Chapter 911 The Colonists Are Back

Among the huge group of admirers who followed the trend, Alan Wilson was of course also indispensable. He came in through the back door and was currently staring at the other Lord Sheffield who came through the back door.

"If the oil reserves in the Gulf of Guinea are huge, BP would also like to help." Markins lowered his voice and continued his great career as a middleman, "You and Pamela can talk about it. This will also help everyone work together to The cake gets bigger.”

"Her industry can't be decided by just one word from me. In fact, with the strength of BP, it's enough to send someone to talk. I don't think it's a big problem." Alan Wilson looked at the Queen's direction with admiration. , replied in a low voice, "The economic crisis is still spreading, and the general environment is quite tense. It is completely late to wait until the economic crisis is over. Of course, this is just my personal opinion. You can consider it yourself."

Alan Wilson really doesn't care much about oil or anything like that. Of course he likes money, but he doesn't value it so much when it comes to career. He has long been financially free, and there is no dream of swimming without gold coins filling the swimming pool. dream.

"Anyway, everyone knows that if the Mountbatten Group goes public, it can easily become the king of stocks." Makins said in surprise, "You don't know, oil in the Gulf of Guinea has been discussed for a while, and I have never seen anything like this. influence.”

"I really don't know." Alan Wilson asked himself. He was in Lagos at that time. Although he still retained his reading habit, he only read political newspapers and had no idea how popular oil in the Gulf of Guinea was.

But having said that, the exploration area that Princess Margaret cooperates with Portugal, that is, the part off the coast of Angola, is actually part of the Gulf of Guinea in a broad sense. If good news comes from Angola, it can be side proof that the Gulf of Guinea is the truth of the second Persian Gulf assertion.

But if this is the case, things may become extremely complicated. You must know that between the Portuguese colony Angola and the Nigerian Dominion, there is French Central Africa. If the Dominion of Nigeria in the north and Portuguese Angola in the south both have oil, there is no reason why such a large French colony in the middle does not.

Will France let go of its oil resources? A famous example from later generations is that although Equatorial Guinea, with a per capita of US$20,000, is not a French colony, there are French colonies nearby. Equatorial Guinea, a Spanish colony, might have been even worse.

Spain doesn't have many colonies now, and Equatorial Guinea is already considered the most important of them. If the oil resources arouse Franco's interest, this matter will be quite difficult.

"I may have ignored the impact on other countries." Alan Wilson discovered at this time that today, when the colonial power in Africa is still quite strong, because of the need to raise development funds for the Nigerian Dominion, the news released may bring some Butterfly effect, not counting the British, there are Spanish, Portuguese and French colonial forces nearby.

I don’t know what these countries think about the oil in the Gulf of Guinea at this moment.

In particular, will the French, who are more powerful than the British on the west coast of Africa, take any action?

"Alan, what are you thinking about?" General Mountbatten noticed his son-in-law's movements and came over to ask.

"It's nothing. I felt a little emotional when I saw the launch of the nuclear submarine." Alan Wilson adjusted his mood, "Actually, the motivation for my colleagues and I to work is that scenes like this always happen."

"Well, me too." General Mountbatten nodded happily, "Me too, this is just the beginning. The Queen invited me to be a guest at Windsor Castle and let's go and see it together."

"That's such an honor." Alan Wilson agreed immediately upon hearing this. After all, they are a family.

Although the Imperial Commissioner always collects black money and raises young wives, even Princess Margaret of the royal family... But this is all for the benefit of the British Empire, and he has a clear conscience.

Knowing that his son-in-law's driving skills were very average, Mountbatten let Alan Wilson experience the treatment of a special Admiralty car.

"The Dreadnought nuclear submarine is a start. We have verified the technology through the construction of the Dreadnought and accumulated experience for the next level of construction. The next step will be a long-distance voyage to verify the reliability." General Mountbatten did not hide anything from his son-in-law, "If If you think the Malayan colony is unstable, how about making Singapore one of the stops?"

This was a benefit Mountbatten gave to his son-in-law, Alan Wilson, who was serving as administrator of the colony of Malaya. The visit of the Dreadnought nuclear submarine could deter potential enemies of the Malayan colony.

"It's really good." Alan Wilson expressed his agreement, but what he wanted to ask more about was the idea of ​​the next-level nuclear submarine. "Since the Dreadnought nuclear submarine has an experimental nature, the next-level nuclear submarine is probably already under planning."

"If you were not Pamela's husband, I would even suspect you are a spy." Mountbatten said with a smile, "There are ideas. Regarding the difference in the use of nuclear submarines, this aspect is still being discussed. The budget is still a big issue. One The cost is around £20 million.”

"This is about to catch up with the heavy aircraft carrier that has started construction." Alan Wilson was shocked. The heavy aircraft carrier currently under construction is the USS Enterprise without nuclear power. How much tonnage is a nuclear submarine? Four to five thousand tons of stuff.

"After all, this is a new field. Our accumulation of manufacturing surface ships and cost savings are useless on nuclear submarines. Many aspects of equipment and nuclear reactors are new things, and it is very difficult to reduce costs." Mountbatten shrugged and complained. He said, "Don't expect to achieve a much cheaper cost like surface ships."

The UK was able to produce a battleship at the same cost as the United States producing a heavy cruiser.

That relies on Britain's long-term accumulated experience in surface ships. But times have changed. On new warships, the cost advantage has dropped a lot, but the construction cost can still be cheaper than that in the United States.

But on nuclear submarines, Britain is still a toddler, and it is no longer realistic to save costs.

It is not completely impossible. Mass construction can always amortize the cost. As long as the construction cycle is not long, the cost can be reduced.

Of course, this was General Mountbatten’s explanation. Alan Wilson was deeply skeptical about this. He remembered that each American warship was more expensive than the other. Could it be that the British could make each ship cheaper than the other in the construction cycle?

He didn't know that Britain had actually done this in history, compressing the construction cycle of a first-class nuclear submarine within two years, resulting in a reduction in construction costs.

Arriving at Windsor Castle, Alan Wilson entered the state of spectators again, thinking about another issue that Mountbatten had talked about before. Although Mountbatten did not mention the different uses of nuclear submarines, he certainly understood that this was the difference between attack nuclear submarines and strategic nuclear submarines.

Attack nuclear submarines are mainly used for attack, so attack nuclear submarines are equipped with a series of weapons, such as submarine-launched torpedoes, missiles and torpedo launch tubes. Moreover, attack nuclear submarines can sail faster than strategic nuclear submarines, and are also faster than strategic nuclear submarines. It can dive deeper and has a smaller displacement than a strategic nuclear submarine.

Under today's technical conditions, the weapons carried by attack nuclear submarines are torpedoes.

Attack nuclear submarines mainly perform reconnaissance missions, while strategic nuclear submarines mainly perform duty tasks. Since the intercontinental missiles loaded on strategic nuclear submarines can strike outside the theater, strategic nuclear submarines can ensure the security of sea areas as long as they cruise within a safe range.

The only thing that is certain now is that the USS Nautilus is already in service, and no one knows whether the Soviet Union's nuclear submarines have been completed. The British HMS Dauntless nuclear submarine has just been launched.

It will take several years for strategic nuclear submarines to be put into general service, and it cannot be ruled out that there have already been discussions within the militaries of various countries.

However, another dilemma faced by strategic nuclear submarines, which mainly use long-range missiles as their attack method, is that today, when land-based missiles frequently fail, there is still no reliable missile that strategic nuclear submarines can equip.

Since Mountbatten said that the difference between nuclear submarines is only under discussion, there is no reason to think that other countries have realized the difference between attack nuclear submarines and strategic nuclear submarines.

Before leaving London, Alan Wilson decided to help his father-in-law stay at the forefront of the times. He himself was too far away from submarine experts. This required Pamela Mountbatten to find someone to make an argument, and he would give the results of the argument to Mountbatten. The general knows.

On July 16, after a vote in the French National Assembly, Maurice Bourget-Monoury, the 19th President of the French Council of Ministers after the war, announced that oil resources in the Gulf of Guinea would be developed. The news spread and triggered discussions throughout France.

Three days later, France's Total Oil and Gas Company officially announced that it had signed a contract with the French government to develop oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Guinea.

Just one day later, in Madrid, the capital of Spain, the Spanish oil company announced that it would develop oil resources in Equatorial Guinea.

He also called on the Spanish government to discuss with the United Kingdom, France, Portugal and other countries to clarify each other's mining areas and conduct diplomatic negotiations.

"It seems that things have changed in a not so good way." Alan Wilson was still in London, and his previous worries became reality. He released the existence of oil resources in the Gulf of Guinea in order to attract local funds to fill the funding gap for the development of the Nigerian Dominion. .

But inevitably, this kind of public news attracted France, Spain and Portugal, which also had colonies around the Gulf of Guinea. Portugal was even the first among several countries to take action because of Margaret's work cooperation.

Fortunately, there is real oil in the Gulf of Guinea. If this was a scam, Alan Wilson would not dare to think about his final fate.

At this moment, the Africans around the Gulf of Guinea did not feel that they were back, and the colonists were back.