Jiangnan Weapons Company and South China Weapons Company, relying on the excellent performance of their new artillery, have already taken away many artillery orders from the Army.
Especially when the Army previously invited bids for 100mm howitzers, the Northern Arms Company's project suffered a disastrous failure. It was not as good as the other party in terms of cost, performance, reliability, etc.
In the end, the 100mm howitzer project was snatched away by Hanyang Arsenal, a subsidiary of Jiangnan Arms Company.
This is a great shame for Northern Arms Company, which regards army artillery as its basic base.
Because of the failure of this project, many senior managers of Northern Arms Company resigned.
You must know that this 100mm howitzer project occupies an extremely important position in the Army's field artillery system. The purchase volume is expected to be huge. It is expected to also equip some artillery regiments of main divisions, military artillery brigades, independent field artillery units, etc.
of the military.
After the failure of the 100mm howitzer project, Northern Arms Company aimed at large-caliber light howitzers. It successively developed 120mm and 150mm light howitzers and entered the army for testing.
It occurred to me that not long after, the 150mm Type 40 light howitzer exposed serious performance flaws.
The senior officials of Northern Arms Company were naturally furious.
If this fails again, it will be even more difficult for Northern Arms Company to compete for artillery orders from the Army in the future.
After all, there are only so many Army artillery projects. If you can't get it, don't let others take it away.
The tremors within Northern Arms Company have nothing to do with the Army!
Anyway, there are three major domestic weapons companies. The 150mm light howitzer of Northern Weapon Company is not good. Jiangnan Weapon Company and South China Weapon Company also have similar substitute products. At worst, we will just need to find another manufacturer.
This will not in any way affect the future artillery plan designated by the Chief of Artillery of the Army Privy Council.
Future artillery plan!
It was proposed by the artillery director and recognized by the army's top brass.
The entire future artillery plan is quite ambitious, formulating an overall artillery development plan for the next twenty years.
The core is to build a comprehensive artillery system. At the same time, the artillery generals also take this opportunity to completely establish the status of artillery as the king of war.
Although artillery has become an indispensable branch of the Tang Dynasty Army, it has never been able to become the core branch of the army.
The three major branches of the army, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, are complementary to each other and are generally on the same footing.
But artillery generals have always strived for a higher status.
The future artillery plan is a manifestation of the ambition of the artillery generals.
The entire artillery development plan will be divided into five major systems.
The first is the super-heavy artillery unit used to garrison important places, fortresses, or conquer enemy fortresses. They require high power and a large range, and are equipped with artillery with a caliber of more than 150 mm, and even train guns, which are heavy in weight.
A few tons or even more than ten tons.
The second level is the strategically deployed heavy field artillery unit, which requires a certain degree of maneuverability, but still has a large range and power, and can provide strategic-level fire support to frontline troops when necessary. The artillery director is expected to use a
120mm field cannon and 150mm caliber howitzer, and the weight is controlled under five tons.
The third is artillery that directly provides fire support to field troops. The artillery director expects to use artillery weighing less than three tons, such as the 40 light howitzer, which seems to have a large caliber, but is actually a front-line support artillery. In addition, there are many
One hundred millimeter and one hundred and twenty millimeter artillery basically fall into this category.
The fourth is the frontline artillery that directly provides fire support to the infantry. Its weight is controlled within one ton.
Seventy-five-millimeter howitzers and field guns belong to this level.
The fifth is battalion-level support artillery, which is mainly light infantry artillery. Don’t underestimate the light artillery of the Tang Army, but in fact the maximum range can reach two to three thousand meters.
In the artillery director's overall development plan, the artillery unit will combine the artillery's maneuverability, range, and power into a firepower network with different levels.
At the same time, what is more important is that the simplified logistics and common artillery shell plan proposed by the artillery director requires artillery developed by various manufacturers, for example, to be able to fire standard artillery shells.
That is to say, whether it is a 75mm light howitzer or a 75mm field gun, they all fire standard 75mm grenades of the same standard, and the others are similar, otherwise the Army will not want them.
In the early years, there were not many 75mm artillery pieces equipped by the Army of the Tang Dynasty. There were only two kinds of 75mm artillery pieces. However, the shells used by these two kinds of 75mm artillery pieces were not universal!
Because the 75mm field guns and howitzers belong to two different manufacturers under the Northern Arms Company, in order to monopolize the artillery shell business in the future, they seem to have 75mm calibers, but in fact there are subtle differences.
, almost the same, but it still cannot be used universally for artillery shells.
It happened several times at that time that the logistics department sent 75mm artillery shells to the frontline troops, but the 75mm shells on the frontline were unusable.
This matter was later brought to the attention of the Holy Emperor by the artillery generals of the army. With a stroke of his pen, the Holy Emperor directly threw all those responsible for the scheming at the time to Tierra del Fuego.
Later, the caliber of the already equipped artillery was specially modified so that it could be universal.
This kind of embarrassing thing has happened before, and now manufacturers naturally don't dare to play tricks.
In the future artillery plan proposed by the Director of Artillery, several types of artillery are crucial.
The first is the divisional artillery, which is a 75mm caliber field gun and a 75mm howitzer. These two artillery pieces of the same caliber are, to a certain extent, the core artillery force of the Tang Army. Equipment
It has the largest number and is also the most widely used.
The second type is the military artillery that provides support to the field army, the 120mm howitzer equipped by the independent field artillery regiment and other artillery units.
The third type is a 150mm howitzer that provides front line support.
However, the above-mentioned types of artillery basically have their own homes, and have been basically divided up by major manufacturers in the past few years.
Northern Arms Company received most of the orders, but some still fell into the hands of the other two arms companies.
In particular, the order for the 120mm howitzer, which was extremely valued by Northern Arms Company, was snatched away by South China Arms Company.
In order to reverse the situation, Northern Arms Company, on the one hand, is researching and developing more advanced 120mm howitzers, and on the other hand, it is also using its technological advantages in research and development of light artillery.
A series of research plans for lightweight howitzers were proposed.
The 75mm howitzer of Northern Arms Company belongs to the light howitzer series and has become the main combat equipment of the army.
However, the 100mm light howitzer and 120mm light howitzer they subsequently developed were not taken up by the Army.
Although the Army also transferred part of its symbolic procurement to the next door, the order quantity was too small.
Because these two light howitzers feel a little bit neither superior nor inferior, they are still relatively heavy, but their power is actually just that. It is almost impossible for them to replace the 75mm series artillery.
It is impossible to replace the 120mm howitzer, because the range is completely incomparable.
But the Army is very interested in their 150mm light howitzer.
Although this thing has a very short range, only about six thousand meters, it weighs only more than two tons, and more importantly, it is powerful.
According to the previous artillery development plan, it is unlikely that a 150mm artillery can accompany the field troops advancing. Even a 150mm howitzer is several tons larger.
However, this light howitzer can barely accompany the field troops. Although it is quite heavy at more than two tons, it is much lighter than the 150mm traditional artillery of seven, eight or even ten tons.
In the end, the Army purchased it and finalized it as the Type 40 150mm light howitzer, referred to as the 40 gun.
The Army attaches great importance to this 40-gun artillery. If possible, they plan to equip a batch of these artillery pieces to strengthen frontline support firepower.
However, I did not expect that during the actual combat test of this kind of artillery, although the combat effect was very good, there were some quality problems, so Northern Arms Company was asked to improve the design.
In response to the Army's feedback, Northern Arms Company quickly made relevant improvements, especially improvements to the gun barrel.
And while the Northern Arms Company was focusing on the 40-gun project, the Army's 18th Division also continued their garrison years, and received another call from above to assist the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in replacing a few disobedient natives.
The king of the kingdom.
This kind of thing is extremely easy for the 18th Army Division. There is no need to dispatch many troops, just send an infantry battalion there.
Sometimes there is even no need to fight at all, and the opponent basically surrenders.
The Tang Empire's control over the Indian region was quite strong. There were more than 100 indigenous kingdoms or tribes in India. The Tang Dynasty did not dare to say 100%, but it could control more than 90% of them.
However, although the Tang Dynasty had strong control ability, it usually did not interfere in their internal affairs. Especially the wars between these indigenous kings, the Tang Dynasty was too lazy to deal with them.
As long as these indigenous kingdoms do not expel Datang merchants and do not harm the interests of Datang, then Datang will be able to safely live its small life in Gehe Prefecture and several other directly affiliated overseas territories.
Similar policies are also reflected in Africa and Europe.