The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 34 Type 78 Heavy Machine Gun
The militiamen were stunned by the power of the new heavy machine guns.

Liu Tao was quite dissatisfied.

"The recoil is too great and the magazine capacity is a bit small." Liu Tao frowned slightly.

This machine gun has been continuously upgraded, and now it is considered a very successful heavy machine gun. Looking at all the heavy machine guns equipped by the entire army, none can compare to it.

Even looking at the world, this heavy machine gun is at an advanced level.

The entire heavy machine gun has a simple and compact structure, which is easy to disassemble and assemble, and convenient to use. The gun consists of a gun body, a tripod, an ammunition belt, an ammunition box and accessories. The gun body consists of six parts: a barrel, a receiver, a bolt, a trigger, a bolt handle and a buttstock. There are no independent parts in an incompletely disassembled state, which is convenient for maintenance.

The entire gun is 1640 mm long and the barrel is 1003 mm long. As for the weight, a single soldier in the army can carry it forward.

But there are two aspects that do not satisfy him. On the one hand, the recoil is very strong, and ordinary soldiers cannot operate this heavy machine gun. Only specially selected heavy machine gunners can be trained continuously to operate this heavy machine gun. On the other hand, the ammunition box has a small capacity of only 50 rounds, and the theoretical firing rate is 450-600 rounds per minute, which means that a box of ammunition can be fired in less than 10 seconds.

This involves a trade-off. If the ammunition box has a large capacity, then it will be heavy.

12.7毫米机枪弹，全弹重达131克，50发子弹便达6.55千克；要是100发子弹的话，仅仅子弹重量就达到13.1千克了！
"Increasing the capacity of the magazine is not appropriate, but the recoil can be improved and optimized!" Liu Tao said in his heart.

Afterwards, Liu Tao asked the militia to carry the heavy machine gun back, and he produced this heavy machine gun again.

This heavy machine gun is very powerful, but also very expensive.

The cost of a heavy machine gun is as high as several thousand yuan, and the bullets are also very expensive. The production cost of an ordinary heavy machine gun bullet is as high as 3 yuan. As for armor-piercing bullets, armor-piercing incendiary tracer bullets, and armor-piercing explosive incendiary bullets, the cost is even higher, even 100 yuan per bullet!
Hundreds of thousands of RMB were spent just to research the heavy machine gun!
Only Liu Tao is the factory director now, otherwise even if Wang Tiezhu was the factory director before, he would have cursed and called him a prodigal son.

But in Liu Tao's opinion, all these expenses are worth it, because the profits generated by this heavy machine gun are tens of thousands times the investment!
Without saying anything, just the armor-piercing bullets, armor-piercing incendiary tracer bullets, and armor-piercing explosive incendiary bullets equipped. In the future, the most valuable thing will not be the heavy machine gun, but the specially equipped bullets.

The next day, at four o'clock in the afternoon.

Liu Tao stroked the heavy machine gun in his hand, and a virtual panel appeared in the corner of his eye:
[Item: Type 78 Heavy Machine Gun]

【Manufacturer: Liu Tao】

[Item Level: LV10 (not upgradeable)]

[Upgrade Points: 100]

[Item status: intact, analyzable]

After being redesigned to solve the defect of large recoil, this heavy machine gun can be considered finalized. It has reached the current material limit and can no longer be upgraded.

"System, analysis!" Liu Tao muttered to himself.

Suddenly, the design drawing of this heavy machine gun was automatically formed on the virtual panel, even with the process flow chart.

And all 100 upgrade points were deducted.

"This heavy machine gun can now be finalized. I think it can be used to kill more monkeys on the front line!" Liu Tao said to himself.

Now the troops on the Eastern Front and the Western Front have all been withdrawn.

Last month, as the order to withdraw was issued from above, the various troops took turns to cover the retreat, blew up and destroyed all the military and political facilities in the occupied areas, took away all the machinery and equipment that could be taken away, and recovered a large amount of supplies that were provided to the monkeys that year.

Now there are still a large number of troops on the front line, deterring the monkeys.

But Liu Tao knew in his heart that the monkeys would continue to jump up and down, causing bloodshed, and the war would definitely start again next year. The heavy machine gun he named "Type 78" would become a battlefield weapon to harvest the lives of monkeys.

"But if we want to make more money, we still have to export. Only by exporting and earning foreign exchange can we make a lot of money." Liu Tao thought to himself.

According to published data, the country's foreign exchange reserves were only US$1.67 million last year.

At the Third Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee in December last year, it was formally proposed to begin implementing the policy of internal reform and external opening up.

This made Liu Tao see the opportunity to earn foreign exchange through exports. This era was not a peaceful era. There were often wars. As long as there was war, weapons and equipment would be easy to sell, and a large amount of foreign exchange could be earned. US dollars and gold could be exchanged for weapons and equipment.

Africa, the Middle East, and South America are all Liu Tao's targets.

In the future, the Afghanistan War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Falklands War, the Fifth Middle East War, the Gulf War and other wars will break out one after another.

Not to mention, the flames of war in Africa have never been extinguished.

The arms market is quite huge.

While the United States and the Soviet Union were eating meat, Panshan Machinery Factory only needed to drink soup and live a happy life.

As for whether it can be exported, Liu Tao is not worried at all.

In this era, China is extremely poor. It can be said that it is as poor as a ghost. It costs money to study abroad at public expense, to buy production lines, and to import various industrial products.

This money is not RMB, but foreign exchange.

Foreign exchange is not just the US dollar and ruble, the Japanese yen, Hong Kong dollar, British pound, franc and German mark are all foreign exchange.

China is so short of foreign exchange that in order to earn foreign exchange, it even dares to export the Dongfeng-3 missile.

Not to mention the export of this kind of light weapons!
Liu Tao still remembers a news report he had read that during the Iran-Iraq War, the weapons and equipment exported covered all areas and levels, from light weapons to heavy equipment, from land to sea and air, from conventional to missiles, with an export value of nearly 150 billion US dollars.

So much so that on the battlefield, there are a large number of Type 69 main battle tanks, hundreds of rescue tractors, hundreds of J-7 aircraft, Hongjian-8 anti-tank missiles, and Feibao-1 rockets.
If heavy weapons can be exported, there will be no problem in exporting light weapons.

Now the question is not whether weapons can be exported, but whether export channels can be found.

Although Panshan Machinery Factory is now making considerable profits thanks to these infantry weapons and equipment, Liu Tao still understands the importance of preparing for a rainy day.

"I have to find some time to go to the provincial capital and talk to the director." Liu Tao muttered to himself.

If he does this, he always has to report to his superiors.

Moreover, after he had negotiated the deal, he had to coordinate with his superiors for the export. Yunnan Province is an inland country with no access to the sea, so if the weapons were to be exported, they had to be shipped to Guangdong Province.

As for taking the land route, that is totally unacceptable. Transporting from Yunnan Province to Pakistan is one thing, whether there is a road or not, but even if there is a road system, it is definitely far from comparable to that of later generations.

It was only after decades of persistent infrastructure work that a well-connected transportation system was built.

As for now, even the roads in Kunming, the provincial capital, are in poor condition, not to mention other cities.

(End of this chapter)