Chapter 67: The Difficult New Equipment

  Under a small American-made desk lamp, Su Hongsheng leaned on the table with sparkling eyes, excited and eager to pour onto the thick drawing paper.

  Yang Qiu looked at him, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. The military equipment problem had become a major concern, so he came over in the middle of the night to ask about the progress of the Hanyang factory. However, as soon as he arrived, he became engrossed in the several military equipment diagrams Yang Qiu had taken out and didn't even let him utter half a sentence.

  These several military drawings were carefully selected by him, a total of three new equipment, namely the Mosin-Nagant M1944 rifle, the classic German-made M24 hand grenade and the 80mm mortar data.

  Although military enthusiasts like the Mauser 98K, M1 Garand or Lee-Enfield, he has a special fondness for the "stupid and rough" Mosin Nagant. Compared to the old version of the Mosin Nagant, the M1944 is shorter and lighter, while retaining its traditional reliability, simplicity and ease of production, making it suitable for large-scale production and easy to use for soldiers with low cultural levels. This last point is common to almost all Russian weapons, which is related to Russia's national conditions. Currently, China is similar to Russia in this regard, with a low level of cultural literacy among soldiers, so it is even more necessary to ensure that weapons are simple, reliable and easy to use.

  Of course, there is another important reason why they chose it. That is, the Russian rimmed cartridge has a smaller recoil force than the current German 7.92mm bullet, making it more suitable for oriental people to use. Moreover, the rimmed conical cartridge case is suitable for countries with poor basic industry, because the rimmed cartridge case has relatively loose requirements for chamber size, allowing for larger production tolerances. This point is almost a gospel for Hanyang's industrial capabilities. As for the M1 and Lee-Enfield, they didn't even think about it. The reason is simple: the faster the firing rate, the greater the consumption. He doesn't even want many heavy machine guns, just because he doesn't have the money or strong logistics to support them.

  Of course, the M1944 also has its weaknesses, the most criticized being the stock and charging handle. The previous stock had a straight line at the bottom and an arc on top, which was very unfavorable for bayonet fighting. The charging handle was too short, with a round head that was not good to grip, especially in winter when wearing gloves, the probability of slipping hands was high, which would directly affect the soldier's combat effectiveness. Therefore, some improvements were made: the stock was changed to resemble the Type 38 Arisaka rifle, the front sight was changed to an open sight, making it easier for new recruits to aim and shoot. The rear sight and aperture also underwent corresponding improvements. The Mosin-Nagant-style folding quadrangular long bayonet was abandoned in favor of a detachable one. The charging handle was lengthened and changed to fold down when closed instead of horizontally, which could prevent scratching during marches. The head was replaced with an oval shape.

  As for the famous German M24 hand grenade, not a single change was made to it. In fact, he did not originally want to adopt a wooden-handled grenade because although the wooden handle seemed simple in design, its production was actually more complicated than that of a fully cast egg-shaped grenade. However, after daytime battles, it was discovered that the explosives currently produced by the arsenal were still problematic. The grenades, despite being small and portable, did not have enough killing power with the current explosives, and they were more suitable for trench warfare. Therefore, the M24, the most classic German hand grenade of World War II, was chosen. Its explosive charge is twice that of a regular grenade, and its long handle makes it easy to use for those without training.

  Mortars are nothing to say much about, the only regret is that optical sights are still very expensive at this moment, and domestic ones can basically not be produced, so they can only use the oldest mechanical sighting devices.

  As soon as Su Hongsheng finally withdrew his gaze from the blueprint, he immediately asked: "Old Su, how is it?"

  How could Su Hongsheng not know his mood, Wuchang had already refused to provide support, and it was said by Su Xiaohu that he didn't expect him to choose to manufacture new weapons instead of continuing to make the Hanyang Arsenal rifle in this situation, which is quite bold. He hastily said: "Sir, forgive me for speaking directly, what the army needs most at this moment is probably the Hanyang Arsenal rifle, not this new rifle?"

  Yang Qiu knew he had misunderstood, and smiled: "Old Su, you guessed wrong. For now, our army only needs the Han Yang rifle. This kind of gun will be manufactured in batches after things have settled down. I brought it out now just to see if we can make a sample first for experimentation."

  As soon as the experiment was over, Su Hongsheng let out a sigh of relief. He was now afraid that Yang Qiu would point at his nose and ask him to make dozens of new guns in one day. With a smile, he said: "With such detailed drawings, I think it should take about two months to produce the sample gun."

  The new gun is not in a hurry, and after taking out the sample gun, he plans to send it to Germany to find the Mauser company for further improvement. He turned his head again and picked up two other drawings, asking: "What about these two? Can they be made?"

  "This hand...hand grenade line, the pre-etched shell and fuse are not a problem, mainly...the wooden handle is difficult to process, which may delay the speed." Su Hongsheng was indeed an old qualified firearms expert, and quickly spotted the biggest problem with the hand grenade. As for the second type of Yang Qiu's so-called "cannon" but actually mortar, it made him hesitate, thinking for a moment before speaking straightforwardly: "Sir, I'll also be frank with you. Currently, we can produce at most 50 Hanyang rifles per day, 20,000 rounds of bullet, and your pointed bullet has just started to be copied, with a maximum of 3,000 per day, and artillery shells are 800 rounds per day."

  Su Hongsheng continued: "If we can solve the woodworking problem, this hand grenade is simple, and it's no problem to produce two or three hundred every day. But cannons are probably too difficult! You know that although the steel mill has been temporarily militarized, those steels cannot be used for military purposes. The steel used for making shells and inner liners can be used, but it's impossible to make cannon barrels. There is no seamless steel pipe technology in China, so we have to use the oldest casting method to make cannon barrels, and then grind them out bit by bit! In addition, the workers at the cannon factory have all returned, but reopening the furnace at the steel medicine factory requires a large sum of money, and good materials are even scarcer. Even if we use the casting method, it will take some time, and we haven't made this kind of cannon or shell before... probably not in two months..."

  Yang Qiu rubbed his temples, he already knew some of the techniques used in Hanyang, basically they were all made by handcrafting and grinding. The high-intensity seamless cannon barrels for howitzers, even if they were cast by hand and then ground, it would take at least a month to make just a few, even with ample equipment and materials. It seemed that another method had to be thought of. So after some thought he said: "Don't worry about the money, I'll have Zhang Wenjing allocate 10 million yuan for you to use as working capital first, it won't let everyone go hungry, as for this cannon... you try making it first, I'll think of a way for the materials and other things."

  After finishing speaking, he temporarily put down these troubles and stared at Su Hongsheng. Suddenly, he smiled and said: "By the way, Su Lao, have you ever replicated that light machine gun I showed you last time?"

  "Sir, how did you know?"

  Su Hongsheng's face turned red as he was asked, since seeing the blueprint of ZB-26 last time, he had been itching to secretly imitate it. Having made light machine guns before, in over a month, he managed to make five sets of spare parts. What puzzled him was that not a single part was missing, and the dimensions were accurate after multiple manual checks, but when assembled, they couldn't be used. After returning the blueprint, he didn't know where the mistake was, so recently he had been restless, even having no time to care about the changes in Sanzhen.

  Yang Qiu had expected him to imitate, and smiled as he pulled out another blueprint from his pocket: "Don't blame me, Su Lao, people's hearts are hard to measure, I also have to be careful."

  Su Hongsheng took the drawings and finally understood why he said that. It turned out that some data in the previous drawings had been intentionally altered, and although the dimensions were only slightly different, it made a huge difference for a machine gun. No wonder he couldn't find any errors no matter how hard he checked. He was somewhat dissatisfied with the intentional alteration of the drawings, but soon returned to normal because Yang Qiu was right - if he had really managed to replicate this light machine gun before the change in weather, it would have been impossible to escape Zhang Biao's surveillance, and there wouldn't be a Right Route Army today.

  "Take it away...... I hope you can make it out as soon as possible." Yang Qiu smiled and said, "The production of Hanyang cannot be stopped. 50 shells must be guaranteed every day! The bullets also need to increase the intensity, especially the pointed bullets, which not only need to speed up but also ensure quality. In the past few days, we have tried using your pointed bullets and found that many of them do not fit the barrel and need to be screened before they can be used as machine gun bullets. The cannonballs cannot be stopped either, we are in urgent need. As for the wooden craftsmanship of the hand grenades, you can rest assured. I will let someone gather all the carpenters from Hanyang and Hankou tomorrow morning for your disposal. Anyway, if you need anything, just look for Zhang Wenjing. If it's really not possible, I can even recruit a few thousand people from the two towns to help!"

  He suddenly got 1 million, solved the key problem of the new machine gun, and also got the drawings of three new-style weapons. Su Hongsheng was so happy that he nodded his head. Yang Qiu took out the drawings of the small wheel car frame commonly used in later toy models of Maxim machine guns and handed them to him: "This is my design for a small wheeled tractor-type heavy machine gun mount, within ten days all my heavy machine guns will be equipped with this, no problem?"

  It's just a small trailer attached to the gun rack, it will definitely be fine in ten days. Su Hongsheng said and immediately hugged the drawings and left, preparing to work overtime to produce hand grenades first, and then go solve the machine guns and new rifles. As for the mortar...it seems that he is going to send telegrams to those old friends who were studying together in Germany back then, but are now scattered all over the country.

  After he left, Yang Qiu secretly sighed and took out the data machine, quietly smiling bitterly. What he hoped for most now was to have a scanner, because right now it's just light weapons, who knows when one day they'll need an aircraft carrier... He will eventually exhaust himself to death. Moreover, the information inside seems like 80-90% of it is useless, because currently the domestic technical level and manufacturing capabilities are really heartbreaking, even a mortar tube needs to be cast! If passed down to future generations, it might become the biggest joke.

  "Commander, what's this......" Zhang Wenjing walked in and saw Yang Qiu holding a silver metal box with a worried expression, thinking that something big had happened. The latter didn't expect to be seen by someone with his biggest secret in life, so he was startled and quickly changed the subject, asking: "What's the matter?"

  Zhang Wenjing didn't care about the box at all and hastily said: "The German ambassador has arrived, seemingly in a hurry, saying he must see you tonight."

  "It's finally here." Yang Qi let out a long breath, stuffed the data machine back into his chest pocket and grabbed the package he had already prepared.

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