Rise of Australia

Chapter 241 Five-Year Shipbuilding, Target Great Powers

The war is over, but there is more aftermath to be done after the war.

First of all, according to the London Agreement, Australasia needs to withdraw its troops from Portuguese India and East Asian colonies, and guarantee the safety of all Portuguese citizens in these two areas.

Well, yes, the physical safety of citizens.

As for the properties of these Portuguese, most of the previous factories, equipment and other properties have already been removed by Australasia, and all countries are well aware of this.

In addition, the more than 1000 Portuguese soldiers captured in Australasia were all moved to Portuguese India, waiting for the Portuguese to receive them.

These people, Arthur, did not ask for a ransom. After all, Australasia had already earned enough in this war. In addition, the pretext for the war was to seek justice for the fishermen. Too greedy would be bad.

In fact, the harvest in Australasia this time is indeed not small. Let alone Portuguese Timor, which is rich in mineral resources, the factories and various facilities in the other two colonies have almost been moved.

After all, Portugal has been operating in these areas for dozens or even hundreds of years, and these properties are enough to make Australasia reap a lot.

As for the population problem of Portuguese Timor, there is also a relatively reasonable solution, which is to give them severance pay and allow them to relocate to the other two Portuguese colonies in Asia.

The remaining people who are unwilling to leave will accept the rule of Australasia and even become Australasian citizens.

They will go through a probationary period of at least three months to ensure that there are no problems before they will be granted Australasian citizenship.

Timor's rule will also be more stable after Australasia has more immigrants from the mainland.

On October 1907, 10, the Australasian government officially announced that the Timor region would become the second colony of Australasia, and a Timorese colonial government would be formed to manage the region.

Timor, or Portuguese Timor, was also officially renamed Australian Timor.

The Governor of Australian Timor is Roman Peto, a member of the Royal House of Representatives and formerly New Zealand's House of Lords.

After successfully entering the Royal Council, Roman Peto also expressed his attitude of absolute loyalty to Arthur very wittily, and he was never fussy and kept a low profile.

It is definitely enough for such a talent to manage the small Australian Timor, and it can also make the New Zealanders feel that Arthur values ​​them.

You must know that even the governor of Australian Timor, which has just been established, has the same administrative level as the governors of the states, and even slightly surpasses the governors in status.

After all, the governors were elected by the people of the states, and the governors of the colonies and capital territories were appointed by Arthur himself.

This degree of closeness also destined the governors of the colonies and capital territories to have a higher status than the governors, which is why the governors are members of the Royal House of Representatives, but the governors are not.

After the army withdrew from the two occupied areas, it returned to its original station and entered into daily training.

The First Division also retained only one regiment as the garrison of Australian Timor.Other soldiers also returned to their posts in Australasia.

Although this war was victorious, it also exposed many shortcomings in the current Australasian military.

Although the strength of the army is very good, it can compete with the regular German army.But at present, the total number of soldiers in the Australasian Army is only more than 6, that is, one guard division and three regular divisions.

This number of people is still too small to guard Australasia, which has a total area of ​​several million square kilometers.

The second is the Australasian navy, which is where the biggest shortcomings are currently exposed.

The naval strength of Australasia has not changed much compared to the previous colonial period, only a few medium-sized frigates and cruisers have been added.

A navy of this size can only defend against pirates and weaker surrounding countries, and is not an opponent of European countries at all.

Even the Netherlands, Portugal and other countries whose current paper strength is similar to that of Australasia, their navy is still relatively large compared to Australasia, and Australasia is not its opponent at all.

Especially this time the war was almost limited by the inferiority of the navy. If the three European countries were not invited for peace talks in time, the war would have to last longer.

After discussions between Arthur and government officials, a five-year expansion plan for the Australasian Navy was formalized.

The first is the expansion of the most important warship type, the battleship.

The good news is that two Russian warships are in the final stages of construction, and the battleship Petropavlovsk is even nearing completion.

Next, two Russian battleships will enter the nautical test stage, which also means that the shipyard has more energy to build Australasia's own warships.

Because of this, the construction of battleships in the five-year construction plan is the bulk, and the scale is very large.

According to Arthur's decision, the Australasian Navy will order three Sovereign-class battleships, which will be named the first ship Australasia, Australia and New Zealand respectively.

According to the report of the Royal Dockyard, the construction of the first ship HMS Australasia can start as early as January next year, while the construction of HMS Australia and HMS New Zealand will also start in March and July respectively.

Because of the simultaneous construction of three battleships, the construction period will also be extended to a certain extent.

It is conservatively estimated that the completion time of the USS Australasia was about March 1909, and the completion time of the battleship New Zealand, which started construction the latest, would not exceed October 3 at the latest.

Counting the sailing test time of about a year, if all goes well, the Australasian Navy will usher in its first dreadnought ship in early 1910, and will harvest three dreadnought ships in 1910.

At that time, the Australasian Navy, which has three dreadnoughts, will definitely be able to squeeze into the top ten in the world.

In addition to the Sovereign-class battleship, Australasia also has a new class of strategic ship, or it is more appropriate to call it a battlecruiser.

In fact, the current British Empire already has battlecruisers.

This is a warship that has been weakened in some way compared to battleships or dreadnoughts.

Take the HMS Indomitable, HMS Invincible and HMS Firm, which have been launched by the British Empire, for example, their hull and turret armor thickness is only 6 to 7 inches, which is about 150 to 180 mm.

But at this time, the armor of the battleship had reached 11 to 12 inches, which is 280 to 300 mm.

Such a difference in armor thickness is literally twice as much, not to mention the actual protection ability, the difference may be even more.

This is the shortcoming of the British battlecruiser, but it is precisely because of this shortcoming that the battlecruiser has also obtained a huge advantage that the battleship cannot match, that is, the powerful speed of the battlecruiser.

While the dreadnoughts can only reach a conventional speed of 19 knots and a maximum speed of 21 knots, the speed of the Invincible-class battlecruiser is as high as a terrifying 26 knots, which is far ahead of the dreadnoughts.

And the speed of the dreadnought is much ahead of the old battleships, which is enough to prove how exaggerated the speed of the battlecruisers is.

More importantly, the guns of the British Invincible-class battlecruisers have a caliber of 12 inches, which is a 305 mm gun.

The caliber of this artillery is equivalent to that of battleships of the same period, which also means that a battlecruiser has the same powerful firepower as a battleship on the premise of having a speed far exceeding that of a battleship.

In addition to the greatly weakened armor protection capability, the other performance of the battlecruiser can be said to be the first-class and top-notch among the current battleships.

Although the weak armor has greatly weakened the protective ability of the battlecruiser, the extremely fast speed gives the battlecruiser a strategic significance that other warships cannot possess.

Strategic cruisers can use high speed to go around, outflank the enemy's fleet, and can also cruise and chase. With such a speed, the enemy can't escape even if they want to.

More importantly, the update speed of dreadnought ships is very fast, and the update speed of battlecruisers is not so fast.

As long as the firepower similar to that of a battleship is maintained, coupled with an extremely fast speed, the strategic significance of the battlecruiser cannot disappear.

After the birth of the Sovereign-class battleship, Arthur ordered the experts in the shipyard to start exploring this kind of warship.

It has been a long time now, and the experts have achieved some results.

Australasia's strategic cruiser is called the Unification-class fast cruiser, which is about 173 meters long, 24 meters wide, and 7.9 meters high.

The estimated standard displacement of the Unification-class fast cruiser has reached 17000 tons, and the estimated full-load displacement can barely reach [-] tons.

The power plant of this fast cruiser is not much different from that of the Sovereign-class battleship, but because of the substantial reduction in armor, the estimated speed of the fast cruiser can reach more than 24 knots.

As for the top speed, it needs to wait until the warship is built for actual testing, but it is expected to break through 25 knots.

The fast cruiser is equipped with four double-mounted 45-caliber 283mm main guns, 12 single-mounted 45-caliber four-inch secondary guns and seven machine guns.

There are also four 458 mm underwater torpedo tubes, capable of defending against and attacking submarines.

In addition to the obvious lack of armor protection, this unified-class fast cruiser really has no shortcomings, which is why Arthur made up his mind to build it.

In addition to the Sovereign-class battleship, the construction of the Unification-class fast cruiser is also the focus of Arthur's plan.

However, there are only two fast cruisers in the construction plan, and construction will start after the completion of the Australasia and Australia. Their completion is expected to wait until the second half of 1910, and they will not even have to wait until 1911 if they want to equip the navy. about.

But no one can deny that after being equipped with three Sovereign-class battleships and two Uniform-class fast cruisers, the size of the Australasian navy will definitely reach the level of a great power, although it is only a low-level power.

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(End of this chapter)