MG42, a well-known general-purpose machine gun. Although it has not been officially involved in the war for a long time in history, its terrifying prestige has terrified countless Allied forces.

MG42 looks like a shoddy product, like a patchwork of pieces of iron and a pipe. However, this is a low-cost, low-man, and exceptionally good weapon.

The advent of the MG42 changed the turning and milling process of the original machine gun production. It is manufactured directly using the metal stamping process. Not only does it save material and man-hours, but it also makes the gun body more compact and robust.

The most impressive thing about the MG42 is its gunfire. In general, when the rate of fire of a machine gun exceeds 1,000 rounds per minute, the human ear cannot distinguish a single shot. The MG42 has a minimum rate of fire of up to 1200 rounds, and when he fires, it makes a 'snort~~~' sound similar to that of a high-speed chainsaw. It sounded like tearing cloth.

The rate of fire of the MG42 is super high, and it is generally a dozen bullets to go out with a single pull of the trigger. If anyone is unfortunate enough to be locked, they will be shot several times in an instant, and there is almost no hope of survival.

The MG42, which is well adapted to almost any environment, is an air-cooled machine gun. When the barrel is overheated, as long as you tilt the barrel and pull the lever, the barrel will automatically disengage and jump out, and there is no need to touch the hot barrel with your hands. It only takes a few seconds to replace a barrel. This greatly extends the machine gun's machine gun fire output on the battlefield. Compared with the old-fashioned water-cooled machine guns based on Makqin, the performance is completely complete.

Such an excellent machine gun, of course, Zhang Cheng will not let it go. Using this classic machine gun as a vehicle-mounted weapon and replacing the heavy water-cooled Maxim is the best choice for the current Ming army. Lightweight and flexible, the MG42 weighs more than a dozen kilograms and can be used for different tasks by mounting or removing the stand, making it a veritable universal machine gun.

Zhang Cheng's only change to this machine gun was to modify the caliber to 7.62 mm to save pressure on logistics and maintenance.

The arsenal that accepted Zhang Cheng's drawings and materials was very strange, why did Zhang Cheng insist on naming this excellent new machine gun MG42? But since Zhang Cheng decided to do so, they also agreed. There is no doubt about it. MG42 successfully won the order for machine guns from the Ming army. From then on, all machine guns of the Ming army, except for large-caliber heavy machine guns, will be replaced with this classic MG42. They will also show their strength on the battlefields of the future.

A few days later, Zhang Cheng, who hurriedly returned to the imperial capital, devoted his energy to the preparation team of the armored force led by Lieutenant General Shi Qin. The armored forces that have performed well in South Africa are about to be expanded.

Napoleon was an extremely good military strategist. Although he is very arrogant, no one can deny his success. And Napoleon's economics of war can be summed up in only three ways: "The three conditions of war are money, and the second is money." The third is money!"

With the continuous improvement of the level of science and technology, the cost of the army is also rising rapidly. The navy ranges from wooden sailing ships to all-metal giant warships. The army ranges from bows, arrows, spears, armor to aircraft, tanks, artillery. Everything here requires a huge amount of wealth in exchange.

The Ming Dynasty was very wealthy, but most of the wealth was in the hands of a small number of consortium families. Zhang Cheng's victory in South Africa did not lead to a giant gold mine with an annual output of nearly 2,000 tons of gold at its peak. Rather, it opened the door for Lord Shousuke to issue a large amount of money through financial leverage under the premise of the gold standard. Otherwise, what good could gold be used for?

Shousuke-sama has the right to issue currency, and with the guarantee of a huge gold mine, he can issue currency frantically through financial leverage to solve the most difficult problem of lack of funds. They all eat this bowl of rice, which of course can be seen by the family consortium. Even if they can't see it, the staff around them can see it. The Saga consortium, which had been hit hard by the Great Depression, had lost their best weapon against Shousuke-sama, and of course they had to abandon their allies and beg for forgiveness.

It's the nature of business alliances. Businessmen are profit-seeking. If you can't do it, who would be stupid to continue to have a hard top with Shousuke-sama? We're all struggling with the Great Depression.

Shousuke-sama is in politics. The altar has been weathered for a long time, what kind of scene has not been seen? After the business alliance took the initiative to show goodwill, Lord Shousuke pulled out a few of the unlucky ghosts whose strength was greatly damaged, and the nose and face were swollen as slaughtered chickens and showed them to the monkeys, and the matter passed. Politics. The greatest meaning of governance lies in compromise.

Lord Shousuke granted the army a large amount of military spending, a large part of which was used to build more armored units. As a major weapons supplier and tactical advocate, Zhang Cheng naturally occupies an important position and has an important right to speak.

Just wait until Zhang Cheng rushes back to the imperial capital. Only then did it become clear that the army had other ideas for expanding the armored forces

"The marshal asked me to talk to you, do you understand what it means?" Lieutenant General Shi Qin placed the teacup on the table in front of Zhang Cheng. He asked softly with a smile in his eyes.

"It means that the army has decided, and the marshal asked the general to inform me." Zhang Cheng curled the corners of his mouth and smiled in response.

"It's easy to talk to smart people." Lieutenant General Shi Qin smiled and sat down opposite Zhang Cheng and said softly, "You should also see that in the Battle of South Africa, an armored regiment equipped with auxiliary troops easily defeated an enemy several times larger than itself with the support of the army aviation. This incident caused quite a stir in the army. ”

"Does this have anything to do with downsizing?" Although he knew that the matter had been decided, Zhang Cheng was still dissatisfied. After all, it was Shi Qinzhong who chose to make a big compilation, and now he has overturned it again. And Zhang Cheng was not even given the opportunity to participate in the debate. How could he not be dissatisfied at all?

"Man." Lieutenant General Shi Qin smiled bitterly and shook his head: "You also know what the situation of our army is. Most of the generals are old men who are about to retire, and they cling to tradition and attach great importance to personnel. Who doesn't have a few suitable young people in the army waiting to be in the army? Everyone can see the strength of the armored forces, and now they naturally want to squeeze into the armored forces. ”

"Oh." Zhang Cheng showed a sudden look on his face, I see!

Even if the large number of armored forces is expanded, the number will not be too much. After all, the cost of forming and training an armored unit is simply too great. Not a lot of numbers means not a lot of locations. So many young handsome people from military families are waiting for an opportunity. What if there is no location? Split the big setup!

Any existing establishment that is too large and unsuitable for flexibility on the battlefield is an excuse. The real reason is that the old generals need to expand the armored forces and expand a large number of positions to provide opportunities for young people to take the position!

Even Marshal Yang Zhuo could only compromise under such great pressure. After all, the overall strength of the armored forces has not been weakened. The strength of the conservative forces that have lasted for a hundred years is far from being eliminated in a short period of time.

"If only you could understand." Lieutenant General Shi Qin nodded, and looked at Zhang Cheng with complicated eyes, "Marshal Yang Zhuo feels very embarrassed, so let me tell you about this matter." ”

"It's okay." Zhang Cheng raised his eyebrows, smiled and took out a cigarette, "I can understand." ”

"Hmm." Lieutenant General Shi Qin took the cigarette handed over by Zhang Cheng, leaned forward and lit the cigarette with Zhang Cheng's lighter: "The army has decided to completely split the First Tank Division according to your previous proposal. The first batch was split into four parts. Reorganized into the 1st to 4th Armored Divisions of the Army. You, Peng Kuo, Lu Zhiyuan, and Jun Mo are the commanders respectively. You and Peng Kuo are officially in office, and Lu Zhiyuan and Jun Mo are acting with the rank of colonel. ”

"I see." Zhang Cheng nodded: "I will come up with a new preparation plan and training plan as soon as possible." ”

A few days later, Zhang Cheng came up with a brand new armor division establishment table. The core of the armored regiment was reduced to one, but the number of tanks in a single armored regiment was greatly increased. According to Zhang Cheng's plan, each armored regiment will be composed of three armored battalions. Each battalion has 4 armoured companies, for a total of 12 companies. The minimum number of tanks per company is 16.

If you add the tank units directly under the command of divisions, regiments, and battalions, as well as spare tanks, each armored division should have at least more than 210 vehicles. And if we add to this the planned battalion of heavy tanks. That one division would have about 250 tanks. These tanks include command tanks, main battle tanks, and heavy tanks. Zhang Cheng has no plans to develop tank destroyers and various types of tanks, and reducing the number of models as much as possible will greatly reduce the pressure on logistics support.

In addition to the tank regiment as the core, the armored division also had two mechanized infantry regiments. Each regiment consists of three battalions, each with a strength of about 950 men. Armed with 300 submachine guns, 120 new general-purpose machine guns, 12 mortars, 6 75-mm anti-tank guns. 6 75-mm infantry guns. There are about 100 armored vehicles of various types and about 100 trucks. Trucks are mainly used to transport supplies. The total strength of the regiment exceeded 3,300 people.

The armored division will also have a mechanized artillery regiment. It has two light artillery battalions, one battalion of about 550 people, armed with 105 mm howitzers and 12 guns. A heavy artillery battalion of about 650 people, armed with 155-mm self-propelled guns, 12 units. In addition, the artillery regiment will have an anti-aircraft battalion armed with 88-mm anti-aircraft guns under development and a prototype of the Bofors 40-mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun. The artillery regiment will also be equipped with a special observation company equipped with advanced observation and sighting equipment.

In addition, the armored division will also be prepared with a power search, logistics. Engineer, communications, sanitary, transport, anti-tank artillery and other battalion units. The division headquarters also had a guard company and a large field hospital. The total strength of the entire armored division will be more than sixteen thousand people.

This new establishment plan ensured the combat effectiveness of the armored division as much as possible, which was already the limit of what Zhang Cheng could arrange.

Although the strength of individual division-level units has decreased, with the increase in the number of units, the overall strength of the armored forces has increased significantly! (To be continued......)

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