Chapter 674: Improving Anti-Aircraft Guns

The development of tank guns has gone through a process from smoothbore to rifled and then from rifled to smoothbore.

At first, most tank guns were smoothbore, and the "Saint-Chamond" was directly equipped with a 75 gun, which could only be regarded as an outlier.

At that time, it was because tanks were more crude, and most people's concept of it was a shield to "block bullets", and there was no great requirement for the accuracy of the gun.

But with the development of tanks, the battlefield has higher and higher requirements for tank guns, and tank guns have gradually turned to rifled guns.

Compared with smoothbore guns, rifled guns have many advantages: long range and high accuracy.

This often plays a decisive role in tank battles:

When two enemy tanks meet, at the same distance and with the same armor capacity, a rifled gun that can hit accurately can often win a big victory with one shot.

This is a fatal blow to smoothbore guns, so most tank guns during World War II used rifled guns.

But all this was completely overturned by the emergence of "fin-stabilized armor-piercing discarding sabot projectiles".

(The above picture shows a fin-stabilized discarding sabot armor-piercing projectile. Its saddle-shaped sabot will automatically fall off during the launch, so it is called "discarding sabot". What is finally fired at the target is actually an arrow-shaped projectile with fins, which can maintain stable flight instead of rolling in the air.)

The reason why rifled guns have the two advantages of "long range" and "high accuracy" is that the rifling will cause the projectile to spin, so the projectile can maintain stable flight.

But if the smoothbore gun changes the projectile to use an arrow-shaped projectile, it can also fly stably in the air and improve accuracy.

Therefore, the advantages of rifled guns are perfectly surpassed by smoothbore guns and are no longer advantages, but the disadvantages of rifled guns cannot be avoided:

Because rifling is required, the cost is high.

Because there are rifling, there is intense friction between the rifling and the projectile every time a projectile is fired, so the life is very short.

Because there are rifling, the friction between the projectile and the rifling consumes a lot of kinetic energy, so the initial velocity is low and the armor-piercing ability is weak.

...

In short, rifled guns can be said to have no advantages compared to smoothbore guns.

(Note: After World War II, almost all countries switched to smoothbore guns, only Britain and British colonies still stubbornly used rifled guns. Not long ago, Britain finally couldn't hold on and bought all the smoothbore guns from Germany for modification, but at this time, its smoothbore gun production technology was far behind the mainstream countries in the world.)

Charle knew this development process, so he firmly chose the smoothbore gun.

Why change and take detours when you can get it right in one step?

Now other countries don't have dedicated tank guns, so Charles doesn't need to worry about anything, and the 75 smoothbore gun is enough.

When other countries have dedicated tank guns and develop to rifled ones, Charles just needs to take out the "fin-stabilized armored discarding sabot" drawings and throw them on the table:

"Everyone here is garbage."

"The rifled guns in your hands are all expensive and unpopular equipment, so get rid of them all!"

"Use smoothbore guns and "penetration" like me, otherwise you will only wait for death!"

...

Of course, Charles will not say these words to Stokes and the researchers, and there is no need to do so before the time comes.

If such an advanced concept is known to others and used first, it is obviously not in the interests of Charles, a capitalist.

He must make all countries in the world invest a large amount of money in rifled cannons, and after going through untold hardships to develop them, they must grit their teeth and scrap them.

"It's wartime, gentlemen." Charles found a perfect excuse: "You also know that the battlefield can't wait that long. We need to equip a large number of tanks in a short time, especially now that France is still short of manpower and material resources, we have to compromise on this."

Stokes and the researchers were all stunned.

Charles was telling the truth, and they had no way to refute it.

After a while, Stokes took the lead in agreeing: "The general is right. We must consider the actual situation when developing equipment for battlefields."

The researchers nodded one after another:

"Yes, we only consider the equipment itself without considering the actual situation."

"France has implemented a rationing system, and it is indeed not appropriate to produce expensive rifled guns."

"If it cannot form a sufficient scale, it will not be able to exert its due combat effectiveness on the battlefield. I agree with the general's idea!"

...

So, this issue was unified: the new tank gun uses a smoothbore gun with simple technology and low cost.

(Note: The smoothbore guns used in modern tanks use more complex processes to increase life and performance, so the cost is even higher than that of rifled guns, but the smoothbore guns in World War I and World War II were much cheaper than rifled guns.)

After discussing this issue, Stokes took Charles and Deyoka to his office.

Charles was surprised to find that Stokes' office was very luxurious, more than 100 square meters, divided into three rooms and a living room, a secretary's office, a telecommunications room, a studio, and all kinds of facilities are available, even fitness equipment.

Charles looked at Djoka in confusion, which was far beyond the specifications of his office.

Djoka nodded gently, with a smile in his eyes, as if to say: "Only in this way can we retain talents, and it is worth it!"

Charles' face was a little helpless, he wanted to say: "Father, Stokes is a "traitor" in principle, you don't need to worry about not being able to keep him."

Stokes warmly invited the two to sit down on the sofa: "What to drink?"

Charles ordered coffee, Djoka ordered wine, and Stokes himself asked for a glass of wine.

Soon the secretary served the drinks to the few people, as well as a plate of cut apples and cakes.

These were not easy for ordinary people to do during the period when rationing was required.

"Your son is excellent, Mr. Deyoka!" Stokes smiled and clinked glasses with Deyoka, complimenting him: "He solved the problem that we have been arguing for several days and couldn't decide with just a few words."

"Thank you, Mr. Stokes." Deyoka accepted generously: "He is really great."

Charles didn't say much. He took out a drawing from his briefcase and handed it to Stokes: "Can you produce this, Mr. Stokes?"

Stokes took the drawing and looked at it, with a flash of surprise in his eyes: "A gun? Why don't you give it to the artillery factory? I think they can definitely produce this gun..."

"This is not an ordinary gun, sir." Charles replied.

That is the Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun, which can be moved to an airplane as an aircraft gun after improvement.

"We have this weapon, with a similar structure." Charles explained, "It's called the Becker gun, which we captured from the Germans. I need you to improve it according to the specifications and data in the drawings."

Speaking of this, Charles handed another document to Stokes, which was a picture and data of the Becker gun.

Stokes said "Oh" and understood.

This is indeed what they, the mechanics, are good at!

He put the two drawings together and compared them for a while, and responded confidently: "No problem, this doesn't look difficult!"