NOVEL WEB Chapter 352 It's Time
Ever since his contact with Wells, owning his own steel factory had become a persistent concern for Shire.
Although Shire could purchase special steel at a fair price through the U.S. military for tank production, this was not applicable for Wells's shipyard and couldn't lift the shackles off his head.
The reason was that tanks demanded far less steel compared to warships. Even if the special steel imported from the United States included transportation costs and tariffs, the expense was still within an acceptable range.
More importantly, tanks had higher technical thresholds and were protected by patents.
For instance, the "Shire A1" was unique and unmatched, with no other tank capable of defeating it; the French military could only purchase this model.
Shire also made improvements to the engine and planned to enhance the tank gun in the future.
It was foreseeable that as long as Shire was around, no company, including Schneider, could produce a more advanced tank.
In reality, Shire had monopolized the sector, transferring the steel costs perfectly onto the military, and even raising the prices.
But ships were different.
Wells could build destroyers, and so could Schneider.
Wells could build battleships, and so could Schneider.
Additionally, there were submarines, torpedo boats, minesweepers, and more.
There was no apparent technical gap between the two, and cost control primarily focused on the enormous consumption of steel.
If Wells's steel was entirely dependent on imports from the United States, he would still be ensnared by the curse of "same performance but more expensive".
Therefore, to entirely pull Wells to Shire's side, he had to "help" him solve the steel issue.
Naturally, Shire's attention turned to Germany-occupied, formerly French steel-industries, which comprised 68% of the industry.
If he could integrate these steel industries, even capturing only a small portion, around one-twentieth, it would be enough to free the Brest Shipyard from the control of other capitalists.
Of course, Shire's goals extended beyond this. Any industrial development was closely tied to steel, so controlling more share was always better.
To Tijani, this felt tricky. He scanned the map and found a few steel factories, saying, "The key is, their ownership always remains with the capitalists. Even if we recapture these steel factories one day, the government will return them to the capitalists."
This was somewhat ironic; Shire was fighting at the front, risking his life to recover lost ground, only to hand over the hard-earned benefits to the capitalists waiting at the rear.
However, Shire had anticipated this and responded, "That's why we must act early, General. Now is the time!"
"Now is the time?" Tijani looked at Shire in astonishment, "What do you mean?"
...
At Schneider Armory, James was in a meeting room.
The meeting's topic was the mass production of the Shao Sha Machine Gun.
James was somewhat smug, as up to now, Shire and the "Saint-Etienne" Armory had yet to react, indicating that Schneider had finally won a battle.
"Our capacity is at most 2,000 units per month. It's very difficult to increase this in the short term," reported Kasso, head of the Pito Armory, cautiously, "This is already our limit."
"Not enough, far from enough," James's tone was indisputable, "We need at least 10,000 units."
Kasso turned pale with fear. Ten thousand units, a fivefold increase—it posed significant issues concerning workers, machines, and factory space.
But that wasn't the worst. James thought for a moment and then imposed a time limit:
"One month. It must be completed within one month."
"We must capture the market in the shortest time. Even if Shire produces new, better-performing machine guns, the military will still be forced to choose ours because of production capacity."
This urgency was dictated by the battlefield.
Assuming Shire soon had a superior machine gun but could only produce less than 1,000 units per month.
Yet the battlefield demanded tens of thousands of units in a short period, thus eliminating Shire's machine gun.
(Note: In modern formations, light machine guns are used as squad weapons. An infantry squad of 10 men is equipped with 1 or 2 machine guns. An army of over a million conservatively needs 100,000 units, not to mention the potential for exports to the British Army, Russian Army, etc., indicating immense demand.)
This showed James's lack of confidence in the "Shao Sha" machine gun and also recognized Shire's ability. James believed Shire would eventually invent a superior machine gun, so he could only defeat Shire in terms of production.
"But, sir," Kasso swallowed, "10,000 units—it's unrealistic. Everything requires time, including building factories, training workers…"
"We can adopt another model." James interrupted Kasso, "Delegate production rights to other capable enterprises."
During the war, France had done this. Motorcycle factories, automobile factories, and others, with some technological standards and operational foundations, were mobilized to produce machine guns and rifles to fill the wartime gap.
"But this would affect the quality of the machine guns," Kasso was somewhat worried.
He had considered this approach, but given the current situation, guns produced by non-standard armories had significant quality issues.
This could be fatal for a new machine gun.
"The point isn't that, Kasso," James said, tapping his fingers on the table, producing a "clack-clack" sound. "The point is production, production! It's better for soldiers to have a machine gun that can at least fire bullets than none at all!"
At this moment, Paulina pushed the door open, leaning beside James and whispered, "Someone wants to see you, sir."
James turned his head to Paulina with a surprised look, "Now? Let them wait!"
Typically, anyone wishing to see him had to make an appointment, especially during a meeting. He couldn't just leave everyone to see someone.
But James quickly realized that Paulina wouldn't make such a basic mistake, so this person must be very important.
Indeed, Paulina whispered, "It's Dejoka, Shire's father."
Hearing "Dejoka" made James frown. He hadn't heard this name before.
But hearing "Shire's father" instantly changed James's expression to one of shock. Shire's father actually came to find him?
What was going on?
Could it be that Shire sent him for negotiations?
James couldn't sit still. He rose, glancing around, "Today's meeting concludes here. We'll discuss specific details later."
He then nodded to Kasso, "Be prepared, Kasso. I need production!"
"As you wish, Mr. James," Kasso replied helplessly.
As the head of the Pito Armory, he knew the condition of the "Shao Sha" machine gun.
Even when produced by the armory, it had an unacceptably high failure rate. If handed over to other factories, the situation would undoubtedly worsen.