Chapter 57: Lelouch Dares to Sign the Papers Others Fear to Touch

In later generations during World War II, there was a gigantic 800-millimeter caliber railway gun named "Gustav," in memory of the former Krupp owner who shared the same name.

However, it was only the year 1914, so Gustav Krupp was still alive, operating as a robust industrialist in his early forties.

On the morning of December 26th, Lelouch and Major von Bock met this energetic gentleman at the Krupp company headquarters in Düsseldorf.

Given Gustav’s prominent status in the industry, his interactions with the military had always been restricted to the highest echelons.

Normally, if a junior officer visited—even carrying a letter of introduction from Crown Prince Rupprecht—he would simply have the managing director in charge of specific operations receive them.

Early that morning, however, he had received a phone call directly from the Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

"I have a nephew serving in a pilot unit on the front lines. The young man has quite a few ideas and frequently throws my name around to do as he pleases. Given my busy schedule, I cannot always keep him in check. He might visit your honorable company today. Mr. Gustav, please treat him strictly by the book and do not worry about sparing my feelings."

His Excellency the Chief of the General Staff remained as selfless as ever, but Gustav still instructed his servant to prepare a meticulously pressed formal suit, carefully groomed his mustache, and sent his personal chauffeur to pick them up at the railway station.

At ten o'clock in the morning, Gustav's chauffeur arrived carrying Lelouch and von Bock.

Standing over a dozen paces away, Gustav watched the two step out of the vehicle before stepping forward to greet them, taking the opportunity to observe.

The young man who stepped out first looked to be just over twenty, yet he already wore the rank of captain. Although the man who followed was a major, he was at least in his mid-thirties, clearly appearing less promising than the young captain.

Furthermore, the captain was tall, upright, and handsome, standing one hundred and eighty-eight centimeters with deep brownish-black hair. Most striking of all were his distinct dual-colored eyes—one red and one blue—though his physique was somewhat lean.

All in all, he projected an aura of absolute confidence, natural leadership, and powerful charisma.

This involuntarily drew a welcoming smile to Gustav’s face while simultaneously inspiring a sense of solemn respect within him.

The moment Lelouch caught the other’s expression and posture, he realized the man had undoubtedly mistaken his identity. He subtly shifted aside by a fraction and took the opportunity to introduce:

"Mr. Gustav, it is a true pleasure to meet you. This is Major von Bock, commander of the 6th Army’s pilot assault battalion. I am merely the deputy battalion commander, Captain Lelouch vi Britannia."

Gustav experienced a brief moment of disorientation, feeling a secret sense of embarrassment, and hurriedly shook hands with both of them.

After brief pleasantries, the two parties quickly turned to the main topic.

Initially, Gustav assumed Major von Bock must be the principal guest, and that any new ideas the military wished to propose ought to originate from Bock himself.

Although Lelouch spoke a great deal, he likely served merely as a mouthpiece to deliver reports for his superior.

However, as the conversation progressed, Gustav realized that Major von Bock did not seem to possess many unique insights regarding the "railway gun" proposal...

On the contrary, Captain Lelouch spoke fluently and comprehensively throughout the discussion, directly providing personal explanations whenever questions arose without needing to consult his superior.

Only then did it dawn on Gustav: the Chief of the General Staff’s nephew was merely here to pad his resume and gild his credentials. The genuine idea had originated entirely from this confident, decisive, and commanding young man...

Meanwhile, Lelouch had already finished stating his objectives and requirements: "...Therefore, that is the situation. The commanders of the two armies currently engaged in fierce combat at the front unanimously agree that the empire urgently requires a heavy artillery piece capable of rapid mobility and rapid deployment via railway, serving in the role of a 'flexible mobile coastal defense gun.'

Because if the imperial army continues to press forward, it will soon face the English Channel and the enemy's superior fleet. Unless we can provide a flexibly deployable heavy gun capable of creating an 'area denial' deterrent against enemy battleships, the army will never be able to secure a foothold in key coastal port cities, let alone conduct sieges under heavy bombardment.

The General Staff has also evaluated the practical demands of the 4th and 6th armies. These requirements have been paid for in the blood and lessons of actual combat, and are by no means mere fantasies. Therefore, I earnestly request that the Krupp company attach utmost importance to this, accelerating research, development, and trial production with the highest priority."

The final part of Lelouch's report mentioned the General Staff's evaluation.

It was precisely at this point that Major von Bock finally broke his silence, speaking sparingly to corroborate that such matters were indeed factual.

Indeed, this very evaluation had been approved by his own maternal uncle.

Hearing that the General Staff had already approved it, Gustav couldn't help but inwardly mutter to himself: General von Falkenhayn is truly something... Clearly, he had personally signed and approved it, yet just earlier he told me to "proceed strictly by the book" and mentioned that "young people have too many wild ideas."

"I see. It appears this is indeed extremely urgent. We at Krupp will do our utmost to respond at the fastest possible speed. In fact, after receiving the call yesterday, I already had someone begin organizing the relevant data."

Gustav hastily expressed his stance to demonstrate respect for the army's requirements. As he spoke, he gestured for his secretary to retrieve a set of documents, which he then spread across the desk to explain directly to Lelouch and von Bock.

"In the early years, the Krupp company developed and produced armored trains, so the carriages pose little problem. We merely need to modify the structure slightly and add a few support legs to resist the recoil of a giant cannon. This portion can be completed within one to two weeks.

The part that truly takes time is equipping the cannon with custom-designed elevation and shell-loading mechanisms. Since you want speed, developing a brand-new artillery piece from scratch is undoubtedly impossible. The quickest method is to directly transfer existing battleship main guns or coastal defense guns onto an armored train.

However, the hydraulic rotation and elevation mechanisms on battleships and coastal defense guns are far too cumbersome and cannot be applied to a railway gun. On a train, hydraulics must be converted to electric drives. Because electric motors have lower output, the barrel elevation speed will be several times slower than that of naval guns.

Similarly, the shell-loading mechanism must also utilize electric cranes. For smaller calibers, one could rely on human labor combined with multiple mechanical advantage pulleys, which would be more flexible, but slower in loading speed—we had our engineers conduct a preliminary analysis and sort through the pros and cons of these technical trade-offs yesterday after hearing your requirements."

Gustav wished to avoid taking detours, so he laid out the technical routes directly at the outset.

This way, as long as the military representatives nodded and selected a route, the military would have no grounds to complain about performance shortcomings in the subsequent product manufactured along that path.

After all, this was the scheme they had chosen themselves.

Major von Bock had never experienced such an occasion and had never participated in weapon procurement projects, leaving him momentarily bewildered. He looked toward Lelouch, hoping the latter would make the decision.

This micro-expression did not escape Gustav's notice, further convincing him that Lelouch was the true expert.

Often, when the upper echelons of the army put forward certain demands, the actual formulators of the specifications were mid-level deputies or section chiefs, while the superiors understood little of the specific technical details.

Of course, this was also because the project was exceptionally urgent. Normally, standard procedures would require repeated meetings and deliberations, leaving no room for Lelouch to make executive decisions directly.

With the opportunity placed before him, Lelouch did not decline: "Mr. Gustav is truly experienced and worthy of being an industry leader. What the Empire needs is precisely a railway gun utilizing purely electric elevation and shell-loading.

An electric layout offers greater flexibility, eliminating the need to cram everything into a single carriage. We can allocate one carriage for generators and electric cranes, another for the artillery piece, and a third for the locomotive. Three cars per gun, connected temporarily with cables when deployed."

As a seasoned military enthusiast and an electrical automation major in his past life, Lelouch possessed solid fundamental engineering literacy and understood the major trends in technological history.

The greatest advantage of electric drives over hydraulic and mechanical transmissions is their distributed flexibility, requiring fewer rigidly connected, integrated components.

When there is time in the future for mass production, we can find ways to strive for perfection and iron out systems with higher overall efficiency. But for the short-term pursuit of a simple, crude prototype, the current approach is the best.

As for the "human labor combined with multiple mechanical advantage pulleys for shell-loading" mentioned by Gustav, it was clearly a form of "cutting corners," unnecessarily sacrificing performance for the sake of convenience.

Lelouch directly dismissed this point, signaling to Gustav that he knew his craft.

Seeing how knowledgeable he was, Gustav dared not hold anything back and quickly said:

"Since that is the case, please sign these project initiation requirement documents. Only when the military's requirements are explicit can we take action. Furthermore, since we have chosen the purely electric elevation and shell-loading scheme, we will also need cooperation from Siemens."

Had someone else come today, they might not have dared to sign so decisively.

Lelouch, however, had no such fears. He knew that as long as the gun was built quickly and achieved merit in actual combat, no one would mind the decision-making process.

With a strong sense of responsibility, he pulled out his fountain pen and signed his name with fluid strokes:

"Regarding Siemens, you draft the application first, and I will procure the coordination letter. I am quite familiar with Siemens—just last month, commissioned by the Crown Prince, I established a project with them to develop portable radios.

That project was quite successful; frontline assault units can now precisely call for rear artillery support, which played no small part in the victory at Ypres."

Lelouch subtly showcased his previous "military-industrial project initiation accomplishments," prompting Gustav to view him with even greater reverence.

He actually possessed verifiable combat achievements! No wonder the superiors trusted him so deeply.

With the conversation having reached this point, Gustav held back nothing further. He pulled a blueprint from the desk and spread it out:

"Actually, we previously attempted something similar to the purely electric elevation and shell-loading scheme you desire. In mid-October, right after the conclusion of the Siege of Antwerp, the General Staff submitted a request to us. The original plan was that once we captured Dunkirk and Calais, we would be able to bombard Dover across the channel, thereby intimidating the British populace and compelling them to sue for peace.

At the time, we had four 380-millimeter 45-caliber main guns originally intended for the battleship *Bavaria*, but the battleship's construction was delayed and they were temporarily unused, so we repurposed them for testing.

When used on a battleship, the maximum elevation of this gun was only 20 degrees, because any higher would make the turret too tall, present too large a target area, and interfere with the superfiring double-turret layout. The theoretical maximum range was also restricted to a mere 27 kilometers.

Therefore, to strike across the channel, when we transplanted it onto a railway mount, we completely removed the maximum elevation limit. On the train, this gun can be elevated to between 45 and 50 degrees, achieving a maximum range of 46 kilometers—enough to hit the port of Dover on the opposite side of the channel from the port of Calais.

However, the cost is a drastic reduction in rate of fire. On a battleship, it could fire twice a minute; on a railway mount, it takes five minutes to fire a single round—slower by a full factor of ten. The primary bottleneck is actually not the shell hoist, but the barrel elevation mechanism.

It is impossible to reload the main gun on a train at a steep angle; after firing a shot, it must be lowered back down, or at least returned to a near-flat position. Lowering the barrel and raising it back to the firing angle takes three and a half minutes each time, and with fine-tuning and calibration, it adds up to four to five minutes.

That is why we initially considered a manual pulley system for the shell hoist; accelerating the loading phase electrically was meaningless when the bottleneck was stuck at the elevation phase."