Brandt's so-called new propellant inspired by Italian pasta looks a bit like Italian pasta. This is a kind of propellant made of guncotton as the base and added with other stabilizers. It is not much different from other gunpowder, but the shape of the gunpowder particles is very unique. The gunpowder is thin tube-shaped, and like macaroni is hollow in the middle, this gunpowder is also hollow in the middle. This is the shape that later rifle propellants took.

"Well, the design is very interesting. Is this to keep the burning rate constant?" Scrooge asked.

"Yes, Mr. MacDonald, look!" Brandt took out an incendiary dish, and put some commonly used flake powder on it.

"Look, Mr. MacDonald. This is traditional granulated gunpowder. It burns fast, but because its burning area is getting smaller and smaller during the combustion, its burning speed will become slower and slower. To It is easy to observe, I made the particles very large so that the burning speed will be much slower. So if you look closely, you will find that the flame will rise very high immediately after ignition, and then drop rapidly." Said the side, Brandt ignited this gunpowder. If there is no airtight condition, the gunpowder (the propellant of guns and artillery is all gunpowder) will not explode (explosives are different, even if they are not airtight, they will ignite. Exploding, little pot friends, don’t play around), but the flame suddenly shot up high, and then, before people had time to see clearly, the flame went low and went out.

"Mr. MacDonald, if we use such a propellant in a rifle, the chamber pressure will be very high at the beginning. If we want to reduce the risk of explosion, we must either make the barrel very thick or just Can reduce the charge. The former will make our rifles unbelievably heavy, but what about the latter? There will be such a problem: At first, the chamber pressure is appropriate, and the bullet starts to move forward under the push of the gunpowder gases. However, it burns too fast. When the bullet has not had time to fly out of the muzzle, it turns out, that the chamber pressure drops rapidly, resulting in a serious drop in the muzzle velocity of the bullet when it is ejected from the muzzle. Therefore, we need gunpowder with a relatively constant burning speed The burning speed of gunpowder depends largely on its burning area. So I think, if we can ensure that the burning area can remain unchanged or change very little during the burning process, then we can obtain a burning speed Constant gunpowder that can provide a stable chamber pressure for long-barreled weapons..." Brandt began to show off his creativity triumphantly, just like a child showing off his new toy.

"So you made this kind of macaroni?" Scrooge said. "In this structure, the outer surface of the tube is burned to reduce the surface area, and the inner surface does burn to increase the surface area. Such a balance is indeed a good idea."

"I'll ignite it for you to see." Brandt quickly put some gunpowder similar in shape to his new propellant, but obviously several sizes larger, into another incendiary vessel, and then ignited it. The flames rose high, then stabilized for a while, and then went out suddenly.

"You see, the size of the flame did not change appreciably until it was extinguished."

"Very good, very impressive," said Scrooge. With this, the performance of the rifle can climb again. Think about it, at the beginning of the war, the arrogant Yankees took muzzle-loading rifles and headed towards the south where at least tens of thousands of McDonnell 1857 rifles were equipped (Scrooge estimated that many of these rifles were purchased by the people and there were many end users All Southerners) attack, they're sure to get the shit out of them, and then they'll be able to sell the MacDonald 1857 to the Union at a patriotic discount. So the war will enter into a stalemate. The Northern Army will continue to buy Macdonald 1857 from here, or buy patents to make it manufactured by Springfield. However, considering the time of production change, the number of direct purchases will not be small. What about the Confederate Army? Well, they also buy British 1857s from the British, and the Brits give themselves $2.50 for every one they buy. When the war lasted until the end of President Lincoln's first term, at that time, if the Northern Army could not open up the situation, Lincoln would be under great pressure. At that time, if he comes up with new gadgets with excellent performance that can overwhelm the weapons in the hands of the Southern Army, will he still dare not buy them? At that time, sixty dollars for a magazine-style rifle using smokeless powder (a copycat version of Springfield 1903), five cents for a smokeless powder bullet, and ten dollars for a hand grenade (the heart is too dark), There are also new types of artillery and high-explosive shells. The price will be set later. Anyway, the US government must evacuate the entire treasury. Well, when he has no money at that time, Macdonald Bank can still provide him with a big aftermath loan and let him use customs duties as collateral!

"How's the pull fuze going?" asked Scrooge. (A ten-dollar grenade depends on it)

"Great progress has been made. But this project is being carried out by Rafael and the others. I am not very clear about the specific progress." Brandt said.

"Mr. MacDonald, we have developed two kinds of pull fuzes. One is mechanical, which relies on a spring to push the firing pin to hit the cap. This kind is mature, that is, the cost may be high. There is another It uses a friction fire tube, and the effect is not bad, but there is still a gap in reliability compared with the mechanical type." Rafael, a researcher who was on the side, replied.

"How much difference?" asked Scrooge.

"The mechanical type now probably fails once in every hundred fires, while the success rate of the pull fire tube is less than 90% now," Raphael replied.

"That is to say, one or two out of every ten bombs will not explode?" Scrooge asked.

"Yes, Mr. MacDonald."

"I think that's enough. Oh, how much does the mechanical one cost over the spark tube?" asked Scrooge.

"If the fire tubes are mass-produced, at least five can be made for one cent. The spring-type ones cost five to ten cents each." Raphael replied.

"Then don't develop spring-type ones anymore, and focus on improving the pull-fire tube type. My God, the cost is so different. Oh, by the way, do you have a sample of the grenade? Take me to see it." Shi Gao Zhi said.

...

According to Scrooge's prior instructions, there are two types of grenades under development. One is the so-called offensive grenade, which has a lot of charges and less shrapnel when it explodes, and it mainly hurts people by the blast of the explosion. Of course, the killing radius is relatively small, at least much smaller than the throwing distance. It is suitable for those soldiers who are attacking when there is no concealment around them. The other is the so-called defensive grenade. This kind of grenade is equipped with a shell with prefabricated fragments. When it explodes, there are a large number of shrapnel. This grenade is suitable for those defenders who have ready cover around them.

Rafael put the samples of these two grenades in front of Scrooge, and asked Scrooge, "Mr. MacDonald, would you like to try it?"

Scrooge thought for a while and said, "Forget it. Just let the people from Heishui try it."

So Raphael took Scrooge into a safe bunker far away from the experimental site, and then, a Blackwater mercenary skillfully threw the two grenades one after another. Both grenades exploded successfully.

"Well, not bad, very good!" Scrooge was very happy, and he even promised to give them a small bonus.

"Mr. Macdonald, I have a new idea." Seeing that Scrooge was very happy, Raphael took the opportunity to talk to Scrooge about his new idea.

Scrooge has always been very supportive of ideas that can bring benefits to the company. Said that Scrooge stopped and said to Raphael, "Tell me?"

"We can make a prefabricated fragment into a sleeve. When we need to defend, we put it on the offensive grenade, and the offensive grenade becomes a defensive grenade; when we need to attack, take it off, and the defensive grenade becomes another It has changed back to an offensive grenade." Rafael said proudly.

Seeing Raphael's happy face, Scrooge was very unwilling to dampen his enthusiasm. But some things must be taught to him, otherwise, if he doesn't do it well, he will use his talent in the wrong place like this. So Scrooge thought about it, and said to Raphael:

"Raphael, your design is very imaginative and completely feasible. However, you must pay attention to this point. That is, any of our innovations, in the final analysis, are aimed at selling more products to users If you think about it, if this new idea is not adopted, the user needs to buy a batch of offensive grenades for offensive operations, and he needs to buy a batch of defensive grenades for defensive operations. In this way, they need to Buy at least two batches of grenades from us. And if the idea of a cow is used, they will buy one batch of grenades. This way, their purchases will drop. And this means that the money we earn will Reduce. So, Raphael, do you understand the problem with your idea now? A researcher, not only thinks about how to make something better but also thinks about how to respond to the market. I hope you will do research later Don’t forget about the market’s reaction when you are in the market. As long as you can do this, you will have a lot of money in the future.”

...

On the boat leaving Area 51, Scrooge said to the lawyer Romex who was with him: "Go and apply for a patent for Raphael's idea immediately."

"Oh, he didn't think..."

"After the grenades of other companies appeared in the market, his idea was the magic weapon for winning," Scrooge said.