The New Civilization of Witches

Chapter 80: Artillery

A week after the concrete ship was placed in the treatment room, it was finally the day of the ship's launch.

All the workers were stunned when the Prince ordered to put a large bathtub into the water, making everyone wonder if they heard wrong.

However, they did not misunderstand him. His subordinates had to dismantle the temporary warehouse, and then they had to dig a slope at the bottom of the concrete ship, which led to the river.

This section should be handled very carefully because the tensile strength of the cement product is weak, even a small knock on the ground is enough to create a small crack that can destroy the entire ship.

The ship was placed on logs, and its speed of gliding was controlled by a rope.

When everything was ready, the workers let the wrist-thick rope slowly slide through their hands, being careful that the boat always leads in a straight line.

While the workers chanted their slogans in unison, the ship slowly slid over the logs, creating a loud sound of friction.

Fortunately, everything went well, and Roland was able to see how the ship was slowly lowered into the water.

The ship sank nearly half a meter into the water, with more than a meter still above the surface.

The workers were really surprised to see that this huge construction made of stone and metal did not sink directly to the bottom of the river with a loud bang, but rather floated quietly on the surface.

"Quick, take the rope and place it around the stake and tie it tight!"

roland's orders were harsh.

If the ship is not fastened to the bollard, the current of water will take the ship with it to the south.

Although Nightingale did not show herself to the public, but after seeing this shocking scene, she was unable to contain herself and asked in a voice full of astonishment:

"Why does the ship float?"

“Yah... This is quite simple. The average density of the ship is lower than that of water, and as long as this happens, anything can float on water, ”

obviously Roland and after thinking for a moment, he added,

”That the ship was built of iron and concrete she had no problem. In fact, you should have already seen a large yacht, which also weighs more than a few stones. ”

Since he did not hear Nightingale's voice anymore, Roland assumed that the others still understood what she was saying.

Even Anna could not immediately understand the concept she had described. Finding this, Roland smiled and continued to direct the next task to the workers.

The subsequent hardening of the concrete takes a lot of time, and every time the snow starts to fall, the work must be stopped. Only when the snow does not fall more than an hour can they continue their work.

The most time-consuming work was the construction of the deck, which was built of many wooden planks, and supported by many small stakes placed between the bottom and the deck.

Although this is a waste of space, but taking into account the main purpose of concrete vessels, this is not too much of a problem.

After that followed the rot. The carpenters know how to do it. First they apply a layer of oil with a spicy taste to the deck.

After the oil dries, they repeat the procedure several times until it is finally coated with red paint.

After the construction of the deck is completed, the installation stage of the upper building begins. The so-called top consists of a wooden shed placed between two poles, the,

it will be used to store weapons and ammunition. When the rain began to fall, the hut could also be used by the crew as a shelter.

The roof of the wooden hut was made so thick that one could stand on it, a special place that was only made for Wendy.

As long as he stood on the roof, his magic ability would range far enough to cover the entire screen.

The stern steering is made of molten iron, and the installation is rather complicated. First, they were required to insert the steering rod through a previously made hole, which is now underwater.

To steer the ship, Anna welds a triangular plate on the side of the steering shaft, which ends underwater.

At the other end of the steering wheel, which ended on the deck, was smelted into an iron ring that could rotate freely.

The welding was naturally done by Anna, who was also surprised and confused by the fact that the stone bathtub could float on the water.

Since he had the same problem as Nightingale, he also asked the same question. So Roland had to answer the questions, over and over again.

After that Anna went to the side and sat down to think about it. Well..my journey is still long before I can raise the level of education.

*

Everything changed when he got an important order three days ago.

His Majesty decided to move some members of the first and second militia teams, who performed outstandingly, building a new elite force.

When Van'er's name was called, he felt very happy.

But when asked if he wanted to join Iron Axe's hunting squad or a new firing squad, he didn't know what to choose.

He was aware of the new flintlock, which allowed them to fight against the demonic beasts,

because of its penetrating power which is much stronger than automatic arrows.

Currently, only the Iron Axe, the Knight Chief, and a number of senior hunters were allowed to use this weapon.

Van'er was supposed to join the squatting hunter without hesitation, but he instead spoke up abruptly and asked, asking,

"What is a cannon"?

When he learned that the cannon was ten times larger than the flintlock and that its power was a hundred times stronger than the power of the gun, he fell into a dilemma.

Apparently, the stronger the weapon used by oneself, the higher the value for the Prince.

So joining the artillery seems to be a better option than the hunting squads, though,

but the advantage of carrying a weapon was that it was possible to carry it while walking through the city, attracting the attention of the people, which had always been Van'er's dream.

. Although the power of the cannon was ten times that of a weapon, it was certainly impossible to carry such a powerful weapon while walking on the streets, right?

Until the last day of the deadline he was not sure what to choose, but in the end, he took the artillery.

The final point that brought the decision was that the salary of a shooter was five silver nobles higher than that of a hunter.

With his decision, rigorous training began.

A cannon requires five men to operate, and for the Van'er team are assigned Jop, Cat's Claw, Nelson and Rodney.

Since Van'er was previously the vice-captain in the first militia team, he was also chosen as the shooter.

Compared to weapons, these cannons gave ten times more trouble!

Since the beginning of the previous month, Van'er had been secretly observing how Iron Axe operated his weapon,

making him able to even recite the process smoothly from memory.

But the cannon must always be diverted from the bending state and move to the ready-to-fire state, always having to go through the tedious work.

Stop the horse, unplug the pins, pull the hook, move the cannon cart, push it towards the firing range, prevent it from falling,

this process requires five people to work together.

As when pulling the hook, others had to push the support cart away from the cannon, turning it from a four-wheeled vehicle into a two-wheeled vehicle, without which the barrel of the cannon would fall to the ground.

When the barrel is finally filled with ammunition, it is ready to fire.

The firing was very similar to a gun and a cannon, but the cleaning of the cannon with the use of two different mops was much more complicated.

When using a gun, ammunition can be directly inserted into the barrel.

To light the cannon, they had to light the wick, but when it rains, it will be very difficult to use this weapon, Savannah thought.

Fortunately, as a shooter most of the time he had to command the others around, so he didn't have to spend too much effort.

During the first three days, the four newly selected artillery teams only had one cannon to train.

So under the command of the Iron Axe, the group had to go through the process of stopping the mounts, dismantling the cannons, preparing them to fire, loading the cannons on the carriage and then restarting the entire process.

These four steps were always repeated, even Van'er suspected, that under the uninterrupted cleaning of the cannon, the cannon became much cleaner than his own face.