Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 223: The Birth Of The Maxim Machine Gun

Not long after signing the second arms trade order with Russia, another good news came from the Royal Arsenal.

The Royal Arsenal weapons design engineer and chief expert in machine gun design, Maxim, personally came to the Royal Palace to report this good news to Carlo. It was that the Maxim Machine Gun, which Carlo had always been thinking about, finally had some results after six and a half years of research and development.

The time when Carlo invited the Maxim Brothers to Spain to take important positions was in January Over these six and a half years, the Maxim Brothers had been serving as weapons design engineers at the Royal Arsenal, mainly responsible for machine gun design and smokeless powder research and development.

At the beginning, the machine gun research and development team only had the two Maxim Brothers, but as the Royal Arsenal obtained a large number of military industry talents, the number of firearms engineers in the machine gun research and development team also increased, currently reaching more than 30 people.

Besides the renowned Maxim, the firearms engineers who could join the machine gun research and development team were also top firearms engineers from Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or Spain.

Moreover, only firearms engineers who completely immigrated to Spain would be invited by Carlo to join the machine gun research and development team. The machine gun was known as the king of all guns, and its role in war was much higher than that of rifles.

In the era of manual rifles, a truly fully automatic machine gun would completely change the situation of war.

Currently on the Balkan Battlefield, both Russia and the Ottoman Empire were using human wave charge tactics. Russia had gained great fame through human wave charge tactics, which was also why European countries feared Russia.

But during World War I, after the armies of various countries were fully equipped with machine guns, conventional human wave tactics had already lost their effectiveness.

Massed charge was nothing less than regimented suicide against machine guns; it was just consuming more bullets and slightly increasing the kill-death ratio. Precisely because of this, machine guns were very important to Spain, and they should be kept secret as much as possible.

As soon as he learned that the machine gun had been developed, Carlo came to the Royal Arsenal weapon testing ground on the Madrid Outskirts to appreciate Spain’s first truly automatic firearm.

The Royal Arsenal placed the weapon testing site in the mountainous area on the Madrid Outskirts, further north was the Central System, which could be said to be rarely visited by people, so weapon testing didn’t need to worry about causing panic among residents or attracting attention from foreign spies.

Riding in Benz’s latest improved “car,” at a speed of nearly 30 kilometers per hour, Carlo and his group quickly arrived at the weapon testing site.

Accompanying Carlo to watch the machine gun test were the current Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Serrano, Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Defense Malca Antonio Fleche, Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish Royal Army Evan Bradley, and Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish Royal Navy Grayson Ruiz.

It could be said that because of this small machine gun test, all the big shots in Spain’s military came.

Minister of Defense Serrano held the rank of Marshal, Chief of Staff Fleche, Army Commander-in-Chief Evan, and Navy Commander-in-Chief Grayson were all Generals.

This also showed the military’s emphasis on machine guns as weapons. Carlo had long mentioned the role of such automatic weapons, and the military had already discussed it.

If the machine gun manufactured by Maxim was not much different from the role Carlo described, the military would order at least a thousand machine guns to greatly enhance Spain’s firepower.

Of course, for maximum secrecy, the machine guns would not be equipped to troops right now, but a brand new unit would be formed for machine gun training.

When the war involving Spain broke out in the future, these troops specially trained on machine guns would be dispersed into multiple small units and distributed to various infantry divisions of Spain.

When Carlo and his group arrived at the weapon testing ground, Maxim was already waiting respectfully outside the site with a group of experts who had developed the machine gun.

“Your Majesty.” Seeing Carlo get down from the carriage, Maxim quickly stepped forward and respectfully saluted Carlo.

It was Carlo who gave him the opportunity to utilize his abilities in the firearms engineer position he loved. Carlo also gave him sufficient budget, so he didn’t have to worry about funding issues and could conduct his experiments freely.

After six and a half years of effort, this machine gun, which seemed quite perfect to Maxim, was Maxim’s return for Carlo’s trust in him.

“Well done, Mr. Maxim.” Carlo nodded, showing a very amiable attitude toward Maxim and the group of firearms experts behind him.

Carlo did quite well in valuing talent. As long as these talents were willing to contribute to Spain, Carlo was also willing to treat them well, providing them with more generous rewards and salary treatments.

Led by Maxim and his group of experts, everyone soon walked into the weapon experiment site, where a Maxim Machine Gun and ten Spanish Vitali M1872 rifles had already been placed.

“Your Majesty, gentlemen generals, please look. This is our research result, a truly machine gun.

Mr. Gatling’s rotary machine gun gave us some inspiration, but what we manufactured is completely different from Mr. Gatling’s machine gun; it is a truly automatic machine gun.

This machine gun has a muzzle diameter of 43 mm, the entire gun weighs 2 kg, it can perform single shot and continuous fire, and the rate of fire can also be adjusted via the rate of fire regulator.

Because the machine gun’s rate of fire is extremely fast, we adopted a canvas ammunition belt feeding method, with the belt’s maximum capacity of 333 rounds.

We used the most advanced recoil spring, ejection system, ammunition belt feeding mechanism, and acceleration mechanism in the machine gun. Powered by gunpowder gas, it only requires pulling the trigger to complete a series of actions including feeding, firing, ejection, etc.

Using such a machine gun, soldiers no longer need to load bullets while firing, saving most of the time and also enhancing the machine gun’s own firepower.

According to our estimates, this machine gun’s maximum rate of fire is 600 rounds per minute, and the barrel lifespan is 3330 rounds.

The current biggest problem with this machine gun is that barrel overheating will scrap the entire gun, and on the battlefield, there is hardly time to replace the barrel.

We are developing a water-cooled machine gun, which, with a water source, can dissipate heat more effectively than air-cooled machine guns, and the barrel lifespan can be extended to more than 7000 rounds.

But even with the above shortcomings, this machine gun can still provide firepower far beyond rifles within 5 to 10 minutes, helping our army gain greater advantage in attack or defense.” Maxim slowly introduced the machine gun he had developed, remaining quite confident even when mentioning the shortcomings.

The reason for Maxim’s confidence was naturally that the machine gun he developed had extremely powerful firepower compared to rifles.

Spain’s standard rifle, the Vitali M1872 rifle, even when used by highly skilled soldiers, could fire at most 10 to 15 rounds per minute.

The Maxim Machine Gun’s highest rate of fire was 40 to 60 times that of the Vitali M1872 rifle, which also meant that the firepower of 50 soldiers firing at full force could barely match one machine gun.

However, the Maxim Machine Gun was not without shortcomings in firepower. Because the Maxim Machine Gun weighed 2 kg, during marches and combat, at least two people were needed to carry this over 50 jin machine gun.

Because the machine gun’s rate of fire was extremely fast, it also required a large amount of bullet supply. These bullets also needed many people to carry, which meant that besides the main and deputy gunners operating the machine gun, additional loaders, transportation soldiers, and orderlies were needed.

According to Maxim’s own estimate, to maximize the machine gun’s firepower, at least 5 to 8 soldiers were needed per machine gun.

However, compared to current rifles, the machine gun’s firepower was still quite superior. 5 to 8 soldiers could exert firepower close to that of 50 soldiers using rifles, and its role on the battlefield was already quite obvious.

Hearing Maxim’s various introductions, Carlo nodded quite satisfied, then said with a smile: “Mr. Maxim, these guys are already quite looking forward to the machine gun you described. When can we start the test? I also want to see if this so-called machine gun is really that miraculous.”

“Everything is ready; we can start now.” Hearing Carlo’s question, Maxim immediately replied.

This test had been prepared by the Royal Arsenal for a long time, with the purpose of directly demonstrating the machine gun’s powerful firepower to Carlo and the generals behind him.

“Then let’s begin.” Carlo nodded.

With Carlo’s order, several experts familiar with the Maxim Machine Gun began preparing the pre-test work.

This machine gun experiment was divided into several parts: first, directly demonstrating the machine gun’s maximum firepower and single/continuous fire design; second, comparing with ten rifles to highlight the machine gun’s powerful firepower.

Then, testing the machine gun barrel’s lifespan and the time required for reloading.

After completing all these experiments, the machine gun’s advanced nature and power could be fully demonstrated. For these senior military officials, they could also judge whether this machine gun had any role on the battlefield.

The preparations were quickly completed, and the machine gun test officially began.

The first test was the machine gun’s maximum firepower. The method was very simple: after loading, fire at full output while timing for one minute.

Da da da! Da da da da da!

With a start gesture from the expert in charge of timing on the side, the Maxim Machine Gun operated by two machine gunners began unleashing its firepower.

Bullets rapidly exited the muzzle, connecting into a line, making the Maxim Machine Gun’s muzzle look like it was spewing fire.

The trunk of a large tree 50 meters away was crazily swept by continuous bullets, forming huge bullet holes one after another.

Even before one minute was up, the tree was snapped in half under the bullets’ ravage. The military big shots couldn’t help but applaud; they were clearly quite satisfied with the machine gun’s firepower.

“Time’s up.” After seeing that one minute had arrived, the expert in charge of timing quickly prompted the two machine gunners.

The machine gun soon stopped firing, and the two machine gunners counted how many bullets the machine gun had fired in total.

It was actually easy to calculate: one canvas ammunition belt had 333 rounds, and in this one minute, only one and a half belts were consumed. Just count the remaining bullets in the second belt to know exactly how many bullets the Maxim Machine Gun fired in one minute.

After a brief count, the experts gave a quite satisfactory number: 592 rounds.

Of course, there was some time from the timer calling end to stopping firing. But it could be confirmed that this Maxim Machine Gun’s maximum firepower in one minute was at least 550 rounds.

Although Carlo didn’t express his attitude, the smile on his face showed that he was quite satisfied with the performance of this machine gun.

The military high-level officials didn’t need mentioning; after getting the data of 592 rounds, all the military big shots, including Grand Duke Serrano, were staring intently at this machine gun, as if they wanted to hug it while sleeping.

“Next, the second test: single shot and continuous fire.” The expert in charge of testing first explained to Carlo and the military high-level officials, then began preparing the test.

Single shot and continuous fire were very useful for machine guns, after all, this bullet-consuming beast required logistics that could hardly supply bullets full-time.

In some cases, single shot could also allow the machine gun to function when bullets were scarce. Moreover, if continuous fire was always used, the barrel would soon scrap due to overheating, causing the entire machine gun to lose combat effectiveness for a long time afterward.

Replacing the machine gun barrel was quite troublesome and required waiting for the barrel to cool completely. Battlefield soldiers had no insulated gloves; to avoid burns, they could only wait for complete cooling.

The time wasted back and forth was at least about half an hour. This also meant that if the machine gun barrel scrapped, the machine gun would completely lose its role for the next half hour or so.

Da da da!

Da!

Da!

Under the operation of the two machine gunners, the Maxim Machine Gun demonstrated its single shot and continuous fire modes, with free switching quite stable.

This made the military high-level officials even more satisfied with the Maxim Machine Gun, even itching to place orders for it right now.

If not for the remaining related tests, the military high-level officials would probably have already pulled Maxim to discuss orders.

It was worth mentioning that although Maxim and others belonged to the Royal Arsenal, the machine gun research and development team was separate, and the Maxim Machine Gun belonged to the machine gun research and development team.

All of the project team’s people naturally belonged to Carlo. Carlo held 95% of the shares in the machine gun research and development team, with the remaining 5% shares divided among other firearms experts.

The profits from future heavy machine gun orders would also be shared 5% among these experts who developed the heavy machine gun.

This was the reward Carlo gave them, aimed at improving their efficiency and giving them sufficient motivation in researching and improving the machine gun.

Of course, besides the 5% shares, the due rewards were not lacking at all. Carlo was quite satisfied with this machine gun test; after all tests ended, Carlo issued a series of rewards including checks and property to all firearms experts in the machine gun research and development team.

As the person in charge of the research team, the reward Carlo gave to Maxim was the most generous. He not only received a property in Madrid City Center but also a check worth up to ten thousand pesetas.