I want to be emperor

Chapter 1170 Light Machine Gun Bidding

This light machine gun developed by Daye Arsenal weighs no more than 9.3 kilograms when empty. It has a bipod and a detachable top magazine for ammunition. The magazine can hold 30 rounds, and can also use a curved magazine that holds 30 rounds.

It adopts the principle of long-barrel recoil, and its firing rate is slower than that of heavy machine guns with short recoil. The theoretical firing rate is 500 rounds per minute.

It uses standard 8mm smokeless round-nosed rifle bullets, and can also use the recently emerging pointed bullets of the same caliber.

The new pointed-nose bullet is actually developed based on the existing 8mm round-nose bullet. The round head is changed into a pointed head to increase the initial velocity and improve the ballistic performance.

Taking into account the compatibility of bullets, especially the large number of new light weapons that have been equipped, the new pointed bullets are exactly the same as the old round bullets in main dimensions. Any firearm that fires 8mm standard rifle bullets can use the new pointed bullets, whether it is a Type rifle or a Type rifle, or various mm caliber machine guns.

However, because the ballistic performance of round-nosed bullets and pointed-nosed bullets is different, the sights are also different. So unless it is an emergency, it is best to use one of each. Otherwise, don't expect to hit the target even if you aim...

Unless you change the sight of the old gun to a new one and then use new pointed bullets.

But the army said... there's no point in making any changes. The old guns will continue to use round-nose bullets, and the new guns will use pointed-nose bullets. There will be no conflict between them... At most, the equipment will be centrally deployed. For example, the garrison in India will use round-nose bullets, and the garrison in Europe will use pointed-nose bullets, to avoid logistical supply troubles.

  Otherwise, why don’t you buy the hundreds of millions of old 8mm smokeless round-nosed bullets in stock?

Therefore, although the Chu army has stopped producing old round-nose bullets and some troops have begun using newer 8mm pointed-nose bullets, in fact, the majority of troops still use round-nose bullets. At least before these round-nose bullets are used up, don't expect these old guns to replace the sights and use new bullets.

Of course, the Chu army is fighting almost every day around the world, so although several hundred million bullets sound like a lot, they will probably be used up in a few years. By then, the sights of the old guns can be changed to use new pointed bullets...but by that time, these old guns will probably have reached the end of their service life.

It was an old tradition of the Chu army to use new guns and ammunition on one side and old guns and ammunition on the other side when new guns and ammunition appeared.

Even now, the Chu army actually has three generations of rifles in service at the same time.

The Type 8 and Type automatic rifles that use mm smokeless powder and are in service in the regular army will be the main rifles of the Chu army for many years to come, even if this series of rifles are subsequently improved, and it is impossible to export them.

The Foreign Legion uses a large number of Type 24 rifles that were replaced by the regular army. The rifle uses 8mm black powder bullets. In addition, some Type 26 rapid-fire rifles were also once distributed to the Foreign Legion. However, due to the large amount of second-hand inventory of Type 24 rifles, and the serious jamming and many other problems of the Type 26 rifle, this rifle has been officially retired and sealed... Let's put it this way, even the Foreign Legion dislikes this broken thing.

In addition, some foreign legions stationed in non-hotspot areas, mainly in Africa, also have Type 11 repeating rifles that use mm rifle bullets. Although this rifle looks a bit bulky and rough, it is still very sturdy and reliable, and there are no major problems with its performance. However, it will not be in service for long. Only the last batch of tens of thousands of foreign legions stationed in Africa are still using it. Within two or three years, they will all be replaced with Type rifles.

As for the older single-shot rifles, they were widely sold to various vassal states as export weapons.

It is worth noting that, up to now, the 8mm black powder bullet production line and the mm black powder bullet production line in the Great Chu Empire have not stopped production, but continue to maintain production, and the output is not small... The mm black powder bullet is mainly used by the Foreign Legion and the Type rifles of the various Chu vassal states.

The 11mm black powder bullet was mainly exported to indigenous vassal states for use in Type 18 or Type 19 rifles.

And because of export demand, the State of Chu even re-established the production lines for Type 18 and Type 19 rifles.

Nowadays, the State of Chu produces hundreds of thousands of rifles for export every year.

  There is no other way. To supply the military needs of more than one hundred vassal states, the production cannot be too low... We can't just watch these natives fight with backward flintlock rifles!

Therefore, the Chu army's defense industry is also very strange. There are production lines for advanced weapons, but there are also production lines for single-shot rifles that are several generations behind...

Therefore, at first glance, the defense industry system and equipment system of the Great Chu Empire seem to be relatively complex, but in fact it is very simple. It is nothing more than three categories: regular army, militia and other armed forces for their own use, foreign legions and Chu-related vassal states, and indigenous vassal states.

The light machine gun developed by the Hantian Arsenal was naturally prepared for its own regular army, so the compatibility of the two types of bullets was also considered during the design... Of course, the prerequisite is to use the corresponding sight.

In addition, this machine gun was actually originally developed as a heavy machine gun, but the design direction was later changed.

Therefore, this machine gun can also be replaced with a heavy barrel and use a tripod to transform into a heavy machine gun. Of course, if this is done, the weight will increase significantly. At the same time, the shooting accuracy and power will not be as good as those of the previous heavy machine guns. It is a bit like a general-purpose machine gun, but it is far from that level.

Because this thing is not qualified as a heavy machine gun.

As a light machine gun it performs quite well.

The only problem is that, although this thing is called a light machine gun, it actually has a lot of parts and the process is relatively complicated. In order to control the weight, it uses a lot of advanced materials and advanced processing technology, and has very high requirements for raw materials and processing accuracy... The ultimate result is that this thing is very expensive.

If it is not expensive, the quality cannot be controlled and quality problems may easily occur.

The initial price quoted by Huguang Weapons Company is 300 Chu Yuan per set of machine guns and accessories... This is almost the price of a mid-range car, and is comparable to the price of a heavy machine gun after the patent expired and the price was greatly reduced...

Early heavy machine guns were extremely expensive, costing over a thousand Chu Yuan each... Don't think it's too expensive. Due to patent restrictions, only the Shaanxi-Gansu Weapons Company had the water-cooled ones, and only the Huguang Weapons Company had the air-cooled ones. They were so expensive, it's up to you whether you want one or not.

When the patents expired one after another, the other three weapons companies also imitated and produced them, and developed and improved them on this basis to come up with new water-cooled or air-cooled heavy machine guns. Only then did the prices of heavy machine guns plummet. But even so, a heavy machine gun still cost more than 300 Chu Yuan.

Now, your light machine gun is so expensive, the army said it cannot accept this price...

You have to know that this thing is not a high-level technical weapon, but a basic weapon prepared for front-line infantry.

If it is to be equipped, it must be directly equipped to the infantry platoon level. Even in actual applications, it is likely to be directly strengthened to the infantry squad and used as a squad support weapon.

As a squad support weapon, you raised the price directly to 300 Chu Yuan, almost the same price as a heavy machine gun. This is unacceptable.

At the same time, if the price is too high, then it cannot be popularized to the squads. If it cannot be popularized to the squads, then the light machine gun will lose its core significance as a basic infantry fire support weapon... If there is only one in a company, wouldn't it be better to use a heavy machine gun directly? In this case, the Army is conducting difficult negotiations with the Wuguang Weapons Company to see if the price can be lowered. At the same time, it also requires other weapons companies to come up with corresponding design plans as soon as possible... Hurry up, a huge order worth millions of Chu Yuan is in front of you, why don't you show your real ability to grab the order?

Although the price had not yet been agreed upon, the Army still purchased a small batch as preliminary equipment testing to explore the tactics of using squad light machine guns.

Of course, if the price cannot be lowered, don’t expect the Army to really spend such a high price to purchase this light machine gun... It’s not that they don’t want to, but they really can’t afford it.

Anyway, the firepower of today's bolt-action rifles is pretty good, at least it's no problem dealing with the natives, and the team's firepower is actually barely adequate.

At the infantry company level, they can get fire support from 60mm mortars and occasionally from heavy machine guns.

In addition, the battalion level can also obtain 80mm mortars and sometimes 70mm infantry guns for fire support.

When the Chu army deploys operations overseas, they usually carry out tactical deployment at the battalion level. The main supporting firepower will include 70mm infantry guns, 80mm and 60mm artillery guns, water-cooled or air-cooled heavy machine guns (water-cooled or air-cooled depending on the regional environment). These weapons and equipment will often directly support the infantry company's battles during combat, and the overall firepower is actually very good.

However, this is only limited to the infantry company level. If it is an infantry platoon at a lower level, there will be no such supporting firepower, only dozens of bolt-action rifles. Only in relatively large-scale operations can it get battalion and company-level firepower support, but it will be very scarce when fighting independently.

However, daily patrols and duties are often carried out by infantry platoons or even infantry squads... The area that the Chu army has to control is too large, and it is impossible to mobilize hundreds of troops to carry out tasks every time. Most of the time, there are only dozens or even a dozen people, and they cannot get timely fire support from high-level units.

This means that the Chu army troops stationed overseas conduct small-scale patrols and can only rely on the bolt-action rifles in their hands when fighting.

No matter how good the bolt-action rifle is, its firepower has greatly exceeded that of a single-shot rifle, but it is still not enough in many cases.

The single-shot rifles of the natives are also capable of killing people, and have an effective range of hundreds of meters.

In this case, the Chu army urgently needs a support weapon that can be directly distributed to the infantry platoon and, when necessary, directly reinforced to the infantry squad, and the lightweight machine gun is the most important candidate.

Otherwise, the army would not attach so much importance to light machine guns.

However, the price of a light machine gun that is currently available is too expensive, which makes the army very embarrassed. Now it can only hope that other weapons companies can also produce similar products. Only with competition can the price be brought down.

Otherwise, if only Huguang Weapons Company had this thing, considering how unscrupulous Huguang Weapons Company was in selling all kinds of air-cooled heavy machine guns and vehicle-mounted heavy machine guns, they would really dare to sell light machine guns at the price of heavy machine guns!

You have to know that the price quoted to the Army by Huguang Weapons Company for the Type A7 11mm vehicle-mounted heavy machine gun was more than 1,300 Chu Yuan...very expensive.

But the performance of this thing is really good, it beats other competitors, and the purchase volume of vehicle-mounted weapons is not large, and the total price is not high, so the army can only accept it with a pinch of the nose...

In fact, it is precisely because the purchase volume is not large that the price is so expensive. If we really talk about the manufacturing cost, it is actually not that exaggerated.

However, the initial research and development of a weapon and the construction of a production line cost a lot of money, and these must also be included in the cost.

However, the army only purchased a small number of machine guns for use on a few models of armored vehicles, and was unable to spread the research and development and equipment costs by quantity, ultimately resulting in a very expensive unit price.

That's it, and that's because the navy also purchased a small batch and tried to use it as auxiliary firepower on ships to see how effective it is, otherwise the price would be even higher.

The price was too high, which resulted in the light machine gun being released but not being able to be used, which made the army very helpless.

However, Huguang Weapons Company is not the only one in the world. After the relevant news came out, Shaanxi-Gansu Weapons Company also quickly came up with their new light machine gun design, saying that it could weigh nine kilograms. Although this weight is lighter than the light machine gun of Huguang Weapons Company, it is limited in how light it is, only a few tenths of a kilogram, and it uses a 20-round magazine placed below for ammunition supply.

If you ignore the bipod, the whole appearance is actually similar to the automatic rifle of later generations... except that it is a little bigger and heavier. It only looks like one. If you remove the bipod and really use it as an automatic rifle, its recoil and accuracy will make you doubt your life...

After all, this thing uses full-power rifle bullets, and the recoil is extremely large when fired continuously.

As for the price, they said that as long as the army's purchase order quantity reaches two to three thousand, they will be able to lower the price to around two hundred and ten Chu Yuan.

In addition, the Guangdong-Guangxi Weapons Company also came up with its own design plan. Their design plan is more special. It uses air-cooled sleeves for heat dissipation, and the firepower sustainability is slightly better. Of course, the improvement is limited... Instead, it makes the entire machine gun look very ugly... The thick and large pipes look like a water-cooled heavy machine gun; there is also a large round magazine on top, which makes it even uglier!

However, although this thing looks ugly and thick like a heavy machine gun, in fact, the heat pipe cover is very thin and light, and the added weight is not large, so their light machine gun actually weighs only twelve kilograms.

At the same time, because it adopts a top 50-round magazine feed design, it has a large ammunition capacity and the slide can dissipate heat. The combination of the two gives the gun a relatively good firepower sustainability capability.

When the army went to conduct a preliminary inspection and test, they gave very good comments on this light machine gun, saying that it had a simple and reliable structure, and although it was a little heavy, its sustained firepower was quite good.

At the same time, the process is relatively simple and the manufacturing cost is low. If the order is of a certain scale, the Guangdong-Guangxi Weapons Company stated that it can achieve 180 Chu Yuan or even lower.

Then, after learning the news, the Huguang Weapons Company also gave some feedback... The feedback to the army was that if the total order quantity could reach more than 5,000, the price could be a little lower, but 250 Chu Yuan was already the minimum standard and it could not be lower... If it was lower, the quality could not be guaranteed.

In view of these three different light machine guns with huge price and performance differences, the military finally decided to hold a test and let the three light machine gun samples undergo various tests, including continuous live-fire shooting, live-fire shooting in harsh environments and other projects. Finally, the army will select one of the three light machine guns and give it a super large order!

The starting order is 5,000, and the total order in the future will not be less than 10,000... Chu Lujun is very clear that this thing is prepared for the work teams, and the order quantity will be very large.

The purpose of directly placing a large order is to lower the price and make these three weapons companies cautious when making the final quotation... At least the current price of around 200 Chu Yuan is unacceptable to the Army.