When the Guards soldiers in front test-fired the newly developed breech-loading rifle rifle developed by Hebei Arms Company, this rifle appeared in Luo Zhixue's hands.
In Luo Zhixue's view, the appearance of this rifle is no different from the modern single-shot rifles in his memory. Of course, the caliber is larger, reaching 11 mm.
Its bolt mechanism adopts a rotating bolt locking structure. This bolt mechanism has actually existed in the Dachu Empire for a long time. Around the 22nd year of Chengshun, a firearms designer from the Firearms Research Institute directly under the Ministry of Industry They have already designed this kind of bolt structure, and paired it with paper-packed fixed bullets, using a firing pin to fire. At the same time, based on the Type 16 frontline rifle, they modified and designed a breech-loading rifle concept gun, that is, Type 17 breech-loading rifle.
Although this rifle at the time was a typical concept rifle that could not be put into practical use due to serious air leakage and extremely high manufacturing costs, it laid some basic structures for the Dachu Empire's breech-loading rifles.
Fixed-loading bullets, firing pin firing, and rotating bolt action, these three characteristics gave the Dachu Empire a major reference for subsequent research on a series of breech-loading rifled rifles.
In the subsequent years of research on breech-loading rifled rifles by various weapons companies, many design plans continued to use these three major design plans. The main work was to carry out one-step optimization and improvement, especially to reduce air leakage, while also taking into account engineering implementation.
After all, there is little point in breech-loading rifled rifles that can only be produced in small quantities in laboratories, and there is little point in industrially producing rifles that are too expensive.
Even the three armies of the Great Chu Empire cannot afford to use a rifle worth hundreds of Chu yuan!
Therefore, breech-loading rifled rifles must be industrially mass-produced, and at the same time, the cost must be reduced, not to mention it must be reduced to a few dollars, but at least it must be reduced to ten or twenty dollars.
You must know that the Chu Yuan of the Great Chu Empire is still relatively valuable. Using the Chu Yuan of the Great Chu Empire under the gold standard, one Chu Yuan contains 3.5 grams of gold (in modern times, 1 pound contains about 7.32 grams of gold, 1 U.S. dollar contains about 1.5 grams of gold, and 1 franc contains about 0.29, 1 German gold mark = 10 German marks = 3.58 grams).
Even though the economy of the Great Chu Empire has developed rapidly in recent years and people's income has begun to increase, the average monthly salary of ordinary workers in Songjiang Prefecture is only about four Chu yuan, and only skilled workers can earn sixty or seven Chu yuan. , the salary of a ninth-grade patrol policeman or civil servant is only seventy-eight Chu Yuan.
When you compare the salaries of ordinary people in the contemporary Da Chu Empire, you will find that even the individual weapons of more than ten Chu Yuan are relatively expensive.
At present, the individual weapons equipped in large quantities in the Dachu Empire are the Type 21/Type 23 front-loading percussion rifles. The purchase price including bayonets is only 4.3 Chu Yuan. .
Known for its sky-high prices for individual weapons, only the Guards are currently equipped with some of them. The Type 16 front-loading rifled rifles equipped by a very small number of the Army's hunters were initially purchased in small quantities for more than 150 yuan. Continuing production and purchasing two large pieces, the current purchase price has been reduced to about forty-eight yuan.
However, even at this price, the army and navy also said that it was completely unacceptable... So everyone knows about the front-loading rifled rifle, but so far, I guess, it is still only equipped in batches by the Guards.
Therefore, price is a very important factor in whether weapons and equipment can be mass-produced and put into service.
If there are only ten or twenty breech-loading rifles of Chu Yuan, due to the huge improvement in performance and huge changes in combat modes, then for the sake of more advanced guns and tactical applications, then the Great Chu Emperor's army would grit their teeth and admit it. .
But if it's tens or even hundreds... then don't dream about it, the military really can't afford it.
Because assuming that one branch of Chu Yuan is fifty thousand, then ten thousand is five million, one hundred thousand is five million, one million is fifty million... And once the Chu Empire changes its clothes, the army, navy and guards will The army is added together, including rifles and carbines, plus combat losses, strategic reserves and other factors.
Then the purchase scale must start at least two million pieces!
This is 100 million Chu Yuan. Even if you drag all the heads of the three armies over and squeeze them dry, you still won’t be able to squeeze out this amount.
Lots of money for a change of clothes!
Not to mention that this is just a single weapon.
When the armies of the Great Chu Empire go to war, they actually don’t pay much attention to individual weapons. What they pay more attention to is artillery. You can see that each division in the Chu Army often has dozens or even hundreds of artillery pieces. When the Chu Army goes to war, The main thing is artillery.
Therefore, it is impossible for the military to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to replace individual weapons.
You must know that in order to save money in the past, the Army even converted a large number of previous series of flintlock guns into flash cap percussion guns for continued use.
As the emperor of the empire, Luo Zhixue also paid attention to and understood the military's use of military expenditures and equipment. Therefore, when he saw this breech-loading rifle, especially when he heard the introduction that it was made by using special rubber gaskets. The air leakage problem has been initially solved, making this breech-loading rifled rifle practical. Soldiers don't have to worry about blinding themselves if they just fire a gun.
The most concerning issue is not the performance of this gun. Anyway, breech-loading rifled rifles, as long as they can be used, are basically not far behind, and the effective range can defeat those muzzle-loading smoothbore rifles no matter what.
What Luo Zhixue is most concerned about is whether it can be mass produced and how much the production cost will be.
So Luo Zhixue, while holding the gun and looking at it carefully, asked: "Can this gun be mass-produced? And what is the estimated cost?"
Dai Yongyan, the Governor-General of Hebei Arms Company, said immediately: "Your Majesty, when we designed this experimental rifle, we had already considered the technical issues of mass production. This is why we did not compromise on processing accuracy and materials. It was because the direction was changed and a rubber gasket was used to solve the air leakage problem."
"If we blindly improve processing accuracy and develop new materials, the costs of R&D and production will be very high."
"After adopting new methods and new ideas for rubber gaskets, the difficulty of production has reached an acceptable level."
"According to our estimates, the production difficulty will be about the same as that of the Type 16 muzzle-loading rifle, and it can be produced in large quantities. For small-scale production, the cost of production line construction and R&D costs will need to be shared, so the cost will be higher, I guess. It’s like this for sixty-seven yuan.”
"However, with the gradual increase in production volume, production also requires a process. In the following years, as technology continues to advance and production costs continue to decrease, the purchase price in the later period can continue to be significantly reduced."
"According to our estimates, if we only produce 100,000 pieces, the average cost can be reduced to about 50 yuan. If we increase the production quantity to 500,000 pieces and extend the production time slightly, then the comprehensive average price It can be brought down to about thirty Chu Yuan."
"If we continue to produce one million pieces in the future, the price may even be lowered to less than 20 yuan!"
Luo Zhixue didn't speak as he listened, but General Luo Yang, commander of the Third Army next to him, couldn't wait to speak: "One hundred thousand tubes cost fifty yuan, why don't you go and grab it? It's so expensive and you can probably afford it!"
"And even if the breech-loading rifle is better than the current Type 21 percussion gun, it is not worth more than ten times the difference!"
As soon as he heard the army general's words, Dai Yongyan closed his eyes and didn't want to talk!
This group of army generals talk about cost-effectiveness all day long. Damn, the Type 16 muzzle-loading rifles have been out for several years, but they have not been equipped with large-scale equipment... They were exhausted and purchased thousands of equipment for the front line. Used by Chasseurs in war zones.
The line infantry were still using outdated muskets.
This is simply a disgrace to the empire, the enemy in the defense industry!
Researchers in the national defense industry have worked hard to develop various advanced guns and ammunition, but most of the top military generals do not even look at them and just throw them into the warehouse...
But the military is really not in a hurry!
There is no urgency for these so-called new weapons. If you want them to be good and cheap, then the military will...
After all, it’s not like the flash cap musket cannot be used!
Nowadays, the Great Chu Emperor's forces, especially the army, are using fire
The cap-fired muskets also defeated the indigenous peoples of various countries. In the previous series of battles with the Russians, the Central Asian campaign and the Indian campaign, the cap-fired muskets of the Dachu Empire showed great power.
The advantages brought by the ultra-high firing rate of this rifle allowed the infantry of the Chu Empire Army to form a battle line that swept across the world's invincible opponents...
This alone is invincible across the world, and it also requires a woolen rifled gun!
This is what many people in the military, especially many generals in the army, think.
Basically it means: I know your stuff is good, but I don’t need it!
If you insist on selling it to me, then you can only sell it cheaply. A few yuan a piece is best, but even worse it can only be a dozen yuan. If you want a sky-high price of dozens of yuan a piece, go ahead and dream!
This is also the reason why the Type 16 front-loading rifled guns were not widely deployed in the army and navy. Luo Zhixue decided to let the Guards order more than 20,000 Type 16 rifles at a sky-high price out of support for the continued development of the firearms industry. A front-loaded rifled gun, which cost millions of Chu Yuan.
The problems faced by today's breech-loading rifled guns are actually similar to those of previous front-loading rifled guns. It's not that they are bad, but that they are too expensive. The military does not want...
[In view of the general environment,
Luo Zhixue is also well aware of these issues.
For these new breech-loading rifled rifles, don’t expect the Army and Navy to purchase equipment at the moment. They would rather keep repairing the rifles for another three years and wait for the defense industrialists to lower their prices than buy them.
Although Luo Zhixue is the emperor, he will not force the army and navy too much on this matter. Unless he can grant tens of millions of additional military expenditures to the army and navy, the emperor will not be able to save face...
what to do?
What else can be done is to let the Guards continue to be taken advantage of.
So Luo Zhixue turned around and said to General Fang Qu, Chief of Staff of the Guards: "Let's go back to the Guards and see how this gun is doing. If it works, make a batch and try it!"
Admiral Fang Qu naturally had no objection and was even very happy.
The Guards are different from the army and navy. The military expenditures of the army and navy follow a formal fiscal budget system. However, the funds of the Guards are not allocated from military expenditures, but directly come from royal funds.
The royal family's funding is more complicated. Part of it is the royal family's funds directly allocated from the annual fiscal budget. This is usually a fixed ratio, about three percentage points, which is about more than 10 million Chu Yuan every year.
There are also some taxes that are imperial taxes. Among the tax types in the Dachu Empire, some taxes are imperial taxes. This part of the imperial taxes does not participate in local financial distribution and is not turned over to the national treasury. Instead, it is directly attributed to the imperial treasury.
Then there is the income from the royal family's properties. The royal family has a lot of properties, such as factories, farms, manors, commercial buildings, etc., several famous commercial streets in Shanghai County of Songjiang Prefecture, and many affiliated offices. The building is owned by the royal family. These royal assets are operated and managed by the Royal Asset Management Department, which generates a certain operating profit every year, part of which will be used as royal funds.
In fact, only a very small part of these royal funds are used for the daily expenses of royal members. After all, even for royal members, their daily expenses are just like that. Compared with the huge royal funds, they are not worth mentioning.
Part of the royal funds is mainly used for various expenses of royal institutions, such as the many internal institutions within the palace.
But the bulk of it is still used for military expenditures of the Guards.
The funding for the Guards comes directly from royal funding. This is the biggest difference between them and the army and navy.
How much money to spend and how much to give is completely decided by Luo Zhixue alone.
Luo Zhixue said that if you want to equip the extremely expensive rifled rifle, then just equip it. Anyway, there is no need for the Guards generals to worry about funding.
This situation has also led to the Guards becoming a testing ground for many new weapons in the Chu Empire. Regardless of whether they are good or bad, they will be tried.
This is true for the Type 16 front-loading rifled rifle, and it is also true for today's new breech-loading rifled rifle.
Luo Zhixue ordered the Guards to try the equipment and explore the actual combat tactics of the breech-loaded rifled rifle, and then decided on the model of the gun.
It was directly shaped into a Type 18 breech-loading rifle.
Because this kind of weapon is not a weapon that is equipped in large quantities, it cannot use the most formal year number. It can only use the manufacturer number or other numbers with special meanings.
The number eighteen was used because the Guards were previously equipped with Type 16 front-loading rifled rifles, and at the same time a small number of Type 17 breech-loading rifles were tested and equipped (because the air leakage was too serious, the equipment was dismantled after testing).
Nowadays, the breech-loading rifled rifle of Hebei Arms Company is already their third rifled rifle. Therefore, the previous numbers of sixteen and seventeen are continued, and the number eighteen is adopted.
The manufacturer is naturally Tianjin Firearms Factory, a subsidiary of Hebei Arms Company.
Tianjin Firearms Factory is the largest and most technologically advanced firearms arsenal in the north. It has produced a series of smoothbore rifles before. It is also one of the manufacturers of Type 16 muzzle-loading rifles for the Guards. The army produced nearly 10,000 Type 16 rifles, and also provided the Army with more than 1,000 improved Type 16 rifles.
With rich experience in the production of rifled rifles, it is not a big problem for them to at least make a rifled barrel or something.
The reason why Tianjin Firearms Factory is able to produce this series of rifled guns is because the Type 16 front-loading rifled rifle and the Type 17 breech-loading rifled rifle are researched by the Firearms Research Institute directly under the Ministry of Industry. The results were awarded to the five major weapons companies for free.
The five major arms companies can all produce or improve their own front-loading rifled rifles and breech-loading rifles based on their design patents.
Tianjin Machinery Factory improved and adjusted the design based on the prototype of the Type 16 rifle. The most important thing was to re-develop and improve the barrel and create a relatively low-priced steel barrel.
Only then did they get an order from the Guards for the Type 16 rifle.
Therefore, when it comes to rifled rifles, whether front-loaded or rear-loaded, the five major arms companies actually have similar starting points and the same set of technical sources.
More competition comes from cost control, optimization of details and subsequent improvements.
Tianjin Firearms Factory is undoubtedly the first group. After all, the five major arms companies in the Dachu Empire have more than a dozen subordinate gun factories with research capabilities.
Under Hebei Arms Company alone, two firearms factories, namely Tianjin Firearms Factory and Liaodong Firearms Factory, have R&D capabilities.
The Dangtu Arsenal, Songjiang Arsenal, and Hantian Arsenal in Jiangnan Weapons Company are all large-scale arsenals with firearms research and development capabilities.
Therefore, in the firearms market, the competition in the Dachu Empire is actually not just the competition between the five major weapons companies, but also the competition between more than a dozen firearms factories.
The competition is also very cruel. Although there is no winner-take-all situation, the winner still eats most of the fat, leaving only a little bit of bones for other manufacturers to maintain the team and avoid complete bankruptcy.
After seeing the Eighteen Rifles, Luo Zhixue had no obvious interest in some of the later rifles. They were all the same old stuff with nothing new.
The same goes for artillery. Rear-mounted rifled guns are useless. Front-mounted rifled guns are still not wanted by the Army because of their high cost and short barrel life. Even the Guards only conducted some symbolic experiments. Really? If there is a war, you still have to drag the bronze cannon to the battlefield.
Therefore, the main equipment currently produced is naval artillery. The navy does not care about the barrel life of two to three hundred rounds.
Therefore, for now, the technical difficulty of rifled artillery, whether front-loaded or rear-loaded, still lies in the barrel!
If the material and processing of the barrel itself are not good, no matter what design it is, it will not work!
Apart from guns, there wasn't much else to see. One of the new revolvers made him take a closer look. This thing was a flip-up revolver with fixed bullets in a paper shell.
There is nothing new in the design structure, but the size is relatively compact, the number of parts is small, and the caliber is not that of a cavalry revolver.
mm, but uses a smaller caliber of nine millimeters, because this pistol is a self-defense pistol issued to officers and artillerymen. It does not require as much lethality as a cavalry pistol, but requires greater portability. .
When Luo Zhixue held this thing in his hand, he felt that it was not much different from the revolver in his memory. It was of moderate weight and just the right size.
Then he put the empty gun back into the gun bag, hung it directly on his waist, tried to draw the gun again, and then said: "This pistol is good!"
The weight and size are suitable, and it is better than the two officers' revolvers currently in service.
The officers of the Dachu Empire also had artillery and other technical arms. They had been issued revolvers before, but they were basically the same series as cavalry pistols. They were heavier and had a larger caliber. As an individual self-defense weapon, they were actually very useful. Not suitable.
If this lighter small-caliber revolver is adopted, it will be more convenient for officers and artillery and other technical arms to carry and use self-defense pistols.
But when it came time, Luo Zhixue saw a new gadget... The reason why it was called a gadget was because it was really small!
This is a new bullet!
A kind of custom-fitting, but the outer shell is not the cardboard used in the previous custom-fitting bullets, but is made of brass.
This is an all-metal fixed bullet!
