Chapter 65 Military industry relies on imitation

While Cardil Bruno was working hard for Carlo's orders, Carlo, who was far away in Madrid, also ended his leisure life.

After a long wait, Carlo's Royal Arsenal was finally formed, and some workers from Spanish weapons workshops were recruited, and a large number of rifle design experts were excavated in France, Italy and other countries.

Starting this year, rifles will enter a new era, that is, the era of bolt-action rifles.

The prosperity of bolt-action rifles will continue until World War II, and then be replaced by semi-automatic and fully automatic rifles.

As the main equipment of the Spanish army for nearly a hundred years in the future, Carlo attaches great importance to the research and development of bolt-action rifles.

In fact, as early as last year, the Swiss had developed the first practical bolt-action rifle, named Vitali rifle.

This rifle was not only purchased in large quantities by the Swiss army, but also exported to Italy. This is all the news Carlo knows so far.

In addition to Italy, other countries are also constantly trying to study bolt-action rifles. In the next few years and ten years, a large number of famous guns will continue to be born, and they will show their effectiveness in many wars.

The first task that Carlo gave to the Royal Arsenal was to go to Switzerland to purchase a batch of Vitali rifles, and design the first bolt-action rifle belonging to Spain based on the advantages of the Vitali rifle.

It is still difficult for the current Royal Arsenal to independently develop a bolt-action rifle. It is not that it cannot be developed, but that the developed bolt-action rifle will have many shortcomings, and safety and stability cannot be guaranteed.

Rifles are the most important weapons for soldiers. If safety and stability cannot be guaranteed, how can soldiers feel at ease to take such weapons to the battlefield?

Therefore, before independently developing their own bolt-action rifles, it is very necessary to learn the ideas of foreign military factories on bolt-action rifles and absorb their advantages.

At least the Swiss rifles have been double-affirmed by Switzerland and Italy, and their safety and stability are guaranteed.

Since he came to the Royal Arsenal, Carlo will naturally not only deal with issues about rifles.

At present, there are two most important weapons in the army, namely rifles as light weapons and artillery as heavy weapons.

The good news is that after the Franco-Prussian War, Germany and France eliminated a large number of artillery.

It's not that there is a problem with these artillery pieces, but that Germany and France in a peaceful state do not need to arm so many artillery pieces.

What should be done with these second-hand artillery pieces that were only used in the Franco-Prussian War? Of course, they should be sold to other European countries at a lower price to reduce the huge amount of money invested by the country in the war.

Compared with the French artillery, Carlo actually wants to buy the Krupp artillery from Prussia.

The reason is that the Germans taught the French a lesson with the Krupp artillery in the Franco-Prussian War, and the Germans are undoubtedly leading in artillery at present.

French artillery is certainly also at the European level, but it is slightly inferior to the more excellent Krupp artillery.

The current Royal Arsenal is divided into a rifle design group and an artillery design group.

Carlo also gave the artillery design group a new task, which is to go to Germany to purchase a batch of Krupp artillery, and imitate it as much as possible to ensure that Spain has the technology to produce Krupp artillery.

It is more cost-effective to produce it yourself than to buy it from Germany. Although Krupp's output is larger, the production cost may be lower.

But the export of this kind of heavy firepower will be much more expensive, and it will not be more cost-effective than Spain's own production.

And the technology of artillery is also very important.

In addition to being used in the army as an important firepower to support infantry, artillery can also be installed on warships, becoming the main firepower output method of warships at present.

The current artillery technology can only be regarded as just starting. Learning the artillery technology of the Germans can at least ensure that Spain will not lag behind other powers in artillery.

Purchasing a batch of weapons and equipment from countries with excellent designs, and then continuously conducting research and imitation through these purchased weapons and equipment, this is the current task of the entire Royal Arsenal.

There is no way around it. Although Carlo has invested a lot in the military factory, as a newly established military factory, it is difficult to have a complete ability to independently develop weapons.

Compared with independently developing and producing weapons, it is more cost-effective and more reliable to purchase excellent weapons and imitate them.

And it is not shameful to imitate weapons, because other countries do the same.

Even in later generations, when exporting their own weapons, they must be prepared for the weapons they export to be studied and imitated by other countries.

This is also the reason why there is a saying in weapons research that one generation is eliminated, one generation is exported, one generation is equipped, and one generation is developed.

Generally, more advanced weapons are not exported. Those that can be exported are those that are almost eliminated in the country. The purpose is also to exchange a certain amount of income to pave the way for the development of more powerful weapons.

After investing a new budget in the Royal Arsenal, Carlo can only hope that the military factory can quickly understand the technology and achieve imitation after purchasing new rifles and cannons.

This may take a few years, but it is definitely more beneficial than harmful. However, this is only the first step, and the task is still arduous for the Royal Arsenal.

Self-production of weapons and equipment is nothing to the great powers. What the Royal Military Factory needs to do in the future is to continuously research new weapons and equipment and always keep its weapons at the world's top level.

Among all of Carlo's industries, the military factory is the most expensive industry.

If he had not acquired more than ten factories, the military factory would not be able to support the military factory with the income from those newspapers.

After all, those who can buy newspapers are not illiterate, and they must be able to understand the content of the newspapers first.

The illiteracy rate in Spain is as high as 70%, which is one of the reasons why newspapers cannot develop at present.

Fortunately, there are many nobles around Madrid, plus factory owners, the middle class and some skilled workers with higher incomes, which allows Carlo's Sun to have a stable daily sales.

Compared with the newspapers that have fallen into a bottleneck period, Carlo's several steel factories are undoubtedly more profitable.

Whether it is for the expansion of Spanish industry or to make his wallet fatter, Carlo has issued orders to the steel mills, requiring them to continue to expand their scale and increase steel production in the next few years.

Anyway, with the Royal United Bank as a financial guarantee, the expansion of these industries will not be a big problem as long as they are not too radical.

Expanding industries in Spain will not lose money at all, because Spain's future development plan will carry out a lot of infrastructure construction. The railway alone determines that the steel mill will not lose money.

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