In the warm sunshine, the "Thunder" has slowed down to a low speed and slowly approached the pier. The worker in charge of speedboat testing jumped onto the deck and tied it firmly with a cable. Xia Shu easily stepped out of the cabin and stood on the pier and smiled at today's special passengers. Louise's hair, who had just taken off her leather hat, was a little messy, and her red cheeks seemed to have a shy girl met a handsome idol, and her watery eyes were filled with pleasure.

Uncle Wizel was obviously used to the intimacy between the brother and sister. He watched the prince and the princess joke on each other on the trestle with gentle eyes. After a while, Prince Oldenburg also returned to the trestle. As soon as he approached Louise, his originally somewhat disappointed expression immediately changed to implicit admiration. His gaze seemed to be erratic, but in fact he was not off the focus.

"Nicolas!" When Prince Joachim called his name, the uncle came forward.

"It feels very good. The high-speed state is more stable than lightning, and it is also very comfortable to operate." Xia Shu said with a thumbs up.

"We are just implementing this project strictly in accordance with your design intentions. Of course, the young engineers worked seriously and were in high spirits under the leadership of Dr. Carls, and their efforts are particularly worthy of praise." The uncle gave up the credit in an understatement.

Xia Shu nodded with satisfaction and said, "Don't worry! By the end of the year, everyone will receive the reward they deserve."

"Your Highness's generosity and justice make everyone here full of energy." Uncle Weizel expressed his gratitude to all the shipyard employees who have received additional rewards. Xia Shu deserves this thanks. After all, it is an era of capital supremacy, full of exploitation and oppression. There are very few operators who can truly share their interests with their employees. In Xia Shu's view, to reverse the decline in the operation of the Friedrich Royal Shipbuilding Factory, we must first change the rigid operation model, use modernization concepts to create a positive and hardworking working atmosphere, give engineers, technicians and even ordinary workers the motivation to do their careers, let high-paying technical talents find a sense of belonging, and turn the entire shipyard into a large group full of cohesion and combat effectiveness.

Just give a little compliment. Xia Shu quickly brought the topic back to the Thunder twin-man boat in the test stage. Its killer weapon is still a single-mounted 450mm torpedo tube placed at the bow of the boat. In addition to its powerful maritime penetration capability, it also adds self-defense weapons. Like Stuka's driving layout, the Thunder's main driver is responsible for controlling the heading and launching torpedo attacks, and the co-pilot sitting back is responsible for operating the machine gun that can rotate at a certain angle. Currently, there are two main guns tested: Maxim water-cooled machine gun and Gatling turn-bar machine gun. The former can provide stable and continuous fire output, but it is insufficient for maritime combat. The Gatling turn-bar machine gun eliminated by the army has a 13mm caliber, with a high power of projectiles and a maximum rate of fire. However, the biggest disadvantage is that it is poor stability and continuous shooting is prone to stuck.

"Both weapons have been tested for destructive power, and their results have their advantages and disadvantages."

While introducing, Uncle Weizel led Xia Shu and the others to the northwest corner of the shipyard. A few months ago, it was an open-air timber pile-up site, which has now been transformed into a gun-fire test site. Backed by a tall and thick cement wall, test boards of various materials are covered with bullet holes and craters, and opposite to a mill-like stone house, with yellow shells scattered under the eaves.

When he approached the stone house, the uncle called out without hesitation: "Tony! Tony?"

The response was neither a playful genius like Tony Stark nor a Luca Tony-style pile-type center, but a baby-faced "caucao head". He wore an apron and sleeves, and his smile was sincere and sunny. However, the Italian language of "Carlo-Sua-Il" made Natsuki look confused and question marks.

"He paid the highest respect to the prince and the princess," said the uncle on behalf of the translator.

The young man cooperated to make a pose of waving his hands with his legs and legs, which was already the old trick of the medieval era, and only small countries with a strong feudal atmosphere remained preserved.

Germany has never lacked excellent gun technicians. The reason why the shipyard hired such an Italian outside has a great relationship with Uncle Weizel's recommendation. The story behind this is quite romantic: an Italian young man returned from a study tour in the United States and met a beautiful German girl on a cruise ship. The two fell in love at first sight and held a wedding under the auspices of the priest on the boat. In order not to let the beloved girl endure the pain of homesickness, the young man still came to a strange country. With his firm New Year and diligent attitude, he won the recognition of his father-in-law.

With his help, I found a job that suits me. Of course, this kid is not a gangster. He comes from the "Beretta" family, the most famous Italian military industry. The family's history of producing and operating firearms can be traced back to the 16th century, and it was almost the era when gunpowder guns were just born. This cauliflower not only learned gun manufacturing skills since childhood, but also traveled to Britain, the United States and other countries to understand the development of gun technology in various countries and draw useful experiences and skills. Just looking at the resume, you should be a great young man with both ambition and a skill.

Real talents are worth a thousand gold, but if you are just a scattered Mr. Nan Guo, the more you invest, the bigger you will get. Xia Shu is not in a hurry to make a conclusion, he asked: "You should be able to speak English, right?"

"Of course!" When the caucao turned around and said, "Go into the gutter", Xia Shu's ears suddenly felt much more comfortable, and Christian and Louise could speak fluent English, so there would be no obstacles in conversation.

"What is the result of the weapon test?" Natsuki went straight to the topic.

The cauliflower head brought them to the shooting range, and combined with the materials covered with bullet holes and craters, it said: "The power of the Maxim machine gun is enough to deal with the enemy torpedo speedboats and ordinary ships. I can try to make some improvements to the Army-equipped Maxim machine gun, and use a conduit to cool the live water cycle, so that the volume and weight of the cooling sleeve can be reduced a lot. The canvas belt will be deformed unfavorable to the supply of the ammunition after being soaked in seawater. Replacing it with metal hinges can solve this problem. If you want to deal with slightly larger targets, especially those with thin armor protection, the Gatling rotary machine gun should be more effective, or we can try to use a larger caliber rotary gun, which can even pose an effective threat to the personnel and equipment on large ships."

During this period, the French had already used metal hinges to supply bullets on their Hodgekis heavy machine guns. Although its cost was much higher than that of canvas belts, it could indeed solve the problem of canvas moisture. The cooling cycle of live water sounded a good idea. Xia Shu looked him quietly and said slowly: "The original intention of installing shooting weapons on high-speed speed boats was to deal with enemies who were also equipped with high-speed speed boats, but in terms of actual combat, it may be used more to strafuse the non-protective combat areas of enemy warships, such as rapid-fire guns on the side of the battleship or cruiser, and machine gun battle positions to weaken enemy firepower, cover the torpedo attacks of your own subsequent speedboats, and also reduce pressure for your evacuation."

Kaaki Tou thought about it and raised his voice at one point: "In this case, I strongly recommend using a 1-inch caliber Gatlin six-barrel cannon."

"But the weight of this type of rotary gun is too large, which may affect the balance and sprinting ability of the speedboat." Natsuki raised his concerns.

When talking about these professional technical issues, the cauliflower was walking on the spot as if no one was around, and his hands were sometimes rubbing each other, sometimes behind his back. He shook his curious eyes of the prince, princess and father-in-law for five or six minutes, and suddenly quickly returned to Xia Shu: "Your Highness knows the Madson machine gun developed by the Danes?"

The Maderson machine gun is the world's first practical light machine gun to be produced on a large scale. It was finalized in 1902. Its excellent performance won the favor of many European countries. As its first user, the Russian army of Tsarist Russia had used it on the Russian-Japanese battlefield at this time.

"Hmm!" Xia Shu replied simply.

"This machine gun is light and easy to use, but the biggest disadvantage is that the firing speed is too slow. I once heard that a British engineer wanted to develop a small-caliber automatic gun according to the principle of the Madson machine gun, but he has never found a confident investor. Maybe..."

Speaking of this, Caihuatou was a little hesitant, and Xia Shu could see the young man's thoughts at a glance. He wanted to try this valuable technological innovation, but was also worried that his request for investment from his new owner would be too reckless. In fact, in Xia Shu's view, if the miniaturization of machine guns could be achieved, it would not only have positive significance for enhancing ship defense, but would be a very terrifying killing weapon on land and air battlefields of World War I. Imagine that his soldiers used machine guns on armored vehicles or even machine guns on crawler tanks to pour wild bombs into the enemy's intensive charges. His fighter jets used machine guns to tear the enemy's wooden structure aircraft with machine guns, and Xia Shu was a little cautious.

"I think this is a very good idea. People with real vision and courage should not miss it." Xia Shu didn't say anything directly, but the cauliflower head obviously heard the meaning, and he suddenly became full of energy.

Uncle Weizel, who was attending their conversation, quickly said in German: "Your Highness, although Tony knows weapons very well, he is young after all and lacks experience in many aspects. It is recommended that you consider it carefully and never make a rash decision because of my relationship."

Xia Shu smiled calmly and said, "You have been thinking too much. Every decision I made is based on objective evaluation. Rationally speaking, even if Tony's efforts ultimately fail, we can still learn a lot of useful experience from it. This is like we design and build a ship. Who can guarantee that the ship we built must be very successful?"

The uncle no longer advised him. In fact, it can be seen that although he had personal concerns, he still hoped that his son-in-law could become a capable person.

Xia Shu then said to Tony who was full of joy: "Of course, our top priority now is to return to the speedboat. Should we install Maxim or a redirect cannon for these speedboats that will be put into production soon?"

The cauliflower head quickly calmed down, and he bit his lip and thought: "My personal suggestion is a six-barrel Gatling machine gun. If it is a 13mm caliber, the German Army has a lot of redundant inventory, and the ammunition is ready-made. I can modify them slightly to reduce their weight."

"Considering the bumpy state of speedboats during combat, I think they can adjust their ammunition supply method appropriately to ensure stable and continuous firepower output." Xia Shu's words affirmed Caihuatou's suggestion to assemble a rotary machine gun on the Thunder.

When Richard Jordan Gatling, the inventor of the Gatling machine gun, reached its end in 1903, the multi-barrel hand-cranked rotary machine gun had been removed from the equipment list by most powerful troops. Instead, they were various emerging automatic weapons, such as the tube-retrel Maxim machine gun (English, Germany and Russia), the gas-guided Browning machine gun (US) and Hachicais machine gun (France, Japan). Many Gatling machine guns were completely destroyed as scrap copper and iron, while others were buried in dusty warehouses, or excavated and used in museums and private collections for exhibition. The decision of Xia Shu and his team seemed to be against the historical trend, but each weapon that had once popular always had its undiscovered value, not to mention that the time travelers had a firm understanding of the general trend of rotary machine guns returning to the war stage.
Chapter completed!