Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 365 Explosives and Powder Strikes

Lieutenant Colonel Schneck caused some trouble to Claude when he was transferred to theatre headquarters by Marshal Michel, and in just one week's time, the regiment headquarters had accumulated a large backlog of official duties, mostly small and trivial in the regiment formerly under Lieutenant Colonel Schneck's responsibility. Claude had to endure an afternoon in the office to get these things done, and now he has to make the night trip to Castle Grenouille to catch up with the new war zone prep meeting tomorrow morning.

Just sitting in the carriage, Claude found Mike's forehead swollen in front of him. You don't have to ask. It's most likely her sister Anna's masterpiece.

“What, Anna fighting with you again? And did it?” Claude asked concerned.

“Ah, no, it's not...” McJackie explained in a hurry: "In the evening I delivered dinner to Anna and helped her in her lab, and then there was another explosion, and this was the basin blown up on my forehead...”

Claude sighed, and he didn't believe his dear deputy and cheap brother-in-law. Anyway, Mike was eaten to death by his sister Anna, told him to go east and he wouldn't dare go west. Sometimes the experiment fails and he gets angry with Mike and vents out on him. But seeing as Mike was enjoying himself, Claude couldn't persuade them that it was their business, that he couldn't get involved and that he had to despise Mike for fear of his wife's tracheitis.

It's all because Claude shouldn't have told her sister Anna the story of that blast madman Nobel in her past life as a magician in the world. Claude said this magician called Nobel invented a more powerful explosive than black powder, and he saw in his book that this magician called Nobel mixed nitric acid with sulfuric acid to get a liquid oil called nitroglycerine, which can be used to treat heart disease, but it's dangerous, very toxic, and easily exploded.

And then this magician, Nobel, looked for a way to make this nitroglycerin safer, and he ended up mixing it with soil and this nitroglycerin to store it safely. It is said that this explosive is more than a dozen times more powerful than black powder, and unfortunately it will be an era of magical civilization and no one is interested in this kind of explosive invented by Master Nobel.

Later, the Nobel magician mixed nitric acid with an extract of tar oil to get a solid powder substance called bitter acid, which he used to make yellow dyes, but in fact, this bitter acid was also an explosive, although it was safer than nitroglycerin. And finally, the Nobel Master invented something called thunder mercury, but it just didn't say how it came about, just that it was sensitive, and it exploded when it hit hard and Mars...

Actually, nitroglycerin and bitter acid are the only two explosives in Claude's mind. The Nobel Prize was so prestigious in previous life that anyone who went to the Nobel Prize would know the story of the explosion maniac Nobel inventing the process of safely producing nitroglycerin and using soil to combine nitroglycerin to produce safe explosives.

As for bitter acids, this is what Claude saw in military forums and online novels, where Westerners invented bitter acids and used them as dyes for a hundred years before being discovered by the French for war, helping to create the most prestigious name in the modern French Army. Then the Japanese gave a heavy blow to the Arctic fleet during the Nagorny War with bitter acids and improved Shirase explosives. The fleet flying the dragon flag sank in the waves of the Yellow Sea, opening the humiliating history of China's modern half a century and a half feudal semicolony...

As for thunder mercury, Claude only knew that it was an explosive, but he didn't know how to get it. In his previous life, his specialty was computer management, chemistry was the level of slag, and the knowledge learned was tested and returned to the teacher. So Claude can't really remember how to get the mercury out of it, but if you solve that problem, it's easy to make better guns with bullets.

There's sulfuric acid and nitric acid in the world, and Claude's heard about it, but most people don't know what it's for. Like sulphuric acid, which is a by-product of iron ore with a high sulphur content, people treat it as highly corrosive sewage. The same is true of nitric acid, which the pharmacist refined when he tested with nitrite, basically as a severe poison.

Claude told her sister Anna that the book about the biography of the Nobel magician was occasionally obtained during the Five Year Eastern War and she didn't pay much attention to it when she read it. The redeployment of troops could no longer be found and was likely to be lost in which cantonment camp. This disappoints my sister Anna, who also wants to see the biography of Nobel, the bombing magician.

Sometimes Claude wonders if his sister Anna is hiding a little demon who likes to sabotage her quiet, weak body. Ever since he asked his sister Anna to help out with the grenade production process and the revolver design, her sister Anna left the pharmacology aside and loved this devastating explosion experiment. Just to disappoint my sister, the explosive power of black powder is so small that the grenades are a little big that it takes a lot of energy to throw them 20 to 30 meters away.

Like Claude and his brother Browick, as well as his sister Anna, can do magic hands and throw grenades 100 meters away. But on the battlefield, ordinary soldiers don't have that much strength, they can't throw it that far. So Claude told his sister that a grenade could be made smaller and more powerful, and that a normal soldier who could throw a grenade 40 to 50 meters away could be described as a weapon of design success.

In a flash, Claude told her sister Anna the story of the Nobel Mage. So sister Anna went into the drug lab and said that she would also make the two kinds of explosives invented by Master Nobel. Now that the name of the ingredient is known, the optimal ratio and manufacturing method will always succeed if tested several more times. Claude also hesitated to stop her sister or wish her early success...

But Claude couldn't stand the nagging of her mother, who had accidentally burned down a cabin in Vibran Villa's estate where she was working as a sister's drug lab. If it weren't for the sister's habitual silencing prior to the experiment, the explosion would have scared the mother to death, rather than burning down a cabin.

Claude couldn't help but get McJackie to find two more empty rooms for his sister in the remote corner of the lake, which made her mother very unhappy. Because Anna, a sister obsessed with experimentation, always forgets the time, forgets to freshen up. Even going home to eat looks like a gray face in a hurry. Mother reminded her to keep an eye out for herself many times, stay with Mike more often, and get pregnant and have a baby like her sister-in-law, Kevin...

Sister Anna always said yes and turned away, so her mother turned the nagging object to Claude, hoping that he could take care of her unobedient sister. So Claude's ordeal began, which made him regret that he shouldn't have lured his troops back to Langhu Town, and that some mothers were nagging so close to home.

“Well, even if your forehead is really that basin. But how's Anna's experiment going?” Claude found a comfortable position to lie in the cushioned chair, closed his eyes, and was ready to rest. It was hours away at night and it was estimated that it would be two or three o'clock in the middle of the night before he arrived at Castle Grenouille.

“I was really in the sink and Anna scolded me.” Mike highlighted the source of his forehead injury: "Anna drugged me and it will swell up tomorrow morning. And Anna does make a clear, colorless liquid oil out of that sulfuric acid and nitric acid, called nitroglycerine, which, like the officer said, is unstable and unsafe, and a little vibration can easily explode. Currently Anna says she's experimenting with a mixture of soil to see which soil is best for her...”

“You should also lie down and rest.” Claude said, "Go back and tell Anna to try the mud. I remember the biography of the Nobel magician saying that he made a kind of safety explosive out of cement, didn't say how effective it was, but it was convenient to stick it on the wall, a little fire could easily blow a hole in the wall..."

“Okay, I'll tell Anna when I get back.” McJake responded.

“Go to sleep, we have to catch the middle of the night.” Claude said. There was silence in the carriage, and as the carriage swayed and vibrated on the road, they slowly fell into a half-dream and a half awake. Only two soldiers in a hurry in front of the carriage and a guard team guarding both sides of the carriage are still in Mercedes...

Just as Claude was overnight on his way to Castle Grenouille, a distant-water convoy full of the first immigrants had sailed under the escort of a storm fleet to Tyrsim on the mainland of Nubicia. On the deck of the Storm Fleet's flagship Tornado, an elderly man with white hair was walking with a woman of great style, behind both of them, with a little boy around the age of 89 who was curious about something to look at.

“Father, I had no idea that the Guns Academy in the Kingdom of Orvillas was also staunch and they refused to acknowledge that our shotguns were more advanced, convenient, improved and developed than their guns. Still so stubbornly adhering to the ignition procedure steps of loading the front loads, thinking that this loaded firing method is the best, simplest and most reliable, reluctant to use the rear loading method we have invented over the centuries.

I admit that our way of loading the rear chamber is a little cumbersome, but it can be improved entirely. Those old stubborn bastards who deny it and send you to the mainland of Nubicia to be the head of some kind of firearms repair workshop. In fact, we can totally reject this appointment, set up a gun lab at home, and later take samples of the fully designed rear chamber guns and hit those old stubborn faces... "The woman is exasperating her resentment with a very dissatisfied tone.

The old man smiled spoiledly: "Sophia, don't forget that there is no Duchy of Eskirin anymore, we are all people of the kingdom of Ovilas, and we are sealed with nobility. In fact, the people at the Firearms Academy denied that you were loaded in a way that made sense, after all, a third reduction in range and power was the biggest flaw.

In addition, the way we load the rear chamber is troublesome, and each time we have to clear the paper dust from the chamber before it can be loaded, while also paying attention to the spacing to ensure that the needle hits the firing point of the bullet accurately. Instead, the traditional way of loading the forearm is faster, and the soldiers are already familiar with it.

Because on the battlefield, soldiers tend to be very nervous, struggle on the brink of life and death, and rely mostly on the long-standing training instincts of their bodies to operate. The way the cartridge is loaded in the rear requires careful attention to the spacing between the firing point of the cartridge bullet and the needle, which is very easily forgotten by the soldiers in case of an emergency, which can easily cause a mute fire and the gun cannot be fired...

I accept the appointment of the director of this firearm repair workshop because of the need to improve and refine the way you load your rear chamber. What better place than a firearm repair workshop for our firearm retrofitting experiments? Don't look at it as a war zone, but this colonial war could not be fought for two or three years before the Kingdom of Hicks was ready.

Wouldn't it be more valuable if we could come up with a new type of rear-loaded firearm in the meantime and put it into practice in the war than those at the Firearms Academy? You have to understand that a firearm is a weapon of war, and its value can only be manifested through war, not by what some so-called firearms experts say is a good gun. The real experts are the soldiers on the front line, only they will understand what a good gun means... "

The beautiful lady holding the old woman suddenly realized, “Here's the deal, Father, I blamed you. I thought your acceptance of this appointment was a stubborn compromise for the Firearms Academy. They set out to exclude you, the outsider, and send you, the master gunman, to the mainland of Nubian. Instead, you accepted the appointment and didn't support the way I loaded my backpack, leaving it to the old stubborn mockery of my designs. I was really angry at them and wanted to load them with guns and shoot them in the head of their rocks..."

“Oh,” the old man laughed: "Sofia, there are some right opinions we have to accept. In fact, I've been thinking about why the way the rear chamber loads diminishes the range and the power of the bullet, and I suspect there are two main reasons for this, one being the folding of the barrel, which leads to a weak seal, and when the powder explosion produces gas to propel the bullet forward, some of the gas leaks from the fold, which reduces the range by a third.

Another possibility is that gunpowder explosions are not powerful enough, and the paper walls of the cartridge bullets you make are too thick. Not only did it reduce the amount of charge, but it also left a hidden danger after the shooting. There was too much paper dust left in the barrel to carry out a second shooting without cleaning the barrel first. That's why the people at the Firearms Academy ridicule you for not loading in the rear as easily and quickly as loading in the front, they don't need to change the way you load... "

“But Father, the powder in the cartridge bullet is already the best powder I have found, and if the paper wall is not thick, then when the needle hits the fire point behind the bullet, it is easy to push the cartridge bullet in front of the barrel, so that it will not ignite. I use paper walls of cartridge bullets to thicken the bullet into the chamber of the gun..." the beautiful lady argues.

“Those problems can be improved, but it is difficult to find a more powerful powder.” The old man sighs: "Over the centuries, the performance of gunpowder has been enhanced to the extreme, but we still haven't found another substance other than the magic crystal that can replace gunpowder to produce an explosion. And in order for the Crystal to explode, it takes a specific magic bullet array, which is too expensive..."

“But Father, didn't we invent gunpowder? I'm sure just give me time to invent another explosive with more power than gunpowder.” The beautiful lady said in disgust.

“Is that your invention?” The old man laughed and turned to wave. When the little boy who followed him came to him, he touched the child's head with affection: “Without my little mark, maybe you won't be able to invent this powder for another year. It was also because of his lab naughty manipulation, mixing the drugs with the drugs, and accidental mismatches that made you discover the powder. Huh...”

At this point, Colonel Restin, captain of the Tornado, walked in: "Countess and Baroness, the fleet is approaching the storm waters. The weather in this area is volatile and is likely to experience heavy and heavy rainfall during this time of year. So I personally think going back to the cabin would be a good idea, don't you think? ”

The old man nodded: "Thank you for reminding us, Colonel, that we are going back to the cabin and will not stay here to cause you any trouble. ”

......