Chapter 226: Machine Gun Orders and Reserve Plans

The testing of the Maxim machine gun went quite smoothly, and after all the tests were completed, it was naturally time for the military to discuss the quantity to be purchased.

What is certain for now is that the Maxim machine gun possesses extremely powerful firepower on the battlefield, which the current rifles simply do not have.

The firepower of artillery is, of course, very powerful, but such heavy firepower is used more to deal with enemy fortresses and strongholds, especially in large-scale siege warfare.

Machine guns, however, can play a huge role in both offensive and defensive battles and can cause massive casualties to enemy manpower, which is something artillery cannot do.

Therefore, for the Spanish military, the only question is how many machine guns to buy, not whether or not to buy them.

"Mr. Maxim, what is our cost for a machine gun like this?" Before discussing the specific order quantity with the military, Gao Da first summoned Maxim to ask about the actual production cost of such a machine gun.

"Your Majesty, the machine gun you see now costs about 7, 80 pesetas, or about 280 pounds. But because this is an experimental prototype, the cost of manufacturing it individually is on the high side.

If it can be mass-produced, the cost of the machine gun should be reduced to about 200 pounds, which is 5, 00 pesetas," Maxim introduced.

It is only natural that this prototype, used specifically for experiments, is expensive to build. Because there is no dedicated production line, almost all the parts of the machine gun were hand-crafted by these firearms experts.

This also brought the cost of this machine gun to as high as 7, 80 pesetas, and that is just the cost of the machine gun itself, without any ammunition.

Upon hearing that the cost of the machine gun could be reduced to about 5, 00 pesetas after mass production, Gao Da finally breathed a sigh of relief.

It must be admitted that the cost of a machine gun is indeed much higher than that of a rifle.

The cost of Spain's standard Vitali M1872 rifle is only 60 pesetas, and the selling price to the Spanish military is only 75 pesetas, basically just earning a bit of hard-earned money.

It was only by exporting weapons to Russia and the Ottoman Empire in this arms trade that the Royal Arsenal made a large profit. The unit price of the rifles the Royal Arsenal sold to Russia was 95 pesetas, and the unit price of the rifles sold to the Ottoman Empire was 102 pesetas.

The reason why the rifles sold to the Ottoman Empire were more expensive than those sold to Russia is that the Ottoman Empire had the support of the British and was not short of money when it came to purchasing weapons and equipment.

It was the opposite for Russia; if the unit price given to Russia were too high, Russia would turn to rely on its own domestically produced weapons and abandon the Spanish order directly.

Although Russia had strengthened its industrial and economic strength through reforms, Russia's economy was still relatively poor.

War also requires a large amount of fiscal expenditure, so for Russia, it was natural to save wherever possible when it came to weapon procurement.

Based on the cost of the Vitali M1872 rifle, the cost of one Maxim machine gun is approximately the cost of 83 Vitali M1872 rifles.

But 83 rifles require 83 soldiers to operate, while a single machine gun only needs 5 to 8 people to exert maximum firepower, which also means that the machine gun can save Spanish manpower to the greatest extent.

In some defensive battles, Spain might only need to deploy a dozen or so machine guns, and by having these machine guns fire in turns, they could form a network of firepower and easily complete the defensive mission.

A force of a dozen or so machine guns would only consist of a few dozen to a hundred people; if one were to rely solely on these hundred infantrymen to complete the defensive mission, it would not only be extremely arduous but could even lead to mission failure.

Gao Da cast his gaze toward the high-ranking generals of the military, waiting for the Defense Force to decide on the number of machine guns to purchase.

The cost of a machine gun is as high as 200 pounds, and the selling price is certainly more than 200 pounds. Even though the Royal Arsenal is Gao Da's own property, it cannot afford to make no profit when cooperating with the Spanish military.

Judging by the past cooperation between the Royal Arsenal and the Spanish military, with a production cost of 200 pounds per machine gun, the price sold to the Spanish military is roughly between 220 and 250 pounds; the exact amount depends on the negotiations between the arsenal and the Defense Force. In short, it is an internal price and is relatively cheap.

When sold to the armies of other countries, the selling price of the machine gun will increase to about 270 to 300 pounds, and for some countries, the price will even be as high as 300 to 350 pounds or more. This is also the main source of profit for the arsenal; earning money from foreigners is the hard truth.

After all, only when the Royal Arsenal earns enough money can its various research projects have sufficient budgets. And only then can these weapons experts at the arsenal receive enough dividends, thereby having more motivation to work for the arsenal and Gao Da.

The high-ranking generals of the Defense Force were clearly very tempted by the machine gun. Even knowing that the cost of a machine gun was as high as several thousand pesetas, it still could not dampen the enthusiasm of the generals to purchase them.

Finally, after long negotiations, Maxim officially set the internal selling price of this machine gun at 5, 80 pesetas, which is about 230 pounds.

For every machine gun sold, the Royal Arsenal can earn a net profit of at least 780 pesetas. Of this, 741 pesetas of income belongs to Gao Da, and the remaining 39 pesetas are distributed to all the firearms experts in the machine gun project team.

Do not look down on the 39 pesetas distributed per machine gun; the Spanish arms order is for at least several hundred machine guns. And this is just a small number; when countries generally equip machine guns in the future, or when a large-scale war breaks out, the number of machine guns exported by the arsenal will rise steadily, and even reaching tens of thousands will not be an exaggeration.

The firearms experts of the machine gun project team naturally had no objections to this distribution ratio. In addition to the dividend income, they had long since received rewards from Gao Da; the lowest earners received at least half a year's income, and experts with more rewards even received an extra one or two years' income. The money rewarded to them was already quite substantial.

A machine gun price of 5, 80 pesetas was also acceptable to the military. After a brief conversation, Prime Minister Serrano personally came forward to sign a machine gun purchase agreement with Maxim.

The Spanish military will purchase 420 machine guns at a price of 5, 80 pesetas each, and 12, 00 canvas ammunition belts with a capacity of 333 rounds each at a price of 50 pesetas per belt.

This procurement order cost a total of 3, 41, 00 pesetas, which for the Defense Force was funds that could be squeezed out, so it did not cause these high-ranking military generals any pain.

The reason why only 420 machine guns were purchased was mainly because the military considered the problems that might arise after the machine guns were equipped to the troops, so they only planned to equip them on a small scale first, and then make large-scale purchases after confirming there were no problems.

As for ammunition, the military generals were quite generous. 12, 00 ammunition belts averaged out to 30 per machine gun.

Each ammunition belt holds 333 rounds, which means that each machine gun is equipped with nearly 10, 00 rounds, which will allow Spain's as-yet-unformed machine gunners 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 daily training.

Because current machine guns are not that stable, if fired at high speed for a long time, in addition to the barrel becoming overheated and scrapped, phenomena such as jamming and broken firing pins are likely to occur.

The tested machine gun was hand-crafted by firearms experts, so its quality can be guaranteed. But mass-produced machine guns will not have such good quality; while maintaining the maximum rate of fire, problems might occur within a minute.

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

Doing so can also reduce the number of rounds consumed by the machine gun and reduce the logistics supply pressure on the Defense Force.

A canvas ammunition belt with 333 rounds costs 50 pesetas, which is close to the income of an adult male citizen for five months.

A machine gun only needs half a minute to consume these bullets, and the bullets consumed by hundreds or thousands of machine guns every day are an astronomical figure, so one should still save where one can.

In fact, when Gao Da learned that the machine gun had been born, he had the idea of selling such machine guns at a high price to Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

Even if sold to only one of these countries, the income brought by selling machine guns would by no means be comparable to selling rifles.

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

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

Relying on the barrier of the Pyrenees, Gao Da only needs to build solid military fortresses on both sides of the mountain range to rely on machine guns and artillery to block the army's offensive from the European continent head-on.

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

If the Maxim machine gun were exposed too early, it would not only cause various countries to scramble to imitate and equip it on a large scale, but would also make the armies of various countries wary of machine guns.

Gao Da is very clear about which one can achieve great results: taking the enemy by surprise or being prepared in advance. This is also the reason why Gao Da dismissed the idea of selling machine guns.

It is clearly not cost-effective to let the Spanish Army lose its advantage in the next few years for the sake of that little bit of income.

If the existence of the machine gun is to be exposed, it should be when the Spanish army has no choice but to bring it out in the face of an enemy offensive. By then, Spain can also make a fortune by relying on its excellent machine gun technology and sell the machine guns to all the great powers in Europe at the same time.

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

As the saying goes: display one generation, equip one generation, hide one generation, and develop one generation. Currently, Spain's most advanced machine gun is the Maxim machine gun in front of us; if it can be kept secret, it should naturally be kept secret.

When Spain has a second generation of more advanced machine gun technology, it can consider selling this generation of already lagging machine gun technology.

I believe that European great powers will be interested in this kind of high-firepower weapon. If it can be exchanged for other military industrial technologies that Spain needs, or other technologies and techniques, it will definitely be a profitable deal for Spain.

Currently, the two most important weapons in the army's equipment 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 among the best in Europe, which is also Gao Da's confidence.

If he can 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 object.

Before Spain's population increases, it can only rely on such means to make up for the gap in numbers.

The armies mobilized by other great powers are often millions or even millions, while the army that Spain can mobilize is at most one million, and that is only possible under the condition of severely damaging domestic production.

Under normal circumstances, the number of troops Spain can mobilize is only about 500, 00. Although 500, 00 is not a small number, it no longer plays a big role in the current scale of war.

In the ongoing Russo-Turkish War on the Balkan Peninsula, the number of troops dispatched by both sides has already exceeded one million.

And the number of troops invested by both Russia and the Ottoman Empire in the Siege of Plevna has already exceeded 300, 00, and Russia's unilateral troop losses are close to 100, 00.

Compared with this large-scale war, the number of Spanish troops is indeed somewhat insufficient, which also gave Gao Da 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 a conscription system, and male Russian citizens aged 20 to 25 are obliged to participate in military service.

While Spain's military service system still maintains a recruitment system, and the source of soldiers mostly comes from the government's active recruitment.

The biggest disadvantage of the two military service systems is that Spain has a very small number of reserves, which also affects the number of troops Spain can mobilize.

According to Russia's conscription system, while maintaining a regular army of as many as 700, 00, Russia also has nearly one million reserve troops.

And although Spain's regular army has as many as 150, 00 people, Spain has almost no reserves, and the troops mobilized on a large scale are all new recruits, and their combat effectiveness is extremely poor.

Gao Da 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 reserves. Spain does not need too many active-duty soldiers; after all, Spain will not have any wars in the short term.

The existence of reserves is to ensure that Spain has enough trained soldiers during wartime. The combat effectiveness of the reserves is certainly not as good as that of the regular army, but it is much better than those hastily assembled new recruits.

Reserves only need to go through mobilization and simple training to become a real army, while new recruit training requires at least half a year to form combat effectiveness, and if you want to transform them into an elite army, they still need to be tempered on the battlefield for a long time.

Spain's current regular army has 150, 00 people, and Gao Da's plan is to let Spain also have about 150, 00 reserve troops.

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

But they have to set aside a certain amount of time each year for militarized training to ensure they have a certain level of military proficiency.

Establishing reserves certainly has a certain impact on Spain's production and construction, but because there are only 150, 00 reserves, the impact will not be that great.

Compared with the role of establishing reserves, the losses in production and construction can be ignored.

With 150, 00 regular troops and 150, 00 reserve troops, Spain can pull out more than 300, 00 troops at any time, which can also ensure that Spain's military strength will not be too bad.

It is a bit difficult for 300, 00 troops to conduct an offensive war, but there is no problem in defending the Iberian Peninsula. Unless the great powers are willing to fight Spain to the death, Spain is relatively safe under such circumstances.

There are also conflicts of interest and contradictions among the great powers, and Gao Da does not think that any country will choose to fight Spain to the death.

Whether it is Britain or France, they both have more threatening enemies. On land, the only one that can pose a threat to Spain is France; as for the other neighbor, Portugal, they should be the ones worrying about the threat from Spain.

Thinking of this, a smile appeared on Gao Da's face. If the King of Portugal, Luis, learned that Spain was establishing 150, 00 reserves, he would probably be so nervous that he wouldn't be able to sleep for several days.

The regular army and reserve troops add up to a full 300, 00 people, which is really terrible for Portugal, which has a population of only 4. million.

Like Spain, after losing its colonies in the Americas, although Portugal still retains the reputation of a colonial power, its actual strength has already been lost by more than half.

The regular force in Portugal itself is only 22, 00, and these troops are mainly to guard against an invasion by Spain. Of course, if the Spanish army really wanted to invade, relying solely on these 22, 00 people would obviously have no effect.

Portugal also deployed nearly 30, 00 troops in its colonies, but these 30, 00 people are very watery, and most of them are auxiliary troops composed of indigenous people in the colonies.

This is also the reason why Gao Da showed a smile, because 300, 00 Spanish soldiers are too much pressure for Portugal, and even the British behind Portugal will worry about the situation on the Iberian Peninsula.

(End of chapter)