Chapter 144 : AK47?
Chapter 144: AK47?
Apart from the Kingdom of Suria being allowed to buy, at a higher price, the M-type Zhiyuan-class cruisers with their fire-control systems removed—
all other kingdoms’ import orders would all be the downgraded H-type monkey version, with the power system replaced by a non-expansion steam turbine, and the fire-control system, optical rangefinder, and magitech package removed.
The armor belt and main guns did not need any tampering—those two were too obvious, easy to leave behind grounds for complaints~ if anything needed to be trimmed, it had to be trimmed in the key places.
In battleship duels, what was played was statistics and probability, plus a bit of “faith bonus”. Without rangefinding and fire-control, those probabilities would only drift without boundaries.
And these two things were also nearly impossible for other countries to copy, because equipment was one thing, but even more so was the educational gap behind them—mathematics, calculations, and so on.
Old-style cannons always relied on operators aiming and firing by themselves; behind the usage of new main guns was an entire team, and in the future it would even be a product of more technological auxiliary calculations.
“A hundred-year navy” did not merely describe the difficulty of shipbuilding; far more, it was a sigh regarding the lack of a knowledge education system.
From the compilation of multiple usable teaching syllabi, to the accumulated knowledge of more than two generations of officers and sailors—going from nothing to developing a complete naval system, from education to training to actual battlefield usability—one hundred years might not even be enough.
And the technological downgrading of cruisers also signaled that the Seris Federation would begin constructing an even larger class of warship to maintain its maritime-suppression strategy.
Naturally, the class above cruisers was battleships—not those so-called sailing battleships of the Church, but nearly twenty-thousand-ton Dreadnought-class battleships.
The diameter of the main guns was increased from 210 mm to 305 mm, with four triple-mounted 305 mm main turrets—two forward and two aft—while all secondary guns were removed, leaving behind mountings reserved for large-caliber anti-aircraft guns.
Large quantities of thick protective armor were added to the command tower, ammunition magazine, and gun mountings, with the armor thickness on the main turrets being the most outrageous.
Not only did the turrets themselves require armor; the new shell-loading hoist shafts also needed heavy protection, because the very bottom layer beneath each turret was the ammunition magazine.
All performance indicators were maxed out, the design drawings were ready, and construction was simple.
From laying the keel, to the double-hull steel plates, to the longitudinal and transverse bulkheads of the major compartments, hoisting the ram bow and stern, installing the steam turbine’s rotor assembly, and installing the side ribs—
then the turbine generator, deck, interior compartments, boiler, main armor plate, casemates, etc.—more than twenty major procedures in total.
After completing the lower structure, it could leave the drydock and enter the wet dock for welding the superstructure and finishing the four main turrets.
This process was actually very fast. How fast? Within two kun years. But such speed required nearly ten thousand factories, more than a hundred thousand procedures, and personnel throughout the shipbuilding system working tirelessly day and night~
And the full-scale war the Dmitria Church might have sparked ultimately went nowhere under the mediation of the two great empires. As for compensation—there was no way the Seris Federation would ever pay. Either fight or drop it; there was no money and only one life to give.
The Dmitria Church did not want to expand the war for the time being, because without a navy, if they really tore their faces and fought now, they would be at a huge disadvantage. Just coastal bombardment by warships alone would make them suffer.
Rather than that, it was better to hold their noses and endure for now, wait until the new fleet launched and restored their naval strength, and then plan for other matters.
After weighing the pros and cons, the Church returned to the negotiating table with the Seris Federation. On the surface, this intervention in the Kingdom of Paria had no winner, but privately the Church granted the Seris Federation extensive trade privileges.
At the same time, the two sides established formal diplomatic relations, returning their wartime relations back to normalized trade.
After being personally struck by lightning by the Goddess of Light, Mitia knew the conflict between the two sides was far from over. The Church’s retreat was merely preparation for a greater scheme in the future—but it did not matter.
Even if the Dmitria Church truly did not want to continue fighting, the Seris Federation would not stop either. This handshake for peace was simply each side harboring their own agenda.
The Federation needed a period of stability to exchange for internal development and time for large-scale naval expansion; the Church also needed to gather domestic resources and focus on naval construction. There was a foundation for peace.
If they truly compared the “dumpling-making speed” of naval shipbuilding, Seris could not only build their own ships but also conveniently help the Church build a few, lest the latter be unable to even see their taillights.
In fact, if the arms race shifted to the naval level, the Seris Federation would be much more relaxed. Presently, the Federation Army was somewhat chaotic.
First, they needed to rescreen the troops of the previous kingdoms, send back—through investigation and questioning—those who did not want to serve so they could return to farming, remove those whose qualities were substandard, then conduct ideological-political reviews of the remaining soldiers, and expand the army anew.
Then, massive amounts of outdated weapons needed to be collectively retired and sent to local steelworks for remelting. Old matchlocks, flintlocks, and other weapons long since eliminated were only taking up space.
Likewise, all sorts of old-style cannons and antique artillery had no more use.
But when replacing weapons with new ones, Mitia left a deliberate precaution. She did not produce new bolt-action rifles; instead, she distributed the existing inventory and did not replenish shortages.
Because with the new alloy being very suitable for making barrels, the assault rifles of her previous life—which used intermediate cartridges—now had the foundation for mass production and use.
The appearance of the assault rifle was a gradual process. In the beginning, when only tracked tanks existed, the frontlines of both sides actually favored long-range aimed fire.
Using single-shot, high-precision, high-power bolt-action rifles had very good battlefield performance.
But once the former Federal Army began mass-equipping armored cars, all-terrain vehicles, and tanks, the mechanized rapid breakthrough meant the fire density provided by bolt-action rifles became far too low.
The Sten-type submachine guns were excellent for clearing obstacles in trench assaults, but when facing the Church’s Mechanical Bodies in frontal breakthroughs, the round-nosed pistol rounds were nearly useless.
Bolt-action rifles had no sustained fire capability at long range; Stens lacked power and accuracy; machine guns were too heavy to charge forward with.
In such a context, for 400–150 meters, to accompany tanks and infantry fighting vehicles in rapid breakthroughs, a weapon capable of providing continuous fire—the assault rifle—finally gained its battlefield.
The 7.62–33 mm intermediate cartridge happened to achieve a very balanced kill power and accuracy within 400 meters, and chromium-molybdenum alloy steel barrels had sufficient strength.
Combined with a thirty-round magazine, it completely surpassed the previous five-round stripper-clip rifles. A soldier equipped with a brand-new assault rifle possessed instantaneous firepower comparable to four or five previous soldiers.
Thus, second-line units temporarily used old bolt-action rifles, while the former elite Federal Army waited to be issued the new assault rifles. Only one or two bolt-actions were retained per company as high-precision rifles fitted with scopes.