Chapter 353: Sacramento Arsenal

"Most of the guns produced by the Sacramento Arsenal are 6-pound, 8-pound, 10-pound, and 12-pound rifled guns.

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

After saying this, Liang Yao put out the cigarette that was about to be finished in the ashtray and added.

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

The Sacramento Arsenal was basically built by poaching the team of the Springfield Arsenal and buying the production line of the Springfield Arsenal.

Whatever guns the Springfield Arsenal can make, the Sacramento Arsenal can make.

Previously, the guns produced by the Springfield Arsenal were mainly Field 6-pound smoothbore guns and 12-pound smoothbore guns, as well as the old-fashioned M1841 6-pound guns, which are the so-called small Napoleon guns.

As for why the Springfield Armory insisted on producing smoothbore cannons even though it knew that they were outdated, the reason was very simple.

That is, smoothbore cannons are much cheaper than rifled cannons. The Springfield Armory knew that the American army wanted cheaper cannons rather than more advanced cannons.

This is why among all the arsenals in the United States, the Springfield Armory was able to thrive. It was not only the largest supplier of standard light weapons to the US Army, but also one of the largest suppliers of artillery to the US Army artillery.

The Springfield Armory not only knew how to make weapons, but also understood the minds of the congressmen.

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 of both the North and the South was mainly equipped with smoothbore cannons, mainly Napoleon cannons, and the proportion of rifled cannons was pitifully small.

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

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

These obsolete artillery will gradually be eliminated by the Sacramento Arsenal.

The next focus of the Sacramento Arsenal's artillery production department is to imitate the Armstrong cannon, a groundbreaking artillery, rather than continue to manufacture these obsolete weapons.

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

Fortunately, the Sacramento Arsenal has long been connected to the train, so going to the Sacramento Arsenal is just a matter of taking a few more minutes on the train, without having to change to other means of transportation.

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

After getting off the train, Hong Mingxiang looked back at the train behind him that was emitting black smoke, and couldn't help but sigh: "This railway and train are really convenient. They can carry freight and passengers on weekdays, and can also transport soldiers and food and supplies during wartime. This thing is better than tens of thousands of civilians. It is really a [military] [national] artifact."

After arriving in California, Hong Mingxiang was like a frog at the bottom of a well who saw the outside world, which made him realize a lot.

At the same time, Hong Mingxiang also became more and more clear about the reason why they lost to the English at the beginning, and it was not just that their guns and cannons were inferior to others.

The United States, whose national strength is far inferior to that of England, still has so many novel things and can produce such advanced guns and cannons, let alone England, the first power in the West?

"Railways do have great military value." Liang Yao made a gesture of invitation, "General Hong, please come in."

Liang Yao took Hong Mingxiang into the Sacramento Arsenal, and the accompanying soldiers and the gun and cannon engineers that the Rothschild family had dug from France this time were not idle either.

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

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

The person in charge of the specific production work of the Sacramento Arsenal was the deputy director Owen Brooks.

Before coming to the Sacramento Arsenal, Brooks worked at the Springfield Arsenal and was one of the chief gun engineers of 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 Sacramento Arsenal production line." Liang Yao said to Brooks.

"Please come in, sir." Brooks was overjoyed when he heard this, and hurriedly invited Hong Mingxiang and others to visit the workshop.

The machine tool industry is one of the few advantageous industries in the United States. In the mid-19th century, American machine tools were not inferior to British machine tools. Even in later generations, America's 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 recruited a large number of talents to California.

California's machine tool industry is at the first echelon level, not to mention in the United States, even if you look at the world.

All kinds of machine tools in the Sacramento Arsenal have now been replaced with California-produced machine tools.

These machine tools mainly come from General Machinery Company under the American Group, and Pratt & Whitney, founded by Pratt and Whitney.

These two companies are the few mechanical companies in the world that can produce machine tools with a processing accuracy error of less than 2 mm, and are the benchmarks of the California mechanical industry.

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

The rifle production line has a very high degree of automation. The rifling of the barrel is directly pulled by the rifling machine, the mechanical parts of the gun are processed by the processing tool machine, and the buttstock is directly engraved by the profiling engraving machine.

The only link that requires a lot of manpower is the final assembly of the firearms. 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 producing matchlock guns in the Qing Dynasty were really unbearable.

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

They came to California reluctantly for the high salary.

As citizens of one of the most powerful countries in Europe, these gunners and artillery engineers from France somewhat looked down on the United States and had prejudices against the United States, believing that the industry of the second-rate country, the United States, was not remarkable.

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

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

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

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

Thinking of this, these French gunners and artillery engineers could not help but feel excited.

What surprised them was that in addition to them, there were many workers and engineers from France in this arsenal, and it was not difficult for them to integrate here.

More importantly, this place is full of vitality. This is the most profound impression they have of California after arriving in California. Practitioners in all walks of life are full of vitality.

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