I want to be emperor

Military vehicles are a serious high-tech industry in the Chu Empire... No, to be precise, all gasoline engine application platforms are high-tech industries.

Including agricultural machinery, construction machinery, as well as trains, buses, cars, three-wheeled or two-wheeled motorcycles, etc... One by one, they are all the top industrial products of the contemporary era.

After all, mature and usable electronic ignition engines have only been out for a few years. This engine has just come out, and the various platforms for applying the engine are naturally developing later.

Among them, agricultural machinery and equipment developed the most smoothly, because Tangshan Machinery Company, the only manufacturer of electronic ignition gasoline engines, was originally engaged in agricultural equipment.

Therefore, the largest application platform of contemporary gasoline engines is not actually military vehicles, civilian vehicles or engineering equipment, but agricultural equipment.

Many large agricultural companies have successively used gasoline tractors, gasoline harvesters and other equipment produced by Tangshan Machinery Company.

The second is engineering equipment, which is mainly concentrated on equipment used on large construction sites such as excavators and bulldozers. Many large construction sites in China have begun to use these equipment. In addition, the two major overseas canals have also begun to use gasoline engine engineering equipment. .

In the two fields of agricultural equipment and engineering equipment, the development of gasoline engine application platforms is very rapid.

But apart from these, the development of cars in the traditional sense, including trucks and buses, is much slower.

Tangshan Machinery Company has also launched civilian cars and trucks, but the market feedback is not good... Mainly because the technology is not mature enough and the overall performance is lagging... In addition, the price is expensive, so the market feedback is not good. .

Especially trucks and medium and large buses, which are often purchased for commercial operations. If you have a problem every three days, you need professional technicians to be on hand to perform maintenance... This overall cost is relatively high. At the same time, General cargo transportation and commercial passenger transportation have a large number of horse-drawn carriages as competitors, and this comprehensive competition puts them at a disadvantage.

Unlike those engineering equipment or agricultural equipment, their competitors are not horse-drawn carriages, but steam engine agricultural equipment and engineering equipment that are more backward in technology and more expensive. In comparison, agricultural equipment or engineering equipment with gasoline engines have A huge advantage.

However, the competitors between trucks and buses are horse-drawn carriages... This is completely different.

The differences among competitors also lead to different difficulties in the development of automobiles in different fields.

But... this problem is different when it comes to military vehicles!

The vehicles needed by the army are armored vehicles equipped with machine guns. This thing has no competitors... It is a completely new type of weaponry. As long as it is easy to produce and has tactical effects, there will be no comparison. The army Will purchase.

As for military vehicles, including artillery tractors and material transport vehicles, some of the heavy artillery tractors have replaced steam engine artillery tractors. Needless to say, they will definitely be needed as soon as they are produced. No matter how bad they are, they are still better than steam engine artillery tractors. .

As for material transport vehicles, their competitors are the large number of freight carriages in the military. However, the purpose of vehicle transportation in the military is not to simply reduce costs, but to improve logistics supply capabilities and reduce costs. The reliance on mules and horses reduces the supply of grain and grass in the logistics supply system.

How should I put it? What the military values ​​​​is that cars can pull more, transport more, and are more adaptable to terrain... After all, cars have greater power, and their transportation capabilities will be limited even if they encounter more complex terrain. It's better than a horse-drawn carriage...

At the same time, cars burn gasoline, and not much gasoline is needed during combat. A barrel of gasoline can go a long way. More importantly, when not in use, the car does not burn oil...

The mules and horses used in carriages are different. They have to eat and drink even if they don't work.

The carriages used by the army are different from civilian freight carriages. Civilian freight carriages work for many years, but there is no situation where they are not working at ordinary times.

But the army's carriage is different. If there is no war, it is actually used only a few times throughout the year... most of the time it is idle, and it only does a little more work during training exercises.

With such a comparison, it is understandable why the military has such an urgent need for cars... What they value is that cars do not burn fuel when not in use, have more powerful transportation capabilities, and are better able to adapt to terrain than horse-drawn carriages. .

As for the places that cars can't reach, in fact, horse-drawn carriages can't reach them either... Of course, the work of carrying and transporting in complicated mountainous areas does not count.

Taken together, the military is very interested in automobiles. Even if material transportation may not be available for a while, artillery tractors, especially tractors for medium and heavy artillery, must be developed.

No matter what happens, a batch of large artillery tractors must be built to tow heavy artillery. The military is very resentful of those steam engine-powered artillery tractors, but there is no substitute before cars, and using horses is also very troublesome.

This kind of hard demand from the military has also been passed on to the national defense industry system. Hebei Arms Company, one of the five major arms companies, has its headquarters in Tianjin and is not far from Tangshan Machinery Company, so it learned about gasoline engines and Arms company for automotive related technologies.

After understanding the needs of the military, Hebei Arms Company launched a related project two years ago to develop an armored vehicle equipped with a heavy machine gun and armor protection for battlefield assault operations.

Based on a high-horsepower engine provided by Tangshan Machinery Company, they used a new air-cooled heavy machine gun provided by Huguang Weapons Company, and finally developed an armored vehicle.

This is the armored vehicle Luo Zhixue is seeing now!

To be honest, the appearance of this armored vehicle is actually very weird... because it is relatively low on all sides, but there is a protrusion in the middle, and it is an open-air protrusion. There is a heavy machine gun deployed in this protrusion.

In other words, this thing doesn't look like an armored vehicle in the minds of later generations. Instead, it looks more like a tank... Generally speaking, if you think of the protruding part where the heavy machine gun is mounted as a turret, then you can easily understand it.

As for why this was done, the person in charge of Hebei Weapons Company said that it was to control the weight of the vehicle, reduce the armor laying area, and focus on protecting the front of the vehicle body and the machine gunner.

As for why we need to control the weight... of course it's because the power of current gasoline engines is too small!

Tangshan Machinery Company has already produced their most powerful engine, but it only has 30 horsepower, and this 'high-horsepower engine' is also relatively large in size and weight.

This engine is quite heavy to begin with. Coupled with the weight of the car body and the weight of the armor plate, it can reach more than five or six tons or even seven or eight tons without a little control!

But the horsepower is only thirty...

There is no other way but to control the weight as much as possible! The weight of the main components such as the engine and transmission structure cannot be reduced...the only things that can be reduced are the body and armor.

Therefore, they made the car body as compact as possible, which can reduce the weight of the main structure of the car body and the weight of the armor.

Then there is strict control of armor weight,

They reduced the weight of the armor by reducing the height around the car body and then creating a raised protrusion in the middle where the heavy machine gun was designed.

Because in this way, the armor height around the car body is relatively low, and the amount of armor plates is much less, which can free up weight to strengthen the thickness of the armor.

Finally, the thickness of the front armor of the car body reached 10 mm, the front of the protruding part where the machine gun was designed also reached 10 mm, and the thickness of the sides and tail of the machine gun position also reached 8 mm.

The side armor of the car body is thinner, but it can reach four millimeters in most locations, and the tail is also four millimeters. At the same time, the side armor of important locations such as the engine compartment and the side of the driver's seat reaches six millimeters.

This armor plate is only a few millimeters in single digits. From the perspective of future generations, although it is only a thin layer of iron sheet, its protective capabilities are actually not bad.

This is a steel plate, and it is not an ordinary steel plate, but a high-carbon steel. There is absolutely no problem in using it to withstand bullets.

This bullet refers to the bullets from a series of rifled firearms used by the Chu people themselves!

Not to mention the muskets in the hands of the natives!

Overall, although this armored vehicle looks strange and weird, its appearance is not good-looking, and its crew number is only three, a commander, a driver, and a machine gunner... but its combat effectiveness is quite impressive. of.

With the protection of the steel plate, the armored vehicle can withstand the firepower of the indigenous people and even the Chu army's own firearms, and then use the vehicle-mounted machine gun to carry out strafing attacks.

The frontal charge capability is much stronger than that of heavy cavalry wearing heavy armor.

The final maneuverability is not bad either. It uses a design of four wheels in the front and four wheels in the rear, with a total of eight solid tires.

It has four more wheels than an ordinary vehicle, which naturally enhances its off-road maneuverability. Its off-road speed can reach 20 kilometers per hour. More importantly, its ability to cross obstacles is quite good, and it can cope with mud, snow, and small water. Ditches and other special terrain... However, the highway speed is a bit different, and can only reach about 40 kilometers per hour.

As for why we don't just go for a rear double axle, or even a more modern design like a four axle and eight wheels, it's naturally because the transmission technology isn't up to par...

This speed and even its cross-country capabilities are completely sufficient, at least for the contemporary Chu army, which is enough or even exceeded.

This kind of armored vehicle has nothing to do with an infantry fighting vehicle or the like. Instead, it is more like a wheeled machine gun tank... Its purpose is not to transport infantry on the battlefield, but to charge directly into the battle. From a tactical perspective, this kind of armored vehicle has nothing to do with it. , is actually a kind of tank!

After Luo Zhixue took a brief look at it, he asked someone to go on a test drive and practice it on the spot. Then he saw that although the car was still very primitive, it was very exciting in the practice venue. It had no problem at all in crossing puddles and running on muddy roads. No, it's just slower.

However, it is understandable. The armor is stacked and the engine power is small. Even if the car body is designed to be as compact as possible, it does not leave much room for the occupants in the car to move, but it still greatly affects its maneuverability.

After reading it, Luo Zhixue took the lead in applauding... In Luo Zhixue's opinion, this thing was already very good, even beyond his expectations.

He originally thought that these weapons companies were building some kind of armored vehicle, which was just a super original design with a steel plate and a machine gun added to the carriage, but he did not expect that the designers of Hebei Weapons Company had come up with something quite good.

The Army is also interested in this armored vehicle. Before participating in the exhibition, it had already placed an order for eight test prototypes for various preliminary tests.

After viewing this armored vehicle from Hebei Weapons Company, Luo Zhixue visited various other armored vehicles accompanied by many personnel.

There are all kinds of these armored vehicles, and the most outstanding one is that they are all kinds. After all, there has been no such thing as armored vehicles before, and there is no precedent for reference. Naturally, the design plans of these weapon designers are all kinds.

Several of them are armored vehicles that focus specifically on combat, just like Hebei Weapons Company's armored vehicle program.

There are also armored vehicles that focus on transporting soldiers on the battlefield and providing fire support. From a combat perspective, they are somewhat similar to infantry fighting vehicles of later generations.

In addition, there is a three-wheeled armored vehicle... This is a three-wheeled vehicle, and then it is equipped with an air-cooled heavy machine gun. There is only a solitary machine gun shield, and forget about other armor protection... The specific appearance is just a A three-bouncer with a machine gun on the back...but the size is smaller, because the design of this armored vehicle of the Shaanxi-Gan Weapons Company was designed according to the needs of the cavalry force, which requires the ability to move Country roads or even forest paths.

So the size of the car body is actually very small.

There are all kinds of armored vehicles, and there are many participating manufacturers. The five major weapons companies all have subsidiaries participating, and some weapons companies even have more than one subsidiary participating, but have produced several types at the same time.

Luo Zhixue also took a look at these armors, and most of them were encouraging... As for deciding to purchase equipment, Luo Zhixue would not decide on the spot. This thing is more complicated than ordinary guns. If it is to be put into military service on a large scale, long-term and rigorous testing is indispensable.

So it’s hard to say who will get the order in the end.

After looking at the armored vehicles, it’s the turn of another highlight of the military vehicle project, which is military trucks and artillery tractors. In fact, the two are interoperable in many cases.

Because ordinary military trucks can also tow ordinary field artillery, except for some heavy artillery that require special artillery tractors, in fact, the towing of ordinary field artillery is generally carried out by ordinary military trucks.

There are quite a lot of these military vehicles. Luo Zhixue has seen more than ten models before and after, and the styles are similar. They are basically based on the trucks previously launched by Tangshan Machinery Company, with a cab in the front and a cargo compartment in the rear.

At the same time, they basically all use a rear four-wheel design... After all, it is a loading truck, and it will be easier to move with two more tires at the back.

These military trucks, in Luo Zhixue's opinion, are still very primitive... Some of these things don't even have steering wheels, but rely on pull rods to control direction.

Well, this steering wheel is also a patented product of Tangshan Machinery Company. These armored vehicles, military trucks, etc. are actually purchased from Tangshan Machinery Company.

Although military armored vehicles and trucks are still relatively primitive, with many strange things and outstanding performance, Luo Zhixue is already very satisfied.

After all, this is the initial stage of automobiles, so you can’t expect too much. As long as it can be used, it can drive the development trend and let people see the road to success in the future.