Bright Sword: Follow Kong's fun and build the strongest military industry

When Minister Zhang saw the bicycles in front of him, he was immediately full of praise. These bicycles with different functions are all good things. They can be distributed to the troops in large quantities, and then the front-line commanders can deploy them according to actual conditions.

After visiting the bicycle assembly plant, Kong Hao took Minister Zhang to a stamping workshop where there were more than a dozen stamping machines. Workers put pieces of cut steel plates into the molds. As the upper and lower molds fell, a product was stamped into shape. When the quantity reached a certain level, it would move on to the next process.

“Xiao Kong, this, this is a helmet. It’s incredible that we can actually produce such a high-tech thing as a helmet. Am I dreaming?”

Seeing the scene in front of him, a large number of semi-finished steel helmets were produced, causing the entire workshop to be filled with the smell of various engine oils, but for Minister Zhang, this smell made him extremely intoxicated.

This is a situation that can only be faced by large-scale industrialization, and it is what their generation has dreamed of. This workshop can produce industrial products every minute or even every second. No matter what it is, it will enhance our strength, not to mention that this is a helmet that the troops urgently need.

Having soldiers wear helmets can effectively prevent injuries from shrapnel, including grenade shrapnel, artillery shell shrapnel, etc. On the battlefield, the chance of surviving being hit in the head by shrapnel is too low.

Not only Minister Zhang understood this principle, but even the heads of the headquarters knew it well. However, the actual situation did not allow us to distribute helmets to our troops on a large scale.

The arsenal's pitiful steel production capacity was previously all used to make grenades, or had blacksmiths forge them into broadswords, red tassel spears, and muskets.

What the troops urgently need are offensive weapons. As for defensive equipment, it would be better to have them, but it doesn’t matter if they don’t have them.

After all, sometimes a military unit cannot even afford military caps and uniforms, so it won’t ask for too much from other things.

Sometimes after the troops won a battle, they would seize a lot of helmets from the Japanese, but basically, if the size was right, they would be given to important technical arms, such as cavalry, light and heavy machine gunners, grenade throwers, etc., or to those ace troops, such as reconnaissance companies, spearhead companies, etc.

If a small unit of the Eighth Route Army could equip all its members with helmets, it would be a powerful unit and also a powerful force with outstanding achievements.

But then again, the helmets produced by the enemy were designed based on the body shape of the Japanese devils and in line with some of their habits, so our soldiers always felt a little awkward when wearing them.

Kong Hao then continued to introduce: "Commander, our arsenal has developed this helmet based on the Sandezi M35 helmet template and combined it with the head shape and living habits of the Chinese people. We are currently only in trial production, with the first batch of helmets. If the response is good after it is deployed to the troops, we will then start mass production."

"Okay, very good! Xiao Kong, just go ahead and do it boldly. I fully support you here."

"By the way, if this type of helmet is mass-produced, how much can be produced in a month?"

"This new type of helmet weighs about two and a half kilograms, and requires two kilograms of high-quality steel. One ton can produce one thousand helmets. The small steel plant in our arsenal only produces about one thousand tons a month, and can only produce five tons of steel at most."

The arsenal has a detailed plan for the use of steel produced by the steel plant, even down to the precise details of what products will be produced with each ton of steel.

The entire army has only these few good things, and many factories are eagerly waiting. The rifle and Mauser pistol production lines need them, the grenade launcher and mortar production lines that are about to start construction need them, the key steam engine units that are being developed also need them, and even the various research institutes in the arsenal need a large amount of high-quality steel to develop new equipment. Even the key parts of bicycles need them.

Director Ren specially set up a calculation department to calculate the amount of steel needed by each department based on the current steel production and the actual production capacity of the arsenal.

All key components must be made of self-produced steel, mainly because of its good quality. Other unimportant parts can be obtained from the Japanese, such as the very common rail steel.

At present, part of the steel plant's production capacity is still unused and is stored in a special warehouse. This is why Kong Hao is specifically researching helmets suitable for our troops.

The design parameters of this new type of helmet were specially created by him through the system. He used the M35 helmet as a template, combined with many advanced concepts of later generations, and added the current equipment conditions of the arsenal, and finally came up with this new type of helmet.

When the blueprint of this helmet came out, the relevant technical personnel saw it and immediately worshipped Kong Hao as a technical god.

After the sample was produced, it immediately received unanimous praise from everyone. It is simply perfect for use by us Chinese people.

This is the result achieved when the equipment in the arsenal was relatively backward and the lining of the helmet was not very good. If the conditions were the same as those of large foreign factories, the performance of the helmet would probably be greatly improved.

Hearing that the production of helmets was 5,000 per month was far beyond Minister Zhang's expectations. This quantity could already solve a lot of problems for the troops.

Of course, it is a bit unrealistic to equip all troops with new helmets in a short period of time, but there is no problem at all in equipping technical arms with them.

Five thousand helmets a month, that's almost sixty thousand helmets a year, which is enough to cover almost all technical arms of the troops. Next, we can slowly increase the penetration rate of helmets in the troops, and one day all soldiers will have a helmet.

"Xiao Kong, try to produce more protective equipment to reduce the casualties of the frontline soldiers. After all, people are the most precious to our troops."

"Also, the lining part can be placed somewhere else, and the arsenal will only be responsible for producing the helmets. This will also save as much manpower as possible in the arsenal."

As for the interior of the helmet, it actually doesn't have much technical content and can be placed somewhere else. There is no need to squeeze it into the arsenal. After all, the more people there are in the arsenal, the greater the risk of being exposed.

Kong Hao quickly nodded in agreement. This had been his plan all along. It wasn't just helmets. When the time was right, many weapons and equipment factories would probably be relocated out.

Next, the two came to the last place. Before they arrived, a unique fragrance filled the air.

Minister Zhang couldn't help but sniff and asked in surprise:

"Xiao Kong, what are you cooking in the room? Why does it smell so good? I smell roasted peanuts and sesame seeds."

"Commander, this is the compressed biscuit production workshop developed by our arsenal. Come with me and take a look."