I want to be emperor

The Military Academy has established a design committee for the next generation of standard rifles to prepare for the next generation of rifles. However, it is expected that this new generation of small-caliber rifle will use a box magazine, meet the requirements of the four major services, and can be used in various environments. According to estimates, even if everything goes well, the service time will be ten years later...

Not to mention anything else, it is difficult to make just a small-caliber bullet... If you want to do this, you must first develop a new type of bullet propellant. The current black powder propellant can be used on small-caliber bullets. , the military, to be precise the Army is not satisfied.

Relatively speaking, the simple structural design of firearms is not a big problem. There are a lot of random firearm designs in the five major arms companies, and there are more than a dozen types of gun mechanism structures alone... Huguang Arms Company They also came up with a box magazine design and used their own Type [-] rifle to modify and test it. However, the design was still relatively primitive and the reliability was very poor. During the experiment, it often failed to load the gun.

Therefore, in terms of pure firearm structural design, the five major weapons companies in the Da Chu Empire actually have a lot of technical reserves. However, many of the technologies are relatively cutting-edge technologies and cannot be practical. Another big problem is that the five major weapons companies are competitors with each other. The competition in the new generation of rifles is very fierce. The good things developed by each are tightly covered, and the patents are not open to licensing.

So many designs seem to be available, but it is difficult to combine various excellent designs together to form a new rifle.

At the same time, the technical routes are also different. For example, Hebei Arms Company is a firm fan of front-end locking of rotating rear cocks. The Type 100 series rifles are their representatives. They have simple structure and reliable performance. They are also the largest number of equipment currently in active service in the Dachu Empire. Rifles, the total number of equipment has reached more than [-] million.

Huguang Arms Company is fond of rotating rear-action bolts and locking bolts at the tail end. The Type [-] rifle is their proud product. It has an extremely fast rate of fire and can be compared to later generations of semi-automatic rifles in the hands of skilled shooters... At the same time the accuracy is very high.

In the early stage, Jiangnan Arms Company developed a lever-type bolt action, which represented the Qiming repeating rifle. Its firepower is undoubtedly the first in contemporary times and is quite fierce. However, they also found that the lever-type bolt action is not very easy to use on military rifles. , has now begun to develop its own new gun.

The new bolt they made also rotates and pulls the front locking bolt, but it is also different from the front locking of Hebei Weapons Company... After all, they cannot directly use the front locking patent of Hebei Weapons Company, and have to bypass the patent and use their own innovative design. Just fine.

The other two arms companies, namely the Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company and the Shaanxi-Gansu Arms Company, were completely defeated in the first-generation breech-loading rifled rifles and could only be reduced to the OEM of Type [-] rifles... Naturally, they were very unhappy about this. Reluctantly, in the past few years, they have been spending resources on the research and development of new rifles, trying to gain gains in the bidding for new generation rifles.

What they also produce is a bolt action with a rotating rear pull and a front locking bolt... After all, they have been manufacturing Type [-] rifles for many years, and they are very familiar with the rotating rear pull front locking bolt.

Generally speaking, except for Huguang Arms Company, which is relatively stubborn and continues to struggle with tail-end locking, the other four weapons companies actually use front-end locking as the main design direction.

However, although there are front-end locking and tail-end locking, they are essentially rotating pull-back bolts. After all, the breech-loading rifles of major weapons companies, except for the Qiming rifle, are improved from police shotguns. Except for the freaks, other rifles are actually improved designs based on the rotating pullback bolt developed by the earliest military.

Therefore, the patent for the rotating bolt action is owned by all major weapons companies, and all weapons companies can produce it. However, other companies cannot use the detailed designs created by the major weapons companies themselves.

So the competition for new rifles in the Da Chu Empire is actually pretty big!

However, the next generation of new rifles is a follow-up matter, and now the Army's plan for rifles is to continue to use the current three rifles, while making improvements while using the existing rifles and 11mm bullets.

The Army also wants to use in-tube magazines on a large scale.

The Army wants to allow all Type [-] rifles to use in-tube magazines... but this involves the core patents of Songjiang Firearms Factory, a subsidiary of Jiangnan Weapons Company. It is not easy to solve this patent problem. The top military officials have summoned these two weapons The manufacturer conducted many negotiations, but the results were not great.

The main reason is that Jiangnan Weapons Company has a big opening... It is not impossible to say that it is a patent for opening the magazine in the tube, but it requires Hebei Weapons Company's front-end locking patent!

After Hebei Arms Company heard this condition, the negotiators left the meeting on the spot in protest... This request was nothing to talk about. Their exclusive front-stage locking patent is their most core basic patent, and its economic value is very large. You can't throw away your front-end locking bowl of white rice just for the sake of a patent for an in-tube magazine.

Then Hebei Arms Company turned around and went to Huguang Arms Company to discuss replacing the box magazine patent.

Huguang Arms Company is more open-minded. Although the box magazine they have developed is patented, the technology is very immature. They failed many times during their own internal tests... Of course, more importantly, the military has planned to Cooperate with them in the research and development of box magazines... As the core infrastructure of the next generation standard rifle, the military cannot let Huguang Arms Company exclusively control the box magazine. The patent for the basic structure of the magazine was obtained and then licensed to other weapons companies.

This thing is just like the basic patent of the rotating breech machine. It has too much to do with it, and it is not a matter of some economic interests... After all, weapons companies are official enterprises, and national interests must be considered before considering corporate interests.

There is nothing wrong with carrying the military on your own for small troubles, but you can't do this for big things... If nothing else, if the military is completely annoyed, it will stop the purchase of Type [-] rifles and switch to Type [-] rifles. Type [-] rifle, then Huguang Arms Company will suffer a big loss.

In other words, the basic patent of the box magazine cannot be hidden in the first place, so it is better to take advantage of this good opportunity to blackmail several other companies.

The military only cares about principled issues. As for the specific exchange of interests, that is a problem for the five major arms companies. The military is too lazy to care about it and cannot do it.

Therefore, Huguang Arms Company and Hebei Arms Company reached a patent exchange agreement, so that Hebei Arms Company can use some of their patents to improve the Type [-] rifle, and Hebei Arms Company can also use the box magazine to develop the next generation of new rifles.

As for the in-tube magazine... Hebei Arms Company has decided internally to make a woolen in-tube magazine, and I will just make a box magazine... Huguang Arms Company can't come up with a practical box magazine repeating rifle, it doesn't mean Their Hebei Arms Company can't do it either.

When it comes to research capabilities in the field of firearms, Hebei Arms Company boasts that it can defeat the other four companies with one hand... This is not a matter of pride, but a fact.

The Type [-] rifle is a typical proof.

After receiving the military's request to improve the rifle, their designers tried a variety of design solutions, including in-tube magazine designs and box magazine designs, and even made improvements.

During the design and development process, they found that the idea of ​​the box magazine was very ingenious, but the designers at Huguang Arms Company were still too old-fashioned, and the internal design of the magazine was still not very good, so they carried out a number of targeted After the improvement, the problems such as frequent box magazine failures have been roughly solved.

After obtaining the basic patent for the box magazine, they were able to use the newly designed box magazine design on this basis and use it on the Type [-] rifle.

As for the Type [-] rifle with a caliber of [-] mm, the Army believes that the caliber of this bullet is too large to hold multiple bullets. It believes that small-caliber bullets are needed to be reliable. In order to ensure the power of small-caliber bullets, a new type of bullet is needed. propellant!
Designers at Hebei Weapons Company said: If everything is done according to the ideas of those in the Army, then don’t design weapons...

People in the Army have always been ambitious when it comes to military procurement. They only have a few steel coins on hand, so they think about big fish and meat every day, and only think about good things...

I don't like this, I don't like that either... Various performance requirements are high, and they also need to be cheap!
Therefore, the designers of Hebei Arms Company expressed their disapproval of the military's requirements for a new generation of rifles... This thing can be produced, but conservatively it is estimated that it will take more than ten years, maybe 15 or 20 years... Technical requirements It's too harsh. Just that gun barrel with various demanding requirements cannot be produced within ten years...

If you want to create the new generation rifle imagined by the military, you have to start with the most basic chemistry, steel smelting, and material processing...

Strictly speaking, it has nothing to do with firearms designers like them. That is the business of those who play with chemistry, metallurgy, and machinery. God knows when they will be able to make breakthroughs in these basic technologies.

Materials research, besides throwing money at it, is all about luck. If you have bad luck, you will be stuck for ten or twenty years easily.

This is not something they, the firearms designers, can do. What they have to do is to design the best rifle under the existing basic technical conditions and be able to mass-produce rifles for service!

Therefore, the weapons designers of Hebei Arms Company did not pay attention to the Army's so-called next-generation new rifle requirements, nor did they care about the in-tube magazine that the Army said they wanted. Instead, they planned to add a box cartridge to the Type [-] rifle. The warehouse design changes the Type [-] rifle from a single shot to a continuous shot.

The bullet continues to use the current standard 11mm copper-cased bullet.

(PS: The Mannlicher 1886 in the original time and space also used 11mm bullets and a box magazine, but it used a straight-pull bolt, while Hebei Weapon Company made 11mm bullets on a rotating rear-pull bolt. Box magazine...can be simply understood as the box magazine version of the 1871 Mauser)
Other designs are to improve some design flaws that appeared on the previous Type [-] rifles.

In this way, the technology is controllable and the research and development cost is relatively low. Moreover, the existing Type [-] rifle production line only needs to add some additional equipment and make some minor improvements to continue to be used for the production of new rifles. In this way, the future The cost of the new Type [-] repeating rifle is also controllable... In this way, there is no fear that the military will not take the bait.

After more than thirty years of dealing with the military, these firearms designers at Hebei Arms Company know the military very well, especially the people in the army.

The typical person who doesn’t have money in his pocket is still arrogant, clamoring for the best, and at the same time buying the cheapest. That’s fine, but he just uses it and still dislikes it...

Many senior generals in the army have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Type [-] rifle in public, believing that this cheap product is not worthy of the noble status of their army!
You know, the Army has always been jealous of the Type [-] rifle used by the Marine Corps. They think this thing is better, has a fast rate of fire and high accuracy... Many army generals want this thing from the bottom of their hearts.

But in the end, we chose to use Type [-] rifles in large-scale equipment!
why?
Because the Type [-] rifle is more expensive than the Type [-] rifle...when the standard rifle was first invited to bid.

Although the Army is fond of Type [-] rifles, the Type [-] rifle sold to the Army costs fifteen Chu Yuan, while the Type [-] rifle costs twenty Chu Yuan. Even though the difference is only a few Chu Yuan, the quantity has expanded to When it is one million or more, then it is a gap of several million to tens of millions of Chu Yuan.

Therefore, the Army was forced to use the Type [-] rifle.

The navy uses only a small amount, only twenty or thirty in total, so it doesn't really care about the price difference of millions, not to mention that it is purchased in batches, and it doesn't actually cost much if it is spread evenly every year.

People in the five major weapons companies basically knew about the Army's behavior...even the weapons designers and other technicians knew it to some extent. Therefore, when Hebei Weapons Company designed and developed the improved model of the Type [-] rifle required by the military, it paid no attention to it. The military requested the use of tube magazines, but directly launched box magazines!
Of course, this is also because Jiangnan Weapons Company has a big problem and insists on replacing their core patents... so that they cannot use the in-tube magazine design.

There are naturally many problems when directly launching a box magazine. One of the problems is that the current design of the box magazine is immature and its reliability is relatively poor. It needs continuous improvement. The reliability of ammunition supply and loading must be very high. However, after the magazine After the improvement, the problem is no longer big.Another problem is that the existing 11mm bullets are too large. If they are forced into the barrel, they cannot hold five bullets, but the military requires at least five bullets.

In this regard, the designers of Hebei Arms Company Tianjin Firearms Factory directly and crudely inserted the magazine through the gun body, so that a downward-protruding built-in magazine was formed in front of the trigger (Manlicher 1886 and subsequent large-scale ten guns). The magazine of the bullet-firing version of the rifle protrudes downward)
It is said that when representatives from the Army visited the original design of Hebei Weapons Company’s Type [-] continuous-fire improved rifle, they were all stunned... and then came all kinds of resentment: Why is this not the Type [-] that the Army wants? To improve the rifle, what the Army wants is a mature and reliable in-tube magazine that has been tested in actual combat...

He also said that a new rifle must be elegant, generous and beautiful. The magazine can only be inside the gun body. It is completely outrageous to have it protrude. This kind of bulge under the built-in magazine will affect the soldiers' tactical movements and is ugly. , the Army will never accept such an ugly weapon.

To say a lot, the box magazine mentioned earlier has not been tested in actual combat, and the reason for affecting tactical actions is barely justified... But the built-in magazine under the protrusion is not beautiful and is so ugly that the people at Hebei Weapons Company were speechless!

Are your Army soldiers going to participate in beauty pageants or go to war with their new rifles?

However, the representatives from the Army reported the design plan and related test results of the Type [-] improved repeating rifle to the Army's senior officials due to their responsibilities.

Then it triggered a big discussion among the top brass of the Army... To be honest, the Army had never thought of transforming the Type [-] rifle into a box magazine style when using [-]mm bullets. They initially The goal is very conservative, that is, just get an in-tube magazine.

Anyway, in the eyes of those in the Army, the Type [-] rifle is a backward product, and the [-]mm bullet is unusable. They just want to simply improve the Type [-] rifle for transitional use, and wait for the new gun to come out in three to five years. caliber repeating rifle.

Although there is not even a hint of new propellants yet, it does not affect the fact that the Army has already expected to put new rifles into large-scale service in five years to completely replace the Type [-] rifles.

Therefore, the improved version of the Type [-] rifle is just a transitional weapon, and the Army does not plan to invest too much energy in it.

I didn’t even think about being a guinea pig and using some new box magazine.

However, Hebei Arms Company has produced a box-type magazine version of the Type [-] rifle, which makes the Army very confused...

There are endless internal debates. The opinion of many people is that Hebei Arms Company should stop messing around and quickly get the patent for the in-tube magazine and come up with an in-tube magazine version. Don't mess around.

However, some people believe that now that the Type [-] rifle with a box magazine has been developed, they can also try it, just in time to familiarize soldiers with the performance characteristics of the box magazine rifle before it is put into large-scale service as a new small-caliber rifle. , improve and improve the infantry drill code.

However, even the army generals who support this improved rifle still use this weapon as a transitional weapon in their hearts.

The next-generation rifle they want in their hearts is a small-caliber repeating rifle, and they are very optimistic that it will be put into large-scale service in five years... completely ignoring the reality that the domestic industrial base is still relatively weak.

The outside world thinks that the Army generally has high ambitions and low abilities, which is not unreasonable...

After an internal debate within the Army, it was decided to first take a look at the Type [-] improved rifles. If they were indeed usable, then purchase a batch for transitional use, and then turned around and went to Huguang Arms Company to ask about their Type [-] rifles. What is the model of the in-tube magazine... But Huguang Arms Company has never done this at all!

Yes, even now, the Army is still obsessed with the high rate of fire and high accuracy of the Type [-] rifle. It also wants to use the Type [-] rifle with an internal magazine. The Huguang Arms Company is too lazy to pay attention to them!

But the Guards are more realistic, or the Guards are not as forward-looking and backward-looking as the Army!

Because the total quantity of weapons purchased by the Guards is relatively small, and the royal funds are directly used, there is no shortage of money at all, so there is not much concern in purchasing equipment.

They were also the first to purchase Type [-] rifles for use. They were the first to put breech-loading rifled rifles into large-scale service in China. They were also the first, and even the only ones to use front-loading rifled rifles for large-scale service.

The Type [-] muzzle-loading rifle was a very embarrassing rifle in the Great Chu Empire, with a low sense of presence... Although the actual production and equipment quantity was quite large, reaching nearly [-] before and after, it still had no sense of presence and no limelight. It was snatched away by the latecomers' Type [-] and Type [-] rifles.

This gun is basically purchased and equipped by the Guards. After the Guards switched to Type [-] rifles, these Type [-] front-loading rifles were taken over by the Army and are still equipped by the Army.

This rifle was born at the wrong time. When it was first produced, it was intended to replace the flash cap percussion gun on a large scale, that is, the 23-year flash cap percussion gun. Unexpectedly, it was only two years later that the breech-loader that fired metal bullets Rifled rifles are already mature.

Therefore, it was temporarily discontinued after two years of production and withdrawn from the front-line troops.

But this can also be seen. The Guards have a relaxed attitude towards purchasing equipment. As long as something is useful, they will purchase it as soon as possible. It does not matter if the price is more expensive, or it does not matter if it becomes outdated in a few years...

Therefore, after the Guards heard that Hebei Arms Company had developed an improved model of the box magazine for the Type [-] rifle, they sent people to test it.

The test results were quite satisfactory to the Guardsmen. Although there were still some problems with the prototype gun, the overall problems were not major. Subsequent modifications and modifications improved some details and basically there were no problems.

An order for [-] units was immediately placed, allowing Hebei Arms Company to complete the detailed design and put it into production directly.

Don't worry about anything else, just change your clothes first.

After Hebei Arms Company won the order, it turned around and began to further study the improved box magazine of the Type 20 rifle. At the same time, because the Guards had officially equipped this rifle, the military also gave it an official military name: No .[-] type five rifle, referred to as the .[-] rifle.

The naming method of new rifles began with the Type 16 rifle that was officially put into service. The Type [-] rifle at that time was actually the No. [-] rifled rifle design model and was a design code name. However, Luo Zhixue personally ordered it to be an active service code name. The same was also said. There are Type [-] breech-loading rifles (paper-cased bullets) that were disassembled as soon as they entered service and were not used in large-scale service. The first Type [-] breech-loading rifles used in large-scale service were fired all-metal fixed bullets. The Type [-] rifle with a closed tail end, the Qiming rifle also has an official code name, the Type [-] rifle, but everyone does not use this name and calls it the Qiming rifle.

In the past few years, a total of 21, 22, 23 and 24 rifles have been tested in small batches.

Among them, Type 21 is actually the military version of the Qiming shotgun used by civilians and police. It is loaded with two rounds and fires [-]mm caliber shotguns. It is super powerful. If you hit it with a spray gun in close combat, it can create a hornet's nest for you. come out.

The Type 22 rifle is a rifle with a direct-pull bolt mechanism developed by the Shaanxi-Gansu Arms Company a few years ago. However, the military was very dissatisfied with the performance of the direct-pull bolt mechanism. After a small batch test, it was discontinued. There is no large-scale equipment army.

The Type 23 rifle is a short-barreled single-shot rifle with a rotating rear cock and a locked front section launched by the Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company. It was not very successful. It was beaten by the Type [-] rifle, so it was not put into service in batches.

The Type 24 rifle is a small-caliber repeating rifle version of the Type [-] rifle... Yes, Huguang Arms Company has long started to produce small-caliber repeating rifles, and they still use black powder.

They came up with an eight-millimeter black powder bullet, but it was not powerful enough and had insufficient lethality. Moreover, it used their immature box magazine design at the beginning, so the Type 24 rifle had huge problems, although it had already started testing the year before last. , but it has been stuck in the research and development progress, and it has not been put into mass production so far.

This Type 24 rifle is a typical case of taking a big step and then tearing your own eggs.

Now the Type 25 improved rifle has adopted the official military code name of the Type [-] rifle. If all goes well, this rifle will completely replace the Type [-] rifle and become the main rifle of the Army and Guards.

After the Army saw that the Guards had officially placed an order for equipment, although it was hesitant, it also placed an order for 25 pieces. It planned to test the equipment first. If the effect is good, then the follow-up Type [-] rifles The order will be completely replaced with an order for this type [-] rifle!
Of course, in the eyes of the Army and the Guards, this thing is still an excessive product!
The Navy is still interested in Huguang Arms Company's Type 24 rifle... The Navy is much more pragmatic than the Army. They believe that if they want to develop a brand new small-caliber repeating rifle, it depends on God's will. Who knows? How many years will it take?

However, Huguang Weapon Company's eight-millimeter black powder bullet is something visible to the naked eye. Although the technology is not yet mature, the kinetic energy of the bullet is too small, and Huguang Weapon Company's box magazine technology is not very good, which ultimately led to the Type 24 rifle. Project failure.

However, technology can continue to improve. In order to preserve the Type 24 project, Huguang Weapons Company said when promoting to the Navy that they had developed a new black powder propellant compression production process that can compress black powder bullets. The performance has been further improved, and the muzzle velocity can be maintained very well when used on eight-mm caliber bullets.

The Navy is very interested in this improved eight mm bullet! (For the issue of small-caliber black powder bullets, please refer to the Mannlicher 1888 which uses 8 mm black powder bullets; the early Lee-Enfield model 'Lee-Metford Magazine Rifle' uses 7.7 mm black powder bullets).

As for the problem of immature box magazine technology, Huguang Arms Company has carefully studied the box magazine of Hebei Arms Company and made targeted improvements in the design... Well, to put it bluntly, it is plagiarism, and at most it is bypassing the other party. Some unique patents.

Therefore, the Navy is still very interested in the Type 24 rifle and has great hopes... At the same time, the Navy is very fond of the bolt of this rifle, which is the lifting-type tail-end locking bolt of the Type [-] rifle, and wants to Continue to use this bolt structure.

As for the in-tube magazine, the Navy has little interest in using the in-tube magazine in improving the transitional rifle. That is an opinion proposed by the Army and has nothing to do with the Navy.

What age is this? Jiangnan Weapon Company itself gave up on the follow-up design of the in-tube magazine and focused on the box magazine. The Army still wants to use the in-tube magazine. There is something wrong with this!

The Navy's requirements are very simple. Before the next generation of new rifles enter service, what they need at this stage is the small-caliber repeating version of the Type 24 rifle, which is the Type 7.7 rifle. (It can be simply understood as the Lee-Metford magazine-type rifle, the early model of the Lee-Enfield rifle, and the [-]MM black powder bullet version)
Although the original model of the Type 24 rifle failed, neither the Navy nor the Huguang Arms Company gave up, but continued to develop it.

If all goes well, the Navy is likely to use small-caliber repeating rifles earlier than the Army and even the Guards in the future!