Chapter 62: Structural Adjustment
As a result, Hu Weidong immediately stopped the production of these useless projects and let the arsenal focus on producing mortar shells, hand grenades and bullets, with bullet production being the top priority. The "new factory", which mainly produced chemical products, was also fully producing necessary military raw materials such as explosives and fulminate. What surprised everyone at the arsenal was that the production line required to be produced at the fastest speed was actually the Mauser pistol bullet. It turned out that on the one hand, after eliminating several thousand bandits in Dabie Mountains, the number of guns equipped by the Red Eighth Army Corps had exceeded 7,000, and the demand for bullets naturally increased further. On the other hand, it was because Wu Yunzhong had successfully modified the original 9mm caliber "assault rifle" produced in the border area to 7.63mm through repeated thinking and hundreds of experiments over dozens of days, so that it could use Mauser pistol bullets more commonly used in China. Without increasing production costs and labor hours, some details were also improved (such as changing the position of the magazine, which would not cause jamming due to holding the magazine...), making it improved in both accuracy and reliability. The most valuable thing was that the new gun type could use the magazine of the twenty-round box cannon (note 1), which greatly reduced the logistical pressure.
It's fortunate to say that Gongxian Arsenal is probably one of the best domestic arsenals in terms of bullet quality. As early as ten years ago, when the semi-automatic pistol hadn't appeared yet, the factory had already modified a submachine gun called "Hua Ji Guan" that used Mauser pistol bullets. This also shows the excellent quality of Mauser pistol bullets produced by Gongxian Arsenal. It's worth noting that although many domestic arsenals can produce Mauser pistol bullets, those used for fully automatic firearms or submachine guns (especially when the gun and ammunition are from different manufacturers, even if they have the same caliber) often jam easily. If Gongxian Arsenal didn't have this technical foundation, Hu Weidong's modification plan would be a castle in the air...
The production line for 7.92mm Mauser machine gun bullets, however, was temporarily shut down for technical renovation. Originally, to reduce costs and conserve copper and lead, Hu Weidong planned to follow the experience of China's military industry in history, replacing ordinary bullets with steel-cored bullets and replacing brass shells with copper-plated steel shells. Since Hu Weidong was very familiar with this technology, under his guidance, the Hengxian Ordnance Factory spent just over three months to complete the technical renovation of all machine gun bullet and non-mortar shell production lines, greatly reducing costs and increasing production.
In addition, almost all firearms, including the famous anti-Japanese war rifle Type Zhongzheng, were ordered to be suspended from production by Hu Weidong. These firearms had complex craftsmanship and were much more expensive than the new-style firearms produced later in history using stamping technology, but their performance was actually inferior (the cost of the best machine gun MG42 in World War II was only one-quarter that of the Maxim heavy machine gun, and it was lighter and more powerful). It would be better to wait for the development of affordable new-style firearms before resuming production.
Under the personal leadership of Hu Weidong, the product structure adjustment of Gongxian Arsenal achieved great success. The next year, the factory produced more than 200 million bullets, over 200,000 hand grenades, over 30,000 explosive tubes, over 20,000 mortar shells, over 10,000 75mm cannonballs, nearly 30,000 Type 56 semi-automatic rifles (named after the 24th year of the Republic of China), over 500,000 Type 24 submachine guns (modified to 7.63mm caliber "Border Region-made" submachine gun), over 1 million landmines, over 10,000 rifle grenade launchers, and over 100,000 rifle grenades...
The production of artillery shells decreased by nearly 80%, partly because the Red Eighth Army Corps temporarily did not have such a large demand, and wanted to conserve manpower and materials for the production of bullets. On the other hand, Hu Weidong made some improvements to the shells produced by the Hengxian Arsenal, so the production line naturally had to be adjusted, which took up more than half a year's time, and the output was greatly affected. The so-called improvement not only used copper-plated steel instead of brass as the material for the shell casing to reduce costs but also optimized the shape of the shell. In fact, it was just making the tail of the shell concave, which is called "bottom recess" in the terminology of internal ballistics. This shape can significantly reduce the turbulent resistance during the flight of the shell under the premise of basically not affecting the accuracy of the artillery, thereby increasing the range of the artillery. Especially when the enemy is unaware of the situation, they often use the original range for defense, and the Red Army may gain an unexpected advantage...
As a top ammunition expert in later generations, Hu Weidong was also familiar with the design of bottom-rifled, rocket-assisted and plum blossom-type shells with more obvious range extension effects, as well as their full-bore shell variants. He could have done it if he wanted to, but considering that those technologies would seriously affect accuracy and killing power (the more obvious the range extension effect, the greater the side effects), the Red Army, which was still struggling to make ends meet, couldn't afford them at all. Hu Weidong had no choice but to put them aside for the time being...
The transformation of Gongxian Ordnance Factory has won the heartfelt admiration of the original technical backbone, represented by Mao Yi, and the emergence or upgrading of various basic industries has made those experts and scholars who were dissatisfied with Hu Weidong's overbearing methods feel a surge of emotion. Their attitude towards Hu Weidong suddenly changed 180 degrees. The young university students and trainees even admired him to the point of worship. Hu Weidong took this opportunity to deliver a passionate speech, "I know that everyone has some criticisms about my previous methods, but without them, there wouldn't be today's Gongxian Industrial Zone. I believe that all of you have the ability to become world-class experts, but why does China still need to import even iron nails? Because our leader Chiang Kai-shek and the Jiangsu-Zhejiang financial clique behind him always instinctively rely on foreign countries, thinking 'it's better to buy than to make, and it's better to rent than to buy.' They never thought about building their own basic industries. As long as China is ruled by them, heavy industries such as steel, chemicals, automobiles, and aircraft manufacturing will never develop! But our Chairman Mao has always insisted on the development path of 'self-reliance', deeply understanding that only when industry, especially heavy industry, develops, can China stop being bullied by foreign countries. China can then regain its position among the world's nations. Even if we have to pawn our pants, we must develop China's large industries!"
The experts under the podium applauded spontaneously, and a returned overseas expert recalled what Soong Tzu-wen had said to him before: "Foreign goods are used up, why bother making our own?" He felt a surge of emotions in his heart, and for a moment, tears flowed freely.
Note 1: Most models of Mauser pistols are magazine-fed, but the most authentic twenty-shooter - the German M1932 type Mauser assault pistol is clip-fed. The Red Army initially captured about 7-8 thousand twenty-shooters from the Biedou team, which were mostly high-end goods. Poor Chiang Kai-shek only managed to buy 10,000 from Germany, but most of them ended up in the hands of the Red Army...
