From the Hetman to the Shah [Ashinara - Seleucidenia]

[aimway921]

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ashinara would send a letter to Seleucidenia, requesting to establish diplomatic relations with the The Imperial Shahdom of Seleucidenia, one of the more powerful states in the Old World.

The topic of discussion requested in the first meeting between an Ashinaran ambassador and the Seleucidenian officials would be the purchase of small quantities of all models of small arms Seleucidenia has to offer, with the perspective of purchasing production licenses following said small arms' evaluation by the Ashinaran Royal Army.

[alxeu]

A letter of reply would be sent from the Seleucidenian Ministry of External Affairs, signed by the "Underminister in Charge of Diplomatic Relations."

It confirmed that if the Ashinarans wished to pursue an arms purchase from Seleucidenia, their ambassador and any necessary attaches would be invited to the port city of Escaraz in Kee Province, where they would be received by the Underminister and the 2nd Deputy Chief Quartermaster of the Seleucdenian Armed Forces to show off Seleucideni arms.

[aimway921]

From the reply the MFA recieved, it was apparent that the Seleucedinians to provide demonstrations in an effort to minimize the time between initial purchase and potential Ashinaran purchase of production licenses. For those reasons, in addition to the ambassador, Mikhail Vorbeshchenko, and his staff, Ashinara would also send Colonel Lavrentiy Izuchenko to review the weapons Seleucidenia had to offer.

[alxeu]

The Ashinarans would arrive in Escaraz, which, contrary to most reports regarding the developmental states of the cities of Seleucidenia, seemed every bit as modern and developed as the cities of Lusatia and Ulster-Gaelia. The city's grand harbor also hosted Seleucidenia's battleships, the Shah Isidor and the Indomitable. The two battleships appeared to be turn of the century designs retrofitted with better armoring and newer cannons.

Docking ashore, Ambassador Vorbeshchenko and Colonel Izuchenko were greeted by their Seleucidenian counterparts: a civilian (the Underminister) and a Lieutenant General. There stood a small squad of soldiers near a few trucks down by the road, who were likely the entire group's escort.

The Underminister stepped forward and offered a handshake, introducing himself. "Greetings, honored guests of His Imperial Majesty. I am Radin Borodin, from the Ministry of External Affairs, and I shall be representing the Shah for the duration of your stay here. My counterpart here is Lieutenant General Shaya Gretsky, one of the Army's Quartermasters. He's here, along with some of his subordinates, to provide demonstrations of our equipment whenever you are settled in."

Lt. Gen. Gretsky stood stoically through this introduction, only nodding briefly in affirmation of Borodin's words near the end.

Borodin continued, smiling that uncomfortable sort of smile only mid-level bureaucrats seemed capable of producing, "With that in mind, we would like to show you to the building reserved here in the city for your embassy, so that your staff can begin the process of setting things up while we can begin discussing business." 

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"Greetings to you as well, esteemed hosts," Vorbeshchenko said, as he accepted the handshake. "I am Mikhail Vorbeshchenko, and I shall be the Ashinaran ambassador to the Shahdom. My companion is Colonel Izuchenko of the Royal Army Research and Development Department."

"Let us proceed then," Vorbeschenko replied to the invitation to see the site of his future office.

[alxeu]

The convoy drove the diplomats to a location about a mile from the harbor and within sight of the Governor's palace. It was a bit away from the more exciting urban center, instead being located in a splattering of older developments of the early 19th century. However, the building the group arrived at was a newer one, looking, perhaps, purpose-built and brand new. It was a three story location with brick boundary walls to protect the property from trespassers. The first floor was made of brick, but the upper floors were wood-framed.

The entry courtyard was a well-irrigated grassy area with a few shrubs and a small, freshly-planted oak tree, but otherwise empty, waiting for the Ashinarans to decide how to present it.

"Apologies if the interior is rather empty," Borodin said as they walked across the grounds to the embassy's front doors. "The Ministry was uncertain as to how much of your own furnishings you were bringing with the initial delegation, and so opted for minimal necessary furnishings. There are sleeping accommodations, and a conference room on the first floor has a large enough table and chairs for a dozen, but if more is needed, or if you wish for those functions we've installed to be removed, we can cable Prince Luka's staff for whatever you need, within reason."

"Overall, we've reserved about an acre for your embassy, which is the standard for embassies on our territory. The actual building takes up about half of the property, but you have permission to expand it as necessary."

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"Your hospitality is greatly appreciated," Vorbeshchenko said, with a bow. "We shall have it up and running in a presentable way in a month's time, I'm sure. But now, as we leave our assistants to being setting things up and moving our things into the building, let's start discussing the main reason we're here.

Ashinara wishes to purchase smallarms for testing and potential licensing, as we pointed out in our initial letter to you. We're particularly interested in machine guns - both heavy and light - and pistols."

[alxeu]

Borodin nodded, "Aye, it's wise to focus on business. The range we intended to demonstrate our equipment at is just outside the city. There, we have every gun currently in service in our army."

"In terms of sidearms, we have two: the RC-Atash, a service pistol, and the RC-Asha, a revolver that is slowly being phased out of use. The pistol is far superior to the revolver, with a faster rate of fire, with even the downside of smaller caliber rounds being negated by the superior design and better machining put into it. However, we would have to manufacture your order rather than just export directly from our reserves. We've yet to build a surplus of the pistols, given the size of our army."

"Our heavy machine guns are of Lusatian and Ulster-Gaelian manufacture, and we aren't permitted to resell them without permission from their embassies to protect their industrial secrets. That permission would not be hard to obtain given Ashinara's relationship with Ulster-Gaelia, but it'd probably be better to ask those nations directly."

"Finally, our main light machine gun is the RC-LMG. The design sacrifices some rate of fire and magazine size for mobility and firepower. Lt. General Gretsky will go more into detail regarding it at the range."

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"We'll only be ordering a few dozen of them," Colonel Izuchenko said.
"And if our R&D brass green-lights them, we'd be interested in purchasing a production license. We're looking to replace our own revolver.

We're familiar with the Gaelian heavy MG, and aren't interested in it, while we have a similar mission as ourselves dispatched to Lusatia, so they'll take a look at the Lusatian MG there.

The light MG does look promising however... What are the prices for all of these?"

[alxeu]

"22 Jewels per pistol. 18 Jewels per pistol if you buy over 1000, seeing as how larger orders will take longer for us to fulfill. The LMG will run about 175 Jewels per weapon, it's expensive to manufacture for the equipment we currently operate our factories with. Licenses run 25 Jewels per pistol manufactured and 225 per LMG manufactured, if your nation has the right machinery to manufacture those."

[aimway921]

The Colonel and Vorbeshchenko looked at each other, almost puzzled. Never before have they heard of a licensing royalty cost higher than the product itself. As the Colonel's brows furrowed, getting ready to protest those prices, Vorbeshchenko quickly spoke up to avoid needless arguing.

"For a start, to make the evaluation if the weapons would even interest the Royal Army - which I'm hopeful they will - we shall purchase only a few dozen of each. But to select which models we'd be purchasing specifically, I am looking forward to the demonstration you have planned."

[alxeu]

Lt. General Gretsky spoke after this, clearly now his turn to take the lead.

"If you both are interested, the army base outside the city has a firing and test range just outside the premises of the base itself, where we can demonstrate the various weaponry we have on offer."

Inviting the Ashinarans for another drive, the group went on a moderately uncomfortable and bumpy ride through a hilly dirt road that, after about an hour and a half, finally brought them to the firing range. There, in the cold tundra, at a range where many targets behind various levels of cover and at various distances from the firing podium, the group came across a small squad of five soldiers, who saluted the Lt. General as he, the Underminister, and the Ashinarans approached.

"So," Gretsky said, "What would you like to have demonstrated first?"

[aimway921]

As they were riding to the range, Vorbeshchenko and the Colonel convened in Ashinaran.
"What do you think?" the Colonel asked the ambassador. "I personally am stunned by these outrageous prices. Who the hell sells licenses at a hire cost than the items themselves?"
"I'm sure we'll still be able to discuss the price. I believe they did it to encourage us buying directly from them instead of getting the license. In any case, I think we're almost here."

As they disembarked the vehicle, the Colonel returned the salute to the soldiers. Even though he was form a different nation, he was still a fellow soldier.

"Let's take a look at the handguns first," the Colonel said.

[alxeu]

Lt. General Gretsky nodded at the soldiers and two of them went to retrieve two different pistols. Turning to the Ashinarans as the Seleucidenian soldiers prepared to fire, he explained each pistol to them:

"The first pistol, wielded by Private Stefanovich on the left, is the unmodified RC-Atash. Sturdy gun, 9mm ammunition, fires 8 bullets from each magazine. Weighs only a couple of pounds. Most parts you can see externally are easily replaceable, though if you somehow damage the thing enough to break the internal mechanisms, you are better off getting another gun. You have an effective range around 150 feet, and the pistol itself is recoil-operated, no need to prime a hammer every time you wish to pull the trigger."

"Now, Private Hedayati over there is using a modified RC-Atash that supports a larger magazine and a few more experimental modifications to the gun's internal workings to enable a slightly faster fire rate. In the hands of the average soldier in a short timeframe, you are not likely to notice much of a performance increase, but testing with trained marksmen and longer tests indicate that these changes do have an impact in a protracted battle."

After this, Gretsky had a soldier offer the Ashinarans and the Underminister earmuffs to deaden the noise, before his next move.

The Lt. General turned back to the soldiers and began shouting in Seleucideni. A moment later, the first soldier began firing at the targets, apparently hitting 8 of the closer ones before reloading (taking about five seconds), before firing again at some middle distance targets and ceasing fire. Another soldier ran out to look at the middle-distance targets and shouted, "FIVE." This seemed to be expected, as the other soldiers nodded and grinned slightly as Private Stefanovich stepped down. The second soldier now fired, hitting the same 8 closest targets, but also firing off two more at middle range. He now reloaded (taking six-seven seconds, those larger magazines seemed a little clumsier to pull from one's hip), before firing at the remaining mid-range targets. His last four bullets were directed at the distant targets. Again, the mid-range targets were checked, and "SEVEN" was the result. A check of the four far off targets took a bit longer, but as the third soldier returned, he shouted, "ONE." At this, Private Hedayati turned around and grinned at his fellows, who congratulated him in Seleucideni as he returned to the group.

Gretsky turned back to the Ashinarans and stated, "That concludes the standard demonstration, is there anything else you need to see or hear regarding the pistols?"

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"How easy are they in maintenance?" Colonel Izuchenko asked. "Can each individual soldier fieldstrip and maintain them himself, or would they need to be gathered up by the unit's designated armorer?"

After getting an answer to the question, the Ashinarans would ask to review the Light Machine Gun.