Canteen System Assistance Notes

At the same time, in order to make this thing fit better, they customized a futuristic "hyperbolic" mold, forged a curved plate shape, and made an "angle" treatment on the upper part of the front plate to avoid the arm being picked up when raising the gun to shoot.

Because many future bulletproof chemical fibers had not yet been invented during World War II, the cafeteria system had no way to directly provide bulletproof-grade "Kevlar" and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber fabrics, except for knife-proof gloves, kite strings, etc. Therefore, the bulletproof vests that carried the bulletproof plates had to be simplified, using "polyester" that the Eighth Route Army Petrochemical Industry had already produced in small batches, woven using the Oxford weave method and then sewn.

Because it lacks the heavy "aramid" material, this body armor offers virtually no bulletproofing beyond the chest and upper abdomen protected by the steel plates, effectively mitigating shrapnel damage. However, within the area protected by the steel plates, it effectively blocked the 6.5mm Tomosaka bullet fired from the Japanese Type 38 rifle at a distance of 10 meters, preventing damage to vital organs such as the heart, lungs, liver, and spleen.

Although the "bulletproof vest" manufactured in this way was only "makeshift" and its protection range was greatly reduced, after it was finalized and distributed to the troops in 1941, this "heartguard" weighing only 6.6 kilograms not only effectively reduced the number of casualties among frontline soldiers, but also basically did not interfere with tactical movements, and was well received by the soldiers.

The troops usually concentrate these body armor on the "assault company" or "combat engineers" who are responsible for the most forward breakthroughs, and supplement them with a large amount of automatic firepower and explosives to act as the tip of the assault spear.

Wearing conical helmets and armed with submachine guns or grenade launchers, these commandos often approached within 40 meters of a 75mm round impact point and charged immediately after the shells had extended. During the 1942 Battle of Shanxi Province, there were instances of men being shot twice by multiple Japanese soldiers, remaining unscathed and continuing to fight. This near-invulnerability even caused some Japanese troops to collapse on the spot.

However, the legendary "Light Weapons and Protection Team" was not satisfied with this. They soon continued to use their creative ideas to make further improvements to the "Type 41 Bulletproof Vest".

These include, but are not limited to, a lightweight bulletproof vest that uses "alumina insulation ceramic tiles" removed from the combustion chamber of a cafeteria boiler as insert material, and uses nylon thread and epoxy resin impregnated Oxford cloth to enhance restraint, reducing the weight of the bulletproof vest to 5.4 kg; a "concealed soft bulletproof vest" that uses Kevlar kite string as a secondary spinning material, layered and sewn into a "sweater-style" design for members of the city's underground party action teams to covertly protect against all types of pistol bullets; and a "heavy-duty breakthrough body armor" that, at the cost of an additional 10 kg, expands protection to the entire torso, including a neck guard and a guard, and is equipped with three alumina inserts.

However, as these new fat bullets were put into service and mass-produced, in addition to the soldiers' complaints and praise, there seemed to be some strange rumors such as "the Communist Army has supernatural powers, invulnerable to swords and guns, and immune to water and fire", "the Eighth Route Army is Guan Erye incarnate, and ordinary bullets cannot hurt it", "the Communist Red Army is blessed by fox spirits, and before going into battle, you must worship Ksitigarbha and offer rice to it in order to compete with it".

Chapter 742: Success is great, but so is failure.

As the name of the "Light Weapons and Protection Group" suggests, in addition to "shield" projects such as bulletproof vests, there are naturally "spear" projects. Moreover, considering the objective situation in the field of light weapons during World War II that "the spear is greater than the shield", there will obviously be more group members responsible for the "spear".

However, in this time and space, besides the legendary Liu Helian, the light weapons and ordnance teams, which enjoyed better conditions and more abundant resources, saw the emergence of many experts and technicians who were not previously famous in history. They collaborated with outstanding experts from the original time and space, or else worked independently, forming multiple teams, resulting in the Eighth Route Army of this time and space producing more excellent, failed, outrageous, and even outlandish designs.

Experts led by Liu Ding, Liu Guifu, and Wu Yunduo are the most consistently effective group within this group. As exceptional "local experts" whose talents have been proven by history, they, supported by favorable material conditions, have demonstrated exceptional effectiveness, becoming the "golden hens that lay eggs as long as they're fed."

With the industrial development of the base area and the demand of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army for continuous improvement of combat capabilities, they not only completed projects that were in line with the times, such as the modification of the Soviet DP machine gun automatic mechanism, the air-cooled lightweight Maxim machine gun, and the development of a new air-cooled heavy machine gun, but also successfully exerted their subjective initiative and carried out improvements such as "DP machine gun chain ammunition".

Now, most of the light and heavy machine guns of the Eighth Route Army's frontline Soviet-era units have been replaced with the Eighth Route Army version of the 'RP46', which uses a 25-round semi-dispersible belt. They have also begun to be replaced with the Eighth Route Army version of the 'SG643', which uses the same belt. This has greatly improved the firepower sustainability and ease of use.

Compared with the original RP46, which could not carry its own belt box, the Eighth Route Army version of the "Belt DP" used a "J-type" side-mounted mechanism to circumvent the movement mechanism under the gun, and modified the bolt handle structure so that this light machine gun could carry a 75-round metal belt box or a 50-round canvas belt box, greatly facilitating the soldiers' tactical actions of leaping with guns and accompanied by firepower.

The Eighth Route Army version of the SG43, on the other hand, adopted the acclaimed American M2 ultralight bipod. After achieving tactical performance far superior to the Maxim, it reduced its weight to 2.9 kg (whole gun) and paid the price of "inability to surpass shooting and anti-aircraft shooting without preparation." Through cooperation with the Soviet Union's GVG" heavy machine gun replacement project, the Soviets also began to replace this new equipment in 1943 - however, the Soviet army seemed to prefer the heavier wheel frame rather than the Eighth Route Army's ultralight bipod.

However, their attempt to manufacture the MG34 machine gun for the German ammunition units ended in failure. The high manufacturing cost and slightly heavy weight prevented this "German cloth-ripper" that was in great demand in the German army from being adopted in China. The soldiers on the front lines using German ammunition could only continue to use the air-cooled Maxim, the "SN-D" from the Great Popo, and the Czech-style ZB and Besa machine guns, and then they looked at the neighboring brother units with all new guns and cursed.

"Damn it, those who use Mauser bullets are all raised by stepmothers..."

In addition to the Guanzhong and Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia bases, where the industrial foundations were gradually consolidated, the "local designs" in many other bases also showed a flourishing and diverse style.

For example, in the Taihang base area (the historical Taihang and Taiyue areas), which are basically connected in this time and space, because it received the production facilities of the "Swedish bullet Yusaka bullet" purchased from Tsarist Russia in the border area and supplemented with a lot of equipment in Sweden, Wen Chengding, an engineer at the Shangdang Arsenal in the Taihang Military Region at that time, came up with the idea of ​​developing a semi-automatic rifle for the troops that were using Japanese weapons at that time.

He applied for some information and sample rifles from the border region and actively began research and development. After consulting with a number of Swiss, American, and Soviet rifles, the "King of Invention" Wen Chengding designed a semi-automatic rifle with a 10-round magazine, a long-stroke piston mechanism, and a latch-type locking mechanism.

Compared with the embarrassment of having to use old guns for modification in history, Wen Chengding, who was freed from the limitations of material basis, was able to use qualified gun steel and high-quality recoil spring, and the historical problems of "inadequate recoil and exposed and prone to malfunction of modified bolt" no longer occurred. The gas tube on the side of the gun body was also integrated and stored, becoming a component that fits the gun body, avoiding the situation of protruding in history and alleviating the problem of center of gravity shift. The only thing that can be called a problem is that the 10-round magazine is fixedly installed, and it will be more laborious to load two 5-round bullet clips in succession.

Finally, this rifle successfully passed the evaluation of light weapons in the Taihang base area and border area, and was issued to the troops under the name of "Type 530 semi-automatic rifle" (Comrade Li Shizhen's tuberculosis had long been cured by the "quadruple therapy"), and won praise from many shooters.

The only regret is that after the liberation of Shanxi Province, as our army accelerated its regularization process, Japanese weapons began to be gradually withdrawn from the field army and transferred to local troops and guerrillas. As a result, the Type 530 semi-automatic rifle, originally intended to be mass-produced using equipment left behind by the Yan army in Shanxi Province, was only mass-produced on a small scale throughout the War of Resistance, totaling only a few thousand.

Of course, apart from those who have achieved moderate success, there are also those who have encountered setbacks and "outrageous" things.

Because they insisted on self-reliance and resolved problems as much as possible, the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army in each base area generally had a certain level of military production capacity to reduce the burden on inter-regional transport teams. Among them, the base area in Shandong Province, near the Yellow Sea, was particularly prominent. Because it could obtain supplies from places like Tianjin and Beijing, and the province's industrial and mining industries were well-developed, various military factories that manufactured guns, artillery, and ammunition in the Bohai, Jiaodong, and Yimeng areas of the Shandong base area were in full swing.

In the first half of 1942, with the passage of the US military's "" series of submarine flights, the Shandong base not only received a lot of machinery and equipment, but also received

- A very good weapon - AR-3 Carbine (G3 frame firing .30 Carbine)

carbine).

This weapon has a moderate rate of fire, a long range, good controllability, and good power and accuracy (compared to submachine guns). However, the quantity is too small - the US Navy intercepted some from the Marine Corps and sent them over, and there are only 500 in total.

The Americans had a large inventory of 30 carbines at a low price. In addition, the U.S. Navy would use all the "residual tonnage" on its submarines to load bullets. As a result, after several submarine transports, the number of carbines in stock in Jiaodong and Bohai districts of Shandong Province exceeded 280 million, creating a strange situation of "far more bullets than guns."

So colleagues at the Shandong Arsenal decided to make a .30 carbine launcher themselves. However, the production process, which had always been successful, did not seem to be going smoothly.

The first attempt to copy the AR-3 carbine unfortunately failed. While the problem wasn't obvious with the 7.62x33 cartridge, the roller-locked design placed a high degree of pressure on the consistency of the finished product and the precision of the weapon's assembly, clearly exceeding the capabilities of the Bohai and Jiaodong Arsenals. Subsequently, another gas-operated automatic rifle also encountered significant problems. The industrial capacity of the Shandong Liberated Area was ultimately inferior. While the performance of this rifle was acceptable, its short-stroke piston and bolt-locking mechanism made mass production extremely difficult for the Shandong base alone.

However, at this time, the military workers in Shandong Province, with almost no external ideas, especially without the intervention of a certain time travel expert, came up with an extremely bizarre plan. Under the whims of a young armorer, the arsenal in Jiaodong District tried to use the traditional free-bolt automatic principle to fire the .30 carbine.

And they used the method of roughly increasing the mass of the bolt to alleviate the strong recoil of the .30 carbine.

An issue that caused guns to fire too quickly;

In order to allow the shooter to better control the recoil, the arsenal mounted the main recoil spring and guide rod behind the bolt on the upper part of the bolt, and equipped the gun with a wire stock and pistol grip;

In addition, in order to control the length of the magazine and expand the ammunition capacity, the young armorer designed a drum-type ammunition feeder with a clockwork and made of fiber-reinforced Bakelite. This gadget, which looks like an oversized battery, can be loaded with 53 rounds of ammunition and is installed under the weapon to feed the gun.

If the "famous firearms designer" Liu Helian from this time and space were to be brought in for review, this "large PP-19 Bison" weighing 4.3 kilograms would obviously not be a qualified product.

It has many minor problems, including an imbalance in the center of mass of the gun and the whole gun being overweight. In particular, the Kallik-type magazine, which is overweight and too large, is prone to feeding failures if not maintained properly, and needs to be rotated more than 20 times before combat, is the core of the problem.

However, it is obvious that Liu Helian was using future ideas and standards to demand a weapon for the Chinese battlefield during World War II.

According to feedback from the front lines, many burly men from Shandong Province have expressed that this carbine, named after the arsenal's headquarters, "Yashan," is not heavy at all. While ensuring sustained firepower, it's even lighter than the "Thomson." Furthermore, in actual combat, this weapon is often meticulously maintained by soldiers, often accompanying assault troops in bulletproof armor.

-In the subsequent battles to liberate the entire Shandong Province, many assault soldiers who rushed to the front line would install an inclined front grip on the side of the gun, and use a firing rate of 650 rounds per minute to spray dense rain of bullets with an effective range of more than 200 meters at the Japanese troops in front of them, suppressing large numbers of Japanese troops behind bunkers and making them unable to move.

Then, comrades attacking from another direction will feed rocket launchers or grenades into the mouths of those devils.

(However, after a period of time, because the minor problems with the cartridge were too many, in order to ensure the reliability of the weapon, the Bohai and Jiaodong Arsenals developed a 30-round magazine for the "Shan" carbine and replaced the cartridge with a 75-round rotary drum magazine - anyway, the weight would not be a big deal when using this thing.)

In the end, it was this fully automatic carbine launcher full of nonsense and "green skin" style that produced more than 20 units starting from the second half of 1942. It became the "big drum" praised by the military and civilians in Shandong Province, and also became the "Bohai Demon Snake" that frightened the Japanese invaders.

Chapter 743: Experience Can Sometimes Make Things Go Wrong

(Some errors in the gun structure of the previous chapter have been corrected. They were omissions made by the author Shamao when he was writing. Thank you for your corrections.) (This chapter involves certain military weapons knowledge settings)

As someone who had stolen the title of "light weapons expert" by borrowing from other time and space, Comrade Liu Helian was a little nervous at first: not only did he occasionally need to teach people like Liu Ding and Liu Guifu who "came with questions" back home, but when he went to the Soviet Union on official business, Liu Helian would occasionally run into people like Herman Alexandrovich Kolopov and Vasily Alexeevich Degtyarev.

Although everyone always held simple technical exchanges in the form of salons in coffee shops and small restaurants, and the atmosphere was very relaxed, when communicating with these "real stars in the history of light weapons", Liu Helian was still very worried that his fake would be identified - at least at the beginning.

Therefore, not only to have enough knowledge to support these actions that influenced history, but also to have confidence in technical exchanges, after unlocking the teaching supplement bookstore in the cafeteria, Comrade Liu Helian taught himself four books: "Automatic Weapon Design", "Automatic Weapon Structure", "Automatic Weapon Principles and Structure" and "Automatic Weapon Ammunition", and picked up his old "engineering drawing" skills. Finally, he had the ability to integrate knowledge and express his ideas accurately and scientifically.

This also gave Liu Helian the confidence to use more of his own unique knowledge, ideas, and thoughts as a future time traveler to build some weapon models that did not originally exist in his own history. For example, the assault rifle of the Eighth Route Army.

-------one

The development of the Eighth Route Army assault rifle actually began with an "accident".

Because the main combat targets of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army were the Japanese army, and the intensity and scale of the East Asian battlefield were objectively not as strong as those between the Russians and Germans on the Soviet-German battlefield. In addition, even after a series of strengthening, development and golden fingers, no matter how much the industrial base of the liberated areas was strengthened, it could only be compared with the "excellence" of the original poor period, and could not reach the height of successfully founding the country and experiencing the "Five-Year Plan".

Initially, Liu Helian had no intention of developing and deploying assault rifles using intermediate-power ammunition for the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army before the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan. This was unnecessary and impossible. However, after the February 1940 Incident, while cleaning up the battlefield, the Eighth Route Army discovered unusual gunshot wounds on some Nationalist prisoners and wounded soldiers.

While cleaning up the battlefield and taking in prisoners after annihilating the Nationalist troops, the medical staff and paramedics of the Eighth Route Army discovered that the death rate of wounded Nationalist soldiers in a certain unit who were hit by our army's bullets was much higher than that of other Nationalist soldiers, even if their injuries looked OK. Or, during the operation to remove the bullets, it was discovered that the wounded soldiers had suffered damage far greater than the size of the external wounds, so that they could not even get off the operating table.

This unusual phenomenon quickly attracted the attention of the Eighth Route Army. After a series of investigations, they discovered that the Chinese troops who had appeared in the presence of these patients were using a batch of Soviet-style 7.62mm bullets made with new technology and materials. Due to the immaturity of the technology, these bullets had an irregular cavity in the bullet head. Upon impact with the human body, the copper jacket of the bullet was squeezed by the soft steel core behind it, causing ruptures in the body. This flying copper fragment flew around the impact site, causing numerous additional injuries.

Ultimately, given the problems with these holed bullets, such as unstable center of mass and substandard dispersion, the incident was attributed to a quality issue and corrected in the subsequent rectification. However, the aftermath of this incident did not end there. This counterintuitive phenomenon aroused the interest of the Eighth Route Army's leaders and military industry departments:

Since bullets can be designed to increase or decrease their lethality, is it possible to use a weapon that fires smaller, lighter bullets while still producing equal or greater lethality? Furthermore, using this lighter bullet, can this new weapon maintain the lethality of a rifle while also possessing the burst capability and maneuverability of a submachine gun?

The Eighth Route Army is indeed still the "Abies" who looked at photos of aircraft carriers in the cave. ... At that time, Liu Helian, who was participating in the post-war equipment feedback and improvement work, expressed such emotion.

In this time and space, the veterans of the Eighth Route Army not only realized early on, as in history, that most rifle engagements took place within 400 or even 200 meters, but also, by chance, came up with the idea of ​​using "intermediate-power ammunition" and assault rifles. You know, not everyone had read Liu Helian's "Zero Data" about the history of the original time and space!

This kind of exploration, when basic material conditions are guaranteed, should naturally be beneficial and should be encouraged. Even if, due to practical limitations, this new weapon ultimately failed to be widely used by the Eighth Route Army during the war, the significance of this trial and error and exploration is still significant! More @books@groupcom 7751-11838

After making up his mind, Liu Helian took immediate action and once again played the role of an advisor.

He first expressed strong support for the comrades who put forward these ideas, and submitted a report to the Central Committee, suggesting that a research group on "intermediate-power bullets and weapons" be established within the military industry system, led by Minister Liu Ding of Military Production, and that a clinical doctor proficient in human anatomy and gunshot wound treatment be sent to participate in the development of new light weapons.

The central government's response was also very efficient: after discussion, the members of the Central Military Commission's Standing Committee not only agreed to establish a research group on "intermediate-power bullets and weapons," but also agreed to dispatch a young clinical expert from the field medical system—Comrade Qian Xinzhong, Minister of Field Health of the Eighth Route Army—to participate in the group's medical analysis work when needed.

However, the Central Military Commission stated that since the purpose of this project is mainly to train the team and talents, Comrade Liu Helian, please do not refuse. You will be the team leader. When you are free after your work overseas and other places, you can come and teach everyone.

Since this is an organizational decision...ahem, then we have to take on the responsibility.

If you want to make a gun, you have to make bullets first, and if you want to make bullets, you have to solve the problem of propellant first.

Given that the Eighth Route Army currently has no ability to completely re-develop propellants and bullets except for improving the use of "macaroni" propellants,

At most, it can be improved based on existing ammunition.

For this purpose, Liu Helian decided to first let the comrades in the group start the work of selecting ammunition.

He quickly found a number of ammunition that met the basic requirements through China Resources' channels for his colleagues to evaluate. Most of these came from the United States, where the civilian firearms market was large, including .300 Savage deer shells, .220 Swift fox shells, .250 Savage varmint shells, and even the .22-250 high-velocity hunting shells, which were still considered competition and "wildcat" rounds at the time.

Considering that the sample must be comprehensive, Liu Helian originally planned to look for the British 8*35mm Liberole ammunition through Switzerland - this thing can be related to intermediate power ammunition in a strange sense - but he found that this type of bullet was not in stock at all, and finally had to give up.

Through the Northwest Corridor or the smuggled items Liu Helian brought back to China, these basically meeting the requirements ammunition soon arrived at the "Intermediate Power Bullets and Weapons" research group, and everyone actively began testing.

Starting in 1940, through repeated requests for help from "Mr. Shu" and Mr. Casio, repeated shooting at "Second Brother", soap dummies, and gelatin blocks, and conducting medical injury analysis on the targets, the knowledge contained in the textbooks began to be reproduced before the team members - these high-velocity hunting bullets showed extremely terrifying lethality against soft targets in the soap block and gelatin tests.

Even though the bullets purchased were fully jacketed bullets without open tips and soft cores, and did not show the common fragmentation phenomenon of hunting bullets, these bullets left traces of rolling and spinning inside the soap and gelatin, leaving cavities several times larger than the diameter of the bullet.

Even the small bullet with a caliber of about 5.7 mm, which many people originally thought was incapable of killing people, released huge kinetic energy on the target and tore a huge wound; on the contrary, the .300 Savage ammunition, which was originally the largest caliber, performed poorly in this regard - the timing of its cavity formation was too late compared to an upright human body, and the advantages of stable trajectory and not easy to be deflected by wind could only be realized at a range of more than 300 meters.

This conflicts with the premise that most rifle engagements occur within 400 meters or even 200 meters.

In addition to reasons such as the large recoil, the .300 Savage ammunition that was being replaced in the US Marine Corps was first eliminated by the Eighth Route Army, and the remaining ammunition continued to be tested.

The 220 Swift, with its straightest trajectory and highest initial velocity, failed in the second round of testing due to its longest case, high chamber pressure, and excessive bore erosion. The remaining .250 Savage and .22-250 High Velociraptor rounds successfully advanced to the final round, and corresponding prototypes are being developed for testing.

When things developed to that point, everything was basically still within Liu Helian's expectations.

The two ammunition that made the final selection are actually basically the same. Both use a 48mm long cartridge that is shortened from the US .30-03 ammunition. The only difference is that the .250 Savage bullet is equipped with a 6.35mm bullet of about 10 grains (about 6.5 grams). It has a low initial velocity, but has better velocity retention at long distances and is more resistant to wind deflection; the .2250 High Velocity Hunting bullet is equipped with a 57mm bullet of 55 grains (about 3.56 grams) with a slightly higher initial velocity, which performs better at close range.

The latter was formalized by Remington in the 1960s of the original time and space, and was subsequently militarized by the US military as a "backup" for the famous 5.56mm NATO small-caliber bullet, so as to "keep the breath" for the US military's small-caliber weapons when there is a problem with the 5.56mm bullet, so as to avoid the embarrassing situation of having no bullets available. Therefore, this is also the bullet that the Eighth Route Army can currently access, the closest to a usable "intermediate power ammunition" (the M43 bullet has not yet been developed).

According to Liu Helian, since both cartridges have roughly the same muzzle energy of 2300 joules, the Eighth Route Army will likely choose the 2250 hunting cartridge, which offers better close-range ballistics and a higher initial velocity. As research progresses, the Eighth Route Army's military engineers will likely discover that the bullet can be made even lighter and smaller while maintaining lethality. Ultimately, after numerous refinements to the warhead and cartridge, a "red small-caliber bullet" unique to China could be developed!

And the weapons derived from this bullet will have no problem at all!

This was undoubtedly an idealistic thing, but perhaps precisely because it was too idealistic, it was destined to encounter some bad luck: around the second half of 1941, Liu Helian received a letter that broke his heart:

"Dear Comrade Liu Helian...After conducting extensive research in the troops and soliciting opinions from numerous officers and soldiers, we received a great deal of feedback:

The frontline soldiers said that even if this small bullet could kill someone, they would still prefer to use a larger bullet, just to be on the safe side, in case the enemy recovers after a few days of injury...

"...Sharpshooters say the 3.5x scopes they're using now allow them to hit targets around 400 meters away with relative accuracy. They believe that while rifles should guarantee limited close-range combat performance between 0 and 400 meters, they should also be able to snipe enemies at distances of 400 to 500 meters, enabling sniper and guerrilla warfare, as well as harassment operations..."

...Frontline commanders and commandos said the bulletproof armor they were now equipped with could stop stray bullets and pistol rounds from long range. If the Japanese wore armor like us, the new bullets would also have to be able to penetrate their armored shells...

"Thus, after group discussions and preliminary collective discussions, approximately 60% of the development team members support further development of the .250 Savage bullet. We would like to ask for your opinion on this matter..."

what?

Chapter 744: New Soldiers (9) The Cornerstone of Order in the Far East

..When developing ammunition and weapons, the opinions of front-line troops are indeed very important, but as R&D personnel, they should ensure their independent thinking ability to a certain extent: you know, what they are developing may not just be a weapon, but the fulcrum of the next generation of army combat thinking.

..After comprehensively considering the current combat environment of our army, I believe that the 250 Savage ammunition is more suitable for facing the situation of widespread infantry protection in a few thousand years, while the 2250 hunting bullet and subsequent developments are more suitable for current combat needs and even within the next 30 years.

However, because the .250 Savage and .22-250 hunting cartridges are identical, they possess similar muzzle kinetic energy in ballistic gun testing (approximately 230 joules, lower than the approximately 300 joules of the Yusaka round fired by the Type 38 rifle). The only differences are in muzzle velocity, long-range velocity retention, and perceived recoil. Therefore, actual combat performance will not differ significantly.

"Therefore, it is recommended that the development of weapons firing both ammunition types be conducted simultaneously, with small-scale production and deployment to selected units for testing and tactical exploration as the basis... The weapon is proposed to utilize a short-stroke piston automatic mode and a rotary bolt locking mechanism. Components such as the bolt carrier, trigger, pistol grip, and stock should be common across variants to reduce testing costs..."

After pondering the idea of ​​old revolutionaries and predecessors to develop an all-round bullet and analyzing the stubborn long-range shooting tendency of the Eighth Route Army in this time and space, the famous light weapons expert Comrade Liu Helian made his own response - facts speak louder than words, the value of medium-power rifle bullets needs to be discovered by the Eighth Route Army itself, and he should not hold the view that "this is how it was in history" to force the original time and space technology route on the Eighth Route Army.

At worst, I can just make some extra money in the US, so that my comrades can have a material basis for their "troublemaking"!

Comrade Liu Helian was full of confidence at that time, but he didn't know that a star in the history of light weapons development in this time and space was rising.

Comrade Liu Helian was a very reasonable person, not one to put on airs or prioritize reputation over correctness. Therefore, when he insisted on something, he usually had a reason. Sometimes these reasons were unclear, but even when based solely on intuition, his judgments were often accurate.

Perhaps due to tacit understanding, or perhaps trust, Liu Helian's good reputation came into play. Seeing their efforts recognized, the young members of the "Intermediate Power Ammunition and Weapons" team were deeply encouraged. With the assistance of Director Liu Ding, another guiding expert, the engineers and technicians enthusiastically worked on the design and modifications. Several experienced technicians who had reached Level 5 and Level 6 levels of proficiency got right to work, assembling the prototype guns from parts by hand.

With the help of some unique reference materials, they "knocked out" several prototype rifles in just 4 months. With the support of almost full brainstorming and rapid iterative R&D methods, the team members chose a technical route that was quite unconventional -

In addition to adopting a short-stroke piston and a rotary bolt lock in accordance with Liu Helian's suggestions, this group of young people and technicians not only finely machined a bolt head with seven tenons, but also used cutting methods to create a creative "suspended automatic mechanism" and enclosed it in a fully integrated aluminum receiver structure that served as both the receiver and the handguard.

In order to be compatible with the two bullets with the same cartridge but different warheads that were tested at the same time, the barrel of the sample gun is replaceable and is directly connected to the 6 anti-tank

i loosen the screws (they even made a special torque wrench) and the same section sleeve, guard

Wood and other fixed - this means that this rifle can be converted and calibrated in the division-level repair shop, and then quickly transformed into a test gun of another caliber and sent to the front line for testing.

In addition, they equipped this 4.1 kg (empty gun with magazine) rifle with two 18-inch barrels of different calibers, a 25-round double-row magazine that can be easily adjusted to be compatible with two types of ammunition (1 dummy bullet to take up space, front hanging and rear card), and a non-retractable, foldable buttstock supported by steel wire.

This also gave Liu Helian a significant shock upon first encountering it. He exclaimed, "Have you made an S*R, or CZ*6?" and "Holy crap, you even improved it?" and immediately realized the cause and effect of historical change.

Since we are testing a rifle, and we need to test two calibers, it makes sense that we need to be able to change the barrel;

Because the test weapon needed to be easily modified and equipped, the barrel and accessories were fixed with screws, making them easy to disassemble and assemble, which is also reasonable. Isn't this the modularity of the "basic version"?

He praised the team members highly and watched its first fatigue test with great interest. And then...

During the test firing process, this thing showed cracks in the bolt frame and began to flake off, broken tenons and cracks in the handguard, which almost caused injuries.

"Alright, alright, don't lose heart. If the barrel didn't explode, that's a success. Keep working hard and keep improving."

At the end of 1941, after taking Minister Liu Ding to treat all members of the group to a meal, Liu Helian comforted the discouraged comrades and then gave them suggestions such as "leaving a margin for the bolt carrier and reshaping it after heat treatment", "adjusting the heat treatment parameters of the rotary locking mechanism" and "going to the aviation department to customize some aviation aluminum as the receiver material".