The classic M43 7.62×39mm bullet that has left a strong mark in human history has many shortcomings like the Germans' 7.92×33mm Kurz bullet because of its early birth.

The biggest problem is that the trajectory is curved and not straight enough, and it is not easy to return to zero or actually shoot.

Comparing a straight laser-like trajectory to a curved urine trajectory, the difference between a good and a bad trajectory couldn't be more obvious.

At 100m, the trajectory of the M43 projectile is about 21cm higher than the baseline, at 200m, it is about 23cm higher than the baseline, and it coincides with the baseline at a distance of 290m.

There is an old saying in the research and development of firearms: "To develop a gun, you must first have a bullet, and to develop a bullet, you must first have a propellant." This shows the great significance of propellant to the entire light weapons system.

The mass of the pointed, stern and lead-core warhead is 7.6g, the armor is made of galvanized steel, the projectile body is bottle-shaped without bottom edge, loaded with 1.62g of propellant, the muzzle velocity is about 760m/s, and the muzzle kinetic energy is about 2195J.

As a comparison, the warhead mass of the M43 bomb and the Kurz bomb are 7.9g and 8g respectively, and it can be seen that the warhead of this type of intermediate power bomb designed by the Guangzhou Arsenal is slightly lighter, and the muzzle velocity is also tens of meters per second higher than that.

Because the performance is too bright, or far beyond the level that this era should have, Zhou Changfeng is very puzzled, and even faintly doubtful.

How is this done? Did the beautiful boys of the Guangzhou Arsenal deliberately make ghosts?

So he looked around and tried to ask the person in charge.

The representative of the arsenal on the side saw him like this, and immediately leaned over.

"Does this chief have any questions?"

"What's going on with this profile of yours? Selectively ignoring a lot of things, the data on which the muzzle velocity of this seven hundred and seven is fired from what gun? ”

"It's the result of the short rifle next to it."

It was a short rifle about a meter long, with a magazine, an air duct, and it was clearly a semi-automatic rifle.

The length of its barrel is about fifty centimeters, which is not extraordinarily long.

So he then asked, "What kind of propellant is used for this bomb?" ”

"The No. 6 drug produced by our factory is 21 percent nitroglycerin, 68 percent nitrocellulose, 8 percent nitroguanidine, 2 percent petroleum jelly, and 1 percent potassium nitrate." A young man with a high hairline replied fluently.

Aha? Three-base propellant?

Zhou Changfeng opened his mouth slightly in surprise after hearing this answer, and muttered, "This...... Will the ablation be a bit big? The barrel life is not ideal. ”

"I'll tell you the truth, it's actually okay, the measured life of the gun that hit this bullet can barely reach 6,000 rounds. The difficulty lies in the fact that the processing is not easy and the yield is low. ”

Smokeless gunpowder is divided into single-base, double-base, and three-base, and the earliest single-base powder is the main body of nitrocellulose, and the earliest is the B-type gunpowder invented by the French, which is used for the world's first Lebel rifle that fires smokeless gunpowder bullets.

The bibase drug contains two main components, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin, which are characterized by fast dyeing speed and high energy, but high temperature and large ablation, which will affect the life of the barrel. The Kodai propellant, also known as the "Queen's Pasta," which is widely used by the British, is a bi-base drug, which is in the shape of spaghetti-like round bars.

The three basic drugs are based on the former to add nitroguanidine, which will produce nitrogen during the combustion process, thereby improving the ablation problem and inhibiting the muzzle flame; The disadvantage is that it is difficult to process and manufacture.

At the same time as the introduction of a full set of Lebel rifle production lines and manufacturing technology, the technology of B-type smokeless gunpowder ammunition also arrived. This kind of single-base propellant with the appearance of a square sheet has good performance, and the Xu's gunpowder obtained on its basis with a few improvements is the standard bullet propellant of the Ming army, and the output and inventory are amazingly large for decades, and it is still widely used today.

"Is it low? Can a certain yield be guaranteed? ”

"After the production line is built, we will improve while making, as long as the resources are sufficient, we are confident that we can achieve a daily output of 400 catties of good products."

Zhou Changfeng frowned and said, "This is too low." ”

A single production line produces 200,000g per day, which is probably only enough to make more than 100,000 rounds of ammunition, which is pitiful.

"I don't know, sir, this mixture is really complicated." The young man sighed: "My master has been pondering for more than ten years since he was young, and it is not easy to change the C-word medicine from No. 1 to No. 6. ”

"I understand your efforts, but this technology is really immature and can't take on a big responsibility." Zhou Changfeng was also very helpless, he thought about it, and asked again: "If you change to an ordinary propellant, how much will the performance of this type of bullet decrease?" ”

"Because the tablet medicine occupies more volume, the cartridge case can only hold 1.6 grams, and the muzzle velocity will drop to 710 meters per second when the same gun is fired, and the kinetic energy will be more than 1,900 joules."

Oh, this data is on the same level as the M43 and Kurz shells.

The previous data was so good, purely because of the use of advanced, but immature, experimental propellants.

Zhou Changfeng walked around the scene again, examining the works of other government-run and private enterprises one by one, and the level varied, some of them were biased, some were mediocre, and some were miserable and purely funny......

From the looks of it, only the works of the Guangzhou Arsenal are better.

But then again, after all, this is only 38 years old, and reaching a level similar to the classic M43 bomb five years ahead of schedule seems to be a very good result? Zhou Changfeng felt a little too ambitious for a while.

I have to say that China's size is too large, and correspondingly, its resources are rich enough, including human resources.

Even if the degree of industrialization is not high and the educational resources are limited, the size of the population that benefits from it is still frighteningly high, which makes today's Ming Dynasty seem to be underdeveloped, but it has enough spare energy to invest in all walks of life.

During the same period in history, Japan relied heavily on technology transfer from Western countries, and most of the technologies had to wait for the Western powers to mature before they were introduced, but they did not have the resources to develop them independently.

At that time, the aircraft companies of Western countries did not like the Japanese very much, because these poor people only bought one or two planes every time and went back to copy them, and they were reluctant to place large orders.

In contrast, the late-developing industrial countries of the Ming Dynasty in all walks of life after decades of catching up has smoothed out the gap of most things, a few cutting-edge technology gaps have no way, can only be slowly figured, after all, people have run hundreds of years in advance, whether it is accumulation or old capital, there must be.

This is the macro embodiment of the size advantage.

Then, with the attendees arriving, the "first try" soon began.

Each manufacturer came to the stage to talk about their own works, and then there was a Q&A and a rating.

Zhou Changfeng was generally interested in this, and the officers and officials present were all experts in this area, and their careful review and analysis were all very similar, at least Zhou thought that it was generally realistic.

The army is more interested in the semi-automatic short rifle developed by the Guangzhou Arsenal; The Air Force, on the other hand, preferred the fully automatic short rifle, that is, the "assault rifle", and several paratrooper officers were entangled in the two types of assault rifles and could not make up their minds.

The Ming Army is actually here to join in the fun, after all, this tender is led by the Air Force.

The statements of the representatives of the army were exactly the same as those of the later armies, and they stubbornly insisted on a few points of view, threatening that even if they had to choose, they would only choose semi-automatic rifles.

For one, fully automatic is more ammo-intensive than semi-automatic.

Second, the barrel length of a fully automatic short rifle is one-fifth shorter than that of a semi-automatic one, and the accuracy at medium range is bound to be unsatisfactory.

Third, soldiers are accustomed to the style of semi-automatic short rifles, while fully automatic ones have pistol-type grips, which may not be easy to handle.

Fourth, fully automatic short rifles are more expensive.

Yes! Army!

But in fact, this is not a problem at all.

As long as the training is qualified, and there is the supervision of non-commissioned officers and officers in actual combat, the soldiers actually have little chance to shoot indiscriminately.

For example, according to the regulations, the use of fully automatic mode is prohibited at medium distances, and when they are a few hundred meters apart, non-commissioned officers and officers have no time to stop those soldiers who have forgotten. If the distance is close, it doesn't hurt to strafe indiscriminately, and the right is suppressed by firepower.

As for the accuracy, if you compare AK47 and SKS, the latter only has a slight advantage, and it is even difficult to distinguish - the same dispersion at a distance of 100m, the dispersion of 56 strokes is 10-11.6cm, and the dispersion of 56 and a half is 11.5-13.6cm.

Whether the soldiers are comfortable or not is even more nonsense, how can there be no way to adapt?

The price is a bit counterintuitive and not significantly different, with semi-automatic short rifles often being more expensive because they require more wood.

According to the purchase price of 75 years, 56 punches are 128 yuan, and 56 and a half after simplifying the process are still 135 yuan.

Standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, the best option that can be summed up is to go straight to the point in one step.

Iterate directly from a bolt-action rifle with a full-power bullet to an automatic rifle with a medium-power bullet, and then wait a few decades for a second iteration when the small-caliber bullet matures. That's the standard answer, and the rest of the options are not perfect.

Zhou Changfeng knew that it was impossible to reverse the most conservative concept of the army on his own, and that the navy and air force were fine, but the navy was its own people anyway, and the air force was originally correct because of its special needs.

So he pondered how to get the old army diehards to change their minds, or use crooked ways to prevent them from purchasing semi-automatic short rifles.

Referring to the Germans who secretly gave the Stg44 the number of the submachine gun MP44 in order to fool the army side?

This seems unlikely, as it will only take the place of the submachine gun, and the army will continue to purchase semi-automatic short rifles, with the aim of directly replacing the rifle position.

"It's hard."

Zhou Changfeng complained as he left the No. 1 conference hall of the Ordnance Bureau, if he couldn't change the intentions of the army, it would be equivalent to watching them spend their precious resources and production capacity on things that were inefficient.

This taste is very uncomfortable and awkward.

It's like buying accessories to assemble a computer by yourself is the most cost-effective, but the family goes to the computer city to buy an i3, GT610, and a complete machine with miscellaneous power supplies without persuasion.

But no matter what, at least do your part first.

Before leaving the Ordnance Bureau, Zhou Changfeng was still walking upstairs and downstairs here, and it happened that the meeting in the No. 3 conference hall was dismissed, and a group of officers and officials came out one after another.

Hearing that they were discussing tanks, Zhou Changfeng, who was quite curious, inquired directly to the point.

Come! Let me be well!

In view of the level of secrecy, several officers did not hide it, but generously handed him the papers, and then took out their lighters and smoked cigarettes.

After four revisions and adjustments, the trial-produced Type 37 medium tank that began testing last year was finally recognized, and it was finalized as the "Type 38 medium tank", also known as the Formation Breaking Chariot.

It sounds like a bit of a middle two, but as the name suggests, this is the tank used to break through enemy positions, and it is the main assault weapon of the balance.

Designed by Yanjing National First Heavy Machinery Company, the Type 38 tank is 5.8 meters long, 2.42 meters wide, 2.55 meters high, and has a length-to-width ratio of 2.4.

The armor on the front of the hull is 24 mm thick, the sides of the hull are 24 mm, the front of the turret is 28 mm thick, the side of the turret is 24 mm, the gun shield is 40 mm, and the commander's tower is 20 mm on all sides.

There are two kinds of armor steel, only the gun shield uses the latest research and development of rolled nickel-chromium-molybdenum alloy steel, Brinell hardness 260HBW, moderate performance, suitable for resisting projectiles with large mass; The rest of the parts are made of case-hardened armor steel with a Brinell hardness of 520HBW, which is ideal for defense against small projectiles, but may break when faced with an attack from large projectiles.

Weighing 17.3 tonnes empty, it is powered by an in-line 10-cylinder air-cooled diesel engine that operates at 2,000 rpm and produces 210 hp with the driving wheels behind. Six forward gears and two reverse gears, with a maximum road speed of 40 km/h and a maximum reverse speed of 8 km/h.

The suspension mechanism is a mature balance suspension, with two load-bearing wheels in one group and three groups on one side. The steering mechanism is a normal differential type. The shift mechanism can also be equipped with pneumatic auxiliary equipment, which will be very labor-saving when operating, but the maintenance and overhaul work will be much troublesome.

The main armament is a 34-caliber 48mm tank gun, which is a product of the Shenyang Army Artillery Factory, which fires 48×176mm ammunition, the muzzle velocity of the cap-piercing shell is about 600m/s, and the penetration depth is about 40mm at a distance of 500m.

In addition, there is a heading machine gun, a side-by-side machine gun, and a roof machine gun.

The crew of the whole vehicle is five, the driver, the course gunner, the commander, the gunner, and the loader.

However, the army seems to be hesitant to equip every tank with a car radio as standard, because it is not cheap, and the current consideration is only to install radio equipment for each platoon commander's vehicle, and the platoon commander directs the other tanks through sign language, flag language, and shouting.

"Tsk, this car looks good, what is the diameter of the turret seat?" Zhou Changfeng asked as he flipped the page.

A civilian lieutenant colonel wearing glasses was swallowing clouds and mist, and replied casually: "Less than five feet, more than 1,530 centimeters." ”

The turret diameter largely determines the upgrade potential of this type of tank, and if you want to replace it with a more powerful tank gun, the turret will naturally be larger.

If the turret seat is not large enough, it will be difficult to fit the new turret, and the production line of the car body will have to be adjusted.

The Germans changed the 15-ton version of the original A tank of the IV tank, and the most powerful H model was as high as 25 tons, but unfortunately due to the limitations of the turret seat and chassis suspension, it was not possible to upgrade it further.

"How many are you going to buy?"

"The first order is 420 vehicles, and there may be more."

What else to add?

Damn it! The production capacity of the factory is limited, how can all the good things be taken up by the army?

Zhou Changfeng immediately smeared oil on the soles of his feet, and planned to hurry up and let the navy also rush to place the next order - such a good thing, the marines want it too!

Hey, because I'm going to have a gastrointestinal endoscopy tomorrow, I've been drinking that disgusting electrolyte water at night, it's so uncomfortable.

(End of chapter)