At the test site, an improved Gatling machine gun was ready.

Different from the previous Gatling machine guns, the new Gatling machine gun already has ten barrels, and adopts a more advanced and labor-saving air conduction principle, and uses precision gear lock technology, so that the rate of fire has been greatly improved, from 180 rounds per minute in the early days of the Civil War in 1861, after six upgrades, by 1865, the rate of fire has been increased to 360 rounds per minute.

Of course, this rate of fire is not comparable to the Gatling machine guns that fired tens of thousands of rounds per minute in later generations, but it is important to know that the Gatling in later generations is assisted by additional motors, and for the current Gatling machine guns that rely on hand sticks, the rate of fire of 360 rounds per minute is already a very huge improvement.

Click-and-click......

The Gatling machine gun at the test site began to fire.

But seeing the ten barrels spinning rapidly, the tongue of fire spewed out, and a large number of bullets were shot out in the blink of an eye, shooting like a streamer towards the target area five hundred meters away.

In the target area is a wooden wall more than 500 meters long, which is spliced together with layers of uniform wooden planks, and the outermost part is pasted with target paper to test the shooting accuracy and penetration of firearms.

After a minute, the shooting stops, and its own personnel report the target.

"The maximum dispersion radius is 43 meters, penetrating 3 layers of planks!"

At a distance of 500 meters, the dispersion radius has reached 43 meters, indicating that this distance is basically unable to hit the enemy, but the penetration is acceptable, and if it is shot probably, it still has a deterrent effect on the enemy.

Li Weiguo watched the whole process, starting from a distance of 30 meters and continuing to 500 meters, with a total of 20 shots in between. Among them, the number of tests is the highest within 200 meters, basically the hit dispersion rate does not exceed 15 meters, and within 50 to 100 meters, the dispersion rate is within 5 meters, which has the most powerful lethality.

"Not bad! Not bad! ”

Li Weiguo was pleased with the result. Turning to Shen Baozhen next to him, he asked, "How many of this models can be made at present?" ”

Shen Baozhen replied: "This is the Gatling MK18 model, it is the latest model, it took us a month to complete the improvement, our craftsmen can make 10 doors in a month, if you want to mass produce in the arsenal, you need to set up a production line first, and after three months, you can make 30 doors per month." ”

Li Weiguo shook his head and said, "This king doesn't have so much time, three months. This king only gives you three months, no matter what method you use, this king will ask for 100 Gatling MK18 machine guns! ”

"It's a bit difficult!" Shen Baozhen hesitated for a moment, but still admitted: "But it should be completed, only three thousand craftsmen need to be requisitioned, and there is no problem in working overtime." However, what is the prince going to do about the ammunition problem? ”

Li Weiguo asked rhetorically: "What's the problem with the ammunition?" ”

"That's right!" Shen Baozhen explained: "The ammunition used in the Gatling machine gun is quite special, although it is also 9mm caliber, but we want to increase the power. The warhead and body have been lengthened. ”

Li Weiguo suddenly realized, no wonder it can penetrate three layers of wooden planks at a distance of 500 meters, it turns out that ordinary bullets have been lengthened and turned into special ammunition.

But he soon realized a problem. Gatling guns are too bullet-intensive, and they don't have a huge ammunition stockpile, so even if they get a hundred Gatling guns after three months, they will have to shoot out for a few minutes on the battlefield.

He immediately frowned and said, "How much of this ammunition have you prepared?" ”

Shen Baozhen replied: "It is currently used for testing. Only 50,000 rounds were produced! ”

"Not enough!" Li Weiguo suddenly said: "In three months, five million rounds of bullets need to be prepared!" Within a year, another 20 million rounds will be needed! ”

Shen Baozhen said with a bitter face: "Lord Wang." I'm afraid this is difficult to do, because we don't have a dedicated production line yet! If there is a production line, it can supply 5 million rounds a month. ”

"You have to figure out how to do this by yourself, either you change the ammunition back to standard bullets, or find a way to make five million rounds of bullets out, this is your business, this king only looks at the results."

It is a matter of Wang Tu's hegemony, Li Weiguo will not have anything to do with Shen Baozhen, and directly give a death order.

Shen Baozhen was dumbfounded, eager to slap himself.

Deserve! Makes you mouth more!

It's just that the wood is already in the boat, and now that Li Weiguo has spoken, Shen Baozhen can only bite the bullet and figure out a way by himself.

Fortunately, Li Weiguo gave Shen Baozhen the green light in terms of manpower, material and financial resources, so that Shen Baozhen could also mobilize the greatest strength to complete the tasks assigned by Li Weiguo.

Li Weiguo asked again: "How many Gatling MK18 machine guns are there now?" ”

Shen Baozhen replied: "Back to the prince, at present, there is only this one door for the MK18 type, but there are three doors for the MK17 model and two doors for the MK15 type, and the other Gatling models do not meet the actual combat requirements." ”

Li Weiguo nodded, called Zhuang Jiuxia, and asked him to convey the message, ordering the General Staff to immediately select 1,000 soldiers who were physically strong and had a high level of shooting skills to send them to the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, so that they could learn to use the Gatling machine gun at the moment, and they would not be unfamiliar with the battlefield in the future.

A big war was imminent, and Li Weiguo had to pay more attention to the building of the army.

The entire Wu army, no, should be called the Nanyang Army, because the Wu army only represents the Sanwu region, and now Li Weiguo has controlled ten provinces, controlling the entire area south of the Yangtze River, and is the minister of Nanyang, so the Wu army under his command has also been renamed the Nanyang Army by the outside world.

Today's Nanyang Army has reached one million, of which the original Wu army is 600,000, plus the Taiping Army that destroyed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and surrendered, and the Hunan Army that destroyed the Zeng State Domain, the total is one million.

However, not all of these million-strong troops are equipped with advanced weapons and equipment such as patriotic rifles and 59 infantry guns like Wu's army, and even if Li Weiguo has money, it is impossible to come up with all the weapons and equipment needed by 400,000 people in a short period of time, after all, the production capacity of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau can only meet the needs of 200,000 people every year. Besides, the original Taiping army and the Hunan army, their loyalty to Li Weiguo was definitely not as high as that of the Wu army, and it was impossible for any monarch to equip these newly surrendered armies with the strongest weapons.

Of course, it has been more than a year since the Taiping Army was destroyed, and after a year of "education", the Taiping Army's sense of belonging to Li Weiguo is still good, after all, Li Weiguo also wants to oppose the Qing Dynasty, which is the same as the Taiping Army's concept of overthrowing the Manchu Dynasty, so the acceptance is high, and today's 200,000 Taiping Army will basically not rebel easily. Li Weiguo has already begun to distribute them with new weapons and equipment one after another.

But for the Hunan army, their sense of belonging to Li Weiguo is much worse, because they have just surrendered, the army's heart is unstable, plus the Hunan army and the Taiping army are mortal enemies, the blood on the battlefield is too deep, these two armies are under Li Weiguo's account, contradictions are every day, and conflicts often occur, so it is even more impossible for Li Weiguo to distribute advanced weapons and equipment to the Hunan army.

So. Among Li Weiguo's Nanyang Army, only the original 600,000 Wu Army had the strongest combat effectiveness, and the 200,000 Taiping Army will soon be equipped with new weapons and equipment, and its combat effectiveness will also be greatly enhanced. The Hunan army is still the original Hunan army, and its combat effectiveness is there, but Li Weiguo does not dare to use it.

Therefore, Li Weiguo was actually able to mobilize only 800,000 troops.

Relying on these 800,000 troops, it was no problem to fight against the 800,000 troops of the Manchu court, but there were still 300,000 Anglo-French troops. This is a big problem, so if Li Weiguo wants to win in a short period of time, he must have powerful weapons and equipment to support it.

Li Weiguo has already seen the Gatling machine gun and is ready to complete a hundred in three months. There is no doubt that great results will be achieved on the battlefield.

Next, Li Weiguo inspected the production lines of patriotic rifles and 59-type infantry guns by the way, and checked the production capacity of these two main battle weapons and equipment, because the next major war broke out. Losses on the battlefield need to be replenished in a timely manner, otherwise the combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced and weakened. Whoever can stock up on more weapons and ammunition will have a better chance of winning.

At this time, the Patriotic rifle and the 59 infantry cannon have undergone four years of continuous improvement, after all, the Patriotic rifle technology of that year has been resold to Britain and France and other countries, although it is a castrated version to Britain and France, but with the industrial technology and talent reserves of Britain and France, it is believed that all the technology will soon be reversed. Now that four years have passed, Britain and France have already been equipped with patriotic rifles on a large scale, so if Li Weiguo wants to maintain his superiority over Britain and France and other powers in rifles, he must continue to improve.

The current Patriotic rifle has undergone two major changes, the bolt parts benefit from the progress of lathe technology, the processing is more precise, the damage rate has been greatly reduced, and it is completely comparable to the Mauser 98 rifle in history, but the former caliber is 7.92 mm, the latter caliber is still 9 mm, and the weight of the whole gun after loading is higher than that of the Mauser 98.

However, despite the fact that the modified Patriotic rifle was superior to the Patriotic rifle used by the British and French armies, when it came to the battlefield, both sides used this weapon, and the difference between them was no longer obvious. If Li Weiguo's army won the last Battle of Songhu because of its decisive superiority in equipment, then in the Battle of Songhu again, it will be impossible for the British and French forces, which are also equipped with patriotic rifles, to have a one-sided advantage.

It can be said that although the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau has further improved the Patriotic rifle, the effect on the battlefield will not be obvious, if you have to talk about the advantage, it is at most a decrease in production costs and maintenance costs.

There were no noticeable changes to the Patriotic rifle, but the Type 59 infantry gun was.

Previously, because the barrel life of the Type 59 infantry gun was only about 150 rounds, the bore pressure was insufficient, the caliber was only 70 mm, the barrel was short, and the power and range were limited. Now that these problems have been solved, the rear gun can also achieve a large caliber and a long barrel.

The Type 59 infantry gun was upgraded to Type 62, the caliber became 75 mm, and the diameter was extended to 15 times, making the barrel reach 1125 mm, but such a long barrel undoubtedly sacrificed a certain high and low fire range, but the advantage was that the power was enhanced, and the penetration was twice that of the Type 59 infantry gun, and it could easily penetrate a one-meter-thick wall within 500 meters.

The Type 62 infantry gun was used for direct fire support, unlike the Type 59 infantry gun, which could be aimed directly or curved.

The Type 62 infantry gun does not have the ability to shoot at a large elevation angle, but it highlights the ability to attack the fortifications with direct fire, and once it encounters the enemy's strong fortifications, it can be destroyed with one shot.

However, this does not mean that Li Weiguo has given up on curved firing to support artillery.

On the contrary, from the tremendous results achieved by the Type 59 infantry artillery in the curved firing support operation in the Battle of Songhu, Li Weiguo realized the role of howitzers in battlefield support.

In particular, in the future, ground warfare is likely to develop into trench warfare, so howitzer fire support capable of curling is crucial.

The curved firing capability of the Type 62 infantry gun was abolished, but Li Weiguo allowed the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau to develop a medium howitzer with a caliber of 125 mm and a heavy howitzer with a caliber of 155 mm.

Five years ago, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau was still worried about the airtightness of the 80-mm caliber artillery, but now it has been completely solved, not only successfully developed the 64-type 125-mm 10-diameter medium howitzer, but also recently successfully developed the 65-type 155-mm caliber 11-diameter heavy howitzer.

Li Weiguo, who learned of this, was particularly pleased, and he was about to equip his army with high, medium, and low caliber artillery, the caliber of the Type 62 gun was 75 mm, which was used as direct fire by the infantry of the front-line troops to destroy the enemy's fortifications head-on. The 64 125 mm howitzer will be used as an infantry fire suppression weapon at the division and regiment level to suppress local artillery fire.

The last Type 65 155mm heavy howitzer is used in large-scale battles at the corps level, and its powerful artillery fire will be used to strike at the enemy's carpet strike, shattering or disrupting the enemy's overall military deployment in one fell swoop, which is strategic firepower.

The combination of high, medium and low three gears is a condition that the artillery unit must have in the future, and the equipment that Li Weiguo is now giving him for the Nanyang Army will certainly cause a new round of artillery tactical revolution in the world.

Li Weiguo couldn't care about the possible impact, he had to do it, because the enemy he was facing was too strong, the Manchu court, the Huai army group, the British and French powers, these three forces together, Li Weiguo must pay attention to it, otherwise he will suffer a big loss.

With the three cutting-edge artillery pieces of the 62-type, 64-type and 65-type artillery, Li Weiguo was happy, and the commanders of the artillery regiments in various towns were also happy, but it was a hardship for the officers and soldiers of the logistics department and the officers and soldiers of the baggage battalion.

Why?

Don't you see how much a howitzer shell weighs in 125 mm caliber? 45 kg, fortunately the warhead and ammunition are integrated, which is a full 20 kg heavier than the 75-mm artillery shell.

Don't you see how much a howitzer shell weighs in 155 mm caliber? 50 kilograms, just the weight of the warhead, counting the propellant pack, you have to add 20 kilograms, if you have a maximum range, you have to install thirty or fifty pounds of propellant.

The weight of the pit daddy! A group of heavy soldiers with small arms and legs are tired miserably, and they don't do anything else all day, they are all training their physical strength, otherwise when they go to the battlefield, they will be tired and lie down when they carry two shells, and they will have a fart fight. (To be continued.) )