1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 696 Military Preparations

At the end of 1631, Sanya Luhuitou Army Base.

Tao Donglai, Yan Chujie, Wang Tom and other high-level military officials gathered together for a rare occasion. They were sitting under a temporary tent outside and watching the amphibious landing exercise conducted by the army and navy at the Luhuitou training ground.Since the end of the Annan Civil War, the military has not frequently practiced amphibious landing tactics in the past two years. Similar to this kind of large-scale actual combat exercise involving two battalions and more than 20 combat ships at one time, it is rare in the near future. action.

Although the high-level military did not announce the purpose of arranging this exercise, as long as the veterans who have been in the army for more than three years know that this is a precursor to Haihan's foreign war.At present, the entire territory of Hainan Island has basically been controlled by Haihan. Even the Qiongzhong mountainous area, which has been closed for the past few years, has chosen to submit to the ruling party after being wiped out several Li and Miao tribes who were against Haihan. Committee.It can be said that today's Hainan Island, it is very difficult for anyone to cause a big storm. There is no need for Haihan to launch another landing operation on this big island. The possible target will only be outside Hainan Island. place.

"How is the progress of the shipyard's renovation of the landing ship?" Tao Donglai asked, putting down the binoculars in his hand.

"Two ships have been rebuilt, and two more ships will be on the berth this week. At least four ships can be rebuilt in the first quarter of next year." Sun Changmi, who was present as a representative of the shipyard, immediately responded: "But the steam required by the Navy Power battleships, I am afraid it will be too late to complete the construction task in the first half of next year."

"Not enough slipways?" Tao Donglai asked.

"It's not just a problem with the berth." Tom Wang took over the conversation at this time: "Because a lot of mining equipment in Shilu was destroyed in the previous riots, Tian Du's workshop is still rushing to repair this piece. The marine steam engine requested by our military has been delayed."

According to the development plan formulated by the Navy, by the end of 1631, the Navy should have six "Majestic-class" hybrid warships in service.However, due to various reasons, the manufacturing capacity of the ordnance department failed to meet the needs of the military. The fourth "Majesty-class" warship was commissioned just a month ago, and the fifth ship will enter the sea trial stage next month. If all goes well, it may be possible to be included before Fujian starts.But the sixth ship is still on the berth. It needs to wait for the steam engine made in Tiandu Industrial Zone to be in place before continuing the subsequent construction steps. Even if it is rushed day and night, it will probably not be launched until the second half of next year.

Although one more ship and one less ship may not have a big impact on the direction of the battle in Fujian, it is naturally impossible for the Navy to be satisfied with such a delay.In Wang Tom's recent troop deployment plan submitted to the executive committee, after completing the combat mission to attack Penghu next year, the navy will at least deploy at Magong Port in Penghu, Fujian, South Port of Pearl River Estuary in Guangdong, Haikou Port in Qiongzhou Strait, Victory Port, the base camp, and northern Annan. Each of the six key nodes in Tushan Port and Cam Ranh Port in the south deployed a battle fleet with a "majestic class" warship as the flagship to protect Haihan's sphere of influence in the South China Sea.However, it now appears that this plan may have to be changed due to delays in the manufacturing progress of the "Majestic Class" warships, and some areas may not be able to complete the fleet deployment plan proposed by the Navy until the end of next year.

Of course, the ambitions of Wang Tom and the navy do not stop there. The current direction of "building more ships and building larger ships" advocated by the Ministry of Shipping is almost in harmony with the navy. Certain advantages, but the navy and shipyards are already planning to build ocean-going combat ships with larger tonnage, stronger firepower, and more advanced steam engine propulsion systems.Of course, as for when to start construction, it still has to wait for Wang Tom to get the approval and budget from the executive committee.

However, the large battleship itself is not the most urgently needed ship for the navy. The landing ship, which will be rebuilt in the second half of this year, will be one of the most important vehicles for attacking Penghu in the coming year.

When the landing operations were carried out in Annan in the early years, the navy had already begun to try to use ships with more professional functions to carry out the landing operations. However, the technical capabilities of the Victory Port Shipyard were still relatively limited at that time, so the so-called transformations were all small things. action.This time, the Shengli Port Shipyard's transformation of the first batch of "Exploration-class" warships that served in the early years is much more professional.

First of all, the gun positions on the second deck were removed from the ship and converted into manned compartments, so that each ship could carry one more company of troops than before.Secondly, a total of four small boats and corresponding lifting facilities were deployed on the deck, so that the small boats can be quickly lowered in places where it is inconvenient to dock near the shore, and they can be landed by paddling manually.Then part of the ship's sideboard was transformed into an upturned structure. When it is docked on the shore, this part of the ship's sideboard can be lowered outwards to serve as a springboard between the ship and the shore, allowing personnel to land in the shortest possible time. And all kinds of luggage in the cabin can be unloaded to the shore relatively easily.In addition, many adjustments have been made to the cabins and other equipment on the ship according to the functional needs of the landing ship, in order to shorten the time required for the landing of personnel and materials on board as short as possible during landing operations.

Of course, these modifications will also weaken the warship itself to a certain extent. On the one hand, the output of artillery fire will be almost completely cancelled, and the self-defense capability of the ship will be greatly weakened. There must be some influence.As long as such a ship lands in combat, it must be protected by other warships with firepower output capabilities.However, the military believes that this kind of transformation based on combat needs is very necessary, so the navy has made a transformation plan for eight ships in one go.These eight ships are fully loaded and can basically transport the personnel of a reinforced battalion together with the weapons and supplies for short-term combat at one time. The military believes that this should be the level required to establish a stable beachhead.

Of course, as for whether this newly modified landing warship is useful or not, and how it should be used during the actual landing battle, this needs to be tested by landing exercises like the current one.Although there are currently only two remodeled landing ships in the navy, this is enough for the officers to figure out the basic tactics.

In addition to the transformation of ships, another focus of attention of adults is the new equipment used by the army.When participating in the Annan Civil War, in order to quickly build bunkers on the beach, a large number of multifunctional flatbed vehicles were built, which can not only load and unload materials, but also be connected in a short time to form a simple line of defense.Now, the structure of this kind of car has been further strengthened. In addition to covering the bottom of the car with a thin layer of iron sheet to strengthen the defense capability, the body has also achieved standardized manufacturing, and added fasteners and supports to connect the car together. The structural part of the car erected.In this way, it will take even less time for engineers to connect such small vehicles to form a line of defense during wartime.

In addition, since the Shilu Mine began to produce copper ore, the military also benefited from it. At present, a batch of bronze cannons of various calibers have been put into the artillery unit.Compared with the iron cannons installed before, the bronze cannon has obvious advantages, such as good ductility, easy processing, fast heat dissipation, and not easy to explode.In addition, copper cannons have an incomparable advantage in the field of offshore combat, that is, they are more resistant to corrosion and are less prone to rust due to high salt and high humidity environments like iron cannons.

Cast iron in this period was not capable of high chamber pressure, and the smelting technology of low-carbon steel was not so good. Although Haihan can be said to be the only one in the world in the reserve of steel smelting technology, the real realization is not achieved overnight.Before Haihan's steel production capacity increases to a certain level, the use of copper cannons can be said to be the simplest and most effective transitional method to improve artillery strength.However, in the past few years, because Haihan had no stable copper ore resources, the number of copper cannons cast was extremely limited, and most of the militias were equipped with iron cannons.In the one year after the Shilu Mine was put into operation, Tiandu's ordnance workshop has cast more than 200 copper cannons of various calibers for the militia army, replacing those cast iron cannons whose service life has expired.

"At present, the battalion participating in the exercise has all been replaced with copper guns, four 12-pound guns, and four 24-pound guns. Compared with the iron guns equipped before, the current shooting speed has increased by [-]%, and the life of the artillery barrel has also increased. At least one third." Yan Chujie watched the artillerymen unload the artillery from the ship to the shore, and introduced to his colleagues present: "In addition, due to the increase in the strength of the artillery barrel, it is possible to increase the amount of charge To extend the range. Now the range of the artillery of the same caliber has increased by a quarter compared with before. It can be said that basically no one in the Far East can shoot at the same distance as us, even the artillery we sold before. "

"How much can be installed in the first quarter tomorrow?" Tao Donglai asked with interest.As a traditional advocate of artillery bombardment, he, like Yan Chujie, believes in the combat concept of artillery supremacy - in front of artillery, there is no city that cannot be defeated by an opponent, and if there is, it must be artillery The equipment is not strong enough.

Yan Chujie replied: "According to Liu Xingli's reply, the quality and quantity of [-] guns per month can be guaranteed, and at least [-] guns can be delivered to the army in the first quarter of next year."

Tom Wang coughed dryly and interjected: "Let me make a correction. The sixty guns per month that engineer Liu Xingli said actually included the part delivered to the navy, not exclusively for the army. According to our previous According to the distribution method, the navy should get 24% of the sixty guns, that is, 36 guns. The other [-] guns belong to your army."

"No, no, you're talking about the arrangement a few months ago." Yan Chujie immediately retorted: "After all, the army will be the main force in next year's landing operations, so this batch of new artillery must be installed in the army and navy first. You can take it easy."

"Old Yan, you're really irrational!" Wang Tom shook his head again and again: "The army is the main force? Do you plan to let the soldiers swim from Sanya to Fujian? Don't forget that Shibazhi was born as a pirate. They There are thousands of sea ships under my command, can the army deal with them? If you want to talk about sound energy, then I will give way to the army immediately, and your army will do it when sending troops in the future, okay?"

Yan Chujie was not so easy to get along with, so he immediately retorted: "Your navy has two-digit artillery on a ship, but how many cannons do I have in an artillery company? Sixty cannons are enough to equip several battalions of my army. You The navy is only enough to equip a few ships, so of course the army should be considered first, and then the navy!"

"Stop arguing!" Tao Donglai hurriedly stopped the two from arguing.After the separation of the army and the navy, competition for limited military expenditure and resources was inevitable. Even high-ranking officials like Yan Chujie and Wang Tom often quarreled like this.

Of course, such disputes are more often just a gesture, so that others can understand that the arms they represent will not easily sell their own interests.It's like these dozens of bronze cannons. In fact, it's not the point of the army and navy to get more points. The key is not to give in easily, otherwise the next time the resources are allocated, it will be easy for the other party to ride on their heads.

In addition to weapons, some new equipment has also begun to be installed in the troops, and will appear successively in this exercise and next year's combat plan.For example, the brass binoculars produced by the ordnance department have been installed in the company-level units of the Army, and the captains of each ship of the Navy's "Exploration Class" and above are allotted one.Although the performance of this kind of telescope is far inferior to the industrial products brought by the traversers, it is a very practical tool for improving the combat effectiveness of the militia.

In addition to these standardized equipment, the ordnance department also has some experimental weapons and equipment, which will be followed by next year's combat missions to conduct some field trials to test its combat performance.However, these equipment are still undisclosed black technologies and will not appear in this exercise.

The entire exercise took a total of two and a half hours from launching an attack at sea to establishing a beachhead, and part of the exercise used live ammunition.In addition to the high-level personnel of Haihan, representatives from Annan and Portugal also watched the exercise with shocked expressions in the guest seats.Through this exercise, they discovered that the combat capabilities of the Haihan militia had improved to a higher level than a few years ago. If their own army wanted to act as a defender to prevent the Haihan people from landing, the possibility of winning was very slim.Under the opponent's sharp long-range firepower, the defense troops' fate may not be any better than those of the fragmented targets.

(End of this chapter)