In the early morning of September 18, the fighting in Galicia, far away on the Eastern Front, gradually subsided, and the Austro-Hungarian army was defeated. They have lost a lot of manpower, weapons and equipment, and are now gradually withdrawing to the Carpathians to resist.

This was good news for Kuster, who was now only concerned about his business, even though his brother's fate was uncertain.

The machine guns and several submachine guns that Kuster needed were also successfully manufactured, and three more semi-automatic rifles were produced than yesterday, which is a very good sign, and if it continues, then the production of light guns will probably start later this month.

Kuster was in a good mood, making a cup of coffee, smoking a cigarette, and reading today's newspaper with his legs crossed.

His gaze swept over the lines and suddenly saw an interesting thing:

Emperor Franz-Joseph I of Austria and King of Hungary will visit the Austro-Hungarian soldiers on the Polish front on September 24, 1914.

This message was sent from Hofburg and issued by Ehrenthal, the Austrian Keeper of the Seal, although a diplomat is not suitable to participate in domestic affairs, but an Austrian is always more reliable than Hungary's Prime Minister István.

After personally confirming with an official friend, Kuster ignored him. This time is too short, and if you want to get the emperor's approval, you can't only rely on those light weapons.

The guns made by Kuster require a layer of vulcanized rubber to be added to the wheels, and the metal of the gun body is made of special steel from Kuster. It will take at least a month for these materials to be shipped in at least a month, let alone manufactured.

So Kuster plans to wait until next month to find a suitable opportunity to recommend these war machines made of steel to the Emperor.

Seeing that there was no one around, Kuster took out a closed letter from the safe, which also read, "Confidential documents, do not touch!" ”

Kuster couldn't help but cover his face and smile, and tore it open a few times, leaking out the white paper inside, and there were still many ink stains on the paper.

When I took it out, I saw the blueprint of a huge tank.

From the top, the tank has a cast turret (hemispherical turret), which has the advantage over other turrets in that it is easy to mass-produce; And because it is casting, you can decide which position you want to thicken and which position you want to weaken at the time of design, which is very simple.

Another type of welded turret (multi-sided wedge turret), which can cut off the damaged part of the turret after it is damaged; Unlike cast turrets, the entire turret has to be replaced if part of it is scrapped. This turret and composite armor are simply a natural pair, so later the world's mainstream turret became a welded turret.

As for riveted turrets, I really can't think of how advanced a tank turret nailed with nails is.

Considering the current state of technology, it is clearly more cost-effective to use a cast turret. It was simple to produce and had a manageable thickness, and in this era there was no composite armor, and the welded turret could not be reflected.

THE TURRET ARMAMENT VARIES DEPENDING ON THE MODEL: THE A MODEL HAS A 20 MM CANNON WITH AN 8 MM MACHINE GUN, AND THE B MODEL HAS A 37 MM SHORT-BARRELED GUN WITH AN 8 MM GUN. These two models are sufficient, too many can put a heavy strain on logistics.

The engine is a 12-cylinder, 220 hp four-stroke diesel engine developed by Kuster. Suspension is 5 pairs of load-bearing wheels. Gearbox 6/1.

Due to the different models, the details of the two types of tanks are also different.

The Type A tank is expected to be 4.7 m long, 2.11 m wide, 1.97 m high, and weigh 9 tons. TURRET FRONT ARMOR 20MM, SIDE 12MM, BACK 10MM, TOP 8MM; THE FRONT ARMOR OF THE BODY IS 15MM, THE SIDE AND REVERSE SIDES ARE 10MM, AND THE TOP IS 8MM. THE SPEED IS 46 KM/H ON THE HIGHWAY AND 29 KM/H ON THE DIRT ROAD.

The B tank is expected to be equal in length, width and height to the Type A and weigh 11 tons. GUN SHIELD ARMOR 44MM, TURRET FRONT ARMOR 27MM, SIDE 17MM, BACK, 14MM, TOP 11MM; The body armor is equal to Type A. THE SPEED ON THE ROAD IS 42KM/H, AND THE SPEED ON THE DIRT ROAD IS 22KM/H.

Both tanks, whichever one is difficult to produce. The main reason is that the engine is so advanced and complex that it would take weeks to build even if Kuster had labeled the structure.

THE 8MM MACHINE GUN IS VERY SIMPLE, JUST STUFF THE AUSTRIAN MG34 THEY ARE MAKING INTO IT; The 20mm cannon and the 37mm short-barreled gun require a lot of time to be processed, but even then it is difficult to manufacture.

Fortunately, there were some people in the arsenal who came from the artillery repair plant, and they knew the internal structure of the artillery well. Coupled with the fact that this arsenal had the equipment needed to make artillery, they could use it to try their hand at making artillery.

Of course, the body of a tank is not something that can be built by a small arsenal. Therefore, he had to spend another sum of money to buy a piece of land and build a tank-building shop there under the name of a tractor factory.

After explaining the good things, Kuster waited quietly, smoking, drinking coffee, and reading the newspaper, day after day......

On September 21, the Galician campaign on the Eastern Front officially ended, and by this time the Kuster arsenal already had 800 semi-automatic rifles, 21 submachine guns, and 7 MG34s. The daily production of semi-automatic rifles has reached 100, and the steel mill in Bled will send 30 tons of new steel for them to use on the 24th, and their development situation is getting better and better.

On September 24, when Emperor Franz was in Poland to pay his respects to the officers and soldiers, Kuster's side was also lively.

They have produced more than 1,300 semi-automatic rifles, 74 submachine guns, 13 heavy machine guns.

They have also been very successful in the production of the new engine, and have already built a prototype, which is expected to be in mass production soon.

The steel mill also began to transport new steel, and Atkinson told Kuster on the phone that the shipment would arrive in the evening, which made the enthusiasm for the work even stronger.

That night, a group of mules and horses walked around the city of Vienna carrying steel on their backs, and the residents of Vienna, who had been accustomed to drinking and drinking, were a little frightened when they saw this scene, thinking that the war was coming, and the city of Vienna was somewhat quiet.

But the scene didn't last long, and late at night Vienna was once again in revelry.

It's a lot of noise outside, and it's so loud that you can't sleep. But at this moment no other sound could be heard in the arsenal except the cheers of the workers inside.

Holding up the ale, Kuster said cheerfully to the workers:

"Gentlemen! We've had a really good development in the last few days. The engine I asked for was put out, and the new steel was shipped. Now, we're going to start really pulling up the power. For this, I intend to add an additional 500 crowns to the annual salary of each of our workers! ”

This sentence caused the emotions of the already excited workers to explode instantly, and they shouted "Long live Kuster!" He and Kuster drank the ale from their glasses.

Kuster slammed the quilt on the table, made a loud noise, and said with a slightly red face:

"Gentlemen, I will announce that tomorrow the implementation of the 'tank program' will begin! Next, we had to produce 2 engines in a month and send them to the tractor factory for further processing.

AT THE SAME TIME, WE ARE ALSO GOING TO START PRODUCTION OF 75MM AND 88MM GUNS. Good luck to everyone! ”

Kuster raised his arm vigorously to the crowd, and the audience cheered enthusiastically, tonight was another sleepless night.