readytorunbook Chapter 21: Concepts of the Navy, Naval Guns, Chemistry, and Railways
Chapter 21: Concepts of the Navy, Naval Guns, Chemistry, and Railways
Alice came to Hilla not only for Hilla City, but also for Hilla City's unique resource—its relatively prosperous shipbuilding industry.
"You're Hilla's largest shipyard?"
"Yes, Your Highness, the Lachman Shipyard is undoubtedly the number one shipyard in Hira. We have 2000 shipbuilding craftsmen and four large slipways."
"Take me to see your shipyard."
Alice observed the Lackman Shipyard, which was enormous for this world, with well-constructed wooden and wrought iron structures on the shore. However, contrary to its splendor, there were no ships under construction on the slipways, and only a handful of workers.
"Oh, damn it, I'm so sorry to have made you laugh, Your Highness. However, the shipyard is facing unprecedented difficulties. It's not just us; the entire shipyard in Port Hilla hasn't received any new orders for six months..."
Alice touched the shipyard's cranes. These huge cranes had a hamster wheel-like structure underneath them, which was an early form of human-powered crane.
But with just a little modification, it can be turned into a steam crane.
Although the four 200-meter-long slipways were not large, and Alice did not have the resources or technology to build behemoths like ironclad warships, just by looking at the ships on the shore, she knew what kind of ships could create a generational gap between them.
"Would they build such a ship?"
Alice was not unfamiliar with early naval ships. She looked at the slipway and realized that it was not impossible to build some early industrial-era steam-sail powered ships. In her previous life, in the 1850s, foreign invaders used such ships or even more primitive ships to completely annihilate the fleet of a large, ancient, and backward empire.
"Type 90 gunboat? This design... what are all these?"
"Don't worry about the things you don't understand about the ship yet. Can your shipyard build the hull structure of this ship?"
The shipyard manager, Lackman, nodded. Although the design was unique, it was a new type of ship with a twin-mast structure and a strangely large gap in the middle of the ship. The bottom of the ship was covered with copper sheets and coated with a strange material called asphalt paint.
The design specifications were very rough, with the following statement written next to it: "In terms of design, the construction period for the Type 90 fleet escort gunboat is approximately 90 days..."
One ship every 90 days?
"Your Highness, one ship every 90 days?"
The factory manager looked at Alice in disbelief. One ship every 90 days? Keep in mind, this is a 48-meter-long two-masted sailing ship!
"The Navy and the government will provide you with all the assistance, and the Department of Naval Science at Hongling Academy will also send scholars to help you. You just need to build according to the blueprints here."
"no problem!"
Alice looked at the huge slipway. A group of naval soldiers dressed in sailor uniforms and nautical shirts marched into the shipyard. Their arrival made Lackman feel a little awkward.
"Your Highness, this is...."
“From this moment forward, this place is government property. As for you, Mr. Lachman, I appoint you as the Supreme Member of the Naval Shipbuilding Committee, and you will remain in charge of managing this place.”
Alice added, "Don't worry, you won't be shortchanged, Mr. Lackman. With the Navy backing you up, your shipyard won't go bankrupt."
After struggling for ten minutes, Lackman finally let out a long sigh: "That's true. After all, this place was already preparing to close down. Lackman was even prepared to auction off the shipyard. Now that Her Highness the Princess is willing to take over the shipyard, it's not a bad option."
"At your service."
Lachman took off his hat, knelt on one knee, and bowed to Alice. According to the old custom, he was now a royal subject.
“No, you are not serving me, you are serving the country and the Navy. Stand up, Mr. Lachman.”
Alice looked solemnly at the tricolor flag and red military flag raised by the Marines.
"The nation...and the navy?"
"We are committed to building a people's nation, not a royal one, where both the royal family and the government ultimately serve the people."
"Yes, Your Highness."
Modern ships undoubtedly pose a threat to the navies of various countries and even other navies across the continent, and this is also true for the naval fleet now under the control of the usurper.
However, Alice needs to prepare the necessary materials for the Type 90 patrol ship within 90 days, some of which are still in the laboratory or under construction.
For example, artillery. The 12-pounder cannon used by the army was obviously too weak. Alice estimated that this cannon was absolutely not suitable for the navy's requirements. The navy needed large-caliber cannons, at least 125 mm or more, preferably rifled cannons. Alice did not have many resources to waste, so she did not want to engage in the kind of close-quarters artillery battles that were common during the Age of Exploration.
The Dahlgren 130mm rifled gun was one of the candidates. Alice pieced together most of the gun's manufacturing requirements from memory. This gun was the best muzzle-loading rifled gun of the Civil War, employing a technique called hollow cooling casting, which involved complex technologies from multiple disciplines such as thermodynamics.
The Dahlgren gun was still a recoil-propelled gun, but if it was mounted on a ship, the disadvantages of recoil-propelled guns were not unbearable—simply by building rails under the gun mount for the gun carriage to move back and forth, and using a simple buffer mechanism to control the recoil, the gunner could quickly right the gun and fire the next shot.
Alice had studied mechanical casting in her previous life, so the enormous size of the Dalgren cannon and its unique manufacturing process were not the main challenges. However, manufacturing such a large cannon required a more powerful forging machine—a steam hammer.
There isn't one in Hilla City; you need to go back to Trian in Red Ridge. The Red Ridge Steelworks is currently installing 12 newly manufactured steam forging hammers for forging steel.
Another issue is the hull corrosion prevention technology. Ships inevitably encounter interference from aquatic organisms while sailing at sea, and often after just a few months of sailing, the hull will be severely corroded.
"Asphalt...coal tar, still require the chemical industry..."
Asphalt can be extracted from petroleum, but there are no open-air oil lakes in the North. However, the Atlantis Islands, about 300 nautical miles from Hilla, can be bought as so-called "oil." Coal is plentiful, and Alice only needs to design a coal dry distillation unit that can carry out deep cracking and condensation reactions at a high temperature of around 500°C. This is not a difficult task. After the first steel plant in Red Ridge went into operation, large-scale industrialization became possible.
But that wasn't all. It would take six hours by carriage from Trian to Port Hilla, and that was just for passenger carriages. She couldn't imagine how much longer it would take if it were a loaded carriage.
Fortunately, there were many plains and few mountains along the way, and she estimated that most of the tasks she left for the steam power group before leaving had been completed.
Steam locomotives and rail systems, or simply train systems.