Chapter 4: The Source of Sin

  "Green mountains and waters, deserts stretching to the sky, dense hills, vast plains. In over 4 million square kilometers of land, we have many kinds of terrain, many kinds of climate, many kinds of culture. We must adapt to these differences, integrate into these diversities, have the ability to perform diverse tasks, and have the courage to accept any challenge."

  Lin Xuewen has a literary name, but he is not a pedantic scholar. He wears a camouflage uniform with "ugly" oil paint, and his whole person is dressed like a forest ghost. Of course, the sniper rifle in his hand is the claw of the vengeful spirit that takes people's lives.

  "It's happened many times before, and there have been quite a few students who have come to this special school for training. They were all like you at first, never having suffered a setback, from the moment they enlisted until now, always thinking they're the best, going wherever they please, but unable to tell who's stronger or weaker."

  Lin Xuewen, as always, gave new students a special lesson when they first arrived at school. "In the second phase, there was a student who was the number one sniper of their master before coming here. He could shoot in various terrains, high-angle shooting, rapid assembly and shooting without correction, shooting without support, fast shooting, risk shooting, small target shooting, moving target shooting, identification and judgment shooting, and even coordinated shooting with two people as a team... from 30 meters to 830 meters. This kid can really hit your eyes but not your nose, believe it or not, don't worry about it. Do you see that rock at the foot of the mountain?" Lin Xuewen pointed to a rock by the stream at the foot of the mountain, which was about ten cubic meters in size.

  "When he came, he set up a 12.7mm machine gun shell on that rock, right where you're standing, and used a 21 sniper rifle to shoot through the shell." Lin Xuewen said, and many students had already started whispering among themselves. The straight-line distance from where they were standing to the rock was about 150 meters.

  "After he finished his final exam, he had one bullet left, so everyone asked him to perform a finale, you know, a good beginning deserves a good ending. So we set up another shell in that location and let him use his last bullet to complete his performance before leaving. Unfortunately, the shell at that time was not 12.7mm, but rather the 7.62mm used by our sniper rifles."

  "What's the result?"

  "What else can we do? Is it reasonable for our school's graduates to be all talk and no action?"

  Lin Xuewen smiled wryly and glanced at this group of newcomers. This time, the third army was doing a private job, recruiting not the elite selected by each division in the past, but 120 people. If it weren't for Mu Da, the commander of the third army, asking Lin Xuewen to help out, he would have returned to the Army Academy long ago. The school would be handed over to another instructor, and he had to go back to meet with the Commander-in-Chief, who was said to have a mission for him to lead a team. Before leaving, he had to help the third army, and returning a month late wouldn't be a problem.

  "Right, unfortunately, from then on this project became a special assessment project, those who can complete this assessment will be awarded a reward, rewarding their outstanding performance, of course the medal is that shell he pierced, I hope everyone leaves with a 7.62mm one."

  Lin Xuewen saw the students suddenly become stunned, smiled slightly and said: "Nonsense is the first sentence of interpersonal relationships. Today I have chatted with you for a long time. Next, we will get to the point, everyone has it, sit down!" After a command, 120 students sat down instantly, Lin Xuewen was about to start his 30th lesson before leaving.

  "Bullets, commonly known as gun bullets, consist of a cartridge, primer, propellant and bullet head. When fired, the firing pin strikes the primer, causing the propellant to burn and produce gases that propel the bullet head out. We veterans are used to the traditional golden yellow bullets, but they are no longer produced. Instead, green bullets have replaced them, and many other colors of bullet heads have emerged, such as red, black and white. Why is this?"

  The types of bullet heads have become more diverse, which is because the trajectories are different. In order to facilitate identification in combat, the arsenal applies different colors to the bullet head for distinction. The bullet head that is not painted or painted silver is a common bullet used to injure living targets, with a copper jacket wrapped around a steel or lead core. The green-painted bullet head is a tracer bullet, with a lead core and a tracer tube in the front end of the bullet head, which contains a tracer agent and has a fixed ring to prevent leakage. The tracer agent consists of combustible materials, oxidizing agents, and adhesives. Therefore, once fired, this bullet head will drag a bright light on its tail when flying at night, indicating its trajectory for target correction shooting.

  "The warhead painted red is an incendiary shell, which has a combustible agent in the front, a steel core in the middle, and a tracer at the back. It is used to ignite flammable and explosive materials on the spot, such as enemy ammunition depots, fuel depots, vehicle fuel tanks, etc. The one painted black is an armor-piercing incendiary shell, with a steel core that is different from the previous one, which is a high-carbon steel quenched by fire. The outer layer of the warhead is wrapped in lead, and the combustible agent is installed at the rear end. It is mainly used to attack enemy fuel tanks or armored targets."

  "There's also something called an armor-piercing incendiary tracer bullet, which has a red-colored warhead and a purple-colored tip. We don't often use this type of thing, but it combines the functions of several types of bullets I mentioned earlier - it can indicate trajectory, pierce armor, and set fires, making it suitable for large-caliber machine guns to shoot at air targets or distant targets.

  Of course, there's also a type that we rarely use or won't use at all, which is the explosive bullet. The warhead has an explosive charge in the middle, with a fuse cap, a penetration tube, and ** in front of it, and a tracer tube behind it. This is used for large-caliber machine guns to shoot at air targets.

  When the warhead hits its target, the penetration tube and ** work together to detonate the explosive charge, making that thing take a big hit, with severe consequences."

  Lin Xuewen said, furrowing his brow in thought: "Actually, we'll probably still use this explosive bullet. If someone were to get hit by it, the impact would be huge. However, compared to poisonous bullets, there's a type called hollow-point bullets. This is a general term for expanding bullets, and the expansion process is also known as mushrooming. After expansion, the bullet head becomes large and flat, like a mushroom cap. Hunters naturally love this kind of bullet because it kills quickly, and the bullet head won't shatter like a dum-dum bullet. However, no matter what, these are evil bullets that are restricted by the Hague Convention. Alright, today's introduction ends here. From now on, we'll have to learn how to use these bullets properly, everyone! Dismissed!"

  The mountain wind blows gently, the grass is lush and green, and the special training school for army snipers in the depths of the mountains has spent many springs and autumns in this beautiful natural environment. A batch of proud newcomers arrived, and a batch of calm and composed masters departed. Although it's called a forest special training school, its professional courses have long since expanded beyond the forest. The reason why I'm talking so much today is that the targets of snipers are no longer single. The People's Army has been promoting the idea of "spear and shield", from military equipment to strategy and tactics, the army has begun to focus on armor, which is clearly a study on the "shield" aspect. Then the sniper is the breakthrough in the "spear" aspect. Specialized ammunition and better firearms will be added to the snipers' arsenal because they are always the sharpest and most cutting-edge spear.

  "The ammunition needed by the army seems to have many types, but in fact it's just bullets, shells, grenades, and so on. The consumption of bullets is the largest, as all three armies need to be equipped with firearms, rifles, light and heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, etc. When soldiers are doing their job, they will consume ammunition, especially now that the army has expanded in scale, the consumption of bullets is even greater, just thinking about it gives me a headache!"

  Zhang Yu felt pretty good after inspecting the Kunming Machinery Factory and seeing batches of precision lathes and milling machines. However, when he arrived at the Kunming Ammunition Factory, he saw vehicle after vehicle constantly transporting raw materials and ammunition. The result was that the army's largest expenditure items were ammunition and food, both of which had staggering consumption rates.

  "Oh my god, these military expenses are increasing year by year, and this year is especially high. I've been frugal for most of my life to save up some family property. With so many soldiers and types of troops, even regular training is worth a fortune in gold. I hope these soldier brothers can understand Old Zhang's kindness. When shooting and firing at targets, be careful not to get too excited and forget who you are!"

  After muttering to himself, Zhang Yu got out of the car and left. After sending Yu Ran to the Military Academy for further study, on this wandering day in Kunming, only he and the driver were left, because they were all visiting military factories, not even bringing a guard, but unexpectedly came to "Heartbreak Place", since coming also had to go in and take a look.

  "In the era of smokeless gunpowder, this nitrocellulose is in short supply!" After inspection, he walked into the factory area and saw a row of special chemical transport vehicles in the dedicated parking lot. Zhang Yu's eyelids twitched with excitement. The heavy industry development on the Kunming side was quite impressive, and the pharmaceutical industry was also very famous. The largest China Minsheng Pharmaceutical Group in the autonomous region is located in this province, and of course, the second-largest ammunition production factory in Southwest China is also here."

  The pistol uses a multi-hole rapid combustion single-base powder, and the rifle is a surface-treated and dulled single-hole grain single-base powder. The reason why firearms can have great lethality is entirely because of the huge kinetic energy of their bullets, and it is those chemicals that do work for them to give them great destructive power. However, bullets are not just required to have stunning destructive power; they also require meticulous requirements for their size and accuracy. Furthermore, bullets must have a perfect structure and shape. Therefore, in the era of hot weapons, there were people who could privately make guns, but those who could make qualified bullets themselves were almost zero. Without a complete set of serialized processing equipment and corresponding process levels, how can bullets be manufactured?

  "Commander-in-Chief, how did you come?"

  "What's wrong? Why can't I come? Don't you welcome me?"

  Zhang Yu walked from the entrance of the office area to the director's office, and all the way he saw a satisfactory scene, everyone was busy, but when he arrived at the director's office, he saw that the guy was holding two bullets, looking left and right, and it wasn't until he coughed that he woke up from his "dream".

  "I was just checking the bullets produced in our factory, wasn't I? Not long ago, I asked some senior technicians in the factory how to tell at a glance whether these bullets are qualified or not, but my old eyes have been looking for half a day and still can't figure out which of these two bullets is unqualified?" The director said, handing over two almost identical 7.62mm ordinary bullets to Zhang Yu.

  "You still think you're a high-level artisan? As a factory director, it's not good to manage production properly, what's the point of competing with these talented people?" Zhang Yu scolded, picked up the bullets and took a look at them himself. He usually goes to the underground shooting range of the armed forces department every day to practice shooting, and over the years, he has consumed tens of thousands of bullets, but it's really hard to tell which one is qualified.

  "Right, Commander. The factory's production line upgrade has been going on for some days now, why don't we go take a look?" The factory director didn't dare say that Zhang Yu also couldn't tell who was qualified, and quickly changed the subject, after getting approval, the two of them put down their guns and rushed to the factory area. "Commander, this stretch processing technology is particularly good,"

  The extension processing mentioned by the factory director refers to the production of parts with different shapes and wall thicknesses, which can be achieved by simply changing the shape and size of the mold. In the production of bullet shell casings, it refers to reducing the diameter and wall thickness of the steel cup formed from copper-plated steel strips or round steel. Previously, the People's Army Arsenal used single-mode extension processing, with a small amount of deformation in each processing step. After adopting multi-mode stamping, a larger deformation can be obtained in one stroke.

  Moreover, due to the extremely high requirements for precision and consistency in bullet production, the dimensions of parts are basically guaranteed by molds. Due to the large batch size, once a deviation occurs, it will result in the production of defective products. Therefore, there are very high requirements for mold manufacturing and installation. Every link must be strictly controlled, and once unqualified products are found, they should be eliminated immediately and the machine tool adjusted urgently. As a result, excellent technical workers in military factories are particularly outstanding.

  "A bullet shell production, feeding die, appearance inspection, annealing, acid washing, drawing, chamfering, and mouth expanding. The entire process is safe, so all use a pipeline operation. On the other side is our annealing treatment workshop, with their existence, can eliminate the cold work hardening caused by the violent deformation of the blank during processing. The next workshop is the acid washing room, to remove the oxide skin on the surface of the blank after annealing, this link is indispensable."

  Bulging is a special punching process in the production of cartridge cases, which is used to punch out the arc-shaped dimensions at the tip of the bullet. After processing, there is a certain amount of residue left at the tail of the cartridge case, which needs to be cut off with a cutting knife or removed with an ironing die. The latter can also use the inclined surface on the punching head to expand the mouth of the cartridge case, making it convenient for subsequent assembly of the bullet core and improving production efficiency and product size consistency.

  "Every day at dawn, my eyelids keep jumping until midnight. The reason they keep jumping is that every day the army, navy and air force, especially the army, from sunrise to sunset, have to shoot down so many bullets..."

  "I'm telling you, Old Chang, what's wrong with your heart? I haven't even said anything yet, and you're already getting anxious." Zhang Yu glared at Director Chang with anger in his eyes, then strolled around the factory area, taking a casual look. "I think you'd be delighted if the army arranged shooting drills every day, that would make the profits of those many munitions factories soar. But let me tell you upfront, I don't want to see any defective bullets being produced. If I get a dud in my hands, who's going to dare fire it?"

  When Zhang Yu arrived here, he was already sighing that the military expenditure has been increasing year by year. In fact, the increase in the People's Liberation Army's military expenditure is not large. The significant increase in the military budget for 22 and 23 years is due to the emergence of new branches, the Navy and Air Force are both in their growth period, requiring a lot of military spending for growth, regular training, equipment procurement, hardware construction, etc., all piled up with RMB. It's said that the consumption of bullets is very large, but in fact, its production cost is not high, it's just that the annual consumption is too much, so it's calculated to be extravagant.

  Especially the army attaches great importance to the shooting ability of soldiers, the most critical thing is not that the army sniper can reach this level, but every soldier is equipped with a pistol. The army has nine divisions and one rapid reaction brigade, with millions of troops, each with a pistol, making the scarce no longer ordinary rifle bullets, but also the consumption of pistol bullets "unacceptable". Even if the People's Army upgrades the production technology of its subordinate ordnance factories and adjusts the technical specifications of the ammunition, a single bullet does not cost much money, but after multiplying the large quantity, the result will obviously create a terrifying number. Therefore, it is said that without sufficient strength, it is impossible to maintain a high-quality army.