With the end of the bidding for standard rifles and three types of artillery, the Army has come to an end for the time being, but since the five major manufacturers have gathered together this summer, and also held an imperial weapons exhibition and test firing, several other weapons Naturally, large users would not lag behind others, and took advantage of this opportunity to conduct a series of bidding and procurement.
For example, the Navy conducted a tender for standard rifles for their Marine Corps. Unlike the Army, which favored the Type 18 rifle, the Navy finally chose the Type 19 rifle from Huguang Arms Company...
It's hard to tell whether the Navy chose another rifle specifically to differentiate it from the Army.
Of course, although the rifles are different, the bullets used are still the universal 11*60 bullets.
On the other hand, the armed tax police chose a more bizarre standard rifle solution. They chose a new gun from Songjiang Firearms Factory, a subsidiary of Jiangnan Arms Company, which is still in the research and development stage: Qiming Rifle!
This is a so-called repeating rifle that uses their exclusive in-tube magazine and can be loaded with five bullets at a time.
This has a lot to do with the fact that the armed tax police themselves are equipped with a large number of Qiming shotguns. The tax police are very fond of the Qiming shotguns from Songjiang Firearms Factory. This thing itself can load two rounds of bullets at one time. At this time, you can quickly shoot out two shotgun shells.
Now Songjiang Firearms Factory has improved this tube magazine structure and made it into a rifle, creating a repeating rifle with an inside tube magazine structure.
However, it is said that there are many problems. The army, navy and even the Guards have seen the prototype gun and said that there are many such problems and frequent malfunctions, so they dare not use it... and the price is also expensive.
But the armed tax police have higher requirements on the rate of fire of their guns. Well, most of the time, the armed tax police are not actually fighting, but performing some ordinary law enforcement tasks.
Therefore, they are willing to take this risk and are prepared to provide a certain amount of funds to support the continued improvement of Songjiang Firearms Factory.
In terms of breech-loading rifles, the current rifle development and equipment of the Dachu Empire can be said to have blossomed... The army and the Guards use the same rifle, but the navy and armed tax police use different ones.
This means that there are as many as three types of standard rifles!
Fortunately, the bullets used are all unified 11*60 center-fire flange bullets, so there won't be too many problems in logistical supply.
The same situation actually occurs with pistols, and it is even more serious, because the three armies of the Chu Empire, including the two patrol polices, allow soldiers or patrol police to buy their own pistols and take them to the battlefield or register them for law enforcement. of.
This also led to the soldiers or patrol officers of the Chu Empire often purchasing pistols based on their personal preferences. This also led to the military and police officers in the Chu Empire being equipped with a variety of pistols.
The military had to issue regulations. Metal pistol bullets only provide two kinds of flange bullets, nine mm and 11 mm. If the pistols purchased by the soldiers themselves use different calibers and bullet types...then they can only You can figure it out on your own, and don't expect the military to supply a mess of pistol ammunition.
There are dozens or hundreds of pistols on the market, with more than a dozen calibers ranging from small to large, and the types of bullets they use are also a mess. How can the military prepare all of them for you?
Anyway, there are only two types of standard pistol ammunition, whichever one you prefer.
Not only are the firearms different from each manufacturer, but also the artillery.
For the 75mm mountain cannon tendered by the Guards, they did not choose products from Huguang Arms Company like the Army did. Instead, they continued to choose the 75mm mountain cannon from Hebei Arms Company.
For the 120mm caliber artillery, they also chose products from Hebei Arms Company, and they focused on consistency!
From rifles to artillery, they are all products of Hebei Arms Company.
For the Marine Corps artillery project of the Navy, the products of Jiangnan Weapons Company were selected for the 120 mm artillery, just like the Army, but for the 75 mm artillery, the products of Guangdong and Guangxi Weapon Company were selected...corrosion resistance It's better, it's also lighter, and it performs very well.
Of course the price is also more expensive!
However, although the artillery models are different, the shells used are all of the same specifications, both with a caliber of 75 mm and a caliber of 120 mm, and the types of shells are also the same.
The artillery can be different, but the shells must be the same. This is the basic principle finalized by the Military Academy, otherwise the logistics will collapse!
There are obvious differences in the weapons and equipment used by various militaries, and the empire boss Luo Zhixue has no objection to this.
Anyway, no matter what you use, you will be defeated against the natives... There is no need to deliberately pursue the use of the same kind of weapons and equipment. Maintaining appropriate diversity will also better promote the research and development of weapons and equipment.
At the same time, the Ministry of Industry has also made certain reforms and supplements to the defense industry to avoid vicious competition while maintaining full competition.
The first thing to reform is the firearms industry. In this round of large-scale bidding, users of the four major long-barrel rifles of the Army, Guards, Navy, and armed tax police have basically chosen their respective next-generation standard rifles.
They are the Type 18 rifle of Hebei Arms Company, the Type 19 rifle of Huguang Arms Company, and the Qiming rifle of Jiangnan Arms Company.
Then the problem came. The Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Companies and the Shaanxi-Gansu Arms Company lost most of their rifle business users, leaving only the export market and a small private market.
In response to this situation, the Ministry of Industry personally presided over a certain integration of the firearms business of the five major manufacturers.
Of course, this kind of integration does not mean that the firearms business of the Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company and the Shaanxi-Gansu Arms Company will be directly split and transferred to the other three arms companies... Although the firearms business of the Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company failed to obtain the four major domestic military We have a large order for standard rifles, but our matchlocks and flintlock guns are booming in overseas markets.
Moreover, the pistol business and special firearms business are also good. The police pistols used by half of the provinces in the country are the nine-millimeter Pearl River revolvers specially developed by the Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company for police law enforcement use.
In the Dachu Empire, the patrol police departments in various places are actually the most willing to spend money to buy high-performance advanced guns. After all, they deal with criminals every day and have a very urgent need for high-performance pistols. Moreover, patrol police generally purchase their own pistols. Case.
Therefore, in terms of profitability, the firearms business of Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company is not much worse than that of Hebei Arms Company.
Therefore, the Ministry of Industry has integrated the firearms business of the five major companies and made certain adjustments to more factories and R&D institutions to allow the major weapons companies to focus on the firearms business, while ensuring their own survival and certain R&D capabilities.
The reason why the Ministry of Industry established five arms companies instead of just one arms company, or subdivided each weapon and then independently established a dedicated arms R&D and production company, is to maintain a certain degree of healthy competition and promote Development of the defense industry.
Without this healthy competition strategy, the current research and development of breech-loaded rifled weapons in the Dachu Empire would not be so smooth. This is the result of competition between various weapons companies.
Therefore, it is impossible for the Ministry of Industry to simply turn the five major arms companies into two or three, or even one.
This is not in line with the original intention of the Ministry of Industry.
Just after a series of domestic weapons bidding and procurement came to an end, a batch of breech-loading rifled weapons was also shipped to Myanmar and delivered to the Marine Corps and the Eighth Army Division.
In the past few months, although the Chu army had suffered a lot in Myanmar, it was only psychologically uncomfortable... In fact, the main military progress was not greatly affected.
The Eighth Division of the Chu Army smoothly moved south from Yunnan, and then captured Ava. Then it fought all the way to the plains of southern Myanmar and successfully joined forces with the Marine Corps.
Later, they divided their forces and captured several major cities in Myanmar.
So far, the main force of the Chu army has controlled all the main transportation arteries in Myanmar, mainly several rivers, and also controlled most of the major cities.
From this perspective, the Chu army has actually completed military control of Myanmar.
But even so, the local war continues.
After all, the Burmese people are very determined to resist, and they moved their capital away from Ava early and went directly to the mountains in the west... To be honest, the Chu army has not even figured out where the Burmese royal family and its senior officials have gone. Clearly, only the general direction can be determined.
Several times, troops were sent west into the mountains in an attempt to find the recalcitrant senior officials of the Burmese royal family, but they failed to find them!
On the one hand, I was unfamiliar with the place, and more importantly, the local terrain was too complex.
The opponent's main resistance leaders were not captured, and the local people's will to resist was relatively strong. Although the Chu army currently controls the major cities and transportation arteries, it is still powerless against the vast rural mountainous areas.
In addition, some of the actions of the official immigrants who followed the military into Myanmar also aroused fierce resistance from the local indigenous people.
The combination of the two made it difficult for the Chu army to move in many places in Myanmar.
Of course, these were all within the Chu army's expectations.
The Chu Empire's overseas colonization often ended with major wars, but it was still in a state of long-term small-scale wars and would last for several years.
The only difference is that the terrain in Myanmar is too complicated, and the tropical rainforest terrain is really disgusting!
This adds numerous difficulties.
This also makes the military more urgent to equip advanced breech-loading rifled weapons in order to gain more advantages in small-scale battles.
Among the breech-loaded rifled weapons and ammunition shipped this time, there was the 75mm mountain gun that the local military had been waiting for for a long time.
Compared with 120mm grenades and 75mm field guns, the local military stationed in Myanmar is looking forward to lightweight artillery like the 75mm mountain gun.
Only artillery pieces of several hundred kilograms can be dragged around for fighting. They don't want other artillery pieces that weigh more than a ton, even those weighing several hundred kilograms!
If possible, they would also like a lighter battalion-level mountain gun between 60 mm and 70 mm. Unfortunately, the battalion-level mountain gun project has just been established. No matter how strong the domestic weapons company's research and development capabilities are, it is estimated that It will take several months to conduct design experiments and then produce equipment, which will probably take until next year.
There were not many 75mm mountain guns that arrived in Myanmar for the first time, only twelve. As soon as they arrived, they were taken away by the Eighth Division.
These twelve mountain guns will form two mountain gun posts, and together with the 75mm mountain guns previously assigned to the Eighth Division, they will form the main support firepower of the Eighth Division.
Over the past few months, the 8th Division has been reinforced with six more 75mm field guns.
Therefore, there are currently a total of twelve 75mm field guns and twelve 75mm mountain guns.
Although this number is not large, only twenty-four in total, the actual firepower far exceeds the dozens of smoothbore cannons equipped in the past.
Coupled with the tens of thousands of Type 18 rifles that were successively reinforced, this also made the Eighth Division the first Class A division in the army to be equipped with breech-loaded rifled guns.
Not only the Eighth Division of the Army, but actually the local Marine Corps also received reinforcements of more than 3,000 Type 19 rifles, and also received four Guangzhou Type 3 75mm mountain guns from the Guangdong and Guangxi Weapons Company. It became the first regiment-level unit in the Marine Corps to complete the transformation of breech-loaded rifled guns.
These two armies were basically equipped with breech-loading rifled guns and participated in actual combat on a large scale. This also made the Burmese War the second large-scale use of breech-loading rifled guns in the Chu Empire after the Siam War. war.
As for the previous Siamese War, the Guards and the Army also used breech-loaded rifled guns. Although the senior leaders of the Kingdom of Siam surrendered too quickly... so that no large-scale battles broke out, subsequent clearing operations were still very frequent. of.
To a certain extent, the current situations in Siam and Myanmar are actually similar. The local situation has not changed because of the surrender of the senior officials of the Kingdom of Siam and the stubborn resistance of the senior officials of the Kingdom of Myanmar.
There is almost no frontal resistance, but small-scale resistance is very frequent.
The Chu State is already very familiar with this war mode, and has rich experience in dealing with it. It even has a special term to describe this war mode: public security war!
Of course, the security war in later modern military theories involves annexation and the use of military means to maintain rule in occupied areas.
The public security war in the Dachu Empire was simpler and more pure. It was not for rule, but purely for occupying more land and protecting immigrants.
As for ruling the natives, the Chu Empire had never been interested in ruling the natives.
To a certain extent, the security wars in later generations were actually political issues, while the security wars in the Chu Empire were purely military issues.
The latter is much simpler than the former.
Under this mode, a batch of new breech-loading rifled guns that arrived in Myanmar were quickly applied to the battlefield and exerted amazing effects.
Especially the Type 34 75mm mountain gun, its performance is even more outstanding!
The convenient mobility and powerful firepower make the Chu army more powerful in frequent small and medium-sized combats in the local area!
(End of chapter)
