At the beginning of October, when the autumn harvest just started, good news came from Emden Shipyard-the first 500-ton warship with double-layer artillery deck was launched!
Marin immediately left the host of the autumn harvest ceremony and let Jeffrey take over as the host. He himself, with a group of attendants, went straight to Emden Port, participated in the launching ceremony of the first warship, and boarded the deck himself. Participate in the maiden flight ceremony.
This 500-ton warship was built at the same time as the two 250-ton armed merchant ships in Amerigo at the beginning of the year. But the difference is that for the 250-class armed merchant ship, the Te Horenche Shipyard already has a lot of experience in building it, and with sufficient preparations, it will be built soon.
And this 500-ton warship, because it has never been built before, and the ship's rib density is much higher than that of ordinary armed merchant ships, so it is very difficult to build. It was not until the beginning of October that the construction was completed and the water trial was launched.
In the North Sea, Marin and the sailors fully felt that the ship was stable and flexible in steering. It can be said that this ship fully embodies Marin's will.
Marin had long asked them to increase the aspect ratio to 4 to 1 for the 250-class armed merchant ship built by Te Horenche before, but the stubborn Portuguese designer still set the ship's aspect ratio to 3.5 to 1. Moreover, the poop was preserved.
But Marin's real request is to remove both the forecastle and poop, and change the tail from round to square, which is more conducive to steering operations. However, the stubborn Portuguese designer thought that Marin, a layman, was blindly directing and didn't listen at all.
No way, after Marin took the East Frisian County, he had no choice but to set up a new shipyard in Emden, and promoted obedient designers to realize his intentions.
The new designer was really obedient, and changed the aspect ratio to 4:1, canceled the tall poop, and changed the stern part into a square shape. In this way, the characteristics of the British Galen ship are finally fully reflected.
Moreover, this battleship, in full accordance with Marin's instructions, opened the ship's side gun door on the side of the lower deck, realizing a double-layer artillery deck. The lower gun doors all have hinged gun door covers. When sailing normally, the gun door covers are tightly closed to prevent water from entering. Only in the event of a naval battle would the sailors hinge and open the gun door covers to engage the guns on the lower deck.
Moreover, the artillery on the lower deck, because of the low center of gravity and the small moment generated by the recoil, can use artillery with a larger caliber than the upper deck.
For example, in the U.S. warships in the "Black Ship Incident", 68-pound Pexan heavy guns were placed on the lower artillery deck. But if such a large-caliber heavy gun is moved to the upper deck to fire, the moment caused by the recoil will be very large.
Generally speaking, the early heavy naval guns only had the 24-pound class. It wasn't until the beginning of the 19th century that the 36-pound Karen naval guns came on board one after another.
Of course, the Karen naval gun is different from the early 24-pounder guns. The early 24-pound naval gun was a heavy gun with a long barrel and a heavy gun body. Once the gun cart moves due to recoil, it is difficult to reset. Because, it's too heavy...
But the Karen naval gun is different. Although the Karen naval gun has a large caliber, its barrel is very short. The previous naval guns, such as the Hongyi cannon, had a body length of 3 meters and a caliber of only 110 mm to 130 mm. The ratio of length to caliber was as high as 20 to 30 times. The length of the Karen Cannon is only seven or eight times the caliber, making it very short and thick.
In fact, because the barrel is very short, the range of the Karen cannon is not far. However, at short ranges, because the shells are large enough, they are still very powerful.
Moreover, the British who have been in naval battles for a long time found that in naval battles, generally within 500 meters, there is a greater certainty that they can hit enemy ships. More than 500 meters, basically all handjobs. Moreover, the accuracy within 500 meters is only 10 to 20 percent.
Therefore, no matter how far the heavy artillery can shoot, it doesn't actually make much sense. Of course, it cannot be said that the range is far from useless. For example, when attacking fixed targets on land, the range of artillery is still very useful.
For example, in the first crow war, the British warships that were still using smoothbore guns used Karen guns to attack Qing warships, but used 24-pound long-barreled heavy guns to attack land targets. Of course, when attacking the fort, the British warships also ventured closer and used Karen guns to fire a volley to attack the Qing army fort.
Because of the low aspect ratio, the 36-pound Karen gun is not heavier than the 24-pound long-barreled gun at all, but the recoil is much smaller. In addition to the shortcoming of the relatively short range, the Karen Cannon is perfect in other respects.
Thinking of this, Marin suddenly patted his head—he forgot to ask Old John and the others to develop the short-barreled Karen Cannon...
Right now, this 500-ton battleship has a double-layer artillery deck, which accommodates a total of 40 12-pound heavy guns, and is very profitable. Moreover, because of the thickened side deck, the battleship itself has a strong ability to resist shelling.
After all, in this era, there is no real battleship yet. There are more used in naval battles, that is, 6-pounder guns and 3-pounder guns. There are also 12-pound guns, but the equipment rate is very low. Generally, among the more than twenty artillery pieces in a warship, only one or two 12-pound guns are equipped on the bow. Unlike Marin's battleship, it is all equipped with 12-pound guns, and its firepower is extremely powerful.
Moreover, in this era, many of the artillery of warships are rear-mounted Francophone bronze cannons, with a range of no more than 2,000 paces. Many artillery also use stone bullets as shells.
The local tyrant Marin made all the 12-pound guns on the ship use iron ball shells cast in sand. Iron ball shells not only hold air better than stone shells, but also hit farther, and their destructive power to wooden ships is also much more powerful than stone shells.
After turning around the North Sea, Marin was very satisfied with this warship and named it the Hoffman series himself. This battleship was named Hoffman 1.
Then, based on the data recorded during the previous construction of the warship, Marin ordered the secret department of bending the ribs of the ship with steam to be independent of the Emden Shipyard, and began to manufacture related molds based on the recorded data, preparing for batch processing of the ribs of the ship. Next time, four Hoffman-class battleships will be built together.
It's just that, for the materials used to make warships, ship rib materials are easy to find. Because, with steam bending technology, the cost of manufacturing ship ribs began to be greatly reduced. But the main keel is more difficult to find.
Because, to manufacture a 500-ton warship, the length of the main keel reached 30 meters. A keel of this length can only be obtained by felling a 300-year-old oak tree.
However, due to the development of the navigation industry, oak trees over 20 meters high in Europe have been declared as strategic resources by the royal families of various countries, and the prices are also high.
The asking price for one main keel is actually higher than all the ribs combined...
This is also something that cannot be helped. After all, Europe, as a civilized world, has developed for two to three thousand years, and oak trees have been cut down heavily. Oak trees with a height of more than 20 meters are rare now.
This is why Marin wants to colonize North America, which is still an undeveloped area with virgin forest density. It's not easy to find a hundred-year-old oak tree 30 to 40 meters high.
Although there are not many white oaks in North America, there are many red oaks. Red oak, like white oak, is equally well suited for shipbuilding. Moreover, the so-called North American white oak here is not much, which means that it only accounts for a small proportion of North American virgin forests. But North America at this time is full of towering trees that are hundreds of years old. Even if the proportion of white oak is very low, the total number is very large. Therefore, it is also very promising for Marin to open a colony for logging and shipbuilding in North America. The Spaniards were also aware of this, so in 1610, they simply moved the center of building large ships to Havana, Cuba, to facilitate the use of the rich local timber resources.
As for the mast, Marin previously required that the height of the mast should not be lower than the length of the hull in order to maximize the sail area and speed up the ship.
For this, it's nothing. Because the mast is not soaked in sea water, no rot-resistant wood is needed. Like pine, it will do the job. Even, even the deck, you can use pine boards. Only the parts of the hull that come into contact with seawater need to use oak.
Tall pine trees may not be easy to find in Western Europe. But in northern Europe on the Baltic Sea coast where the coniferous forests are dense, pine wood should not be too much. Therefore, the ship Marin sent to Teutonic to sell salt not only brought back a lot of profits, but also bought back a lot of oak and pine for shipbuilding.
It's just that it is too inconvenient for merchant ships to transport the oak used for the main keel and the pine used for the mast. Because the length of these logs is longer than the merchant ship itself, it is very troublesome to transport. In order to transport such a long amount of timber, the merchant ship spent a lot of manpower, tied the required timber to the sides of the ship, staggered back to Emden, and delivered it to the shipyard.
Although, within this year, Amerigo will probably be able to discover the east coast of North America. But Marin knew that the wood used for shipbuilding cannot be used after being cut down, and it needs to be dried for a year or two before it can be used.
Therefore, even if Marin sent a ship to North America to cut down a large amount of wood, it could not be used for shipbuilding immediately, but it would take a long time to dry before it could be put into use.
Therefore, for now, Marin can only rely on buying large-scale dried wood from Eastern Europe for the manufacture of large ships. Only when Marlin’s logging base on the east coast of North America is completed, and enough oak wood is stored and dried, can a new shipyard be opened in North America to manufacture large-scale warships on a large scale on the spot, and truly open the era of Marlin’s dominance of the ocean...