Chapter 423: Chapter 224: Army Training and Machine Gun Company (Part 3)
Compared to the training of the reserves, Carlo is more concerned with Spain’s formation of a machine gun unit.
After purchasing machine guns from the Royal Military Factory, the Spanish military is sure to form a machine gun unit. However, machine guns are quite powerful weapons, and currently, neither Carlo nor the Spanish military intends to expose them.
This has led Spain to not equip machine guns in the existing army but to form a secretive unit for machine gun training, equipping all units with machine guns when necessary.
Machine guns are mostly used for defensive battles and do not require precise tactics. It’s enough to unleash all firepower during defense to suppress enemy attacks.
This means that after these machine gunners are dispersed to various units in the future, it will not significantly impact their combat effectiveness.
On the contrary, each unit will increase its firepower due to the addition of machine guns, thereby enhancing the overall combat capability of the army.
Of course, the Defense Department can only manage the Royal Army; they cannot control Carlo’s Guard Army.
Because the Guard Army is more loyal and has a longer service period, Carlo plans to directly equip the Guard Army with machine guns for training instead of forming a separate machine gun unit.
Because machine guns require 5 to 8 people to operate, they will not be distributed to platoon-level units but will be allocated to each company.
Ensuring every company has one machine gun can effectively enhance the combat power of the Royal Guard.
Additionally, besides infantry, cavalry can also be equipped with machine guns. Transported by horses, machine guns can achieve faster mobility and better logistical capabilities.
The drawback is that during a cavalry charge, machine guns lose their combat effectiveness. However, overall, it is still necessary to equip the cavalry units with machine guns.
Compared to the Royal Army’s high demand for machine guns, the Guard Army, with only 15,000 people, does not have a large demand.
If machine guns are equipped to every infantry company and cavalry company, the entire Royal Guard would only need 89 machine guns to be fully equipped.
But considering the excellent firepower of machine guns, Carlo decided to set up a machine gun company in each infantry regiment, with each company equipped with 9 machine guns. Each machine gun has a primary and secondary gunner, 1 loader, 2 machine gun transporters, 3 ammunition porters, and 1 messenger, totaling 9 soldiers per gun.
If it is in a defensive battle, just one machine gun company can hold back thousands of enemies. And with 1 Guard Division having 4 infantry regiments, namely 4 machine gun companies, just these 4 companies can block tens of thousands or even more enemies.
Of course, this is based on the premise that the supply of machine gun ammunition is sufficient and the guns do not break down from continuous shooting.
However, machine gun units will definitely not operate alone. When machine guns need to cool down or have parts replaced, the regular infantry can provide firepower, ensuring the defensive line is not breached.
Just the configuration of these 4 machine gun companies increases the Guard Division’s demand by 36 additional machine guns on top of the 89.
Carlo has not equipped the cavalry regiments with machine gun companies, as cavalry are mostly tasked with charging and cutting through enemy lines, rather than staying in positions and fortresses like infantry for defense.
The entire Royal Guard has a total demand for 125 machine guns. Carlo made a decisive move, directly purchasing 150 machine guns from the Royal Military Factory.
For Carlo, the Guard Army’s procurement from the Royal Military Factory is nothing but a transfer from the left hand to the right hand.
Most shares of the Royal Military Factory belong to Carlo and the Royal Family, so this money ultimately remains Carlo’s.
Including the procurement orders from the Spanish Ministry of Defense, the Royal Military Factory suddenly had an order for over 500 machine guns.
For Maxim, this is a pleasant dilemma. Before the advent of machine guns, he was busy almost every day, striving to see his vision of true automatic firearms realized.
But after the appearance of machine guns, he had to plunge into busyness again, as there are a multitude of orders to fulfill.
Fortunately, the machine gun is now a finished product, and only a complete production line needs to be constructed for mass production.
These tasks can also be completed by other experts in the machine gun research project team, as they were fully involved in the gun’s design and are quite familiar with its structure and principles.
Before these firearm design experts joined the machine gun project team, they signed an agreement with the Royal Military Factory.
After joining the machine gun project team, regardless of whether the machine guns were successfully developed, they were not to go abroad or disclose any related research data and information for ten years.
Of course, salaries and other benefits during their work period were to be paid according to the standards of European firearm experts. Not only would there be no harsh treatment, but additional rewards would also be given to those with merits.
Most of these experts are native Spanish experts. With a sufficiently high income, they naturally would not choose to emigrate abroad.
As for those from Italy and Austria-Hungary, those who joined the machine gun project team had already chosen to emigrate to Spain.
For these foreign experts who have already obtained Spanish citizenship, Carlo has considerable confidence.
Most have immigrated to Spain with their families and are unlikely to uproot their families again without reason.
The immigration conditions of various countries are not particularly harsh, but the journey to the immigrant destination is challenging. In this era, sea voyage tickets are quite expensive and come with risks.
For most people, as long as their lives are relatively stable, they would not choose to emigrate.
The Royal Security Intelligence Bureau also monitors these weapon experts in the machine gun research project to some extent. This, of course, does not affect their lives, and they are unlikely to notice.
But if someone tries to gain benefits by selling machine gun information, Carlo will let them understand just how harsh the interrogations of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau can be.
Luckily, as per information from the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, the experts in the machine gun project team have a relatively high level of recognition for Spain, or they are quite satisfied with the salary offers from Carlo.
Additionally, with the protection of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, they naturally will not have the intention to sell weapon information for profit.
After all, selling weapon information requires contacting foreign spies first. Currently, there are not many large intelligence organizations, and intelligence operations are primarily targeted at more dangerous countries, such as the powerful major nations.
There aren’t many intelligence actions against Spain since Spain poses no major threat at this time.
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