Chapter 184 The Benefits of Oil

"It's a multi-million pound business. It's unimaginable that Vickers and Armstrong shipyards would refuse such a lucrative business. If they do refuse, that's fine. We will take advantage of the trend and place orders with other countries. It's not just the British who can build." Battlecruiser, I think American shipyards will be happy to receive such an order," Constantine replied confidently.

Kontoriotis nodded thoughtfully and said: "If possible, American warships are now more suitable for use by the Greek Navy. I heard that the newly built large warships in the United States have abandoned coal and begun to use heavy oil as fuel. Motivated”

The boilers of the Invincible-class battlecruisers are mixed with kerosene and mainly use coal. However, Greece lacks high-quality coal reserves and all hard coal needs to be imported from overseas.

Therefore, the use of British battleships by the Greek Navy is detrimental to the navy's ability to ensure the stability of fuel sources for warships.

On the contrary, American warships use all heavy oil. The oil field in Ferry, Albania, currently has an annual output of about 100,000 tons, which is more than enough to supply the heavy oil needed by the navy.

“Compared with traditional fuel coal, the advantages of oil are obvious.

Oil-fired boilers are more efficient, which can greatly increase a ship's speed and acceleration.

When carrying the same weight of coal and oil, the activity radius of a fleet using oil can be increased by 40%."

"Moreover, the more significant effect is that after the ships use fuel, the fleet's fuel supply will be more convenient."

"On the vast sea, when the fuel consumption of warships is about to bottom out, it is very troublesome to move the coal from the coal carrier to the warship. Because coal is solid; it is different when using heavy oil. Heavy oil It is a liquid, and it is easy to use pipelines to inject heavy oil from oil tankers into warships." Kontoriotis enumerated the benefits of fuel-fired warships.

"The disadvantages of using coal in warships are not just the difficulty of replenishing fuel. Putting coal into the boiler requires manpower. This work is not only arduous, but also requires skilled skills. The boilermaker needs to carefully spread the coal evenly in the furnace. The most important thing is that every three to four hours of operation of the boiler, the flame must be turned off and the ash in the combustion chamber must be cleaned out, which is not only cumbersome and heavy, but also brings many constraints during combat.”

At this point, Kontoriotis raised his hands and said helplessly: "Can you imagine what it would be like during the battle when the warships in the fleet stopped one after another to clean up the ashes?"

"It's different if you use heavy oil. You can use the valves on the pipelines to adjust it easily. Under the same power, heavy oil uses fewer boilers. It can also free officers and soldiers from heavy coaling operations, allowing more More crew members are engaged in combat missions."

Hearing this, Constantine asked curiously: "It's impossible for the British not to know the benefits of using coal in warships. Is there a reason why they still insist on using coal as the main power source for warships?"

"That's for sure," Kontoriotis said. "As a naval general, it's easy to understand that the British insistence, just like the Americans actively promoting fuel-powered warships, is because the United States is rich in oil production."

"Even though the British know the many benefits of oil battleship fuel, they still insist on using coal because Britain has abundant coal resources, but it cannot produce a drop of oil."

"Furthermore, the Royal Navy's coal suppliers will vigorously oppose this change."

Constantine shrugged and said: "Maybe America's fully oil-powered warships are more suitable for Greece, but, you know, we have a deep "friendship" with Britain."

Everyone present here is the top military and political leaders of Greece, so they naturally understand the meaning of Constantine's so-called friendship - Greece is the British sphere of influence.

Under this circumstance, Greek business was naturally given priority to the British, and friendship between countries needed to be maintained by money.

To a certain extent, Greece's purchase of British warships also had the intention of paying protection fees.

Seeing that everyone almost agreed to the plan to purchase warships from the UK, Prime Minister Alexandros rubbed the corners of his eyes and said with a headache: "I have roughly estimated the navy and army expansion plans. The total cost is about 500 million. -400 million drachmas, which the government suddenly cannot come up with.”

"The navy accounts for the majority of this, about 500 million drachmas, and the navy's crew recruitment costs a lot of money."

Unlike the army, naval crew members are almost all technical branches, which require higher professional qualities and harder work. They need to be stationed on warships all year round. Therefore, the salary of navy personnel is generally much higher than that of the army.

Alexandros felt regretful in his heart. If this money was used to repay foreign debts, it would be enough to repay all of Greece's current foreign debts. There would be no need to pay tens of millions in interest to creditors every year like now.

"Prime Minister, this money must be allocated in installments. The navy's warships also need to be paid according to the construction progress of the shipyard. The same is true for the army, which will form new divisions in batches."

The results of the meeting in the Ministry of Defense Building were submitted to King George by Prime Minister Constantine and Alexandros, and King George's permission was obtained.

Later, with the support of the navy, 6 million drachmas were spent to build a new naval academy in Athens, modeled on the Athens Military Academy, specifically to train naval officers.

In August 1907, Greek Navy Commander Kontoriotis personally led a team to Britain to negotiate the purchase of warships.

After that, Constantine got the news from Britain that Kontoriotis, on behalf of Greece, successfully signed an agreement with the British Armstrong Shipyard. The Greek Navy commissioned the Armstrong Shipyard to build an Invincible-class battlecruiser at a price of 2.6 million pounds.

Afterwards, Kontoriotis will conduct a field visit to the Invincible battlecruiser that was being built at the Alcitros Shipyard of the Armstrong Shipyard, and send the information of the Invincible-class battlecruiser back to Greece:

The Invincible battlecruiser has a standard displacement of 17,373 tons, a full load displacement of 20,200 tons, a best speed of 5 knots, and is equipped with 8 twin 45-caliber 305mm main guns, 12 single 45-caliber 4-inch secondary guns, 7 machine guns, and 5 18-inch underwater torpedo tubes.

Once such warships enter service in the Greek Navy, even if the two German 10,000-ton battleships, the Brandenburg-class battleships, purchased by the Ottoman Navy, successfully enter service in the Ottoman Navy, the Greek Navy can still occupy the advantage in the Aegean Sea.

At the same time, the United Kingdom will send a naval team to Greece. They will not only guide the Athens shipyard to start construction of another battlecruiser in Greece, but will also be responsible for training qualified battlecruiser crews. Moreover, after the two warships successfully enter service in the Navy, this naval team will also be responsible for "guiding" on board.