Fortunately, the brothers attending the meeting either didn't know anything about the principles of firearms, or they were as familiar with this knowledge as Li Junwu, but because of Zhou Lei's face, they didn't want to expose his peers in person, so no one came out to argue with him, but echoed his statement one after another, and praised the weapons department and other departments of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Seeing that someone was cheering, Zhou Lei came to the next level, and pointed to the other one next to him, which was slightly smaller, and there were rows of metal pieces installed on the barrel, which looked more strange, and continued to introduce: "Brothers, this slightly smaller one next to it is another light machine gun with complete intellectual property rights developed by the weapons science and development. The gun changed the water-cooled method of the previous heavy machine gun to the air-cooled method, which reduced the weight of the gun body and was suitable for individual operation. And it uses the same 7.62 mm caliber as the 'Five-Five' rifle, so that it can be used more with the 'Five-Five' rifle. ”

Zhou Lei once again exerted his ability to fool and transferred the intellectual property rights of the products of the Weapons Section that were copied from the first light machine gun (or medium machine gun) in the previous life - the Lewis machine gun - under the name of the Weapons Section. However, the brothers at the meeting were not interested in how the intellectual property rights of the two machine guns should be attributed, they were concerned about the actual performance of the two machine guns.

The brothers of the weapons department did not let everyone wait for a long time, and after some debugging, with Zhou Lei's order, the two machine guns were fired one after another. When the peculiar "clang, clang" sound of the machine guns stopped, more than a dozen thick wooden planks that were used as targets nearly 600 meters away had been smashed into thousands of holes and torn apart, allowing people to intuitively experience the power of the two machine guns.

Although the experiments on the finalization of the two machine guns were a complete success, the performance of the machine guns -- the imitation "Makqin" machine gun weighed 55 kilograms, had an effective firing range of 800 meters, a theoretical rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute, and a combat rate of fire of 300 rounds per minute; The imitation "Louis" machine gun weighs 25 pounds, has an effective firing range of 600 meters, has a theoretical rate of fire of 300 rounds per minute, and a combat rate of fire of 150 rounds per minute -- it is also very good under the current conditions, but the question of whether or not to equip these two machine guns in large quantities in the "Flying Dragon Army" has caused a lot of controversy among the traversers attending the meeting.

At the root of the controversy was the machine gun's greatest advantage - it could provide sustained fire. To put it bluntly, some participants felt that the rate of fire of machine guns was too fast, and even if they were fired in bursts, their ammunition consumption was much greater than that of a rifle that could only fire a single shot. Moreover, the imitation "Maxim" machine gun still uses 11.43 mm machine gun cartridges, which have never been produced before. Changes in the caliber of bullets naturally increase the difficulty and workload of the Weapons Section, which will have to either overhaul the existing bullet production line or build a new one. Either way, they will face a huge amount of human, material and financial resources, which is definitely a huge challenge for the weapons section, which is preparing intensively for the upcoming battle of the clouds. Thus, the brothers of the weapons section, although they were the developers of machine guns, at the same time became the most staunch opponents of machine guns.

Not to mention others, even Zhou Lei, who had repeatedly boasted that the Weapons Section had completely independent intellectual property rights for two machine guns, expressed clear opposition to the proposal to equip machine guns on a large scale. In his opinion, being able to develop and produce these two machine guns is an affirmation of the capabilities of the weapons section jishu, so it is necessary to resolutely support the research and development of these two firearms. However, the large-scale production and equipping of machine guns, which can consume a large amount of ammunition in a short period of time, will seriously affect the supply of rifle ammunition, and then affect the combat effectiveness of the "Flying Dragon Army", so it is necessary to resolutely oppose it.

"According to previous tests of these two guns, in the face of a medium-intensity battle, the rate of fire of each heavy machine gun is about 150 rounds to 200 rounds per minute, and the rate of fire of light machine guns can also reach about 100 rounds per minute," he said at the meeting. In this way, a battle that lasted half an hour would consume 4,500 rounds per heavy machine gun, and 3,000 rounds per light machine gun.

Although I don't know much about the specific establishment of the 'Wyvern Army', I don't know what level of troops the brothers of the military department plan to equip these two machine guns with. However, it is common sense to infer that light machine guns must be equipped at least to the company, and heavy machine guns must be equipped at least to the battalion, and the number of equipment in each company and battalion will definitely not be only one. It is estimated that there will be as few as two, and as many as four or five. According to this assumption, the entire 'Wyvern Army' would be armed with at least more than 100 light and heavy machine guns, and a medium-sized, half-hour battle would consume more than 300,000 rounds of ammunition. At present, the weapons section is working at full capacity, producing day and night, and the monthly output of ammunition can only reach 500,000 rounds. In other words, half an hour of firing from 100 light and heavy machine guns will consume more than 60% of the team's monthly output. If there are a few more battles like this, I am afraid that it will not take more than a month, and our soldiers will face the embarrassing situation of having guns and no bullets. ”,

Regarding Zhou Lei's statement, the brothers of the Military Department completely disagreed. As a direct participant in the upcoming Battle of Youyun and as the actual commander of the "Flying Dragon Army" that was about to engage in a bloody battle with the powerful Liao Army, the Military Department represented by Qian Yuanshan naturally praised the machine gun, a new type of weapon that could provide continuous firepower and enable its own side to occupy an advantageous position in the Liliang competition between firepower and manpower, and eagerly hoped that it would be equipped with the "Flying Dragon Army" as soon as possible.

Therefore, while expressing their absolute support for equipping machine guns, Qian Yuanshan and others even proposed that light machine guns should be equipped with squads and heavy machine guns with companies in accordance with the equipment habits of the infantry in the previous life. In this way, even when facing an enemy that is several times or even dozens of enemies, the "Wyvern Army" can be sure to defeat the enemy, or at least retreat in front of the superior enemy. After all, the army has a limited time to form, and the "Flying Dragon Army" with a total number of only 15,000 people cannot afford to suffer large-scale casualties. Therefore, when Qian Yuanshan refuted Zhou Lei's statement and explained the importance of equipping machine guns, he repeatedly emphasized the comparison of the total strength of the enemy and us, as well as the actual situation that the opponent's cavalry was huge, while his own side was still dominated by infantry.

He said: "On the one hand, although the data just listed by the second brother has some truth, in the final analysis, it is only a speculation, a conclusion based only on scientific research. Such a shiyan is only based on the environment of the shiyan chamber, and it is the result of experiments and speculations within the framework of artificial settings. The data in the Shiyan room can only be used for reference, but it cannot be used as a basis for whether the machine gun is equipped with the 'Wyvern Army'.

On the other hand, after several expansions, the number of the 'Flying Dragon Army' has increased several times compared to when it was first established, reaching 15,000 people, but this is only a longitudinal comparison with itself. If you look at it horizontally, the main opponent of the 'Flying Dragon Army' in the future will be the Liao Army of the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun. Judging from the various data provided by the Ministry of Intelligence, the existing regular army of the Liao army in the land of clouds should be about 60,000, while the number of its local armed forces, that is, the villagers, has reached about 300,000. In terms of the number of people, the 'Flying Dragon Army' is still at an absolute disadvantage.

Even under the persuasion of Zhong Yuanwai, most of the Han officials in the Land of Clouds can stand on our side and will not be our enemy, and the soldiers and generals that can be controlled by his subordinates are mainly villagers, and will not touch the main force of the Khitans in the local area. In other words, in the Battle of Youyun, the 'Flying Dragon Army' needed 15,000 men against the 60,000 men of the Liao Army, and the ratio of troops was one to four. Although the current 'Flying Dragon Army' has been completely weaponized and has artillery to help, considering that almost all the main forces of the Liao Army are cavalry, it is unknown whether the superiority of the 'Flying Dragon Army' in firepower can make up for the disadvantage in troops. What's more, after eliminating the Liao army in the Youyun region, the 'Flying Dragon Army' will almost 100% have to face the Khitan reinforcements that are far more powerful and larger than the former, and led by the Liao Emperor himself, and its disadvantage in strength will be even more obvious. ”

"In last year's Battle of Dabaoshu, the 'Flying Dragon Army', which was only equipped with front-loading smoothbore guns, defeated the 15,000 Northern Han Army commanded by Yang Ye with less than 2,000 men. It can be seen from this that even if the existing equipment of the 'Flying Dragon Army' is used, it is fully capable of making up for the disadvantage in terms of strength with firepower. Zhou Lei interjected on the side and put forward his own reasons for opposition, "As for the reinforcements of the Khitans, I think that in the case of having annihilated the Liao army in the Youyun region, the Hou Zhou army will not watch us fight alone." They will surely fight alongside us to repel the Khitan reinforcements to protect the gains they have made. In this way, we will no longer be at an absolute disadvantage in terms of troops. ”

Qian Yuanshan shook his head when he heard this, and retorted: "The second brother only knows one thing, but he doesn't know the other. First of all, in terms of combat effectiveness, the Northern Han army was obviously inferior to the Liao army. The fact that the 'Flying Dragon Army' was able to defeat the Northern Han Army with a disadvantage of 1 to 7 does not mean that it was able to defeat the Liao Army with a disadvantage of 1 to 4.

Secondly, the Battle of Dabaoshu was defended by the 'Flying Dragon Army' and could give full play to the advantages of firearms, especially artillery. The Battle of Youyun is likely to be a field battle with the Liao army, which can give full play to its own advantages for the Liao army, which is all cavalry. However, such a battlefield is very unfavorable to the use of artillery firepower of the 'Flying Dragon Army', which is tantamount to using our shortcomings to compare with the strengths of the Liao army, making our army's disadvantages more obvious. Equipped with machine guns, it can make up for this disadvantage, so that the 'Flying Dragon Army', which is mainly infantry, is in an advantageous position in battle with the Liao army, which is mainly cavalry. ,

Moreover, in the Battle of Dabaoshu, the 'Flying Dragon Army' fired only more than 100 shells, and the rifles only participated in the battle when they captured Dabaoshu, and played a much smaller role in the defensive stage. The rout of the Northern Han army was largely due to the shock of the power of artillery and the psychological breakdown, which can only be regarded as a special case. The two armies fought by strength, and the hope of victory must not be pinned on the psychological endurance of the Liao army as bad as that of the Northern Han army.

Thirdly, although the ammunition consumption of machine guns is very large on the surface, if you look at the effectiveness of their performance in battle, their cost-effectiveness ratio is not lower than that of rifles. Its ammunition delivery per unit time is much higher than that of rifles, which can effectively compensate for the shortage of our troops. If it is not equipped with machine guns, then in the face of the swarming Liao cavalry, our army can only rely on the traditional "three-stage shooting" tactics to offset the strength advantage of the Liao army. Moreover, the ammunition consumption of the 'three-stage fire' tactic is probably much less than that of the machine gun. Therefore, instead of risking a direct confrontation with the Liao army, it is better to use the advantage of machine guns to defeat the enemy army with a firepower density that far exceeds the enemy's strength.

After all, when the density of firepower exceeds the density of enemy forces, the numerical comparison of the two sides is no longer so important. Just like in the Second Opium War in the previous life, the Anglo-French alliance army was wiped out with 6,000 people and 20,000 Mongol cavalry that could kill Seng Lingqin. Or in the Zulu War at the end of the 19th century, dozens of British soldiers with four 'Maximin' machine guns and ample ammunition were able to repel the attack of 5,000 Zulu fighters and kill and wound more than 3,000 of them. ”

Speaking of this, Qian Yuanshan paused slightly, looked around at the participating brothers, then looked at Zhou Lei, and said meaningfully: "As for the issue of blocking the Khitan reinforcements, does the second brother think that the Zhou army will sincerely work together with us and fight side by side?" According to the brothers, when the time comes, Zhou Jun will not stab us in the back and make black hands, and he will already be very worthy of us. ”