Bright Sword: From Northwest Shanxi to Shangganling

Chapter 37: Triangular Military Bayonet
After Chen Chengxing returned to Hongniwan with the third company, he handed over the task of identifying the security team and reporting on each other to Luo Ping.

Just as I was about to open the system and click on a skill, Xu Wu came running to the regiment headquarters.

"What's the matter?" Chen Chengxing asked.

It is not easy to be the team leader. There are countless things waiting for him every day.

"Captain, look at this." Xu Wu put the things he brought on the table.

"Bayonet? Why is it bent?" Chen Chengxing picked up the bayonet on the table and took a look at it. Although the bayonet was not bent particularly sharply, the obvious curvature could be seen with the naked eye.

When the New Second Regiment was first established, there was a big gap in equipment. However, after ambushing the Japanese baggage twice at Yanmen Pass and robbing the Japanese transport train at Shaohukou, the ordinary infantry, regardless of their quality, at least got a gun.

However, the rifles of these baggage soldiers were basically retired from the front line, or captured weapons, and generally lacked bayonets.

Moreover, the bayonet is very easy to wear out in battle, and once damaged, there is no point in repairing it.

Therefore, although the New Second Regiment was already fully equipped with rifles, less than one-third of the troops had bayonets.

For this purpose, Chen Chengxing specifically instructed Xu Tao to produce a batch of bayonets to fill the shortfall.

The one Chen Chengxing is holding in his hand now is a newly made one.

If the soldiers below do not know how to cherish the products just because they can produce them themselves, Chen Chengxing will not let them off easily.

"Don't mention it. This was brought to me by the 4th Company. They said it became like this after a bayonet fight with the soldiers of the security regiment. It was just a stabbing and the bayonet became bent."

"I went to check it out, and the situation is true. I think it must have pierced the bone." Xu Wu explained.

"That's not right. Even if it pierced the bone, it should stop. How could it bend?" Chen Chengxing asked in surprise.

"I don't know about that." Xu Wu shook his head. He was not a professional. He only knew that the bayonet didn't work.

If we fight the Japanese with bayonets, it will delay important matters.

Chen Chengxing didn't figure it out either, so he simply took Xu Wu to the arsenal to inquire about the situation.

Because of the certain degree of danger, Chen Chengxing did not place the repair shop and other factories in Hongniwan, but in Taohua Village, 5 miles away from Hongniwan.

After arriving at Taohua Village, Chen Chengxing found the three people, put the bayonet on the table and asked, "Three directors, what do you think is going on? The bayonet was bent with just one stabbing motion."

Although Chen Chengxing was asking three people, he was actually asking Xu Tao, after all, the bayonet was produced by the machinery factory.

"How could this happen?" Xu Tao frowned.

He could tell at a glance that this was one of the first batch of 50 bayonets that had been produced just two days ago.

"I know that our own steel is not durable, so I use rail steel and heat treat it. How could it bend?"

"I know about this." Wen Ying said.

Although Xu Tao was born into a blacksmith family, he is not as knowledgeable as Wen Ying.

"Railway steel is soft steel, which is different from the steel used for regular bayonets. Bayonets must be made of reinforced materials," Wen Ying explained.

Previously, the Taiyuan Arsenal specially introduced a batch of reinforced steel for the production of bayonets for the Jin-made Type 65 rifle.

"Then what should we do?" Xu Tao asked.

For the New Second Regiment, getting any strengthening materials is just a pipe dream, they simply don't have the ability to do so.

"There is no good way. Either increase the strength by increasing the thickness or increase the strength by shortening the size," said Wen Ying.

This is the characteristic of the knife-shaped flat bayonet, which can have various functions such as stabbing, chopping and cutting, but the price is that the strength of the steel must meet the standard. After hearing Wen Ying's words, Xu Tao was speechless.

Neither of these two options is suitable. Increasing the thickness will make the bayonet too heavy, which is very inconvenient in combat. Although shortening the length does not have this problem, it will cause the soldiers to suffer when fighting with the Japanese. After all, an inch longer is an inch stronger.

Even the Zhongzheng rifle, although its body is shorter than the Type 38 rifle, has a longer bayonet to avoid being disadvantaged in bayonet combat.

At this time, Chen Chengxing on the side understood, and he suddenly remembered the five or six and a half in later generations.

"Everyone, has anyone seen the Mosin-Nagant rifle? It's the water-jet rifle." Chen Chengxing said.

Although Chiang Kai-shek used Soviet loans to purchase a lot of weapons from them in October, none of these weapons were distributed to the Second War Zone.

Now only the Central Army and the Northeast region have the Mosin-Nagant rifle.

The Mosin-Nagant rifle also uses a four-sided bayonet because of the steel material.

This type of bayonet has excellent stabbing performance, but because it can only be used for stabbing, basically no one in other countries uses it.

"You want to make it into a four-sided bayonet?" Wen Ying understood it immediately.

When the Taiyuan Arsenal was deciding what kind of rifles to produce, it bought several Mosin-Nagants. Before the Battle of Taiyuan, those guns were still in the warehouse.

"It's not four edges, but three edges." Chen Chengxing said.

Anyone who has studied mathematics, physics and chemistry knows that triangles are the most stable.

It is easier to make it into a triangular shape than a quadrangular shape.

All you have to do is forge the rail material into a long, thin triangular pyramid, then mill a semicircular groove on the blade, and you have a bayonet.

"This is indeed a good idea." Wen Ying nodded.

In this way, the chopping performance is sacrificed, and the thickness is increased without increasing the weight. After heat treatment, the strength of the triangular bayonet is several times that of the knife-type bayonet.

Regarding the conversation between the two, several people nearby said they couldn't understand it at all.

Without having seen the real thing, it is impossible to imagine the image of a bayonet just by imagination.

"Director Wen, I'd like to trouble you to assist Director Chen in this matter," said Chen Chengxing.

"It's a small matter." Wen Ying nodded. When the time comes, just use a wooden stick to demonstrate, and Chen Tao will understand. The rest is to test during production.

Seeing that the bayonet issue was resolved, Chen Chengxing immediately told his second story.

"Director Wen, how is the reloading of bullets going?" Chen Chengxing asked.

"The equipment is easy. We have already produced several manual reloading machines. However, there are still a few problems, namely the warhead, propellant and primer," said Wen Ying.

These problems were not something she could solve. They had brought back some raw materials from Taiyuan before, which could provide a temporary boost.

However, the propellant can only be produced by chemical plants, and the warheads have to be produced by the regiment commander himself.

"I'm already thinking of a way to deal with the warhead. I'll use copper coins to stamp it when the time comes." Chen Chengxing said. There are plenty of copper coins in Shanxi.

Previously, Yan Xishan had always secretly disobeyed the central government's order that copper coins in each province could only circulate within the province.

Until 1926, when the province abolished its own minting policy, Yan Xishan made a profit of 400 million silver dollars just from minting copper coins without province names. Otherwise, he would not have had the money to build the Taiyuan Arsenal.

You should know that 1 dollar can be exchanged for 140 copper coins, from which you can know how many copper coins there are in Shanxi.

(End of this chapter)