Chapter 231 Shaosha's Improvement

Charles groaned in his heart.

How to modify this machine gun?

If it really needs to be modified, it would be like redesigning a machine gun, right?

It has shortcomings everywhere, but because the war broke out suddenly and all countries were short of light machine guns, it still received a certain number of orders.

However, the battlefield's evaluation of it was:

"It is normal for it to have problems."

"If it breaks down, throw it away, it is not worth bringing it back for repair."

"This is not a machine gun, it can only be regarded as a rifle that can fire continuously at most!"

...

Charles stared at the machine gun for a while, looked up and asked Dominic: "Tell me about its shortcomings?"

"The biggest problem is that the barrel will overheat after firing more than 200 rounds of bullets." Dominic pointed to the barrel and said: "Although we installed a heat sink for it, it still doesn't work much."

Charles smiled and shook his head: "This is not the biggest problem, Dominic, you don't even need to worry about this."

"What?" Dominic looked up at Charles in confusion.

Charles did not answer. He pointed to the sickle-shaped magazine under the machine gun and asked, "Hollowout design?"

"Yes!" Dominic nodded: "To reduce the weight of the machine gun."

"Do you know what this means on the battlefield?" Charles said calmly: "The battlefield is full of dirty water, sand, and many other things we can't imagine. They will enter the magazine along the hollow part, and then be brought into the bolt by the bullet, and then..."

Needless to say, the next thing is, of course, jamming.

Dominic was stunned. He really didn't think about this. Now that Charles reminded him, it seems to be the case.

The environment they used for testing was too clean, and the operation was very standardized. A maintenance was also carried out before the test.

If it is used in actual combat, it may be like what Charles said, and it may not be able to fire more than 200 rounds of bullets until the barrel overheats.

Dominic said a little frustrated: "But it already weighs 9 kilograms. If we don't reduce the weight of the magazine, it is likely to lose the meaning of the light machine gun."

Charles understood what he meant.

A hollowed-out magazine may not look very different from a non-hollowed-out one, but the point is that the magazine has a small capacity, and one magazine can only hold 20 rounds of bullets.

A machine gun must carry at least two or three hundred rounds of bullets, so there are more than a dozen magazines, and the difference is huge when you carry them on your back.

If a light machine gun requires three or more people, it is better to equip a heavy machine gun.

Charles paced and slowly walked around the machine gun for a while, summing up two particularly prominent shortcomings:

One is the heat dissipation of the barrel.

The materials of this period were not very good. The barrel would overheat after firing 200 rounds of bullets. Adding a heat sink would only fire a few dozen more rounds, which would not have any effect and would increase the weight, which was useless.

The second is the taper of the French bullets.

Its unique large taper will inevitably make the magazine form this semi-sickle shape, which cannot be changed.

After thinking for a while, Charles came to a conclusion. He said calmly: "Maybe we should remove the heat sink."

"Remove the heat sink?" Dominic exclaimed: "Then, we can only fire 200 rounds of bullets..."

"We can design its barrel to be replaceable." Charles pointed to the junction of the barrel and the gun body and said: "Probably here, design a barrel lock, add a handle to the barrel, and when the barrel is hot, hold the handle to change it, and repeat this."

This design is widely used in modern machine guns. It only takes 5 seconds to change the barrel.

Dominic and Steed looked at each other. How can it be designed like this?

However, this seems to be feasible. It is not a "heat dissipation" horn, but a direct replacement. When this barrel is hot, it is replaced with another one. When this one is hot again, the other barrel is cooled again, so it can be replaced repeatedly.

In this way, the firepower continuity is not comparable to that of ordinary light machine guns.

"Good idea!" Steed nodded in praise.

In terms of production, this is just adding a barrel lock to make the gun body tightly buckled together, but it solves a big problem.

"Magazine problem!" Charles took the magazine off the machine gun and looked at it, saying: "If it has to be half-sickle-shaped like this, why not just design it into a disc shape?"

"Disc-shaped?" Dominic widened his eyes.

"Yes." Charles saw that there was another magazine in the long box, so he took it and put the two together: "Disc-shaped, fully enclosed design, try to use lightweight metal, while reducing weight, maybe you can hold a few more bullets."

Charles was inspired by the DP-28 rotary machine gun. This kind of magazine can be well compatible with the taper problem of the Lebel rifle bullet. The bullets in it rotate one after another, so the taper problem does not have much impact.

Dominic looked at Charles in shock: "This may solve the problem of magazines, but how can we install this rotating magazine?"

Steed had the same doubts. They had thought of this method, but if it turned around to form a disc, where could it be installed?

Charles did not hesitate at all. He patted the top of the receiver and said, "Install it here. Open a loading hole under the disc, and load the bullets from top to bottom."

Unknowingly, Charles had changed the machine gun to look similar to the "Big Plate Chicken".

Dominic and Steed looked at each other, and they saw excitement and shock in each other's eyes.

Steed was lucky. He knew Charles' design talent early on, so he asked Charles for help at this time.

But Dominic thought Charles would not be of any help.

After all, Charles had just started to use guns. How could he be practicing shooting an hour ago and easily solve the problem of machine guns an hour later?

He had not even touched the trigger of a machine gun!

But the facts were in front of him. Charles gave several valuable ideas:

Replace the barrel and the closed magazine.

Although the weight of two sickle-shaped magazines was not much changed by replacing one disc magazine, the firepower continuity increased from 20 rounds to 40 rounds or even more, which was also a leap.

"Great idea, Colonel!" Dominic excitedly shook Charles' hand: "I didn't expect you to have such a deep research on firearms. I think we will have more opportunities for cooperation in the future!"

Steed smiled with relief. Dominic had never been defeated by anyone in terms of firearms, but now he admired Charles.

"Of course." Charles nodded.

Watching Dominic packing up the machine gun, Charles frowned and turned to Steed and said, "We may be able to make this machine gun work with its original design."

Steed's eyes flashed with confusion: "Can it still work?"

Charles said, "Hmm," "If you have a way to reveal it to the Pitot Arsenal..."

Steed instantly understood Charles' intention, and he smiled meaningfully, "Of course, Colonel, of course there is a way!"