Rebirth of the 1980s: The Military Industry Empire

Night fell.

Wei Man paced back and forth in Wang Liqun's office.

"Old Wang, Engineer Wei, it's back!" A voice came from outside.

"Quick, bring it over and let us see!" Wei Man rushed to the door, looking at Xu Jianshe, who had empty hands: "Engineer Xu, where's the shell?"

"I originally planned to bring it over, but the military found out and decided to organize a target practice near the capital tomorrow to see how far this shell can actually shoot. Engineer Wei, don't worry, we will return the eight hundred yuan we borrowed from you." Xu Jianshe said cautiously.

"Tomorrow? Target practice? Good, then we'll go see it tomorrow!" Wei Man gritted his teeth.

The next day, at the foot of Yanshan Mountain.

"Engineer Qin, I heard that you have created an advanced shell with a greatly improved range. We've all come to join in the fun." Wang Liqun got out of the car and said to Qin Yang.

"Welcome, Old Wang. You are an ammunition expert, please give us your valuable opinions." After Qin Yang finished speaking, he looked at the person next to Wang Liqun: "Oh, Engineer Wei is here too?"

"Yes, Engineer Qin, where is the shell? Can we take a look beforehand?" Wei Man's gaze quickly fell on a cannon on the scene. It was a common Type 66 howitzer, with two boxes next to it. The small one contained the warhead, and the large one contained the propellant, both unopened.

"Of course." Qin Yang nodded.

"Okay." Wei Man strode over, picked up a crowbar, and aimed it at the box containing the warhead.

With a creaking sound, the lid of the wooden box was opened, revealing the shell nestled in the straw inside.

"This, this shell is very strange!" Wang Liqun also came over and exclaimed immediately upon seeing the shell.

A normal shell is a cylinder with a streamlined conical front. Now, this shell is pointed in the front and also tapers back. How was it processed into this shape? Pointed ogive, boat tail, and inclined protrusions on the body. I've never seen this kind of shell before!

"The diameter of this shell is a bit small, is it for a 152mm howitzer? Let me measure it." As Wei Man spoke, he conjured a vernier caliper as if by magic and began to measure.

"Maximum diameter, 145mm!" After he finished speaking, he took out a small notebook and began to record.

"Shell length…"

"Taper…"

What is he doing? Openly surveying and mapping, and then copying it?

Wang Liqun looked at Qin Yang nervously. Of course, he guessed what Wei Man was going to do. Hadn't he learned his lesson from the last time? Engineer Qin values intellectual property the most. Will Engineer Qin lose his temper if Wei Man does this?

Qin Yang smiled, not stopping Wei Man's behavior at all.

Wang Liqun realized: Is it so easy to copy the products developed by Engineer Qin? This shell looks strange.

The driving band is the largest accessory on the entire warhead. During the firing process, it can seal the high-temperature and high-pressure gas generated by the propellant behind it. At the same time, the copper driving band is easily controlled by the rifling and then drives the entire shell to rotate under the constraint of the rifling.

Now, the shell in front of them does not have a copper driving band. How does it seal the gas and how can it make the shell rotate in the bore? Large-caliber howitzers also have rifling!

"The largest diameter on the entire shell is these four protrusions. Could it be that these protrusions can function as copper driving bands?" Wang Liqun was also puzzled: "Or are these four protrusions fins? Using the principle of a smoothbore gun?"

These four protrusions are the key essence of the Dr. Bull's invention of the date pit shell: it looks like a rudder surface, but it is actually the most important centering piece of the shell.

As the name implies, the function of centering is to stabilize the center of the shell's rotation. Traditional shells have bright steel rings to center, generally on the cylinder of the shell, sometimes both front and rear. But the date pit shell does not have this cylinder, and continuing to use the traditional method will increase frictional resistance. Therefore, Dr. Bull designed four shorter special centering parts, which not only solved the problem of how the arc-shaped shell body of the date pit shell coincides with the central axis of the barrel, but also greatly reduced the frictional resistance between the shell and the rifling due to the shorter centering part.

It is used to solve the problem of shell centering, but it cannot solve the problem of shell airtightness.

"The driving bands are in the box. It was a rush to process them yesterday, and there was no time to install them. It's not too late to install them now," Qin Yang said.

In the box, install them on the spot? What a joke!

Although he despised it in his heart, Wei Man's hand quickly reached into the box. He took out something white from it and immediately shouted: "Plastic? Are you kidding me? How can you use plastic to make driving bands?"

Wang Liqun shook his head. This Wei Man is also an ammunition expert, but he doesn't even understand this! He will definitely be laughed at by Engineer Qin!

"Engineer Wei, you said plastic cannot be used to make driving bands?"

"Of course, how can plastic be used to make driving bands? Driving bands can only be made of copper. I am an ammunition expert. Even if the research and development of small-caliber bullets is not as good as yours, I still know about shells."

"Cough." Wang Liqun couldn't help it. He should explain it so that Wei Man would feel better.

"Old Wei, nylon driving bands have been around for a long time. The West started using them in the 1960s. When we imported the L7 rifled gun from the UK, we also simultaneously introduced the nylon sliding driving band technology."

Slender armor-piercing projectiles have better armor-piercing capabilities, but these projectiles cannot rotate too fast, otherwise they cannot guarantee stability in the air. Armor-piercing projectiles fired from smoothbore guns are fine, but how can fin-stabilized discarding sabot projectiles be fired from rifled guns?

The British solved this problem by using a sliding driving band scheme: the driving band is divided into two layers, the outer layer rotates according to the rifling, and the inner layer can decelerate, so that the projectile does not rotate too fast after flying out.

However, only those who have been involved in this project will know. Wei Man has never heard of it, and is now confused: "Nylon driving bands? Won't they melt?"

Everyone can imagine that if plastic enters a cannon, wouldn't it be burned?

"Melt? It has to have time to do that! Engineer Wei, you are an ammunition expert, you also know how long the shell runs in the bore, right?"

The driving band is that purple-red thing