I want to be emperor

Chapter 1120 Nondescript offshore frigate

The Dachu Empire's navy is developing new first-class battleships and second-class battleships with unified main guns, as well as unified fire control technology. The technological advancements in these battleship equipment are all due to the advancement of the Dachu Empire's industrial technology.

With the development and progress of the basic industrial technology of the Dachu Empire, it also directly affected the development of many military equipment.

For example, the development of electromagnetic communication technology has allowed the military to use wired telegraphy. This year, wireless telegraphy was developed. At the same time, the telephone system is barely usable. This trinity of communication technology plays a huge role in the military.

Efficient and timely battlefield communications can greatly enhance combat effectiveness, allowing three or even five points of combat effectiveness to be realized from one point of combat effectiveness.

New equipment that has also entered the military with the rapid development of technology include airships and future aircraft... Let alone airships, their role is still relatively limited, but aircraft have a greater role.

As the five major automobile companies have successively entered the aircraft industry, the five major automobile companies, no, the five major aircraft companies have all come up with their own design plans, and these design plans are basically for military orders.

The military has made it clear that it will launch a tender for military aircraft projects within this year. It is expected to purchase a variety of different types of aircraft for different military missions, such as reconnaissance aircraft for reconnaissance missions, transport aircraft for emergency transportation, communication and other tasks, etc. Bombers for bombing missions, and training aircraft for training missions.

It is estimated that the total purchase quantity may reach more than two hundred aircraft!

And airplanes these days are not cheap... Don't look at the fact that the current airplane is just a steel frame, a wooden frame, and a skin. At first glance, it seems very simple and worthless, but although other things are indeed worthless, the engine inside is very Dear.

According to estimates, a single-engine, two-seat training and reconnaissance aircraft is estimated to cost around 15,000 Chu Yuan... If it is a long-range aircraft with two engines, it will be even more expensive.

In other words, the military is expected to purchase two hundred aircraft of various types, and the purchase cost of the aircraft and spare parts alone will be three to four million yuan.

These three to four million Chu yuan are only the first batch of purchases in the early stage.

This procurement plan is timely for the fledgling aviation industry... It is even an exaggeration to say that today's military orders are the only large-scale orders that may exist in the aircraft industry...

As for civilian commercial use, it is too early... The performance of current aircraft is too primitive, safety is not to be mentioned, and they do not have much transportation capacity... That is to say, the military is interested in the long-distance aerial reconnaissance capabilities of current aircraft.

However, for private commercial use, except for a few administrative agencies that purchase a few aircraft to perform tasks such as map surveying, the others are basically not used.

As for passenger transport... if you give people money, they will not dare to fly on your plane.

Traveling by plane these days is life-threatening...

But no matter what, the improvement of the empire's industrial technology has brought great improvements to military technology. Even aircraft are already in the planning and equipment.

As for other conventional military projects, there are more. The artillery and firearms of the Chu Empire have been continuously upgraded... Let’s not talk about the firearms for now, but let’s talk about the artillery. Although the artillery equipped in the Chu army is rear-mounted Rifled artillery, but the breech-loading rifled artillery in the Chu army has also been upgraded several times.

Take the division's main field artillery, the 75mm field artillery, as an example. The earliest one was the 32-year-old 75th field artillery. Later, several upgraded and improved sub-models appeared, but the difference is not too big. , after entering the 1940s, with the further improvement of industrial technology, especially the application of electrification in the field of military production, the military also officially put into service a newer generation of 42-year-old Type 75 field guns.

The Type 42 Type 75 field gun uses a 27-fold barrel. The maximum range can still reach six thousand meters under the premise of controlling the weight. However, this artillery still uses shells filled with black powder propellant... But even if In this way, this model is actually still widely equipped with the main force of the Chu army on a large scale.

In fact, even the earliest 32-year-old field artillery and several of its improved sub-models are still in large-scale service in the Chu army.

Although they have retired from the A-class and B-class troops, some are still serving in the C-class garrison, some have been handed over to the Foreign Legion, and some have been sealed.

Artillery has a pretty long service life... After all, it's such a big piece of iron. As long as you don't use it too frequently and the barrel's lifespan expires, it's actually very difficult to wear it out. Although artillery technology has been upgraded, Even the earliest 32-year-old Type 75 field gun is still a killer weapon on the battlefield, so even if its performance cannot keep up, it cannot be thrown away or simply sold.

The Chu people were even thinking about whether they could export their 11mm repeating rifles to make money... but rifled artillery had never been exported to indigenous vassal countries, and they had never even thought about it.

Of course, no matter what, these early rifled annealing guns in the black powder era have lagged behind the times, especially in the context of the era when the Navy has almost universally popularized rapid-fire guns, and the Army can't help but want to engage in rapid-fire Shot.

With the successful development of smokeless gunpowder in the late 1940s, the rapid-fire guns led by the Navy during this period also gradually improved, and the cost was greatly reduced. The Army also proposed a plan to develop rapid-fire guns in response to these circumstances.

After some bidding, the military finalized a new generation of 75mm rapid-fire artillery series developed by Hebei Arms Company, namely the Type 51 field gun and the Type 51 mountain gun...

In fact, these two gadgets can be regarded as a series, because they are both based on the rapid-fire gun technology developed by Hebei Arms Company. Except for the different barrel lengths, the two are highly consistent.

It uses hydraulic spring tube withdrawal technology. This thing was developed by Hebei Arms Company... This thing is actually not that good, but it is cheap... During the same period, Jiangnan Arms Company came up with something more advanced. Water pressure suppression technology was originally developed for naval guns, but the cannons produced by Jiangnan Weapon Company have always been very expensive...

During the official bidding last year, the design plan presented by Jiangnan Weapon Company was absolutely top-notch in terms of performance, light weight, and extremely fast fire rate that could even reach fifteen rounds per minute. However, the price was also top-notch, costing a full 10,000 yuan. Eight thousand Chu Yuan... And the Hebei Weapons Company's design has a maximum rate of fire of only eight rounds per minute, but the price is only six thousand Chu Yuan!

The price difference between the two is three times.

The top military officials went crazy to buy such expensive gadgets...

So in the end, the military chose the Hebei Weapons Company's design as the basic solution for the next generation of new rapid-fire guns... Of course, the army's top brass just wanted to make a transition and wait until the Jiangnan Weapons Company's hydraulic pressure to reduce the cost of the technical solution. Once it is lowered, abandon Hebei Arms Company’s junk hydraulic spring technology solution.

Well, this is also the consistent tradition of the Army. It always wants the best, but is reluctant to spend money, and then it will come up with a lot of so-called temporary transition plans... Many of the temporary transition fee plans change as they go. It became the main equipment.

The Army's top brass was not satisfied with the Type 24 rifle back then, and even the Type 27 rifle that is now the main force. They were all intended to serve as temporary transitional weapons... But unfortunately, these two rifles have arrived. In the end, they became the core main rifles of the Army. Instead, the Type 26 rifles and Type 28 rifles that the Army valued became backup.

The Type 51 rapid-fire gun series is also in such a situation.

Many generals at the top level of the army do not like this kind of artillery from the bottom of their hearts... They all want the rapid-fire artillery from Jiangnan Weapons Company.

But you have to use it even if you don’t like it... The Army, Marine Corps, and armed tax police have all purchased and equipped the 51-type rapid-fire cannon on a large scale.

However, the Guards are an exception...the army, marines, and armed tax police can only use the 51-type rapid-fire cannon due to many factors such as cost and unified logistics.

But the Guards will not consider these things. The Guards' military strategy is relatively independent, and they are not short of money, so they will always purchase the most advanced products, as long as they need to achieve unified logistics of artillery shells.

Because the potential combat targets of the Guards have never been the indigenous people, but the army and navy... Therefore, the Guards has always been pursuing the goal of surpassing the army and navy in terms of equipment.

If you can't beat it in terms of scale, then you should pursue it in terms of performance.

Therefore, in the era of rapid-fire cannons, the Guards purchased equipment from rapid-fire cannons developed and produced by Jiangnan Weapons Company. Its official military number was the 52-year-old rapid-fire cannon. .

According to the imagination of the senior generals of the Guards, in the field of division-level field artillery, a division-affiliated artillery regiment using this advanced rapid-fire gun must suppress at least two army division-affiliated artillery regiments in terms of firepower.

According to this fantasy, the Guards are also equipped with divisional 105mm howitzers that are not found in the army...

Traditionally, the divisional artillery regiments in the Chu Army use 75mm field guns and mountain guns. Depending on the nature of the mission and the deployment area, the equipment ratios of the two are different... but they are both types of artillery. .

However, at the beginning of this year, the Guards abandoned the 75-mm mountain cannon in the division artillery regiment and replaced it with a larger-caliber 105-mm howitzer.

This howitzer is also a rapid-fire artillery product of Jiangnan Weapons Company. What stands out is its explosive performance and price.

In fact, Jiangnan Weapons Company's series of counter-attack artillery pieces have traditionally only had one customer, the Guards, for a long time... because only the Guards would buy such expensive artillery.

For example, the 120mm rapid-fire cannon developed by Jiangnan Weapons Company in the 1940s... This thing is a modified version of a naval gun. Think about it, this is a rapid-fire cannon directly modified from a naval gun. How can it be cheaper... So the Army looked at it They were very coveted but did not want to sell them. In the end, the Guards purchased dozens of them as a new generation of military-level long-range support artillery.

The same situation exists with the 150mm howitzer! Up to now, in addition to mortars and 70mm infantry guns, the artillery used in the Guards is basically a new generation of barrel artillery produced by Jiangnan Weapons Company... Although the number of equipment is not large, but The performance definitely stabilizes a large part of the rapid-fire artillery plan promoted by the Army.

Of course, there is a lot of money spent behind this... That is the special nature of the Guards. In addition to regular military expenses, its military expenses can also be paid directly from the royal family's funds.

In many cases, the replacement of new equipment is allocated from royal funds, so the funding flexibility is relatively large.

Regardless of the Guards, the Army, the Marine Corps, or the armed tax police, these four major services have actually fully entered the era of rapid-fire artillery... It's just that there are currently relatively few rapid-fire artillery equipment, even the Army's. There are more peripheral equipment, but there are only two or three hundred of them now, and they are still far from being popularized by the entire army.

Reinstalling artillery is much more difficult than reinstalling rifles.

Because artillery is too expensive, a cheap 51-year-old field gun costs more than 6,000 yuan... The expensive 52-year field gun costs more than 18,000 yuan... To be honest, it is too expensive Well, even if the military has deep pockets, it won't be able to equip much equipment for a while. It will also need to wait for time to pass, and the technology costs will gradually decrease and then the procurement costs will be reduced, so that it can purchase equipment on a large scale.

It's not like firearms are very cheap. Even the latest eight-millimeter smokeless repeating rifle, the Type 27 rifle, only costs more than ten yuan.

Compared to the thousands of Chu Yuan's artillery pieces, rounding up is equivalent to free money.

Of course, even if the replacement is slow, the military is still steadily advancing the equipment of rapid-fire artillery. After all, this new weapon has appeared on the battlefield. Compared with the old black powder rack-fired cannon, it has a huge performance advantage, and it has the military deterrence ability of indigenous countries. Stronger.

This will help the Chu Empire continue to maintain a significant lead in military technology over the indigenous countries.

This kind of leadership is not a technological gap within the same generation, but a technological gap that lasts two or even three generations.

Nowadays, indigenous countries in various countries use front-loading smoothbore cannons produced by themselves or imported from Chu State. In terms of technical level, it can probably reach the level during the Napoleonic Wars. It is a generation behind the early breech-loading rifled cannons. , and compared with rapid-fire cannons, that is the technical gap between the two generations.

This gap in technological levels is enough to make these indigenous countries despair... and thus unable to think of any head-on resistance.

This is the effect that the Chu Empire hopes to see!

In fact, the most important function of these weapons of mass destruction is not to be used directly on the battlefield, but to be displayed for potential enemies to see and tell them clearly: Give up your unrealistic fantasies, or I will You explode to the sky!

However, these situations are an exception for the Navy... because the Navy has already achieved the extent of making the indigenous people of various countries give up their illusions many years ago.

Compared with fighting on the ground, the natives with bows, arrows, and flintlocks were able to use the terrain and other conditions to carry out actual resistance, and even caused actual damage to the Chu army... Over the years, the foreign legions have also used rifled weapons, but Still from time to time, they would be resisted by the indigenous resistance forces and suffer losses.

However, in terms of combat effectiveness at sea, the indigenous sail warships have no hope...

With steam engines and rifled guns... even the earliest steam ships and early rifled guns, the navy could easily defeat the sail navies of the indigenous peoples of various countries... in a way that made them desperate and even incomprehensible.

And premature invincibility has also led the navy's warship development to embark on a rather strange path, that is, it no longer pursues firepower, protection and maneuverability like the navies of other countries in the original time and space, but maintains a certain level of On the premise of firepower, protection and mobility, we pursue low cost, battery life, and living space.

Of course, performance is still pursued in the top battleships, because this thing is the backbone of the country, and the battleships seem to be awesome, but the number is too small... Even a single ship is very expensive, but the number is very small!

Among the large number of ocean-going ships actually used, the navy generally pursues cost-effectiveness... This is true for both cruisers and frigates, and even offshore patrol ships and inland river gunboats are no exception.

Design and construction began in the 1940s, including the new generation of non-main battleships designed and built now, all of which are cost-effective products.

Moreover, some ship types that may appear strange to future generations have also begun to appear.

The most typical one should be the Yongding-class offshore frigate designed and developed by the Navy in the late 1940s, launched in the 51st year of Chengshun, and will be commissioned this year!

How do you say this thing? Although it bears the name of a frigate, it is not a traditional frigate... The traditional frigates of the Dachu Empire do not have the word "offshore" in front of them... Because from the beginning, in the Imperial Navy, A frigate is a kind of ocean-going auxiliary warship and has nothing to do with offshore... Although in actual use, frigates do often perform offshore missions.

This new warship has the prefix "offshore" on its name. It is an offshore frigate, but it is not a traditional offshore patrol ship, a typical offshore vessel that does not have the capability of ocean navigation.

This kind of offshore frigate...has certain ocean navigation capabilities.

This is actually a special type of ship that combines the ocean-going capabilities of a traditional frigate with the heavy firepower and protection capabilities of a shallow-water gunboat...

What do you mean by this thing? The tactical positioning given to it by the Dachu Empire Navy is that it can carry out certain ocean voyages, and when necessary, go out to coastal waters around the world to perform coastal blockades, bombard enemy coastal targets, and enter conditions when necessary. Large-scale rivers are allowed to penetrate deep into the enemy's hinterland, destroy enemy ground targets, and provide fire support for ground troops.

What is this stuff? It is probably a large-tonnage shallow-water gunboat that can be maneuvered and deployed in the ocean.

From the perspective of combat use, it is very similar to the American frequency sea combat ship in the original time and space of the 21st century!

The emergence background of the two is actually highly similar... that is, looking at the global invincibility, but a branch like the navy always needs a sense of presence. The army needs a sense of presence, otherwise the big bosses will think about cutting it. Military spending!

It is said that raising an army for a thousand days can only be used for a short time, but in reality, most political leaders only want to use an army for a short time, and do not want to raise an army for a thousand days...

As a result, even though they were separated by two time and space, the Da Chu Empire Navy and the U.S. Navy naturally embarked on the same path in order to find a sense of presence and ensure that military expenditures would not be cut: using the sea to control the land!

Since I am invincible at sea, let me attack land targets!

Under this strategic thinking, the U.S. Navy naturally developed frequency sea battleships, and the Dachu Empire Navy developed special-purpose gadgets such as Yongding-class frigates.

At first glance, these two things look very different. They are useless in traditional naval battles... but they are quite good when used to control the land from the sea...

It can be deployed globally, and then run up to the enemy and open it up...

The only difference between the two is that the U.S. Navy's invincibility is an illusion, just for their own pleasure. Not even a few years later, they found a strong opponent from the East... Using the sea to dominate the land became As a joke, the frequency sea combat ship is also known as the most failed ship type in the history of the US Navy.

As for the Da Chu Empire Navy... it is truly invincible, and will remain invincible in the foreseeable future. This invincible advantage can last for at least a few decades, and with luck, it may even last for hundreds or even two hundred years.

Therefore, it has become a joke for the Americans to build frequent sea combat ships, but the offshore frigates built by the Dachu Empire actually meet the future strategic needs of the Dachu Empire's navy. The navy has already added more ships before it has officially entered service. Orders for more than thirty ships.

Therefore, when the first ship of the Yongding-class offshore frigate, the Yongding, was officially commissioned in July, a large group of navy bosses attended the commissioning ceremony. Not only the navy bosses came, but also Prince Luo Jian was busy Among them, I took the time to participate in the commissioning ceremony of the ship.

This shows that the Da Chu Empire Navy attaches great importance to this class of ships!

This class of ship carries the navy's future strategy of using the sea to dominate the land. It's impossible not to pay attention to it!

In addition to this offshore frigate, there is also a type of offshore armored ship that is completely different from traditional warships, namely the Gaozhou-class offshore armored ship.

Why is it different? Although this thing is designed with a low freeboard, it also optimizes its ocean navigation capabilities, so it can barely travel around the world and conduct global mobile deployment.

And with a displacement of only 4,000 tons, it can carry two twin-mounted 200mm large-tube rapid-fire guns. It also adopts a closed turret design and a comprehensive armor design.

At first glance, you can tell that this thing is a special type of ship that rushes up to face the natives and opens fire.

The Gaozhou-class offshore armored ships and the Yongding-class offshore frigates are the concrete results of the Chu Imperial Navy's strategy of using the sea to dominate the land.

However, whether it is useful or not will be discussed later.