Brazil's Ministry of Defense, Office of the new Defense Minister, in Rio de Janeiro.
After attending the inauguration ceremony of the new president, Fang Lang drove directly to the minister's office, waiting to be summoned by General Morais.
It was not until after four o'clock in the afternoon that General Moraes finally arrived.
After seeing General Morais return to the office, Fang Lang, who had been waiting outside the office, quickly stood up and saluted, not daring to show any dissatisfaction.
General Morais greeted Fang Lang enthusiastically and said:
"Haha...Colonel Fang, we are meeting. No need to be polite! Let's go in and talk."
After saying that, he patted Fang Lang's arm and strode into the office first.
After entering the office, he pointed to the sofa in the reception room and asked Fang Lang to sit down. He then picked up the coffee pot and made coffee for Fang Lang.
This made Fang Lang feel flattered, and he quickly stood up to help.
...
...
But he was stopped by General Morais:
"Just sit there. I have to make this cup of coffee myself today."
Fang Lang had dealt with General Morais twice and understood that this kind of treatment was obviously not something that everyone could enjoy.
Seeing the other party's firm attitude, he no longer refused, but just showed an appropriately flattered expression.
General Morais did not let Fang Lang wait any longer. After brewing the coffee, he came to Fang Lang and said:
“During the inauguration ceremony of the President, I heard that your company has been able to produce American 105MM howitzers.
This is amazing.
I remember when we were discussing naval construction, you took the initiative to propose building our own modern shipyard in Brazil.
I am glad that you have fulfilled your promise.
Today I want to ask you, if your shipyard is asked to undertake the task of building warships, can it complete it? "
When Fang Lang heard that it was such a good news, he immediately felt relieved.
However, he knew that there was a big difference between building container ships and building warships, at least in the steel used. So, he didn't dare to brag.
I can only say honestly:
“Your Excellency General, our shipyard is just starting out, and we are accumulating construction experience by manufacturing ships.
If we were to build a warship now, I'm worried that something might go wrong due to lack of experience, and our family would be doomed.
And, most importantly, our family has not yet found the material formula for armor steel used in warships.
This time I went to Germany to see if I could find the formula for ship armor steel.
However, due to time constraints, there is no harvest yet. "
After hearing Fang Lang's words, General Morais was obviously a little disappointed, but it soon disappeared and he continued:
"It's okay. I believe we can succeed. If there is anything you need me to do, please tell me directly. I will do my best to help you achieve it."
Fang Lang was still very moved by General Morais' sincere concern.
Although Fang Lang also understood that the other party wanted him to quickly enable Brazil to have its own warship construction capabilities.
After thinking about it, Fang Lang said:
"Don't worry! If I can't get the necessary formula from Germany, I think I can find another way from Italy."
During the conversation just now, Fang Lang suddenly remembered that when Global Shipbuilding acquired the shipyard in Genoa, Italy, there was a military shipyard next to it.
And it seemed to be mentioned at the time that many engineers from Italy's military shipyards were recruited by Italy's Universal Shipyard.
Now that the Minister of Defense has mentioned that he wants to build ships independently, the design capabilities of Brazil's domestic shipyards must begin to improve. Perhaps by drawing engineers and designers with experience in warship construction from Global Shipbuilding's shipyards around the world, it is possible to quickly build a design team for the construction of Brazilian naval ships.
Then we can start designing warships according to the needs of the Brazilian Navy.
In fact, Fang Lang did not want to start building warships so early, because he knew that the current warships would soon be outdated. The future would be the era of missile ships. If he started building warships now, it would be a waste.
Fortunately, after hearing that the technical difficulties of expert steel had not been solved, General Morais did not continue to talk about independent shipbuilding. Instead, he changed the subject and said:
"Today I heard General Leta tell me that you are planning to set up a small arms company yourself?"
Fang Lang didn't expect that General Leta would report the matter directly to the Minister of Defense.
For a moment, I was caught off guard and had no idea what General Morais' purpose was in asking this question.
It can't be that the Minister of Defense wants to get involved!
If General Morais wanted to get involved, Fang Lang would not refuse. After all, being able to establish a relationship with General Morais would definitely be of great benefit to his future in the army.
"Yes, General. This time in Germany, I happened to meet a very good gun designer, and talked to him about some gun design concepts and development trends.
I was persuaded by him by accident, and I thought about whether I could support his research, so I decided to set up a small arms company in Brazil. ”
General Morais was obviously interested in Fang Lang's statement.
"Oh! I wonder if you can also talk to me about how you view the development trend of firearms, and what design concept this designer has."
This made Fang Lang a little confused. How should he view the development trend of firearms? I had no idea!
My ideas are all judged from the weapons that eventually become mainstream in later generations. Now you ask me how this trend came about.
How would I know!
But now the Minister of Defense is asking, not me and my friends, so I can't just say, "I guessed it"!
After thinking about it, Fang Lang said:
“I just listened to what the designer said, and I don’t have any mature ideas myself, but his words did convince me.
If I said anything wrong, I hope you won’t blame me.”
General Morais heard Fang Lang's words, picked up the coffee and took a sip, then smiled and motioned Fang Lang to continue:
"This trend is mainly based on the German army's use of the G43 semi-automatic rifle in the war, which exposed the disadvantage of insufficient firepower when facing machine gun suppression.
The range and accuracy of the submachine gun cannot provide much help.
Using a light machine gun would make the weight and huge supply pressure unacceptable.
In the later stages of the war, the German elite infantry squads began to be equipped with an STG-44 assault rifle. In actual combat, Allied soldiers using semi-automatic weapons had almost no chance of winning when encountering German soldiers equipped with automatic rifles.
Automatic rifles completely crush semi-automatic weapons with their fierce firepower, high accuracy, long range, good ergonomics, and mature and reliable technical performance.
Therefore, we believe that the future development trend of rifles must be automatic rifles with more powerful firepower, that is, assault rifles. "
Fang Lang's words made General Morais fall into deep thought. After a while, he asked:
"Have you ever considered the ammunition consumption of using a fully automatic rifle?"
After all, Brazil is not as wealthy as the United States, and its economic conditions are not good, so the first problem that General Moraes thought of was the terrifying ammunition consumption of the fully automatic rifle.
Fang Lang couldn't say, the more ammunition I consume, the more money I make!
I could only nod and say:
"It is precisely because of this consideration that I did not publicize this matter. I only planned to use some of my own funds to support the research of new equipment."
Hearing Fang Lang's words, General Morais' eyes were full of admiration. After thinking for a while, he asked again:
"Have you ever considered that if a fully automatic rifle is used in burst mode, the powerful recoil will instantly cause the bullets behind to hit the sky? Wouldn't the accuracy of the automatic rifle you mentioned be lost in this case?"
As a veteran soldier, General Moraes easily discovered the shortcomings of current automatic rifles.
In fact, Fang Lang had already discovered this problem, but he planned to wait until Ludwig Folger came to Brazil before proposing changes.
After all, the rifle bullets used by various countries now are basically full-power large-caliber bullets, especially Germany, which still uses 7.92mm*57mm full-power bullets.
This type of bullet can be used as a bolt-action rifle or a semi-automatic rifle at a range of more than 800 meters without any problems.
However, when used as automatic rifle bullets, they are clearly overpowered.
All calibers used later by both the Soviet Union and NATO were 7.62MM.
The Soviet Union used intermediate-power bullets earlier than the United States, so the AK47 uses intermediate-power bullets with a length of 39MM.
NATO uses 51mm NATO rifle bullets, which results in the G3 assault rifle, which later uses NATO standard bullets, having an effective range of 400 meters, which exceeds the AK47's effective range of 300 meters.
Of course, we are talking about the effective range here! The standard range of AK47 is 800 meters, and the maximum killing range is 1,500 meters.
Fang Lang also knew that most rifles of later generations used a 5.56mm caliber. Later, he became dissatisfied with the poor armor-piercing ability of the 5.56mm and began to research 6.8mm caliber bullets.
These things happened half a century later, and it is impossible for Fang Lang to do such advanced things.
After all, what is good in later generations may not be the most appropriate for our present era.
In fact, Fang Lang already had a bullet of a certain specification in his mind.
That is, Czechoslovakia has a 7.62mm*45mm intermediate power bullet, which Fang Lang thinks is very good.
Although the recoil may be slightly greater than that of the AK, it is definitely less than the recoil of using NATO standard bullets.
If that doesn't work, just tell Ludwig Folger to add a muzzle brake in front of the gun!
Aren’t the recoil and power more appropriate like this?
"General, this requires us to convert full-power bullets into medium-power bullets."
As soon as these words came out, General Morais immediately understood what Fang Lang meant, but changing bullets was much more stressful than changing guns.
The manufacture of firearms generally revolves around bullets.
Fortunately, Brazil does not currently have its own bullet standards.
However, now all the bullets used by the Brazilian army are American 7.62mm*63mm rifle bullets, which are the standard bullets for the American M1 Garand rifle.
If the bullets need to be replaced, it means that all the current domestic stockpile of bullets will be scrapped, which would be a huge loss.
For a moment, General Morais was in a dilemma. He certainly wanted to support Fang Lang in localizing light weapons, but if he wanted to change the caliber of the bullet, this would be a matter of ripple effects.
It is impossible for him to decide it alone.
Although General Morais has not yet confirmed whether what Fang Lang said about the development trend of light weapons is correct, this does not affect Morais's desire to support Fang Lang's idea.
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