I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution

Chapter 105: Comprehensive Optimization and Reform

Not only airships, but projects to build large aircraft were also launched.

Compared with small biplane propeller aircraft, manufacturing large biplanes was actually somewhat easier — if two engines weren’t enough, just put four, or five!

Didn’t they know what it meant to have power enough to fling bricks into the air~

After the airship incident had given her a wake-up call, Mitia had completely shifted her thinking about army construction.

Previously her idea had followed the standard development template of industrialized countries from her previous life: when it came to aircraft, keep pushing — from biplanes to monoplanes and then to jet fighters.

But now, looking back at this world, the pitiable bomb load and the dive-attack approach of fighters were not necessarily going to be decisive against the opponent’s Mechanical Body units.

Moreover, the enormous overload during a dive made fighter flight paths fixed and predictable; a single magic shell could bring one down like a turkey. It was hard to say whether such attack behavior wasn’t just sending people to their deaths.

By contrast, large transport aircraft and bombers operating at higher altitudes could perform very effectively — high-altitude bomb drops. If you had the guts, fly up and try to stop them!

In plain terms, she changed her mindset of treating fighters as the main offensive force into using aircraft to create local advantages for ground forces.

Her ultimate goal in her mind was an airborne gunship like the AC13030.

A mid-altitude gunship offering three-dimensional direct fire support, high-altitude airships delivering supplies, combined with heavy mechanized ground forces, could allow them to occupy a place and fix it like a nail.

Of course, there was a very high chance this world still had an air force; fighter research could not be entirely halted — it would simply not be mass-produced, serving only to collect combat flight data.

At the same time, after spending the funds Mitia had allocated over more than a decade, the Seris Federation naval shipyards had finally produced a qualified mainline armored warship.

Zhiyuan-class cruiser

A twin-funnel, twin-mast design, the ship had been 106.2 meters long with a maximum draft of 6.57 meters. Both the bow and stern each mounted a shielded twin 210 mm gun; the foredeck also carried one pedestal-mounted 210 turret — a front-two, rear-one configuration.

Near the forward section on both sides of the waist were one 152 mm shielded naval gun each, and three 152 mm quick-firing naval guns along each broadside.

In addition, it had twenty machine guns. Its power plant consisted of two triple-expansion steam turbines, four coal-fired boilers, twin-shaft propulsion, with boosted maximum horsepower of 10,600 and a top speed of 22.5 knots.

Displacement was 3,900 tons, maximum coal capacity 820 tons, and a range of 8,000 nautical miles at 15 knots.

Armor was an arched “dome armor” mounted amidships, positioned above the waterline in the center and sloping downwards on both sides beneath the waterline. The waterline belt itself had no armor, relying on coal bunkers for protection.

The dome armor thickness ranged from 70.8 to 131 mm; the conning tower had 130 mm armor and the gun shields had 70 mm.

The twin 210 mm guns used hydraulic recuperation technology.

On firing, inclined-plane gravity and hydraulic mechanisms were used together to counter recoil.

This greatly reduced the displacement of the artillery and shortened the firing interval: a single gun’s firing interval was 2.5 minutes per shot, and two bovine-race laborers were assigned to carry the shells.

The 152 mm secondary guns were quick-firing naval guns that abandoned the inclined carriage and adopted a dual recuperation system of hydraulics plus springs.

On firing the barrel recoiled, the hydraulic system reduced the recoil depth, then the spring assembly compressed and released a counterforce so the barrel could return to battery at higher speed.

This recoil-recovery system allowed the 152 quick-firing guns to reach a rate of fire as fast as one round every ten seconds, and ordinary soldiers could handle shell carrying.

Although a few years earlier they had built ten-thousand-ton full-load liners, those were ultimately civilian ships, not professional war beasts. A nearly four-thousand-ton warship was already very good in Mitia’s view, and several joint shipyards in Sendegas could complete construction of that class.

Mitia naturally had not skimped; she approved the construction of ten vessels so the Seris Federation Navy could quickly form a powerful combat force.

All civilian shipbuilding orders were transferred to Bonwich Harbor City; Bonwich had previously only built wooden sailing ships and was unfamiliar with armored warships, so it needed time to transition.

Mitia was not in a hurry — she had plenty of time to wait for things to bear fruit.

The technical data for the 152 naval quick-firing gun had also given Mitia a reminder: the army’s artillery units needed a rapid-fire support gun of their own.

This made her think of the once-famous “75” — a 75 mm caliber with hydraulic recoil recuperation and a screw breechblock, whose extreme rate of fire could reach a terrifying thirty rounds per minute.

Although it could not perform indirect fire, it had good destructive effect against enemy infantry; a single gun could suppress an Alesian battalion’s retreating guns.

It was simple and practical to manufacture, weighed just over a ton, and a Cat-type All-terrain Vehicle could tow it everywhere.

However, it was better for Cat-type vehicles to be used to help artillery units tow ammunition — the ammunition consumption at such a rate would be terrifying.

If field artillery was once again reformed around a 75 mm, Seris’s current artillery system would become somewhat chaotic — a logistics nightmare for their own side...

Therefore the artillery units had to be reorganized: unify calibers, thoroughly reform and improve, and reduce logistical pressure. ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by novel-fire.ɴet

Company-level support fire: 75 mm — 75 quick-firing field gun, medium mortar, medium recoilless cannon.

Battalion-level support fire, 108 mm — heavy mortar, heavy recoilless cannon.

Regimental-level support fire, 152 mm — wheeled towed howitzers, tracked self-propelled artillery.

At the same time, feedback from soldiers had indicated that the Maxim was far too bulky; Mitia withdrew the Maxim from frontline infantry use.

It was replaced by a newly designed air-cooled machine gun modeled on the Hotchkiss heavy machine gun from her previous life, with the overall receiver optimized to reduce weight.

The Hotchkiss tripod support was also far more mobile and easier to handle than the cart-like Maxim mount, though its rate of fire was slightly lower at only 400 rounds per minute.

But there were advantages: air-cooled dissipation and the slower rate of fire made its sustained-fire cooling ability extremely strong, allowing for long, continuous firing.

All other Maxim heavy machine guns were relegated to second-line service and outfitted in major cities for air defense and counter-terrorism — there was still a need for heavy machine guns in urban areas, so this was not a waste.

Supportive, sustained fire on armored cars and other platforms was replaced by large-caliber twin- or quadruple-barrel autocannons.

Mitia mainly sought to make the heavy machine gun and rifle ammunition share the same 7.92 mm caliber for greater interoperability and to further reduce logistics difficulty.

Moreover, by using a new smokeless powder as propellant, even though the caliber had been reduced compared with the Maxim, power was not diminished but rather increased.

At the same time, the lighter Hotchkiss machine gun could even be carried in a soldier’s arms for bursts of fire, increasing tactical flexibility.

With the adoption of 9 mm revolvers and Sten submachine guns, frontline infantry only needed to carry two types of ammunition.