Chapter 356 It’s the Right Time

Since his contact with Wells, having his own steel factory has been a concern for Shire.

Although Shire has the US line to buy specialty steel at affordable prices through the U.S. military, this only applies to Shire's production of tanks and cannot be used in Wells's shipyards to undo the shackles on his head.

The reason is that tanks require much less steel than warships. Even if transportation costs and tariffs are added to the special steel imported from the United States, the cost is still within an affordable range.

More importantly, tanks have more technical thresholds and have patent protection.

For example, the "Char A1" is unique. No tank can defeat it at present. The French military can only purchase this tank.

Shire is also improving the engine, and will also make a fuss about the tank gun in the future.

It is foreseeable that as long as Shire is around, no company in the world, including Schneider, will be able to build a more advanced tank than Shire.

It is actually monopolized by Shire, and the cost of steel can be perfectly passed on to the military, and Shire can even raise the price.

But warships are different.

Wells could build destroyers, and so could Schneider.

Wells could build battleships, and so could Schneider.

There are also submarines, torpedo boats, minesweepers, etc.

There is no obvious technical gap between the two, and cost control mainly focuses on the huge consumption of steel.

If Wells relies entirely on imports of steel from the United States, it will still not be able to escape the curse of "the same performance but more expensive than others."

Therefore, the only way to completely bring Wells to Charles's side was to "help" him solve the steel problem.

Charles's eyes naturally turned to the 68% steel industry that was occupied by the Germans and once belonged to France.

If these steel industries can be captured, or even only a part of them, no more, about one-twentieth, can completely free the Brest Shipyard from the control of other capitalists.

Of course, Shire's purpose will not be limited to this. The development of any industry is closely related to steel, and the more control shares should be, the better.

Tijani felt a little troubled by this. He searched the map and found several steel plants: "The key is that their ownership is always in the hands of the capitalists. One day we fight back to take back these steel plants, and the government will will return them to the capitalists.”

This is a bit ironic. Charles was fighting on the front line. He risked his life and worked hard to regain the lost territory, but he had to hand over the benefits to the capitalists waiting at the rear.

But Charles had already thought of this, and he replied: "So we have to do it before it's too late, General, now is the time!"

"It's the right time?" Tijani looked at Charles in astonishment: "What do you mean?"

…

Schneider Arsenal, James is having a meeting in the conference room.

The topic of the meeting was the mass production of Chauchat machine guns.

James is a little proud, because until now, Charles and the "Saint-Etienne" arsenal have not responded, which shows that Schneider finally won a battle.

"Our production capacity is up to 2,000 per month, and it is very difficult to increase it in the short term." Casso, the head of the Pito Arsenal, reported cautiously: "This is already our limit."

"Not enough, far from enough." James' tone was unquestionable: "At least 10,000."

Kasuo's face turned pale with fright. 10,000, five times more. It was a big problem for workers, machines, and factories.

But this is not the worst. James thought about it and gave a time limit:

"One month, it must be completed within one month."

"We must occupy the market in the shortest time. Even if Shire has a new machine gun or even better performance, the military will be forced to choose our machine gun due to production capacity issues."

This is determined by the urgency of the battlefield.

Suppose that Charles has a better machine gun in the near future, but can only produce less than 1,000 of them per month.

However, the battlefield requires 100,000 equipment in a short period of time, so Charles's machine guns will be eliminated.

(Note: Light machine guns are used as squad machine guns in modern formations. An infantry squad of 10 people is equipped with 1 to 2 machine guns. A conservative estimate of a million-strong army requires 100,000. In addition, it can also be used to export equipment to the British and Russian troops. military, etc., the demand is huge).

This is because James is not confident enough in the "Shaucha" machine gun. It can also be said that he believes in Shire's ability. James believes that Shire will be able to invent a better machine gun in the near future. He can only beat Shire in terms of output.

"But, sir." Casso swallowed: "10,000, this is not realistic. Everything takes time, including building factories and training workers..."

"We can use another model." James interrupted Casso: "Delegate production authority to other capable companies."

France did this after the war broke out. Workers and factories with a certain technical level and operational foundation, such as motorcycle factories and automobile factories, were used to produce machine guns and rifles to fill the huge gap during the war.

"But this will affect the quality of the machine gun." Kasuo was worried.

It's not that he hasn't thought about this plan, but judging from the current situation, there are big problems with the quality of firearms produced by informal arsenals.

And this is likely to be fatal to a new machine gun.

"That's not the point, Casso." James clicked his finger on the table, making it make a "clucking" sound: "The point is production, production! A machine gun in the hands of soldiers is better than nothing, as long as it can still fire bullet!"

At this time, Paulina opened the door and came in. She leaned next to James and lowered her voice: "Someone wants to see you, sir."

James turned to look at Paulina with a surprised look on his face: "At this time? Let him wait!"

Usually anyone who wants to see him needs to make an appointment, especially now that there is a meeting, how can it be possible to leave everyone behind to meet someone.

But James quickly thought that Paulina could not make this stupid mistake, so this person must be very important.

Sure enough, Paulina whispered: "It's Djoka, Charles's father."

James frowned when he heard "Djoka". He had never heard of this name.

But when he heard "Ciel's father", James' expression instantly turned to shock. Ciel's father actually came to the door?

What's going on?

Could it be that Ciel asked him to negotiate?

James couldn't sit still. He stood up and looked around: "This ends today's meeting. We will discuss the specific details later."

Then he raised his head towards Ka Suo: "Get ready, Ka Suo, I want production!"

"As you wish, Mr. James." Castle replied helplessly.

As the head of the Pito Arsenal, he knew the condition of the "Shaucha" machine gun.

Even if this kind of machine gun is produced by an arsenal, it has an unacceptable failure rate. If it is produced by another factory, the situation will definitely be worse.