Make up for yesterday's monthly pass

Vielie's engineering project has already begun, and it will probably take another year or two for the real results to appear, but the Type B gunpowder is a wedge, and once it is successfully developed and put into use, based on smokeless gunpowder, new French firearms will spring up like mushrooms on this land.

Napoleon conducted a series of studies in preparation for the First World War, and now that he knew the direction of future wars, he would not follow the old path of "damned Shosha". Nor did designer Louis Chausa have the opportunity to submit his series of original designs to the Ministry of Defense in 1908.

The advanced design concept of the modern machine gun has already begun to sprout in Paris.

If the appearance of smokeless gunpowder heralded the beginning of modern warfare, then the Maxim machine gun meant that the line infantry was facing up to the stage of history. Hiram Maxim initially visited Paris as a source of inquiry, and he was also curious about the art capital, but he soon discovered that everything was not as simple as he had imagined.

From the moment he arrived in Paris, his freedom was restricted. Wherever he went, he was accompanied by French government officials, and he also felt a little strange, he was obviously not an important person, but he was highly valued by the French government, and he also arranged to stay in the presidential suite of the Ritz Hotel near the Louvre.

It wasn't until the third day of his arrival in Paris that a diminutive man appeared in his room, signaled not to be nervous, and identified himself.

"I am the President of France, Napoleon Bonaparte."

"I know that you are an expert in invention and have many patents, but this time the French want to help us design a machine gun." ”

"Machine guns?"

Makqin was stunned for a moment, and always felt that the French president's English was not with a French accent, but some kind of accent that he had never heard before.

But thinking that now was not the time to discuss the issue of accents, he replied, "But I've never designed a weapon, and I don't know how to design it." ”

Napoleon smiled and said, "It doesn't matter. Wasn't Mr. Richard Gatlin also a doctor before the war? ”

Seeing that the other party was still hesitating, Napoleon continued to increase the chips in his hand.

"What do you think of the French government's willingness to buy the patent rights to the weapon you designed for a high price of 300,000 francs?"

The price proposed by the French side made Makqin feel moved, and he would not have thought that the US government would not look at him squarely, and he was actually highly valued in France. At this time, Edison, who was far away in the United States, could also breathe a sigh of relief, because there was no old rival to compete with him for orders.

Napoleon brought a sketch of a heavy machine gun that he had never seen before, and he introduced it to Macqing, "This kind of machine gun and the barrel are fastened together, and then the gunpowder gas energy is used as the power, through a set of mechanisms to open the chamber, the bolt continues to recoil to withdraw the empty cartridge case and throw it out of the gun, and then drive the ammunition supply mechanism to compress the reentry spring, under the action of the spring force, the bolt pushes into place and fires again." This way, once the shooting starts, the machine gun can continue to fire until the cartridge belt is finished, which can save a lot of reload time. ”

This idea was originally conceived when Maxim went to England to investigate, and found that soldiers often had bruises and bruises on their shoulders due to the recoil of old rifles. Realize that the recoil of the gun has a considerable amount of energy, and wish that this energy came from the gunpowder gases produced when the bullets were fired.

Napoleon, on the other hand, told him the principle directly, eliminating the need to go to the field for himself.

"It's a really fantastic design."

Maxim praised Napoleon's ideas, combined with the sketches he had already designed, and a certain idea slowly fermented in his mind, but then he realized another problem: he had served in the Maine army at the outbreak of the American Civil War, and in the process of using weapons, he had discovered the fatal flaw of black powder.

"Black powder burns and produces a lot of residue, but this residue can get stuck in the barrel. If you want to shoot continuously, you must overcome this problem first, otherwise you will have to unblock the barrel if you can't fire a few shots, after all, this machine gun only has one barrel, unlike Gatling. And have you ever considered the material of the barrel, in the case of overheating, the rate of fire will also be reduced or even unable to shoot. ”

"Without solving these problems, the machine gun proposed by the French government will not be able to fire continuously and at high speeds. ”

"On this issue, Mr. Maxim does not need to worry, the gunpowder used by the machine gunner will not be black powder at that time. Just design it according to my point of view. As for the rest, we, the light weapons assessment department of the French army, will solve it on our own. ”

The development of steel in 1870 was not very mature, and the problem of insufficient heat dissipation in the barrel caused by continuous fire of machine guns could only be solved by using water.

Since the other party has already said so, he can't continue to insist, so he can only nod and agree.

Napoleon was very pleased with his cooperative attitude, and after a few words of advice and encouragement, he turned and went out.

Makqin looked at the other party's back and suddenly asked, "Your Excellency, I have one last question, can I still return to the United States?" ”

Napoleon stopped, he turned around with a smile, and said to the world-influencing weapons designer, "In order to make Mr. Maxim feel at ease to design products, we have taken your wives to France, and we will meet tomorrow at the earliest." ”

Hearing Napoleon's words, Makqin seemed to think of something in his heart, and his face suddenly changed.

But in the end, he couldn't say anything, and could only watch Napoleon leave his room with mixed feelings.

After closing the door, Napoleon breathed a sigh of relief. His last sentence was also to remind the other party not to make other ideas, his family is still in the hands of the French government. In fact, after the Maxim machine gun was designed, he didn't think about letting the other party leave France and change the situation of World War I.

Even the tight-lipped B-type gunpowder was not sold by a French soldier for 20,000 marks, and Mendeleev, who invented the periodic table of chemical elements, analyzed the proportional composition of the explosives with the help of the fire wool in his hand. In the end, it became the French who were the first to invent smokeless gunpowder, and other countries followed suit.

It's impossible to make a fuss about gunpowder, but with the whole of Europe flattering the idea that soldiers should shoot accurately, they can be one step ahead of others when it comes to guns.

Imagine that when the Germans were still using Mauser rifles, and the French army was fully equipped with semi-automatic weapons to break through the blockade, I don't know what Moltke's expression was like when he was in front of such a Verdun or Marne scene.

So secrecy was useless, and the only useful thing was to drag the Germans' intelligence astray. Bismarck, in particular, could not escape the eyes of the Berlin intelligence services in every move.

By this time, Napoleon had already prepared two plans to split another department in the national gendarmerie to carry out French intelligence work abroad. Unlike the later Second Department of the General Staff, this department enjoyed a great deal of autonomy in principle, and it was not limited to military intelligence, but even included a series of plans for the colonies and actions to subvert the local regime.

The other department was specifically targeting German intelligence spying, making a series of fraudulent means to make the German General Staff draw the wrong conclusions about the French moves, so as to win the French army an advantage.

Funding for these two departments bypasses Congress and is counted in the budget of the ministry. No non-core figure would have known about the existence of these two departments.

A mysterious department of the relevant department.