Empire Rising: Spain

Successfully leading a group of military experts to develop the Maxim M1884 Rifle was not easy for Maxim, as he also needed to work on modifying his machine gun to develop a new generation of machine guns compatible with smokeless powder ammunition.

The discovery of smokeless powder was a huge change for rifles, and its impact on machine guns might be even greater than on rifles.

Because machine guns rely on high firing rates for suppressive fire, it means they produce much more smoke than rifles when fired.

As long as the smoke issue can be resolved, the power of machine guns can at least double. If we also consider the increased power of bullets due to smokeless powder, a machine gun compatible with smokeless powder machine gun rounds would certainly be several times more powerful than a machine gun loaded with black powder rounds.

It must be admitted that Maxim indeed had an extraordinary obsession with machine guns.

Two and a half months after the rifle was developed, Maxim submitted the design blueprints and samples of the new model machine gun to the Defense Department.

Like the rifle bullets, the caliber of the machine gun was also reduced to address the doubled logistical pressure.

Machine guns are bullet-consuming monsters, and every slight reduction in caliber significantly reduces the consumption of Spanish bullets and logistical pressure.

After all, the main role of machine guns is to create a frontal firepower web, to suppress the enemy’s massed charges. In this situation, the caliber of the machine gun is not important; what matters is the rate of fire and the stability of the firepower.

Unlike the previous generation of machine guns, to address the overheating issue during high-speed firing, Maxim developed two types of machine guns with different cooling capabilities.

The previous generation of machine guns was air-cooled, relying on natural wind for cooling, which affected cooling ability during high-intensity combat.

The second-generation machine guns were water-cooled, equipped with additional water tanks to help dissipate heat. Of course, water-cooled machine guns’ cooling heavily relies on water sources, which is also a burden for marching combat.

Therefore, Maxim did not completely eliminate air-cooled machine guns. The second-generation machine guns could freely choose between water cooling or air cooling, and the Ministry of Defense could order whichever type of machine gun they needed.

The successive birth of new rifles and machine guns is undoubtedly good news for Spain. The only possible concern is whether the Defense Department’s military budget can support a large-scale upgrade, but this is not something that can be completed in a short period, and the Ministry of Defense naturally does not need to come up with a large sum of military expenses in a short time.

With the new rifles and machine guns, the next mission for the Spanish Army is to quickly adapt to these new weapons and continuously carry out related training.

The new firearms can indeed effectively enhance the combat power of the Spanish Army, but the premise is that Spanish soldiers must be proficient in using these firearms.

In the first two years of weapon upgrades, the Spanish Army will definitely go through an adaptation period. Machine guns are fine since the rate of fire and loading method haven’t changed much, with only the bullets being quite different.

Rifles, however, are different. The original Vitali M1872 Rifle had a maximum firing rate of only 15 to 20 rounds per minute, while the latest Maxim M1884 Rifle quickly increased to over 30 rounds per minute.

This increase in the rate of fire is something soldiers must grasp, ensuring that the army can conduct fire coverage within a certain range, suppressing enemy attacks, even in the absence of machine guns and heavy artillery.

Among all the troops of Spain, the first to upgrade to the new rifles and machine guns are naturally the most elite Guard Division.

This is not because Carlo favors the Guard Division, but because the production capacity of the Royal Military Factory cannot be quickly ramped up; delivering a few thousand rifles each time doesn’t make much difference for the Royal Army, which has a total number exceeding a hundred thousand.

But the Guard Division is different. With a total of only 15,000 people, and after excluding the officers who do not use rifles, artillerymen, and machine gunners, there are only just over ten thousand rifles needed to be upgraded.

The production of the Royal Military Factory can quickly meet the needs of the Guard Division in a short time, allowing for small-scale real-world testing within the Guard Division to see how this rifle, which performed excellently in tests, fares in actual combat.

While the Guard Division began large-scale upgrades to new rifles, the Defense Department was also working on disposing of old weapons.

The good news is that there are still several small and medium-scale wars around the world, making it not difficult to dispose of these weapons.

Just a month after the birth of the new rifles, Spain contacted the countries in Northern Vietnam and signed a very cheap weapons export order with them.

Spain will sell 30,000 second-hand Vitali M1872 Rifles in one go, with each rifle accompanied by 50 bullets, disposing of these obsoleted products in a half-sale, half-gift manner.

In addition to this, the Lanfang Republic also purchased 20,000 rifles in one go. Although these rifles are second-hand, they’ve at least been tested by the Spanish Army, and the inclusion of bullets makes this a very cost-effective deal.

Besides the Asian countries, Spain also expanded its business to America.

Of course, not the United States, but those countries in South America.

Although the South American countries were once colonies of Spain or Portugal, this does not mean that the relations among these American countries are particularly good.