To be honest, torpedoes were far simpler than ship cannons, whether in technology or manufacturing. Aside from a few fairly precision-made components inside, a torpedo was basically just a frame wrapped in sheet metal.
A ship cannon, on the other hand—even a medium-caliber 152 mm one—would be nearly six meters long if it had a barrel forty calibers in length. If a longer range was desired and a fifty-two-caliber barrel was used, the barrel would have to be eight meters long.
Even with the technological standards of the twenty-first century, there were only a handful of countries in the world capable of manufacturing an eight-meter-long cannon barrel.
First, you needed a Four-Axis Precision Forging Machine to forge a rough cannon barrel blank with a mechanical forging hammer. Then you needed a super-large lathe at least ten meters long to process the barrel's surface. Finally, you needed a super-large boring machine at least seventeen or eighteen meters long to drill out the inside of the barrel and cut the rifling.
Compared with a torpedo's sheet-metal shell, the difficulty was worlds apart. But difficult as it was, artillery served a purpose torpedoes could never replace. Ship cannons could bombard land. Could your torpedoes attack targets on land?
Besides, torpedoes had never been eliminated, even by the twenty-first century. Instead, several launch modes had been developed: ship-launched torpedoes, air-dropped torpedoes, submarine torpedoes, and even a type that the South Asians claimed to have developed—one launched remotely by a missile before entering the water to attack.
Of course, none of that was the main point. One only had to remember that its five-hundred-kilogram payload was something ship-cannon shells could never compare with to know just how formidable the thing was.
Luo Chong listed all the technical specifications one by one on paper. These were