My German Empire - Chapter 32:

Wilhelm took the confession letter and went straight to William II’s office.

Looking at his grandson who had just walked in, William II was a little surprised. “Wilhelm, it’s so late, why aren’t you resting yet?”

Wilhelm handed over the confession. “Something just came in, grandpa, this is a confession statement.”

William II took the document suspiciously. “Statement? What statement?”

“The confession of the Minister of the Logistics Department of the Wehrmacht, Feigert, it is related to G43.”

William II raised his eyebrows slightly. “Feigert? You arrested him? G43? Is that the gun you designed?”

Wilhelm shook his head. “I haven’t arrested him yet. I just asked the intelligence department to invite him to talk for a while, and he ended up doing all the tricks. After that I sent him back to his home. But if he is smart enough, he should have committed suicide by now.”

Looking through the confession, William II’s face became more and more angry. “This bastard! Because the design of G43 is so good, he dares to tamper with the test report for fear of affecting Mauser’s business?”

Wilhelm took the opportunity to suggest. “Grandpa, this time I’m looking for someone who is loyal to the royal family to serve as the logistics minister.”

As mentioned before, it took William II for ten years to regain control of the army after the last defeat, so this is not a trivial matter. “Then how are you going to deal with Mauser?”

“Grandpa, I will not say anything about this. You can send someone to show Mauser this confession. If Mauser still acts ignorantly, I will import the 1918 modified rifle from China, even it is a copy of our Kar 98. Although the transportation costs will increase the price, Mauser will also have to close the door without an order from the Wehrmacht.”

“What if they surrender? What do you want? Or do you want 12% of the shares?”

Wilhelm said very seriously. “Grandpa, I never said that the 12% of the shares would be taken for nothing. I told them last time that the shares will be exchanged with design drawings.”

William II couldn’t help but wonder. “Then what about the design drawings of rifles and military pistols you gave the Walters? don’t you know how much pressure will be on logistics if there are too many different guns in the army?”

Wilhelm was a little depressed. “The craftsmanship of this G43 is still not as simple as a rifle, and the cost is a little more than twice that of a Mauser rifle. If you bite your teeth, you can replace all the 100,000 National Defense Forces now, but when the National Defense Force expands to several million? . So in the future, it would be nice to equip each unit with three or so G43s for veterans with good marksmanship.” In the original World War II, only the wealthy American army was equipped with semi-automatic rifles on a large scale.

“Then the other soldiers use Mauser rifles?”

“No, how is that possible. That’s why I redesigned a light machine gun, an assault rifle and the new submachine gun.”

“According to you, there are five types of guns in a class? Plus, there are six types of pistols? And don’t you dare say that these six types of firearms use different bullets”

Wouldn’t the logistics become a disaster? Wilhelm smiled. “Grandpa, how is that possible. The light machine gun I designed and the G43, can use the same seed ammunition used in a rifle. The pistol and the submachine gun will use the same type, and the assault rifle uses one type. So there are only three types of bullets.”

William II nodded slightly and continued to ask. “What kind of gun is that assault rifle you are talking about?”

After thinking about it, Wilhelm explained simply and clearly. “Uh, to put it simply, this firearm is neither completely a rifle, nor can it be said to be a submachine gun. It is a firearm that combines a rifle with a machine gun.”

“What about its range?”

“This assault rifle is mainly used to suppress the firepower of the enemy’s individual soldiers in combat at a distance of three to four hundred meters, and the maximum effective range does not exceed 500 meters.”

William II frowned. “That means the effective range is far less than that of Mauser rifles?”

Wilhelm knew that in the original space-time, assault rifles were not accepted by Hitler when it was first born, because he thought it was useless due to the short range and ordered a ban on production.

Looking at the reaction of William II now, he is also an old stubborn advocate of long-range shooting. “Grandpa, if you want to win the next war, you can only use new weapons and new methods of warfare, otherwise we will only repeat the same mistakes. Grandpa, to put it bluntly, maybe you will not be alive then, but you don’t want to see me hiding in a dark basement and shooting myself in the head after being defeated, do you?” God asked him to cross over, he won’t accept the same ending as Hitler.

“Continue to talk about this firearm.”

“What can I say. This assault rifle is a rifle that can automatically load and eject the shell, enough to fire continuously.”

“Isn’t that the reduced version of the machine gun, the enlarged version of the submachine gun? Why not use rifle bullets or pistol bullets?”

“Because the barrel of this assault rifle is relatively short. Moreover, if you use rifle bullets, you cannot effectively control the bounce and recoil impact of the gun during automatic shooting. If you use a pistol bullet like a submachine gun, the power will be reduced, so I designed a short cartridge rifle to balance the power and control the shooting accuracy during continuous shooting.If the rifle bullets are regarded as full-power bullets and the pistol bullets are small-power bullets, this assault rifle bullet is an intermediate-powered one. ”

“Now it’s time to talk about Mauser. My request is very simple. Their rifle needs to change the caliber. The 7.92 Mauser ammunition used now has an outdated design, too high trajectory, poor precision, excessive power and heavy ammunition. I want to change it to a more practical 7.62x51mm pointed bullet.”

“Change the caliber?” William II frowned again. “If the gun caliber is changed, the production line must be completely replaced, and the process must be improved. The production materials, processing equipment, inspection equipment, etc. will cost a lot of money.”

From the perspective of a veteran and a national military decision-maker, Hitler believed that the STG44 assault rifle had an advanced design concept, but must use new ammunition because it was impossible to use the original large stock of Mauser rifle bullets.

The STG44 assault rifle can fire continuously. It can be predicted that the consumption of ammunition in actual combat is no less than that of a submachine gun, so the total consumption of ammunition is also very alarming.

In a war, it is not an easy task for a country to suddenly prepare a complete set of new ammunition systems and meet actual combat needs. In a sense, if it is not handled properly, it can even bring down the country’s military industrial system and lead to disastrous consequences.

When the STG44 assault rifle first came out, Germany was already in trouble. A large number of equipment and personnel were lost in the tug-of-war on the eastern front. It was very difficult to make up for the losses on the front line.

If you insist on equipping the STG44 assault rifle, it will greatly increase the burden on the logistics system. From this point of view, it is not unreasonable for Hitler to deny the STG44 assault rifle.

Seeing William II hesitating, Wilhelm continued to persuade him. “Grandpa, now is the best time to replace the army’s equipment. Think about it. Fortunately, there are only 100,000 people in the National Defense Forces now, so it’s not difficult to change arms. If the National Defense Forces grows to a few million, consider how much manpower, material and financial resources will be needed then?”

After pondering for a while, William II asked another question. “What about Mauser’s inventory?”

Wilhelm had already figured out a countermeasure for this. “If there are still stocks left after the restructuring, then all of them will be given to China. After all, they have so many troops, even if they are willing to change equipment, it will not be done in a short time.”

William II asked some more detailed questions, and Wilhelm also answered the question without any omission.

William II finally nodded. “Well, then I’ll talk to Mauser.”