After hearing the words of the brigade commander, Huang He was not surprised.

If someone asks what is most important for the Eighth Route Army at this stage, it is undoubtedly bullets and grenades.

The former is the foundation of the combat effectiveness of the troops, and the latter is the best choice for dealing with the tactics of devils and pigs.

During the Sino-Japanese War, the Eighth Route Army was plagued by a lack of ammunition.

The nickname of "Three Guns and Eight Roads" is because the veterans in the army always emphasize that three bullets must destroy an enemy, and they must charge after the battle.

The old devils knew that fighting the Eighth Route Army was very difficult and dangerous, and because they didn't have many bullets, they were forced to force out some sharpshooters.

However, no matter how much ammunition is saved, the consumption of bullets is inevitable, and without purchase channels and without its own military factories, it will only be rootless water.

In the early days of the war, our troops were mainly attacked, ambushed, and interdicted in attack.

In the process, destroy the enemy's transportation, cut off the enemy's supply lines, and strive to achieve the maximum result with the least attrition.

But even so, our combat discipline dictates that the troops must not fight for too long.

There was a surprise attack on the airfield of the devils, and the battle ended in just one hour. and bombed 24 devil fighters, which became the headlines of Chinese and foreign media for a while.

So, at that time, the ammunition of our troops was generally maintainable.

However, with the continuous expansion of the base areas and the increase in the frequency and scale of battles, the troops' demand for weapons and ammunition has increased dramatically.

Demand is expanding, but supply is running low. Faced with this situation, the troops could only make more efforts on capture.

Combat capture can be said to be an important source of ammunition for the Eighth Route Army, but two conditions need to be met for this matter.

Not only does it have to eat the devil troops in a formation, but it also needs to be fast.

The current devils are very stubborn, and there are often situations where they stubbornly resist to the end and would rather die than surrender.

As a result, the devils consumed a lot of ammunition when resisting, and once the defeat was decided, these beasts would directly destroy the supplies, and if they were not careful, they would lose money.

For many troops, captures do not replenish attrition, or are merely equal.

Ammunition, in particular, is often consumed more than captured, and it is really beyond means.

Therefore, every shot and bullet are not easy to come by, and often the soldiers need to pay the price of blood and even their lives.

In addition, owing to chronic financial constraints, the amount available for the purchase of arms and ammunition is very limited.

The base area was blocked and embargoed, and there was no way to buy it.

When fighting with devils, the most common thing the commanders of the troops said was to aim and hit, to strike closely, and never to shoot the enemy without killing them.

By all kinds of coincidences, the cavalry, which should have withdrawn from the stage of the times a long time ago, ushered in a second spring in this land.

For the above reasons, reloading ammunition has become a top priority for all military factories in the rear.

Reloading, in layman's terms, is the recovery of cartridge casings.

Then the shells were cleaned again, shaped, primed for installation, loaded with ammunition, and loaded with warheads.

When it comes to black powder, we are our ancestors. It is not as simple as imagined that a large number of people in the base areas should be mobilized to boil nitrate and make gunpowder together, and that reloading bullets can be reloaded.

There are a lot of processes involved, starting with the collection of used cartridge casings.

We all know that the troops have a shooting discipline, and the soldiers will recover the shells as much as possible, and bring them back to the logistics department military factory after the battle for screening and repair.

Only those shells that have not been deformed and ruptured should be used to avoid accidents such as explosions or malclosures.

But this is not a long-term solution.

After the soldiers used reloading bullets, the already battle-scarred weapons were more or less blown up.

Zhang Wanhe hears many complaints from front-line commanders every month.

The second is to remake the primer.

Comrades usually cut copper sheets from bad brass shells and stamped them into copper bowls.

After the addition of thundermercury, it is re-embedded in the bottom of the cartridge case, and then the granulated gunpowder is loaded into the cartridge case according to the specified weight.

Finally add the warhead.

The usual practice is to make a mold for a bullet, stamping a copper plate into the mold to form a quilt, and then pouring in molten lead.

The bullets completed by the above methods have many shortcomings, such as the gunpowder caused by poor sealing performance is easy to get wet, there are many shooting residues, the firing range is short, the accuracy is poor, the muzzle velocity is low, and the shape of the warhead is not satisfactory.

And at the moment the arsenal can only make round-headed warheads.

Sometimes the copper plate is not stamped well, which will cause a breach and expose the lead core.

However, it is also possible that it will become a dummmy bomb in disguise due to a blessing in disguise.

When using this kind of bullet, the troops generally do not shoot at the enemy at a distance of 100 meters, and no one knows where the bullet will fly beyond this distance, and there is a high probability that it will not be lethal.

And even this kind of bullet, which is not even considered a defective product in the eyes of devils, can be called a great achievement of the military factory of the logistics department in terms of the industrial level of the base area at that time.

The troops relied on reloading bullets, which greatly alleviated the difficulty of ammunition shortage, which can be regarded as the last glory of black powder in the world.

After sorting out his thoughts, Huang He looked at the three of them and said

"Regarding the bullet thing, although I personally look down on reloading bullets, we can't get rid of this thing in a short time."

"At present, in addition to the lack of materials, another problem in the base area is that the caliber of the bullets is not uniform."

"There are too many types of weapons in our hands, the bullet caliber used in the 38 big cover and crooked handle is 6.5×50mm, and the Type 92 heavy machine gun uses 7.7×58mm. The bullet used in the Hanyang-made and Czech light machine guns is 7.92×57mm. ”

"Plus a wide variety of IWC weapons. If we were to build a new bullet factory, the logistical pressure would be too great, and Lao Zhang and I would definitely die suddenly. ”

Huang He looked at the brigade commander's expectant eyes, and he said his latest arrangement.

Unifying the caliber of bullets is a must, but only gradually.

This is not only to reduce logistical pressure, but also to increase the survival rate on the battlefield.

Many of our soldiers now use the weapons of the captured devils, and the sound of different guns is different.

If it was a stalemate between the two sides in the dark night, most of the comrades would not see anything, and could only rely on the sound to judge whether the devils had touched it.

When they hear the gunshots around them are made in Hanyang, then the soldiers will feel more secure.

But if it's all the sounds of the big cover, normal people will instinctively feel scared, and it will confuse the public.

Therefore, in order to increase the survival rate of recruits and make them more heroic in battle, their own weapon production lines will have to be carried out sooner or later.

Deciding on the quota offered in the first month of the "formation of the Academy of Sciences", Huang He selected five researchers majoring in ammunition engineering and explosive technology.

Although his own chemistry is also good, the professional work has to be done by professional people.

These fellows are proficient in munitions system analysis and design, explosion physics, ballistics, endpoint effects, dynamic detection techniques, shock dynamics, explosion techniques, safety engineering, and more.

Moreover, they have strong hands-on skills, and can make bullets by hand even under limited conditions.

These people are good at teaching, and they can teach them according to their aptitude and pass on their skills to the comrades in the base areas.

"I've arranged a lot of things in the past month, and I have specially got a batch of copper."

"And I can also increase the lethality of bullets, whether they are new or reloaded."

Hearing that it could increase the lethality of bullets, Li Yunlong, who was originally a well-behaved baby, suddenly came to his senses and hurriedly asked Huang He what to do.

"You two should know what the biggest difference between our bullets and the devil's bullets is."

On the other side of this question, the brigade commander and Zhang Wanhe nodded.

"We use black powder because of technical problems, but smokeless powder is indispensable for modern weapons."

"The power of black powder itself is limited, and the bullets made with black powder can indeed kill and injure the enemy, but the effect is far from good."

"The world's first smokeless gunpowder was made by the French, and I studied it when I was in school, and I knew that it would work one day."

"I've been thinking about how to produce a way to make smokeless gunpowder under limited conditions for the past month, and recently I've come to a rough conclusion."

"You are not specialized in chemical engineering, so I won't explain the specific steps to you."

Huang He's words made Li Yunlong hear in the clouds, as a big old man coarse black gunpowder, he had seen it, but how did he know what smokeless gunpowder was.

But since the brigade commander was by his side, he couldn't make a fuss, so he could only ask patiently:

"Director Huang, when can we use the smokeless gunpowder you mentioned?"

"The method I just mentioned is local refining, and the shipment rate of finished products is not high, and there will be a certain degree of danger."

"But this step is a step we must take, and I will find the right person to teach the method in the next few days, and soon, by the end of this year, at the latest next year, our bullets will have a significant change."

Huang He touched his chin and pondered, he didn't know how to phrase his next words.

Seeing that he was obviously worried, the brigade commander took the initiative to ask: "If you kid has any problems, just tell me, and I will try my best to help you deal with them." ”

"After all, my ability alone is limited, I hope to set up a school in the rear, I want to teach everything I can to talented people."

"And my friends will also return to China one after another, and they also want to contribute to the great cause of resistance against Japan, and victory is based on the production of weapons."

When Huang He said this, he was trying to pave the way for the researchers who would continue to come to the base area.

It is also from the heart for a better tomorrow.