The newly launched Dreadnought is now the Navy's hope for a large decisive battleship in the future, but the specific situation will not be known until the sea trials are completed.

Carlo, on the other hand, left Venice after attending the launching ceremony of the Dreadnought. Although the navy tried to keep him to see other warships, such as the new destroyers and cruisers that had just been commissioned, they still did not keep His Majesty.

After leaving Venice by car, Carlo headed for Brescia, where a new weapon had been developed, and Carlo came to check it out.

Speaking of Brescia, the industry here has a long history, especially the metallurgical industry, the mechanical industry, which is famous throughout the Kingdom of Italy. Among them, Brescia is most famous for weapons manufacturing, and the Beretta Arms Company, one of the top three in Italy, is the most famous company in the city.

Today at the weapons test site of the Beretta Arms Company, a unique weapons test is underway.

"Dash...... Da Da ...... Dadada......"

A weapons test sergeant, operating a strange-looking machine gun, is testing his weapons against his shoulder. Short point shooting, long point shooting, continuous shooting, in this way of shooting, the distant target is hit with thousands of holes, showing the power of the gun.

To say that the strangeness is also for the current machine gun, in the case of the current famous Maxim machine gun, the thick barrel, thick magazine, and fixed support frame all show a cold killing machine atmosphere.

And the gun can be described as small and exquisite compared to it, and the magazine inserted upside down on the magazine can be described as quite strange.

As for whether it is strange or not, it does not matter to the crowd watching at the proving ground, and how well the gun performs is their main concern.

In this respect, the gun is performing well so far, and after firing two magazines in a row, the shooting is still very accurate.

And in the crowd of visitors, not only the Chief of the General Staff, General Simeone, but also Carlo, of course, there were many high-ranking army officials. With such a large formation, Pietro Beretta, the general manager of Beretta Arms, and Baron Hiram Stevens Maxin, the chief firearms designer, were also present. In front of them, a slightly younger middle-aged man was introducing the strange machine gun to the bigwigs present.

"Your Majesty, General, the gun has a total length of 1,193 mm, an empty gun weight of 8.79 kg, a barrel length of 593 mm, a caliber of 6.5 mm, a theoretical rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute, and a muzzle velocity of 881 meters per second. The gun uses a long-stroke gas-conductive piston with an inclined latching. The sight is a wheel-type ruler and a mechanical sight, and the gun ......"

This middle-aged man is the main designer of the gun, Nicolai Reveri, and in the face of many big names, the designer said a little stumbling.

However, although the gunsmith's words were a little unfavorable, no one in the audience cared, but looked at him with a smile on their faces.

Fortunately, he was rescued soon. At this time, after three consecutive magazines were fired, the sergeant who tested the machine gun came over.

"Tell us how you feel about it."

Admiral Simone asked the test sergeant.

"Report to the Admiral, the gun shoots smoothly, there is no jamming, the degree of rise is not high, and it is a good burst weapon."

The test sergeant's praise brought smiles to the faces of the people of the Beretta Arms Company, but they were too soon to rejoice, and the sergeant continued.

"As for the downsides, the side sight was a bit unaccustomed to it, and I had a feeling of the bullet floating when I was shooting at distant targets. And the bullet capacity is too small, the rate of fire is low, and the capacity of only 20 rounds makes me feel that it is not at all suppressive. ”

Subsequently, the target he shot also confirmed his statement, and the distribution of bullet points from the target from 200 meters to 600 meters was not bad, but after the target of 800 meters was taken, the faces of several people from Beretta Arms Company were not so good-looking.

Because of the huge target, there is only 1 bullet hole, you must know that this is a point shot, plus the test sergeant's level is not bad, this is even more unsatisfactory.

Faced with this situation, Baron Maxim felt the need to stand up and say a few words.

"Your Majesty, General, for this light machine gun, the army at that time had high requirements for weight, so when designing this gun, we gave priority to the weight, which was enough for a soldier to carry the gun to keep up with the speed of the team's attack. In addition, because the gun needs to use the same 6.5mm caliber as the rifle, this bullet is lighter than the 7.92mm machine gun currently equipped by the army. This also leads to a more serious stall at long distances and poor accuracy at long distances. If the caliber of the gun was changed to 7.92 mm, it would have been much better. Of course, there is another reason, because the test sergeant uses the gun's own bipod when shooting, and if he uses a quad or tripod, the long-range accuracy will be a little higher. ”

After Baron Makqin's defense, everyone present also listened to this man's explanation.

"If the caliber of 7.92 mm is used, how much more accurate will the gun be at long range?" An officer asked.

Makqin secretly praised the officer, it was really a good assist.

"If that's the case, according to our tests, the gun's accuracy at a distance of 800 meters is guaranteed." The main designer, Nicolai Leverri, opened his mouth to answer this question. "In fact, we have used the 7.92mm barrel before, and it feels that it is indeed more accurate than the 6.5mm at long distances."

Well, this designer has exposed his own bottom.

Hearing this's answer, Simeone looked at Carlo. "Your Majesty, what do you think?"

Faced with Simeone putting the choice in his hands, Carlo almost laughed, this is really slippery.

"I don't think it's better to do this, the army will first purchase some according to the two calibers of 6.5mm and 7.92mm, and take them to the troops for testing, and choose which one is easy to use."

Carlo's suggestion is really good, as for the good where you can experience it yourself, what you can't realize is that you don't have enough understanding.

In the face of Carlo's idea of making peace with the mud, Admiral Simeone didn't think much about it and said it immediately. "In this case, you each produce 100 light machine guns of 6.5mm and 7.92mm calibers, and see which one the troops like."

In the face of General Simeone's decision to let the troops test it, how could Pietro Beretta, who is the general manager of the Beretta Arms Company, disagree, this is a precursor to the large-scale equipment of the military. As long as it does not provoke the troops to complain, it means that this portable machine gun is a great success.

"By the way, what is the purchase price of this gun?"

At this time, Admiral Simone asked the price again, the days of the army's hard work over the years have made this very sensitive to price, not to mention this kind of weapon equipped with infantry, which is known for its large quantity, so it is more necessary to consider the price factor. Every lira of the Italian Army is too precious to be wasted.

"Your Excellency, since you only purchased 200 pieces, the price will not be too cheap, 2,400 lira each, which is the best price."

Pietro Boletta's words made the army bosses gasp, this price is too expensive. These 200 new light machine guns cost 480,000 lire, which is really not cheap.

"Your company's Makqin heavy machine gun is only 4,500 lira for our army, and your price is too high."

At this time, the price of the Maxim machine gun was already very cheap. You know, when equipped, each Maxim machine gun costs as much as 8,000 lira.

And this light machine gun, in addition to its weight, is not comparable to the Maxim machine gun in terms of performance.

In the face of the army's high price, Pietro Beretta was even more inclined to cry out to the heavens. "I didn't add the R&D expenses of this machine gun, it's all manufacturing costs."

Although this is the truth, this price has made many people in the army a little dissatisfied.

But fortunately, Admiral Simeone, who was the head of the army, was very sober and saw him speak. "Then according to the price you said, we will deliver 200 units to our army."