It's better to conquer them than to command the steel torrent

Chapter 55 | Small Leading Indicator Shock
Big red lanterns are hung high, and the brilliance of the blooming fireworks covers the starry sky.

The Spring Festival of 1939 was a joyful and worry-free one for the vast majority of people.

From a macro perspective, the unemployment rate has further declined and the price index has stabilized. Specifically, at the financial level, the Wan's Industrial and Commercial Index continued to rise slightly.

The Wan's Industrial and Commercial Index is an average stock price index created by investor Wan Yun at the beginning of the century. It is composed of the average stock prices of 36 industrial companies, 12 transportation companies, and 12 trading companies. It is usually regarded as a barometer of the economic situation of the Great Unification Federation.

Some people are happy, while others are naturally sad.

"After the first month of the year is over, I'll take care of the loose ends and then resign." Shang Yuxiu said this lightly.

"Is it too pressing?" Wei Shuhua asked doubtfully.

"It's not so bad, but I guess I have no hope of getting re-elected. Instead of enduring like this, I might as well quit as soon as possible."

"Ok."

The investigations into the hospital and railway cases were still ongoing. When the Consultative Council met for the last time on the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month, some familiar figures had disappeared.

Shang and Xiu indeed have nothing to do with these two cases, but it is still very annoying to go through all the investigation procedures one after another.

Even if you are not imprisoned, operations such as freezing accounts, tracking deposits, searches, and detentions are enough to disrupt normal life.

This kind of soft-knife suppression method is widely used and is one of the politicians' favorite basic operations.

Unless you look for flaws with a magnifying glass, Shang Yuxiu has no black spots in general, but he still decided to give up running for re-election.

Local regional councillors serve a five-year term, with a maximum of two consecutive terms, and changes will take place on the first day of June.

Since the faction he disliked had won, Shang Yuxiu didn't want to continue working on it anymore. He wanted to concentrate on writing his unfinished work.

Shang Ke, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, muttered, "It's okay. Maybe when I become successful in the future, the court will send someone to invite you back to be a special consultant."

"You're going to Hungary. Behave yourself. Everyone knows that the situation in Europe is unstable. You must not take it lightly when going to the war zone at this juncture." Shang Yuxiu reminded.

"It shouldn't be a big deal. As the saying goes, blessing or curse may come together." Shang Ke didn't care.

The two then discussed for a while the economics of war and the concept of total war.

Total war—a comprehensive war involving the combined use of all national resources. The Grand Federation is severely inexperienced in this area and must proceed with caution.

How does an industrial country make its war machine run efficiently?

This is a question that determines the rise and fall of a country. The most typical counterexample is the Millennium Empire that the shampoo master is proud of.

After talking for a long time, Shang Ke turned the topic to specific matters.

"Has the construction plan for the Big Wind Tunnel been finalized?"

"Approved. The central government will allocate half, and the Sichuan and Chongqing regions will raise the other half through issuing bonds."

"That's too stingy, isn't it? It's not that expensive."

Shang Yuxiu took a sip of tea and said seriously, "You don't know how expensive food and fuel are until you manage a household. There are so many places to spend money. This year's actual fiscal expenditure exceeded 6 billion yen, and the deficit is very high."

"Forget it, as long as we can start work on schedule."

The large-scale wind tunnel project that Shang Moumou promoted with the help of his father has been implemented. There has been a lot of bargaining for this project in the past six months - the federal central budget is tight, and the Sichuan and Chongqing local governments have even less spare money.

项目即将在潼川府开工，一期建造两座风速150米/秒（540千米/小时）的大型风洞；二期建造一座风速180米/秒（648千米/小时）的大型风洞和一座可达225米/秒（810千米/小时）的缩比模型试验小型风洞，计划耗资7500万圆。

Western friends, please answer the mysterious aerodynamic fighter jets from the East!
Shang Ke was quite satisfied with the result. Overall, up to this point, the game he was playing was under complete control.

During the boring Spring Festival, Shang Ke had been considering the priority of tasks to be assigned to the Defense Research Institute.

The schedule after that was quite tight. I went to Chuzhou on the eighth day of the first lunar month to get engaged, and then went directly to Xijing to report and prepare for departure.

I will not be able to return home for at least a year while in Europe, so I must consider everything as comprehensively as possible to avoid any negligence.

From a conservative point of view, the model of world war should not completely overturn the land warfare system. Based on this view and the industrial capacity of the Grand Federation, Shang Moumou identified several of the most urgent weapons.

First, the universal self-propelled artillery chassis must be developed quickly.

Artillery is known as the god of war, and this is not undeserved.

Combat experience in the European and African battlefields has proven this reputation - casualties caused by artillery account for 75% in plains or desert terrain; 63% in hilly or undulating terrain; and 50% in forests or urban terrain, which applies to the vast majority of situations.

Therefore, it is natural to improve the combat efficiency of artillery units as much as possible.

Automobilization can enhance artillery in terms of mobility, safety and response speed, which is a major trend in the future.

Throughout history, major powers have manufactured various types of self-propelled artillery during the wars, but they were more or less makeshift and were generally modified from the chassis of old tanks, such as the Wild Bee self-propelled howitzer, the Whirlwind self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, the Priest self-propelled howitzer, and the Archer self-propelled anti-tank gun.

In order to increase the commonality of parts and reduce the logistical burden, it is very prescient to start chassis standardization as early as possible.

In this regard, the indicators given by Shang are:

(1) Independent leaf spring suspension or torsion bar suspension, chassis empty weight is about 22 tons.

(2) The engine compartment is located at the front and the engine power is no less than 300 horsepower.

(3) The frontal armor can withstand Russian-made 12.7mm machine gun bullets, and the side armor can withstand 7.62mm machine gun bullets.

According to the indicators, a self-propelled artillery chassis covering the main uses can be finally obtained.

Based on this general chassis, he listed several common combinations.

The first is the division-level self-propelled howitzer equipped with a 155mm howitzer; the second is the army-level self-propelled cannon equipped with a 105mm cannon; and then the self-propelled anti-aircraft gun equipped with a twin 40mm anti-aircraft gun.

As for the self-propelled anti-tank gun, we can talk about it later. This chassis has sufficient redundancy and heavy anti-tank guns can be installed at any time if needed.

Second, tanks largely determine the upper limit of an army and cannot be ignored.

Shang Ke was not very interested in armor-piercing shell confrontation. He thought it was too troublesome and even thought that he could skip the medium tanks which had many shortcomings and directly develop main battle tanks.

It's just a penalty for researching advanced technology. Your country has both research slots and bonus cards, so you might as well be bolder.

(1) The combat weight shall not exceed 43 tons, the crew shall be 4 to 5 persons, and the vehicle shall be equipped with a turret basket.

(2) Develop a gasoline engine with a power of not less than 600 horsepower, with the engine and gearbox placed at the rear, equipped with a pneumatic power-assisted shifting device, and using a torsion bar suspension.

(3) The front of the vehicle body is equipped with 90~100 mm high-angle armor, and the side of the vehicle body must also be able to withstand 37 mm armor-piercing projectiles.

(4)配套开发一门75~105毫米长身管炮，具备发射被帽穿甲弹在1000米距离上击穿150毫米装甲钢的侵彻能力。

(5) Develop a vertical stabilizer and an active infrared night vision device with a detection range of at least 600 meters.

Break through! Defend!
This indicator seems to be 100% or even 90% off in the eyes of people today, but it doesn’t matter. We can completely trust Industrial Cthulhu.

(End of this chapter)