As a global empire that actually controls territory on all continents and even all regions except the Antarctic region, the Dachu Empire has extensive military garrisons around the world.
Its military bases range from the arctic wilderness of northern Siberia, to the equatorial regions, to Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America;
From deserts to tropical rainforests, from plateaus to coastal plains.
The Chu Empire has various military bases all over the world, and there are also various natural environments.
The same is true when fighting. There are Chu troops stationed and fighting in the deserts of North Africa, West Asia and other regions, and there are also Chu troops operating in the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia, Africa, and America;
There are Chu armies on the warm and spring-like Mediterranean coast, there are Chu armies stationed and operating in the cold and humid North Sea coastal areas such as the English Islands, and there are also Chu armies operating in the Nordic region.
The military garrison and operations in such a wide range of different areas also caused the military forces of the Chu Empire to face many different conditions, and they had to consider more when equipping various military equipment.
Because it is difficult to have a kind of military equipment that can meet the needs of such a wide range of different environments.
In the current situation where technology is still limited, in order to adapt to the military needs of various regions, the Dachu Empire has subdivided multiple models on the new generation of repeating rifles, namely the Type 25 rifle.
In response to the needs of humid and high-salt environments such as tropical rainforests and coastal areas, tropical boards with enhanced corrosion resistance are targeted.
The northern version of the rifle is used in severe cold areas such as high latitudes and plateaus. The northern version of the rifle has enhanced cold resistance, allowing the rifle to be used normally even at temperatures of tens of degrees below zero, because barrels made of ordinary steel materials are resistant to extreme temperatures. It easily becomes brittle under low temperature conditions, thus affecting the performance of the gun.
Therefore, special cold-proof steel alloy materials are needed to manufacture weapons and equipment. However, due to technical problems, such guns with stronger cold-proof performance are made of advanced and expensive new alloy materials, and the cost will be higher.
Then there are 25 rifles of different lengths depending on the terrain and arms. For example, under normal circumstances, the infantry uses 25 rifles of standard length. This 25 rifle is also the longest.
In addition, the Marine Corps and the Army are deployed in areas with complex terrain, such as places with a lot of deep forests, or are deployed along the coast, and are always ready to carry out landing operations and other tasks. Army rifles are generally equipped with the Navy version.
If non-infantry units such as cavalry, logistics, artillery, and engineers need to be equipped with rifles, they should be equipped with the cavalry version.
25 rifles are divided into three types in terms of length alone, and the three rifles of different lengths are divided into standard version, northern version, and tropical version according to different deployment requirements.
Of course...this so-called subdivision is only theoretical. When it comes to actual equipment and deployment, it is often not divided too finely. For example, infantry equipped with ordinary rifles will be directly transferred to the tropics when needed. Or perform tasks in cold zone areas. Although the anti-corrosion or cold-proof performance of the ordinary version of the rifle is worse, it does not mean that it cannot be used!
Generally, only troops stationed in special areas for a long time will be specially equipped with the environmentally optimized northern version or tropical version.
It is not just rifles that have similar situations. In fact, artillery is also the same. However, the cost of research and development and equipment use of artillery is higher. Therefore, except for special circumstances, the Chu army generally uses universal versions of weapons and equipment as much as possible. This also places higher demands on materials.
This is just talking about the impact of pure environment on weapon performance. In actual combat, according to different environments, different enemies and different weapons and equipment can play very different roles.
For example, the army's medium and large-caliber artillery, such as the 100mm cannon, 120mm howitzer, and 150mm howitzer, have performed well in many military exercises in the local area and can play a huge battlefield role. In the past many years, there have been basically no opportunities to perform overseas!
Not to mention overseas, even in Central Asia and Eastern Europe where transportation facilities are poorer, there is no chance of performance.
The reason is simple. These artillery are too heavy. It is no problem to rely on railways and improved roads to maneuver within the mainland. Even several tons can be pulled. The military is still trying to use steam engine tractors to replace horses to haul heavy artillery. However, current attempts have not been successful.
The local area has complete infrastructure, with railways for long-distance movement and roads for short-distance movement. At the same time, there is no shortage of draft horses as power. The Fengzhou horses in the Dachu Empire have been cultivated for many years and have been promoted and bred nationwide. , use, not to mention military use, just the number of Toyoshu horses used in agriculture and transportation among the people is a huge number.
In the local area, draft horses, mainly Toyoshu horses, numbering in the millions, can be recruited at any time as long as the military needs them.
However, many local conditions cannot be achieved in overseas areas, especially in colonies or even indigenous-controlled areas.
In overseas areas, including the colonies directly ruled by the Chu Empire, the infrastructure is basically not very good, let alone those economic colonies in the name of protectorates and other indigenous-controlled areas... Its transportation facilities are in the Chu army's opinion. It's no different than nothing. In most places, there isn't even a dirt road...
And drafting horses is also a troublesome thing, but not all places can have tens of millions of horses of various types like the Great Chu Empire... The horses in many places may only be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. The Chu army operating overseas It is also very difficult to recruit horses for use overseas.
Otherwise, the Chu army stationed in some overseas areas would not use donkeys and other animals as transportation capacity.
As for transporting horses from the mainland to overseas...the cost is too high. The Chu army usually doesn't do this kind of thing if it can. Only when there is no way to collect enough mules and horses locally will they find a way to transport them from other places. They are mobilized, but often from nearby overseas regions... to save costs as much as possible.
Many reasons have also led to the fact that it is difficult for the Chu army to use heavy artillery in field battles in overseas areas. They usually mobilize a batch of heavy artillery by sea or river, and then deploy it at a certain coastal or riverside port, easily immobile... Just like a heavy artillery battalion deployed in Tsaritsyn, if nothing unexpected happens, it is impossible for this heavy artillery battalion to have plans to fight on the front line.
Not to mention these heavy artillery, even the 75mm field artillery in the division artillery is useless in many situations.
For example, in this battle in Eastern Europe, I originally thought that Eastern Europe was a large plain with flat terrain. Even if the local transportation facilities were not very good, a 75mm field gun with a marching weight of 1.6 tons should be able to be used... But in reality, Especially after leaving Tsaritsyn, crossing the Don River Basin and continuing westward, we discovered that the 32-year-old 75mm field gun was completely useless in this kind of terrain.
Although the terrain of this place is flat, there are no roads at all, let alone hardened gravel roads. Many of the dirt roads opened by local indigenous people become muddy during the rainy season... The 1.6-ton 32-year-old 75mm field battle The gun was extremely difficult to maneuver and spent most of its time stuck in the mud!
Similar situations also occur widely in other regions. For example, in the Nanyang region, this thing is also very difficult to use. In Africa and even Europe, the response of this artillery among front-line troops is not good.
The local transportation facilities are too backward, and this kind of artillery is too heavy... The 32-year-old 75mm field gun is a typical long-barreled field gun with a barrel diameter of 24 times. The early model was Although the weight of the column is only 750 kilograms (combat weight), the later model reaches more than 800 kilograms. At first glance, it seems to weigh less than a ton.
But the weight of the queue, that is, the overall weight during the march, reached 1.6 tons.
The weight of artillery in the Chu army is divided into array weight and row weight. The simple definition of row weight is the weight required for an artillery to be transported to a planned place and set up for combat - you can pull it over and fire directly. !
Its components include gun barrel, gun mount, wheels, lead vehicle, ammunition, and ammunition cart
Chu army's artillery crew and small artillery often put the shells directly on the lead vehicle of the artillery, allowing the lead vehicle to act as an ammunition truck. Of course, in order to avoid being too heavy and affecting the maneuverability, the artillery shells carried by the artillery team are also rare.
Such as the 70mm infantry cannon, the 75mm mountain cannon...especially the 75mm mountain cannon. The weight of this thing is only a mere 350 kilograms. The reason why it can be so light is not because of how successful the artillery design is. How advanced the materials are... purely to maintain high mobility, the gun crew itself carries very few shells... the gun crew's firepower sustaining ability is relatively poor.
In actual combat, a special two-wheeled or four-wheeled ammunition truck is often followed behind to replenish artillery shells at any time... To a certain extent, the reason why the weight of these two artillery can be so light is that A matter of calculation, not technology.
As for the 32-year-old field artillery, this thing is heavier because it carries more shells...
For larger-caliber artillery, the artillery and ammunition are simply transported separately. One artillery and one ammunition truck. The two vehicles add up to a complete artillery group. Therefore, when calculating the weight of heavy artillery, the weight of the array is often compared. Exaggeration... Because there are special ammunition trucks, large-caliber shells, and propellants are heavier, the 150mm artillery is even equipped with two ammunition trucks.
This is why large-caliber heavy artillery requires more gun crew members and more draft horses.
In addition to the fact that the artillery itself is heavier, it is also related to the heavier ammunition.
But no matter what the statistical method is, the maneuverability of the 75mm field gun is not very good. Its later models use larger and better gun mounts, wheels, etc., resulting in an increase in weight. Just in combat The weight is more than 800 kilograms.
So even if it doesn't count much ammunition, just pulling such a thing weighing more than 800 kilograms for long-distance maneuvers is extremely troublesome.
On the battlefields of Eastern Europe, this problem reappeared, and became more serious. Most of the time, this kind of artillery was not fighting on the front line, but competing on the muddy roads in the rear... Often the battle in the front was over, and this All the artillery pieces were still stuck in the mud and couldn't get out.
The performance of the 75mm mountain gun is better. This thing is relatively light in weight. Although it carries a small number of shells, its maneuverability is barely guaranteed. It is just that the range is too close and the accuracy is not very good. Sometimes in actual combat Its performance is not much better than that of the 70mm infantry cannon.
How should I put it? On paper, the performance of the two seems to be somewhat different, but in actual combat, there is not much difference...
At the same time, the Army is actually not very satisfied with the performance of this thing. It has a limited range of only more than 3,000 meters. It is not easy to use for long-range fire suppression. The main reason is that the accuracy is too poor. It seems that the effective range is more than 3,000 meters, but it is actually so far. Not sure at all...
In actual combat, it is used as close as a distance of more than two thousand meters, and at such a short distance, it can basically be defined as a front-line support artillery.
However, when used as frontline support artillery, it is not as flexible as the 70mm infantry cannon... Although the effective range of the 70mm infantry cannon is closer, often firing between 1,500 meters and 2,000 meters, however It has little actual impact.
In the past two years, the Army has requested improvements to the Type 34 Mountain Cannon, but the improvement and research and development of the artillery will not be rushed for a while.
Generally speaking, since the Dachu Empire Army developed and equipped the first-generation breech-loading rifled artillery on a large scale in the early 1930s, it was very satisfied at first and thought it was very useful. However, after years of actual use, it also discovered that various kind of problem.
In response to these problems, the Da Chu Empire Army has tried to upgrade before, but it was very difficult to solve the many flaws in the original design.
More importantly, many artillery pieces are not difficult to use, but are simply not suitable for certain battlefield environments.
Or let’s talk about the 32-year-old 70mm field gun. In overseas wars, this thing is too heavy and the road environment is not good, so the actual combat effect is not very good. However, it is used in local areas and some overseas areas with relatively good transportation facilities. , the effect is very good.
With an effective range of more than 4,000 meters, it is very effective in suppressing long-range artillery fire on the enemy. It often blows up the enemy and the enemy does not even know where the Chu army fired the artillery.
Even today, this kind of artillery is still one of the main long-range suppression artillery in the Chu army, and its tactical status is very high.
There is also a 70mm mountain gun. This thing is so light and adapts well to most battlefields... but it cannot stand up to the muddy terrain in the rainy season in Eastern Europe.
Therefore, as the war situation in Eastern Europe continued to spread back to Jinling City, the top army officials in Jinling City also successively promoted the upgrading of artillery. For example, the performance of the 70mm infantry gun and the 75mm mountain gun was too close. The Army wants the 70mm mountain cannon to hit farther.
The same goes for the 75mm field gun. The Army feels that its effective range of more than 4,000 meters is a bit too close, and sometimes it is not enough. They want a divisional field gun that can shoot at an effective range of about 6,000 meters or more. gun.
After a slap on the head by several major military high-level generals, new requirements were put forward for each new type of artillery to form an obvious fire coverage ratio for the new artillery system.
The effective range of the 75mm field gun is more than 6,000 meters, the deployment weight is controlled within 850 kilograms, and it is responsible for long-range fire suppression between 4,000 meters and 6,000 meters.
The effective range of the 75mm mountain gun should be about 4,000 meters, covering a fire coverage between 2,000 meters and 4,000 meters, and shoulder the main fire suppression task in complex terrain, and the weight should be controlled within 300 kilograms. .
The effective range of the 70mm infantry gun must be increased to two thousand meters. It is not the previous two-thousand-meter effective range. In actual combat, in order to ensure accuracy, it can only shoot a 1,500-meter high-speed version. A truly effective range of two thousand meters. The combat weight is controlled within one hundred kilograms.
Weight, range, and combat targets are all clearly distinguished.
Then there is the 60mm mortar. After the Army tried to use this thing, it felt that the advantages and disadvantages were too obvious. I will definitely continue to use it, but it will also be used depending on the situation. At least it will not be used in places where supply is difficult. Used as ordinary support firepower, the accuracy is too poor, the rate of fire is fast, and the price/performance ratio is too poor.
But this thing is a direct firepower with a range of one thousand meters. It is very useful for attacking enemies hiding in fortifications, such as trenches and behind city walls.
The Army is also preparing to develop some machine guns. It wants to develop a new, lighter machine gun that can be used as infantry direct-aiming support firepower within a kilometer.
The above various weapons and equipment have their own advantages and disadvantages, and they need to be used with different weapons according to different battlefield environments.
The Army wants to develop the next generation of artillery equipment. It is said that the breech-loading rifled artillery currently used were products developed more than ten years ago. Now it is time to upgrade. You can't keep purchasing old products, right? .
Emperor Luo Zhixue also supports this. There is no need to produce new weapons and equipment at once, then purchase them comprehensively, and completely change them in a short period of time. This is unrealistic... The military has money, and other defense companies They won’t agree to it. Your military has purchased all new equipment in the past two years. What will the arsenal do in the third and fourth years?
Bankruptcy in place?
Therefore, in peacetime, when there is no major threat, the production of new weapons and equipment often takes a long time. On the one hand, it saves military expenses, and on the other hand, it maintains the long-term operation of the arsenal production line and maintains Military production capacity.
The upgrade and replacement of artillery is similar. Let’s not talk about other things, but the division field gun should be replaced... The 32-year-old 75mm field gun is the first breech-loading rifled gun, and its technology has lagged behind, and its accuracy The range and shooting range are seriously insufficient, and it is also very heavy.
Now the Army needs a new divisional field gun to replace this artillery.
In response, Hebei Arms Company quickly came up with a design plan for bidding.
They are professionals in the field of divisional field artillery. According to the Army's requirements, they designed a new artillery whose performance overall meets the Army's requirements.
The deployment weight of 850 kilograms and the effective range of 6 kilometers... These two parameters have been properly arranged for the army, and although the diameter of the gun barrel is very large, reaching 27 times, the barrel Using new materials and new processes, the barrel has a very long life.
The Army's top brass expressed satisfaction with the performance of this design!
The only thing that dissatisfied is the price... New artillery naturally has a new price. The army generals' hearts bleed when they look at the price of the new artillery.
Because this artillery uses a lot of new technologies, the research and development cost is also very high. Therefore, Hebei Arms Company quoted a price of 5,000 Chu Yuan per gun, while the purchase price of the recently improved model of the previous generation artillery was only more than 3,000 Chu Yuan. ... Now the new artillery costs more than 5,000, and the Army says it is too expensive.
The Hebei Arms Company stated that this price is only available for the first batch of purchases of more than 500 units. If the first batch of purchases is smaller, the price will have to rise!
The army was stunned when looking at the price, then turned around and asked Jiangnan Weapons Company, which has long supplied naval guns to the navy and has outstanding technology in the field of high-caliber gun barrels. They directly came up with a modified version of the navy's 75mm naval gun. A 75mm naval gun with a caliber of thirty times. It is said that this thing adopts almost all the artillery technologies currently available in the Chu Empire. The barrel materials are the top-notch, and the processing technology is also the top-notch. With such a high-tech collection, this thing can hit eight thousand meters with extremely high accuracy and great power. It can also fire semi-armor-piercing and armor-piercing bullets, and can hit any city wall fortifications with ease.
Moreover, the barrel life has reached an astonishing 550 rounds, which is definitely a record-breaking high-caliber barrel life, something that was unimaginable in the past... The Navy bought hundreds of them after hearing this. , do you want your army to be reorganized?
I'll make it an Army version for you, add a gun mount, wheels, etc., it's 15,000 for you, it's very cheap... We can also give you a friendly price for the Army when you change the barrel later.
The army general swallowed his saliva after hearing this, then turned around and left... Fifteen thousand, he couldn't afford it, and he couldn't afford the life of the barrel of more than 500 rounds!
Jiangnan Weapons Company did not give up and knew that the people in the Army said they wanted all kinds of good ones, but in fact they didn't have much money in their pockets, so they produced a scaled-down version of the new 75mm naval gun.
The performance is satisfactory, and the price is just 8,000... which means that this price is already the lowest, and there is no way to recover the cost any lower.
They use many new technologies on new naval guns, and the naval guns they make are extremely expensive. Even if they make a shrunken version, they are still very expensive. I really can’t lower the price anymore... Besides, here you go. If the Army lowers the price, the Navy will find out and come back to ask for a lower price.
Looking around at the Army, most of their generals really like the products of Jiangnan Weapons Company... The performance is really amazing, but it's a pity that they can't afford it or use it!
In the end, despite all kinds of sighs, the new design of Hebei Arms Company was chosen and the first batch of purchase and test orders were given.
Although the new artillery pieces from Hebei Weapon Company are also expensive, they are still within the range of the Army's affordability. We plan to get some for testing first. If the test is good, we will sign a long-term and large-volume contract with Hebei Weapon Company and strive to Lower the price some more.
After this new 75mm field gun entered production and was tested and put into service, the Army gave it a military code name, calling it the 42-year-old 75mm field gun.
The new 75mm field gun project is actually quite good. Although it is expensive, there are new things that can be used directly, and there are several options. It is just a matter of price.
However, the improvement plan for the 75mm mountain gun and the 70mm infantry gun is more troublesome. It is not easy to improve performance when the technology is limited and the Army has tight costs. This is not easy for various weapons companies. After searching through my own technical solution reserves, I found that there was no ready-made solution and I had to start over.
The Army is not in a hurry. Anyway, the performance of the two existing artillery is good, and it can continue to be purchased and put into service for the time being. It is not as urgent as the 75mm field gun, which can wait three to five years before putting the new gun into service.
The artillery was being upgraded, and the Army went to take a look at the hand-cranked machine guns that the Navy had begun to use in large quantities. After seeing it, they felt that this thing was still unreliable. Although it also obtained a small amount of test equipment, it was limited to testing.
The Army still wants a new type of lightweight machine gun. To this end, it has not hesitated to issue solicitation plans for new machine gun designs to units affiliated with the five major weapons companies and even private enterprises, and has offered high rewards.
(End of chapter)
