Chapter 513: The Guerrilla Rocket
As soon as Wells and Fessenden left, Steed entered the conference room.
In fact, Wells and Steed had met briefly in the hallway, merely nodding to each other without saying much.
This was an understanding between them. On the surface, they acted as if they were strangers or even antagonists, but both supported Charles, which made them more persuasive in the parliament.
Moreover, they needed to keep their distance from Armand. This was not only because Armand was from the right-wing but also because he was a royalist.
At this time, the French public generally viewed the restoration of the monarchy as a regressive and backward idea, and many even despised it.
(Note: Brown was publicly criticized for secretly accepting funds from royalists. Capitalists seized this point and promoted it, claiming that Brown was a puppet supported by royalists, and his ultimate goal was to restore the monarchy. The French citizens, who had grown accustomed to the parliamentary system and considered it advanced, would not allow this to happen. As a result, they abandoned Brown, despite the fact that he had done nothing wrong and hadn't even thought of such a thing.)
This was also why Charles had never met with Armand and occasionally insulted him.
One could say that while parliament seemed idealistic on the surface, beneath it was a complex web of hidden forces and exchanges of interests. The only ones left in the dark were the French citizens.
...
When Steed entered, Charles was standing by the window, drinking coffee. Halloween was approaching, and through the large glass panes of the floor-to-ceiling window, he could clearly see several children, around ten years old, happily carving jack-o'-lanterns downstairs.
Charles felt a little envious of them.
Only they could put aside war and worries and still enjoy the festivities.
Steed lightly knocked on the door to alert Charles, then stepped forward to shake his hand, saying, "The rocket propellant and the production of the rockets are progressing smoothly, General. We’ve mastered the production process in just three days."
Charles gave a soft "Mm."
With detailed manufacturing methods and data, and with technicians on-site to teach, plus the students coming from the "Saint-Étienne" armaments factory, it was to be expected that the process would be faster.
Steed asked with some confusion, "But I don’t quite understand, General. Isn’t it almost identical to the 'Congreve' rocket?"
"Is it?" Charles didn’t rush to explain.
Steed nodded. "Although it can fly farther, that doesn’t necessarily mean it has a higher hit rate."
"Because we have to consider the wind in the air. In actual use, we’ll likely still have to attack balloons within a few hundred meters, just like with the 'Congreve.'"
This was the current dilemma of "balloon-busting."
The Germans, fully aware that balloons could easily be destroyed by French aircraft, stubbornly continued to release balloons to guide their artillery.
It was like the French, fully aware that attacking would often be futile, still charged ahead relentlessly.
The battlefield was a place where new ideas constantly emerged, threatening life and forcing people to find new solutions. Yet, it also had a "stubborn" side.
However, Charles’s goal was not to "bust balloons."
"The British rockets are about seventy millimeters, aren’t they?" Charles asked. He had glanced at the data back in Antwerp but couldn't quite remember the specifics.
"Yes," Steed replied. "76.2mm, with a range of about 2.7 kilometers."
(Note: This was the data for the British "Sea Bed Mat" rocket launcher.)
Steed continued, "That’s the range for ground-launched rockets. The range when fired from aircraft is much shorter."
The wind in the air caused significant deviation in the rockets, and a strong gust could even cause the rocket to veer off course and turn back to explode near its own launch site.
"Don’t worry about that," Charles said. "Can we modify it to 107mm?"
Steed hesitated, "Of course, General. But as I mentioned, it won’t make much difference…"
Had it been one of his subordinates, Steed would have already yelled at them and sent them away.
But this was Charles, the man who had successfully developed numerous pieces of equipment.
Faced with Charles’s insistence, Steed could only reflect on whether he had made a mistake. Or perhaps...
Steed’s eyes suddenly lit up. "General, do you have a way to solve the accuracy problem?"
Charles gently shook his head. No one could solve the accuracy issue, not unless it was in the modern age.
(Note: Modern guided rocket launchers, akin to missiles, solve this issue.)
A trace of disappointment flashed across Steed’s eyes. If the accuracy problem couldn’t be solved, simply increasing the range would be pointless.
Charles walked back to the desk, placing his coffee down casually, and pulled out a design blueprint from his briefcase to hand to Steed.
Steed took the blueprint and froze when he saw it.
It was clearly a series of iron tubes arranged in parallel, divided into three layers, with four tubes in each layer. The structure was so simple it was almost shocking.
Then Steed understood its purpose. Holding the blueprint, he stared at Charles in shock. "This... this is for launching rockets, right?"
"You guessed it," Charles replied. "I call it a rocket cannon."
Steed glanced at the blueprint, then looked up at Charles, hesitant to speak.
The equipment was too rudimentary. If it was used to launch rockets, there would certainly be accuracy problems. If it couldn’t hit the target, what could it possibly achieve?
Charles saw through Steed’s thoughts and explained nonchalantly, "The point is to make it cheap, Mr. Steed."
"It doesn’t require expensive artillery to produce, and can be mass-produced in a short time."
"And the rockets are the same, right?"
Steed nodded. That was true.
The expensive part of an artillery piece was the cannon, especially the barrel. It was difficult to produce, costly, and had a limited lifespan. If the quality wasn’t up to par, it could explode at any moment.
But a rocket cannon was just a series of tubes. Its cost was mainly in the cheap, mass-producible rockets.
"So," Charles concluded, "Why not use these cheap items to launch a bunch of rockets? Even if it’s all about luck, some of them will destroy something. Besides, artillery often fires indiscriminately on the battlefield anyway. This is exactly the role the rocket cannon is meant to play."
Steed was stunned by this statement.
Yes, although it lacked accuracy, if the number of rockets was large enough, it could provide area coverage of the target.
Artillery bombardments were often the same. Sometimes they would bombard trenches for days and nights. Even if the accuracy was high, so what? It was still just indiscriminate firing!
At that point, cheaper rockets could fully replace artillery!
"I understand now, General," Steed said with a nod. "This is a cost-saving approach, especially with the current material shortages."
Charles smiled without further explanation.
This wasn’t just about saving costs. When paired with certain tactics on the battlefield, even the German 105mm howitzers wouldn’t stand a chance!