Building What We Build Best - Guns! [Lusatia/Marrlan Diplo]

[alxeu]

Naroda Arms had weighed the pros and cons of who to cooperate with on weapons development and had quickly reduced the list to three nations:

1) Ulster-Gaelia, Lusatia's main ally and partner in arms development. Working with them would be more of the same.

2) Pomazanniki, one of the three main arms manufacturers of the world. Lusatia, however, didn't have much experience developing equipment with them, nor did any of Lusatia's allies.

3) Marrlan, the third main arms manufacturer of the world. Ulster-Gaelia had cooperated with them in the past, and the results were impressive. If they were willing to work with the UKUG, maybe they'd be willing to work with Lusatia?

A telegraph was sent from Lusatia to Marrlan regarding the subject:

To Pionare Wendy Kerss of the United Republic of Marrlan,

Naroda Arms is working on a armament contract for the United Kingdoms of Lusatia and Jzegrad and has been granted special permission to cooperate with one or more of your nation's companies on a project for a next generation service rifle. To this end, I am reaching out on behalf of the company and my nation to see if there is a reciprocate desire for mutual armament development.

Your nation has previously cooperated with our ally Ulster-Gaelia on other projects, and we were hoping that it would be agreeable to your nation to extend that cooperation to us, albeit in other fields. It should be obvious we have mutual threats on our borders that our partnership would enable us to better defend against.

Until a proper discussion of the project can be performed in person, I am hesitant to offer precise details on what type of weapon we are proposing (you never know who listens to these telegrams), but Naroda promises that the innovations it is working on will enable the next generation service rifle to easily outcompete all current generation rifles.

Should Marrlan desire further details, our consulate in your nation has been given clearance to discuss specifics of the proposed design and partnership details.

Yours,

Stefan Kaminski, Foreign Minister of the United Kingdoms of Lusatia and Jzegrad

[Artsy Astra]

A response would very quickly reach the hands of the Foreign Minister,

To Foreign Minister Stefan Kaminski of the United Kingdoms of Lusatia and Jzegrad,

We happily accept the opportunity to work with you, a friend of the UKUG is a friend of ours. 
I will request the assistance of Rolbeck Arms and Higgins Small Arms for this endeavor, and dispatch representatives from both companies as well as a representative from the DoD.

We look forward to the fruits of the endeavor.

Best Regards,
Pionare Wendy Kerss of the United Republic of Marrlan

Once a date and time were sent, the entourage would arrive promptly to begin talks.

[alxeu]

The Lusatian delegation to the meeting consisted of Foreign Minister Kaminski, the chief researcher of Naroda Arms, Leon Naroda (a cousin of the CEO), and a pair of officers from the Lusatian Army, both from Army R&D.

Kaminski was the first to speak on behalf of the Lusatians, welcoming the Marrlaners and saying, "Thank you all for agreeing to meet with us today. As of late, though there has been much innovation in weapons development in Lusatia, the combined efforts of the new Sovereign Union will likely leave our nation in the dust before too long, especially considering those governments are able to fund a lot more military R&D than public opinion in Lusatia would be willing to match. To that end, Naroda Arms had proposed during our planning of our nation's next generation rifle that we cooperate with Marrlan, one of the other premiere weapons manufacturers in Ouhiri, to develop a shared design to speed along the development of such a weapon faster than what any individual effort could accomplish."

At this, Leon Naroda stood up and pulled out what research notes his teams had already put together, and began explaining, "Naroda has been innovating with semi-automatic and automatic weaponry within Lusatia for some time now, and time is ripe for a true semi-automatic rifle for the wars of tomorrow. My team and I have done research into the designs of weaponry that Marrlan has been innovating on, and we were wishing to cooperate with your nation to continue innovating on modernizing our armaments, as many of your recent innovations that have been publicized are in the same direction our company has been working towards."

"Let's get what the government wants out of the way, first: initial design specifications per what the Lusatian government wants is a minimum magazine of 12 rounds, but the more that can be fit, the better. Obviously, if they're paying for a semi-automatic rifle, they expect to receive a semi-automatic rifle. They also want to continue using our current caliber, 7.62 mm, to minimize retooling at munitions factories. The design needs to be able to have a standard 12-inch bayonet attached at the end, and there's extra funding allocated for designing it to fit a scope and work for snipers. Foreign Minister Kaminski, here, has informed me that caliber is flexible providing its a decision we make early and then stick to throughout development, so if you dislike 7.62 mm, we can change that."

Leon paused to take a breath, "Sorry for dumping that on you all, but I figured getting a base of what everyone is looking for out of potential joint weapons development would make the rest of the process run smoother. What does Marrlan need out of a new rifle design?"

[Artsy Astra]

The Marrlan Entourage would consist of HFA Leia Korsky, John Rolbeck (CEO and head designer of Rolbeck Arms), Morgan Sheffield HWD, and as well 2 R&D officers from Aberdeen. Morgan would speak first, "We already have a semi-automatic rifle actually, we mostly just want second opinions on what soldiers might want out of a rifle for quality of life features in a later production model and to help an ally of an ally. We'd be fine with bringing out said current design to assist in the development and any previous prototypes should you wish. Though your mention of a sniper-specific variant might have us also pushing it into use for specialists. .30-06 would be ideal for something like that." He'd Gesture to John, "John here is the designer of our current Semi Automatic rifle and will be accompanying us during the whole process."

[alxeu]

Leon blinked for a bit, before responding, "Apologies, I was not aware you had completed your semi-automatic rifle designs. We had been under the impression that your nation had been working on these weaponry, not completed them. This is good news, at least. A working design means we can innovate on that rather than start from scratch and needing to settle on a suboptimal design. In exchange for utilizing Marrlan's designs, then, Lusatia will cover the R&D costs for this cooperation. Any and all expenses will be ours. If you want feedback from soldiery, we can requisition men from different units, specialists and regular army units, to test the weaponry and report on they like and dislike about the design. That's mainly what the Army R&D guys are here for, anyway."

Leon took the opportunity to shake hands with John Rolbeck and the other Marrlaners, "I'm looking forward to working with all of you."

[Artsy Astra]

They would all shake hands and say, "As do we." Soon after the Marrlan entourage begin discussing further details of the Rolbeck SAIR-31, even requesting a rifle from the local armory for disassembly and study.

[alxeu]

The Lusatians analyzed the gun and took note of the mechanisms and design of the rifle and its magazine. Leon would offer what notes the Lusatians had on the rifle.

"This is a well-built rifle, and though it wasn't expressly the purpose of our meeting and cooperation, I believe the Lusatian Army would be glad to purchase any excess production of these Rolbeck and Marrlan has to supplement and train our forces while a Lusatian semi-automatic rifle is designed and developed."

"On that note, in particular, Lusatia has a large army that will only grow larger in wartime conditions. The mechanism of the gun is fascinating and well-designed, but, admittedly, anything Lusatia would wish to manufacture in bulk will need to be of simpler design. We have plenty of factories and workers now, sure, but we need to be able to quickly reequip the army with anything new we develop and we need a large surplus for when a draft inevitably starts putting pressure on domestic industries and resource production."

[Artsy Astra]

John Rolbeck himself would nod before speaking, "A short or long stroke recoil mechanism is quite cheap with less of the maintenance issues of a direct gas blowback system." He'd say partially zoned out as he scribbled some notes and doodles in a notepad he produced from his pocket. "I'd recommend it for your more simple production requirements." One of the R&D officers chimed in shortly after, "Hell, we could even base it on another weapons receiver and bolt mechanism to ease production and development costs further."

"As for stopgap rifles-" Morgan Interjected, "-we could provide 5,000 SAIR's, as well we could bring over some experienced men to assist in familiarization and training if you'd like."

[alxeu]

Naroda mulled the idea over before nodding, "That mechanism sounds right for our needs. I can provide you all with our small arms designs to see if any can be converted and utilized for this design."

"As for the equipment purchase, that's also quite welcome and I'm sure my government would be happy to host some Marrlan experts to demonstrate the weaponry."