In the spring of the 34th year of Chengshun, the army was in Myanmar and was rarely embarrassed due to local terrain and climate problems.
Of course, there are also local indigenous powerful people who are willing to give up their rights, and ordinary indigenous people are even less willing to lose their homes.
So much so that the Army's fight there was a bit embarrassing... Naturally, the natives on the opposite side of the battle couldn't be beaten or even dared to fight.
But he was not willing to resist and gave his head to the Chu army!
Therefore, we always find ways to carry out various small-scale harassment operations.
As for war, in fact, most of the time it is not a large-scale battle involving hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of people on both sides. Battles of this scale are relatively rare even in ancient wars. Whenever they occur, they are basically decisive. Big battle, decisive battle.
More often than not, the warring parties actually fought scattered small and medium-sized battles, involving thousands or hundreds of people, around key places such as cities and transportation thoroughfares.
Of course, if the fighting reaches a certain level, large-scale decisive battles will also occur, with tens of thousands or even tens of thousands of people engaged in large-scale decisive battles.
Therefore, small and medium-sized battles are actually the norm in war, even the mainstream.
However, in the past, the Chu army had an advantage in foreign battles, even in small-scale battles involving hundreds of people or even only a few hundred people.
Because even if there were only more than a hundred people, the Chu army's infantry were able to form a line and use standard line tactics to take advantage of the absolute firepower advantage of the flintlock/flintlock percussion gun.
This is supplemented by the large-scale equipment in the Chu army, and the firepower of light artillery such as 65mm light field guns from below to the battalion level.
Basically, they are at a disadvantage against those indigenous armies who are still using matchlocks and spears, who are still alternating between hot and cold, and even those who are still using pure cold weapons.
However, as for the Burmese people, in the past nearly two decades, they have fully understood the powerful strength of the Chu army. In addition, the top brass of these Burmese people also have a sense of crisis. They have long expected that sooner or later they will be attacked from the enemy. The invasion of Chu.
Therefore, they have not been idle in the past few years. On the one hand, they were respectful to the Chu State and agreed to a series of conditions that would deprive the country of power and humiliate the country.
But at the same time, they were also actively training their troops to prepare for war, and imported a large number of matchlock guns, smoothbore cannons, plate armor, and a lot of cold weapons from the Chu Kingdom. Their main force was also entirely Chu weaponry.
In addition, the Burmese have been fighting Siam and the indigenous people in the west all year round, so they have relatively rich combat experience.
Therefore, relatively speaking, the combat effectiveness of the Burmese army is not weak.
Of course, the more important thing is that they are self-aware and know that they will never be able to defeat the Chu army on the frontal battlefield, so they gave up frontal combat, especially field battles.
They only carried out stubborn resistance in some special terrains, and at the same time dispatched a large number of troops to form small-scale troops that frequently attacked the small and medium-sized troops and even the logistics supplies of the Chu army.
In fact, if this kind of dispersed force attack is carried out on flat terrain... well, it doesn't even need flat terrain like the Great Plains. Even in hilly areas, the Chu army can let them know that the Chu army is defeating the surrounding countries. Not only infantry and artillery, but also powerful cavalry.
However, the places where the Burmese chose to fight were generally in tropical rainforest areas, and they were also in areas with high mountains and dense forests, which made it difficult for the Chu army's powerful cavalry to display.
This fight lasted for several months. Although it seemed to be going very smoothly, it also successively captured many large cities and even approached its capital, Ava.
The Marine Corps in the south, with the assistance of the Dagon garrison, quickly captured the city and captured a large amount of territory in the local triangular plain.
But behind these victories was the fact that the Chu army's logistics line was getting longer and longer, especially on the northern front. The Eighth Division, which sent troops from Yunnan to the south, had its main force hundreds of miles deep into Myanmar.
Moreover, the grain, grass and logistics ammunition required by the Eighth Division are not produced and transported locally at the border. In fact, they are gathered and transported from the entire Yunnan region. Some ammunition has to be transported from other provinces and then transferred to Myanmar.
The logistical pressure is huge!
The Eighth Division has more than 16,000 soldiers. As a first-class combat readiness division, it is equipped with a large number of mules and horses during marching operations. The number of war horses and draft horses directly under the division alone reaches more than 10,000.
At the same time, in order to ensure the needs of these troops and horses, the rear requires a logistics group composed of tens of thousands of temporarily recruited civilians to transport grain, grass and ammunition.
Because the mountain roads are rugged and difficult to navigate, especially after entering Myanmar, most areas are inaccessible to horse-drawn carriages. Therefore, grain and grass can only be transported by handcarts or even on shoulders.
This logistics and transportation is already very troublesome.
And these Burmese people also attack every day... They don't attack your large-scale logistics troops. They attack some small outposts along the way, and then cause damage on the road, such as demolishing bridges and the like.
These sporadic attacks actually had little impact on the Chu army's main military operations, and they were even less likely to cause any actual casualties to the Chu army.
But it makes people feel very frustrated... and there are always sporadic casualties, which in the end is not a small number.
To be honest, the Chu army has been fighting abroad for many years, but it has never fought such a frustrating war.
It seems that they have the advantage everywhere, and they are almost reaching their capital, but they feel restricted everywhere. They want to speed up the progress and directly hit their capital in one go, and then disintegrate the regime of the Kingdom of Myanmar, but they find that , before they reached their capital, Ava, they had already moved their capital early, directly to the mountainous areas in the west.
Ava, the capital of the Kingdom of Myanmar, is now an empty frame, and its capture will not have much political or military significance.
The battle on this front line was suffocating. It happened that during this war, the Eighth Division's only infantry battalion equipped with breech-loading rifles and an artillery sentry with breech-loading rifles performed well, especially these new breech-loading rifled guns. , which performs even better in this scattered small-scale combat effectiveness.
The rate of fire is several times faster than that of a front-loading musket, and it can reach a precise and effective range of four to five hundred meters (although few soldiers can accurately target enemy soldiers at such a long distance). At the same time, the convenient rear loading allows soldiers to They are in various postures and shooting.
If we say that the two-year series of flintlock muskets, the 13-year-old series of flintlock muskets, the 21-year-old/23-year-old series of percussion-fired muskets equipped by the Chu army in the past thirty years were born for line formation. And born.
So the Chu Army has just begun to equip the Type 18 breech-loading rifled rifles in batches, and the Type 19 breech-loading rifled rifles. These two types are currently in fierce competition, and each wants to become the breech-loading of the Army's new generation of official standard rifles. Rifled rifles were created for skirmishers.
The first battalion of the 31st Regiment of the 8th Division of the Chu Army, which is equipped with breech-loading rifled rifles and adopts a skirmish formation, is only an experimental one. It is not proficient in weapons, equipment and tactics, and is in a state of exploration. , but it still exerted great power in this war.
A mere battalion was responsible for almost half of the main battles of the entire division, and its own battle casualties were extremely low. It performed very well in some small and medium-sized attacks against the enemy.
Also performing equally well was the Third Artillery Post belonging to the First Battalion of the Eighth Artillery Regiment. The six 75mm breech-loaded rifled field guns equipped by this post were originally only experimental equipment used to explore new artillery. They used tactics, but in this war, their performance was extremely eye-catching.
The actual firepower exerted by a mere six artillery pieces is greater than the dozens of smoothbore field guns and field howitzers equipped by other equipment in the Eighth Division.
Its effective range of four kilometers, ultra-high hit rate, and the huge explosive power brought by the unique large charge of cylindrical howitzer shells made this field gun immediately become the new favorite of the army.
After a series of battle reports from Myanmar were gathered into the major army departments in Jinling City, a large number of heavyweight generals of the army had to once again take a high look at the tactical changes and advantages brought by breech-loaded rifled weapons.
The army generals of the Chu Army are naturally not pedantic, and they have no resistance to breech-loaded rifled guns. In fact, the army, especially the top brass, still likes these breech-loaded rifled guns. For such a large-scale equipment change of the Guards, current breech-loaded rifled weapons are really too expensive... A Type 18 rifle costs more than 40 Chu Yuan, and 10,000 pieces of this equipment cost more than 400,000 Chu Yuan.
The number needed by the army is not 11,000 or 20,000, but at least one million. How much does it cost?
More than 40 million Chu Yuan!
What is this concept?
The Chu Empire's annual central fiscal revenue is only 7.8 billion, and the army's annual regular military expenditure is only more than 80 million.
You asked the Army to spend more than 40 million yuan just to replace the rifle. The Army really can't afford to replace it... After all, the Army has many military expenditure items, including combat expenses, personnel salaries, the purchase and consumption of mules and horses, and the purchase of artillery. Even the construction of some military facilities requires money.
Seriously speaking, the funds used to purchase guns every year actually only account for a very small part of military expenditures. If you suddenly divert millions to purchase new rifles, then the more than one million people in the Army are really going to eat rubbish. !
Therefore, even if the army wants to change its equipment, it is not possible to change its equipment on a large scale now. It can only do it slowly, equip a batch a year, and at the same time, wait for the price of breech-loading rifled rifles to gradually decrease, and finally realize the equipment change of the entire army. .
According to the estimates of the army bosses, the duration of this dress change will probably last for more than fifteen years!
However, the war in Myanmar made the army's top brass more determined to replace the rear-loaded single-shot rifles as soon as possible.
Some ordinary troops stationed in the country and those C-class troops can wait, but those A-class troops, especially the A-class divisions that are fighting or facing border dangers, must be equipped with new rear equipment as soon as possible. Rifled rifle.
The same situation also occurs with breech-loading rifled artillery.
This thing is more expensive, not only the artillery purchase price is expensive, the price of the shells is even more expensive!
Currently, there is only one breech-loading rifled field gun used by the Army, and that is the 32-year-old 75mm breech-loading rifled field gun produced by Hebei Arms Company.
This artillery may look like just a gun mount with a barrel, but in reality, this thing is a veritable high-tech weapon for the contemporary Chu Empire.
From the wheels to the gun mount, to the core barrel, and then to the matching high-explosive grenade with collision fuse, they are all the core integration of the industrial technology of the Da Chu Empire in the past thirty years.
This thing, let alone the seventeenth century, even if you put it in the twentieth century, it was the patent of various industrial countries. If an ordinary small country wanted to develop it on its own, it would be impossible to even think about it.
Because what is needed behind this is the support of a heavy industrial system.
Of course, if you can also buy equipment and materials, it will be much simpler. If future generations have a mechanical processing factory, they can also make it for you.
In the current Dachu Empire, the technical difficulty of producing this kind of artillery is very high. The materials used are all newly developed, and the barrel processing technology is an exclusive technology developed by Hebei Arms Company at a huge cost. Many of the equipment used for processing are specially customized by those equipment manufacturers.
This research and development cost is huge.
The production cost of the artillery and shells produced is not low, and then there are research and development expenses, and the purchase price is also extremely high.
The average unit price of the first batch of dozens of 32-year-old 75mm field guns purchased by the Army reached more than 2,000 yuan... This price is extremely expensive for contemporary artillery.
It doesn't matter that the artillery is expensive. After all, it is a one-time deal and one time payment is enough, but the artillery shells are also expensive.
The purchase cost of the matching 75mm high-explosive grenade is more than 20 Chu Yuan. A cannon with 250 rounds of shells costs more than 6,000 Chu Yuan, which is much more expensive than the artillery itself!
Moreover, these artillery shells are used during training, and they are fired in large quantities during combat. The cost of the artillery shells alone is very high.
So breech-mounted rifled guns are good, but the Army can't afford them either...
This is the embarrassment of breech-loaded rifled guns in the contemporary Dachu Empire... The thing is available and its performance is excellent. The problem is that the newly developed thing is still too expensive and the army cannot afford it.
However, it doesn’t work without it. The Myanmar War has fully proved the importance of breech-loaded rifled guns, and also proved the huge limitations of front-loaded smoothbore guns.
Therefore, the Army is considering increasing the purchase of breech-loaded rifled guns, but at the same time, it also needs to keep the price down.
Chu Yuan, who is more than forty years old, can never afford a breech-loading rifle.
It is even more impossible that a field artillery plus supporting shells cost more than 8,000 yuan.
Therefore, the army bosses in Jinling City began to find ways to lower prices.
It’s not just these two projects that are driving down prices, but also the new 75mm mountain gun project.
In order to lower the price, the Army also gritted its teeth and directly increased the number of orders, using a larger order quantity to further reduce costs.
At the same time, introduce full competition!
In June of the 34th year of Chengshun, the confident Hebei Arms Company came to the Army Ordnance Department with their newly designed 75mm mountain gun project, preparing to bid for the project.
As a result, I was told that the quantity purchased this time would be very large. The first batch would be at least two hundred doors, and there would be a second batch and even a third batch later.
At the same time, it was also learned that the Army was planning to purchase more breech-loading rifled rifles and 75mm field guns.
The number of breech-loading rifled rifles purchased reached 200,000, which is extremely astonishing.
The purchase quantity of 75mm field guns was also extremely large, reaching 250.
After learning that the Army was planning to purchase large quantities of a new generation of breech-loading rifled guns, how could Hebei Arms Company sit still?
The supervisor of their company came directly to Jinling City with a large number of management and technical personnel, preparing to participate in the Army's unprecedented large-scale military procurement bidding.
The same was true for the people of the other four weapons companies. Even Jiangnan Weapons Company, which was focused on the naval artillery project, was shocked by the Army's ultra-large-scale purchase.
Directly organized a temporary project team to prepare to enter the army artillery project, while accelerating the development progress of their company's own breech-loading rifled rifle.
At the same time, major companies are trying to find ways to reduce costs.
Because the Army has already revealed that price is the top priority in this procurement.
If you quote a high price, don’t expect to get an order...
At the same time, in order to reduce the overall procurement cost, the Army will not split the procurement of major orders to achieve equal benefits. Instead, it will directly award orders for major projects and even subsequent orders to a certain weapons company to dilute the cost. Lower purchase prices.
For example, for breech-loading rifled rifles, the first batch of 200,000 orders will be awarded to the same company, and the second and third batch of orders will be signed later. To put it bluntly, the military will place orders for the next generation of standard rifles. Leave it all to one company.
The same is true for artillery projects. For a certain type of artillery, only one company is selected in order to centralize procurement and reduce costs.
In this regard, the heads of major arms companies are both excited and worried... This bidding can be said to determine the fate of their companies in the next few years or even more than ten years!
It would be great if the bid was won, and stable orders would be obtained for the next few years or even more than ten years.
But if the bid fails...then we'll be in big trouble!
This bidding is so important that the five major arms companies naturally attach great importance to it. Even the Ministry of Industry is paying close attention...
Although the Ministry of Industry does not care about the specific business of the five major arms companies under its jurisdiction, and cannot interfere in the specific decisions of military procurement, it is the basic policy of the Ministry of Industry in the defense industry to make multi-party arrangements and maintain healthy competition.
For example, the military said that in the future, it will only purchase one type of standard rifle from one company, but what about the other four failed weapons companies?
Without orders for future military standard rifles, how will it survive in the future? How to maintain technology research and development capabilities?
These are issues that require the attention of the Ministry of Industry.
For this reason, the Ministry of Industry has also discussed with the Army whether we can implement a 37 or 28 policy. It should not be so extreme and give all orders to one company.
But the Army asked them in turn: Can you lower the price of breech-loading rifles?
You don’t need to pay three to five Chu Yuan, or even seven to eight Chu Yuan. As long as you can raise the price to fifteen Chu Yuan each, not to mention centralized orders, the order can be divided equally among the five companies.
The Army concentrates orders in order to support one manufacturer, then significantly reduce costs, and then purchase at a low price.
The purpose of the Army is clear and simple. It wants to purchase large quantities of breech-loading rifled rifles cheaply. If your defense industry has no way, then I will give you a way!
In the words of Army General Huang Jinkui, Minister of Staff, Military Affairs Commissar, Imperial Earl, and Chief of Staff: "I still don't believe it. The price of more than one million guns cannot be lowered!
The Army wants to directly lower the price of the rifle to 15 Chu Yuan, and it also requires it to become cheaper and cheaper in the future, eventually reaching a price of around 78 Chu Yuan... The bosses of the Ministry of Industry are also helpless.
At this price, based on the current industrial base capabilities of the empire and the costs of major weapons companies, not to mention R&D costs, even production costs are not enough...
We can’t let major arms companies produce weapons for the military at a loss...
Therefore, after discussing with the military to no avail, the bosses of the Ministry of Industry had no choice but to think of other ways. Not to mention that the bosses of the Ministry of Industry were not vegetarians either.
After seeing that the concentration of orders was unavoidable, the industry bosses discussed internally and wondered whether they should take advantage of the trend to carry out certain reforms in the five major arms companies.
Let the five major weapons companies have their own focus, instead of being like now. The five major weapons companies are involved in almost all defense industries. Even the Shaanxi-Gansu Weapons Company actually has a shipyard used to produce ocean-going warships...
The Army can't control the internal thoughts of the Ministry of Industry. Anyway, now they want a large number of breech-loaded rifled weapons, but they don't have that much money, and they don't want to spend that much money, so centralized procurement of orders is the general trend.
The defense industry is unwilling but must accept it!
After some preparations, on July 12, the 34th year of Chengshun, the Army took the lead in bidding for the 75mm breech-mounted mountain gun project that the Army urgently needed.
The Army still has some breech-loading rifles and 75mm field guns. It has mobilized some from other units and transported them to Myanmar, and also seconded some from the Guards to transport them to Myanmar to improve the plight of the local combat troops.
However, there is no way to transfer or secondment the 75mm mountain gun, but the demand of the frontline troops is extremely strong, so it must be tendered now and urgently produced and sent to Myanmar.
Therefore, this project is the first to be tendered!
The five major weapons companies and their respective artillery factories brought a total of thirteen 75mm mountain gun designs to participate in the bidding.
The most eye-catching ones are undoubtedly the 75mm mountain cannon project designed by the Tianjin Artillery Factory of Hebei Weapons Company and the 75mm mountain cannon project designed by the Hantian Artillery Factory of Huguang Weapon Company.
Prototypes of both types of artillery have been manufactured and sent to the Guards Artillery Testing Ground on the outskirts of Jinling City.
Bidding projects owned by the other three weapons companies actually brought sample guns, but the performance standards in various aspects were somewhat different from the Army's requirements.
The weight of the 75mm mountain gun project brought by the Guangdong and Guangxi Weapon Company seriously exceeded the standard, with the listed weight reaching 320 kilograms...
There is no way. The Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company is not very strong in small-caliber breech-loading rifled guns, and the breech-loading rifled mountain gun project has not been developed before. This is still a temporary rush design.
Of course, this does not mean that their technology is weak. In fact, Guangdong and Guangxi Weapons Company also has good technology in artillery. It is just that, like Jiangnan Weapon Company, it has focused its technical strength on the research and development of naval guns in recent years. .
Moreover, although the items they brought were overweight, their barrel life and effective range were very good. They claimed that the effective range reached four thousand meters...
At this glance, you can tell that it was temporarily modified from the Navy's rear-mounted artillery project!
The five major weapons companies put out 13 breech-mounted mountain guns for bidding, and they were going to compete at the Guards' suburban weapons testing ground. Not only the top army officials were concerned about this, but even the Emperor Luo Zhixue heard about it. They are very concerned about it and are even prepared to go there to watch the test launch in person.
