Chapter 824: Navy Issues

Listening to the report of Navy Commander Daniel, Arthur frowned and found a more obvious problem in the scale of the Navy's deployment.

"Commander Daniel, why are the number of our medium-sized functional auxiliary warships not as many as the main battleships?" Arthur asked with some confusion.

Especially the scale of the Pacific Fleet, which can be described in four words, that is, top-heavy.

The Pacific Fleet has 9 main battleships, 3+4+2, but there are only 7 medium-sized auxiliary warships, led by destroyers.

Although some small-scale ships are not included in the statistics, this is not the reason why the number of small and medium-sized warships in Australasia is so scarce.

"Your Majesty, have you forgotten the order you gave?" Daniel's face was a little strange, and he reminded carefully.

"Order? What order did I give?" Arthur continued to ask puzzledly.

"Before our naval construction plan began, Your Majesty once said that we should give priority to building our main battleships and submarines. After completing the construction of these warships, we will build medium-sized warships and functional auxiliary warships." Daniel replied.

Arthur was stunned for a moment, and he also remembered that he had issued such an order before the construction of the navy.

However, Arthur meant at the time that the main battleships should be built first, and a small part of the productivity should be used to build various small and medium-sized warships.

But unexpectedly, the Admiralty and the shipyard misinterpreted their orders and directly used all the productivity to build the main battleships, which really pushed all the small and medium-sized warships to the end.

"Without the protection of destroyers and frigates, how can our aircraft carriers be guaranteed to be safe?" Arthur was a little puzzled and looked at Commander Daniel: "Since such a problem has been discovered, why didn't anyone remind me?"

The strength of the aircraft carrier is not only due to the various types of carrier-based aircraft it carries, but also a series of auxiliary warships including frigates, destroyers and cruisers that protect the aircraft carrier.

In addition to powerful aircraft carriers, a complete aircraft carrier battle group must also have a large number of functional warships, so that the aircraft carrier can exert sufficient combat power.

"This..." Commander Daniel was silent for a while, and did not dare to tell the real reason.

Arthur also understood instantly. Since the establishment of the empire, Arthur's reputation in Australasia has reached its peak.

As the founding emperor, Arthur's prestige in the government and the people is not allowed to be challenged by anyone.

The consequence of this is that officials who are not close to Arthur no longer have the courage to question Arthur's decision.

Except for a small number of Arthur's trusted confidants, how dare the rest of the people question Arthur's decision openly?

Sighing slightly, Arthur said to all the people attending the meeting: "If such problems are found in the future, they should be reported to the Ministry of Defense in a timely manner. Or Commander Daniel, you can also come to me in time after you find the problem.

Australasia needs the efforts of everyone to become strong, and the empire will never punish the ministers who are dedicated to the country."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Everyone responded.

"Does the Admiralty have any plans to remedy these problems?" Arthur asked.

Now that the problem has been discovered, the most important thing next is to remedy the problem that has already caused harm to the navy.

Arthur believes that since Commander Daniel has already seen this problem, he should have a certain solution to this problem.

Sure enough, hearing Arthur's inquiry, Commander Daniel quickly stood up and replied: "Your Majesty, at present, the three major shipyards in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland have begun to build our main warships. It is a greater loss for us to interrupt the construction at this time.

I think that if you want to take into account the joint construction of main warships and small and medium-sized warships, you can transfer these smaller warship orders to other shipyards."

Arthur nodded, and had no objection to handing small-scale orders to civilian shipyards.

"Does the Navy have a favorite shipyard?" Arthur continued to ask.

As a great power, Australasia is also the most powerful country in the Pacific. Needless to say, the shipbuilding industry is well developed.

In particular, several major local regions, such as Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, are all separated by vast oceans, which makes the exchanges between regions very dependent on sea transportation.

After more than 30 years of development, the shipbuilding industry in Australasia has also come to the forefront of the world.

There are countless civilian shipyards, and there are hundreds of civilian shipyards of different sizes in Australia and New Zealand.

As for military shipyards, Arthur is not familiar with other military shipyards except for the Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland branches of the Royal Dockyard, which is why Arthur asked.

"Your Majesty, the Christchurch Joint Shipyard in South New Zealand currently meets our requirements." Navy Commander Daniel said: "We have investigated the background of this joint shipyard, which was jointly established by local New Zealanders and capital in Australia.

The current Christchurch Joint Shipyard has become the largest private military shipyard in New Zealand, and can start two small warships under 8,000 tons at the same time, which basically meets our requirements."

"Christchurch United Shipyard?" Arthur's face looked a little strange. If I remember correctly, there is a royal consortium behind this joint shipyard, which is the original royal consortium.

The Australian capital that Daniel mentioned should be the Royal Consortium in disguise.

This also represents good news. After being disguised, the royal consortium has become multiple capitals, large and small, and even the military can hide it.

"Now that the military has investigated, let's separate some of the orders for small-scale warships and give them to Christchurch United Shipyard." Arthur nodded and agreed to Commander Daniel's proposal.

“There will be many similar examples in the future, and it is impossible for the three major royal shipyards to take all the naval orders.

In the future, the Navy can also add vetted private military shipyards to its shipyard cooperation list as appropriate to expand our productivity in warships.

In terms of military industry, no factory is a fixed cooperation target of our military. There is only one prerequisite for cooperation with the military, and that is to be able to produce finished products of high quality and low price. "Arthur ordered.

Although the three major royal shipyards are all enterprises of the royal consortium, Arthur has no intention of favoring these three major shipyards.

After all, country is the most important thing to Arthur. The interests of the royal family can be appropriately compromised in front of the country, let alone the three small shipyards.

Whoever has more powerful technology in the shipbuilding industry, whoever's design drawings are more trusted by the navy, and whoever builds warships that not only have excellent quality but are also cheap, will be able to win the favor of the military, rather than being fixed under the three major royal shipyards. Order.

Remaining unchanged will only make people feel slack. Only reasonable and compliant competition can make companies like the Royal Consortium stronger.

If the three major shipyards cannot gain an advantage in the competition against private military shipyards, then Arthur should consider completely replacing the main leaders of the three major shipyards.

"Yes, Your Majesty!" Many naval generals, including Commander Daniel, all had expressions of excitement and admiration on their faces.

You know, the net benefits brought to the three major shipyards by the Navy alone are worth millions of Australian dollars each year.

Arthur was able to allow fair competition between private military shipyards and the three major royal shipyards, which already required great determination.

How can the navy not feel admiration and excitement when facing such a monarch who can give up personal interests for the sake of national interests?

After all, the more powerful the navy is, the more benefits they, the senior leaders of the navy, will receive.

"Replenish the number of small and medium-sized warships as soon as possible and add them to the fleets in the Pacific and Indian Ocean." Arthur ordered: "

Only an aircraft carrier with enough frigates and destroyers can be called a powerful warship.

As compensation for the navy, on behalf of the royal family, I will donate 5 million Australian dollars from the defense budget to the defense sector.

As for how much you can get out of the 5 million Australian dollars, it depends on whether you can convince Minister Thomas. Arthur said with a smile.

The competition for the Ministry of National Defense's financial budget every year is truly a whirlwind.

It is clear that the defense budget accounts for a large portion of the government's financial budget every year, and the amount is increasing year by year.

But these commanders of the army, navy and air force are really show-stoppers when it comes to crying.

But the good news is that Australasia has gone through eight cabinet governments so far, but there are only three defense ministers so far, namely former Prime Minister Kent, former Prime Minister Raul and Minister Thomas.

From this aspect, we can already see how important the Ministry of Defense is to Arthur. Except for Minister Thomas, who is still serving, the other defense ministers have successfully passed through the tenure of the Ministry of Defense, deputy prime minister, and prime minister, and then retired honorably with the title of earl.

This also means one thing. Although Minister Thomas currently only has the title of baron, it is almost certain that he will obtain the title of earl after retirement.

As long as he makes no mistakes in his final term, he will at least get the position of deputy prime minister and be one of the most promising candidates to compete for prime minister.

This is also Arthur's way of ensuring that there will be no problems in the competition for the defense budget every year, that is, the choice of the Secretary of Defense can steadily suppress the commanders of the navy, army and air force.

It goes without saying that former Prime Minister Kent and former Prime Minister Raul need to say more. Even the current Minister Thomas truly rose from the grassroots level of the military. He served successively as Commander of the Guards Division and Deputy Minister of Defense before being promoted to Minister of Defense.

This kind of resume also determines one thing, that is, Minister Thomas is relatively good at controlling some of his generals.

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