Chapter 319: Ludwig: I Grew Machine Guns on My Shoulders?

After the full-regiment joint practice ended, the air in the Koblenz base lost some of its previous tension but gained a dull restlessness.

That feeling was like a pack of young wolves that had just tasted blood, lying in their den licking their claws and teeth, waiting for the next hunt.

And Morin didn’t give the troops too much time to rest. Since problems were exposed in the exercise, they had to be corrected while the iron was hot.

So many subsequent training contents were also adjusted based on the numerous problems exposed in the joint practice.

At the same time, Morin’s gaze also fixed on those three Armored Knights and their matching Knight Squires.

In the camp’s dedicated Armored Knight maintenance area, blue-white sparks spewed from early welding torches illuminated the dim space intermittently. The pungent smell of burnt metal mixed with the smell of engine oil formed a unique industrial atmosphere.

Ludwig stood under the maintenance platform with his head held high, watching his exclusive mount, which was originally beautifully painted, now suffering a torture called “modification.”

This elite knight from the Teutonic Knights couldn’t help but twitch the corner of his eye twice.

“I say, Morin…”

Ludwig pointed at the Magitech Technicians working amidst the sparks, his tone full of heartache and incomprehension.

“Although I said I’d listen to your command since I came to the instruction unit—isn’t this a bit too crude?”

“Crude?”

Morin, holding a greasy blueprint in his hand and biting a half-eaten apple, walked out from behind a temporary workbench.

He looked up and down at the steel giant undergoing modification in front of him and nodded with satisfaction.

“This is called pragmatism aesthetics.”

Morin stuffed the blueprint into Ludwig’s arms and continued: “Besides, you admitted yourself that the biggest shortcoming of this thing on the battlefield is its short reach. Aren’t I helping you make your hands longer now~”

Ludwig opened his mouth, but finally couldn’t refute.

This situation did appear in previous actual battles and the exercise just ended.

Although the infantry cover was good, when charging into enemy infantry clusters, he indeed had a suffocating feeling of having strength but unable to use it.

“So, I added a ‘small gift’ for you.”

Morin pointed to both sides of the Armored Knight’s head.

At this time, two welders wearing goggles just stopped working.

On both sides of the head of this “Siegfried Type 1,” above the “scapula” position, two ugly, black metal brackets suddenly appeared.

And on the brackets, two MG08 Heavy Machine Guns, with their heavy tripods removed and only the core gun body structure retained, hung there like two hyperplastic tumors.

Because the head structure of the Armored Knight originally couldn’t rotate, although the driver could obtain a 180-degree field of view through the perception crystal on the head, if they wanted to look in other directions, they had to move the machine itself.

So the two heavy machine guns welded on, with only the gun body structure left, wouldn’t affect the field of view.

But this styling, to be honest, was indeed quite far from the traditional aesthetic of Armored Knights…

However, it added a ferocious sense of a war machine to these steel giants.

“Wait, are you sure this will work?”

Ludwig looked at those two machine guns, feeling his aesthetic view impacted unprecedentedly.

“Moreover, installed in this position, how do I aim? I can’t stick my head out.”

“Who told you to aim with your eyes?”

Morin patted the thick leg armor of the Armored Knight, then winked at Ludwig.

“Go up and try. I had someone connect the trigger linkage device to your Magitech Muscle Bundles.”

Ludwig climbed into the cockpit half-believingly.

As the heavy hatch closed, the familiar magical hum sounded.

Ludwig also skillfully activated “Synchro Operation,” transforming himself into a steel demon god once again.

However, the moment the connection was completed, his whole body shook violently.

An extremely weird feeling was transmitted to his brain along the nerves.

He felt as if two heavy “organs” had grown out of thin air above his shoulders.

The feeling of a foreign object was very strong, but he tried to control his “shoulder muscles” like shrugging, and those two “organs” seemed to really give feedback.

“Feel it?” Morin’s voice came in through the pickup.

“Very—strange.” Ludwig’s voice sounded somewhat awkward, “That trigger device—how on earth did you connect it?”

“This is the masterpiece of your Magitech Technicians. I just proposed an idea; ask them when you have a chance~”

To solve the problem of firing control, Morin didn’t make any complicated electronic buttons but let the technicians directly connect the mechanical firing device into the Magitech Muscle Bundles of the Armored Knight’s shoulder and neck area.

“As long as you imagine shrugging your shoulders, or forcefully contracting the trapezius muscles, you can fire.” Morin explained, “Just like you feel two extra muscles grew on your shoulders.”

“This feeling sucks—as if something extra grew on my shoulders.”

Ludwig complained, but still tried to move a bit.

“Da da da—!”

The heavy machine gun on the left spewed out a tongue of fire without warning. Bullets hit the distant earthen slope, kicking up a string of dust.

“Oh! Damn it!” Ludwig was startled, and the machine shook violently, “This is too sensitive!”

“You’ll get used to it. This is called ‘Human-Machine Integration’.” Morin laughed happily, “From now on, this is your secondary weapon. When reaping infantry at close range, you don’t need to sweep foolishly with a greatsword.”

Although complaining verbally, Ludwig had to admit that this design indeed greatly compensated for the shortcoming of insufficient long-range firepower of Armored Knights.

In the past, facing infantry groups, he could only rely on collision and cold weapons, with extremely low efficiency.

Now with these two heavy machine guns, the lethality of Armored Knights against any infantry daring to approach was incomparable.

However, new problems were soon exposed.

Since the heavy machine guns were hard-connected to both sides of the head and had no independent sights, Ludwig could only adjust the shooting direction by turning his upper body.

Plus the bumps when the Armored Knight moved, hitting the target basically relied entirely on faith and suppressive fire.

“I can’t see the impact point!”

After trying mobile shooting a few times, Ludwig shouted somewhat annoyedly: “Unless the enemy stands still for me to shoot, this thing is just a big firework!”

Morin rubbed his chin. He had anticipated this problem long ago.

To correct the trajectory in this era, the most intuitive method was only one—visual observation.

“Don’t worry, Ludwig, I will let you see the impact point!”

That night, Morin burrowed into his office and started “developing technology” again.

And what he wanted to develop this time was the Tracer Bullet specifically used to correct trajectory.

In this world, although the chemical industry was already quite developed, no one had specially researched this little gadget of filling luminous agents at the tail of the warhead.

After all, most engagement distances were relatively close now, and automatic weapons hadn’t been popularized to this extent, so the demand for trajectory correction wasn’t that urgent.

In the world before his transmigration, this kind of ammunition was invented by the British almost next year—that is, 1915. But right now, Morin couldn’t wait that long.

Plus he was too familiar with the structure of tracer bullets, so in just one day, he lit up [Tracer Bullet Technology] in the [Technology] tab.

Next was the old operation: asking Cecilia to help apply for a patent, and then commissioning Mauser to carry out small-batch production at his own expense.

Having settled the needs of the big guys, Morin didn’t stop.

His gaze turned to those Knight Squires wearing power armor beside the Armored Knights.

These elite warriors were originally equipped with a heavy shield and a war hammer or other cold weapons.

In close combat at the infantry level, they were indeed invincible existences.

But in Morin’s view, this was simply a waste of heavenly treasures.

A group of “Budget” Astartes and Master Chiefs, and you let them only hold cold weapons?

So Morin specially “mooched” a batch of lightweight MG08s from the Army Department, which were originally issued to those “Plate Armor Supermen” of the General’s Guard.

Although called lightweight, it only removed the heavy tripod, added a buttstock and some other components; the weight was still touching.

It was basically impossible for ordinary soldiers to charge carrying this thing.

But for Knight Squires with power armor assistance, this bit of weight really didn’t count for anything…

So the Magitech Technicians also quickly modified a batch of mechanical components dedicated to power armor for these squires, and Morin couldn’t wait to start increasing the firepower of these power armors.

“Turn the back rack around.” Morin said to one of the squires.

That Knight Squire turned around, revealing the modified metal slide rail on his back.

Morin picked up a heavy machine gun and, under the guidance of Magitech Technicians, clicked it into the fixed structure on the slide rail with a “click” sound effect.

“Try it.”

That squire nodded, holding a shield in his right hand, reaching back with his left hand to grab the grip added on the side of the machine gun, and sliding forward with the momentum.

Accompanied by a burst of smooth mechanical sliding sound, that heavy machine gun originally hanging on the back slid directly under his left ribs along the slide rail.

The gun body was firmly fixed to the waist side by the slide rail, forming a stable shooting platform.

The squire held the trigger with his left hand, his right hand still steadily holding the tower shield, protecting most of his body behind the shield.

“This is the new toy I give you.”

Morin patted that thick water-cooling jacket.

“When encountering enemies in the future, don’t rush up to chop first. Use this thing to give them a bath first. Even those heavy armored soldiers can’t withstand heavy machine gun burst fire… If anyone can survive the rain of bullets and rush in front of you—”

Morin grinned, revealing white teeth: “At that time, you use shields and war hammers to teach them a lesson.”