Chapter 226: Machine Gun Order and Reserve Plan

The Maxim machine gun test was quite smooth, and after all the tests were completed, it naturally came to the military discussing the quantity to purchase.

What can be determined at present is that the Maxim machine gun possesses extremely powerful firepower in the battlefield, which is not possessed by current rifles.

The firepower of artillery is certainly very powerful, but artillery of this kind of heavy firepower deals more with the enemy's fortresses and bunkers, especially large-scale siege battles.

And machine guns can play a huge role in both offensive and defensive battles, and can cause great damage to the enemy's manpower, which is not possessed by artillery.

Therefore, for the Spanish military, there is only the question of how many machine guns to purchase, and no question of whether or not to purchase machine guns.

"Mr. Maxim, what is the cost of such a machine gun for us?" Before discussing the specific number of orders with the military, Gao Da first called Maxim to ask about the actual cost of such a machine gun.

"Your Majesty, the machine gun you see at present costs about 7,280 Peseta, which is about 280 pounds. But because this is a sample gun used for experiments, the cost of manufacturing it alone will be on the high side.

If it can be produced on a large scale, the cost of the machine gun should be able to be reduced to about 200 pounds, which is 5,200 Peseta." Maxim introduced.

It is a matter of course that this sample gun specifically used for experiments is expensive to manufacture. Because there is no specialized production line, almost all parts of the machine gun were hand-made by these firearms experts.

This also made the cost of this machine gun as high as 7,280 Peseta, and this is still without bullets, just the cost of a machine gun.

Upon hearing that the cost of the machine gun could be reduced to about 5,200 Peseta after large-scale production, Gao Da finally breathed a sigh of relief.

It has to be admitted that the manufacturing cost of machine guns is indeed much more expensive than rifles.

The manufacturing cost of Spain's standard rifle, the Vitali M1872, is only 60 Peseta, and the selling price to the Spanish military is only 75 Peseta, which is basically earning some hard-earned money.

That is to say, this arms trade of exporting weapons to Russia and the Ottoman Empire allowed the Royal Military Factory to earn a large sum of money. The rifle sold by the Royal Military Factory to Russia had a unit price of 95 Peseta, and the rifle sold to the Ottoman Empire had a unit price of 102 Peseta.

The reason why the unit price of the rifle sold to the Ottoman Empire was even more expensive than the rifle sold to Russia is the actual reason that the Ottoman Empire has the support of the British and is not short of money in purchasing weapons and equipment.

On the contrary, it is Russia; if the unit price given to Russia is too high, Russia will turn to rely on weapons produced by itself and will directly give up Spain's order.

Although Russia relied on reform to strengthen its industrial and economic strength, Russia's economy is still relatively poor.

War requires a large amount of fiscal expenditure, and for Russia, it is naturally to save as much as possible in terms of weapon procurement.

According to the manufacturing cost of the Vitali M1872 rifle, the manufacturing cost of one Maxim machine gun is about the manufacturing cost of 83 Vitali M1872 rifles.

But 83 rifles require 83 soldiers to use, and one machine gun only needs 5 to 8 people to exert maximum firepower, which also means that the machine gun can save Spain's manpower to the greatest extent.

In some defensive battles, Spain even only needs to deploy a dozen machine guns, letting these machine guns fire in turns, and they can form a firepower network, easily completing the defensive task.

And the military strength of a dozen machine guns is only dozens or a hundred people; if one relies on these hundred infantrymen to complete the defensive task, it is not only very arduous but may even lead to the failure of the task.

Gao Da cast his gaze toward several high-level generals of the military, waiting for the national defense department to decide the number of machine guns to purchase.

The manufacturing cost of the machine gun is as high as several thousand Peseta, and the selling price will definitely be more than 200 pounds. Even if the Royal Military Factory is Gao Da's own industry, it cannot earn no profit at all when cooperating with the Spanish military.

According to the cooperation intensity between the Royal Military Factory and the Spanish military in the past, the manufacturing cost of one machine gun is 200 pounds, and the price sold to the Spanish military is about between 220 and 250 pounds; the specific amount depends on the negotiation between the military factory and the Ministry of National Defense, and in short, it belongs to the internal price, which is relatively cheap.

Sold to the armies of other countries, the selling price of the machine gun will be increased to about 270 to 300 pounds, and for some countries, the selling price will even be as high as more than 300 to 350 pounds; this is also the main source of profit for the military factory, and earning foreigners' money is the hard truth.

After all, only when the Royal Military Factory earns enough money can the various research projects of the military factory have enough budget. And these weapon experts in the military factory can obtain enough dividends, so they can work for the military factory and Gao Da with more motivation.

Several high-level generals of the Ministry of National Defense were obviously very moved by the machine gun. Even knowing that the manufacturing cost of the machine gun is as high as several thousand Peseta, it still could not make several generals dispel the enthusiasm for purchasing machine guns.

Finally, after a long negotiation, Maxim officially determined the internal selling price of this machine gun at 5,980 Peseta, which is about 230 pounds.

For every machine gun sold by the Royal Military Factory, it can obtain a net income of at least 780 Peseta. Among them, 741 Peseta of income belongs to Gao Da, and the remaining 39 Peseta will be distributed to all firearms experts in the machine gun project team.

Don't look at the fact that only 39 Peseta is distributed to them for one machine gun; Spain's arms order is at least as high as hundreds of machine guns. And this is still a small number; when various countries generally equip machine guns in the future, or when a large-scale war breaks out, the number of machine guns exported by the military factory will climb steadily, and even reaching tens of thousands is not an exaggerated number.

The firearms experts of the machine gun project team naturally have no objection to such a distribution ratio. In addition to the income that can be obtained from dividends, they had long ago obtained Gao Da's rewards; the person who received the least also obtained more than half a year's income, and the experts who received more rewards even obtained an extra one or two years' income; the money rewarded to them was already not small.

The selling price of 5,980 Peseta for the machine gun can also be accepted by the military. After a brief conversation, Prime Minister Serrano personally came forward and signed a machine gun purchase agreement with Maxim.

The Spanish military will purchase 420 machine guns at a price of 5,980 Peseta, and purchase 12,600 canvas bullet belts with a capacity of 333 rounds at a price of 50 Peseta per belt.

This procurement order cost a total of 3.1416 million Peseta, which belongs to the funds that can be squeezed out for the Ministry of National Defense, so it did not make these high-level military generals feel heartache.

The reason why only 420 machine guns were purchased is mainly because the military considered the problems that might appear after the machine guns were equipped to the troops, so they only planned to equip them on a small scale and in small quantities, and then carry out large-scale procurement after confirming that there were no problems.

In terms of bullets, the generals of the military were quite generous. 12,600 bullet belts averaged to each machine gun, and there were a full 30 belts.

Each bullet belt has 333 bullets, which also means that each machine gun is equipped with nearly 10,000 bullets, which can allow the machine gun soldiers that Spain has not yet formed to train for a long time.

Although the maximum rate of fire of the machine gun is close to 600 rounds per minute, such exaggerated firepower will not be used during training in normal times.

Because the current machine gun is not that stable, if it is fired at high speed for a long time, in addition to the barrel becoming hot and scrapped, it is also easy to have phenomena such as jamming and firing pin breakage.

The machine gun tested was hand-made by firearms experts, and the quality can be guaranteed. But the machine gun produced on a large scale does not have such good quality; under the premise of maintaining the maximum rate of fire, problems may appear within one minute.

Therefore, in the case of normal training, it is already quite good for the machine gun to have a rate of fire of 100 to 200 rounds per minute.

Doing so can also reduce the number of bullets consumed by the machine gun and reduce the logistics supply pressure of the Ministry of National Defense.

The selling price of a canvas bullet belt with 333 bullets is 50 Pesetas, which is already close to the income of an adult male citizen for five months.

The machine gun only needs half a minute to consume these bullets, and the bullets consumed every day by hundreds or thousands of machine guns are astronomical figures; it is still necessary to save a little.

Actually, when learning that the machine gun had been born, Gao Da had the idea of selling such a machine gun to Russia and the Ottoman Empire at a high price.

Even if it is only sold to one of the countries, the income brought by selling machine guns is definitely not comparable to selling rifles.

But after considering it for a while, Gao Da still gave up this idea. Exposing the machine gun too early is not a good thing for Spain; after all, the machine gun is the trump card Gao Da wants to hide.

Under the premise that Spain is heavily equipped with machine guns, even if facing enemies like Germany and France, Gao Da is not afraid at all.

Relying on the obstruction of the Pyrenees, Gao Da only needs to build solid military fortresses on both sides of the mountain range, and he can rely on machine guns and artillery to frontally resist the army's offensive from the European continent.

The advantage of the machine gun is precisely reflected in defensive battles, especially in the case where the enemy uses a large number of troops for large-scale cluster assaults.

If the Maxim machine gun is exposed too early, it will not only make various countries compete to imitate and equip it on a large scale, but also make the armies of various countries prepared for machine guns.

Gao Da is very clear about which item, catching by surprise or being prepared, can achieve huge results; this is also the reason why Gao Da gave up the idea of selling machine guns.

For the sake of that little income, letting the Spanish army lose its advantage in the next few years is obviously not a very cost-effective deal.

If the existence of the machine gun is to be exposed, it is also when the Spanish army has to take it out in the face of the enemy's offensive. By then, Spain can also make a lot of money relying on excellent machine gun technology, and sell machine guns to all great power countries in Europe at the same time.

And during this period of time, it is precisely the time for Spain to develop more stable and more powerful machine gun technology.

As the saying goes, display one generation, equip one generation, hide one generation, and develop one generation. The most advanced machine gun in Spain at present is the Maxim machine gun in front of him, and it should be kept secret if possible.

When Spain has the second generation of more advanced machine gun technology, it can consider selling this generation of machine gun technology that has already fallen behind.

I believe that great power countries in Europe will be interested in this kind of high-firepower weapon; if it can be exchanged for other military industrial technology that Spain needs or other technology and techniques, it is definitely a steady profit without loss for Spain.

The two main weapons equipped in the Spanish army are rifles and artillery; although Spain's rifles and artillery are not at the top level, they are at least at the first-class level in Europe.

If you count the machine gun, Spain's army military industrial technology can rank in the forefront in Europe, which is also Gao Da's confidence.

If it can still maintain the lead in the era when tanks and airplanes are born in the future, Gao Da says that Spain is a military power, and naturally no other country will oppose it.

Before Spain's population has improved, it can only rely on such means to make up for the gap in the number of people.

The armies mobilized by other great power countries are often millions or even millions, while the army that Spain can mobilize is at most millions, and that is only possible under the premise of seriously destroying domestic production.

In normal circumstances, the number of troops Spain can mobilize is only about 500,000; although 500,000 people are not few, they have already played no big role in the current scale of war.

In the Russo-Turkish War currently being fought on the Balkan Peninsula, the number of troops dispatched by both sides has already exceeded 1 million.

And the number of troops invested by both Russia and Austria in the Plevna fortress defense battle has already exceeded 300,000, and the military strength loss of Russia alone is close to 100,000.

Compared with this large-scale war, the number of troops in Spain is indeed insufficient, which also made Gao Da have the idea of reforming Spain's military service system.

Spain's military service system is still quite backward, even inferior to the current Russia.

Russia's military service system has been changed to the compulsory military service system; Russian male citizens aged 20 to 25 have the obligation to participate in military service.

And Spain's military service system still maintains the recruitment system, and the military sources mostly come from the government's active recruitment.

The biggest disadvantage of the two military service systems is that Spain's reserve quantity is extremely small, which also affects the number of troops Spain can mobilize.

According to Russia's compulsory military service system, while maintaining a regular army of as high as 700,000, Russia also possesses nearly 1 million reserve troops.

And although Spain's regular army also has 150,000 people, Spain almost has no reserves in terms of reserve troops, and the army mobilized on a large scale is also a new army, and the combat effectiveness is extremely poor.

Gao Da also precisely considered this point, so he decided to change Spain's military service system.

Of course, the main direction of the change in the military service system is the reserve, and Spain does not need too many active soldiers; after all, Spain has no war in a short time.

The existence of the reserve is to ensure that Spain possesses enough trained soldiers during the war. The combat effectiveness of the reserve is certainly not as good as the regular army, but it is much better than those hastily formed new soldiers.

The reserve only needs to undergo mobilization and simple training to become a real army, while new soldier training needs at least half a year to form combat effectiveness, and if one wants to let them transform into an elite army, they still need to undergo long-term grinding on the battlefield.

Spain's current regular army has 150,000 people; Gao Da's plan is to let Spain also possess about 150,000 reserve troops.

These reserve troops can carry out their own work most of the time; they are the same as ordinary Spaniards.

But they have to spend a certain amount of time every year to carry out militarized training, ensuring that they possess a certain military level.

Forming a reserve certainly has a certain impact on Spain's production and construction, but because the reserve only has 150,000 people, the impact will not be that big.

Compared with the role of forming a reserve, in terms of production and construction, a little loss can also be ignored.

After having 150,000 regular troops and 150,000 reserve troops, Spain can pull out an army of more than 300,000 at any time, which can also ensure that Spain's military strength will not be too bad.

It is a bit difficult for an army of 300,000 to carry out an offensive war, but it is no problem to defend the Iberian Peninsula. Unless great power countries are willing to fight to the death with Spain, Spain is still relatively safe under such circumstances.

There are also interest contradictions and conflicts between great powers; Gao Da does not think that any country will choose

Whether it was Britain or France, they both had enemies that posed a greater threat. On land, the only country capable of threatening Spain was France; as for their other neighbor, Portugal, it should be them worrying about the threat from Spain.

Thinking of this, a smile appeared on Gao Da's face. If the King of Portugal, Luis, were to learn that Spain had formed a reserve force of 150,000, he would likely be so nervous he wouldn't be able to sleep for days.

With regular troops and reserve forces combined reaching a full 300,000, for a Portugal with a population of only 4.6 million, that was truly terrible.

Like Spain, after losing its colonies in the Americas, Portugal still retained the reputation of a great colonial power, but its actual strength had already been more than half depleted.

The regular military strength within Portugal proper was only 22,000, and these troops were primarily for defending against a Spanish invasion. Of course, if the Spanish army truly intended to invade, relying solely on these 22,000 men would clearly be of no use.

Portugal also deployed nearly 30,000 troops in its colonies, but these 30,000 were highly inflated, with the majority being auxiliary forces composed of indigenous colonial subjects.

This was the reason for Gao Da's smile, because 300,000 Spanish soldiers put immense pressure on Portugal; even the British, who stood behind Portugal, would be concerned about the situation on the Iberian Peninsula.

(End of chapter)