After Old Schmeisser spoke those words of rebuttal, Bergmann, the company owner standing to the side, had a premonition that things were about to go badly.
“Old Schmeisser really is too inflexible… This man is here on behalf of His Grace the Duke to discuss a project and place an order.” Bergmann could not help thinking this, while hurriedly calculating how he might smooth the situation over.
Fortunately, Lelouch was young as well, and not so obsessed with saving face. He merely chuckled and took the initiative to offer an out:
“Mr. Schmeisser, I don’t believe I meant to insult the quality of your company’s products. What your company designs and produces are, of course, all fine goods. But this is wartime. We need a more agile response speed. We can hardly make the officers and men at the front wait another three months under a hail of bullets, can we?
I fought my way out of the mountains of corpses and seas of blood at Neoport! I know what the men at the front need most! The day my company had just arrived at the town of Neoport, three divisions of Biliginians in the east were trying to break out! Later, I led my men in holding on for dear life until reinforcements of one regiment arrived, and then we relied on that single regiment to stand against five enemy divisions for three days and three nights! Only then did we finally annihilate the Biligian Army!”
Lelouch was not usually fond of flaunting his merits. But the old designer before him was clearly somewhat pedantic and rigid, and Lelouch naturally did not want to be looked down upon.
He had to emphasize: he represented the group of officers and men who had fought most bloodily at the front, and he was putting forward an urgent request that allowed no delay.
Only after hearing this did Old Schmeisser become solemn with respect. The rest of his words stuck in his throat, and he did not know how to continue.
Bergmann was also slightly startled. As a businessman, he did not pay much attention to the details of the front-line situation; he only knew that there had been a victory recently, but not who had won it.
This officer was absolutely bound for great things!
He hurriedly put on an apologetic smile and said, “Captain Lelouch, please rest assured. Schmeisser is absolutely not refusing you. In any case, this batch of items is only trial-production samples. Whatever you hope them to be, that is what they shall be… As for how they are finalized for mass production in the end, we can still take our time discussing that.”
Seeing Bergmann back down, Lelouch also extended an olive branch once more: “Of course, I also understand the difficulties of the business world. Brand value must not be tarnished. How about this—I’ll give you an idea. Bergmann can fund the establishment of a subsidiary, then put another label on it, specifically for producing experimental firearms.
Once the design is finalized and ready for mass production in the future, the parent company can pay some licensing fees to spread out the R&D costs, or the parent company can make another premium version. Either way is fine. In any case, the battlefield will tell the producers what kind of weapon is truly good.”
In later generations, companies that created subsidiaries to make low-end brands were everywhere, so a transmigrator like Lelouch could immediately think of a similar solution.
But in the early twentieth century, this move was absolutely rare. Bergmann hesitated for a moment before finally making the decision: “This method is indeed flexible. How about this: we at Bergmann will invest 500,000 marks to establish a subsidiary for trial-producing new weapons.
Captain Lelouch, you can take shares through technical consulting, and we will also advance part of the capital for you, giving you a 10% stake. The Barya royal family, through the technical materials seized previously and the promise of future orders, will take a 15% stake. I will handle the specifics. In any case, neither of you will need to invest cash. The remaining 75% will belong to Bergmann.”
No wonder Bergmann had hesitated for so long. It turned out he had been pondering how to bind their interests together, and simply decided to give away a small portion of the new company’s “free shares.”
In any case, this subsidiary only had a share capital of 500,000 marks. Lelouch’s stake, valued at 50,000 marks for his technical support, was not too excessive. If production had to be expanded later, additional capital would be injected, and the proportion represented by Lelouch’s 50,000 would certainly be diluted.
But if Lelouch himself proved capable and could provide more technical support plans in the future, he could also contribute technology as valued capital for shares. In short, everything was very flexible and could be adjusted according to subsequent contributions.
“I only brought you a few sets of drawings and gave a few suggestions, and that can be worth 50,000 marks in share capital?” Seeing how cooperative the other party was, and that it had even saved him trouble, Lelouch could not help confirming.
In Lelouch’s original plan, he had not intended to gain much personal benefit from this light machine gun improvement and submachine gun development. As long as he could get a quick cash reward, and also make the duke trust his judgment in the military industry, completing his initial accumulation, that would be enough.
As for whether he would personally involve himself in the military industry in the future, that was a matter for later.
Right now, he still did not have a trusted core team, and as an officer he could not be in two places at once. Having a boss in the military industry take the initiative to extend an olive branch, allowing him to take dividends without managing affairs, was already the best choice.
Bergmann affirmed very readily, “It’s only 50,000 marks, merely the price of several dozen machine guns. Your contribution is worth this price, and I believe you do not understand only this little. We very much need a consultant like you, who both understands the field and fully understands the true needs of the front.”
The production cost of one MG08 heavy machine gun was about 700 marks. Fifty thousand marks was only the price of eighty heavy machine guns.
For a firearms company, investing this bit of money in a promising prospect was absolutely worthwhile. Moreover, the excuse had already been delivered right before his eyes.
After confirming that all of this was not against regulations, Lelouch also spoke quite frankly: “Since Mr. Bergmann has put it this way, I can give you a few more suggestions right now.
First, for the sake of production progress, this first batch of trial-produced light machine guns can have their cooling jackets made even simpler. For example, of the original four-sided cooling jacket, only the symmetrical left and right sides need to be retained, while the upper and lower sides can be omitted outright. That would make maintenance easier, and keeping the left and right sides is only for testing the cooling effect in actual combat.
The firearms we are producing this time are mainly for winter operations, so the cooling conditions are relatively better to begin with, and we can leave more margin. The Biligian battlefield is muddy and full of standing water everywhere, so as long as we ensure that after the front of the barrel is submerged, water can be drained as conveniently as possible, wiped dry, and then the weapon can continue to be used, that will be enough.
By the same logic, I hear you are also pondering a short-range automatic firearm that uses low-powered ammunition. Mm, let’s call it a ‘submachine gun’—is this project also stuck on the issue of heat dissipation? I think that for winter operations, you can likewise disregard the cooling jacket problem for now, and first build the thing and use it.
Once winter has passed, if we need to fight in a different environment, we can bring it back and modify it then. This also makes it easier to collect battlefield feedback data while developing and finalizing the design.”
This suggestion from Lelouch would definitely be worth its weight in gold anywhere else as well.
In later generations, there were many “agile working methods” used to accelerate scientific research progress, constantly updating and iterating small versions in development.
To early twentieth-century entrepreneurs who strove for perfection, this was completely unimaginable. But as long as there was a good testing-user environment, it truly could improve R&D efficiency in a concrete way.
Lelouch had keenly grasped the meteorological characteristics of this winter campaign, as well as the geographical environment of the Biligian battlefield, where floodwaters had left standing water everywhere.
Adapting to the time and the place, he coaxed production into first completing a basic model with relatively poor compatibility, using it first, and then solving versions that could be compatible with summer and dry, hot environments.
After listening, Old Schmeisser practically felt that his brain was no longer enough. He was already in his late sixties and approaching seventy, an old man on the verge of retirement, and he truly could not understand such a method that overturned the work model of his entire life.
Hugo Schmeisser, on the other hand, was still under forty. He was in the prime of life, with astonishing learning ability, and after hearing Lelouch’s words, he sincerely felt that he had benefited greatly.
He hurriedly asked for guidance on a heap of further questions, all concerning principles rather than specific techniques. Lelouch basically answered every question, and occasionally threw out a few common-sense ideas on R&D management from later generations, making Hugo Schmeisser admire him all the more.
At the end, Hugo Schmeisser did not forget to ask him about one specific problem:
“Captain Lelouch, I will follow your requirements and accelerate the ‘submachine gun’ project as well. However, this project still has one difficulty we are temporarily unable to overcome, so I estimate it cannot be completed within half a year. You presumably will not require submachine gun samples to be put into battlefield testing in two months, will you?”
Lelouch had not wanted to interfere too much in specific technical issues, but seeing the other party in such difficulty, he could only listen. “What specific difficulty is there? Say it, and we can consider it together.”
Hugo Schmeisser then mentioned, “Compared with a machine gun, the greatest change in a submachine gun lies in its use of low-powered pistol cartridges. But the propellant charge in this type of cartridge is also relatively small, and the recoil from the powder gases is likewise relatively small. To reliably push open and unlock the current bolt structure is almost impossible.
So I have been trying to design an entirely new bolt structure. But as you know, once something has to be started over and completely redesigned from scratch, the time required becomes impossible to guarantee. I can show you what the failed bolt I am currently envisioning looks like.”
As Hugo Schmeisser spoke, he actually had an assistant return to the laboratory to fetch the drawings, then spread them directly before Lelouch.
He did not expect the other party to provide a solution. He only hoped that Lelouch would recognize the difficulty and grant this project more time, without setting his expectations too high.
After looking at them, Lelouch also frowned.
He had not expected that the early design drawings of the MP18 submachine gun in history would have such a complicated bolt structure. It was indeed very difficult to produce and machine. Even if it were made, the weight would be very heavy, almost the same as a machine gun bolt, and completely unsuitable for a lightweight submachine gun.
He looked carefully again. Although he did not understand the technical details very well, he still managed to spot a key point: the reason Schmeisser had taken so many detours in the beginning was that he was still fixated on “the bolt being able to remain stably and absolutely locked at the moment the cartridge fires.”
In plain language, the firearms design philosophy at that time pursued the idea that a submachine gun should be like a machine gun: when the bullet had just been fired and was moving forward, the bolt had to be fixed dead in place and unable to move. Only this could ensure that chamber pressure would not leak and that the propulsive force of the powder gases would not be wasted.
Only after the bullet had flown forward for some distance would the bolt be allowed to recoil and complete the action of ejecting the spent case and chambering a new round.
But Lelouch knew history. He knew that decades later, in order to simplify structures to the utmost, many submachine guns directly used “inertia locking,” such as the MP38/40. In other words, they gave up even a moment of “absolute locking,” allowing the bolt to recoil in sync the instant the cartridge primer was ignited, with some of the powder gases immediately leaking out.
And as long as this obsession was abandoned, the design of the bolt-locking mechanism could actually be simplified greatly.
Manufacturers had not dared design it this way at first. On one hand, they had not thought of it; on the other, they were afraid the military would not accept it—because in that case, when firing, powder gas or muzzle flash might also leak out behind the chamber. If front-line soldiers were unwilling to use it, afraid of burning their hands, or afraid of ejected casings bouncing into their faces, and complained about such a weapon, the manufacturer would also get into a lot of trouble.
Fortunately, Lelouch was the military representative today. He could accept certain specific “quality defects” on behalf of the military.
So after considering the whole matter, he proposed a plan: “I think the problem of the bolt-locking mechanism may not be that difficult to solve after all. We in the military can try lowering our requirements: I will allow gas and flame to leak out from behind the chamber. At worst, we will have the soldiers wear leather gloves with better fire resistance so their skin does not get burned.
It is also fine if the chamber pressure is a little lower and a bit of the powder gas propulsion is wasted. We are not expecting this new gun to deliver precise lethal fire against targets a thousand meters away like rifles and machine guns. As long as it can kill targets within one to two hundred meters, that is enough. The waste from low chamber pressure is completely acceptable! Developing weapons does not require pursuing perfection. It only needs to satisfy specific battlefield functional requirements!”
After Hugo Schmeisser finished listening, his understanding of “the client” was once again refreshed.
He had never seen someone representing the military as the “client” raise such makeshift requirements.
He actually did not care about low chamber pressure, wasted gas, gas leakage, or flame leakage?
He quickly thought of a method and asked tentatively in return, “Then… if that is the case, could I directly tune a spring with just the right stiffness and use it to hold the bolt in place? As soon as the cartridge fires and the powder gas recoils, the spring that normally holds the bolt in place will no longer be able to hold it, and it will naturally retract, eject the case, and chamber a new round?”
Lelouch was very satisfied with his speed of reaction. He rose and patted Schmeisser on the shoulder. “Good! That is the kind of daring imagination we need! Do not be afraid that ‘using a single spring as the bolt-locking mechanism’ is embarrassing. As long as it is practical, there is nothing embarrassing about it!”
(Note: The image above is a schematic of a blowback bolt. The bolt has no locking mechanism and is held in place only by a spring. Once the pressure inside the barrel rises, the bolt pushes the spring back and ejects the cartridge case. This is the simplest possible bolt-ejection structure, and the price is that it easily leaks gas.)
Hugo Schmeisser was greatly encouraged. After calculating the project schedule in his heart, he gritted his teeth and said:
“If even this is acceptable… I may also be able to produce a prototype within a month and a half! However, the speed of trial production will definitely be slower than that of the light machine gun. Even if we build a prototype, we will not be able to produce many.”
“That’s fine. Just do your best. When the time comes, the Barya military will give you orders larger than you can imagine!” Lelouch offered one final word of encouragement, and the matter was considered settled.
Submachine guns, after all, were never supposed to be too expensive. On Earth, more than twenty years later, the British would even dare to manufacture five-pound cheap pieces of junk like the Sten.
Lelouch was merely helping those Demanian designers, who had originally striven for perfection, slightly put down some of their ideological burden.
Perhaps the rear of this submachine gun’s breech would be somewhat loose, and problems of gas and flame leakage might occur when firing, but low cost, high reliability, and ease of use could completely make up for that part.
Once the product matured in the future, they could then pursue advanced goods like roller-locked bolts or other types.
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P.S. Another eight thousand characters today… I figured the farming arc had to produce results before it would be a good place to break the chapter, and I couldn’t bear to cut it off in the middle.
New book—please comment, keep following, add to your favorites, and vote. I don’t know why, but yesterday the number of people following the latest updates dropped by over a hundred. Maybe it’s because the battle scenes have temporarily ended.
Please be patient, everyone. I’ll try to update more and pick up the pace.