Chapter 97 Weapons

Looking at everyone's puzzled expressions, Constantine explained: "This type of gun has a high elevation angle, a short range, a fast firing rate, and is not heavy. In an emergency, it can be moved by infantry. It is mainly used to accompany the infantry and serve as a support weapon for the infantry. It is particularly suitable for the mountains of the Balkan Peninsula."

Obviously, the mortar is also a rapid-fire weapon. Compared with the large number of artillery with a firing rate of about two rounds per minute at this time, the mortar with a firing rate of up to 20 rounds per minute is also a weapon that makes the logistics personnel of the party grit their teeth.

After Constantine intervened in the reorganization of the Greek army, the new rifles, rapid-fire guns, and mortars can be said to be the best in firepower among all countries, adhering to the concept of firepower first.

As for the problem of ammunition supply caused by the fast firing rate, in fact, this is the least worrying thing for Constantine.

The previous wars in Europe were mostly quick battles and no country wanted to engage in a long-term war of attrition.

Especially in the Balkans, due to weak industrial capacity, once a war breaks out, the leaders of the armies of various countries aim to conduct a quick decisive battle, because almost all of their weapons and ammunition are purchased from abroad, the country has a short period of independence, and the family assets are weak, and there is no material basis for maintaining a long-term war of consumption.

Therefore, in the future expected wars in the Balkans, such as the border conflict between Greece and Ottoman Turkey, in Constantine's view, the weapons and ammunition consumed are basically the strategic reserves of the two countries before the war, and the military commanders of the two countries will take the initiative to seek the enemy's main force for a decisive battle.

In other words, the wars between countries in the Balkans, whether subjectively or in reality, do not allow the war to be prolonged.

In this case, the top military leaders are more concerned about how to defeat the other side in the decisive battle. Before that, there is no need to consider the issue of purchasing weapons and ammunition from abroad.

As for after the decisive battle, the warring parties will either surrender or win. The overall situation has been determined. In order to maintain the balance of the situation, European countries will definitely intervene after the decisive battle: the losing party will cede land and pay money, and the winning party can only stop while they are ahead.

Of course, since they were equipped with a large number of rapid-fire weapons, the Greek army must have sufficient material reserves before the war, and according to the estimated ammunition consumption level before the war, they must prepare enough materials to maintain a short-term war.

Chaimis and other senior military officials also roughly understood this point, so they did not object to Constantine's large-scale rapid-fire weapons to help the Greek army gain advantages in technical weapons, but the poor Greek government finances would be spent again.

"But Your Highness, I have never heard of any country's army equipped with this kind of weapon. I mean, can this weird weapon be used in war?" Chaimis asked.

Chaimis really doubted whether it was necessary to spend the originally insufficient funds on research and development of a weapon that had never been heard of.

After all, the weapons equipped in the armies of various countries, such as artillery and rifles, have been baptized by blood and rain in previous wars and proved their value. Only then will countries widely recognize and equip them.

For example, artillery. In the last swan song of Constantinople, Mehmed II relied on Urban's cannon to deal with the impregnable and indestructible walls of Constantinople in the cold weapon era. Since then, no one has questioned whether the army should be equipped with artillery.

Now Constantine suddenly asked to design an unprecedented weapon, and Chaimis, the military technology director, disagreed from the bottom of his heart.

"Mr. Chaimis, from the Duke's drawings, the technical requirements of this artillery are simple, and the cost is probably not high. It doesn't matter if it is just research and development," Skarloi said to Chaimis after carefully examining the drawings.

The reason why Constantine strongly requested the development of mortars was that at the end of the 19th century, the development trend of weapons technology was to increase firepower day by day. Whether it was artillery or rifles, the firing rate was increasing rapidly, not to mention the Maxim machine gun, a powerful weapon.

This situation leads to the fact that the defending side will gain a huge advantage after having complete defensive fortifications. After all, before the appearance of tanks and armored vehicles, the attacking side had to expose the flesh and blood of soldiers to the enemy's gunfire and rain of bullets, and the casualty rate was higher than that of the defending side.

In this case, a paradox arises: the war cannot be won through defense, and the attack has to face the attack of the defender with unprecedentedly strong firepower density.

The commander of the army will fall into a contradiction.

Therefore, Constantine hopes that the offensive ability of the Greek army will be enhanced, and the possibility of breaking the Ottoman army's defense line will be increased in the expected battle with the Ottoman Turkey.

Although the idea of ​​the commanders of the armies of the Angergan countries is to fight quickly and decisively, once the war inevitably falls into a stalemate and becomes long-term due to the existence of the paradox, it is undoubtedly worse for Greece, which is small and weak.

Small-caliber mortars can be directly handed over to the grassroots organizations at the platoon and squad levels of the army for use. After the soldiers find obstacles that hinder their progress, such as machine gun positions or simple fortifications, they can directly use mortars to solve them.

However, before the emergence of infantry companion weapons such as mortars, if the infantry encountered difficulties and wanted artillery support, they had to ask for help from artillery, such as the divisional artillery regiment.

For example, people see this scene: a soldier picks up the phone and calls loudly: "Requesting fire support, requesting fire support, target XX, bearing XX", and then the artillery fire covers the target area to solve the problem for the infantry.

In the process of communication between frontline soldiers and rear artillery, time will obviously be wasted and the efficiency of the artillery will be affected.

After the soldiers are equipped with mortars, there is no need to waste the artillery's time on easily destroyed targets such as machine gun positions. They can directly solve them themselves.

Moreover, the elevation angle of the mortar is high, so some targets that cannot be hit by direct fire, such as enemies in trenches and reverse slopes, are more suitable to be left to the mortar.

It was precisely because of these factors that Constantine hoped that the Greek army would boldly break the rules and first equip the grassroots infantry with mortars to increase the attack capabilities of the Greek army so that it could have an advantage in subsequent wars and increase its winning rate.

Therefore, when Chamiis questioned the mortar, he still said patiently: "The cost of this kind of artillery is not high, and it is definitely only a small amount of equipment in the early stage, so that the army can verify it in actual use. Therefore, what is the value of this kind of artillery?" Let’s wait and see.”

"The structure of this kind of artillery is relatively simple, and the machine factory can quickly make a batch of samples," Skarloi said to everyone.

After the meeting, Scaloy, who received instructions from Constantine, went directly to Germany to find Conrad, the underappreciated rapid-fire artillery engineer in Germany. The expert team hoped to get inspiration from it and speed up the development of Greek rapid-fire artillery.