Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 224: Machine Gun Orders And Reserve Plan

The testing of the Maxim machine gun went quite smoothly. After completing all the tests, it was naturally time for the military to discuss the purchase quantity.

What can currently be confirmed is that the Maxim machine gun possesses extremely powerful firepower on the battlefield, which current rifles fundamentally do not have.

The firepower of cannons is of course very powerful, but this heavy firepower is more suited to dealing with the enemy’s fortresses and strongholds, particularly in large-scale siege battles.

Machine guns, whether in offensive battles or defensive battles, can play a tremendous role and inflict massive casualties on enemy manpower, which cannons do not possess.

Therefore, for the Spanish military, the only question is how many machine guns to purchase; there is no question of whether to purchase them or not.

“Mr. Maxim, what is our cost for such a machine gun?” Before discussing the specific order quantity with the military, Carlo first called in Maxim and inquired about the actual production cost of such a machine gun.

“Your Majesty, the machine gun you see before you currently costs approximately 7280 pesetas to produce, which is about 280 pounds sterling. But since this is an experimental prototype, the cost of single-unit production is on the high side.

If it can be mass-produced, the cost of the machine gun should be reduced to around 200 pounds sterling, or 5200 pesetas.” Maxim explained.

This prototype specifically made for testing is naturally expensive to produce. Without a dedicated production line, almost all parts of the machine gun were handcrafted by these firearms experts.

This also makes the cost of this machine gun as high as 7280 pesetas, and that’s without bullets—just the cost of the machine gun itself. Upon hearing that the cost of the machine gun could be reduced to around 5200 pesetas after mass production, Carlo finally breathed a sigh of relief.

It must be admitted that the production cost of machine guns is indeed much higher than that of rifles.

Spain’s standard rifle, the Vitali M1872, costs only 60 pesetas to produce, and its selling price to the Spanish military is just 75 pesetas—basically just earning a hardscrabble profit.

It was only through this arms trade exporting weapons to Russia and the Ottoman Empire that the royal arsenal made a large sum of money. The royal arsenal sold rifles to Russia at 95 pesetas each and to the Ottoman Empire at 102 pesetas each.

The reason the rifles sold to the Ottoman Empire were priced higher per unit than those sold to Russia was that the Ottoman Empire had the support of the United Kingdom and was not short of money when purchasing weapons and equipment.

Russia, on the other hand, if given too high a unit price, would turn to its own produced weapons and directly abandon Spain’s orders.

Although Russia had strengthened its industrial and economic strength through reforms, Russia’s economy remained relatively poor.

War also required massive fiscal expenditure, so for Russia, when it came to weapon procurement, of course, they would save wherever they could.

Based on the production cost of the Vitali M1872 rifle, the cost of one Maxim machine gun is approximately equivalent to 83 Vitali M1872 rifles.

But 83 rifles require 83 soldiers to use them, while one machine gun only needs 5 to 8 people to unleash maximum firepower, which also means the machine gun can greatly save Spanish manpower.

In certain defensive battles, Spain could deploy just a dozen machine guns, have them fire in rotation, form a firepower network, and easily complete the defense task.

The manpower for a dozen machine guns is only a few dozen to a hundred people, whereas relying solely on those hundred infantry to complete the defense task would not only be extremely arduous but might even lead to mission failure.

Carlo turned his gaze to several senior military generals, waiting for the defense department to decide the purchase quantity of machine guns.

The production cost of the machine gun is as high as 200 pounds sterling, and the selling price will certainly exceed 200 pounds sterling. Even though the royal arsenal is Carlo’s own industry, when cooperating with the Spanish military, it cannot make zero profit.

Based on past cooperation between the royal arsenal and the Spanish military, with a production cost of 200 pounds sterling per machine gun, the price sold to the Spanish military would be around 220 to 250 pounds sterling, depending on negotiations between the armory and the Ministry of Defense—overall, it is an internal price and relatively cheap.

When sold to the armies of other countries, the selling price of the machine gun would rise to around 270 to 300 pounds sterling, and for some countries, even up to over 300 to 350 pounds sterling—this is the main source of profit for the armory; earning money from foreigners is the real deal.

After all, only if the royal arsenal earns enough money can its various research projects have sufficient budget. And these weapon experts at the armory can then receive adequate dividends, giving them more motivation to work for the armory and Carlo.

Several senior generals from the Ministry of Defense were clearly very tempted by the machine gun. Even knowing its production cost was thousands of pesetas, they could not dispel the generals’ enthusiasm for purchasing it.

Finally, after lengthy negotiations, Maxim officially set the internal selling price of this machine gun at 5980 pesetas, or about 230 pounds sterling.

For every machine gun sold by the royal arsenal, it could obtain at least 780 pesetas in net income. Of this, 741 pesetas of income belongs to Carlo, while the remaining 39 pesetas would be distributed among all the firearms experts in the machine gun project team.

Though it seems like only 39 pesetas per machine gun is divided among them, Spain’s arms orders are at least for hundreds of machine guns. And this is the low end—once various countries widely equip machine guns in the future, or a large-scale war breaks out, the armory’s exports of machine guns will climb steadily, and even reaching tens of thousands would not be an exaggeration.

The firearms experts in the machine gun project team naturally had no objections to this allocation ratio. In addition to the dividend income, they had already received rewards from Carlo—the least any one got was half a year’s income, while experts with larger rewards even received an extra one or two years’ income; the money rewarded to them was already substantial.

The machine gun selling price of 5980 pesetas was acceptable to the military. After a brief discussion, Prime Minister Serrano personally stepped forward to sign a machine gun purchase agreement with Maxim.

The Spanish military would purchase 420 machine guns at 5980 pesetas each, and at 50 pesetas per belt, purchase 12,600 canvas ammunition belts each loaded with 333 rounds.

This procurement order totaled 1,16 million pesetas, which for the Ministry of Defense was funds that could be squeezed out, so it did not cause these senior military officials any pain.

The reason for purchasing only 420 machine guns was mainly that the military considered potential issues that might arise after equipping them to the troops, so they planned only small-scale, limited equipping, and then large-scale procurement once confirmed problem-free.

Regarding bullets, the military generals were quite generous. 12,600 ammunition belts averaged out to a full 30 belts per machine gun.

Each ammunition belt holds 333 bullets, meaning each machine gun is equipped with nearly 10,000 rounds, enough to train Spain’s yet-to-be-formed machine gun units for a long time.

Although the machine gun’s maximum rate of fire approaches 600 rounds per minute, during normal training, such exaggerated firepower would not be used.

Because current machine guns are not that stable; prolonged high-speed firing not only causes the barrel to overheat and fail but also risks jams and firing pin breakage.

The tested machine gun was handcrafted by firearms experts, with guaranteed quality. But mass-produced machine guns would not have such good quality and might develop issues within a minute at maximum rate of fire.

Therefore, during normal training, a rate of fire of 100 to 200 rounds per minute for the machine gun would already be quite good.

This would also reduce the machine gun’s bullet consumption and ease the logistics and supply pressure on the Ministry of Defense.

A canvas ammunition belt with 333 bullets sells for 50 pesetas, already approaching five months’ income for an adult male citizen.

The machine gun consumes these bullets in just half a minute; with hundreds or thousands of machine guns, daily bullet consumption would be astronomical figures—savings must still be made where possible.

Actually, when Carlo learned that the machine gun had been developed, he had considered selling such machine guns at high prices to Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

Even selling to just one of them, the income from machine guns would far exceed that from rifles.

But after thinking it over, Carlo abandoned the idea. Exposing the machine gun too early would not be good for Spain—after all, the machine gun was a trump card Carlo wanted to keep hidden.

Under the premise of Spain massively equipping machine guns, even facing enemies like Germany and France, Carlo felt no fear at all.

With the Pyrenees Mountains blocking the way, Carlo only needed to construct solid military fortresses on both sides of the mountains to rely on machine guns and cannons to directly repel army offensives from the European continent.

The advantage of machine guns is precisely demonstrated in defensive battles, especially when the enemy deploys massive troops in large-scale clustered charges.

If the Maxim machine gun were exposed too early, not only would various countries rush to imitate and mass-equip it, but their armies would also develop defenses against machine guns.

Carlo was well aware of which yields greater results: catching them off guard or being anticipated—this was why he dismissed the idea of selling machine guns.

Sacrificing the Spanish army’s advantage in the coming years for such a bit of income was clearly not a worthwhile deal.

If the existence of machine guns must be exposed, it would be when the Spanish army has no choice but to use them against enemy offensives. By then, Spain could also make a fortune from its excellent machine gun technology, selling it to all the great powers of Europe at once.

And during this period, it would be the time for Spain to develop even more stable and more powerful machine guns.

As the saying goes: display one generation, equip one generation, hide one generation, research one generation. Spain’s most advanced machine gun currently is the Maxim machine gun before them—it must be kept secret if possible.

Once Spain has second-generation more advanced machine gun technology, it could then consider selling off this now-outdated generation.

Europe’s great powers would surely be interested in such high-firepower weapons; if it could be exchanged for other military industrial technology or other technologies and techniques Spain needs, it would absolutely be a sure profit for Spain.

The two main weapons in current army equipment are rifles and cannons; Spain’s rifles and cannons, while not top-tier, are at least first-class in Europe.

If machine guns are factored in, Spain’s army military industrial technology ranks at the forefront in Europe—this is also Carlo’s confidence.

If in the future era when tanks and airplanes are born, Spain can still maintain the lead, Carlo could claim Spain is a military powerhouse without opposition from other countries.

Before Spain’s population increases, it indeed can only rely on such means to make up for the gap in numbers.

Other great powers can mobilize armies of millions or even several million at a time, while Spain’s maximum mobilizable army is just over a million, and only achievable by severely disrupting domestic production.

In general, Spain’s mobilizable army is only around 500,000—though not insignificant, it already plays little role in current war scales.

The ongoing Russo-Turkish War on the Balkan Peninsula already involves over a million troops from both sides.

And in the siege battle at Plevna Fortress between Russia and Austria, the deployed troops already exceeded 300,000, with Russia’s single-side troop losses approaching 100,

Compared to this large-scale war, Spain’s army numbers are indeed somewhat insufficient, which also gave Carlo the idea to reform Spain’s conscription system.

Spain’s conscription system is still quite backward, even worse than Russia’s current one.

Russia’s conscription system has been changed to compulsory service, with Russian male citizens aged 20 to 25 obligated to serve.

Spain’s conscription system still relies on the volunteer system, with recruits mostly from government active recruitment.

The biggest drawback of the two conscription systems is that Spain has extremely few reserve forces, which also affects the number of mobilizable troops.

Under Russia’s compulsory conscription system, while maintaining 700,000 regular troops, it also has nearly a million reserve troops.

Spain’s regular troops number over 150,000, but in terms of reserve troops, Spain has almost no reserves; the armies mobilized on a large scale are all new recruits with extremely poor combat effectiveness.

Carlo considered exactly this point and thus decided to change Spain’s conscription system.

Of course, the main direction of change in the conscription system is the reserves; Spain does not need too many active-duty soldiers, as there are no wars for Spain in the short term.

The existence of reserves ensures Spain has sufficient trained soldiers during wartime. Reserves’ combat effectiveness is of course inferior to regular troops, but much better than hastily assembled new recruits.

Reserves only need mobilization and simple training to become a real army, while new recruits need at least half a year of training to form combat effectiveness, and to transform into an elite army requires prolonged battlefield tempering.

Spain’s current regular troops number 150,000; Carlo’s plan is for Spain to also have around 150,000 reserve troops.

These reserve troops can do their own work most of the time; they are the same as ordinary Spaniards.

But they must dedicate certain time each year to military training to ensure they possess a certain military level.

Forming reserves will of course have some impact on Spain’s production and construction, but because the reserves are only 150,000, the impact will not be that great.

Compared to the role of forming reserves, a tiny loss in production and construction can be ignored.

With 150,000 regular troops and 150,000 reserve troops, Spain can pull together over 300,000 troops at any time, also ensuring Spain’s military strength is not too poor.

300,000 troops may struggle in offensive battles, but defending the Iberian Peninsula is no problem. Unless great powers are willing to fight Spain to the death, Spain remains relatively safe in this situation.

There are also conflicts of interest and contradictions between great powers; Carlo does not believe any country would choose to fight Spain to the death.

Whether the United Kingdom or France, they all have greater threats. On land, only France poses a threat to Spain; as for the other neighboring country Portugal, they should be the ones worried about Spain’s threat.

Thinking of this, a smile appeared on Carlo’s face. If King Louis of Portugal learned of Spain forming 150,000 reserves, he would probably be so nervous he couldn’t sleep for days.

Regular troops and reserve troops together total a full 300,000, which for Portugal with a population of only 6 million is truly disastrous.

Like Spain, after losing its American colonies, Portugal retains the reputation of a colonial power but has lost most of its actual strength.

Portugal’s mainland regular forces are only 22,000, mainly to defend against Spanish invasion. Of course, if the Spanish army really invades, these 22,000 alone would obviously have little effect.

Portugal has nearly 30,000 troops deployed in its colonies, but these 30,000 are inflated, mostly indigenous servant troops from the colonies.

This is also why Carlo smiled, because 300,000 Spanish soldiers would put tremendous pressure on Portugal—even the British behind Portugal would worry about the situation on the Iberian Peninsula.