In the warm sun, the "Thunder", which had been reduced to a low speed, slowly approached the trestle, and the workers in charge of the speedboat test jumped onto the deck and tied it with a cable. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info Natsuki easily stepped out of the cabin, standing on the trestle and smiling at today's special passengers, Louise, who had just taken off her fur hat, had a little messy hair, and her red cheeks were as if a shy girl had met a handsome idol, and her watery eyes were full of pleasure.

Uncle Wizel, apparently accustomed to the intimacy of brother and sister, watched with gentle eyes as the prince and princess joked with each other on the pier. After a while, Prince Oldenburg also returned to the pier, and as soon as he approached Louise, his originally somewhat lost expression was immediately replaced by implicit admiration, and his gaze seemed to wander, but in fact he did not leave the focus.

"Nicholas!" When Prince Joachim called his name, the uncle stepped forward.

"It feels very good, the high-speed state is more stable than the thunderbolt, and the operation is also very comfortable." Natsuki said with a thumbs up.

"We are just implementing this project in strict accordance with your Royal Highness's design intent. Of course, the efforts of the young engineers under the leadership of Dr. Karls are particularly commendable. The uncle lightly passed the credit away.

Natsuki nodded with satisfaction and said, "Don't worry!" By the time the end of the year is applied, everyone will be rewarded. ”

"Your Highness's generosity and justice have energized everyone here." Uncle Wiesel is to express his gratitude to all the shipyard employees who have received additional awards, and for this gratitude, Xia Shu deserves it, after all, this is an era of capital supremacy, full of exploitation and oppression, and there are very few operators who can really share the benefits with employees, and in Xia Shu's view, to reverse the decline in the operation of the Friedrich Royal Shipyard, we must first change the rigid operation mode, create a positive and hard-working atmosphere with modern concepts, and give engineers, technicians and even ordinary workers the motivation to do their careers. Let the high-paid technical talents find a sense of belonging, and turn the entire shipyard into a large collective full of cohesion and combat effectiveness.

With a slight compliment, Natsuki quickly brought the conversation back to the experimental Thunder Duo, whose killer feature was still a single 450mm torpedo tube in the bow, and in addition to a strong maritime penetration capability, it also added self-defense weapons. As with the Stukka's piloting layout, the Thunder's driver is responsible for maneuvering the course and launching torpedo attacks, while the co-pilot with his back is responsible for operating the machine gun that rotates at an angle. There are two main types of firearms currently being tested: the Maxim water-cooled machine gun and the Gatling rotary machine gun. The former can provide stable and continuous firepower output, but the power of naval combat is insufficient, while the Gatling rotary tube machine gun eliminated by the army is 13 mm caliber, the projectile power is larger, and the maximum rate of fire also exceeds that of the Maxim machine gun, but the biggest disadvantage is that the stability is poor, and continuous shooting is prone to jamming.

"Both weapons have been tested for destructive power, and the results have their own advantages and disadvantages."

Uncle Wiesel introduced them as he led Natsuki and the others to the northwest corner of the shipyard. A few months ago, it was an open-air timber yard, but today it has been converted into a gun and ammunition testing site. Backed by a tall, thick concrete wall, test panels of various materials were riddled with bullet holes, and in front of them was a mill-like stone house with yellow bullet casings scattered under the eaves.

Approaching the stone house, the uncle unceremoniously called, "Tony! Tony? ”

It wasn't Tony who came out. A genius like Stark isn't Luca either. Tony-esque pile center, but a baby-faced "cauliflower head", he wears an apron and sleeves, and his smile is sincere and sunny, but this opening, the Italian of "Carlo Sua Il" makes Natsuki look dazed and questioned.

"He paid the highest tribute to His Royal Highnesses the Princes and Princesses." Uncle translated on his behalf.

The young man cooperated in a gesture of bowing and waving his hands, which was already the same old way in the Middle Ages, and only those small countries with a strong feudal atmosphere still retained.

There is no shortage of excellent gunsmiths in Germany, and the reason why the shipyard hired such an Italian has a lot to do with Uncle Wiesel's recommendation, and the story behind this is also quite romantic: the Italian boy returned from a study tour in the United States, met a beautiful German girl on a cruise ship, and the two fell in love at first sight, and the wedding was held under the auspices of the ship's chaplain. In order not to let his beloved girl endure the pain of homesickness, the young man still came to a strange country, won the approval of his father-in-law with his firm New Year and diligent attitude, and found a suitable job for himself with his help. Of course, this kid is not a gangster, he comes from the "Beretta" family, the most famous family in the Italian military industry, which dates back to the 16th century, when the gunpowder gun was almost just born. This cauliflower head not only learned the skills of firearms manufacturing since childhood, but also traveled to Britain and the United States and other countries to understand the development of firearms technology in various countries, and to learn useful experience and skills.

Real talents are worth a thousand gold, but if it is Mr. Nan Guo who is indiscriminate, the more he invests, the greater the loss. Natsuki was not in a hurry to make up his mind, he asked, "You should be able to speak English, right?" ”

"Of course!" As soon as Cauliflower Tou said "go to the gutter", Natsuki's ears suddenly became much more comfortable, and Christian and Louise were also fluent in English, so there was no longer any obstacle to conversation.

"What are the results of the weapons tests?" Natsuki gets straight to the point.

Cauliflower took them to the shooting range, and combined with the material full of bullet holes and craters, he said: "Against the enemy's torpedo boats and ordinary boats, the power of the Maxim machine gun is enough. I can try to make some improvements to the Maxim machine gun equipped by the army, using a conduit for live water circulation cooling, so that the volume and weight of the cooling sleeve can be reduced a lot, and the canvas cartridge belt will be deformed when it is soaked in seawater, which is not conducive to the supply of ammunition, and replacing it with a metal hinge can solve this problem. If you want to deal with slightly larger targets, especially those with thin armor, the Gatling Rotary Gun should be more effective, or we can try to use a larger caliber Rotary Tube Gun, which can even pose an effective threat to personnel and equipment on larger ships. ”

By this time, the French had already used metal hinged ammunition on their Hotchkiss heavy machine guns, which were much more expensive than canvas belts, but they did solve the problems caused by damp canvas, and the living water cooling cycle sounded like a good idea. Natsuki looked at him quietly, and said slowly: "The original intention of installing firing weapons on high-speed speedboats is to deal with the enemy who is also equipped with high-speed speedboats, but in terms of actual combat conditions, it may be used more to strafe the unprotected combat areas of enemy warships, such as rapid-fire guns and machine-gun positions on the side of battleships or cruisers, so as to weaken enemy firepower, cover the torpedo attacks of our own follow-up speedboats, and also reduce the pressure on our own evacuation." ”

Cauliflower thought for a moment, and raised his voice a little: "In this case, I strongly recommend using a 1-inch caliber Gatling six-barreled cannon." ”

"But the weight of this rotating tube gun is too large, which is likely to affect the balance and sprint ability of the speedboat." Natsuki raised her concerns.

Talking about these professional technical issues, Cauliflower Tou paced in place as if no one was around, sometimes rubbing his hands against each other, sometimes with his back behind him, and shook for five or six minutes under the curious eyes of the prince and princess and his father-in-law, and suddenly walked back to Natsuki quickly: "Your Highness knows about the Madsen machine gun developed by the Danes, right?" ”

The Madsen machine gun was the world's first mass-produced practical light machine gun, finalized in 1902, and its excellent performance won the favor of many European countries, as its first users, the Russian army had used it on the Russo-Japanese battlefield at this time.

"Uh-huh!" Natsuki replied simply.

"This machine gun is light and easy to use, but the biggest drawback is that the rate of fire is too slow. I once heard that a British engineer wanted to develop a small-caliber automatic cannon modeled on the principle of action of the Madsen machine gun, but he could not find a confident investor. Maybe ......"

Speaking of which, the cauliflower head was a little distracted, and Natsuki could see at a glance that the young man was in his mind, and he wanted to try this valuable technological innovation, but he was worried that his request for investment from the new owner was too reckless. In fact, in Natsuki's view, if the miniaturization of machine guns can be realized, it will not only have a positive significance for strengthening the defense of ships, but will also be a rather terrifying killing weapon in the land and air battlefields of World War I. Imagining his own soldiers raining down bullets on the densely charging enemy columns with the machine guns of armored vehicles and even tracked combat vehicles, and tearing apart the enemy's wooden planes with machine shells, Natsuki was a little cautious.

"I think it's a very good idea that people with real vision and courage should not miss." Natsuki didn't say it directly, but the cauliflower head obviously heard the meaning, and he suddenly became bright.

Uncle Wiesel, who was listening to their conversation, hurriedly said in German: "Your Highness, although Tony knows weapons very well, he is young after all, and he is still inexperienced in many aspects, so I suggest that you consider it carefully, and do not make rash decisions because of my relationship." ”

Xia Shu smiled calmly: "You think too much, every decision I make is based on objective evaluation." Rationally speaking, even if Tony's efforts ultimately fail, there are many useful lessons to be learned. It's like we design and build a ship, and who can guarantee that the ship we build will be very successful? ”

The uncle no longer admonished, in fact, it could be seen that although he had personal concerns, he still hoped that his son-in-law could become a person who could make a difference.

Natsuki then said to Tony, who was full of joy: "Of course, our first priority at the moment is to return to the speedboats, should we install these speedboats that will soon be put into production Makqin or the Rotary Tube Cannon?" ”

The cauliflower head quickly calmed down, he bit his lip and thought about it: "My personal suggestion is a six-barreled Gatling machine gun, if it is a 13mm caliber, the German Army has a lot of surplus stocks, and the ammunition is also readily available, I can modify them slightly to reduce their weight." ”

"Considering the bumpy state of the speedboats during the battle, I think they can be properly adjusted to ensure the stable and continuous output of firepower." Natsuki's words also affirmed the cauliflower head's suggestion to equip the Thunder with a rotary machine gun.

When the inventor of the Gatling gun - Richard. Jordan. By the time Gatling reached its end in 1903, the multi-barreled hand-cranked machine gun had been removed from the list of equipment by most of the great powers, and in its place were a variety of new automatic weapons, such as the tube-retreat Maxim machine gun (British, German, Russian), the gas-guided Browning machine gun (American), and the Harchiais machine gun (French, Japanese). Many of the Gatling guns were completely destroyed as scrap metal, while others were lost in dusty warehouses or excavated for display in museums and private collections. Natsuki and their decision seem to be going against the tide of history, but every weapon that has ever been popular always has its unexplored value, not to mention that the traverser has a definite understanding of the general trend of the retortor machine gun returning to the stage of war.

(End of chapter)