Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 129: Chapter 116: Vitali M1872 Rifle

Since the decision has been made to undertake military reform, the sooner it is done, the better.

No matter how the European situation changes, having a strong army unit will always give Spain peace of mind.

Currently, Spain is unable to develop its navy. Even if it could, it would certainly not succeed because of the British Empire, which reigns supreme over the seas. Unless there is a desire to compete fully with the United Kingdom, it’s better to abandon naval development.

To avoid attracting British attention, the navy’s size must remain below that of the great powers, and the main fleet must not pose a threat to the Royal Fleet of the British.

Additionally, the exorbitant expenses of the navy discourage Carlo from developing it, leaving Spain with only a few smaller ironclads, which seem quite unimpressive.

Since the navy will not be developed, the army becomes Spain’s only hope for strengthening military power. On this point, Carlo, Prime Minister Prim, and Duke Serrano are in considerable agreement.

Army reform must also come with improvements in weapon technology.

Currently, Spain’s standard rifles are quite complex, featuring outdated muzzleloaders and paper cartridges, as well as more advanced breechloaders and metal-cased bullets.

Since there will be a large-scale reform of the army, there must also be a comprehensive upgrade of the rifles equipped by the Spanish Army.

The good news is that, after more than a year of effort, Spain has made progress in breechloading technology.

With the technology from Italy and Austria-Hungary, Spain merely needs to integrate these advancements under the guidance of Austrian-Hungarian technical experts to create a standard Spanish rifle.

In such circumstances, the new generation model based on the Italian Vitali Rifle, the Spanish Vitali M1872 Rifle, was successfully born.

The Vitali Rifle was the first generation of breechloaders developed by the Swiss, and the Italians made improvements based on it. Spain then improved upon the Italian improvements, largely eliminating the rifle’s shortcomings.

This rifle has a caliber of 10.35 mm and uniformly uses the 10.35×47 mm black powder cartridge.

No smokeless powder has been developed at present, and all countries in the world use black powder cartridges, which have significant shortcomings in terms of power and accuracy.

Carlo’s military factory is currently engaged in the research and development of smokeless powder. Once smokeless powder makes a breakthrough, all of Spain’s weapons will be refitted with smokeless powder cartridges.

The rifle weighs 4.6 kg in total, is 1350 mm long, and has a muzzle velocity of up to 415 meters per second.

Italy retained the basic appearance of the Swiss Vitali Rifle but changed the loading method from a tubular magazine to single-shot loading.

The Spanish military factory made improvements based on this, adding a magazine that can hold four bullets.

The Spanish Vitali M1872 Rifle and the Italian Vitali Rifle use the same caliber, which is also convenient for logistical support.

If, in the future, Spain’s ammunition production capacity is insufficient, it may also easily procure bullets from Italy, as the ammunition of both is interchangeable.

Similarly, if Italy lacks rifles or bullets, the bullets produced by Spain can also be loaded into Italian rifles, which greatly aids the logistical support of the two countries.

Standardizing the army’s weapon series can significantly facilitate the military’s logistical support. After all, if all soldiers use the same rifle, only one type of bullet needs to be transported and supplied.

However, if multiple rifles with different calibers are used, it would be a logistical nightmare.

It’s a big problem if a large batch of supplies finally arrives at the front lines, but none of the bullets match the rifles, rendering the supplies useless to the army.

Carlo understands this well, so during the rifle’s development, he ensured that its caliber matches that of the Italian rifles.

Once smokeless powder is eventually developed, the caliber can be altered later. Since all bullets are black powder for now, it’s best to maintain consistency for easier logistical support.

Having decided to reform the army, Carlo commanded the Royal Military Factory to conduct a final test of the Vitali M1872 Rifle. As long as the military approves, it can be mass-produced and equipped to the army at any time.

Upon hearing that Carlo has even prepared the standard rifles for the army, Prime Minister Prim and Duke Serrano were naturally curious and expressed their willingness to watch the rifle test together.

Carlo had no objections. With Prime Minister Prim overseeing the Ministry of Finance and Duke Serrano the Ministry of Defense, obtaining their approval would essentially guarantee the procurement of the Vitali M1872 Rifle for the Spanish Army.

Carlo has no personal motives here. The Vitali M1872 Rifle is currently indeed Spain’s most advanced rifle and one of the most advanced in Europe.

Even the Austrian-Hungarian technical experts praised the rifle’s design, let alone Spain, where military technology is not particularly advanced.

If this rifle could be widely equipped, it would absolutely enhance the combat capabilities of the Spanish Army. Coupled with the Spanish Army’s reform, the future reformed Spanish Army’s combat power would significantly increase, which is also what Carlo hopes to see.

Compared to the Vitali M1872 Rifle are the various rifles originally in service with the Spanish Army, as well as Austria-Hungary’s Wendel M1867 Rifle and the Italian Vitali M1870 Rifle.

Carlo was quite confident about the Vitelli M1872 rifle improved by the Spanish Arsenal, and comparing it with other rifles was naturally to showcase the advanced features of the M1872 rifle.

The Royal Military Factory was, of course, aware that Carlo, Prime Minister Prim, and Duke Serrano would come to observe the rifle tests.

His Majesty the King and the two government leaders personally coming naturally aroused great attention from the Royal Military Factory. Before the public tests, the Royal Military Factory also conducted careful inspections and tests on the M1872 rifle to ensure that no problems would arise during the public demonstration.

However, the concerns of the Royal Military Factory’s technicians were somewhat unnecessary. Originally, this Vitali M1872 rifle was an improvement on the Italian Vitali M1870 Rifle, and it couldn’t possibly get worse as it was improved.

Most of Spain’s various rifles were front-loading guns, and how could a front-loading gun compare to a breech-loading gun?

The real competition with the Vitali M1872 rifle was actually only the standard rifle of Austria-Hungary, the Wendel M1867 rifle.

The full name of the Wendel M1867 rifle is the M1867 Werndl (Wendel)–Holub (Holub) Rifle, jointly developed by Wendel and Holub.

The reason for developing this breech-loading rifle was to recognize the excellent performance of the breech-loading rifles in the hands of the Prussian Army during several wars.

In fact, it was not just Austria-Hungary. This period was an important time for the entire Europe to transition from front-loading to breech-loading rifles, and from paper cartridges to metallic cartridges.

Besides, it was also a critical period for the transition from traditional black powder to smokeless powder.

This also represented a period of explosive growth in weapons and military technology among European countries.

In addition to these army weapons, the navy was also undergoing significant advancements. The ironclad would evolve into the battleship, the battleship into the dreadnought, and then into the super-dreadnought, and so on.

Although it seemed like it would take many generations of evolution, in reality, this period lasted only about thirty to forty years.

This was also why Carlo was vigorously building military factories. If Spain couldn’t catch up during this golden era of military technology development, the country would fall too far behind in military technology in the future.

Although Spain currently has no plans to develop its navy, Carlo still attaches great importance to shipyards and related shipbuilding technology.

Italy is quite excellent in shipbuilding, and Carlo, in cooperation with the Italian Government, also introduced Italian shipbuilding technology.

However, such cooperation was kept relatively secret, with the expansion of the Valencia Shipyard in Spain essentially being under confidentiality. As long as large-scale warship construction wasn’t publicly announced, other countries would hardly notice changes in the shipyard.

Let’s get back to the rifle tests.

In the presence of Carlo, Prime Minister Prim, and Duke Serrano, the Vitali M1872 rifle officially entered competitive testing against a series of other rifles.

This test would directly influence the future rifle equipment of the Spanish Army. The rifle that could win the tests would basically become the primary procurement target of the Spanish Army.

As expected, the Vitali M1872 rifle emerged victorious.

As previously stated, the real competition for this rifle was only from Austria-Hungary’s Wendel M1867 rifle.

However, the Wendel M1867 rifle has two fatal flaws.

First, the 11.15x42MM rimmed metallic cartridge used in this rifle has a bullet mass of less than 20 grams, leading to insufficient bullet lethality.

Secondly, the breech-locking mechanism. Although many breech-loading rifles of this era adopted a locking mechanism, the Wendel M1867 rifle required rotation of the locking device during loading, significantly reducing the number of bullets that could be fired per minute.

The bullet’s power was already insufficient, and its rate of fire couldn’t match the Vitali M1872 rifle, which led to the Wendel M1867 rifle’s performance being far behind the Vitali M1872 rifle in tests.

From the codenames of these two rifles, it was evident that there was a five-year difference between them. Even compared to the Italian Vitali M1870 Rifle, there was a three-year gap.

In this era, three years of military technology was too significant a difference. The Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War were only three to four years apart (in this world), and the Prussian artillery went from initially losing to Austrian artillery to suppressing French artillery, showcasing the changes in military technology over three to four years.

Since the Vitali M1872 Rifle won in the end, there’s naturally nothing more to say. With a smile, Duke Serrano expressed his intention to use the Ministry of Defense’s budget to purchase a batch of Vitali M1872 rifles.

After the future military reform is completed, the Vitali M1872 rifle will be fully adopted to enhance the combat effectiveness of the Spanish Army.

In addition to the Ministry of Defense placing an order, Carlo also placed an order for his Guard Army.

The Guard Army could have originally procured Vitali rifles from Italy for their equipment. However, considering that Spain was also developing breech-loading rifles, Carlo did not equip the Italian Vitali rifles on a large scale.

Now that the breech-loading rifle technology belonging to Spain has been developed, it is naturally time for the Guard Army to be extensively equipped with the new Vitali M1872 rifles.