Empire Rising: Spain

For the already discovered smokeless powder, Spain’s Royal Academy of Sciences certainly would not overlook it.

Under Carlo’s substantial investment, the Royal Academy of Sciences had established a research project on smokeless powder more than ten years ago, recruiting a large number of chemists from Spain and abroad to join the project.

After more than a decade of research, Spain’s smokeless powder has finally achieved certain results.

Regarding the major issue of unstable nitrocellulose, Spanish chemists discovered that dissolving it in a solution made of ether and ethanol, supplemented by stabilizers and some special processing, can stabilize the originally unstable nitrocellulose.

It is precisely by relying on this method that Spain has produced truly smokeless powder in the proper sense.

Though smokeless powder has been invented, Carlo does not rest on his laurels. Carlo understands that countries across Europe are investing heavily in smokeless powder research, and Spain may not be the first to develop it.

Even if Spain is the first to successfully tame nitrocellulose, other countries will certainly follow and produce smokeless powder.

Current smokeless powder, due to having only nitrocellulose as its raw material, is also called single-base powder, leaving ample room for improvement.

However, compared to the black powder heavily used in bullets and shells by European countries, even single-base powder can significantly outperform.

Soon after the successful invention of Spain’s smokeless powder, Carlo received a detailed report from the Royal Academy of Sciences.

The two most significant changes in smokeless powder compared to black powder are the substantial increase in explosive power and the fact that smokeless powder, as its name suggests, produces little smoke upon explosion, which is extremely crucial in warfare.

Current rifles using black powder produce a large amount of smoke with each shot. This results in the battlefield appearing to be shrouded in smoke, which also exposes the troops’ position.

Especially in the era of firing lines, artillery only needed to aim at where there was more smoke, firing blindly at the smokiest area, almost always hitting the enemy.

The abundance of smoke also affects one’s own visibility. How can soldiers aim at enemies beyond the smoke while enveloped in smoke themselves?

For smokeless powder, this major battlefield flaw will be completely improved, making it harder for the enemy to detect their movements, while they don’t have to worry about smoke affecting visibility.

Coupled with the greater energy of smokeless powder, it extends the rifle’s range and strengthens its power, having a revolutionary impact on weaponry.

The smokeless powder research group provided a batch of smokeless powder to the Royal Military Factory, where a batch of rifle cartridges made from smokeless powder was produced.

According to the Royal Military Factory’s tests, in the same rifle with different bullets, those using smokeless powder cartridges not only have faster firing speed and greater power but also significantly longer range compared to black powder bullets.

It’s important to know that the effective shooting range of current breechloader guns using black powder bullets is only about 100 to 200 meters. Hitting a person beyond 200 meters is virtually impossible unless they are extremely unlucky.

In general, military combat distances are kept around 100 meters to ensure their soldiers can hit the target.

Clearly, the advent of smokeless powder can completely change this scenario.

With only the powder changed and the bullet head and casing remaining the same, the new bullet’s speed increased from 400 meters per second to 650 meters per second, an astonishing improvement.

Not only speed but also the rifle’s effective shooting range has improved.

According to the Royal Military Factory’s tests, the effective range of the Vitali M1872 Rifle using smokeless powder bullets can increase from less than 200 meters to over 400 meters, with bullets being deadly effective within 600 meters.

However, beyond 400 meters, with the current design of rifles, maintaining bullet accuracy is already challenging.

After all, the Vitali M1872 Rifle was designed for close-quarter combat, and the designers at the time didn’t foresee today’s bullets reaching distances over 600 meters.

This presents a new problem: Spain’s rifles must be modified to accommodate the use of smokeless powder bullets.

Demonstrating great generosity, Carlo directed the Spanish Ministry of Defense to issue a tender for new rifles to all domestic military factories.

Although the Royal Military Factory is Spain’s largest military enterprise, Carlo is not limiting the research on new rifles to just one entity.

All Spanish military factories can participate in the rifle tender, and for some exceptional design products, even if not ultimately chosen by the Defense Department, certain rewards will be granted to help these outstanding military factories progress further.

The reason for limiting the tender to within Spain is because there is currently no concept of arming the enemy in military factories.

For military factory orders, even rival nations can cooperate.

Carlo does not wish for Spain’s newly developed rifles to be promptly mass-purchased by other countries, inadvertently exposing the formidable weapon of smokeless powder to them.