At a distance of fifty meters, four of the twelve shells hit the target area, five of them hit the water surface, and the rest hit the higher. The several shells hit the target area did not cause any casualties, but the cracks created by the broken holes and the misaligned ship ribs began to cause water inlet. In comparison, several more upside-down shells penetrated the ship's side, hit the artillery deck, and shot more than a dozen British people.

But the Ironbi did not hesitate at all and continued to shell the shelling according to the order.

"Iron watermelon shells, one load, twelve degrees of elevation, free shooting." Zhang Boqian issued a brief and powerful order.

After the first solid shell was fired, the wine bottle cannon quickly moved up the slide rail under the recoil drive. After completing the entire rear seat stroke, the gunner pulled the safety and stuck the cannon. At the muzzle position, the gunner first used a spiral hook to clean the medicine bags and wooden pieces in the barrel. These things were pulled out along the barrel with a deflecting angle and landed in the basin below. Then the water-dipped chamber cleaned the gun powder residue in the barrel. After that, the entire gun crew was busy, and the launching medicine picked up from the ammunition warehouse was stuffed into the barrel. This time it was a standard thirteen-pound charge.

A thick piece of wooden block was stuffed into the barrel by the push rod, and then a wet mud tray wrapped with ropes and linen. The function of these two things is to isolate the iron watermelon shells and launching medicine. The wet mud tray should organize hot ammunition to prevent the launching medicine from igniting the launching medicine, while the wood block should prevent the wet mud tray from being soaked in gunpowder.

As the gunner quickly shook the high and low machine, the wine bottle cannon raised its muzzle high, and then it was the most critical ammunition to load. The ammunition cart was pulled in front of the muzzle, and the place where the molten iron was poured had cooled and solidified. After confirming the knock, the gunner hooked the inner concave ring on the shell with the hook on the iron chain. As the chain was pulled and the pulley set moved, the nearly ninety-pound ammunition was pulled to the muzzle position. Two gunners wearing asbestos gloves stuffed the shell into the muzzle part, and then reached out to take the hook off.

In fact, there is no need to push the bullet rod. The twelve-degree elevation angle is enough for the shell to roll automatically, but the gunner still needs to use the push bullet rod to test it to ensure it can be placed in place. Until this time, the new round of loading was truly completed. Although it has been with the help of many equipment and has undergone countless trainings, it still consumes three minutes. The iron watermelon shell is the most complicated and consumes the most time.

The reason why we do not use the angle of the dive attack but instead attack is to exert the maximum power of the iron watermelon shell.

No one dared to let the iron-filled shell stay in the barrel for too long, so Zhang Boqian issued a free shooting order from the beginning. The No. 3 gun position was first loaded. After the flintlock igniter ignited, the gunpowder exploded and pushed the iron watermelon shell out. At this time, the distance between the Iron Wall and the Britannia was not even fifty meters, and the shell almost hit a straight line. Because it had a twelve-degree elevation angle, the shell directly hit the position of the lower artillery deck of the Britannia and the middle artillery deck, which was also the position that could best allow the iron watermelon shell to exert its power.

Like all sail battleships, if you cut across the two masts, you can see that the section of the sail battleship is pear-shaped. The widest internal space is often the position of the lower artillery deck, which is about one meter five from the waterline. Then, the hull slowly retracts and then goes up straight.

The Iron Wall only has one gun deck, and the wine bottle cannon hits this position at a short distance at a twelve-degree angle. The iron watermelon shell is a cast iron shell, which is relatively brittle in itself. In addition, the increased temperature of the molten iron injected inside makes the shell more unstable. Therefore, after the shell is out of the bore, it will immediately break when it encounters a collision. The iron inside bursts out, sprinkles half of the outboard plate, and it will also shoot upwards, ignite the cable, the cable, and even the sails.

On the contrary, if the artillery fires at a dive angle, and hits the waterline like a solid shell, the cause is that all the molten iron will be sprinkled on the wettest place in the outer shell of the ship, and most of it will fall into the sea.

Iron watermelons came out of the chamber and hit the Britannia. Most of the iron was pasted on the hull like magma. The oak hull was ignited, and the iron that burst upwards was sprinkling in more places. For a moment, the Britannia was shrouded in thick smoke and fire, causing the British navy to become chaotic, and the original dense shelling became messy.

The Iron Wall did not hesitate. All the artillery heading towards the Britannia were shooting iron watermelon shells at the fastest speed, which surprised the British. In the years that followed, the British did not understand the secret of this type of shell and named it a lava shell. This name was obviously much better than the Iron Watermelon, and it was quickly accepted by the Imperial Navy.

The first round of lava shells hit the British unexpectedly, causing flames on the outer shell of the ship, and the second round followed, adding more chaos. The outer shell of the ship was ignited very hard, and there was no decent way to save the ship, and the sand and sea water were not easy to play, but the more headache was that the dense, net-shaped quiet ropes were ignited.

The static rope is a rope that is involved in fixing the mast, tying the mast at one end and tying the ship's side at the other end. These ropes are made of the toughest hemp rope, which is very thick. Unlike the moving ropes that can be disassembled and replaced, the static rope cannot move at will because it will cause the mast to break. In order to prevent the corrosion of salt spray at sea, asphalt, tung oil and other things will be applied on it, but these are undoubtedly flammable items. The gunpowder on the static rope hanging in the air in the grid is difficult to extinguish. On the contrary, the sails are safer, because during naval battles, the lower sails are mostly closed to prevent them from being damaged by chain or rod blasts.

The third batch of lava shells also performed miraculous effects. Perhaps because they were left for too long, the internal condensation was severe. After hitting the ship's side, they did not explode directly. Instead, they had certain armor-piercing capabilities like solid shells. These shells drilled into the artillery deck and shattered, rolling, causing a lot of damage.

After the lava shells were fired, the wine bottle cannon was dissipated and the internal cannon chamber was cleaned more thoroughly. The gunners transported the third type of shell - the flowering shell - from the ammunition warehouse.

The Navy was once full of hope for flowering shells, believing that such shells could cause great damage to wooden battleships, and could suppress turrets and provide firepower support to infantrymen. However, previous experiments and actual combat did not support the Navy's longing for such shells.

The Navy used flowering bullet experiments in the empire with many naval guns, including wine bottle cannons, for twenty-five years. The targets were an old third-class battleship and several artillery left over from the Qing Dynasty on Chongming Island, but they were disappointed.

When the battleship was shelled, although it was proved that the flowering shells had great power, they did not cause fires. This time, the Navy reduced its expectations for flowering shells. Of course, in actual combat, it was still relatively easy to cause fires, but they were easily extinguished. The shelling of the Qing Dynasty's turret was even more unbelievable. At a distance of 1,400 and 400 meters, several turrets that had been eroded by wind and rain for more than 20 years were bombarded with up to 400 and 250 flowering shells. As a result, a corner of one of the turrets was destroyed. The technicians had already calibrated that there was quality problems at the collapsed location.

Various new and old-fashioned fuzes were tested, and the result was that when the flowering bullet hit the hard outer wall of the turret, it would explode immediately. Fortunately, the wooden side of the battleship would not be exactly like this.

But even so, the Imperial Navy still equipped the ships with a lot of flowering bullets. 40% of the ironclad ships were flowering bullets, while the heavy patrol was 20% ammunition, namely grenades and shrapnel bullets. Zhang Boqian is also a loyal fan of flowering bullets. He believes that although flowering bullets have various problems, as long as they are used properly, even if only one flowering bullet can play a role, it may produce unexpected results.

The iron wall uses a flowering bullet weighing 60 pounds and equipped with a metal disc fuse. This is a high-quality flowering bullet. Of course, this is a flowering bullet that is made of gray iron. This flowering bullet is cast by gray iron. It has a large internal space and can be filled with more gunpowder, while the wall of the bullet is thinner. After internal polishing and cutting, after filling the gunpowder, it will not shift too much from the center of gravity. This precise processing allows the armor-piercing ability of this flowering bullet to be the same as that of a solid shell, but it can be tested and recorded.

According to the test, when the 90-pound wine bottle cannon uses standard launching medicine, it has the armor-piercing ability of 350 mm to 500 mm at a distance of 150 meters. Such a large error is due to the difference in processing capabilities. In fact, it is impossible to guarantee that the flowering bomb can explode inside the enemy ship. The reason is that the metal disc fuze it uses is only one second to five seconds and five time scales (up to fifteen seconds for land attack), and the flowering bomb's bore out speed exceeds 300 meters per second. With the current fuse ability, it cannot explode after armor-piercing. The other fuses, such as triggering the fuse, are just blowing up the hull, and the efficiency is even lower.

In order to ensure its function, Zhang Boqian formulated a special artillery arrangement based on the detonation mechanism of the flowering shell and the ability of the iron-clad ship, that is, to allow the artillery to descent angles to bombard the third deck of the enemy ship and the waterline at the descent angle. According to Zhang Boqian's prediction, when shot from here, the shell must first penetrate the hull of more than 80 centimeters thick, and then enter the cabin at the lower level of the artillery deck. This is the place where various materials are piled up. Not to mention directly hitting the ammunition depot, even hitting a lot of bacon and dried cakes can make the flowering shell explode in a relatively closed space.

Causing fires is only secondary, and it can also shake the ship's ribs and create water leakage. With the lighting ability of this era, it is difficult to find leaky light in the cabin below the waterline. Assuming that the boxes full of supplies are not shot, they will hit the deck of the cargo warehouse if they are shot directly. This deck is not thick, and after being shot through, it will directly enter the bottom warehouse. If it explodes here, it will damage key parts such as keels and bottom of the ship, which will cause even greater damage.

Facts have proved that Zhang Boqian's artillery was very effective, but it did not work in the way Zhang Boqian imagined. Officers like Zhang Boqian also had some mathematical attainments, but could not do it in physics and science. In fact, after the flowering ejection penetrated the hull, it did not shoot into the bottom warehouse at all. Instead, it bounced up directly after touching the deck of the cargo warehouse, and then fell down when it hit the lower artillery deck, then rolled over and rolled, hitting the hull on the other side before stopping. Here, it was still the part below the waterline.

Rows of flowering bullets were placed next to the cannons, which was a violation of the Navy's combat regulations, but no one is worried now that since the war started, the Britannia has not penetrated even one round. Considering the fire caused by the lava shells, the firepower is now even weaker.

Each of these flowering shells seemed to wear a doctor's cap. The round shells were tied with a wooden plug invented by Zhang Boqian, so that when fired at a descent angle, the shells would not roll out. Each shell had a set time, two or three seconds, because no one could guarantee which one would work. After the shells were stuffed in, they were also hit by a push rod to ensure that they were plugged. At this time, the advantages of the metal disc fuse appeared.

Compared with wooden telescopes, metal disc fuzes are more solid, and they do not need to use bullet holders or fuses to face outwards. On the contrary, metal disc fuzes fire medicines, which will increase the probability of fuses ignition. A sixty-pound shell is light enough. Two gunners standing on a small stool can be stuffed in with cooperation, rather than using tools such as sliding rails and hanging chains. This makes the flowering bullet the fastest shell with the 90-pound wine bottle cannon, and can be fired in one minute and a half.

Boom boom boom boom!

The sound of shelling came one after another, and the sound of cannons continued to sound on the iron wall, and the sound of cannons became increasingly dense. The shells that were out of the bore flashed with sparks, drew a faint smoke in the humid air, and then shot through the hull on the waterline, then refracted and rebounded between the deck of the cargo warehouse and the artillery deck, and finally landed in the middle of all kinds of supplies or rolled to the hull on the other side, and then made a dull explosion.

During the entire shelling process, six cannons fired more than fifty flowering shells. The officers and soldiers on the Iron Wall observed more than fourteen explosions. This was a rare high success rate. In fact, the explosions were not only so few, but the power was too small, and they all happened inside, so it was difficult to observe.
Chapter completed!