In addition to the creation of combat tanks and assault guns, the German Army accelerated the construction of train guns.

In this plane, despite Germany's breakthrough leap in the air force, large zeppelins and bombers were able to provide effective fire support to the front line; However, from the point of view of cost performance, the air force of the First World War was very expensive. The cost of a large Zeppelin bombing airship is close to 100,000 pounds, and its lighter than air characteristics also determine that it will sway from side to side in the air, making it difficult to ensure the accuracy of bombing; Although small bombers have a lot of improvement over airships in terms of cost and bomb delivery accuracy, their extremely low bomb load and range also greatly limit their play. Therefore, the cheapest and most effective is still the direct support of front-line artillery.

In the field of artillery, Germany has the longest history and the most powerful weapons in almost all of Europe.

With the victory of the Prussian-Danish War, the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War, the reputation of the Krupp cannon with excellent performance quickly went to the world circle, and in Germany, the Krupp artillery became the first choice of the army. Whether it is the navy or the army, whether it is a cannon or a grenade, whether it is thick or slender, almost all of its artillery guns are spray-painted with the slogan Krupp lettering. The German military's massive orders made Krupp from the original small workshop of 7 people to a world-class arms giant; With the exception of Austro-Hungarian Skoda and British Vickers, no other company has been able to match the technology or scale. However, with the change of times, the German Army was worried about heavy artillery firepower, not because Krupp could not make qualified products, but because of the front-line transportation of large-caliber artillery.

Due to the advance of the times. As a result, all countries in the world have paid more and more attention to the outstanding long-range strike capability of large-caliber artillery in land warfare. However, as the caliber of the artillery became larger and the diameter of the barrel became longer and longer. Its corresponding transport capacity is far from keeping pace with the development of artillery. Especially in the battlefield where the terrain is complex, muddy and rugged. The transport and transfer of heavy artillery became a perennial problem for both warring parties.

With the ability to tow with the power of horses, the largest artillery gun in the German army was the 210 mm howitzer. Even a gun of this level is extremely difficult to maneuver, requiring a large number of servos to perform their duties, and its movement speed is too slow to look at. In many cases, these 8-inch howitzers and 6-inch long-barreled cannons could not keep up with the infantry advance, so that expensive heavy artillery often did not reach the front line when it was needed, and its huge cost lost its relevance because it could not be used.

In light of this. Historically, the French and Russian armies abandoned the installation and manufacture of large-caliber artillery at the beginning of the war, and concentrated on small-caliber infantry artillery that could accompany the rapid mobile attack of the troops. The corrupt and brutal Tsarist government had limited financial resources and weak industry, and on the eve of the war there were only a few 152mm and 122mm guns; And the French Army, which was deeply poisoned by the offensive ideology, completely abandoned large-caliber artillery, and even 105-mm guns were considered useless waste that was "completely unneeded". And the disastrous consequences of this were obvious: the Miss 75 was as useless as scratching an itch in the face of the haphazard German defenses, and were defeated by the advancing Germans in the border battles; The Russian army, which was attacking from the east, was also vulnerable to the Germans who were heavily equipped with heavy artillery, and the overwhelming firepower superiority of the German army made the Battle of Tannenberg a brilliant victory.

In contrast to the deformed development of France and Russia, the German General Staff has always attached great importance to the role of heavy artillery units; The defensive exercise a few years ago made the German Army's demand for large-caliber artillery even more obvious. Whether it's defeating the enemy in a vP battle. Or to break through the local line of defense in trench warfare, the artillery of the god of war is always the most decisive factor that cannot be ignored! While the 105mm, 150mm, 170mm and 210mm heavy guns were in service in large numbers, the German Army could not wait to have more powerful heavy guns; Faced with this situation where subjective needs contradict objective transportation. The German War Ministry decided to develop train guns to compensate for the shortcomings of current transport.

The train cannon is a traditional weapon. It has been passed down to the present day as an existence that can play a huge role on the battlefield. Its appearance, to a large extent, overcame the problem of insufficient battlefield maneuverability of large-caliber heavy artillery, and was able to quickly pass on smooth rails with less resistance under the traction of the steam locomotive. The railway train unit will be equipped with a special rail-laying technical brigade, so that the train guns can quickly move from the ready-made railway line to the starting position they want to go; After that, the train cannon will adjust the firing angle and horizontal pitch on a circular enclosed track set up by the technical troops, and the target will be included in its aiming crosshair. And because the European railway lines are dense like spider webs and are intertwined in all directions, the maneuverability of the train guns can obviously be greatly improved; With a short stretch of railway line, they can quickly reach the foreseen shelling position!

In the face of this unique dense railway environment in Western Europe, the German Army was sorry for itself if it did not develop train artillery. With the development warrant issued by Moltke Jr., the German Army began to elevate the train gun to a very high level; And in the selection of the models of these land gods of war, Moltke Jr. first aimed his search at the navy, which was not under the jurisdiction of the army.

In mid-1909, when two Brandenburg-class battleships that had been in service for fifteen years were decommissioned, Moltke Jr. immediately took a look at the 283-mm guns on board. Due to the development of the times, the 283 mm L37 and L32 (L40 and L35 in German) main guns equipped with it are useless even if they are removed as shore guns; In this case, converting it into a train cannon is obviously the wisest decision to allow it to use its residual heat. With Tirpitz transferring this batch of naval heritage to the Army, Moltke's sad face, which was always frustrated and bitter, also showed a rare smile: it was obviously an extremely cost-effective bargain to pick up 12 heavy guns from the Navy without spending a penny, and the land support capability of this artillery was also undoubted!

Moltke Jr., who had tasted the sweetness from Tirpitz, immediately began to extend his magic hand to other decommissioned naval ships; If enough large-caliber naval guns can be obtained from the navy, the precious army funds can be invested in other areas! Eight Sidfrig-class coastal defense ships became his next target: the 3,900-ton coastal defense ship, built between 1889 and 1892, was armed with three 238 mm L32 guns. At Moltke's request, Tirpitz had to do a favor again and label the artillery that had been sealed in storage for several years as the Army's. Although the German 238-mm naval gun was widely criticized in the naval field for its low-speed characteristics of light bullets, for the army, this type of weapon that fired 140kg shells was completely called a magic weapon in land warfare.

In addition to these 36 heavy train guns directly converted from naval guns, Krupp Military Industry also developed a standard train gun of the same caliber with a barrel length of 37 times the diameter on the basis of the existing 210 mm heavy howitzer. More than ten years ago, Krupp was preparing to develop a 210mm L37 gun for equipping armored cruisers, but it was abandoned because Qingying had come up with a better decisive battle outfit; At this time, there is no pressure to return to the old business again. Since land warfare is mainly fire support, and there is no need to penetrate the thick armor of enemy ships like naval warfare, large-caliber artillery can increase the weight of shells by reducing the speed of discharge. Under the premise of the same caliber, the power of a single explosion of a train gun is far superior to that of a naval ship. The new 210 mm train gun has a shell weight of 138 kg, which is close to the power of the old 240 mm naval gun; At present, in the military factory of Krupp, a batch of this type of gun is already in production.

Seeing that the German Army's firepower had been further optimized with the addition of train guns, and there was no room for improvement, Qingying immediately focused his work on the logistics field that indirectly improved the combat strength of the German army.

Due to the limited skills of the First World War, it was almost impossible for the main theme of land warfare to break out of the cycle of trenches and grinding meat, and the most important thing for an army in trench warfare to maintain its combat effectiveness was undoubtedly to have medicines to overcome various diseases and pains. In the field of medicine, penicillin is a life-saving artifact.

As a type of bacteria, the biggest effect of penicillin is to destroy the cell wall of other bacteria and inhibit the reproduction of other bacteria, so as to achieve the purpose of killing germs. Since normal cells in humans and animals do not have cell walls, penicillin kills germs without causing harm to normal cells in the human body. Historically, penicillin was discovered by British biologist Fleming in 1928 and purified and mass-produced during World War II, saving tens of millions of lives so far. The reason why the United States only died 300,000 people during World War II was that in addition to its powerful air force, penicillin definitely played a huge role in the rescue of the wounded!

Although penicillin was discovered relatively late in history, and it took more than ten years to achieve large-scale cultivation, it was not a difficult problem for Qingying, who was a time-traveler. He had now begun to supplement his knowledge of microbes, and was ready to present the discovery of penicillin in a relatively unassuming manner. (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you to book friend Heinz, the new brother and Ming Jian for their monthly ticket support~~~

The author has a lot of business trips, and the update time has been late these days, so I hope you will forgive me