Chapter 70

After bidding farewell to Dr. Oberth, Wilhelm gathered the heads of various arms factories, including Walter, Mauser, and Heckler & Koch, and asked them to bring their own firearms currently in production to the Royal Shooting Range.

After exchanging pleasantries at the shooting range, Wilhelm eagerly picked up the G43 and stood at the shooting stand, aiming at a target 100 meters away.

People around him smiled, ready to applaud at any moment.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Wilhelm repeatedly pulled the trigger, enjoying himself without noticing the gradually fading smiles on the faces of those around him. Walter, in particular, discreetly wiped the sweat from his forehead.

After firing ten rounds, Wilhelm put down the gun and rubbed his slightly sore shoulder. He gestured to the distant guard to bring him the target paper.

The guard seemed somewhat reluctant and hesitantly handed the target paper to Wilhelm.

"..." Looking at the completely clean target paper without a single bullet hole, Wilhelm was momentarily stunned. It took him a while to realize that all ten shots missed the target!

"Trash!" he muttered, then noticed Walter's awkward expression beside him and explained, "Mr. Walter, I meant my shooting skills are trash."In the original timeline, he used a gun once during military training and managed to hit five out of five. However, the "Wilhelm" in this timeline apparently had no interest in firearms, so he didn't feel disappointed or angry.

"The feel and firing rate of this gun are quite good." Saying so, he picked up another gun, the famous Mauser 98K, and carefully examined it before asking, "Mr. Mauser, what wood is used for the gunstock?" Old Mauser had retired last year, and his son succeeded him.

Mr. Mauser respectfully replied, "Your Highness, it's walnut wood."

"Ah, walnut wood, I see." In the future, walnut wood was known as the primary material for high-end furniture, and much of it was not solid wood but only used for the surface. To think that such a precious material was used for gunstocks! "Mr. Mauser, isn't this gun specially made?"

Mr. Mauser quickly shook his head. "Not at all, Your Highness. Following your orders, we randomly selected one from today's finished products."

"Mr. Mauser, if I recall correctly, walnut wood takes 50 to 100 years to mature. Even if you cut down all the walnut trees in Germany, it wouldn't be enough for your production, would it? Weapons are consumables, not works of art. I know walnut wood has high strength and corrosion resistance, but wouldn't it be fine to use laminated beech wood?" Laminated beech wood is even harder than walnut wood and easier to produce and process.

Mr. Mauser was startled but nodded.

"And this." Wilhelm pointed to the barrel band, which was strangely shaped like an H. "What's with this? Trying to be like Hermès? Don't you think it's time-consuming and labor-intensive? Why not just use a simple iron plate? And the spring in the handguard, I think two screws would do."

"And this trigger guard and magazine floorplate, are they milled as well? Change them all to stamped parts. The two screws on the floorplate, if one can hold it in place, there's no need to waste an extra one."

"And this bayonet lug can be removed. Also, add a guard ring to the sight. Otherwise, it may cause ghost reflections." It's not that soldiers can't use bayonets, but German soldiers prefer using a more vicious close-quarters weapon—entrenching shovels!

In the original timeline, it was the same. Although the German soldiers were equipped with bayonets, due to the large number of submachine guns and light machine guns, and the penetration and depth of the armored troops, opportunities to use bayonets were scarce.

In the trench warfare on the Eastern Front, the entrenching shovel became a weapon for trench-to-trench combat. The trenches were narrow, and the bayonets tended to get stuck on the walls because they were too long, and there wasn't enough time to fix bayonets when the enemy charged the trenches. At such times, the handy entrenching shovel was used. It was convenient for blocking and, due to its short length, effective for powerful strikes. Some German soldiers wrote in their biographies that a single strike with the entrenching shovel could break the enemy's body, and it was even capable of decapitating them.

Upon carefully examining it again, Wilhelm noticed something interesting. Both sides of the front sight had distance markings.

This is insane!

Who would use the reverse side of the front sight?! It's simply overkill!

"In summary, as I just said, weapons are consumables, not works of art. There's no need for this extravagant and meticulous craftsmanship. As long as the essential parts like the barrel, safety, receiver, and bolt are of high quality, you can simplify the rest as you wish. This way, you save on labor, time, and money, and the military can get more weapons. Why not do it?" Wilhelm knew that the Germans seemed to have developed a collective obsession with intricate craftsmanship, taking it to the core of their being.

Unfortunately, the Russians gave the Germans a vivid lesson that quantity is greater than quality when it comes to manufacturing.

"If the war could be won in just two or three months, then I wouldn't mind you making weapons like works of art—looking good and working well. But what if it lasts four or five years like the last time? Can you afford it?"

Making works of art might be fine if you're several levels above the enemy. If you're just one level above, quantity can compensate for quality. And if you're on equal footing, quantity prevails over quality.

Even if your craftsmanship is excellent, it's merely a source of consolation when you're looking at the enemy's casualties. If you lose the war, you can only console yourself by thinking you killed more of their people.

In a war of attrition, cheap consumables are more practical than expensive works of art.

"We Germans aren't like the Russians or the United States—huge and resourceful. Apart from coal and potash, we lack everything else. This pointless waste is simply a crime. When we have enough vast land and inexhaustible resources, I won't interfere if you want to indulge in your artistic pursuits. But for these ten years, I want you to put away those useless artistic cells. What I want is absolute production capacity!"

The crowd exchanged glances. They knew full well the situation in their homeland, and what His Highness said made complete sense. Though it made them uncomfortable, they all promised, "Understood, Your Highness. We will streamline the production process and increase our production capacity."

Nodding, Wilhelm then test-fired the MP40 and MP41 and asked for paper and pen. He quickly sketched out a magazine design. It was a magazine used by Sweden's M45 submachine gun during World War II, a 36-round double-stack double-feed magazine that was hailed in the future as the best magazine for the 9mm Parabellum pistol cartridge.

The most significant feature of this magazine was its differing widths at the front and back—narrower at the front and wider at the back. The cross-section of the magazine resembled a wedge. This shape allowed the axis of the bullets not to be parallel to the axis of the chamber. Both rows of bullets had a slight angle with the center axis of the chamber, making it easier for the bullets to be properly aligned when pushed into the chamber, thus increasing the reliability of feeding.

In contrast, the MP40 and Sten submachine gun magazines, which had the same width at the front and back, would experience magazine shrinkage and squeezing the internal bullets in cold weather. Additionally, the double-stack single-feed structure was not conducive to quick reloading. On the other hand, this design was insensitive to dirt and temperature changes, ensuring reliable feeding and making hand loading relatively effortless. With the use of a loading device, a 36-round magazine could be loaded in just 6 seconds.