When you are rich, there is Rheinmetall; when you are poor, there is Rheinsteel!

Lin Yu straightened his body, put his right fist to his mouth, covered his lips, coughed lightly, and asked:

"My dear Captain Yang, the old saying is right, there is no turning back, we have arrived at the No. 2 shooting range, if I don't shoot a few rounds here, to be honest, I feel very uncomfortable."

"Of course, when I feel uncomfortable, you should feel more uncomfortable too. After all, as a test group, the first batch of equipment is most likely used by you. Don't you want to test the limit of a piece of equipment?"

"Wouldn't you feel uncomfortable if we just withdrew like this?"

After several questions in a row, Lin Yu did not see the discomfort on Yang Xue's face, but saw a touch of excitement, that is the excitement of finding a confidant.

Reaching out and unzipping his coat, Yang Xue took out a notebook from his chest pocket, as well as a brand new set of test forms, and along with these forms, there was also the speaker hanging on his buttocks.

"Hey, everyone, listen up. Our General Manager Lin said that their equipment is not afraid of wind and sand."

"Since the designer is not afraid, then we users don't have to be afraid either. Now everyone should start cleaning the dust in the equipment."

"It's 8:32 in the morning. Half an hour later, at 9:02, we will start the test. During the test, we will test at the highest intensity. Everyone, please pay attention to safety."

Accompanied by his shouting, the technicians of Rheinsteel and the testers of the QA team rushed to the equipment and cleaned the dust that affected the launch at the fastest speed.

Half an hour passed quickly, just in the blink of an eye, and it was gone.

At 9:02, Yang Xue picked up the loudspeaker on time and shouted to the busy people: "Time is up, start the shooting test, one base ammunition for each piece of equipment, hurry up!"

As his order was issued, the rocket launcher support vehicle was the first to go out, just like the order of the No. 1 shooting range. After a short preparation, the rocket launcher flew out of the launch nest like a rainstorm and fell to the distant target like a rainstorm.

Behind the rocket launcher support vehicle is the mortar vehicle, which started cautiously and then fired quickly, one shot after another. Five vehicles, relying on alternating firing, perfectly formed a cover barrage.

The anti-aircraft missile vehicle and anti-tank missile vehicle next to it were also operated by the testers, pouring fire on the distant sand dunes.

But this time, there was no fixed target point, and the operator's instructions were entirely up to the operator.

After these big brothers finished pouring fire, two 155mm howitzers came out and began to pour their fire on the desert at the end of the telescope in the designated area.

In the alternating firing of the howitzers, five armored vehicles equipped with machine guns quietly ran out of the desert and moved alternately towards the target point.

Each vehicle was very fast, and the operator responsible for driving and the machine gunner operating the machine gun showed extraordinary combat effectiveness.

In just a few minutes, they crossed the desert, got into the soft desert, and then left traces in the desert, approaching the target point at the fastest speed.

In the staggered shooting of five machine guns, the wooden target at the target point was smashed into a pile of fragments. The car marked as No. 1 stepped on the accelerator and rushed to the target fragments.

The machine gunner in charge of operating the machine gun grabbed the fishing net in the truck bed, scooped up a pile of fragments on the ground, and threw them into the car.

Seeing his teammates succeed in the rearview mirror, the driver slammed the steering wheel with both hands, forcibly adjusted the direction, and stepped on the accelerator to the starting point.

The machine gunner grabbed the heavy machine gun with both hands, half-crouched, and swayed left and right with the left and right swaying of the vehicle.

Then there was another textbook-like alternating fire cover. A few minutes later, five armored vehicles stopped in front of Lin Yu at the same time, and the artillery in the distance stopped firing.

While these vehicles were busy, Lin Yu happily walked to the side of the logistics support vehicle, took an enamel pot, asked the chef who was busy in the car for a pot of hot water, and made a pot of hot tea.

Hearing the artillery fire stop, he happily carried tea and walked back to Yang Xue, nodded to the truck responsible for transporting artillery shells in the distance, and asked:

"There are still a lot of artillery shells over there, let's fire them together, otherwise it's a waste of oil to pull them back like this."

Hearing this, Yang Xue turned his head to look at the truck in the distance, licked his lips with his tongue, lowered his head, and focused his attention on the table in his hand. After thinking for a moment, he raised his head and picked up the horn again and shouted:

"Everyone, use up the artillery shells on the vehicle, mortar vehicles, rocket launchers, self-propelled artillery, move on their own, and alternately attack."

"Ten artillery shells at a time, move!"

With his shout, the artillery fire that had just stopped sounded again, very rhythmic, and after ten artillery shells, the vehicles in the distance immediately began to move.

They used 500 meters as a distance. After the vehicle drove 500 meters, it stopped immediately and immediately launched an attack state. After the attack, it ran away again.

Amid the rumbling of cannons, Lin Yu held a teacup and walked towards several other brother companies, staring at them with big eyes and looking at them happily.

The heads of several other companies could not say that they welcomed Lin Yu's arrival, but they did not say that they hated him either.

Military equipment procurement is like this. If others have better performance and practicality than you, then you go back and find ways to improve it. If you lose, you lose.

After a short period of frowning, these heads turned to smiles and walked over with a smile:

"Boss Lin, congratulations to Rheinsteel. You should have won the equipment bidding this time. I just don't know if you, as a brother company, have any business that needs to be outsourced. If so, we can take on some of it. We can make money together and bear difficulties together."

"Hey! Isn't your Ordnance General Company a bit unkind? How can you prepare to share the cake with others right away? You should be more tactful! Boss Lin, we have some projects. Do you have any?"

"Bitch, you said to be more tactful, so you just said projects? What crappy projects can your 601 factory have?"

"Haha, it sounds like your Ordnance Equipment General Company has business "Our business is the same as the business of the North Industries Group Corporation?"

"Our business is big. We don't open for three years, but we can make a profit for three years after opening. We are not like you, the North Industries Group Corporation, which has not developed any equipment. Look at your armored vehicles, it's hard to describe."

"What do you mean by hard to describe? Let me tell you, our armored vehicles are the future. As long as we launch enough satellites in the future and have strong enough wireless communication capabilities, our armored vehicles will be invincible."

"Really? If so, you can find this Mr. Lin. If the information I got is correct, they should be preparing to launch their own satellites."

The words of the head of the North Industries Group Corporation stunned everyone.

Launching their own satellites?

A group of people were stunned on the spot, and then frantically calculated in their minds what procedures and funds were needed to launch a satellite.

Soon, they came up with the answer.

That was a huge amount of funds!

These people slowly turned around and looked at Lin Yu in unison.

Facing the gazes of these people, Lin Yu nodded calmly and said:

"We are preparing to use our own rockets to launch our own low-orbit satellites. In about two or three years, if you have satellites that you want to launch, you can find us."

After getting confirmation from him, everyone present could not sit still.

You know, even the aerospace group cannot guarantee a 100% success in rocket launches. Every launch is the result of hundreds of simulations and calculations.

But the gentleman in front of him actually said directly that they were preparing rockets and satellites and could be launched in two or three years.

Where did he... get so much money?

I haven't heard that the country has a separate budget approved?

Just as they were about to ask further questions, a sound of propellers came from the sky. The sound was very loud and dense, just like a tsunami of waves, coming from all directions.

Lin Yu subconsciously raised his head and searched for the direction of the sound. He turned his head around and found that the sound came from the northeast.

After a closer look, he found that they were some old friends.

Z-8 transport helicopters.

After counting, there were as many as 40.

After counting the number of helicopters, Lin Yu immediately turned his head to look at Yang Xue not far away. At this moment, he also understood what the other party was talking about.

Rapid strike group.

The fastest speed is nothing more than airborne.

Just airdrop some light infantry to the enemy's territory. If it is 1940 now, this trick may be useful.

But now is 2003, only light weapons are not very useful.

Airborne troops are in urgent need of heavy firepower.

It is best to use transport helicopters to transport these one or two tons of fire support vehicles.

After understanding this, Lin Yu had to admire Lu Huaxi's boldness. Sure enough, he, the so-called radical, was neither radical nor conservative in front of these old men.

A fence-sitter.

The reason why Lin Yu admired it was because the aircraft that appeared was the Z-8.

As of 2003, there were only three types of transport helicopters over 10 tons in service in China.

Z-8, Mi-17, Mi-171.

The Mi-17 came from the Kazan Aircraft Manufacturing Plant in the former Soviet Union. In 1991, after long negotiations and inspections, China finally decided to import the Mi-17 helicopter from the Kazan Aircraft Manufacturing Plant in the former Soviet Union.

The contract was signed and the agreement was negotiated.

The Soviet Union was gone.

Fortunately, the delivery of helicopters was not greatly affected.

The follow-up was the Mi-171, a joint improved model of the Mi-17 and Mi-8T produced by the Ulan Aviation Production Association, which was introduced from Russia in 1992.

After getting the helicopter and using it for a while, the defects came out.

The Mi-17 is not suitable for use in plateau areas.

Although the Mi-171 can be used in plateau areas, the plateaus of China are different from other places.

It is a little higher.

When the Mi-171 was imported, it was still in the name of civilian use, so the imported Mi-171 is a civilian model, and its performance is slightly worse than the military version.

Therefore, these two things are not very convenient to use in the places where China needs them most.

But there is no way, it is better to use it than not to have it.

As for the Z-8, according to the original code name of this thing, it should be called Z-7.

The project was established very early, but due to technical reasons, the development task of Z-7 has not been smooth, and then there is no more.

At that time, in addition to the development task of Z-7, there was also a long-range carrier rocket test project called 718. In order to salvage the wreckage of the launched rocket, this project urgently needed a ship-borne helicopter that could take off on the deck.

Therefore, the government imported 14 SA321Ja "Super Wasp" large multi-purpose helicopters from France for use in the 718 project.

After getting this aircraft, the Chinese began to think and modified the Super Hornet for suitability.

Because the Super Hornet's performance is excellent enough and it can take off and land on ships and water, the equipment development team issued a directive in 1976 to copy a multi-purpose transport helicopter based on the Super Hornet.

Codenamed Z-8!

So far, the coffin board of Z-7 has been tightly closed.

The original model of Z-8 based on the Super Hornet was a naval transport type used in the navy, and the delivery time was August 1989.

On this basis, Z-8 continued to improve and finally succeeded in its first flight on June 1, 1993. In August of the following year, it officially passed the national design certification based on 86% of domestic parts.

Then it began to be mass-produced and applied to the navy, army, and air force.

After large-scale application, the problems of Z-8 were exposed.

Because domestic materials and engine technology were not up to standard, the production cost has not been spread out and has remained high.

At the same time, the high cost did not bring enough yield. The failure rate of this helicopter, which was pinned with hope, remained high, just like its cost.

So, around 2002, the transformation and upgrading work for the Z-8 helicopter began.

But as we all know, it is now June 2003.

Airplanes cannot grow out of the ground, so Lin Yu knew very well that what appeared in front of him was the basic Z-8 model with a high failure rate.

Using an armed helicopter with a relatively high failure rate to transport equipment that the army has not yet decided to purchase and has not yet determined the official name and model.

Lin Yu felt that he should give Lu Huaxi a thumbs up.

While he was admiring the landing of the Z-8 helicopter, Yang Xue ran over, made a gesture of answering the phone with his hand, and said loudly:

"Director Lu's call, let the heads of your companies go over."

Phone?

Lin Yu glanced back at the Z-8 helicopter that was landing, and took a long step, now behind Yang Xue, and walked towards the communication vehicle not far away.

Next to the communication vehicle, the heads of several other companies also arrived, and they lowered their heads one by one, revealing a look of resignation.

Yang Xue walked to the communication vehicle, picked up the phone on the vehicle, and called the director's office. Then, he pressed the hands-free button on the phone, and Lu Huaxi's voice came from the speaker of the phone.

"Everyone, I think this test is very exciting and very good."

"The actual performance of your equipment is far beyond my expectations."

"I now officially announce the results from the General Logistics Department and the director's office."

"In this test, the best results are from the fire support vehicles and logistics support vehicles from Rheinsteel."

"As for other companies, the revolution has not yet succeeded, and comrades still need to work hard."

"This time, the army equipment bidding was won by Rheinsteel."