Struggle in the Steam Age

In his previous life, Lawrence once read a famous saying that was popular on the Internet, that is, there is nothing in the world that cannot be solved by a barbecue. If so, then two meals.

This sentence is of course just a joke, but in some cases it also makes sense. For example, now, after moving out the grill from the cellar and starting to grill some beef and mutton. With the help of barbecue and beer, the dwarf Eugene suddenly appeared a lot more open-minded, and also told his savior the predicament he was facing now.

"If it doesn't work, then I will sell this factory and help my cousin's gun factory." Ou Ren complained softly while eating barbecue and drinking wine, "but I have to give my workers Keep enough severance pay, after all, the factory is in trouble now because I have taken away too much money to upgrade my extraordinary power, and I can't let those workers pay the price for my own mistakes."

"I thought that after the upgrade, I could come up with a better design to upgrade the entire factory, but I didn't expect that the command headquarters would reject my latest design. I admit that I was a little hotheaded, and the command headquarters proposed The proposal is also considered pertinent. But as a result, my factory is completely in trouble—"

Listening to Eugene's complaints, Lawrence knew that the dwarf in front of him was a mechanic, and he had the same occupation as his dwarf friend Kog. It's just that unlike mechanics like Kog who tend to fight on a small scale with individuals, the inheritance of mechanics accepted by Eugene belongs to the kind of non-combat superhumans who tend to create.

"By the way, you said just now that you have invented several new weapons, can you let us both have a look?" Lawrence made a request when everyone was about to eat.

The reason why this request was made was that Lawrence had a strong interest in the new weapon invented by the dwarf mechanic named Eugene. After all, the dwarf just now swore that the weapon he invented was epoch-making, especially in this battle. It should be able to play a very important role in the murloc war. This made him think of some taller things.

"Of course, of course." The dwarf was very happy with Lawrence's request. As a mechanic, he was very happy with someone's request to appreciate the works he had spent his painstaking efforts to create. He quickly swept away the few pieces of barbecue in front of him, and then drank the remaining wine in the glass in one gulp. Finally put down the wine glass and said to Lawrence. "Okay, you guys come with me now. I'll show you my fine shot."

Five minutes later, the three of them came to a solid granite warehouse built some distance behind the factory building. In front of them was a big guy with a diameter of more than one meter and a height of more than two meters covered by canvas.

"Look, this is my product, a small automatic launcher for explosives." As he said that, the dwarf Eugene grabbed a corner of the canvas and pulled it down. Immediately, a very complicated looking machine with four legs appeared In front of Lawrence and Safir.

"I found that in our war against the murlocs, or in other words, in the large-scale conflicts between humans and wilderness races over the years. The most threatening attack methods of those savage and ignorant guys are apart from the assault of those elite extraordinary people among them. It's a large-scale decisive assault." Ou Ren introduced his design ideas with a little excitement.

"Facing the attack of the opponent's transcendent, we can naturally use our transcendent to go up. However, our firepower is still much weaker in the face of the tide of monsters attacking the sea of ​​monsters."

"Most of the time, our extraordinary people often need to deal with the extraordinary power of those monsters, and there is no way to provide us with extra support. When facing the tide of monsters, the soldiers alone Guns are far from enough, and artillery fire support cannot arrive in time when needed—”

Hearing this, Lawrence nodded slightly in approval. In the age of darkness and ignorance in the early years, the reason why human beings lived in this world was not because of the problem of extraordinary power. After all, at that time, human beings were not weak either in terms of high-end gods or low-end ordinary transcendents.

What is really deadly is that the environment required by human beings overlaps strongly with the environment required by a large number of extraordinary creatures. Although ordinary individuals such as goblins, murlocs, and kobolds are not as good as humans, in the era of cold weapons and even hot The early days of the Weapon Age were always able to use numbers to completely submerge humans in many cases.

And the core of all this lies in whether it is the era of cold weapons or the early era of hot weapons. At that time, the weapons of humans were not good enough, and the amount of firepower projected per unit time was far from enough to achieve the ideal state, so that it could not overwhelm the numerical advantage of the wilderness race. After the advent of the industrial age, with the rapid advancement of science and technology and the upgrading of weapons, human beings were finally able to use fire suppression to offset the numerical advantage of wilderness races.

But this kind of offset refers to the whole, and does not mean that every link is perfect. For example, in small-scale operations, human firepower is still insufficient.

"Although after the invention of the grenade filled with safety explosives, our ordinary soldiers on the front line also have their own heavy firepower, but the physical strength of ordinary people can generally throw about 50 meters. Obviously, this is the same as There is a big hole in the firing range of the artillery, and my invention fills it." Just as Lawrence thought of this, the dwarf Eugene also said this.

Then Ou Ren walked to the machine he invented, pointed to the black pressure vessel at the bottom of the machine and the surrounding pipes, and said, "This is a small steam generator. When enough high-temperature and high-pressure steam is generated in it, I will A handle next to it will be pulled to use the steam to launch the small shells that were pre-loaded in the upper funnel."

Speaking of this, he straightened his waist and pointed to the upper barrel and a series of gear levers and springs, saying, "Through a series of mechanical structures above, this artillery has an extremely good firing angle. At the same time, those springs can also relieve The recoil of the gun allows this gun to fire at your highest rate of fire, sixty rounds per minute."

"And these mechanical legs have excellent maneuverability, which can perfectly follow the infantry and provide them with uninterrupted firepower, instead of being difficult to follow the infantry in time like those other artillery." Pointing at the end After the mechanical walking part of the artillery, Ou Ren straightened up and said to Lawrence and the others proudly.

"It does sound perfect." Lawrence asked, looking at the pocket self-propelled artillery in front of him. "But there is a small problem. This thing should not be made by ordinary people."

"It's not true. It wasn't until I became a formal-level mechanic a while ago that I successfully produced such a thing." Ou Ren hurriedly defended when he said this. "However, this kind of thing can be used by ordinary people, and if the funds are sufficient, I can reduce the volume by half while keeping the power unchanged."

"But have you considered a question?" In the process of communicating with the dwarves, the most important thing is to be straightforward, so Lawrence said bluntly. "The cost of this thing is really not suitable for the military's large-scale equipment, and for the battle of superhumans, such a thing is too powerful."

"That's right, those officers at the headquarters also said the same thing." Eugene sighed deeply after hearing Lawrence's words. "They think my idea is good, but the cost of this weapon is too high. The military really can't accept a small artillery used by infantry. The price of a small artillery that is not much stronger than a grenade is about the same as a heavy artillery. It is unacceptable that the post-use cost of this thing is about the same as a heavy artillery battery."