I Became a Tycoon During World War I - Chapter 231

Chapter 231: The Improvement of the Machine Gun

Charles groaned inwardly.

How should this machine gun be improved?
If it were to be truly improved, wouldn’t it almost be a complete redesign of the machine gun?
It has flaws everywhere; however, because the war suddenly broke out and all countries lacked light machine guns, it still managed to secure a certain number of orders.

Nevertheless, the battlefield's evaluation of it was:
"It’s normal for it to malfunction."

"If it breaks down, just discard it, it’s not worth bringing it back for repairs."

"This isn’t a machine gun; at most, it’s just a rifle that can fire in bursts!"

...

Charles stared at the machine gun for a moment, then looked up at Dominique and asked, "What are its flaws?"

"The biggest issue is that after firing more than two hundred rounds, the barrel overheats," Dominique said, pointing at the barrel. "Although we installed heat dissipation fins, they still don’t make much of a difference."

Charles smiled and shook his head. "That’s not the biggest problem, Dominique. You don’t even need to worry about that."

"What?" Dominique looked up, puzzled, at Charles.

Charles did not answer. He pointed to the sickle-shaped magazine beneath the machine gun and asked, "Hollow design?"

"Yes!" Dominique nodded. "To reduce the weight of the machine gun."

"Do you know what this means on the battlefield?" Charles said calmly. "The battlefield is full of dirty water, sand, and many other things we can't even imagine. They can get into the magazine through the hollow parts, then be carried into the bolt by the bullets, and then..."

He didn’t need to continue. Of course, it would jam.

Dominique froze. He had never considered this. Now that Charles pointed it out, it seemed indeed plausible.

The environment they used for testing was too clean, and the operations were very standardized, with maintenance conducted before testing.

In actual combat, it might be exactly as Charles said; it wouldn’t even fire more than two hundred rounds before the barrel overheated.

Dominique said, somewhat dejected, "But it already weighs 9 kilograms. If we don’t reduce the weight of the magazine, we might lose the significance of a light machine gun."

Charles understood the meaning of this remark.

A hollow versus a solid magazine might not seem like a big difference at first glance, but the problem was that the magazine capacity was small—only 20 rounds could fit in a magazine.

A machine gun needs to carry at least two to three hundred rounds of ammunition, so that would require dozens of magazines, which would make the weight difference substantial.

If a light machine gun required three or even more soldiers to carry it, it might be better off using a heavy machine gun.

Charles paced around, slowly inspecting the machine gun, then summarized two particularly outstanding flaws:

One was barrel cooling.

The materials at this time weren’t very good; after firing two hundred rounds, the barrel would overheat. Adding heat dissipation fins would only allow a few more shots before it became ineffective, increasing weight without much benefit. It was essentially useless.

The second flaw was the French bullet's conical shape.

Its unique large taper would inevitably cause the magazine to take on this semi-sickle shape, which couldn’t be avoided.

After considering for a moment, Charles reached a conclusion. He said slowly, "Perhaps we should remove the heat dissipation fins."

"Remove the heat dissipation fins?" Dominique exclaimed. "Then it would only be able to fire 200 rounds..."

"We can design the barrel to be replaceable," Charles said, pointing to the joint between the barrel and the body. "We could design a barrel lock here, with a handle attached to the barrel. When the barrel heats up, you hold the handle and replace it. Repeat this process."

Modern machine guns widely use this design. For fast operators, they can replace a barrel in as little as 5 seconds.

Dominique and Steed exchanged glances. Could it really be designed this way?
However, this did seem feasible. Instead of getting stuck on the "cooling" issue, the solution was simply to replace the barrel. When one barrel overheats, you swap it out, and by the time it heats up again, the other barrel has cooled. This way, it can be replaced continuously.

This would allow the rate of fire to surpass that of a typical light machine gun.

"Great idea!" Steed nodded in praise.

In terms of manufacturing, all they had to do was add a barrel lock to secure it to the machine body, solving a major issue.

"The magazine problem!" Charles took the magazine off the machine gun and looked at it. "If it has to be in this semi-sickle shape, why not just design it as a disc?"

"A disc?" Dominique’s eyes widened.

"Yes." Charles, seeing that there was still a long rectangular magazine, took it and placed it next to the disc-shaped one. "A disc shape, fully enclosed design, made with lightweight metal, which might reduce weight and possibly allow for more rounds."

Charles was inspired by the DP-28 drum-fed machine gun. The round magazine design could perfectly accommodate the conical shape of the Lebel rifle cartridges. The bullets inside would rotate one after another, so the conical shape would have little effect.

Dominique stared at Charles in shock. "This might solve the magazine issue, but… how do we attach this drum magazine?"

Steed, equally puzzled, also wondered about this. They had thought of this idea, but if the magazine were a complete disc, where would they put it?

Charles didn’t hesitate. He patted the top of the receiver and said, "We can attach it here, with a filling hole at the bottom of the disc, so the bullets are loaded from top to bottom."

Before they knew it, Charles had transformed the machine gun into something resembling a "Big Plate Chicken."

Dominique and Steed looked at each other, both seeing excitement and shock in the other’s eyes.

Steed was fine; he had known about Charles’s design talent from the start, which is why he sought his help now.

But Dominique had thought Charles wouldn't be much help.

After all, Charles had only just started handling firearms. How could someone who had been practicing shooting just an hour ago suddenly come up with a solution to a machine gun issue?

He hadn’t even touched the trigger of a machine gun!
But the facts were right in front of them—Charles had provided several valuable ideas:

A replaceable barrel and a fully enclosed drum magazine.

Although the change from two sickle-shaped magazines to one drum magazine didn’t significantly alter the weight, the sustained firepower had jumped from 20 rounds to 40, or possibly more. This was still a huge leap.

"Excellent ideas, Colonel!" Dominique said, shaking Charles's hand excitedly. "I never expected you to have such deep knowledge of firearms. I think we’ll have more opportunities to cooperate in the future!"

Steed smiled contentedly. Dominique had never respected anyone in firearms design, but now he was thoroughly impressed by Charles.

"Of course," Charles nodded.

Watching Dominique clean up the machine gun, Charles frowned and turned to Steed, saying, "Perhaps the original design of this machine gun could still be put to use."

Steed glanced at him in confusion. "It could still be useful?"

Charles gave a soft "Hmm," and said, "If you have a way to pass it on to the Piteau Armaments Factory…"

Steed instantly understood Charles’s intention and smiled knowingly. "Of course, Colonel, we definitely have a way!"

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