifically for making guns.

The reason why the production of other ordnance and weapons can also be used is purely a free ride.

The production of muskets, which cost Luo Zhixue a lot of energy, has gone through the trials, testing and design tools and process flow stages during the Sanshui Village period.

Eventually the first dedicated musket factory was established in Songshan Village.

Luo Zhixue looked at the dozens of different types of primitive machinery and equipment inside, and then at the dozens of craftsmen and ordinary people working busy inside, and he couldn't help but smile slightly.

He spent a lot of effort to build this musket factory, and now it has finally begun to take shape.

Now all he has to do is wait!

Blacksmith Song also saw the joy on Luo Zhixue's face, and immediately stepped forward and said: "General, we have now begun to try to use the assembly line method you mentioned to divide labor to build muskets."

"Although the craftsmen are not very skilled now and the crafting speed is relatively slow, it is still much better than the old method we used to build."

"Furthermore, this method has much lower requirements for craftsmen. You don't need to learn all the processes from beginning to end. You only need to specialize in one of the processes. Even if you are not a craftsman, just an ordinary civilian can do it after a short period of training.

Competent."

Luo Zhixue nodded slightly: "The flow method is certainly good, but you must pay great attention to ensure the error and measure it uniformly."

There is nothing unusual about the assembly line itself, but it splits many processes into one and allows workers to specialize in one of them, thereby improving their proficiency and efficiency.

But there is also a big problem here, and that is error.

If the error is too large, the parts created in separate processes cannot be assembled...

Therefore, for today's so-called assembly line production, splitting the process is not a problem. The key is to control errors, otherwise it will be easy to produce a large number of parts that cannot be assembled, so unified measurement is very important.

Blacksmith Song said: "General, don't worry. You have raised this issue before. I am keeping an eye on it. The various rulers used in the factory are all replicas of the set of rulers I originally used. There will be no delay."

It’s about that.”

It doesn’t matter whether the measurement standard is the metric system or the traditional municipal system, but a unified standard must be formed to ensure that a certain length measured by all rulers is consistent.

You can’t make this one longer and that one shorter!
Chapter completed!