I want to be emperor

Chapter 1173 The Age of Division

In order to enhance the presence of the Air Force and become a truly independent military branch, the Air Force proposed a project plan for air-to-ground fire support aircraft.

The air force of the Great Chu Empire is still in a rather awkward situation now, mainly because its presence is too low and its unique strategic value cannot be reflected in a short period of time.

To be honest, many people do not understand why the Air Force was separated, because in the eyes of many people, although the airplane is a new weapon, it is just a new weapon.

It would be sufficient to directly build an affiliated air force in each service, which would also better support the army and navy in operations. There is no need to establish an independent air force.

However, Luo Zhixue was taking into account the future development of science and technology. With the continuous improvement of industrial technology, the performance of aircraft will become stronger and stronger, so the air force will inevitably be able to play a more important role, and even be able to destroy a country solely by relying on the air force.

Furthermore, if it is limited to the military aviation team, it will restrict the development of aircraft. For example, according to the army's idea, it must only need reconnaissance and front-line ground strike support, while the navy only needs maritime reconnaissance, sea strikes and land support operations.

  What do other missions such as long-range strategic reconnaissance, long-range strategic strikes, homeland air defense and even subsequent space exploration have to do with the army or navy?

Under such circumstances, it is natural that these projects will not be strongly supported.

If air power is limited to the army and navy, what will be created is a tactical air force serving the army and navy.

Instead of the kind of independence that Luo Zhixue wanted, an air force that would fully advance into the sky and even space.

In order to maintain the pace of future development of the Air Force, Luo Zhixue established the Air Force as a separate army.

As long as the Air Force is established as an independent force, even if it is just to enhance its own presence and influence, it will deal with many messy project plans, which will be of great benefit to promoting the overall aerospace development of the Chu Army.

The air-to-ground fire support aircraft is a typical project of this type. It is a project promoted by a group of air force officers in order to enhance the influence of the air force. The purpose is simple, which is to prove that in addition to reconnaissance, their air force can also effectively attack the enemy.

In addition to this air-to-ground fire support aircraft project, the Air Force has also proposed a project plan for long-distance and deep troop deployment based on the development of contemporary aircraft.

This plan is actually highly related to the air-to-ground fire support aircraft project...or in other words, the air-to-ground fire support aircraft project is actually a sub-project launched for this long-distance troop projection plan.

According to the ideas of those in the Air Force, the range of today's twin-engine and four-engine aircraft has exceeded a thousand kilometers, and their carrying capacity is getting bigger and bigger. If they continue to develop in this way, then in ten or eight years, they may be able to develop transport aircraft that can transport dozens of soldiers.

After all, transport planes can transport goods, so there is no reason why they can’t transport people, right?

Besides, Songhe Aircraft Company has been thinking about designing a large passenger aircraft that can transport a large number of passengers. Isn't this passenger aircraft the personnel transport aircraft envisioned by the Air Force?

  According to this technological development forecast, can the Air Force organize a hundred or eighty transport planes to transport hundreds or even thousands of soldiers at a time, carrying large amounts of weapons and equipment as well as ammunition supplies, and directly deploy troops across hundreds or even thousands of kilometers?

Assuming that some emergency occurs in the Dover area of ​​London and military reinforcements are urgently needed, is it possible to organize air transport from Cadiz, the strategic core of the Great Chu Empire in Europe, and directly deploy thousands of troops by air to respond to the emergency?

Even if there is no airport in the local area, you can just find a piece of flat ground, level it simply and then land the plane.

Today's airplanes have very low speeds and are generally light in weight, so the requirements for takeoff and landing are also very low. All they need is a piece of flat land. They don't even need a paved road. A dirt road will do, as long as it's flat and solid.

The Air Force's Black Swallow training aircraft often take off and land on roads when conducting pilot training, and even conduct take-off and landing exercises on unpaved roads.

We have tried concrete roads, dirt roads, and even open flat fields.

You have to practice. There are only a few professional airports nowadays... At most, there are only a few air force bases and the aircraft companies' own test flight fields. There are no other airports at all, neither civilian nor military.

Accidents often occur with modern aircraft, and forced landings are commonplace, so when pilots are trained, they also have special training for forced landings under various conditions.

Generally speaking, the most common take-off and landing exercises are on ordinary dirt roads, followed by flat fields...

  Anyway, the requirements for aircraft takeoff and landing these days are simple. To put it in an exaggerated way, just find a flat, long, straight dirt road or even grass, and the Black Swallow trainer aircraft can take off and land for you!

After all, it’s just a small plane that weighs a few hundred kilograms and has a very slow take-off speed!

Likewise, twin-engine and even quad-engine aircraft also have the ability to take off and land in similarly crude conditions...

It's not that these planes are so powerful, but because of their performance, mainly because their flying speed is too low, so their take-off speed is also low, and their stall speed during landing is also low, and they will not stall even at a speed of tens of kilometers.

This may seem exaggerated to later generations, but you have to know that the speed of airplanes at that time was only about 100 kilometers per hour, and when the Royal Institute of Technology's flying laboratory was conducting early aircraft explorations, the speed of the successfully flown airplanes was only more than 60 kilometers per hour.

The maximum speed of fighter planes during World War I was generally only over 100 kilometers.

Early aircraft were very slow, and their stall speed was also very slow. This slow stall speed allowed them to take off or land at a lower speed.

As the speed slows down, the requirements for the runway will be lower... After all, when an airplane is taxiing at a speed of two or three hundred kilometers per hour, if the tires of the airplane encounter some potholes or small stones, the results will be completely different from if the tires of an airplane traveling at a speed of dozens of kilometers per hour encounter some potholes or small stones.

  The former will result in the destruction of the plane and the death of people, while the latter will at most cause a slight bump!

What does this bring? In the eyes of the Chu Empire Air Force, it brings good take-off and landing adaptability.

If there is any situation in the future, such as long-distance troop deployment, material supply transportation, or search and rescue, the aircraft can just find a dirt road or a larger flat field to take off and land. There is no need for a dirt airport, let alone a paved airport.

This is very important, as it directly affects whether the Air Force's long-range troop projection plan can be carried out. After all, you cannot expect to have an airport for you to land when you are carrying out long-range troop projection, especially when you are directly projecting troops into enemy-controlled areas hundreds of kilometers away to perform combat missions... It's impossible. Not to mention an airport, there can't even be a paved road.

It would be great if you could find a straight dirt road or a large flat field.

This requires the ability to take off and land in the field to carry out long-range troop deployment.

At the same time, based on the extreme sport of skydiving that has emerged in recent years, the Air Force has been considering whether it could develop a method of deploying troops by parachuting directly from airplanes. If they use parachuting, they wouldn't even need to take off and land in the wild.

Many Air Force generals believe that long-range troop projection is still very promising, although the current aircraft still has a small load capacity and cannot carry many people, and the technology is not very good, but who knows, it may be developed in a few years.

In addition, based on the current aircraft transport capabilities, it is unlikely to carry any serious artillery, and the amount of ammunition will be very limited. In this case, the Air Force needs an air-to-ground fire support aircraft that can stay in the sky over the war zone for a long time and provide sufficient fire support for airborne or paratroopers.

The Air Force did not develop this thing to provide fire support to the Army, although it was indeed used more to provide air fire support to the Army in the future.

However, the initial starting point was to provide fire support for the Air Force's future long-range airborne forces. After careful consideration, they found that this type of air-to-ground support aircraft was quite reliable.

However, whether it is a troop transport aircraft or an air-to-ground fire support aircraft, the aircraft they need are actually similar. They all need twin-engine medium-sized aircraft with long range and large load capacity, preferably four-engine large aircraft.

Otherwise it wouldn't make much sense.

However, the technology of today's twin-engine and four-engine aircraft is not very advanced, and the aircraft transport capacity is still too small. Even the so-called four-engine aircraft developed by Songhe Aircraft Company, which once tried to market it as a passenger model to the Air Force and some commercial flight companies, can only carry sixteen passengers in addition to the crew.

Some twin-engine aircraft have even fewer.

In addition, the small number of people on board is not the most critical issue. The most critical issue is that aircraft these days are unsafe, especially the technology of twin-engine and four-engine aircraft is still immature and safety cannot be guaranteed.

You can see that the main equipment used for training in the Air Force are single-engine aircraft. In addition, some civilian flight demonstration companies, aircraft in agriculture or other fields are all single-engine aircraft. It can be seen that... Now no one wants twin-engine aircraft except for Air Force support purchases, let alone four-engine aircraft.

Given the limitations of current aircraft technology, the Chu Empire's air force still has a long way to go if it wants to grow and become an important branch of the military comparable to the army and navy.

Now, as an affiliated branch of the army, it just does reconnaissance work honestly, and then installs an 8mm machine gun on a single-engine two-seat aircraft to barely provide ground fire support, and occasionally hangs some bombs to carry out low-altitude horizontal bombing.

  The development of the air force of the Great Chu Empire has a long way to go!

But even so, the development of aircraft technology in the Great Chu Empire is actually one of the most prominent and even advanced industrial categories in the Great Chu Empire.

The technological level of many industries is actually still at the level of the 1890s in the original time and space.

The development of industrial technology in the Chu Empire was not balanced across all industries, but some were better and some were worse, and they were interconnected and driven by each other.

For example, the level of electricity application cannot keep up with the level of internal combustion engine application.

The application of internal combustion engines in the Great Chu Empire was roughly equivalent to the level of around 1910 in the original time and space, but the level of electrification was probably only around 1900.

Wireless equipment has only been developed a few years ago and has only just begun to be used.

Various electrical devices, especially household appliances, seem to be of various types, and all kinds of things have popped up, but except for light bulbs, none of them can be said to be truly popular.

Even electric lighting is not popular in the contemporary Chu Empire. Not to mention the rural areas, which are completely without electricity. Although some small and medium-sized cities have partial electricity, the coverage of the power grid is very small, generally only covering the main commercial areas, high-end communities and industrial areas in the city.

Unless your home happens to be within the coverage of the power supply network and you can connect to the power supply nearby, there is no power grid nearby.

Unless you pay a large amount of money and ask the power company to lay a special power line for you, but if you are not rich, don't expect it.

Of course, you can also choose to purchase power generation equipment on your own and then generate electricity on your own, but the cost is also extremely high. Generally, self-generation only occurs in the industrial field or in the manors of wealthy people and high-end commercial buildings and facilities.

Ordinary people don’t have to think about it.

So even though it has been the 54th year of Chengshun, electric lights have been around for more than a decade, and electrification has been called for for more than a decade, the progress of electrification construction in the Great Chu Empire is still very backward. The coverage rate of the most basic electric lighting is very small, at most only a few percentage points, and it is mainly concentrated in Songjiang, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Jinling and other provincial capitals and important industrial cities.

The electricity coverage rate in ordinary cities is extremely low, and in rural areas it is almost zero!

This is also why the kerosene production of the oil companies in the Great Chu Empire has been increasing year by year and selling very well.

Because even in the Great Chu Empire, which has been calling for industrialization for more than a decade, the mainstream method of lighting is still to use kerosene lamps and electric lights... those things can only be seen in factories or commercial buildings where they are needed.

To some extent, this era has developed to a very high level... Well, it's not just the Great Chu Empire, it was also the case around 1900 in the original time and space.

Set up, a wealthy man living in Songjiang, his manor is equipped with electric lights, telephones, air conditioners, electric fans, and some electrical kitchen tools, such as electric kettles, rice cookers, etc.

When going out, you take a car. If there is a traffic jam, you can take a city train from the suburbs to the city quickly. This is actually what people in later generations call the subway. After arriving in the city, you can take a car, taxi or horse carriage, and you can also experience what it feels like to ride a tram.

When you arrive at a business center area like Linjiang North Road, you will see skyscrapers that are hundreds of meters high. When you enter the building, you will see large areas of bright tiles and crystal-style light bulb chandeliers above your head.

Then take the elevator upstairs. There are elevator service staff who specialize in operating the elevator. You don’t even need to press the floor button... just count to it.

When you arrive at an office on the 20th or 30th floor, through the glass windows, you can see the bustling Huangpu River and the beautiful riverside park. The office is spacious and bright, with electric lighting. There are typewriters when working, and some large companies in need also use fax machines... This thing was invented earlier than the telephone, but has only been gradually used in the office field in the last two years, mainly for image transmission. It was first used in a very small number of large companies with demand, and is now gradually being used in newspapers.

Therefore, even the technological level between 1900 and 1910 had actually reached a very high level, and it can even be said that we could enjoy the convenience of modern life to a certain extent.

But...it's not popular.

Although it seemed that everything was available, many Chu people had never even seen an electric light. Especially those in rural areas had only seen the appearance of electric light bulbs in newspapers and had never seen the real thing. Not to mention electric lights, even kerosene lamps had to be used sparingly.

Not to mention various other electrical appliances.

For many Chu people, those high-end cars, 10,000-ton ships, 100-meter skyscrapers, and magnificent department stores are things they have only heard of but never seen.

Throughout the entire era, there was a strong sense of division. On one hand, the big cities had entered the modern industrial society, full of modern science fiction; on the other hand, there were still a large number of places in a typical agricultural society, where farmers worked in the dirt and drained the Han River for three meals a day.

Many things seem to be available, but ordinary people still cannot afford them. So even though the Great Chu Empire has nominally entered the Second Industrial Revolution for more than ten years, it is far from completing the Second Industrial Revolution.

The penetration rate of electric lights is only a few percentage points. How can you have the nerve to say that you have completed the second industrial revolution? That's nonsense!

The development of the second industrial revolution of the Great Chu Empire still has a long way to go!