Chapter 182 Dreadnought

There are a large number of 75mm rapid-fire guns equipped in the army. Artillery of this level is still the mainstream equipment of the armies of various countries. It has become a technologically backward artillery in Emmanuel's words.

"Relying solely on 75mm artillery will no longer allow the Army to maintain its firepower advantage when facing the enemy in the next war."

After tasting the sweetness of artillery firepower superiority in the Macedonian border battle, many officers in the army believed in the theory of victory with artillery. After all, no officer was willing to refuse a battle in which the enemy could only be beaten but could not fight back.

"The army's potential opponents, whether it is the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, or Serbia, will inevitably attach importance to their country's artillery construction after the 1896 war. The Greek Army must maintain its artillery advantage."

"Recently, the Greek arsenal has completed the research and development of 105mm howitzers. The General Staff means that it hopes the government can allocate funds for the army to purchase 200 105mm howitzers," Emma Inur continued.

"At the same time, because the 105mm artillery weighs astonishingly, reaching about four tons, and the weight of the shells has also reached 32 kilograms, it is difficult to use traditional draft horses to tow it, and it is very difficult to maneuver in the field. We have entrusted the tractor factory to produce a batch of special tracked Tractors, enter the military service, and replace draft horses to drag artillery and supply ammunition." There were a lot of requests.

Hearing Emma Inur's words, Constantine secretly thought that it seems that Andros has developed a crawler tractor.

Since supporting Andros to establish a tractor factory, after several years of development, through imitation of American tractors and the assistance of government tractor purchase subsidies, it has now reached an annual output of 1,200 tractors.

After learning that Benjamin of the United States had invented the crawler tractor, under the instructions of Constantine, the tractor factory immediately ordered several units through the Greek Embassy in the United States for disassembly and imitation. Finally, after more than a year The efforts finally met the requirements of the Army Logistics Department.

Crawler tractors can travel in the wild with poor road conditions, but wheeled vehicles cannot do this.

Now that crawler tractors can be produced, the military is naturally eager to try "mechanized" artillery.

After discussing with Prime Minister Alexandros, Emma Inur's request to increase the number of technical weapons of the base army was basically met.

Then it was the navy's turn. Constantine and Alexandros reviewed the plan submitted by the navy.

"The emergence of dreadnoughts has brought navies around the world to the same starting line. Currently, a large number of warships in service in navies around the world appear obsolete. Currently, all major naval powers in the world are building or preparing to build dreadnoughts." Contorioti Si said enthusiastically.

"This is a rare and good opportunity for Greece's naval construction to directly step into the era of dreadnoughts and keep up with the mainstream of the world's navies."

While the two were reading the naval expansion plan, Navy Commander Kontoriotis said: "In view of the lack of adequate defense on Greece's long coastline, the Navy plans to build a rapid response fleet to be responsible for defense, patrol, security, reconnaissance, etc. mission to ensure the safety of the Greek coast”

With a cold face, Prime Minister Alexandros interrupted Kontoriotis's encouraging remarks and said: "Your Excellency, Commander, you should be more awake. Greece cannot afford such expensive warships as dreadnoughts at all. of"

"As far as I know, the price of a dreadnought has reached 2.5 million pounds. The price of a battlecruiser is almost the same as the price of a dreadnought. When converted into drachmas, it is the price of 40 to 50 million drachmas. What do you think? Can the Greek Navy afford it?”

In the plan submitted by the Navy, the main cost is still the four battlecruisers. As for the other 24 torpedo boats, 12 destroyers, etc., the number seems to be quite large. The price of all added up may not be comparable to that of a battlecruiser. money.

The current destroyers have a tonnage of about 1,000 tons, and the torpedo boats have a tonnage of several hundred tons.

Seeing Alexandros's unkind expression, Contoriotis quickly said: "Battlecruisers are the core of this rapid response fleet. If they are built according to the navy's plan, all warships in the rapid response fleet will have a speed of 20 knot or above, once completed, even in the face of the absolute superiority of neighboring navies, this rapid response fleet can use its speed to deal with the enemy at sea. Whether and when to engage can be in the hands of the navy."

"The reason why we chose the battlecruiser is because of its characteristics. Those who can defeat it cannot catch up with it (dreadnoughts emphasize heavy armor and sharp guns, and their speed is not as fast as that of battlecruisers). Those who can catch up with it cannot defeat it."

"Recently, both Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire have plans to build dreadnoughts. Although the combat effectiveness of battlecruisers is not as good as that of dreadnoughts, their firepower is not inferior to that of dreadnoughts, and their speed exceeds that of dreadnoughts."

Constantine interjected: "Contoriotis, whether it is the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Italy, it is impossible for Greece to compete with them at sea. We cannot afford such a navy, it is beyond our capabilities. scope"

Even Italy, the weakest link among the great powers, still has a population of 30 million, which is several times that of Greece. If one person takes out one lira, it is 30 million lira (due to the relationship between the Latin Monetary Union, the lira and the German Lakma currency has the same value)

Contoriotis continued: "What about the Ottoman Empire? Recently, the navy heard rumors that the Ottoman navy was weak in the last war, and the Greek navy was the only one in the Aegean Sea, which led to the surprise attack on Thessaloniki. After learning from this lesson, it was heard that the Ottoman Empire had made a request to Germany to buy battleships after the political chaos."

Hearing that the crown prince did not intend to support his plan, he threw out the heavy news: "I heard that they plan to buy the German pre-dreadnoughts Greatest Kurfürst and Wiesenburg, the two Brandenburg-class pre-dreadnoughts currently in service in the German Navy."

"These two ships are both 10,000-ton battleships, equipped with six 280mm cannons. They are currently the main warships of the German Navy and have very strong combat effectiveness."

As soon as this news appeared, everyone in the conference room "buzzed" and discussed with each other.

Everyone is still very sensitive about the Ottoman Empire's purchase of new warships. As the winner of the last war, Greece naturally does not want to watch the opponent's navy regroup.

The Greek Navy currently has an advantage in the Aegean Sea. Once these two large warships join the Ottoman Navy, Greece will have no way to compete with them, which will pose a huge threat to Greece's coastal defense.

Even the Prime Minister, who has the most objections to military expansion, was stunned after hearing this news, and his tone weakened by three points: "Then we don't need battlecruisers, can we also buy two pre-dreadnoughts from the UK? As you said, the UK is building dreadnoughts, and the British Navy has a large number of outdated pre-dreadnoughts, so they must have a strong desire to sell them."