Chapter 13 The Last Glory of Black Powder

After hearing the words of the brigade commander, Huang He was not surprised.

If someone asks what is most important to the Eighth Route Army at this stage, it is undoubtedly bullets and grenades.

The former is the foundation of the combat effectiveness of the troops, and the latter is the best choice to deal with the devil's pig-surprise tactics.

During the Anti-Japanese War, the Eighth Route Army was always troubled by the lack of ammunition.

The nickname of the Three Guns Eighth Route Army is because the veterans in the army always emphasize that three bullets are needed to eliminate an enemy, and they must launch a charge after shooting.

The old devils all know that fighting with the Eighth Route Army is very difficult and dangerous. Because they don't have many bullets, they are forced to force out some sharpshooters.

However, no matter how much ammunition is saved, the consumption of bullets is inevitable. Without purchasing channels and their own military factories, it will only be rootless water.

In the early days of the war, our troops mainly attacked, ambushed and blocked operations.

In this process, destroy the enemy's transportation, cut off the enemy's supply lines, and strive to achieve the greatest results with the least consumption.

But even so, our combat discipline still requires that the troops should not fight for too long.

Once a surprise attack on the devil's airport ended the battle in just one hour. And 24 Japanese fighter planes were bombed, which became the headlines of Chinese and foreign media for a while.

So, at that time, the ammunition of our troops was generally maintainable.

But with the continuous expansion of the base area, the continuous expansion of the army, and the increase in the frequency and scale of battles, the troops' demand for weapons and ammunition increased sharply.

The demand increased, but the supply was increasingly insufficient. Faced with this situation, the troops could only work harder on the seizure.

Combat seizures can be said to be an important source of ammunition for the Eighth Route Army, but this requires two conditions.

Not only must the Japanese troops be eaten up in an organized manner, but the speed must also be fast.

The Japanese are now very stubborn, and often resist to the end and would rather die than surrender.

As a result, the Japanese consumed a lot of ammunition during the resistance, and once the defeat was certain, these beasts would directly destroy the supplies, and it would be a losing business if they were not careful.

For many troops, seizures cannot make up for consumption, or only keep a balance.

Especially for ammunition, the consumption is often more than the seizure, which is really not enough to cover the cost.

So every shot and bullet is hard-won, and often the soldiers need to pay the price of blood or even life.

In addition, due to the long-term shortage of funds, the funds available for the purchase of weapons and ammunition are very limited.

The base area was also blocked and embargoed, and there was no way to buy them.

When fighting with the devils, the commanders of the troops said the most, such as aiming and shooting, shooting when close, and never firing unless the enemy is killed.

Due to various coincidences, the cavalry, which should have withdrawn from the stage of the times, ushered in a second spring on this land.

Because of the above reasons, reloading bullets has become a top priority for various military factories in the rear.

Reloading, in popular terms, is to recycle shells.

Then the shells are cleaned, shaped, primers are installed, ammunition is loaded, and bullets are loaded.

When it comes to black powder, we are the ancestors. The base area mobilized a large number of people to boil saltpeter and make gunpowder together, but reloading bullets is not as simple as imagined.

There are many processes involved, the first of which is to collect used shells.

We all know that the troops have shooting disciplines, and the soldiers will recycle shells as much as possible, and bring them back to the military factory of the logistics department for screening and repair after the battle.

Only those shells that are not deformed or cracked can be used to avoid explosion or mismatch.

But this is not a long-term solution after all.

After the soldiers use the reloaded bullets, the weapons that are already scarred by battle will explode more or less.

Zhang Wanhe hears many complaints from frontline commanders every month.

The second is to remake the primer.

Comrades usually cut the copper skin from the broken brass shells and then punch them into copper bowls.

After adding fulminate of mercury, they are re-embedded in the bottom of the shell, and then the granulated gunpowder is loaded into the shell according to the specified weight.

Finally, add the bullet.

The usual practice is to make a mold for the bullet head, punch a copper plate into the mold to form a jacket, and then pour in molten lead.

The bullets reloaded by the above methods have many shortcomings, such as poor sealing performance, gunpowder is easy to be affected by moisture, there are many shooting residues, short range, poor accuracy, low initial velocity, and the shape of the bullet is not satisfactory.

Moreover, the arsenal can only produce round-headed bullets at present.

Sometimes the copper plate is not stamped well, which will cause a crack and expose the lead core.

However, it is possible that it will become a disguised dum-dum bullet.

When using this kind of bullet, the troops generally will not shoot at the enemy 100 meters away. Beyond this distance, no one knows where the bullet will fly, and it is likely to have little lethality.

Even this kind of bullet, which is not even considered a defective product in the eyes of the devils, can be regarded as a great achievement of the military factory of the logistics department in terms of the industrial level of the base at that time.

The troops rely on reloading bullets to greatly alleviate the difficulties of ammunition shortage. This is the last glory of black powder in the world.

After sorting out his thoughts, Huang He looked at the three people and said,

"Regarding the bullet, although I personally look down on reloading bullets, we can't get rid of this thing in a short time."

"At present, in addition to the lack of materials in the base, another problem is the inconsistent caliber of bullets."

"We have too many types of weapons. The caliber of bullets used by the Type 38 rifle and the Type 92 heavy machine gun is 7.7×58mm. The bullets used by the Hanyang and Czech light machine guns are 7."

"Plus a variety of international brand weapons. If a new bullet factory is to be built, the pressure on logistics will be too great. Lao Zhang and I will definitely die suddenly."

Huang He looked at the brigade commander's expectant eyes and told him about his recent arrangements.

It is necessary to unify the caliber of bullets, but it can only be done step by step.

This is not only to reduce the pressure on logistics, but also to improve the survival rate on the battlefield.

Many of our soldiers are now using weapons captured from the devils, and the sounds of different guns are also different.

If it is a stalemate in the dark night, most comrades can't see anything and can only rely on sound to judge whether the devils have come up.

When the gunshots around them are all Hanyang, then the soldiers will feel more secure.

But if they are all the sounds of the Type 38 rifle, normal people will instinctively feel scared and will be confused.

Therefore, in order to increase the survival rate of new recruits and make them more heroic in combat, their own weapons production line will be established sooner or later.

Huang He selected five researchers in ammunition engineering and explosion technology for the quota provided in the first month of the decision to "establish the Academy of Sciences".

Although he himself is good at chemistry, professional matters should be left to professionals.

These researchers are proficient in ammunition system analysis and design, explosion physics, ballistics, terminal effects, dynamic detection technology, impact dynamics, explosion technology, safety engineering, etc.

Moreover, they have strong hands-on ability and can make bullets by hand even under limited conditions.

These people are good at teaching and can teach students in accordance with their aptitude and pass on their skills to comrades in the base.

"I have arranged a lot of things in this month, and I have specially obtained a batch of copper."

"And I can also improve the lethality of bullets, whether they are newly produced or reloaded."

Hearing that the lethality of bullets can be improved, Li Yunlong, who was originally like a good baby, suddenly became energetic and hurriedly asked Huang He what to do.

"You two should know what the biggest difference between our bullets and the devil's bullets is."

Facing this question, the brigade commander and Zhang Wanhe nodded.

"We use black powder due to technical problems, but smokeless powder is indispensable for modern weapons."

"Black powder has limited power. Bullets made with black powder can indeed kill the enemy, but the effect is far worse."

"The first batch of smokeless powder in the world was made by the French. I studied it when I was in school and knew that it would be useful one day."

"For the past month, I have been thinking about how to produce smokeless powder under limited conditions. Recently, I have reached a general conclusion."

"You are not specialized in chemical engineering, so I will not explain the specific steps to you."

Huang He's words made Li Yunlong confused. As a rough man, he has seen black powder, but he doesn't know what smokeless powder is.

But since the brigade commander was right beside him, he couldn't make a fool of himself, so he could only patiently ask:

"Director Huang, when can we use the smokeless gunpowder you mentioned?"

"The method I just mentioned is a traditional method of refining, the finished product delivery rate is not high, and there will be certain risks."

"But this step is a step we must take. In the next few days, I will find a suitable person to pass on the method. If it's fast, by the end of this year, or at the latest at the beginning of next year, our bullets will have obvious changes."

Huang He touched his chin and thought, he didn't know how to phrase the next words.

Seeing that he was obviously worried, the brigade commander took the initiative to ask: "If you have any questions, just tell me, I will try my best to help you deal with it."

"My ability is limited after all. I hope to set up a school in the rear. I want to teach everything I know to talented people."

"And my friends will return to China one after another. They also want to contribute to the anti-Japanese cause. Victory is based on the production of weapons."

When Huang He said this, he was paving the way for the researchers who would continue to come to the base.

It is also for a better tomorrow from the bottom of my heart.

Although the conditions were poor at that time, it was not really hard.

Although the military factory had few equipments, it was not without them.

A small amount of these equipments were purchased, but they were mainly borrowed and seized.

How could there be only screwdrivers, stoves, and a few sledgehammers?

New book, please everything!

Some people in the comment area asked me to update more, so today I will update 6K