Chapter 697 The Birth of the Iron Crossbow
Pingyang Today, the high-speed workshop is like a large factory, which has become an important support for Feiqian. It not only provides a large number of ordinary equipment, but also provides special products that Feiqian needs.
With iron ore, raw materials and the like were no longer a problem, and with Huang''s craftsmen, after many experiments and debugging, improvements based on the bronze crossbow were finally completed.
What Fei Qian holds now is basically a finalized sample.
Huang Dou, who brought the crossbow machine over, has lost a lot of weight. His figure that was originally like a rubber ball has gradually changed into a muscular appearance, just like the Russian women of later generations. They were like two people before and after marriage, but Huang Dou It just developed in reverse.
Because the crossbow is made by the military and is intended for large-scale mass production, it is not very particular about the carving of some details. There are no patterns or unnecessary decorations. The pure and simple structure is for better performance. Easier to kill.
It is said to be an iron crossbow, but in fact it is not entirely made of iron.
??The crossbow box was changed to iron, and the missing part of the crossbow machine''s hanging knife at Wangshan is still made of bronze. No way, in this stage of the Han Dynasty, the advantage of bronze in terms of pouring is still much stronger than that of black iron. The poured bronze can directly have sufficient strength and toughness, but black iron must be stir-fried again to be strong and tough. Due to its characteristics, it still consumes too much manpower to beat thirty or fifty-refined steel into parts like a hanging knife.
??There are still wooden supports and the like, and these surrounding things have basically not changed. They are just reinforced with iron hoops to make them less likely to be damaged during actual operation.
The biggest change is the crossbow arm, which was replaced from bakelite structure to steel.
But the steel string thing, although Fei Qian had a good idea, ultimately failed.
?This crossbow machine has a bowstring hung on the arm of the crossbow, which is made of hair, hemp and silk.
Huang Dou said on the side: "Although the iron wire is good, it will be stretched after the bow is fired about twenty times and must be readjusted. And so on, it must be replaced after three adjustments, otherwise it will easily break. ..." That is to say, according to the current technology of the Han Dynasty, the produced iron wire will be at risk of breaking and being damaged after sixty shots.
Concerning this point, Fei Qian was also helpless.
Originally, in Fei Qian''s idea, the bowstring should be similar to the bicycle brake line of later generations, consisting of multiple strands of extremely thin steel wires twisted together. However, the technology of the Han Dynasty cannot meet such requirements. The iron wire is pulled. It''s out, but it''s still very thick...
Even though Fei Qian borrowed hydraulic and lever skills to pull the wire, material limitations still made Fei Qian unable to do anything. In order to pull out thinner iron wires that are not easily broken, the steel must be required to have stronger toughness, which in turn requires the steel to be forged and smelted again. Steel that has been forged many times will in turn be It increases the difficulty of drawing, and thus falls into an infinite loop.
?Coupled with the high labor and high costs required, it creates a fundamental conflict with Feiqian''s original idea of ??simplicity and easy replacement.
?However, the iron wires pulled out of ordinary car materials are not completely without other uses...
The cost of making steel crossbow arms is now relatively much lower than before. After all, the difference in difficulty in making iron sheets and iron wires is still very large. Due to the realization of variable speed gear hydraulic forging equipment, it is easier and simpler for Fei Qian to obtain thirty or even fifty tempered steel than before.
Driven by the endless flow of water, the hammering machine that operates back and forth, as long as the hammer arm is not damaged, can even hammer with the same intensity twenty-four hours a day. This makes it easier for Fei Qian to obtain more High-quality steel, resulting in the double-layer steel crossbow arms used in crossbow machines. Huang Dou said: "The outer layer of the crossbow arm is made of thirty tempers, which is harder, and the inner layer is made of fifty tempers, which will be tougher. In this way, it is better than using thirty or fifty tempers alone. You can penetrate armor from a hundred and fifty steps away, and you can penetrate wood even an inch from a distance of three hundred and fifty steps..."
??In this way, it can still be lethal to unarmored targets at a distance of 350 steps. This has more than doubled the range compared to a bow...
?Effective range and maximum range are two completely different concepts. This is what is said about the end of a strong crossbow that cannot penetrate Luyi. Because of the resistance of the air, the power of arrows and crossbows drops very quickly in the final stage of flight. Even if they are thrown, it is only the damage caused by the gravity of the arrow itself, and the force when it leaves the string is absolutely Can''t compare.
Fei Qian looked at the crossbow arm. The ductility and strength of steel were perfectly displayed at this moment. The slightly curved crossbow arm was like a crescent moon, and the dark surface seemed to have been burned and rust-proofed. This is The most valuable part of the entire new crossbow machine.
Because of the crossbow arm, it is impossible to make it as long as the bow. The crossbow arm of the traditional bakelite structure is short, so naturally it is necessary to use a bow string with better elasticity and higher requirements on the crossbow string to increase the power. .
?Just like the big yellow crossbow in the early Han Dynasty, not only was the crossbow arm longer than an ordinary crossbow, but it even had special requirements for the crossbow string.
?But now, the strength of steel is enough to make up for the loss of range caused by the short arm of the crossbow. It is only two-thirds of the weight of the big yellow crossbow, but it can provide power comparable to that of the big yellow crossbow.
It''s just that the winding still needs to be stretched. Alas, Fei Qian sighed slightly.
Composite pulley bowstrings are probably not available in the Han Dynasty. As a result, the crossbow can only be used for infantry. As for the cavalry, the hand crossbow is still too complicated and involves too many things. It can’t be understood at the moment. It''s bright...
However, this is enough. The cavalry''s bow and the infantry''s crossbow can form an effective strike surface on the battlefield. Especially the crossbow, which has huge capabilities in ultra-long range and charging standby that bows and arrows do not have. The advantage, and more importantly, is that as long as there are enough crossbows, Fei Qian can transform all infantry into ordinary part-time crossbowmen.
It is impossible to produce an archer without long-term training.
So the issue now is production and cost.
"There are now three hundred, and by the beginning of next spring, it is expected to reach eight hundred..." Huang Dou said, "The main reason is that the weather has been cold recently, and the wood used for the crossbow wooden supports is not easy to dry..."
Fei Qian nodded. Eight hundred plus the original more than a hundred crossbows would basically make up to a thousand powerful crossbows. In this way, it would be enough...
There are probably a few chapters left to explain farming, and we are about to enter the next step...
Calculating the author’s calculations, it has been almost a year since I wrote it…
150W words, oh oh oh, let the author be proud for a while...
(End of this chapter)