Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry

#125 - The time is right to go to Kuncheng

After a day of installation and debugging, Nangou's first boring machine successfully completed its operation.

Whether it was Ren Zhong, the chemical engineering team involved, or the special observation team brought by Gao Kaiming, everyone was extremely excited.

This was not only the first boring machine in the base area, but also the first independently produced boring machine in the Huaguo of this time and space. Of course, Ren Zhong provided some parts through a special channel, but these details don't need to be mentioned.

According to Ren Zhong's naming habits, this boring machine was named Hongxing T680—although no one understood why the numbering started from 680, just like the lathe was named Hongxing C6410 by Ren Zhong, no one had any objections to this. As the inventor of these products, Ren Zhong had the right to name them.

However, after the boring machine was produced, it was slightly embarrassing because none of the people present had ever operated such a machine. Fortunately, Ren Zhong had not forgotten this. He brought fifty booklets of the T680 boring machine's operation manual from the main world to Nangou.

Everyone looked at the instruction manual and gradually learned how to operate it. Gao Kaiming, as the main learning and practice student, was the first to complete the processing of a Type 56 semi-automatic part.

Then, gradually, there was a second, a third...

The success of the boring machine allowed Nangou Arsenal to have preliminary machining capabilities, and began to manufacture and process parts for the Type 56 semi-automatic rifle and grenade launchers. Now, after manual forging, carbon steel can basically meet the strength requirements of these light weapons. Although the service life of these parts may only be half of the service life of the parts Ren Zhong brought from the main world, in this critical moment, service life is not a big problem.

Even the worst is better than the old rifles with worn-out rifling.

With a boring machine, it is also possible to process the rifling for grenade launchers.

While Gao Kaiming and the others were working day and night, constantly experimenting and exploring the functions of the boring machine, the 4th and 5th Hongxing C6410 lathes developed by Ren Zhong were also successfully replicated in Nangou.

If it didn't require enough time for these large castings to cool naturally, the production cycle of the lathe would be shorter. However, due to the lack of qualified cooling oil in this world, natural cooling must take so long to ensure stable quality.

But these are not problems. Now the number of skilled model makers has increased significantly, and both Yangcun and Nangou have the production capacity to produce two sets of machine tool castings at the same time.

After the first boring machine in Nangou was produced, Ren Zhong had already sent the core components of two boring machines to Yangcun through the crossing point teleportation function.

In this way, within about a month, two new T680 boring machines will be born in Yangcun. By August, Yangcun will have 2 C6410 lathes, 2 T680 boring machines, and 2 J23 punch presses—these basically reach the limit supported by a 50-kilowatt hydroelectric generator and can no longer be expanded.

As for the arsenal headquarters, due to its own power supply situation, it barely added 2 C6410 lathes and could not add more. There was no way, because there was a lack of hydroelectric power generation conditions, and it was still using diesel generators seized from the Japanese.

Nangou does not have a power supply bottleneck for the time being. The planned 4-level cascade hydroelectric power generation can theoretically output 200 kilowatts, and the power of each machine tool is 7.5 kilowatts. The entire Nangou production base can theoretically add 25 machine tools!

Of course, the area of the karst cave in Nangou may not be able to accommodate so many machine tools and related workers working at the same time.

However, according to Ren Zhong's plan, the Nangou base area will at least add 7 lathes, 3 boring machines, and 2 punch presses or more.

Only a small portion is reserved for subsequent milling machines, planers, and other new functional machine tools. The three types of machine tools that have been developed can already be used for the production of ammunition such as bullets and shells, as well as the repair and replacement of parts for Hanyang rifles, Type 38 rifles, Czech rifles, and crooked-neck machine guns, laying the foundation for the production of some parts for mortars, grenade launchers, and RPGs.

The original few hundred miners who felt somewhat surplus are now completely insufficient. A considerable portion of them have been converted into workers and trained to become smelting and blacksmithing workers. After all, many gun parts need to be forged to obtain qualified forged steel before they can be processed again.

In this way, Ren Zhong needs a continuous stream of human resources to support the development of the entire base. However, even if Gao Kaiming, Xu Jiucheng, and the others have exhausted all their relationships, they still cannot meet the ever-increasing worker shortage.

After all, the current machining capacity is still very limited. Forging, which is basically replaced by machines in the main world, must now be handled manually.

As a result, the arsenals in Yangcun, Nangou, and the headquarters quickly fell into the predicament of insufficient forgings. However, there is no way. Not only are workers difficult to find, but even the supply capacity of these three places has become strained due to the explosive population growth.

It is Zhang Wanhe who is now making a fortune with the penicillin business, and Ren Zhong does not care about the cost, so that the base area's finances can slightly ease, and he can try every means to purchase food from the outside to subsidize the new gap of more than a thousand workers!

But these are all worthwhile. Thanks to the abundant supply of propellants and explosives, only cast iron hand grenades, landmines, and the like need to be put into full production, and the monthly output has reached 100,000 units! The monthly production capacity of grenades and mortar shells has also exceeded 10,000! Coupled with the specially produced 3,000 RPG rockets and 2,000 75mm mountain gun shells, the number of large-scale lethal ammunition has almost increased by an order of magnitude compared to what Ren Zhong knew in another time and space!

Plus 80 82mm mortars, 100 RPG rocket launchers, 400 grenade launchers, and 500 Type 56 semi-automatic rifles.

These weapons can directly strengthen the firepower of the 15 main regiments around the base headquarters by more than double.

Each regiment has 6 mortars, which can be concentrated into a complete mortar company, or dispersed so that each battalion has a mortar platoon. The main regiment will no longer be unilaterally suppressed by the Japanese artillery when facing the Japanese brigade. Such firepower configuration was unimaginable for the previous main regiments.

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It should be known that not long ago, Li Yunlong's New First Regiment, which was known as strong soldiers and horses, felt very impressive with only one 60mm mortar.

If it is placed in the current configuration, it will be nothing, a proper second-line supplementary regiment.

Now, for the main regiment's equipment, in terms of offensive tactics, each infantry company is now equipped with at least 3 grenade launchers and a laser rangefinder, plus 3 Type 56 semi-automatic rifles and 3 machine guns for automatic firepower. These equipment can be flexibly configured and strengthened to the infantry platoon according to the battlefield situation, or it can become a firepower platoon alone, greatly increasing some of the firepower output.

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