Rebirth: Romania Rising

"Brothers, dinner is ready-"

The chief chef led a dozen cooking soldiers, carrying several iron buckets and lined them up behind the position. When he opened the lids of the iron buckets, a rich and cloying aroma suddenly filled the position.

"Oh my God, it's luncheon meat again. Can you change the taste? I'd rather eat potatoes..."

"Suddenly I'm not hungry anymore. I might as well steal two corns and roast them!"

"I'm going to get a rabbit and roast it. You guys can eat my share."

The soldiers immediately complained, and their morale immediately dropped to the extreme. Some soldiers felt like vomiting as soon as they smelled the smell.

"This is meat, you know it's meat? Don't be so ungrateful!" The chef was angry. After only a few good days, he began to dislike meat because he was still too full.

Two months ago, a Montegna agricultural product company provided the Romanian Army with a canned product made of meat, starch, and potatoes. This canned product is packaged in iron sheets and can be used for frying, frying, boiling, and stewing. It is easy to use. , has a long shelf life, is easy to transport, and can even be opened and eaten directly with a knife or can opener. Therefore, it was favored by the Romanian Army and purchased in large quantities as daily food for the army.

When this thing called "luncheon meat" first appeared, it was very popular among army soldiers. It was once all the rage and became a favorite delicacy.

But as time went by, luncheon meat became unpopular. The soldiers no longer liked the taste made with heavy salt and spices, and gradually became tired of luncheon meat.

This cannot be blamed on the soldiers for being naughty, but mainly because Romanian capitalists are not good people: when making luncheon meat, the proportion of meat is very small, and most of the raw materials are starch and potatoes. It is okay to eat this once or twice. I have eaten it so often that, to put it bluntly, I might as well just cook the potatoes.

Victor had previously planned to open a cannery in the army, but before he could implement it, domestic businessmen took the lead.

Speaking of this, Montenia has advantages that other regions do not have. The farms in Johannesburg and Nyasaland are both growing and growing. Apart from potatoes, there is no spare capacity to provide excess food for external supply.

Montegna is different. Although the urbanization of Montenia under Ferdinand I has not been able to further develop and expand, the rural manors are still quite good. In the past, Montenia was able to meet the needs of the national market. At the same time, exports can earn foreign exchange.Now it's just that the food originally used to supply the city is processed into cans and sold outside.

Montegna now has several canneries, and luncheon meat is only one of the products of the Montegna cannery. In addition to luncheon meat, it also sells canned soybeans, canned fruits, and canned fish. With its cooperation with the Ministry of War Due to the relationship, the army is even preparing to set up a canning factory near the military camp to directly process the canned goods for sale to the outside world.

When it comes to investing in heavy industry, Romania's domestic capitalists may not be able to do it, but they are still good at engaging in light industry and making quick money through speculation.Thanks to Victor's connection, the cannery became somewhat formalized.

So far, Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire are the biggest dumping grounds for canned Montenia. Including luncheon meat, which is disliked by the Romanian army, the sales volume of all canned products abroad is actually pretty good.

The compradors were quite interesting, and the price for the cans was not high, because the canneries used a lot of cheap labor, and the capitalists had more management experience, so after all calculations, it was actually cheaper than the military directly setting up factories to produce, so Vic If you want more, you won't bother anymore, leave this industry to these people, and encourage them to get involved with each other.

"Canning is just a small business and doesn't make much money. If businessmen are willing to do it, let them do it. We should focus on heavy industry. Steel plants, engine plants, chemical plants, and our arsenals. Whichever one, let them do it. The profit is much higher than the profit from canned food." Victor thought reasonably. Arms dealers eat meat, but other capitalists always have to drink soup, otherwise there will be no cooperation in the future.

"Everything else is easy to talk about, mainly the arsenal. Now this whole thing is losing money. We can now produce Mannlicher and Mauser rifles and domestic pistols. Serbia wants to buy them but has no money to buy them. If we produce each one, we will lose money. , it’s really hard to make money!”

Eric is very worried. In fact, the arsenal is currently in a state of loss. The Serbian people cannot afford to pay. They have to pay for things on credit and lose money all the time. As for the Bulgarians, they are the enemy. You can sell them cans and arms. It is absolutely impossible to export it to them.

In the past, domestic arsenals could only produce Mannlicher and Mauser rifles. During the Second Balkan War, the demand for weapons from the anti-Provincial Alliance increased greatly. Romanian arsenals were very busy for a time, and arms production reached a new high. However, after the war, orders suddenly decreased. .

The Romanian arsenal could not hang itself on a tree, so the arsenal later mass-produced the Stecher-Marcuso M1912 pistol.

斯捷切尔-马库索M1912手枪，也被称为罗马尼亚M1912手枪。这是一种半自动手枪，由罗马尼亚工程师康斯坦丁·加夫里尔·斯特塞斯库（ConstantinGavrilSte?0?4escu）和尼古拉·马古拉鲁（NicolaeM?0?0gureanu）于1912年设计。

Compared with revolvers, the Romanian M1912 pistol has many disadvantages such as higher production process requirements, complex structure, more parts, and higher cost.

The reason why Romania still chooses the M1912 pistol as the first domestic standard pistol is mainly to cultivate more skilled workers and provide workers with technical levels by producing high-precision pistols to prepare for the next expansion of the arsenal.

Of course, it is also for this reason that the cost of the M1912 pistols produced by the Romanian arsenal is extremely high. The current monthly output of the Jechel-Marcuso pistol is still very low, and it is still far from being sold to the outside world. .

"Don't focus on such trivial matters. The arsenal would rather lose money than stop production in order to train more qualified workers. There is no need to worry about losing money at this stage." Victor is not afraid of losing money, as long as more skilled workers are trained now , the money you lose now will be earned back tenfold or a hundredfold in the future.

Since Victor mentioned this, Eric has no reason to object. In fact, the arsenal is not always losing money. Although the rifles produced by the arsenal cannot be sold at present, the explosives produced by the arsenal are still very easy to sell. After all, There are many mines in Romania, and the demand for explosives is huge. The Nyasaland Arsenal’s explosive sales are still good.

"Let the University Alliance and Precher Industries work harder to make the submachine gun as soon as possible. Only with the submachine gun can our arsenal be on the right track."

Victor thought to himself, even if he couldn't make any good guns now, he should at least make a submachine gun, so that the Romanian arsenal would have a real flagship product.

The so-called "submachine gun" sample gun is of course the famous Sten submachine gun given by Victor. In another time and space, the world's first submachine gun was the Villar-Perosa (VP/Mod.1915) of Italy, the Allied Powers, with double barrels. Designed to fire pistol cartridges and equipped with a bipod but no stock.But this time and space didn’t take that long to be invented.

When it comes to designing guns, the Sten submachine gun is actually not particularly complicated. There is a problem of conceptual change. Now the objective technical level of the arsenal is considered to be passing. Victor just introduced the future pistols and rifles to the talents. Development trends, and a sketch reference was given, and then the specific design was handed over to professionals. I believe that the university alliance can give Victor a satisfactory answer.

"Actually, Pletcher has already made a prototype gun, but now the prototype gun is very controversial. The Mannlichers and Mausers we distribute still use manual bolts, but the submachine guns are repeating weapons and fire bullets faster. , with a small range. Although the cost is not high, it consumes a lot of ammunition. Now many people are doubting whether we need to equip repeating firearms such as submachine guns."

Eric raised a very realistic question. As far as the current world is concerned, the emergence of the Sten submachine gun is too advanced.

Today, the British Empire troops are equipped with Lee Enfields with a magazine capacity of ten rounds. This is considered a waste by many people, even the top brass of the British military think so, so the British troops are equipped with magazine dividers. Such a nondescript gadget forcibly turned Lee Enfield into a single-shot rifle, forcibly reducing its excellent rate of fire.

After Victor got the Lee Enfield, he immediately removed the magazine separator from the Lee Enfield and threw it into the warehouse. This thing was definitely an anti-human design, and he really hated it.

Victor thinks so, but it does not mean that others think so too. Especially since the troops are already equipped with Maxim heavy machine guns, whether it is necessary to increase the firepower of the soldiers has become a focus of debate.

A very important reason for the opponents is that the more automatic weapons the troops are equipped with, the greater the pressure will be on logistics. The number of Maxim heavy machine guns currently equipped in the Romanian army is relatively high compared to other small countries in the world. If Increasing the firepower of individual soldiers will definitely be a disaster for logistics.

"We'll talk about the logistics later. Now that we've made a prototype gun? Why didn't you tell me earlier? I can't wait." Victor immediately wanted to get up and take a look. With the Sten submachine gun, no matter how heavy the logistics pressure was, Victor We also need to experiment with changing the equipment of the troops. Others don't know the value of submachine guns, but Victor knows it very well.

In World War I, the German troops using the "flower machine" MP-18 killed all parties in the Kaiser's Battle. On the battlefield, two flower machine MP-18s could suppress a squad of enemies, bolt-action rifles and submachine guns. In close combat, the firepower appears insufficient.

"It hasn't been finalized yet. It's just a prototype gun. The failure rate is too high. Preacher Industries is still improving." Eric explained why he did not report the news to Victor.

"Very good, we must continue to improve. Don't listen to the nonsense of those who oppose it. Once the troops are equipped with submachine guns, their firepower will reach a new level. Now our troops cannot do without Maxim wherever they go. This situation needs to change. "

The Sten submachine gun was invented in order to quickly produce a large amount of weapons and equipment when Britain was short of supplies during World War II. It used a lot of stamping and welding processes, using very little material, and the quality was impressive - but it was cheap enough.

"So not only submachine guns, but also precision sniper rifles must be studied as soon as possible. We in Romania have too few manpower and cannot afford to use them against the enemy on the battlefield, so we must use our fast and superior firepower to bury the enemy." Victor was determined. Promote quick solutions, and things that can be done with money will never be done with people.

If Mihai were here, he would be rolling his eyes right now.The Romanian army is a bunch of supporters of artillery doctrine. If they want to increase their firepower, shouldn’t they start with artillery?

"Speaking of industrial capabilities, when will our arsenal be able to produce domestic artillery?" Victor also thought of this. Artillery has higher requirements, and he has never forgotten artillery.

Now Romania's closest confidant is Bulgaria. They don't have much industrial strength. Although the Romanian army doesn't have much artillery, the Bulgarians are only half as good, so they can still fight.

Although Eric didn't know what Victor's ultimate goal was, he thought that the new firearms had been completed and the artillery should also improve.

But the All-Romanian Universities Alliance has not yet figured out the rifles, and now it wants artillery. Even if it forces all Romanian doctors to death, it still cannot produce artillery.

Compared with individual weapons, the structure of artillery is too complex. Designing an artillery is not a task that two people can complete. It requires the precise cooperation of a team to gain something in artillery. Many famous gun masters in history , all designs are individual weapons, but in terms of artillery, few people can leave their names.

"Don't worry about artillery. We still need time. If that doesn't work, we can import them uniformly. We'll finish the individual weapons and logistics first." Victor knew that it would be very difficult for Romania to develop conventional artillery to compete with European countries. But Victor also has a backup plan. If he can't develop conventional artillery, he still has a trump card, which is mortars.

Compared with conventional artillery, the structure of mortars is much simpler. In other words, the difficulty of mortars is mainly in the shells, while the mortars themselves do not have any technical difficulties.

During the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, Tsarist Russia and Japan fought fiercely.

The Russian army relied on the solid fortification defense of the Lushunkou Fortress, and the Japanese army dug trenches to a place only a few dozen meters away from the Russian position. The Russian army could not kill the Japanese army with ordinary artillery and machine guns, so the Russian artillery captain Nikolayevich They tried to modify an old 47mm naval mortar on a gun mount with wheels, and fired a long-tailed shell at a high elevation angle. The result was that it effectively killed the Japanese troops in the trenches and repelled many Japanese attacks. .

The inventor of the mortar has a name, and he was not a serious engineer or scientist.This fully demonstrates that inventing a mortar does not require advanced knowledge or perfect equipment. It only takes an inspiration to invent a brand new weapon.

Compared with traditional artillery, mortars have many advantages. The main advantages are simple structure and easy operation, which are very suitable for recruits who have not been specially trained in gunnery. In addition, for swamps and forest landscapes like Dobriga, mortars are It is also more convenient to move than traditional artillery. It is very difficult for traditional artillery to move in these places, so it is difficult to accompany the troops in action. However, as long as the caliber of mortars is not too large, it can be done. It can be loaded and fired, and it can run away after hitting.

That is to say, there is no market for mortars yet, and scientists are still working hard to overcome the problem of submachine guns, so Victor is not in a hurry to launch mortars. If Romania is not affected by the arms race, a large amount of funds will not be used to expand recruits. , Victor had already ordered the arsenal to start researching mortars.