Munitions Empire

Chapter 631: 590 ammunition model

“`

There was no choice, for the speed of the troops’ attack was simply too fast, and even with the logistics engineer corps giving it their all, they could only manage to connect Tang Country’s railway network with Qi Country’s.

With this railway line in support, Tang Country’s trains could haul goods all the way from the northern part of Tang Country to King City of Qi Country, providing a relatively ample supply to all Tang Army units along the way.

However, further away, things became more troublesome. For example, the 1st Armored Division, far from this railway, could only rely on trucks and horse carts for supplies.

This railway line was also responsible for supplying Tang Country’s Air Force, transporting fuel and bombs. These were consumables that needed continuous replenishment.

At the same time, the railway also had to provide supplies to the 4th Armored Division, which had crossed Donghe Bridge and was a major fuel consumer.

...

Because it had to handle so many supply transportation tasks, the railway was under heavy strain and could only guarantee the most basic material supplies for the remaining troops.

This led to many troops lacking ammunition, or lacking in food supplies… Under such circumstances, some troops had to halt and wait for supplies, while others could only conserve ammunition and barely get by.

The good news was they had captured a large number of Qi Army artillery, which could be barely used as a stopgap. The bad news was that in order to use these shoddy Shireck-made artillery pieces, Tang Army had to convert some captured Qi artillerymen into regulars, letting them continue to fight under Tang Army’s watch.

Tang Mo was no god; he could not conjure up a host of infrastructure. Railway mileage needed time to build up, and factory capacity needed time to accumulate as well.

Qi Country’s backward industrial base and infrastructure were creating problems for Tang Army. Those details that seemed trivial in the eyes of Shireck’s advisory group were practically a disaster for Tang Army.

Now, Tang Army’s ground forces, especially the Armored Corps, had halted their advance and were standing by, largely to alleviate the logistical support pressure.

…

Tang Mo was very busy recently. He saw the various suggestions for improvements to weapons and equipment put forward by the frontline troops, and he needed to organize these requests, then figure out how to improve it all.

For him, this was also an important task, as well as his old profession. The reputation as a humanoid self-propelled drafting machine was not for nothing—he was now single-handedly holding up the already quite sizable Great Tang Group.

Despite the countless engineers in the whole group to assist him, the workload for Tang Mo himself was still enormous.

Although he did not need to bear the risks of operating at the world’s cutting edge without anything to reference or emulate, Great Tang Group still had to devote a lot of manpower and resources to explore and adapt to a range of new technologies.

Tang Mo was using his knowledge to drag the entire Great Tang Group forward, so in many respects, the R&D personnel did not even fully understand the principles of some new technologies before they had to turn them into mature products ready for use.

For instance, the chemist Guest was recently researching the technology related to the mass production of plastics, yet even he himself was not quite clear how important this stuff would ultimately be.

On a sunny afternoon, after finishing the morning’s work meeting and returning to his office, Tang Mo stretched himself and then resumed his work, bent over his desk.

Before him was a design for a submachine gun, yet unfinished. If there were another transmigrator from Earth standing beside Tang Mo at that moment, they would recognize at a glance what model this submachine gun was, because this model was too famous on Earth.@@novelbin@@

Indeed, the submachine gun that Tang Mo was designing was none other than the renowned MP-5. He took the vertical foregrip added in later models of the MP-5 and installed it directly onto the initial version.

The reason he took out this submachine gun was partly because Great Tang Group had met the raw material requirements for producing such a weapon, and partly because Tang Mo was also eager to provide frontline combat personnel with a truly excellent submachine gun weapon in the real sense.

According to his plan, this weapon would be issued to armored troops, artillerymen, and machine gun assistant gunners, providing these personnel with reliable and continuous self-defense firepower.

At present, these personnel either only carried handguns or were stuck using the heavy and cumbersome Thompson Submachine Gun, which was not particularly user-friendly.

Additionally, Tang Mo was determined to establish an effective, sustained, and high-performance ammunition system for his troops.

The .45 caliber pistol rounds currently in use were clearly somewhat obsolete. Although the performance of the M1911 handgun was excellent and could continue to be used for another thirty years, Tang Mo had to consider changing the ammunition system he was currently using.

After all, the 9mm Luger pistol cartridge was simply too attractive. The handguns and submachine guns that Tang Mo planned to equip the troops with in the future would all use 9mm caliber bullets.

It was a simple trade-off. Although the M1911 handgun was quite good, the Thompson Submachine Gun was only mediocre in performance. It was not quite meeting the needs of the military anymore.

“`

“`

However, retiring the Thompson Submachine Gun would necessitate adding a new weapon caliber for the troops, and if I were to forcefully adopt the UMP-45 Submachine Gun, technical issues aside, a similar problem with ammunition types would arise when upgrading handguns later on.

After all, although the M1911 still seems quite good right now, it is outperformed by the Beretta 92F and Glock handguns, which both use 9mm caliber bullets.

After some consideration, Tang Mo decided to downsize the submachine gun caliber to a more suitable 9mm and began mass production of the Beretta 92F handgun to replace the M1911 currently in use by the military.

When designing this handgun, he made some compromises with the materials and omitted the external coating process, making this handgun more in line with his current production techniques.

The reason he went to such lengths to standardize the caliber of both submachine guns and handguns to 9mm was primarily to prepare them for the battlefield-adapted assault rifle that would replace the current armaments of the Tang Army.

With the widespread adoption of tanks and the large-scale deployment of aircraft, the embryonic form of a modern mechanized military force was already taking shape.

In such a scenario, traditional bolt-action rifles were clearly no longer suitable for the combat needs of the Tang infantry.

In the future, this force would operate more alongside armored corps, and engagement distances would shrink from over 400 meters in trench warfare to 300 meters or even closer.

At such close combat distances, the advantage of weapon range becomes less critical, and what replaces it is the ammunition’s capacity for rapid fire, or rather, the weapon’s suppressive power.

Assault rifles were born against this backdrop, and Tang Mo was preparing to begin manufacturing and equipping his frontline combat troops with them.

It was precisely because of the option of the assault rifle that Tang Mo so decisively discarded submachine guns from the frontline troops: with better and more suitable weapons available, there was no need to retain the submachine gun, a mediocre option.

When the assault rifles were ready to be distributed to the troops, submachine guns that had yet to be deployed by other nations would all be relegated to second-line forces, barely clinging to use as individual defense weapons.

As for the model of the Tang Army’s assault rifle, Tang Mo directly brought out the more renowned AK-47 assault rifle.

This time Tang Mo had no way to simplify the ammunition types used: even if he adopted the German Army’s own STG-44 assault rifle, its ammunition was completely incompatible with that of the MG-42 machine gun.

Since total incompatibility was the case, Tang Mo simply chose the easily produced and reliably performing AK-47 as the standard weapon for his troops.

After all, that thing truly had an excellent reputation. In an era before the proliferation of attachable accessories, it could be said to be the best assault rifle—without equal!

Tang Mo’s reasoning was straightforward: since no assault rifle could guarantee ammunition compatibility at this stage, why not just go ahead and use the best assault rifle available to begin with.

Later, when conditions improved, leaning towards Western-style assault rifles would be the way to go. With the current level of technology, there was no immediate need for holographic sights or tactical flashlights with infrared aiming or other such novel gadgets; the AK’s advantages in reliability and ease of manufacture were infinitely amplified.

While Tang Mo was keen to use various Huaxia weapons, the application of new materials in Huaxia’s latest individual weapons meant that copying the technology was a complete no-go. With no other choice, he would have to wait until his own technology advanced further before he could utilize them.

You could say that Huaxia’s Type 56 is very good, with quite excellent performance, and that would be true. But isn’t the Type 56 essentially an AK?

Following these modifications, the future variety of the Tang Army’s weapon ammunition was locked into three types: 9mm Luger cartridges, 7.62mm rifle cartridges, and 7.92mm machine gun cartridges.

Compared to the current situation, this added one type of ammunition, but it also introduced a new weapon called the assault rifle, effectively simplifying logistics to the greatest extent.

The new weapons would be widely replaced after this war ended to ensure that the Tang Army maintained a performance advantage in single-soldier weapons in the next conflict.

This also marked the beginning of the Tang Army’s weapon innovation; war is the catalyst for the birth of new weapons, and only the grimmest of wars spurs humans to invest a hundredfold of passion into weapon development.

And as time went on, these weapons gradually became more familiar to Tang Mo: he finally reached a point where he could easily decide what weapons and equipment his troops would use, not relying on blueprints but on his own experience.

After all, he had sold MP5 submachine guns, but never MP-38 submachine guns… those were already the darlings of collectors and museums in Tang Mo’s time.

Beretta handguns, MP5 submachine guns, AK-47… Tang Mo excitedly sketched the blueprints while his heart raced with excitement. His era was truly on the horizon!

So engrossed was he in his drawing that the corners of his mouth curled upwards, and he was completely oblivious as the door was pushed open and Alice walked in.

“`

0 comment

Vote

3 left