Greece’s Roman Road

Accompanied by Schmidt, Nobel first returned to Sweden to visit his elder brother Robert, then inspected his work in Adil in England and Krummel in Germany, and then set sail for Athens.

It was a pleasant surprise for Constantine to learn that Nobel had left Paris.

Now that the smokeless powder issue has come to an end, the choice of a new type of rifle for the Greek army has entered the agenda.

After Nobel agreed to set up a factory in Athens to produce gunpowder, Constantine invited Mr. Nobel as a consultant to participate in the design of a new type of rifle in Greece.

Nobel is not only a chemist, he is also quite accomplished in mechanics. After all, as a scholar who studies gunpowder, it is impossible not to touch the guns of various countries.

After careful consideration, Constantine decided to use a design later known as the Lee Enfield Rifle as the standard rifle of the Greek army.

In 1888, the British army had just replaced the rifle Lee-Mayford, but this rifle still used black powder at this time, so Constantine asked the Military Technical Office to organize manpower and cooperate with the Mechanical Office of the University of Athens to improve this rifle. .

The improved rifle, like the design of later generations, uses a ten-round magazine design.

Constantine took a fancy to the rate of fire advantage of this rifle.

After the preliminary design was completed, Constantine asked the machine factory to produce 100 prototype guns for use in pre-troop experiments.

The Army Technical Office was noncommittal, but some officers raised objections.

Due to the improved Lee-Mayford rifle (that is, the Lee Enfield rifle), which uses a ten-round magazine feeding mode, soldiers using this rifle can fire ten rounds in an extreme time, which makes some officers feel dissatisfied.

You must know that in the Greek army at this time, each soldier fired no more than five bullets per year, and this rifle installed 10 bullets directly in the magazine.

The annual training quota of bullets for soldiers is not enough to fill the magazines.

Because of the uproar in the army, the young soldiers headed by Constantine demanded the use of this powerful rifle.

However, many senior military officers have objections to this rifle. Due to disputes between the two sides, they had to hold a meeting to discuss the choice of the new rifle.

In the conference room of the Palace of the Syntagma Square, the senior officers of the Greek army gathered together, sitting with their heads in danger, and Constantine was also among them.

After King George entered the meeting room, the meeting officially began.

"Your Majesty, my colleagues, we have seen the design of the new rifle and conducted live ammunition tests at the shooting range. Frankly speaking, compared with the old weapon of the army, the Xia Saibo rifle, the new rifle is indeed revolutionary. progress"

"Fast rate of fire and strong firepower, these are the advantages of the new rifle," Chief of Staff Emanuel was the first to speak.

"But there are also some obvious problems. This rifle has an extremely fast rate of fire, which poses a logistical challenge to the Greek army. We are worried that in wartime, we do not have as much ammunition to supply soldiers."

"Because there are ten bullets in the magazine, a well-trained infantryman can shoot all ten bullets in one minute."

On the battlefield, soldiers are in a very tense state. Driven by pressure and fear, soldiers are likely to run out of bullets in the magazine as soon as their heads become hot, and they can't estimate the accuracy at all.

"Your Majesty, the soldiers in Greece now only have 5 rounds of live ammunition training each year, and they use new-style rifles. Our logistical pressure is too great."

Emanuel explained.

Armament Minister Giannis also nodded in agreement: "We compared the new rifle with the German 1888 Committee rifle."

"Although the firepower of the new rifle is strong, it is less accurate in terms of accuracy. Our military expenditure in Greece is limited and our family is not rich, so I personally think that it is best for the new rifle to pay more attention to accuracy, and the rate of fire does not need to be so exaggerated. Save ammo"

"This new rifle can add a bullet divider, which forces infantrymen to reload after each shot fired, preventing soldiers from wasting bullets."

The Minister of Armament euphemistically expressed his attitude.

King George was silent after hearing this, but turned his attention to Constantine, after all, this design was strongly supported by Constantine.

Metaxas took over the words: "Our Greek army was originally the disadvantaged party in terms of numbers."

"When the conflict with the Ottoman Turkey broke out, the Greek army was only able to achieve the same level of technical weapons, or it was not as good. After all, the Germans are now getting closer and closer to the Turks."

"We always have some advantages, tell the soldiers, it's inspiring, right?"

"We can't let the soldiers think that they are not only inferior to each other in numbers, but they don't even have any advantage in the rifles in their hands."

Constantine said: "In order to increase the odds of winning, I think it is necessary to strengthen the firepower."

"As for logistics, there's actually no need to worry so much. After all, Greece can now produce its own bullets."

After all, Constantine told the news of the discovery of copper mines in Congo.

After listening to the opinions of the two of Constantine, the Minister of Armament Ioannis frowned and asked, "Your Highness, how much do you think Greece's production capacity can do when a war breaks out?"

After all, the industrial development of Greece is short-lived~www.wuxiaspot.com~ According to the rate of fire of the new rifles, the front-line consumption is simply too late to supply.

"This is just a more stringent requirement for the operational conditions of the Greek army."

"We need to be fully prepared before the incident occurs, especially in terms of logistics, it is essential to store enough to meet the consumption of the army for a certain period of time."

Emanuel retorted solemnly: "Your Highness, do the Turkish troops still inform us before the war?"

There is no doubt that the use of rapid-fire rifles will greatly increase the logistical consumption of the army. Once the military is unexpected and not fully prepared, the army will be in an embarrassing situation.

"Your Excellency Chief of Staff, unless we are all crazy, we will launch military operations before everything is ready."

"If it really is as you said, and the war breaks out suddenly, I don't think military operations are necessary at all, because it is impossible to win."

At least for now, the Greek army is still in a weak position, and a war occurs before it is fully prepared, and Greece has absolutely no chance of victory.

"In the final analysis, Your Excellency Chief of the General Staff, Your Excellency Minister of Armament, regardless of whether the Greek army uses rapid-fire rifles or not, if the war is hurriedly launched before it is fully prepared, then Greece will not be able to win."

"On the contrary, when the Greek army is equipped with a large number of rapid-fire weapons, if we can take precautionary measures to reserve more strategic materials, such as ammunition, and prepare them well, Greece will have some advantages in the face of Turkey. At least, our soldiers more firepower"

What Constantine and Metaxas said was the grim reality that the Greek army was at an overall disadvantage, which weighed heavily on the hearts of the senior Greek officers present.

For this rifle, which in their opinion was a waste of bullets, the sense of resistance has weakened a bit.

​​