1850 American Gold Baron

Chapter 346 Sacramento Arsenal

"The guns produced by the Sacramento Arsenal are mostly 6-pounder, 8-pounder, 10-pounder, and 12-pounder rifled guns.

The price of a 6-pound rifled gun is around US$700, and the price of a 12-pound rifled gun is around US$1,500. This is just an approximate price, and the specific selling price depends on different guns."

After speaking, Liang Yao stubbed out the cigarette he was about to smoke in the ashtray and added.

"This is the price of the gun body. If you want to install a gun carriage, the price will be calculated separately."

The Sacramento Arsenal was basically built by poaching the staff of the Springfield Arsenal and buying the Springfield Arsenal's production lines.

What cannons can be made at Springfield Arsenal, cannons can be made at Sacramento Arsenal.

Previously, the artillery produced by Springfield Arsenal was mainly Field 6-pounder smoothbore cannon and 12-pounder smoothbore cannon, as well as the old-fashioned M1841 6-pounder cannon, also known as the Little Napoleon gun.

As for why the Springfield Arsenal insists on producing smoothbore cannons despite knowing that smoothbore cannons are outdated, the reason is also very simple.

That is, smoothbore guns are much cheaper than rifled guns. Springfield Arsenal knows that the American army wants cheaper artillery rather than more advanced artillery.

This is why Springfield Arsenal is so prosperous among many arsenals in the United States. It is not only the largest supplier of standard small arms to the U.S. Army, but also one of the largest artillery suppliers to the U.S. Army Artillery.

Springfield Arsenal not only knows how to make weapons, but also understands the thoughts of Congressional gentlemen.

Today, smoothbore cannons are still the mainstream artillery of the American army. Not to mention now, until the outbreak of the Civil War, the artillery mainly equipped by the artillery of the North and the South was still smoothbore cannons, mainly Napoleon cannons, and the proportion of rifled cannons was pitiful.

And these pitifully few rifled cannons were Napoleon cannons that were rifled directly on the barrel of the smoothbore cannon.

But since Liang Yao got the drawings of the Armstrong cannon and four experimental cannons.

These outdated artillery pieces will be gradually phased out by the Sacramento Arsenal.

The next focus of the Sacramento Arsenal's artillery production department is to imitate the Armstrong cannon, an epoch-making artillery piece, rather than continue to manufacture these outdated weapons.

The Sacramento Arsenal is located in a valley in the northern suburbs of Sacramento, about 5 kilometers away from downtown Sacramento.

Fortunately, trains have been connected to the Sacramento Arsenal for a long time, so going to the Sacramento Armory is just a matter of taking a few more minutes by train, and there is no need to change to other means of transportation.

A few minutes later, the train arrived in Sacramento and slowly entered the station.

After getting off the train, Hong Mingxiang looked back at the train with black smoke behind her, and couldn't help but sigh: "This railway and train are so convenient. They can carry cargo passengers on weekdays, and they can also transport troops and food and baggage during wartime. This thing is better than

It has passed tens of thousands of civilians, and it is truly a sacred weapon of the [army] and [country]."

After coming to California, Hong Mingxiang saw the outside world like a frog at the bottom of a well, which made him realize a lot.

At the same time, Hong Mingxiang also became more and more aware that the reason why they lost to the British in the first place was not just that their guns and guns were inferior.

The United States, whose national power is far inferior to that of England, has so many novelties and can produce such advanced guns, let alone England, the most powerful country in the West?

"The railway does have great military value." Liang Yao made a gesture of invitation, "Hongjunmen, please come inside."

Liang Yao took Hong Mingxiang into the Sacramento Arsenal, and the accompanying soldiers and the gunnery engineers hired by the Rothschild family from France were not idle either.

They unloaded the four experimental prototype guns produced by Armstrong that Liang Yao had brought from the train and dragged them to the Sacramento Arsenal for testing.

The director of the Sacramento Arsenal is Sutter, but Sutter is also the mayor of the city of Sacramento. Although Sutter is nominally the director of the Sacramento Arsenal, Sutter is not responsible for the specific production and operation of the arsenal.

The person specifically responsible for the specific production work at the Sacramento Arsenal is Deputy Director Owen Brooks.

Before coming to the Sacramento Arsenal, Brooks worked at the Springfield Arsenal and was one of the chief gunnery engineers at the Springfield Arsenal.

"Brooks, don't you often complain that the arsenal has no orders? Now a big customer has come to visit our arsenal. This customer has ordered 5,000 Walter M1851E rifles from us and is also very interested in the cannons produced by our Sacramento arsenal.

Take this customer to visit our production line at the Sacramento Arsenal." Liang Yao said to Brooks.

"Your Excellency, please come in." Brooks was overjoyed when he heard this and hurriedly invited Hong Mingxiang and others into the workshop for a visit.

The machine tool industry has always been one of the few advantageous industries in the United States. In the mid-19th century, American machine tools were not far behind British machine tools. Even in later generations, American high-end CNC machine tools are still the benchmark in the industry.

In 1851, Liang Yao purchased a large number of processing machine tools, milling machines, drilling machines, rifling machines and profiling engraving machines from the eastern region, and also poached a large number of talents to California.

California's machine tool industry is in the first echelon not only in the United States but also in the world.

Various machine tools at the Sacramento Arsenal are now being replaced with machine tools produced in California.

These machine tools mainly come from General Machinery Company, a subsidiary of America Group, and Pratt and Whitney, a company founded by Pratt and Whitney.

These two companies are among the few machinery companies in the world that can produce machine tools with machining accuracy errors of less than 2 mm, and are benchmarks for the California machinery industry.

Brooks first took Hong Mingxiang to visit the production line of Walter M1851 rifle.

The rifle production line has a very high degree of automation. The rifling of the barrel is directly drawn by a rifling machine, the mechanical parts of the gun are processed by processing machine tools, and the butt is directly carved by a copy engraving machine.

The only link that requires a lot of manual labor is the final assembly of the firearm. This link cannot be automated at present and can only be completed manually.

The firearms production workshop of the Sacramento Arsenal amazed Hong Mingxiang and others. Compared with the Sacramento Arsenal, the small workshops that produced matchlock guns in the Qing Dynasty were really inferior.

Even the French gunnery engineers who had just arrived at the Sacramento Arsenal were shocked.

They reluctantly came to California for high wages.

As nationals of one of the most powerful countries in the continent, these French artillery engineers looked down upon the United States to some extent. They were prejudiced against the United States and believed that the industry of the United States, a second-rate country, had nothing to be compared with.

After all, without the aid of France, it was still unclear whether the United States could become a country.

Their impression of the United States still remains at the beginning of the founding of the United States.

After seeing the firearms production workshop of the Sacramento Arsenal with their own eyes, these French gun engineers had a subversive understanding of the United States and California.

The Sacramento Arsenal is more advanced than any arsenal they have worked in in France. Working as a gunnery engineer in this arsenal can not only earn a high salary, but also design and manufacture world-leading firearms and artillery.

Thinking of this, these French gunnery engineers couldn't help but feel excited.

To their surprise, in addition to themselves, there were many workers and engineers from France in this arsenal. It was not difficult for them to integrate here.

More importantly, it is full of vitality. This is their most profound impression of California after coming to California. Practitioners from all walks of life are full of vitality.

Even the prostitutes in San Francisco are more enthusiastic and hardworking than the prostitutes in Paris.

(End of chapter)