A month later, outside of Edinburgh, D&F Company No. 1 Ordnance Factory. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Named the Ordnance Factory, it was actually the original assembly shop, but with the addition of a factory building and a barrel production line bought from BAE Systems.

The groundbreaking ceremony was a grand event, with not only the Mayor of Edinburgh but also several Scottish MPs.

It is not surprising that it is highly valued by the authorities.

According to D&F's advertisement, three hundred jobs will be created when the production line is completed, and tens of millions of pounds in taxes will be paid every year.

In addition, Edinburgh will replace London as the UK's only ordnance production base.

The point is that after the barrel production line was sold to D&F, the Enfield Arsenal, which was controlled by BAE Systems, was no longer capable of production.

To this end, BAE Systems has also signed a liability subcontract with D&F to provide after-sales services for the SA80 series of firearms equipped by the British army, namely the L85 rifle and L86 light machine gun, in particular the barrel and other parts that need to be replaced frequently.

Buying a second-hand production line is also a last resort.

Prior to the partnership with BAE Systems, D&F had already acquired industrial equipment, including stamping presses and digital lathes, through various sources, and was able to produce its own parts other than barrels, except for precision forging machines for mass production of barrels.

It stands to reason that D&F only needs to take the license provided by BAE Systems to buy a few precision forging machines.

Actually, Serena did the same.

After obtaining a license from BAE Systems, she submitted a purchase request to the British authorities and contacted the company that produced the forging machine.

There are many companies that produce precision forging machines, but there are not many that can provide high-precision precision forging machines for the production of gun barrels.

Globally, there are no more than five.

There are three in Europe, but none in the UK.

Fortunately, after several negotiations, the Austrian company GFM agreed to sell five 2,000-ton six-head CNC precision forging machines.

Naturally, the performance has nothing to say, it is unique in the world.

The price is also not to be said, including after-sales service, the total amount is up to 300 million euros.

In addition, the contract will not come into effect until D&F has received the purchase approval from the British authorities, which is not a problem on the Austrian side.

The biggest problem is time.

Precision forging machine is a precision industrial equipment, the market demand is not large, generally on-demand production, that is, after the contract is signed, it will start.

This means that it will be six months before D&F gets its first precision forging machine at the earliest.

Wait half a year?

Clearly inappropriate.

The only way to get a precision forging machine as soon as possible is to buy second-hand.

In the UK, the only option is the precision forging machine at the Enfield Arsenal.

At its peak, the Enfield Arsenal had more than a dozen precision forging machines, making it one of the largest arsenals in the world at the time, producing firearms sold to dozens of countries.

Unfortunately, it was only yesterday's glory.

After completing the production of the SA80 series of firearms, the Enfield Arsenal did not receive any more state orders, and even the SA80 was only equipped with the British army.

Since then, the Enfield Arsenal has been maintained by contract manufacturing.

Due to poor management and the high cost of maintaining the production line, the Enfield Arsenal has been selling fixed assets for more than two decades.

If it weren't for the after-sales service for the SA80, Enfield Arsenal would have sold the last line long ago.

Fortunately, the Enfield Arsenal is controlled by BAE Systems, so there was no trouble buying the production line for the Enfield Arsenal.

After D&F paid, it took only fifteen days to relocate the barrel production line.

As for the factory building, it has been built a long time ago.

In order to get up and running as quickly as possible, D&F also hired hundreds of skilled workers at the Enfield Arsenal and provided them with settling-in allowances.

At the same time, the production department, which was supervised by Zhao Yu, manufactured forging molds.

In other words, D&F will be able to mass-produce barrels immediately after the production line is completed, thus gaining the most basic mass production capacity.

The first to be manufactured was a barrel for the DF762N.

Prior to this, D&F had delivered only 1,000 DF762Ns to Saudi Arabia, and the remaining 1,000 had not been delivered to date due to the lack of barrels.

Of course, as long as there is a barrel, then it is not a problem.

As for quality, that's another issue.

The DF762N, which was delivered before, used a barrel made by the top pull method, and the quality was very good, while the barrel produced by the forging process was definitely worse.

To this end, Wang Dong has asked Musharraf to explain the situation to the Saudi authorities and proposed a solution.

This means that the DF762NZ barrel is still manufactured using the top pull method to ensure quality, while the barrels of the DF762N and DF762NM are forged and compensated by D&F by reducing the nominal life of the barrel and providing spare barrels free of charge.

To put it simply, D&F provides two spare barrels for each rifle and machine gun free of charge.

The Saudi side has given a clear answer that D&F will accept this compensation solution as long as it delivers all the guns on time.

Since the other parts of another thousand guns have long been completed, all of them are in warehouses, and all that is missing is the barrel, so there is no big problem with the delivery on time.

According to Zhao Yu's estimates, if you work overtime, you can produce a thousand barrels within a month.

The spare barrel provided free of charge, that is a matter of the future, does not need to be delivered with the firearm, so even if it drags on for a few months, it is not a big deal.

After the groundbreaking ceremony began, Wang Dong came backstage.

In public, he was just Serena's personal bodyguard.

In addition, Wang Dong does not like to deal with politicians.

Outside the factory, Wang Dong lit a cigarette.

Although he founded D&F, he rarely came here.

Seeing the surrounding factories, Wang Dong was very emotional.

At this time last year, he still had nothing, and he didn't even know what to do in the future, let alone imagine that he would be in the current situation.

Strictly speaking, it was from this time that D&F was on the right track, and it could be called an "arsenal".

So, is it still necessary to acquire FN Corporation?

Let's not forget that Wang Dong previously advocated the acquisition of FN only to obtain technical equipment for mass production of firearms, not to deal with European arms companies.

Obtaining a license to purchase precision forging machines through BAE Systems and obtaining a production line from the Enfield Arsenal has achieved its goal.

Obviously, the acquisition of FN is no longer necessary.

Gao Jun has already raised this question, that is, the acquisition of FN is likely to be a loss-making transaction.

The point is that the acquisition of FN is not only FN's production line, technology patents and licenses, but also all debts.

And, of course, thousands of employees of the FN company.

All of this could be a loss of billions of dollars.

Even if Wang Dong takes money very lightly, he can't make a loss-making business, not to mention that this is related to the future of D&F.