Chapter 216 The Confused French Navy

Charles once again played hide-and-seek with the citizens of Paris. When he went home the next day, he strayed out the back door at a different time.

When he returned to the small town of Darvaise, he saw a large crowd of people blocking the front of the town from a distance. It was probably another triumphal ceremony organized by the neighbors.

Charles had no choice but to let Major Laurent go home in another direction.

However, when he got home, he found that he had been beaten to the punch. A young officer with the rank of major general was sitting on the cheap sofa in the living room. Deyoka was chatting with him.

Charles thought he was sent by Gallieni. He put on his military cap that he was about to take off, stepped forward to salute and called out: "General!"

The young major general was stunned, and quickly put down the coffee cup in his hand and stood up. He shook hands with Charles enthusiastically and said excitedly: "You, you must be Charles, it's an honor, my name is Tijani."

Charles felt that the name was a little familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere before.

Tijani explained: "I am the commander of the Second Special Artillery Division, Tijani."

Charles said "Oh", he had seen this name when he was commanding operations, but it was just a code name at the time.

Dyoka looked at Charles with a smile: "General Tijani is here to thank you for rescuing them."

Camille came out of the kitchen: "The general is very polite, and he also brought gifts!"

"It should be!" Tijani responded respectfully: "You have a very good son, Mr. Deyoka, Mrs. Bernard!"

Camille smiled proudly, she liked others to praise Charles like this, especially that he was a major general.

Camille warmly invited Tijani to sit down at the dining table and served pizza for the two.

Dyoka said that he had eaten and gave the table to Charles and Tijani.

Charles knew that Deyoka had not eaten before, he knew that he should avoid it at this time, otherwise he would inevitably hear some military secrets.

Tijanyi didn't hesitate. He grabbed a piece and chewed it like he was mad with hunger. He praised loudly while eating: "It tastes great, Mrs. Bernard, I think I will eat it all!"

"You should not be used to it, General!" Charles despised this naked compliment.

He remembered Tijanyi's identity, the only son of Wells, who was well-dressed and well-fed wherever he went. How could he be so interested in a pizza.

"No, Major!" Tijanyi smiled slightly and continued to chew his food: "I'm not like you think."

"Indeed." Charles answered bluntly: "For example, your family owns half of the warships in France, but you joined the army and became a major general!"

There was a bit of sarcasm in Charles' tone. The subtext of his words was: You, a young man, should go to harm the navy, not the army!

Tijanyi was not stupid. Of course, he knew what Charles meant, but he was not angry.

He answered vaguely: "Major, do you think there is a way out for the French Navy?"

"It's none of my business!" Charles answered directly: "I'm in the army and don't know about the navy."

Tijani said "hmm": "I don't know either. I'll just tell you a few things I know. In terms of warships, they are divided into two factions: one advocates the so-called green-water navy, and the other is the traditional navy."

"Green-water navy?" Charles was stunned.

This is something he didn't know. The navy in World War I and World War II really had no presence. The most well-known thing was that they sank collectively in order not to be captured by the enemy.

"Yes!" Tijani said while eating with relish: "The idea of ​​the green-water navy is to fight with small-tonnage speedboats equipped with torpedoes. They think this can solve all problems."

Charles said "Oh", hoping to fight big with small.

This is indeed very tempting, because even a powerful battleship can be taken away with just one torpedo. Although the torpedo hit rate of this period is not high, if a large number of torpedo boats are developed to fire at the target...

(The above picture shows an early torpedo boat, which was first invented by the British, but the French Navy, which was at a disadvantage, believed that it could overtake the enemy, so the Green Water Naval School emerged and built it in large quantities)

"We now have at least 200 torpedo boats." Tijani said: "The Green Water Naval School believed that this was the trend of the future navy. It was not until the British dreadnought appeared that they realized that they had fallen behind."

The dreadnought was the maritime hegemon of this period. Its concept was to unify the different caliber guns on the battleship as much as possible, and have one or two main guns of the same caliber.

The advantage of doing this is obvious. The main guns of the same caliber and model will have similar trajectories. In wartime, as long as one element is calculated, the impact point range of more than a dozen or even dozens of main guns can be determined.

It can even fight in the form of test firing: after calculating all the parameters, one gun fires, observes the impact point, calculates the offset to correct all the parameters, and then test fires again... Once it enters the range, the rest of the guns will immediately fire in unison.

If the opponent's battleships do not have a unified gun caliber, they need to calculate multiple parameters, each of which may be wrong, and will be at a disadvantage in actual combat.

"We only have three dreadnoughts now." Tijani smiled and shook his head: "The UK already has more than 20 ships, and Germany also has more than a dozen ships. We used to be the second in the navy, but now we have been left far behind by them. Even so, they are still wavering between the green water navy and the traditional navy. Today they build torpedo boats, and tomorrow they have a new dreadnought plan."

Charles said "hmm" expressionlessly, uncertain about the direction of development, and in a state of confusion.

Tijani continued: "The same goes for submarines. They are even divided into three groups. Some people think that submarines should use steam engines, some people think that they should use diesel engines, and some people think that submarines should be equipped with naval guns so that they can face enemy warships. It’s time to fight!”

(Note: The picture above shows a submarine equipped with naval guns, the Surcouf. France started construction in 1927. France calls it a cruise submarine)

Tijani picked up the milk and took a sip, hating that iron cannot be made into steel: "We are the first country in the world to realize mechanical power-driven submarines, the first country to realize electric propulsion submarines, and the first to bring torpedoes The country that got on the submarine, but now?”

Then Tijani concluded: "We don't have a navy anymore, they can't do anything!"

"Isn't the army different?" Charles asked.

Charles was referring to the vague direction and repeated swings, and the army was not much better. This was determined by the political system of the French Third Republic.

"I used to think that they were indeed not much different." Tijani stopped what he was doing and looked at Ciel: "But now, I find that the army and the navy are two different things!"

(The picture above shows a torpedo from World War I. Its short-range hit rate was low. It once failed to hit when launched from a distance of 150 meters, but it could still cause a fatal blow once it hit)