Battle of the Third Reich Chapter 264:

The dinner was prepared very well. Except for the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs who left for some reason, everyone at the dinner was very happy. Agricultural products from the United States are entering Europe in large quantities, filling the food gap caused by wars in various countries.

Because the agriculture of several important producing countries has been severely damaged, it is expected that this kind of imports will need to continue for some time until Europe resumes its total food production before 1940.

The living standards of the upper echelons of the Third Reich have not been affected. The generals and marshals can still drink high-quality red wine from Bordeaux, France, and taste the ham cured in Parma, Italy.

Imported food has enriched the German table, giving German civilians more choices besides potatoes and kimchi sausages. Germany is still implementing a rationing system at this time, but these imported foods are listed outside the restricted list, and people can use cash to buy them at designated food stores.

The salaries of ordinary industrial workers in Germany are not low, and the salaries of company employees are even higher in Europe. It’s just that under the wartime mechanism, even if you have money, you can’t buy good things, so it once contributed to the towns in Germany. The prosperity of the underground black market. (Historically, the Nazi authorities did not think about curbing the black market. The problem is that the backstage of the black market often involves a bunch of local Nazi officials. You must remember the famous movie "Schindler's List", which is quite straightforward. The corruption that existed in the Nazis.)

Now any German citizen holding a legal document can use cash to purchase agricultural products imported from America in the shops in the residential community. Perhaps the taste of American cured meat cannot be compared with the traditional Germanic flavor, but It is very popular with many German children and housewives.

The second effect of adequate food is that it has severely hit underground trading networks across Germany. Those profiteers who hoarded a large amount of food supplies after the outbreak of the war are now desperately trying to sell their stocks because of the market. There are rumors that next year, countries will also liberalize the demand for food imports, and the existing food prices will continue to fall.

I don't know how many black market merchants in Germany went bankrupt during this period, and this situation is especially common in the Jewish community. In some places, the seats of the entire community have even been replaced.

The elders of the Jewish community control a lot of resources. In addition to funds, they also have a huge network of contacts. They often choose to speculate in business and are best at hoarding stocks for short-term profits. They thought that this war would be like the beginning of the century, at least for several years, but they didn't expect it to be misguided. Germany had a monster like Reinhard von Steid, and it was over in half a year. Most of the European world. Historically, German Jews could create an underground black market in concentration camps, but the Nazi authorities naively thought that with a community wall, they could block the nation’s desire for money.

After the dinner, the marshals and generals bid farewell to the Führer. Many people still had work to do the next day and had to drive back to their residence in Berlin overnight. Yordel and Guderian stayed. They wanted to observe a weapon experiment tomorrow. This was specifically requested by the head of state, and he needed to listen to the opinions of these two experts.

Germany is carrying out research on a new generation of tank guns. This is regarded as the head of state's foresight. This plan is no longer bidding by military units, but by drawing experts from each unit to form a special project team. The R&D model has never been seen in Germany, and it is only possible at this time in the Third Reich.

The head of state has already mastered enough power to no longer have to worry about the opinions of those military enterprises. They have no other choice but to obey the arrangements. They can only hope that the head of state will ensure that the enterprise can obtain considerable profits from it afterwards.

The project was named "Spaghetti" and the goal was to develop an advanced smoothbore artillery with unprecedented high initial velocity. This technology was not very difficult at the time. To put it bluntly, it was to pierce a layer of window paper. This idea was not unheard of in the past, but the eyes of the public were covered by the sharpness of the rifled gun, and the smoothbore artillery was seen. Technology that is outdated and backward has been eliminated by human history.

The experts in the German military industry also hold the same idea. The smoothbore gun may allow the shell to obtain a higher muzzle velocity, but the absence of rifling means that the gun cannot rotate stably after ejecting from the chamber, and it is difficult to ensure the flying attitude of the shell in the air. , And this situation will rapidly deteriorate as the distance increases, so for tank guns with high accuracy requirements, choosing a smoothbore is like a joke.

"Is it difficult to let the cannonball fly stably?" The head of state just replied indifferently, and then threw a stack of drawings on the conference table. So this project team code-named "Naples Kitchen" was born in the conference room of the Berlin High Command, and the German Army "Spaghetti" project was also successfully launched.

If it hadn’t been for Xu Jun’s limited technology, he wouldn’t want to talk nonsense with those people at all. There were no drawings of modern smoothbore guns in his technical library, but he had seen the advanced smoothbore guns and the actual ammunition used in later generations. When working in the museum, he had come into contact with an early-stage Leopard II that was retired from the German army and consulted the technical maintenance documents that came with the car.

Xu Jun knows that there are already people developing shelling armor-piercing bullets. The French company "Edgar Brandt" has even produced samples. Historically, due to the defeat of France, all the developers of this company fled. In the United Kingdom, British technicians carried out a series of improvements on the basis of the French technology, and finally developed APDS (shell-piercing projectiles) that could be used in actual combat at the end of the war.

What Xu Jun threw out was the detailed drawing of this projectile, and at the same time he threw out the sketch of APFSDS (Tail Stable Armor Piercing Projectile) that spanned the era. The latter is a customized ammunition for smoothbore guns, and the advanced concepts revealed in it immediately shocked all the ordnance experts present. The Führer created another invention that could change the world. As a participant in the project and historical Witnesses, everyone present felt the blood rushing in their chests.

Developing and manufacturing a qualified smoothbore gun requires a lot of precious resources. Although Xu Jun's drawings can save time in detours in research and development, it is only the improvement in materials and casting process~IndoMTL.com~ I am afraid it will take a year and a half.

Germany first needs to manufacture key electroslag remelting equipment. For the steel industry, this is not a secret technology. It is just that the initial investment is large, the production process is complex, and capitalists lack sufficient profit margins. The performance of ordinary steel is enough, and no country has put into industrial production. The United States and the Soviet Union were only in their early days of exploration. Historically, this kind of technology would not be put into actual production until the 1950s and 1960s.

Krupp was not very interested in this technology at first, but after getting the production plan of the head of state, Krupp’s equipment research and development department immediately began to operate at speed, just imagine how the military of various countries in the future Rain's order, Gustav Krupp's chest was immediately full of "sense of mission."

Since the development of the smoothbore gun has just begun, Guderian will certainly not be looking at this gun tomorrow. It was midnight, but the tank expert was still sitting at the desk in the bedroom, reading the technical documents that he needed to know before the experiment the next day, and the general had a photo on his hand with a peculiar armor on it. equipment.

PS: Thank you for your support, the author will continue to work hard.

The teeth are closed to reduce inflammation, and you can eat normally. The author is excited.