I want to be emperor

Chapter 1169: The Army Was Tricked

If there was a basis for global strikes, the Great Chu Empire Navy would not have tried to control land with sea... You can't just send a fleet all the way from East Asia, then slowly sail on the sea for three to five months or even longer, then rest for a few months after arriving at the destination, and finally launch the so-called attack on land with sea...

The navy of the Great Chu Empire does not do this. The navy of the Great Chu Empire has always emphasized the forward deployment and forward strikes of the fleet.

In other words, it is to make use of the numerous naval bases around the world and directly deploy the main fleet to major sea areas, and mobilize the fleet of the base to block the gate at the slightest movement.

In addition, the littoral combat ships will be deployed further forward. For example, in the area along the English Channel and the Atlantic coast of England and Germany, a forward strike fleet composed of multiple littoral combat ships will be deployed directly to the Port of Dover.

As long as there is a need, a telegram will be sent and the front-line strike fleet will be dispatched directly. It will appear in the designated area within a few days at most to carry out various combat missions, such as directly bombarding targets on the shore, protecting concession ports, forcing their way into rivers and deep into enemy territory, or conducting armed live-fire exercises to deter the enemy.

And this is just talking about the frontline strike fleet with large and medium-sized near-shore combat ships as the core. In addition, the Great Chu Empire Navy actually has a very large number of near-shore patrol ships and medium and large inland gunboats. These near-shore and inland ships ranging from hundreds of tons are widely deployed to various overseas territories, and even directly penetrate into the main rivers and lakes of various vassal states to carry out various deterrence and strike tasks nearby.

Therefore, in the major rivers in Central and Western Europe, such as the Danube, Rhine, Elbe, and Seine, one can often see inland gunboats of the Chu Empire Navy flying dragon flags roaming around.

The global presence and global strike of the Great Chu Empire Navy are no joke, but can really be done. It is even based on this that the so-called strategic concept of controlling the land with the sea was proposed.

If you can't control the world's waters, can't deploy and strike on the front lines in a timely manner, then how can you talk about controlling the land with the sea?

The premise of the strategic concept of controlling land with sea is to be able to control the global seas in a powerful, even absolute, way and ensure comprehensive sea control. After all, you can't expect a coastal combat ship with extremely poor ocean-going seaworthiness or even little ocean-going combat capability to play a fleet duel with the enemy's ocean-going warships...

The US Navy of later generations overestimated itself for a time and proposed to control the land with the sea. However, it soon discovered that it was impossible to do so and returned to playing with sea power in shame.

However, the navy of the Great Chu Empire actually controls global sea power, and even has no contemporary rivals... Apart from the Great Chu Empire, there is no other industrial country on the contemporary earth. Even though the Chu-affiliated vassal states have some factories, there is no systematic industrial force.

Under such circumstances, the navy of the Great Chu Empire can control the land by sea!

When it comes to control of sea power in global waters, no navy in human history can be compared with the Navy of the Great Chu Empire. Any navy in the original time and space would have to admit defeat in front of the Navy of the Great Chu Empire.

Although the contemporary Chu Empire Navy is not as good as the Royal Navy in the late 19th century in terms of hard power, it cannot be compared with the US Navy.

But these navies have many enemies. Even if they were given ten thousand courages, they would not have the guts to force their way into the ports or rivers of the hostile powers.

But the navy of the Great Chu Empire can... The Great Chu Empire not only traverses the four seas and controls all the seas in the world, but it can also forcibly invade coastal areas and even enter rivers.

There is no need for even some sea-dominant battleships. Most of the time, only some non-main ships are needed, such as cruisers, frigates, and even medium and large gunboats and offshore patrol ships. These can traverse coastal waters, mainstream rivers, and lakes around the world.

Because the Chu Empire Navy has no enemies!

To put it in extreme terms, the navy of the Great Chu Empire can actually control sea power with just a few offshore patrol ships of a few hundred tons, and can also control land with the sea with inland gunboats of a few hundred tons!

However, this is a rather extreme approach with a low tolerance for error, so for the sake of safety, the navy of the Great Chu Empire uses ocean-going combat ships such as frigates of around 1,000 to 2,000 tons and cruisers of around 3,000 to 4,000 tons to fully control sea power.

Then use a variety of different littoral combat ships of similar tonnage to implement the concept of controlling the land with the sea.

As for the offshore patrol ships and inland gunboats weighing several hundred tons, they are just auxiliary forces...

The above situation also means that the Chu Empire Navy's demand for warships is actually a large number of small and medium-sized ships ranging from hundreds of tons to five thousand tons.

This is also the reason why the number of large-tonnage battleships in the Great Chu Empire Navy is very limited. Even in recent years, the number of larger-tonnage cruisers has been decreasing. However, there are a large number of ocean-going frigates of one or two thousand tons, offshore patrol ships of hundreds of tons, and inland gunboats.

In recent years, littoral combat ships have been developed specifically for use in near seas, rivers, and lakes, and the number of littoral combat ships built has exceeded that of pure ocean-going warships.

In the 54 years of Chengshun, among the warships of 1,000 to 5,000 tons currently under construction, the ratio of pure ocean-going warships to near-shore combat ships has basically reached one to one.

That is, while building a pure ocean-going cruiser or frigate, the Chu Empire Navy will build a near-shore combat ship.

However, the total scale of ship construction will not increase. This involves the issue of military expenditure. It is impossible for the top leaders of the Great Chu Empire to add hundreds of warships between 1,000 and 5,000 tons in addition to the existing fleet size.

Therefore, the construction of littoral combat ships is actually the temporary use of the organization of ocean-going combat ships.

The current overall plan of the Great Chu Empire Navy is to maintain a scale of about 500 combat ships of more than 1,000 tons. It is impossible to increase it at will... The navy wants to do so, but the cabinet is unwilling.

It would be better to use this money to build more roads, railways and ports.

The situation faced by the navy of the Great Chu Empire and the empire's restrictions on naval spending have led to the navy being relatively conservative. It is not willing to build large-tonnage and costly warships, nor is it willing to use seemingly advanced but expensive naval guns.

I'd rather use a lot of cheap stuff.

The navy is like this, and the army is no exception...Except for being relatively radical and adopting large numbers of motor vehicles, other aspects, especially guns and artillery, are actually very conservative.

The reason why they are radical in terms of motor vehicles is that the military wants to eliminate a large number of mules and horses used for logistics... The army has always felt that mules and horses eat too much. It's okay if they eat more during war, but it's unbearable if they eat so much during peacetime...

  The Army's attitude towards mules and horses used for conventional transportation such as artillery units and baggage units is: It is best not to eat or drink them in peacetime, but to eat a little and work during war!

Then the car appeared, which perfectly met the army's idea of ​​a means of transportation: no need to eat or drink on weekdays, just burn some oil in war!

Then the army launched the motorization plan happily, and formulated a plan to equip tens of thousands of vehicles of various types in three to five years. This was completely wishful thinking of some high-ranking army officials who were in high positions and knew nothing about the matter.

Because in actual use, although the car is an iron thing that does not need to eat, it still needs to burn oil. It also needs to be trained every few days, and training requires burning oil... Not to mention the burning of oil, it also requires various maintenance.

There are still many problems with modern motor vehicles, especially in the military's intensive use, and on unpaved roads, often in the wilderness for training and combat, motor vehicles are very prone to failure. This failure needs to be repaired, and daily maintenance is also required to avoid failures.

Various spare parts also cost money.

Therefore, in actual use, the financial expenditure of motorized troops is actually more expensive than using mules and horses...but many middle and low-level officers are reluctant to say it.

Having cars is better than using mules and horses, isn't it? This is good for the army. We can't report to the higher authorities that the cost is higher after motorization: Boss, cars are more expensive than mules and horses, why don't we just use mules and horses...

Then the army formulated a large-scale motorization plan in a confused manner, preparing to change the transportation method of all independent artillery units and divisional artillery units from draft horses to trucks, and to deploy trucks on a large scale in the baggage trains of the Class A units to transport various supplies.

Provide armored vehicles and various tricycles to Class A troops.

A number of purely motorized armored units were also specially established, with wheeled armored vehicles as the core, equipped with a large number of trucks and tricycles, in order to obtain rapid mobile combat and the ability to forcibly break through.

Then, those high-ranking army officers who had been kept in the dark discovered that there was something wrong with the military spending... The plan clearly stated that one year's worth of fuel would be used, but in the end the front-line troops used it up in just three or two months... At first they suspected corruption or waste and conducted several serious investigations.

The investigation results made them unhappy... The fuel consumption of the front-line troops exceeded the plan. It was not because of corruption or waste, but because so much fuel was really needed to maintain normal training.

Then they picked up the abacus and did some calculations. Damn, if they went according to the original plan, the military expenditure would probably be greatly overspent... They were badly cheated.

So at the beginning of the 54th year of Chengshun, the army quietly cancelled the plan to organize five armored vehicle mobile divisions. It didn't mean to cancel it directly, but to reduce it to a mixed regiment... Even the mixed brigade level was skipped directly, which was a loss of face!

The original plan to equip all Class A divisions with various types of trucks and tricycles on a large scale was also cut a lot. Although the plan will still be implemented, it has been directly reduced by 20% to 30%...

Originally, a division was planned to be equipped with at least 5,000 trucks and various tricycles, but this number was directly cut to about 1,000. In addition, a large number of three-wheeled vehicles or sidecar tricycles replaced the expensive Type 15 trucks, which consumed more fuel and had higher maintenance costs.

As for the motorization plan for the Class B division, it was directly cancelled, and only the plan to equip a small number of armed tricycles was retained. As for material transportation, infantry marching and the like, everything will remain the same as before.

The military mobility plan that was formulated with great fanfare a few years ago has been cut to pieces...

Of course, only the vehicles used for baggage transport were cancelled, but plans for armored vehicles and armed sidecars that could carry machine guns were continued...

Because armored vehicles and other things are not a matter of saving money or not, but a brand new kind of weapon that can play a role that cannot be replaced by any previous weapons and can change the form of warfare.

Let me put it this way, judging from the current armed forces of the indigenous people, the Chu Army only needs to put its armored vehicles in front of the indigenous formations, and it will be basically invincible... the old smoothbore cannons can't hit them, and ordinary rifles can't penetrate them!

However, these armored vehicles can maneuver while calmly using the heavy machine guns on board to attack and fire... There are even plans for wheeled armored artillery vehicles equipped with short-barreled, small-caliber artillery. If they can be developed, the firepower will be even more powerful.

The combat effectiveness of the armored vehicle is too obvious. It is very suitable for dealing with the natives who don't have any advanced weapons, so the Chu army likes this thing very much...

It's just like how colonial countries such as Britain and France in the original time and space were very fond of using armored vehicles to suppress colonial rebellions. It means the same thing: they bully you because you don't have anti-armor weapons.

As for the trucks used for supplies and ordinary artillery units, just wait and see, there's no rush... Although the army hates mules and horses because they only eat and do no work, they have been doing this for decades, so it won't be a big problem if they continue to endure it for a few more years.

When the civilian automobile industry develops further, the price of trucks is brought down, the failure rate of trucks is reduced, and maintenance is easier and cheaper, the army will then come up with this full-army mobile transportation plan.

Otherwise, the military expenditure is really unbearable...

This is the case with military vehicles, and it's almost the same with guns. The army has always been clamoring for the best of everything, but the price they offer is the lowest... In the end, after much hesitancy, they usually choose the one with the best price-performance ratio!

When bidding for new divisional rapid-fire guns, there were a lot of excellent designs, but the army chose the mediocre Hebei Weapons Company's Type 75 75 field gun and mountain gun, simply because of their high cost-effectiveness.

However, this is large-scale standard equipment, which does not mean that the army ignores technological development and turns a blind eye to new equipment. In fact, the army also has a large number of so-called new weapons and equipment, but the number is very small, and they are basically used for various testing experiments.

For example, in terms of machine guns, the army proposed very early on that it wanted a lightweight machine gun that could effectively accompany infantry in combat, rather than the current machine guns, which weigh dozens of kilograms and can only be used as vehicle-mounted weapons. If carried by infantry, they can only be used as defensive weapons, or deployed in the rear for fire support during an attack.

However, there is no way for the front-line infantry to carry it forward... it is too heavy.

However, front-line infantry do need this type of light machine gun that they can carry by themselves to use as infantry support firepower at the platoon level or even smaller units.

In order to meet the army's demand for lightweight infantry accompanying machine guns, the five major weapons companies have all carried out design and research and development. In the early days, they also produced a lot of so-called light machine guns. However, these light machine guns are not worthy of their name. They are generally around 20 kilograms, and the lightest is only 18 kilograms. Many of them are actually water-cooled...

These so-called light machine guns were still too heavy and difficult for infantry to carry, so after the Army conducted various tests, it never actually placed an order.

  So, strictly speaking, the army already has a very small number of light machine guns, it cannot be said that there are none!

But that may be changing.

In May of the summer of the 54th year of Chengshun, Daye Arsenal under Huguang Weapons Company developed a new design of lightweight machine gun based on years of experience in the research and development and production of air-cooled heavy machine guns. Other performance indicators are not important. What is important is that the total weight of this machine gun is just over ten kilograms.

After this news was reported to the Army's Ordnance Department, it quickly attracted the department's attention, and within a few days, it sent people to Daye Arsenal to inspect this light machine gun.

It weighs a little over ten kilograms, which is much lighter than the various light machine guns before. This means that infantry can carry this new machine gun for maneuvering, allowing front-line infantry to have real infantry support firepower.

Therefore, the Army Ordnance Department attached great importance to it and sent people to investigate as soon as possible.

(End of this chapter)