Emperor Luo Zhixue wanted to go to the weapons testing site to watch the test firing in person. After learning about this, the heads of the military and the Ministry of Industry felt that since His Majesty wanted to come and see it, they should take the opportunity to make the scale of the weapons test larger.

Just pull out some other new weapon projects for test firing.

So that Your Majesty can know their efforts and achievements in recent years.

Especially the five major arms companies are very enthusiastic about this.

Because every time His Majesty personally inspects weapons test firings and exhibitions, it is when the five major weapons companies show off their results. If His Majesty's approval is obtained during weapons exhibitions and test firings, then subsequent promotions will be easy.<

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Therefore, the five major weapons companies attach great importance to it, and the military also wants to use this weapons exhibition and test firing to gain His Majesty's approval, and then try to gain more support.

This requires purchasing a large number of advanced weapons, which is not an easy task. It not only involves funds, but also involves military tactics and even organizational reforms.

These projects that have a major impact on the military would be almost impossible to take place without Luo Zhixue's personal approval.

Therefore, it is very important to take advantage of this advanced weapons exhibition and test-firing activities to make His Majesty agree with the series of new tactics and new organizational reforms proposed by the military, mainly the Army.

Of course, this is also because the people in the military do not know that in fact Luo Zhixue understands the role of new weapons and new tactics better than they do, and is more looking forward to seeing the army move from the line era to the skirmisher era than they do.<

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Otherwise, Luo Zhixue would not have wanted to go over and take a look in person after hearing that there was a breech-loaded rifled weapon being tested.

The last time Luo Zhixue went to see the test firing of a breech-loaded rifled gun, that was the last time...

The test firing of the breech-loading rifled gun that I watched at that time was not considered a success. At that time, Hebei Weapons Company's breech-loading rifled gun was the fastest research progress, but many problems could not be solved at that time.

When Hebei Arms Company produced the 32-year-old 75mm field gun, Luo Zhixue did not see the test firing in person.

So this time, since the ministers wanted to expand the scale and show off in front of him, he was willing to follow the trend and planned to take a brief look at some of the existing rifled weapons that had been equipped for testing or were ready to be equipped.

Because of the need to expand the scale, the test firing activities of the 75mm mountain gun were temporarily suspended, waiting for other weapons to join the war.

Of course, the waiting time will not be too long. After all, the five major weapons companies have important branches and research institutions in Jinling City, and some new weapons actually have samples in Jinling City.

Even if not, there is now convenient railway transportation, and the main R&D institutions and factories of major weapons companies are basically in industrial cities with convenient railway transportation.

The headquarters of Hebei Arms Company is in Tianjin, and it also has important arsenals in Jinan, Shenyang, and Taiyuan.

The headquarters of Jiangnan Arms Company is in Dangtu Industrial Zone, Yingtianfu. In addition, it has factories in Songjiang, Zhenjiang, Zhejiang and Xuzhou in the north of the Yangtze River.

The headquarters of Huguang Arms Company is in Hantianfu Daye Industrial Zone. In addition, it has arsenals in Hankou, Changsha, Xiangyang and Chengdu, Sichuan.

The headquarters of the Shaanxi-Gansu Arms Company is in Xi'an, and it also has large arsenals in Zhengzhou, Lanzhou, and Yining.

The headquarters of the Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company is in Guangzhou, and it also has large arsenals in Nanning, Kunming and other places.

The above mentioned are all large arsenals. If they are small and medium-sized arsenals, especially small arsenals specially established to meet the needs of ammunition supply and gun repair in border towns and areas with inconvenient transportation, then the number can be much larger.

However, the headquarters of major weapons companies are basically in big cities in important areas in the hinterland of the country, such as Yingtian, Hantian, Songjiang, Guangzhou, Tianjin, and Xi'an.

And these cities are all connected by trains.

With the current railway network of the Great Chu Empire, traveling to and from these places will not take long.

Soon, the five major weapons companies brought their advanced products to the training ground of the Guards on the outskirts of Jinling City. This venue was also the weapons testing ground where the Chu Empire held previous imperial weapons exhibitions and test firings.

However, unlike previous weapons test firings or exhibitions, where there were many messy weapons and equipment, this weapons exhibition is very simple and pure, that is, they are all breech-loaded rifled weapons.

From the Hebei Type 18 rifles and Huguang Type 19 rifles that are currently in batch service, to the Hebei 32-year 75mm field guns, and then there are several types of cavalry revolvers.

Then there are a lot of various breech-loading rifled firearms and artillery that are under development or experimental status.

At the same time, there are not only various standard equipment developed for the military, but also some breech-loading rifled firearms developed for the police, such as police pistols, police breech-loading rifles, etc.

There are more than twenty types of military breech-loading firearms alone...including cavalry, infantry, and some short-barrel versions of rifles, etc. The most famous ones are the 18 and 19 types of rifles currently in service. , which is just two of them.

After all, the five major arms companies have always invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the research and development of breech-loading rifled rifles. Hebei Arms Company and Huguang Arms Company only have a relatively smooth development progress and were the first to successfully develop and obtain orders from the military.< /p>

This does not mean that future standard rifles can only be chosen from these two rifles.

At the same time, in addition to ordinary rifles, there are actually many other types of breech-loaded rifled firearms with larger calibers. Shotguns are used for close combat.

Shotguns are especially useful when fighting at close range, especially indoors, in trenches and other complex terrains. Although shotguns have never become a standard large-scale equipment in the Chu army, many grenadier units that undertake assault missions

But he only knows a small amount of equipment.

At the same time, the police are a big user of shotguns. For patrol officers, holding a big spray gun when enforcing the law is much better than any rifle.

When this kind of big troll is shot at close range, it can knock down a group of criminals and arrest criminals, especially when it is necessary to enter the room to arrest criminals. This thing is easier to use than pistols and ordinary rifles.

Therefore, even in the era of muzzle-loading muskets, the patrols in the Dachu Empire began to equip shotguns... In fact, they were all modified from traditional 18mm caliber muzzle-loading muskets, with common barrels.

Shorter, fires specialized shotguns.

We don’t pursue range and accuracy, but only the ability to kill people at close range!

In addition to various breech-loading rifled rifles, there are also many styles of breech-loading rifled artillery. There are as many as eight types of 75mm artillery projects to be submitted for selection, and every company has

At least one model of No. 75 mm artillery was submitted for election.

With these dozens of breech-loading firearms and breech-loading artillery pieces, it was naturally impossible for Luo Zhixue to watch the completed test firing procedures one by one.

After all, the military's regular test firings require hundreds or even thousands of bullets to be fired continuously. The entire test process will last for many days, and attempts will be made to conduct live ammunition tests in various environments, such as being contaminated with mud or sand.

Then conduct live ammunition testing, such as testing under low or high temperatures.

You can't always expect to use weapons in a good environment.

In actual combat, the environment in which weapons are used is often very bad... For example, the troops stationed in Siberia in the north are in severe cold for several months a year, and the local temperature is often tens of degrees below zero.

degree.

In this environment, guns must still be usable.

It cannot be said that guns cannot be used when the temperature is 20 to 30 degrees below zero, right?

Another example is the troops stationed in tropical rainforest areas. They are in a hot and humid state for most of the year. If it is a coastal area, the weapons are also tested by the high salt content of the coast. How to ensure that the weapons are not corroded in this environment?

It is very important to ensure that the weapon can still be used in wet mud or even rainy weather.

The various link requirements also caused the Chu army to use the same model of guns and artillery, but in fact the specific models of equipment used by troops in different regions were different.

Even if the rifles equipped in the southern tropical regions and the rifles equipped in the northern ice fields are the same model, the Chu army will usually subdivide them into northern versions and tropical versions. The specific materials and processes are different, focusing on the performance under different temperatures.

.

Of course, this is also because the basic industry of Chu State is not up to standard and cannot produce a firearm that can perform well in all environments.

Because many links need to be tested one by one, and it is obviously impossible for Luo Zhixue to see them all, so this time, Luo Zhixue only came to the imperial exhibition for one day, and only saw the test firing of a few of the representative weapons.

Even the test firings of these representative weapons are actually only superficial live-fire tests, with the meaning of firing live ammunition on the spot... The real live-fire tests need to be carried out slowly later, and the duration is often relatively long.

On August 26, Luo Zhixue arrived at the Guards training ground on the outskirts of Jinling City and took a large group of officials and generals to see many weapons.

Among them is the Type 18 rifle that has gained quite a reputation and has become the standard rifle of the Guards and is also equipped on a small scale by the Army. This rifle is developed and produced by the Tianjin Arsenal, a subsidiary of Hebei Arms Company.
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It is a very typical breech-loading rifled rifle, using a universal rotating bolt action, single-shot loading, a caliber of 11 mm, and a center-firing flange copper-cased bullet.

It is worth noting that the patents involved in the above characteristics are not owned by Hebei Arms Company, but are general patents owned by the five major arms companies, because the early firearms research of the Dachu Empire included early breech-loading rifled rifles, metal

The research on bullets belongs to the Dachu Empire Firearms Research Institute.

Later, after the institute was revoked, each of the patents held by the institute was licensed to five major weapons companies.

Therefore, not only Hebei Arms Company can use these patents and technical features, but also the other four arms companies.

Especially regarding the bullets, although the Da Chu Empire Army has not yet determined which rifle will be adopted as the next generation standard rifle, the matching bullets have been determined early, which is the 11*60 center firing flange copper case

Black powder bullets.

The new generation of rifle bullets from major manufacturers are required to conduct supporting research based on this standard bullet.

Compared with other bullet designs, this kind of bullet has the advantage of low processing accuracy requirements. At the same time, contemporary revolvers generally use bullets of this design. Of course, the sizes are different... After all, it is impossible to use a rifle with a pistol.

This type of high-power rifle ammunition uses pistol ammunition that is smaller in size and has smaller recoil.

Because the flange bullet has the advantage of being easy to process, it is precisely because of this that it has become the mainstream and the standard bullet of the Chu Army.

Of course, the ease of processing is only relatively speaking. In fact, even flanged bullets are not easy to produce for the contemporary Chu country’s industrial base, and the processing costs are not low.

As for other types of bullets, the processing cost is higher and the selling price is also higher. However, the army is not the only one in the firearms market of the Chu Empire. There are three military companies. In addition to the three military companies,

There are also patrol police and tax police.

The weapons purchasing power of local patrol police and tax police is generally delegated to each province.

Therefore, there are dozens of official weapon users alone. The fact that other types of bullets cannot win the favor of the Army does not mean that they cannot win the support of several other military users or the police community.

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!

There is also a private market.

These numerous markets also support a large number of firearms projects among the five major arms companies. It is not to say that after losing the Army's order, the firearms business will die directly.

In fact, even if there is no firearms order from the Army, if it obtains the police market, it will still be quite profitable. For example, Songjiang Firearms Factory, a subsidiary of Jiangnan Arms Company, rarely supplies to the military and only does police business.

and private markets.

Its Qiming brand new-generation shotgun, a brand-new connecting rod rifled shotgun, was officially launched and put on the market in the summer of the 33rd year of Chengshun. It was widely received by the environment as soon as it was launched.
To be continued...