I want to be emperor

Chapter 766 Chaotic Rifle Equipment

The research on metal fixed bullets also started very early in the Great Chu Empire.

After the Firearms Research Institute came up with the Model [-] rear-loading rifle concept rifle, Luo Zhixue asked the Firearms Research Institute to conduct research on all-metal fixed bullets, in order to better solve the air leakage problem of the rear-loading rifle. .

After the initial research conducted by the Firearms Research Institute, a series of theoretical studies were carried out.

However, a few years ago, the top leaders of the Great Chu Empire discovered that there was a disconnect between research and production. Simply put, the Firearms Research Institute, as a pure research institution, was out of touch with the actual manufacturers, the five major weapon companies.

Those researchers are all paid staff, and the research is based on their own hobbies, the research progress is lagging behind, and there are a lot of unrealistic research projects that waste funds.

The same situation is still in some applied project research institutes directly under the Ministry of Industry.

As a result, many research institutes directly under the Ministry of Industry are completely unable to compare with the research and development departments directly under the major enterprises in terms of research progress and results.

For this reason, the Great Chu Empire reformed the research structure directly under the Ministry of Industry and other administrative agencies.

Various administrative agencies began to no longer directly govern various research institutions, and some basic theoretical research institutions were assigned to various universities, and some were assigned to the leadership of the Royal Science Committee.

Some applied research institutions are handed over to major government-run enterprises.

In this wave of reform, the Firearms Research Institute, which has become bloated and has greatly declined in research vitality, after all the technical achievements and patents have been transferred to the five major weapon companies for free, personnel will be dispatched according to personal wishes and the wishes of the five major weapon companies .

The famous firearms research institute in the past has completely withdrawn from history, and the research and development of various weapons projects in the Great Chu Empire are in charge of the five major weapon companies and other government-run or private enterprises that undertake national defense projects.

Realized the integration of research, production and sales.

During this process, the five major weapon companies have obtained the preliminary research results of metal fixed bullets from the Firearms Research Institute, but they are mainly some theoretical results, but there are not many.

But when the Firearms Research Institute was disbanded, the metal fixed bullet project hadn't even completed the preliminary design.

On the Hebei Arms Company, the Tianjin Firearms Factory finally took over the research on metal fixed bullets to compete with the metal fixed bullet projects of the other four weapon companies.

Now, what Luo Zhixue saw was the sample of metal fixed bullets produced by the metal fixed bullet research project team under the Tianjin Firearms Factory.

Luo Zhixue is very interested in this thing, because he knows very well that in order to solve the air leakage problem of breech-loading rifles, rubber gaskets or other ingenious designs are just a temporary solution, not the root cause. Only the use of metal fixed-loading bullets is the real solution. solution.

At this time, Dai Yongyan, the Governor's Office of the Hebei Arms Company, stepped forward again and said, "Your Majesty, this is the latest research result of our company's metal fixed bullet project!"

"This is the bullet we developed for the Type [-] rear-loading rifle. It has a caliber of [-] mm and a length of [-] mm. The shell is made of brass. The shell is equipped with propellant, propellant and bullet."

"When shooting, it is the same as the paper case bullet, and it is fired with a firing pin. At the same time, our propellant is the same as the standard paper case bullet, and it is at the bottom of the shell case."

"We conducted a series of live ammunition tests before, and found that this brass rifle bullet can almost perfectly solve the air leakage problem of the breech-loading rifle!"

After Luo Zhixue listened to it, he asked without thinking, "But what?"

You don't need to think about it to know that this thing is definitely immature and incomplete. Otherwise, when you start to introduce the Type [-] breech-loading rifle, you won't use paper bullets, but you can use metal bullets directly.

At this time, Dai Yongyan showed embarrassment and said: "Your Majesty Shengming, we also found some problems during the live ammunition test. It may be because the design is not perfect. The firing rate is not very successful when shooting, and the dud rate is relatively high. high."

After Luo Zhixue heard it, he finally understood why this thing can only be a conceptual product. If the success rate of firing is not high enough, no matter how good the performance is, it will be useless...

Why did the Great Chu Empire use fire cap firing instead of sudden firing? Isn't it just to increase the firing rate.

After all, you can't let the soldiers on the front line, facing the enemy rush up, misfire when they want to shoot!
At this time, Dai Yongyan also continued: "In addition, because the technology is not very mature, the overall processing and production costs are relatively high. Currently, we are trying to find ways to increase the firing rate, and at the same time improve the process to reduce costs."

After hearing this, Luo Zhixue pondered for a moment, and then said to a group of generals in the defense industry and the military: "Whether it is: "Backloading rifles are the future development direction of individual weapons, while metal fixed bullets are is an important part of it. "

"The Type [-] rifle and the brass metal bullet are very good today. We will continue to increase investment in the future to further improve the breech-loading rifle, and strive to allow soldiers to use advanced weapons one day earlier."

Luo Zhixue knows that it is not a matter of a day or two to make a complete version of the breech-loading rifle. In his opinion, the current Type [-] rifle is the level of the early breech-loading rifle, and it is not even suitable for large-scale production in terms of cost. promotion and widespread use.

But the current research and development momentum is very good.

It doesn't matter if you can't get it right all at once, the important thing is to stick to it. If it doesn't work this year, what about next year?What about another three to five years?

On a more optimistic estimate, maybe five years from now, the technology of breech-loading rifles equipped with metal fixed bullets will develop to a very mature and reliable level?At the same time, can the production cost be reduced to an acceptable level?
Therefore, Luo Zhixue encouraged and supported these research projects to ensure that they can continue to study.

He is looking forward to the fact that in the next few years, soldiers of the Chu army fighting overseas will be able to use good breech-loading rifles, and then form an overwhelming firepower advantage over the natives.

Luo Zhixue couldn't help looking forward to the thought of those natives who hadn't even used their flintlock guns yet, and his soldiers had already beaten them with weapons like the Mauser 1871 rifle.

After seeing these new weapons and equipment, Luo Zhixue also looked at some active weapons being produced by Hebei Weapons Company.

For example, the Type 21 front-loading rifle equipped by the Guards is actually quite good in terms of performance. It has a caliber of 23 mm and is fired with a flash cap, and the material of the barrel is comparable to the barrel of the Type [-]/[-] old-fashioned smoothbore gun. The material is much better so that it can withstand the life of the barrel after rifling.

At the same time, because the quality of the barrel is better, the barrel can be made thinner to reduce the overall weight of the gun under the condition of bearing a huge chamber pressure.

Basically, there is no difference except that it is expensive.

It is a pity that it has not been able to enter the army's large-scale service because it is relatively expensive.

Of course, this is also because the army has seen the prospect of the rear-loading rifle early, and at the same time, because the front-loading rifle and the rear-loading rifle are actually similar in technical difficulty...

The Type [-] breech-loading rifle of the Tianjin Firearms Factory, in many core technologies such as the barrel, has followed the technology of the Type [-] front-loading rifle... Except for the different calibers of the barrels of the two, the other materials are different. , the processing technology is almost exactly the same.

The production line for the production of Type [-] front-loading rifles can directly produce Type [-] rear-loading rifles after certain technical adjustments.

Moreover, the research and development progress of the Type [-] breech-loading rifle is not too slow. Based on these circumstances, the Army actually wants to wait until the breech-loading rifle comes out, and then do it in one step, skip the front-loading rifle, and directly equip the rear Load rifled rifle.

Then save at least millions or even tens of millions of replacement costs.

Otherwise, it would be embarrassing if a batch of front-loading rifles were just equipped here, and breech-loading rifles came out there again.

Just like the current Guards!
The front foot has just been equipped with about [-] Type [-] front-loading rifles. It took two or three years to add up, and it has not even been fully refitted. As a result, the Type [-] rear-loading rifles are now Out.

The Imperial Guards are backed by royal funds, so they can ignore the waste of millions of Chu Yuan, but the army can't.

Although the army has a large total military expenditure, it also maintains a large number of troops, and requires a huge amount of various weapons and equipment.

Therefore, we have always been very cautious or even conservative about standard weapons equipped on a large scale.

In addition to the Type 23 front-loading rifle, Luo Zhixue also saw the [-]-year-style flash cap percussion rifle, which seemed to be outdated technically, but was still mass-produced and was the main standard individual weapon of the army and navy.

The 23-year-style flash cap percussion rifle is improved from the 21-year-style cap percussion rifle. The biggest difference is that the barrel of this thing is not shiny, but black!
This is because as the steel technology and processing technology of the Great Chu Empire continued to improve, steel began to be used on a large scale to manufacture gun barrels during this period.

However, in order to control costs, and because the quality of the steel was not good at the time, the steel barrels produced were prone to rust.

In order to prevent rust, the technicians blued the barrel, so the barrel of the 23-year-old flash cap percussion rifle is black.

This is a very important appearance identification feature.

As for the others, there is no difference. There is no difference in the barrel length, caliber, even weight, and bayonet accessories.

And except for the firing mechanism, there is no difference between the other parts and the earlier 13-year series of flintlock guns, and even the two-year series of flintlock guns.

The smooth-bore guns of the Great Chu Empire have basically determined their basic structure and shape since the first-year-style matchlock guns.

Especially the caliber, which has always been maintained at [-]mm.

Although there have been some smoothbore guns of other calibers in the middle, such as 25mm, [-]mm, and [-]mm flintlock guns of different calibers, and even [-]mm heavy guns with long barrels and requiring two people to operate, But none of these became mainstream.

It has a caliber of [-] mm, weighs about [-] kilograms, and is between [-] meters and [-] meters long. These three performance indicators have hardly changed as the indicators of the standard infantry guns of the army. The improved models of various rifles , although there are some deviations in these data, but generally the deviation is not large.

These, in the end, also continued into the 23-year-style flash cap percussion rifle.

This is a very mature, simple and reliable, low-cost, but quite good performance musket. The purchase price of the standard model with a bayonet is only between four and five Chu yuan each, which is very cheap.

And to a certain extent, the 23-year-style cap percussion gun has come to an end in the history of the development of smoothbore guns in the Great Chu Empire, because if it continues to be used, it will not be a smoothbore gun, but a rifled gun.

At present, the main weapon of the Great Chu Empire Army and Marine Corps is the 23-year-style flash cap percussion gun, which has about 60 pieces. Although there are many of them now, it was actually an emergency transitional gun at the beginning.

Because the army's plan at the beginning was to use the 21-year-style flash cap percussion gun first, um, it specifically refers to the 13-year-style percussion cap percussion rifle modified from the 21-year-old series of rifles.

Because the Army felt that it was not cost-effective to produce new ones, it directly converted more than 150 million 13-year-style flintlock guns into 21-year-style flash cap percussion guns as the main force.

The newly-produced 21-year-style cap percussion rifles are actually limited in number, and the total number is only more than 30.

According to the army's thinking at the time, it was to directly replace the front-loading rifles with the front-loading rifles after the service life of these 21-year-type flash cap percussion guns was exhausted, and enter the era of front-loading rifles.

But the army did not expect that the Type 100 front-loading rifle would be so expensive... In the early days, it cost more than [-] Chu yuan a piece, and later it cost tens of Chu yuan a piece.

Then the Army discovered sadly that it could not afford the new front-loading rifles.

How to do?
What else can I do, continue to use the musket gun to fight against it!
So this is the follow-up model of the 21-year-style fire cap percussion rifle, that is, the 23-year-style percussion cap percussion gun.

The Army intends to use this thing for emergency transition for a few years, and it will be in place in one step when the breech-loading rifle comes out.

Anyway, rifled rifles are so expensive, since they are going to bleed and be slaughtered, they must have a better breech-loading rifle!

This also led to the production of a large number of 23-year-style flash cap percussion guns.

Because many of the 21-year flash cap percussion rifles that have been modified over the years have also reached the end of their service life.

Now you see a 21-year-old flash cap percussion gun in the Chu army that is well maintained and has a brand-new appearance. Its real service time is likely to be more than ten years, and a few may even be more than 15 years.

And this batch of muskets has been in service for a long time. The most important thing is that the Chu army has not been idle these years. They have been fighting all the time and have a lot of training. As a result, these muskets are actually used very intensively.

Moreover, the 13-year series of flintlock guns of the year, because of the technical problems of the year, the technology is not good, the overall quality and service life can not be compared with the current new production of smoothbore guns.

When the army refitted these flintlock guns that had been used for many years, they found that the quality of the barrel was not satisfactory, and they often couldn't hold up after a few years of high-intensity use. The 21-year-old flash cap percussion rifle that came with it had a particularly high scrap rate.

There is no way, but to maintain the production of 23-year-style rifles, and then continue to replenish the losses of various troops.

After doing this for a few years, I turned a transitional flash cap percussion musket into the active main rifle of the Great Chu Empire Army. At least 10,000+ rifles would have to be produced a year, otherwise the army and navy would not be able to maintain huge demand.

This kind of situation made Luo Zhixue speechless. It is obvious that the Great Chu Empire has even produced breech-loading rifles, and more than half of the metal fixed-loaded bullets have been produced, and they are about to produce results.

Front-loading rifles have been in service with the Guards for four or five years.

But the military's main rifles are still those old-fashioned muskets!
It is estimated that in a few months, when the Type [-] rear-loading rifles will also start to serve in small batches in the Guards, the Great Chu Empire Army will appear equipped with front-loading rifles, front-loading rifles, and rear-loading rifles at the same time. Condition!

It looks embarrassing!
However, this embarrassment also proves to a certain extent that the technological innovation of the Great Chu Empire was so fast that the army could not keep up with the pace of technological innovation!

(End of this chapter)