I want to be emperor

Chapter 1059 The arrival of the smoke-free drug era

After a live ammunition test in front of the emperor, Luo Zhixue finally made the decision himself and selected the next generation standard rifle for the Dachu Empire, which was to adopt the new rifle developed by Hantian Weapon Company, a subsidiary of Huguang Weapon Company.

And awarded the official equipment number of the Type 27 rifle.

The Type 27 rifle is improved from the Type 24 rifle. The overall structure of the firearm is actually not much improved compared to the Type 24 rifle. The main reason is that the firing mechanism and rifling are improved to use the new eight mm smokeless rifle. Drug standard bullets.

When firing this new smokeless powder round-head bullet, the muzzle velocity can reach 660 meters per second. Compared with the 600 meters per second muzzle velocity of the Type 24 rifle using an eight-mm black powder round-head bullet, it can Said it has improved a lot.

Although this data is still far behind some mature bolt-action rifles in the original time and space, such as the Lee-Enfield rifle, G98, , etc.!

But this is only the first generation of smokeless gunpowder and the matching rifle developed by the Chu people. There are actually certain gaps in the propellant, bullets and the gun itself. In addition, this is also different from the first smokeless powder eight-millimeter bullet. It still has a lot to do with round-nose bullets. If round-nose bullets are used, the muzzle velocity will be lower.

If I have to say it, it is actually probably equivalent to the level of the late 1880s in the original time and space.

The weight and length of the gun are not much different from the original Type 1150 rifle. The gun is mm long and can be used with a -cm dagger bayonet or a -meter dagger bayonet.

As for the magazine, it adopts the later improved version of the Type 24 rifle with a detachable magazine that feeds ten bullets in double rows. The early model of the Type 24 rifle used an eight-round magazine. .

It is worth noting that although this magazine is detachable, in actual combat, soldiers rarely disassemble it and load it directly because it is still troublesome. This detachable magazine is more for the convenience of maintenance and upkeep.

(Due to my limited knowledge and limited knowledge, the previous description of the loading of the Type 24 rifle was incorrect. I am specifically correcting it here, and this will prevail in the future.)

When loading bullets in the Type 24 rifle, bullets still need to be loaded from the top... In the earliest times, manual loading was used one round at a time, and later models can use bullet bridge loading.

This bullet bridge loading design is not a unique patent of a certain company, but an improvement plan proposed by engineers in the military. The main reason is that loading of early repeating rifles was too troublesome. In order to improve the loading speed, Army engineers made it A bridge is used for loading, and various weapons companies are required to refer to this technical solution when designing new guns.

The Type 27 rifle naturally adopts this technical solution, and also uses the ten-round capacity double-row detachable magazine in the later model of the Type 24 rifle. Its loading speed is still very fast, and its firing rate is even faster. quick!

Because of the use of smokeless bullets and improved rifling, the range and accuracy have been greatly improved. The effective range is said to be up to 600 meters, and the maximum range is up to 1,600 meters.

The firearms of the Chu Army have always emphasized range and accuracy. This is related to the enemies the Chu Army faces. The enemies faced by the Chu Army are all indigenous people... and the indigenous people have almost no ability to threaten the Chu Army at medium and long distances. Therefore, in order to avoid their own casualties, the Chu army was naturally more inclined to defeat the enemy at medium and long distances, avoid close combat, and even more avoid bayonet combat.

Otherwise, the muskets and bayonets in the hands of the natives can also kill people!

Therefore, everything else can be ignored, but the range and accuracy cannot be ignored.

The Type 27 rifle inherited the excellent range and accuracy of the Type 24 rifle, and performed quite well in this regard.

Finally, what Luo Zhixue values ​​​​more is that because the gun has relatively few changes compared to the Type 24 rifle, it can effectively utilize the production line of the Type 24 rifle and does not require a large amount of research and development costs. It can effectively reduce the cost of this kind of rifle to less than fifteen yuan each, and it is also more convenient to produce. As long as the military places an order, Huguang Arms Company will be able to start supplying it in large quantities this year, and wait until next year to make the most. A young man can produce more than 200,000 pieces.

Many advantages finally made Luo Zhixue choose this rifle...

But at the same time, he also instructed the Military Academy to purchase a batch of new rifles developed by Tianjin Arms Company, a subsidiary of Hebei Arms Company, in small quantities, and granted them the official serial number of Type 28 rifles.

Because the Type 28 rifle is not yet mature, it can be expected that there will be more problems, so it may only order a small amount for testing in the early stage, and will not enter the war zone for actual combat.

As for the future...that's in the future.

Anyway, the bullets used in these two rifles are standard eight-millimeter smokeless round-nose bullets, so there is no problem that logistics supply will become more troublesome.

Although the Type 28 rifle is not completely dead, and it is expected that the output will reach the level of 100,000 in the future, it still makes the Hebei Arms Company very frustrated... This has been their third consecutive defeat by the Huguang Arms Company. Under the hand.

Since the glory of the Type 11 rifle, they once ambitiously produced the mm Type repeating rifle. As a result, it didn’t take long for the Huguang Arms Company’s mm Type rifle to come out... Completely defeated.

Then they urgently designed an eight-millimeter Type 26 rifle to compete... Although it was good to rely on the Army's trust in the early stage, it was once again abandoned by the Army because of many problems and serious bullet jamming problems.

After that, they tried their best, integrated many new technologies, and specially developed the Type 28 rifle according to the preferences of some top army officials... but in the end they failed to compete with the Type 27 rifle of Huguang Arms Company!

This is very uncomfortable!

But there was nothing they could do about it. The main rifle of the new generation of rifles had been finalized, and they could only grit their teeth and endure it.

Then continue to work hard to perfect the Type 28 rifle, while looking forward to problems with the Type 27 rifle...

How did their Type 26 rifle get completely trampled by the Type 24 rifle?

It was because the Type 26 rifle did not live up to its expectations and was abandoned by the disappointed Army, and then chose the Type 24 rifle.

In the future, the same thing may happen again... What they have to do is to firmly seize the opportunity when it arises.

After seeing the new generation of standard rifles, Luo Zhixue also took a look at several other new firearms that use smokeless bullets. The highlights among them were two types of heavy machine guns.

The smokeless cartridge version of the Shaanxi-Gansu Weapons Company's Type 42 water-cooled heavy machine gun, the Type 48 heavy machine gun.

The smokeless cartridge version of the Type 43 air-cooled heavy machine gun, the Type 49 heavy machine gun, owned by the Huguang Weapon Company Hantian Weapon Company.

The improvement routes of these two heavy machine guns are actually similar, that is, improving the bore, especially the rifling, to adapt to the new bullets. The improvements in other aspects are minor, and the core structure has not changed much.

This improvement in rifling is actually similar to the improvement of the Type 24 rifle into the Type 27 rifle...

Why doesn’t Huguang Arms Company just take out the Type 24 rifle and use eight-millimeter smokeless bullets? It’s just because it can’t be used!

Even if the shape and size of the original eight-millimeter bullet are not changed, just replacing the black powder with smokeless powder will not work...

This is because compared to black powder, smokeless powder produces a higher temperature and is more ablative when fired... and the old guns that previously fired black powder bullets generally had shallow rifling. If smokeless bullets are continuously fired, , it was easy to polish out the rifling.

Therefore, it is necessary to improve the rifling design and make the rifling deeper.

Similarly, this is also the reason why the smokeless powder bullets still use the original old eight-millimeter black powder bullets in terms of appearance and dimensions... The inside of the barrel, especially the rifling, has been changed. Anyway, the original bullets cannot be used, so it cannot be done. Now that it is universal, it is better to take the opportunity to optimize the shape of the new bullet, change the flange to a semi-flange, and improve the size and even the warhead to achieve better performance.

The same principle applies to machine guns. In order to adapt to smokeless propellants, the rifling must also be improved... By the way, the same private technical company, Mark Qin Machinery Company, was consulted for the rifling improvements of these two machine guns. These are all rifling improvement plans given by this company.

To put it bluntly, Mark Qin was responsible for the improvement of these two machine guns.

There is no way. In the field of automatic machine guns, Mark Qin dares to say that he is second, but no one dares to say that he is first. Even though he is not a member of the five major weapons companies, he is still deeply involved in the design of automatic machine guns and has Make a lot of money doing this.

In addition to rifles and machine guns, Luo Zhixue also saw some other new firearms, including a semi-automatic pistol developed by Guangzhou Arms Company, a subsidiary of Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company. At first glance, Luo Zhixue felt weird about the appearance of this gun... Because the appearance was quite different from the pistols he was familiar with, it looked more like the box cannons that often appeared in anti-Japanese dramas.

And during the live-fire test, the case actually got stuck...not just once, but twice!

It fully shows that this thing is unreliable.

You must know that this is a live-fire test in front of the imperial army. Project companies often carefully select the best quality sample guns to participate in the live-fire test, so there are usually no problems in the live-fire test.

Even the Type 28 rifle, which is recognized to have many problems, did not have serious defects such as obvious stuck bullets or dumb bullets during the live ammunition test.

However, the semi-automatic pistol of Guangzhou Arms Company has such a problem... In addition to indicating that there are huge technical defects, there is no second possibility.

However, Luo Zhixue still gave them encouragement. Although this pistol still has problems of one kind or another, this semi-automatic pistol represents the future development direction.

The path is right and the direction is not wrong.

If it doesn't work now, just improve it slowly... Anyway, there is no need to rush. The current Tian-5 series revolvers of Hebei Weapon Company are very easy to use. The Tianjin Weapon Company of Hebei Weapon Company also targets Tian-5 revolvers. The pistol was modified to fire a new nine-millimeter smokeless pistol cartridge. Today's Type 5 pistol can be used in the Chu army for more than ten or twenty years without any problem. Even if new pistols come into service in the future, this revolver can still be used on a large scale.

In the police community, the use time may be even longer.

Revolvers have a very long service life. Due to their reliability, stability, and low cost, they cannot be said to be outdated even in the 21st century. Police in a large number of countries or regions still use revolvers.

In addition to conventional firearms such as rifles, machine guns and pistols, Luo Zhixue also saw some strange firearms... He even saw a so-called corner pistol inside.

It was a revolver with a barrel bent to the left... It allowed people to shoot at the other side of the wall without exposing their bodies. I have to say that the idea was beautiful, but the reality was very skinny.

In addition, Luo Zhixue also saw the design of some so-called automatic weapons. Although the Chu Army already has two types of heavy machine guns, there are still many weapons companies that want to get involved in this field.

It's a pity that there is nothing that can make Luo Zhixue shine, but there are a lot of weird and impractical things.

After looking at the firearms, Luo Zhixue went to look at the many projects of the artillery. The artillery was much simpler. There were no new things. They were basically adaptation and improvement projects based on smokeless propellants.

However, the overall performance has been greatly improved.

For example, the new 75mm field gun developed by Hebei Arms Company is quite good in terms of performance. With a weight controlled at about 900 kilograms, the maximum range can reach 6,500 meters. It also uses spring recoil technology. Coupled with the application of smokeless gunpowder propellant, the rate of fire of this artillery can reach three or four rounds per minute.

At the same time, there is also a mountain gun version of this artillery. The barrel diameter is only 13.5 times, the weight is only 330 kilograms, the range can reach 4,200 meters, and the rate of fire is faster, reaching six rounds per minute. At the same time, the artillery can also be disassembled and carried on a pack.

Compared with the series of 75mm field guns and mountain guns currently used by the Chu army, these two new types of artillery have considerable performance improvements, especially in terms of rate of fire.

At the same time, it is also in line with the lightweight that Chu Army has been pursuing in the field of field artillery!

Because the Chu army is deployed globally, and the main combat areas are also in overseas administrative territories, vassal states and even poor places like Africa... the traffic in these places is very bad, there are almost no hardened roads to use, and a dirt road is very easy to use. That’s right, so field artillery must consider mobility issues!

For example, divisional field artillery... It's not that the Chu army can't come up with larger artillery. For example, a 100mm field artillery can be taken out for you in minutes, but if it is too heavy, it will be very inconvenient to use.

At the same time, we also need to consider the supply of ammunition to overseas troops... The supply of ammunition of too large a caliber is also troublesome.

Facing limited enemy threats, the Chu army naturally prefers to use lightweight and relatively low-cost weapons.

This is not only true for division weapons, but also for some military and independent heavy artillery.

As for military artillery, they are currently mainly equipped with 120mm light howitzers and 100mm howitzers. They were also equipped with some 120mm cannons in the past. Later, they found that these were too heavy, too troublesome to use, and could not be used at all. They were not suitable for field battles, so they were simply handed over to some independent heavy artillery units.

The independent heavy artillery in the Chu army mainly uses 120mm cannons and 150mm light howitzers.

In addition, I have used 150mm cannons and howitzers before, but later I found that these things are really difficult to handle. They weigh more than ten tons at a time. Not to mention deploying them overseas, even if they are used in East Asia, which has convenient transportation, Very inconvenient.

Therefore, although there are many types of artillery in the Chu army, there are basically all types of artillery, but there are only a few commonly used ones: 70mm infantry cannon, 75mm field cannon and mountain cannon, 100mm howitzer, 100mm howitzer The main types are 20mm light howitzers and 150mm light howitzers.

In addition, there are 60mm, 80mm, and 120mm mortars.

However, under contemporary technical conditions, the performance of mortars is still relatively poor, and the range and accuracy are too poor. It can only be used cost-effectively in specific situations, such as attacking enemies behind solid bunkers that require curved shooting.

Otherwise, if a lot of artillery shells were fired, the enemies would be fine...

Most of the time, the Chu army prefers to use the 70mm infantry cannon to defeat everything... This thing is light in weight, has high accuracy, can also shoot in a straight direction, is simple, reliable and stable, and can almost meet the needs of the Chu army in most combat scenarios overseas... …and it’s cheap.

Therefore, among the many artillery pieces, the 70mm infantry cannon has the largest number of equipment and is the most frequently used... Many indigenous countries have fearful memories of the Chu army's sharp guns and cannons, which all appear in such a small device as the 70mm infantry cannon. On the gun.

Similarly, at this national defense weapons exhibition, many manufacturers also presented designs for a new generation of 70mm infantry guns in an attempt to obtain orders from the military for a new generation of main infantry guns using smokeless gunpowder.

Among them, the new design of the Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company is very good... It is good not because of its advanced performance, but because it is mature enough... And maturity means cheap. The full gun design does not use any high-end new alloy materials. They use some mature materials and are very cheap, so in terms of key data such as weight and range, they actually don’t have much advantage compared to other manufacturers’ designs. Its weight of 230 kilograms has an effective range of 2,200 meters. ...and this thing can still be compatible with firing previous black powder 70mm infantry artillery shells...the main thing is that it is cheap and saves money.

Compared with the current 70mm infantry cannon, it is indeed very good, but compared with the new designs of other manufacturers, it does not have much advantage.

Jiangnan Weapons Company even came up with a 70mm infantry cannon with a range of three thousand meters. It is only slightly heavier at 280 kilograms, but the price is also very impressive, which is higher than the 75mm mountain cannon. It's expensive... The weapons and equipment produced by Jiangnan Weapons Company have always been expensive... especially artillery, because they originally made some higher-tech naval guns, mainly heavy artillery.

As a result, even if we build some field artillery, we often cannot lose it and end up being expensive and heavy.

This kind of infantry gun is expensive and slightly heavy, so even though it has a long range, it cannot catch the eye of the army.

What the Army needs is not expensive so-called heavy infantry artillery that can shoot three thousand meters... What the Army wants is infantry that is cheap, can be used in large quantities, is short and mobile and can adapt to almost all terrains, and has an effective range of two thousand meters. gun.

Therefore, in the end, it was the Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company that won the favor of the Military Academy and was awarded the official number of the 48-type 70mm infantry gun.

If nothing else goes wrong, this new 70mm infantry gun will become the first artillery piece in the army to use smokeless propellant, and the scale of equipment procurement will be very large, at least starting from a thousand units.

The Army wants this new infantry gun to completely replace the modified 34-year-old 70mm infantry gun that has been in service for many years.

The retired old infantry guns will not be wasted. They will be gradually used by second- and third-line troops, and then slowly used by the foreign legions until their service life is complete.

In addition to this 48-type 70mm infantry gun, Luo Zhixue also looked at other artillery projects and even the 150mm heavy artillery, but none of them attracted Luo Zhixue's special attention. Even senior military generals paid attention to it. There is not much interest in these so-called new artillery.

It’s not that I don’t want it. I definitely want it. In the future, I will definitely purchase and equip these new artillery pieces. It’s just that these medium and large-caliber artillery pieces are rarely used by the army. There is not much demand and there is no urgency, so it can be done slowly. .

After reading many artillery projects of the Army, Luo Zhixue saw a more interesting artillery in the naval gun project of the Navy. This is a new 120mm rapid-fire naval gun launched by Jiangnan Weapons Company. .

It adopts their newly developed hydraulic barrel re-entry technology, which greatly increases the rate of fire. This new type of artillery is called a rapid-fire gun.

Luo Zhixue looked at it and expressed his optimism about this kind of artillery. Rapid-fire artillery is definitely the future development direction... but it may take some time for large-scale equipment.

It's not that the technology isn't up to par...it's just that it's not necessary.

The current rate-of-fire run launched by Jiangnan Weapon Company uses a lot of new technologies, which results in a very high cost. Even if it is placed on a naval gun that has always been relatively expensive, it seems very expensive. The Navy is expected to use a small amount. It will be purchased for use on new battleships, but it will take time to fully popularize it, at least to bring down the cost.

As for now...the old-fashioned retractable cannon is also very useful. It can still beat the natives and it's cheaper.

After seeing these gun and artillery projects, some people were naturally happy and others were sad. On the contrary, when Luo Zhixue started to look at various military vehicles, everyone was very happy, especially the people from Tangshan Machinery Company, whose smiles never stopped...

Because... no matter which one of these dozens of various military vehicle projects is finally selected, they all use their gasoline engines!

So far, Tangshan Machinery Company is still the only manufacturer in the Dachu Empire that can produce electronic ignition gasoline engines. No matter what car project is finally selected, their gasoline engines must be used.

However, unlike Tangshan Machinery Company, an engine supplier that is firmly established in Diaoyutai, those manufacturers developing military vehicle projects are very nervous.

(End of this chapter)