Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 310 Maxim M1884 Rifle

Although the military factory, Joe Montoya Machine Works, failed in its design of the new rifle, it also brought good news to Carlo and the Ministry of Defense.

If such a small military factory can produce a fairly good rifle design, what about other military factories of the same size? Will they also have designs that will impress people?
And will the Royal Arsenal, the largest in Spain, design a truly amazing new rifle?
With such questions and expectations in mind, Carlo waited for nearly two months and finally received the new rifle design from the Royal Arsenal.

Speaking of which, the invention of smokeless gunpowder is also related to the Royal Arsenal.

The chief consultant for weapons design at the Royal Arsenal was none other than Maxim, the famous father of automatic weapons.

Although Maxim is world-renowned for his machine gun, he was actually a versatile person. He also developed smokeless gunpowder, manufactured steam-powered aircraft, and obtained hundreds of patents for inventions including automatic sprinkler systems, automatic steam water pumps, engine tachometers, gas engines, vacuum pumps, and mousetraps.

After the research and development project related to smokeless gunpowder was established in Spain, Maxim actively signed up and successfully joined the research and development team.

The reason why he was interested in smokeless gunpowder was actually because of the improvement it brought to machine guns.

Machine guns are firearms with an extremely fast rate of fire, which makes the problem of large amounts of black powder smoke more serious on machine guns.

As soon as the machine gun opens fire, smoke will fill the area around the machine gunner, making it impossible to see the situation of the enemy ahead.

Black powder severely limited the effectiveness of machine guns, which made Maxim eager to develop a type of gunpowder that did not produce smoke.

Obviously, Maxim succeeded.

After the invention of smokeless gunpowder, Maxim wanted to continue to invest in his machine gun research. At this time, the Ministry of National Defense issued a bidding notice for new rifles to various military factories.

Although the Royal Arsenal has gathered many weapons design experts, there is no expert who can take charge.

As the chief consultant on weapons design for the Royal Arsenal, Maxim had no choice but to rise to the challenge and help the factory design a new rifle that met the requirements.

The design of rifles and machine guns is based on two different ideas, but this difference did not stump Maxim, a versatile man.

After more than two months of hard work, plus more than a decade of exploration by the Royal Arsenal on new rifles, a fairly perfect answer was finally found.

When the Royal Arsenal submitted several sample guns and related design data to the Ministry of Defense, Carlo also learned the news and came to the test site dedicated to weapons testing with great interest.

In fact, this testing ground belonged to the Guards Division.

In the vicinity of the capital Madrid, the only camp with such a large-scale shooting range is the Guards Division camp.

Weapon testing in the Guards Division camp can also be done with a high degree of confidentiality. After all, the soldiers consume a large amount of bullets in training every day, and no one will notice if they fire a gun here.

The soldiers of the Guards Division were highly loyal to Carlo and the country, so naturally no one would leak the secrets. Moreover, most ordinary soldiers did not know the actual content of the test, and without knowing the specific content, there was no question of confidentiality.

Carlo was the last one to arrive at the shooting range. When Carlo arrived here, the shooting range had already been set up in advance by personnel from the Ministry of Defense and the Royal Arsenal.

Ten rifles were laid out on a not-so-large display table. Carlo was more familiar with the five on the left. They looked like the standard Spanish rifles, the Vitali M1872 rifles.

The rifle on the right has a hint of the Vitali rifle, but there have been major changes in appearance. It should be a brand-new rifle design produced by the Royal Arsenal.

Seeing Carlo coming, officials from the Ministry of Defense and staff from the Royal Arsenal came forward respectfully, greeted Carlo and saluted.

After the simple process, Carlo couldn't wait to walk in front of the ten rifles and said with a smile: "Let's get started. I can't wait to see the performance of the new rifles."

Maxim nodded respectfully, walked up to Carlo and the generals of the Ministry of Defense and introduced: "Your Majesty, Generals, please look, this is our newly designed rifle.

I believe you can see from the appearance that we have retained some of the advantages of the Vitali M1872 rifle, such as the magazine separator and safety handle.

The former allows our rifle to be converted from magazine-fed to manual loading mode to cope with different battlefield environments.

The latter can prevent the rifle's spring from being under long-term pressure in standby mode, thereby extending the service life of the spring.

Because of the full use of box magazines, the new rifle is about 120 mm shorter and 450 grams lighter, solving the shortcomings of the original Vitali rifle, which was long and heavy.

Although the gun body is shorter than the Vitali rifle, the effective range of the rifle is not affected because the barrel has not been shortened, and can basically be maintained at around 600 meters.

In order to improve the efficiency of ammunition feeding and speed up the shooting speed, we specially adopted two magazines with different ammunition capacities. The short magazine can hold six rounds of bullets, and the long magazine can hold ten rounds of bullets to cope with different battlefield situations.

When using a long magazine with ten rounds, the theoretical maximum firing rate of the rifle can reach more than 30 rounds per minute. As long as the soldiers are familiar with the process of changing magazines and shooting, it will be no problem to achieve such a firing rate. "Maxim introduced with a smile.

The design of two long and short magazines is actually to cope with different logistical situations.

When logistics are sufficient, you can equip yourself with a long magazine and pour as much bullets on the enemy as you can.

When logistics are not sufficient, it is necessary to replace the short magazine to reduce the consumption rate of bullets.

Even though the number of bullets saved for one rifle is only a few, what if there are tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of rifles? The number of bullets saved would be as high as millions, so this design is still very meaningful.

Carlo nodded in satisfaction at this design. The officers around him were also obviously satisfied, and they discussed it in a low voice with smiles on their faces.

"Let the soldiers try it. I can't wait to see how this rifle performs," ​​Carlo ordered.

Following Carlo's order, several soldiers came up, picked up the new rifle placed aside, and began to conduct inspections and preparations before the test.

These soldiers have already had advance exposure to this new rifle and have learned how to operate the rifle in front of them.

In fact, the operating procedures of bolt-action rifles of this era are still relatively similar. After all, European countries do not rely entirely on their own research and development of weapon designs, and plagiarism is also one of the important means.

The most famous copycat was the Commission 1888 rifle produced in Germany.

In order to counter the Lebel rifle launched by France in 1886, the Germans urgently produced a rifle that could compete with the French, the so-called Commission 1888 rifle.

This urgently produced rifle referred to the technology of many countries. The rifle's bolt and magazine were based on the Austrian Mannlicher rifle, the rifling design was copied from the French Lebel rifle, and the bullet was directly based on the 7.92×57mm rimless smokeless powder bullet developed by Switzerland.

This is also the reason why Carlo specifically asked the defense department to issue confidentiality orders and prohibition orders to all military factories participating in the bidding.

Because now the military factories in European countries are really speculating on their designs and they don’t care at all whether you have registered a patent or not.

Even if an international patent is registered, no one will care whether it infringes upon the patent. In this era, the time required to fight a cross-border patent case is enough to make the gun design involved in the case outdated.

By the time the multinational patent case is won, the copied rifle will already be outdated, and the infringement can be abandoned by then. Rifles of outdated times are useless anyway.

As for compensation, the purchase of weapons and equipment by various countries is confidential, and no one would be foolish enough to disclose the relevant procurement data.

Since there is no purchasing data, we don’t know how much money the other party has earned from infringement. If we don’t know how much money the other party has earned from infringement, how can we apply for infringement compensation?

This is also the reason why countries blatantly imitate and plagiarize, because patent infringement has become the norm in this era, and even international patents cannot be protected after crossing borders.

Of course, this requires that both countries are at the same level and that neither side causes significant economic losses to the other.

If a Dutch company dares to copy the patent of a British company and causes the British company to lose a lot of money, do you think the British will retaliate against the Dutch?

Back to the rifle experiment, after comprehensive preparations, the rifle test officially began.

The first step is to test various data of the new rifle, such as the rifle's firing rate, the bullet's firing rate, the rifle's shooting distance, the shooting power, etc.

This round of testing was not complicated and the specific data was quickly tested out.

Carlo was the first to get the test data, followed by generals from the Ministry of Defense.

Everyone was looking at the test data in their hands, and some people were already grinning.

Rather than disappointing them, the test data made the army generals extremely happy.

Just look at this test data and you will know.

The effective shooting range of the new rifle not only meets the minimum threshold of 400 meters required by the Ministry of Defense, but even meets the Ministry of Defense's maximum expectation of 600 meters.

Although the accuracy will drop significantly once the distance exceeds 200 meters, after exceeding 400 meters you can only rely on luck to hit the enemy.

But this performance is already quite good. After all, this is not a sniper rifle. It is neither equipped with a scope nor has the barrel been adjusted. Having such accuracy is already very good.

This rifle performs very well in terms of shooting distance, and this is just one of its features. In terms of bullet speed, according to preliminary estimates, the bullet speed can reach an exaggerated level of 700 meters per second. If you stand a little further away, you may not even hear the gunshot before the bullet arrives.

However, it is not surprising that the bullet's firing rate has increased significantly. After all, compared with the bullets used by the Vitali rifle, the bullets of the new rifle have undergone substantial changes, and the weight of the bullet has been reduced by nearly half.

The original Vitali rifle used a 10.7×47mm black powder rifle bullet with a bullet weight of up to 20.3 grams, which was quite powerful.

However, it is precisely because of such a heavy bullet that the Vitali rifle has a short range. Even if it is replaced with smokeless gunpowder, the effective shooting distance is only more than 400 meters.

The new rifle uses a brand new 6.55×52mm centerfire rifle bullet. Because of the reduced caliber, the weight of the bullet is only about 10.5 grams.

Coupled with the addition of smokeless gunpowder, the bullet's firing rate can be greatly improved, and with its extremely high firing rate, it can compensate for the power lost due to the reduction in bullet caliber.

Experiments also prove that this small-caliber bullet is quite powerful.

A one-millimeter thick steel plate was placed 100 meters away. The soldiers fired at it using 10.4mm rifle bullets made with black powder and 6.5mm rifle bullets made with smokeless powder. It was finally found that the 6.5mm rifle bullets completely penetrated the steel plate, while the larger caliber 10.4mm rifle bullets were stuck in the steel plate.

The next test further proved that the bullet's power had not decreased.

In order to test the damage caused by bullets to the human body, the Royal Arsenal specially prepared two sheep to simulate the human body.

The 10.4mm rifle bullet using black powder could indeed cause a larger wound, but it only caused a small penetrating wound.

On the contrary, the smaller caliber 6.5mm smokeless powder rifle bullet, due to its high rate of fire, quickly flips after hitting the sheep's body, causing a killing effect that is difficult to match with large-caliber bullets.

The conclusion is also very obvious. Compared with large-caliber bullets using black powder, small-caliber bullets using smokeless powder are not less powerful.

Although it is not as powerful as large-caliber bullets that also use smokeless gunpowder, this small-caliber bullet is enough to kill the human body, so there is no need to pursue a larger caliber.

After all, in this era, there were no large tanks that relied on iron and steel plates for protection, and ordinary soldiers were not equipped with bulletproof vests. Small-caliber bullets could cause huge damage to people.

By the time tanks were introduced, it would be time for the Spanish rifles to be upgraded. It would not be too late to pursue large-caliber bullets then, so there was no need to consider so much now.

Small-caliber bullets can also reduce logistical pressure. The same number of bullets will be lighter, smaller in size, and easier to transport.

Of course, small-caliber bullets will also be cheaper to manufacture, which is definitely a good thing for Spain.

After confirming that all the data of this rifle meets the requirements of the Ministry of Defense, the next step is the final and most important test, which is the stability of the rifle.

Only when firing continuously can it be tested whether the rifle will jam, become damaged, or explode.

Only rifles with a low incidence of such problems can be considered a truly good rifle. The Spanish military needs such qualified rifles, not products that appear to have excellent data but will have problems after long-term use.

In order to better demonstrate the stability of the rifles, the next test will use all ten new rifles to test whether they will have problems due to long-term use under uninterrupted shooting.

Given the rifle's rate of fire, this was bound to be a long test.

The Ministry of Defense's requirement for rifle stability testing is that a product is considered qualified only if it can fire at least 100 rounds continuously without any problems.

No matter how many bullets there are, it is not realistic. After all, no matter how rich the logistics of Western Spain are, they are not rich to this extent.

If a rifle fires 100 rounds continuously, 100 rifles would fire 1000 million rounds, and rifles would fire million rounds.

How long does it take to fire 100 rounds in a row? At the maximum firing rate of this new rifle, it only takes less than four minutes to complete.

Such a situation would never occur in any battle of any war. After all, the bullets of various countries are not blown by the wind, but produced one by one using various resources.

The number of bullets each soldier can use per day is no more than a hundred, and sometimes only a few dozen or even a dozen.

In this case, the continuous firing of 100 rounds of bullets required by the Ministry of Defense is enough to meet various conditions on the battlefield, and there is no need to consider more stringent requirements.

After the ten rifles had fired a total of 1000 rounds of ammunition, the final design result was released.

The Royal Arsenal is worthy of being the largest military factory in Spain, and the quality of the weapons it designs and manufactures is guaranteed.

In the continuous shooting test of ten rifles, only two rifles jammed, and no rifle was seriously damaged or exploded.

Even if it jammed, it only occurred after firing dozens of rounds in a row. Due to the continuous firing, the barrel of the rifle became very hot and the internal structure was deformed, which led to the jam of the rifle.

This actually means that, except for extreme conditions where heat caused by uninterrupted shooting leads to deformation of internal parts, under ordinary circumstances, this new rifle will basically not have any problems and its stability can still be guaranteed.

Many military generals were delighted when they learned the final test results, and Carlo also breathed a sigh of relief.

This new rifle will greatly enhance the combat effectiveness of the Spanish Army, which is of great significance to Spain.

Although it would cost a lot to re-equip all the troops with new rifles, this cost was obviously worth it compared to the improvement in combat effectiveness brought by the rifles.

What's more, Spain's economy is booming, and the government's fiscal revenue has been rising year by year. Naturally, it has no shortage of money to replace weapons and equipment.

Even if the government cannot come up with any money, the Ministry of Defense can complete the replacement of armaments in the next few years relying solely on its own annual financial budget.

Why did Carlo always attach great importance to the army? Spain's military expenditure has always accounted for about one-third of the government's fiscal expenditure. Even though the government's fiscal revenue has increased significantly in recent years, military expenditure has not fallen below one-quarter of the total government fiscal expenditure.

With such a sufficient military budget, the Ministry of Defense was only delighted at the birth of the new rifle and had no worries about military spending at all.

Now that this rifle has passed the assessment of the Ministry of Defense, the next most important thing is to negotiate the purchase price of this rifle and determine how many rifles and matching bullets the Ministry of Defense will purchase.

Because the Ministry of Defense and the Royal Ordnance Factory had very close cooperation, the negotiations between the two sides went very smoothly and the final negotiation results were quickly released.

Before the negotiations, the Ministry of Defense and the Royal Ordnance Factory had a long debate about the naming of this rifle.

In the end, it was Carlo who made the final decision to name the rifle after Maxim, the main developer of the rifle, plus the year.

According to the naming rules, this new rifle is called the Maxim M1884 rifle, or Type 84 rifle for short.

Because military funds are quite sufficient, the Ministry of Defense plans to order 30 Maxim M1884 rifles and 5000 million rounds of ammunition from the Royal Arsenal at one time, so that the Spanish army can be fully equipped with new rifles within the next two years.

The Royal Arsenal was ecstatic when it received the order. This meant that the Royal Arsenal would not lack orders in the next two years, and the factory could also work overtime to earn money.

But there is still some bad news. With the birth of the new rifle, the original Vitali M1872 rifle almost instantly lost its value, so there was no need to produce it.

If the Spanish army fully replaces its equipment with the Maxim M1884 rifle, nearly 30 Vitali M1872 rifles can be eliminated.

Dealing with so many rifles and matching bullets will be a huge problem. We can only look for opportunities to sell them to countries in America and Asia and dispose of these weapons and equipment as quickly as possible at a lower price.

The good news is that Spain's 13.8-strong colonial army can temporarily delay equipping itself with new rifles.

This also means that the number of Vitali M1872 rifles that really need to be dealt with urgently is only 15 at most, and the difficulty of dealing with them is not that great, especially under the current premise that countries are accelerating their colonization, the arms market is still very large.

Because smokeless gunpowder has not yet become popular, both Vitali M1872 rifle bullets and black powder rifle bullets are still relatively valuable in other countries.

If European countries gradually equip themselves with smokeless powder rifle bullets, the value of this old rifle design and black powder bullets will be greatly reduced.

This also means that Spain must seize the time difference and sell the weapons and equipment that are about to be replaced as soon as possible.

For Carlo, there are not so many problems to worry about. The replacement of the weapons and equipment of the Royal Army is the responsibility of the Ministry of Defense. Although the weapons and equipment of the Guards are the responsibility of the royal family, Carlo will definitely not deal with these issues personally.

Of course, in terms of the purchase of weapons and equipment, Carlo is still willing to replace the weapons and equipment for the Guards as soon as possible.

After the Ministry of Defense signed an order with the Royal Arsenal for 30 rifles and 5000 million rounds of ammunition, Carlo also asked Butler Loren to sign an order with the Royal Arsenal to purchase 2 rifles and 200 million rounds of ammunition for the weapons replacement and daily training of the Guards Division soldiers.

Carlo would not be stingy with the Guard Division. All the rifles and bullets thrown out now would be transformed into combat power to protect the royal family and himself at the critical moment.

For Carlo, the stronger the combat effectiveness of the Guards Division, the more secure the royal family's security and status would be.

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(End of this chapter)