I want to be emperor

Chapter 821 A new rifle that cut corners
Emperor Luo Zhixue wanted to go to the weapons testing ground to watch the test firing in person. After learning about this, the minds of the military and the Ministry of Industry felt that since His Majesty wanted to come and watch, he should take this opportunity to expand the scale of the weapons testing and Some other new weapon projects are simply pulled out for test firing.

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

Especially the five major weapon companies are very enthusiastic about it.

Because every time His Majesty personally inspects the weapon test firing and exhibition activities, it is when the five major weapon companies show their results. If they are affirmed by His Majesty during the weapon exhibition and test firing, then the follow-up promotion will be easy.

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

This is not an easy task to purchase a large amount of advanced weapons. It not only involves funds, but also involves military tactics and even organizational reform.

And these projects that have a great impact on the army are almost impossible to carry out without Luo Zhixue's personal approval.

Therefore, taking advantage of this advanced weapon exhibition and test firing activities, it is very important for His Majesty to agree with the military, mainly the series of new tactics and new organizational reforms proposed by the army.

Of course, this is also because the people in the military don't know that Luo Zhixue is more aware of the role of new weapons and new tactics than they are, and is more looking forward to seeing the army move from the era of lines to the era of skirmishers.

Otherwise, Luo Zhixue would not have wanted to take a look at it himself after hearing that there was a breech-loading rifled weapon being tested.

The last time Luo Zhixue went to see the test firing of a breech-loading rifle, that was the last time...

The test firing of the breech-loading rifled gun watched at that time was not considered a success. The research progress of the breech-loading rifled gun of the Hebei Weapons Company was the fastest, but it failed to solve many problems at that time.

When the Hebei Arms Company produced the 32mm field gun of the 75 model, Luo Zhixue never saw the test firing himself.

So this time, since the courtiers want to expand the scale and show it in front of him, he is willing to go along with the flow, and intends to simply take a look at some existing rifled weapons that have been equipped for testing or are about to be equipped.

Because of the need to expand the scale, the test-firing activities of the 75mm mountain gun were suspended first, waiting for the participation of other weapons.

Of course, the waiting time will not be too long. After all, the five major weapon 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 convenient railway transportation nowadays, and the main research and development institutions and factories of major weapon companies are basically located in industrial cities with convenient railway transportation.

The headquarters of the Hebei Arms Company is in Tianjin, and there are also important arsenals in Jinan, Shenyang, and Taiyuan.

The headquarters of Jiangnan Arms Company is located in Dangtu Industrial Zone, Yingtianfu. It also has factories in Songjiang, Zhenjiang, Zhejiang, and Xuzhou in Jiangbei.

The headquarters of Huguang Arms Company is in the Daye Industrial Zone of Hantianfu, and there are also arsenals in Hankou, Changsha, Xiangyang and Chengdu, Sichuan.

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

The headquarters of the Guangdong-Guangzhou Arms Company is in Guangzhou, and there are also large arsenals in Nanning, Kunming and other places.

The above mentioned are some large arsenals. If there are some small and medium-sized arsenals, especially small arsenals specially set up to meet the needs of ammunition supply and gun repair in border towns and areas with inconvenient transportation, then the number will be more.
However, the base camps of the major weapon companies are basically in the big cities in the important areas of the hinterland of the country, such as Yingtian, Hantian, Songjiang, Guangzhou, Tianjin, and Xi'an.

And these cities are all connected by train.

With the current railway network of the Great Chu Empire, it wouldn't take long to go to and from these places.

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

However, unlike previous weapon tests or exhibitions, where there were many messy weapons and equipment, this time the weapons exhibition was very simple and pure, that is, all rear-loading rifled weapons.

From the Hebei Type 32 rifles and Huguang Type 75 rifles that are currently in service in batches, to the Hebei [-]-year [-]mm field gun, and then there are several cavalry revolvers.

Then to a large number of various rear-loading rifled firearms and artillery that are in the state of research and development or experimentation.

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

There are more than 19 types of rear-loading guns for military use alone... including cavalry, infantry, and some short-barreled rifles, etc., which are the most famous. The [-] and [-] rifles in service are also Just two of them.

After all, the five major weapon companies have always invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the research and development of breech-loading rifles. The Hebei Weapons Company and Huguang Weapons Company are just developing relatively smoothly. They were the first to successfully develop and obtain orders from the military.

This is not to say that future standard rifles can only be selected from these two rifles.

At the same time, in addition to ordinary rifles, there are actually many other types of rear-loading rifled firearms, which are larger than the caliber, and shotguns are used for close-range combat.

Shotguns are especially useful when fighting at close range, especially in complex terrain such as indoors and trenches. Although shotguns have never become a standard large-scale equipment in the Chu army, many grenadier units undertake assault missions But it will be a small amount of equipment.

At the same time, the police community is a big user of shotguns. For those patrolmen, holding a big gun when law enforcement is much better than any rifle.

When this kind of big troll shoots at close range, it can knock down a lot of people and catch criminals, especially when they want to enter the room to catch criminals. This thing is better than pistols and ordinary rifles.

Therefore, even in the era of musket-loading muskets, the patrolmen in the Great Chu Empire began to equip shotguns... In fact, they were all modified from traditional [-]mm musket-loading muskets. Shorter, fires specialized shotgun shells.

Do not pursue range and accuracy, only pursue the ability to kill the surface at close range!
In addition to a variety of breech-loading rifles, there are also many styles of breech-loading rifles. There are as many as eight types of 75mm guns that are participating in the election. A model of No. 75 mm artillery came out to participate in the election.

There are dozens of types of breech-loading firearms and breech-loading cannons, it is naturally impossible for Luo Zhixue to see the complete test firing process one by one.

After all, the military’s routine test firing requires hundreds or even thousands of bullets to be shot continuously. The entire test process will last for many days, and it will try to conduct live ammunition tests in various environments, such as mud and sand. Then carry out live ammunition testing, such as testing under low temperature or high temperature conditions.

With weapons, you can't always expect to use them in a good environment.

In actual combat, the environment in which weapons are used is quite often very bad... For example, the troops stationed in northern Siberia, they are in a state of severe cold for several months of the year, and the local temperature is always tens of minus Spend.

In this environment, guns must still be functional.

It cannot be said that guns cannot be used when it is twenty or thirty degrees below zero, right?

Another example is the army stationed in the tropical rainforest area. 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 in 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 made the Chu army use the same type of guns, but in fact the specific models of equipment used by troops in different regions are different.

Even if the rifles equipped in the tropics of Nanyang and the rifles in the northern ice fields are of the same model, the Chu army usually divides them into northern version and tropical version. The specific materials and processes are different, focusing on performance at different temperatures. .

Of course, this is also because Chu State's basic industry is not good enough to 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 all of them, so this time Luo Zhixue only came to the imperial exhibition for one day, and only watched the test firing of a few representative weapons.

Even these test firings representing weapons are actually just superficial live ammunition tests, which means live ammunition on the spot... and the real live ammunition tests need to be carried out slowly later, and the duration is often longer.

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

Among them is the Type [-] rifle, which 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 under the Hebei Weapons Company.

It is a very typical breech-loading rifle, using a general-purpose rotary rear-pull action, single-shot loading, a caliber of [-]mm, and a center-fired copper-cased bullet.

It is worth noting that the patents involved in the above features are not owned by the Hebei Arms Company itself, but are common patents owned by the five major arms companies, because the early firearms research of the Great Chu Empire, including the early breech-loading rifles, metal The research on bullets belongs to the Firearms Research Institute of the Great Chu Empire.

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

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

Especially for the bullets, although the Great Chu Empire Army has not yet determined which rifle to use as the next-generation standard rifle, the supporting bullets have been determined early on, that is, the 11*60 center-fired flanged copper shell Black powder bullets.

It is required that the next-generation rifle bullets of major manufacturers need to carry out supporting research based on this standard bullet.

Compared with bullets of several other designs, this kind of bullet has the advantage of lower processing accuracy requirements. At the same time, contemporary revolvers generally use bullets of this design. Of course, the size is different... After all, it is impossible to use a rifle with a pistol. This kind of powerful rifle ammunition uses pistol ammunition with smaller size and less recoil.

Because the flanged 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 for the contemporary Chu State's industrial foundation, and the processing cost is not low.

As for other types of bullets, the processing cost is higher and the price is also higher, but the gun market of the Great Chu Empire is not only the army, but there are three in the military. In addition to the three major military, And the Patrolman and the Tax Police.

The weapons procurement powers of the local patrol and tax police are generally delegated to the provinces.

Therefore, there are dozens of official weapon users alone. The fact that other types of bullets cannot be favored by the army does not mean that they cannot be supported by several other military users or the police.

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 immediately.

In fact, even if there is no order for firearms from the army, if the police market is obtained, it will be quite nourishing. For example, Songjiang Firearms Factory, a subsidiary of Jiangnan Arms Company, hardly supplies to the military, and only deals with the police. and private markets.

Its Qiming brand new generation shotgun, that is, a brand new connecting rod rifled shotgun, was officially launched and launched in the summer of Chengshun 33, and it was well received by the environment as soon as it was launched.

It is especially popular among domestic patrol officers. Even if it is not distributed in the police station, many patrol officers will find a way to buy one for themselves, then register, and take it with them when they go out for missions just in case!

In just one year since the launch of the gun, the cumulative sales volume has reached more than 2 units, and there are a lot of orders... This gun is in short supply!
The market prospect is much better than any star rifle Type 5000 rifles... Not to mention other places, the Yingtianfu Police Department alone has purchased more than [-] rifles in a centralized manner!
In the private market, this kind of gun is easy to use and extremely powerful at close range, and it is also very suitable as a household self-defense firearm. Therefore, the gun is also selling very well in the domestic private market.

As for the money earned... the profit of the Qiming connecting rod shotgun is much higher than that of your [-]-type rifle.

Therefore, don’t think that in the state of Chu, weapon companies can only do business with the military. If the military doesn’t want a firearm, the weapon company will go bankrupt. In fact, although the military purchases a lot these years, the price is also low Very low, not much money earned.

If you really want to make money, you have to count on the domestic police circle. In addition, the private market is also a very profitable market.

The other one is the export business... You can make a lot of money by tossing a matchlock gun and exporting it!
So you will see that there are some arsenals under the five major weapons companies that obviously do not supply to the military, and even produce matchlock guns and flintlock guns that are outdated weapons, but they still live well.

The Huguang No. [-] Firearms Factory in Dongguan, a subsidiary of Guangdong-Guangzhou Arms Company, specializes in the production of flintlock guns and matchlock guns for export, and its profits are higher than that of the No. [-] Firearms Factory, which produces military rifles.

The defense industry and arms market of the Great Chu Empire is a very complicated industry, which cannot be simply discussed in an inductive manner.

But no matter how complicated it is, winning the order of the Army's next-generation standard rifles is of great strategic significance to the five major weapon companies. Although the Army gives little money, demands are high, and there are many things, but their orders are big. ... The order for a first-generation standard rifle is at least a million!
With such a huge order volume, to be honest, the five major weapon companies have to do it even if they don’t make money, because even if they don’t make money, they can maintain their production lines, maintain a large workforce, and maintain their research and development capabilities.

Besides, if you don't make money now, it doesn't mean you won't make money in the future!

The cost of weapons is not always so expensive. As time goes by, technology advances, and production increases, the cost will always decrease slowly. After the production cost is pulled down in the future, then later orders will be profitable. .

This is also the consensus of the five major weapon companies before the new generation of rifle orders, that is, according to the current harsh conditions of the army, in the past few years, basically don't expect to make money, and even a small loss is considered to be a profit.

If you really want to make money, I'm afraid you have to produce hundreds of thousands of them, and five years later.

Hebei Arms Company is no exception. This time they have shown great sincerity in the quotation for their blockbuster product, the Type 20 rifles. The unit price for the first batch of 26 rifles was [-] Chu Yuan. The previous price was almost halved!

But the army is still dissatisfied with this... because the Huguang Arms Company next door used the Type 23 rifle with a lift-off action to compete for the order. It also paid a lot of money, and the price it gave was even lower: [-] Chu Yuan!

And there is no test equipment yet, and it is still in the state of small-scale test firing. The Jiangnan A-[-] rifle developed and produced by Jiangnan Weapons Company, um, is also a single-shot rifle with a rotary rear puller.

As a latecomer, in order to gain an advantage, he directly quoted 22 Chu yuan... and said that if the army is willing to increase the order to 50 pieces, then the price can be further reduced to [-] Chu yuan.

Jiangnan Arms Company directly lowered the price to [-] Chu Yuan... This also put great pressure on the other four companies.

This made the Hebei Weapons Company, which was full of confidence, feel a huge crisis!

Although their Type [-] rifles have been equipped with the Guards one step ahead of time and have become the standard rifles of the Guards, and they have also been equipped with a small amount of the Army, and their performance is absolutely not bad... But if there is no huge I am afraid that the order will really be taken away by other companies.

After all, those guys in the army are all in the eyes of money now... Some army generals even said shamelessly that although each company's breech-loading rifles have their own advantages and disadvantages, their performance is very good. Satisfaction, the biggest impact on Army procurement in the end is price or price!
This made Hebei Arms Company very helpless... Let alone twenty Chu yuan, even if the price of 22 Chu yuan sat down, they would have to lose money!
And the so-called [-] Chu Yuan of Jiangnan Arms Company must have cut corners.

Mother Xipi, this is forcing us to cut corners and make defective products for your army!

Ever since, Hebei Arms Company is also cruel, and began to cut corners in some places, such as wooden gun stocks, which will not directly affect the performance, but the price can be much lower if the wood is inferior, and there is a bayonet The specifications of this thing can also be lowered a little bit. There is no need to give the army group of Qiu Ba the most advanced new-generation steel bayonets, just give them the previous generation products.

(In the history of purchasing Mauser 1871 in the late Qing Dynasty, some of the orders offered to purchase defective non-core components due to lack of funds. The price is only about half of the normal price, cheap and affordable, and it is still very cost-effective)

Other details can be saved as much as possible. In the final calculation, the price can be lowered a lot. In the end, based on the idea that I would rather not make money or even make a small loss than squeeze out my peers, I made another wave of price cuts at a loss.

Hebei Arms Company quoted a new price for their Type 26 rifles, not 23, [-], or even [-], only [-] Chu Yuan!

At eighteen Chu Yuan, your army will be able to get the most advanced and top-notch breech-loading rifle!
Moreover, the initial order quantity can reach 50 pieces, and the follow-up orders will also be handed over to Hebei Weapons Company. At the same time, if a part of the purchase funds are paid first, the price can be negotiated again.

Even if it is the fifteen Chu Yuan that your army expects, it is not impossible.

Hearing this price, the army was shamefully moved!
After all, the Army still wants to equip the Type [-] rifle, which has been tested in actual combat and has excellent test data in all aspects, but the price was too expensive before.

Now that the price can be suppressed, the army will abandon several other weapons companies without hesitation, and start to hook up with Hebei Weapons Company, which makes the other four weapons companies very angry!

Nima, those guys in the army, what kind of public bidding is this? They are completely using their four companies to lower the price of Hebei Arms Company.

But there's nothing they can do if they're not happy...they can't afford the price offered by the Hebei Arms Company...even at a loss.

At any rate, Hebei Arms Company already had an order for [-] to [-] rifles, which diluted part of the cost and also had a first-mover advantage. This cost control is not bad.

Even cutting corners on non-important parts can’t meet the price of Hebei Weapons Company. If you have to do it, you can only greatly reduce some core performance of the firearm... If you do this, the army is not stupid... If you cut corners on appearance and non-important parts, the army doesn't care, and even encourages you to do so to reduce costs... After all, it doesn't affect the core combat performance.

But if you want to cut corners on core components, the army doesn't want it.

After some bidding, the improved Type [-] of Hebei Weapons Company successfully won a large order from the Army, thus officially becoming the Army's next-generation standard rifle.

And followed by the artillery project, the 75mm mountain artillery project carefully prepared by Hebei Arms Company was defeated by the 75mm mountain artillery project of Huguang Arms Company, which cast a shadow over the company's army artillery development !
(End of this chapter)