Chapter 207 Ironclad Ship Launched

When the public learned through various means that Carlo was about to organize a bullfight in the new year, they immediately cheered, and some Spaniards who loved bullfighting were even more excited.

There is no doubt that the Spaniards love bullfighting. During the bullfighting period from March to October, almost every bullfighting performance will be full.

Someone once commented on the Spaniards' love for bullfighting: "Spaniards can be late for any event, but bullfighting is not one of them."

This statement is not an exaggeration, especially in several southern regions of Spain, such as Andalusia.

As the most populous region in Spain, Andalusia has the most bullrings in Spain and the most fanatical bullfighting people.

Generally, excellent bullfighters can be rewarded with bull ears and bull tails. In the bullrings in the Andalusia region, bullfighters loved by the audience can not only go around the field, but also pass through the "Prince Gate" of the bullring under the enthusiastic cheers and witnesses of the audience.

Although such rewards attract bullfighters from all over Spain, it is not so easy to qualify for the "Prince Gate".

There will be three bullfighters and six bulls in a bullfight, and each bullfighter will have two bullfighting opportunities.

To qualify for the "Prince Gate", the bullfighter must win the favor of the audience in two bullfighting performances, and get at least three bull ears and a bull tail, in order to have the opportunity to pass the "Prince Gate".

It is true that bullfighting is extremely harmful. The reason why Spanish people worship bullfighters is that bullfighters dare to face the great risks in the process of bullfighting.

The bulls used in the bullfighting arena are pure wild bulls, generally selected from North Africa.

Because their violent temper and aggressive nature are not artificially trained, these bulls are extremely dangerous, and bullfighting activities have a high probability of casualties.

It is foreseeable that as Carlo promotes bullfighting in Spain, the number of Spaniards killed in bullfighting every year will increase at a very fast rate, reaching hundreds or even thousands of people in a short period of time.

But these shortcomings are acceptable to Carlo, because bullfighting can also bring more benefits to Spain.

Regardless of external factors such as weapons and equipment, the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army is not bad among the powerful countries, and is still stronger than Russia and Italy.

Relying on the influence of bullfighting on the brave attributes of the Spanish, Carlo is confident that he will form a Spanish army with first-class or even top combat effectiveness in Europe.

With a population that is not as good as other European powers, Spain can only improve the combat effectiveness of the army as much as possible to barely compete with other powerful countries.

As November approaches, Spain has received another good news, that is, the Renaissance-class ironclad ship Renaissance built before is about to be launched.

This news also attracted the attention and cheers of the Spanish, and it caused a sensation throughout Spain in a short time.

Spain did not hide the construction of this ironclad ship. Instead, the Ministry of Defense made the warship procurement plan public, and it was built openly by the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard.

The reason for the full disclosure is to arouse the attention of the Spanish people and enhance the pride of the Spanish people.

Originally, according to the construction time given by the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard, the Renaissance Ironclad Ship had the hope of completing the construction work in the summer and launching the sea navigation test phase.

However, the Ministry of Defense subsequently ordered nearly 20 other small and medium-sized warships, allowing the three docks of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard to enter production, and the construction of the Renaissance Ironclad Ship was naturally delayed for several months.

The good news is that after the rush work of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard, two 3,000-ton cruisers were launched and tested together with the Renaissance Ironclad Ship.

Three warships were launched at the same time, and this was the first time in many years that Spain launched an ironclad ship again. Carlo must participate in the launching ceremony in person.

On the day of the launching ceremony, part of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard was open to the public, and it was also surrounded by curious Spanish people.

When the people saw the huge ship being pushed into the ocean in the distance, the Spaniards could no longer hold back the tears in their eyes, cheered and celebrated loudly.

The conventional displacement of the Renaissance ironclad reached an astonishing 8,600 tons, which is also in the first echelon among the ironclads currently built by European countries.

In comparison, the displacement of the Magnificent-class ironclad built by the British at the same time was only 9,644 tons, which can prove that the tonnage of the Renaissance-class ironclad has been ranked among the top in the current ranking of ironclads of various countries.

More importantly, the Renaissance-class ironclad is equipped with four breech-loading 12-inch 305mm steel naval guns. Although the caliber of the guns is not as good as the 318mm naval guns mastered by the British, the advantage is that it is a breech-loading gun, and the firing rate and shooting distance are far ahead of the muzzle-loading gun.

Although the British Magnificent-class ironclads had a tonnage 1,000 tons more than the Spanish Renaissance-class ironclads, the main guns of the Magnificent-class ironclads were only two 11-inch muzzle-loading rifled guns, and their firepower lagged behind that of the Spanish Renaissance-class ironclads.

On the whole, the combat effectiveness of the Renaissance-class ironclads is definitely in the first echelon of the active ironclads in European countries. This is also the result of Carlo's strong support for Spain's original shipbuilding system and the acquisition of some technology and information from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

Compared with this ironclad ship with a tonnage of more than 8,600 tons, the two cruisers next to it with a tonnage of only more than 3,000 tons seem a bit mini.

However, since the people have seen the big dish of the Renaissance ironclad, they will naturally not dislike the two small dishes next to it.

After the launch of these three warships, Spain's naval strength has completely stabilized in the top five in the world. Although it is only the fifth, there is no possibility of competing for the fourth, but it is still the top five.

More importantly, this is only the first ironclad built by Spain in ten years. When Spain builds more ironclads in the future, will Spain's naval strength remain at the level of the fifth in the world?

Naturally, this is the question that the people are most concerned about and looking forward to.

At the launching ceremony of the three warships, Carlo did not make a high profile, so as not to arouse the British's fear.

The British are not afraid of Spain's army, but if Spain focuses on the development of the navy, the British will still have some concerns.

After all, to put it bluntly, the British's position as the world hegemon is completely maintained by the navy. What they fear most is the challenge from the sea, which will affect the power and status of the British Empire.

At present, the main contradictions among the European powers are the four major contradictions of Germany and France, Britain and France, Britain and Russia, and Russia and Austria.

But why did it eventually evolve into a fight between Britain, France, Russia and Germany and Austria? The most fundamental reason is that Germany's development in the navy threatened Britain's status, so that the British chose the lesser of two evils and finally chose to cooperate with the French, who were less threatening, to defeat the Germans.

Of course, the British's purpose is not so simple. What the British want to do more is to solve the two major worries of Germany and France in one fell swoop in the war, and ensure that there is no country on the European continent that can threaten their status.

The final result is also very clear. Germany was eventually defeated under the siege of Britain and France, and the French also suffered huge casualties, which eventually led to France's poor performance in World War II.

The surrender of France in World War II cannot be blamed on the French. After all, France had suffered too many casualties in World War I. There were only more than 20 years between World War I and World War II. When World War II broke out, there were many French people who had experienced World War I. These people certainly did not want to experience another large-scale war like World War I.

Although Spain does not intend to be high-profile in naval expansion, it will still build several ironclad ships for the development of the navy in the next few years.

On the one hand, Spain's economy has gradually improved, which can support the Spanish Navy to have more ironclad ships. On the other hand, with the expansion of Spanish colonies, Spain does need a stronger fleet to protect its colonies.

As mentioned before, although Spain has the fifth largest navy in the world, most of its warships are sailing warships, which are products that are outdated.

Just like the pre-dreadnought encounters the dreadnought, the sailing warship encounters the ironclad ship, which is like an egg hitting a stone.

The huge improvement brought by technology is a gap that sailing warships cannot make up for even if they work hard, which also makes Spain, a naval power, a little bloated.

Reading the error-free version! 6=9+Shu_bar first published this novel.

Although Carlo did not plan to maintain a large-scale navy, it is still necessary to replace some of the warships with new warships powered by steam turbines during the period of rapid economic development in Spain in recent years.

The speed of sailing warships and ironclad ships is completely disproportionate. After all, one is powered by wind and the other is powered by steam turbines.

Ironclad ships can even complete ocean voyages without sails, which is completely lacking in previous sailing warships.

But Spain's colonies are all over the world, with colonies in America, Africa and Asia. In this case, some warships with ocean-going capabilities are very necessary to help Spain better stabilize its colonies.

If it relied on those sailing warships, by the time it arrived at the distant colonies, I am afraid that the rebellion in the colonies would have ended long ago.

With this idea in mind, after attending the launching ceremony of the Renaissance-class ironclad, Carlo immediately notified several other members of the Spanish National Defense Committee and convened a new round of national defense meetings at the Royal Palace in Madrid.

The Spanish National Defense Committee was established by Carlo after he pacified the workers' march. In addition to electing the Minister of Defense when the cabinet changed, it was also the highest conference organization in the Spanish military.

The purpose of Carlo convening the National Defense Committee meeting was also very simple, that is, to discuss Spain's expansion plan in the navy and to completely stabilize the position of the Spanish navy at the fifth place in the world.

The candidates who participated in the National Defense Committee meeting were fixed, and there were only seven people, including Carlo, the Minister of Defense, the Prime Minister, the Chief of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Guards.

Because Archduke Serrano, as the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, also served as the Minister of Defense, only six people actually participated in the meeting.

The fewer the number of people in the meeting, the less debate there was. Everyone had no objection to Spain's naval expansion, even the Commander-in-Chief of the Army.

The main reason for this is that the current relatively peaceful environment has limited the growth of the Spanish Army. At present, the Spanish Royal Army has a total of 136,000 people, which is already a lot of troops.

If we add the 15,000 Guards, the total number of Spanish army has exceeded 150,000, and its comprehensive combat effectiveness is second only to the five major powers.

Under such circumstances, it would be difficult for the Army to expand again. Unless faced with a war crisis, all the Army can do is to secure more budget for equipment so that soldiers can train boldly without fear of the consumption of bullets.

In fact, the current Spanish Royal Army is really not stingy in training. Excluding the 46,000 colonial troops, the Royal Army still had a strength of over 90,000.

Among the military expenditures announced by the Ministry of National Defense every year, the training costs for these 90,000 soldiers account for the majority.

Don't underestimate the cost of training soldiers. If each soldier conducts target practice twice a week and each target practice consumes 10 rounds of bullets, the number of bullets consumed by a soldier per week is as high as 20 rounds.

Spain has 90,000 Royal Army soldiers, which also means that if the Spanish Army follows this target training ratio, it will consume more than 1.8 million bullets per week.

1.8 million rounds per week, and the number of bullets consumed in a month exceeds 7 million rounds. Based on this ratio, Spanish soldiers consume hundreds of millions of bullets every year just for target training.

Although the actual training situation is certainly not that simple, it is enough to prove how huge the Spanish army's daily training expenses are.

Fortunately, after years of expansion in production, the Royal Ordnance Factory has expanded its production of weapons, equipment, ammunition and artillery shells several times or even dozens of times.

Especially when the army has been fully equipped with new rifles, the Royal Ordnance Factory only needs to retain one rifle production line to make up for the daily loss of rifles, and the remaining production lines can be used to work overtime to produce bullets.

Although it could not fully meet the training needs of Spanish soldiers, after all, the colonial army also consumed bullets, and the 15,000 soldiers of the Guards were not included.

But the good news is that 70% of the bullets consumed by the army for training come from domestic production in Spain, and only 30% come from imports.

This is also thanks to the fact that the Spanish rifle is an improvement from the Italian rifle, and both rifles can use the same bullet.

In this way, Spain can purchase the same type of rifle bullets in Italy, solving the problem of bullet demand caused by military training.