African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1617 Taking the German "Script"

The East African government is well aware that the pace of upgrading its main combat vessels is slightly slower than that of other major navies.

Rhine City.

Ernst lay on the sofa, looking at a summary report on the current development of the East African army, and said to Crown Prince Friedrich, "Compared to the army and air force, the expansion of the navy is indeed slower."

"Now that we have a clear understanding of the general development status and plans of other countries' navies, we can loosen the reins on our navies as appropriate."

"Now Britain's aircraft carrier force is second only to that of East Africa. We will use Britain as a model to strengthen the Imperial Navy, build three new aircraft carriers, and expand the Imperial Navy's carrier battle groups to ten."

Crown Prince Frederick rubbed his temples and sighed, "Building three aircraft carriers at once, plus the two we are currently building, means that the Empire has a total of five aircraft carriers under construction at the same time. That's quite a feat."

Although it was mentioned earlier that the number of aircraft carriers in the UK is not much less than that in East Africa, there are still significant differences between the two.

Take the few aircraft carriers in service with the UK as an example. None of them are "professional" aircraft carriers. Most of them were converted from other large warships. For example, the British aircraft carrier HMS Eagle was converted from a battleship, and HMS Courageous was converted from a cruiser.

The actual situation of US and Japanese naval aircraft carriers is not much different from that of the UK.

In contrast, East Africa, starting with its first aircraft carrier, was a completely new type of ship, distinct from battleships in terms of design, weapon configuration, and construction.

Furthermore, based on Ernst's memory, some superfluous elements were removed, such as the naval guns and the double-layered flight deck.

Therefore, in terms of the sophistication and professionalism of aircraft carriers, East Africa is far ahead of other countries. However, the construction cost is also higher. Now, with five aircraft carriers being built at once, Crown Prince Frederick naturally has doubts. This is not just adding five new aircraft carriers, but five combat formations centered around aircraft carriers.

Regarding the uncertainty in Crown Prince Frederick's tone, Ernst tapped the table and said, "Expanding the carrier battle groups to ten at once will indeed put some pressure on the Reich, but I think the risk is entirely bearable."

"After all, the world situation is becoming increasingly dangerous, and a new world war could break out at any time. Therefore, it is very necessary for East Africa to make preparations in advance."

"If we wait until the actual war breaks out to add production lines, the cost will only be greater. Moreover, expanding production capacity in a short period of time will also affect the performance requirements of the warships after they are produced due to the lack of supporting facilities and experience."

Once war breaks out, the military industry will shift from a seller's market to a buyer's market. During peacetime, in order to compete for limited military orders, shipyards will try to lower prices as much as possible to attract naval orders. At the same time, the prices of raw materials on the market, including steel, engines, and communication components, will remain at normal levels.

After the war begins, the prices of raw materials such as steel will inevitably rise, and workers' wages will also increase. At that time, building new warships will inevitably come at a higher cost.

Therefore, East Africa's current quiet completion of naval expansion is a good way to reduce costs. The reason for this quiet naval expansion is not to prevent other countries from stealing intelligence or arousing their vigilance, but to prevent unscrupulous merchants in the market from taking the opportunity to raise prices.

This is similar to wages in a region. Even if wages are generally increased, it may not necessarily be a benefit. Merchants will assess the local purchasing power and then raise the prices of their goods accordingly.

Ernst said, "Take our city of Rhine, for example. Although our income level is among the top in the country, our prices are also among the top. But the same product might be cheaper in neighboring New Frankfurt."

"Therefore, it is definitely cheaper for the navy to build more warships now than to scramble to build them at the last minute during wartime."

"Of course, all of this is based on the premise that the empire will join the war in the future; otherwise, maintaining a large fleet would be a losing proposition."

Crown Prince Frederick dared not give a definitive answer as to whether East Africa would join the war, but he was fairly certain it was a high-probability event.

He said, "From this perspective, it is indeed more important for the Empire to enhance its naval strength now. Moreover, in addition to increasing the number of main combat ships, we also need to increase investment in the training of naval personnel."

"With the addition of five new carrier strike groups, the number of personnel will also increase significantly, and in order to ensure their combat effectiveness, training must begin in advance."

Ernst nodded and said, "The training of naval personnel can be carried out immediately. The technical level of the military has greatly improved, whether it is the navy, the air force, or the army. In particular, the training of personnel in the navy and the air force, which are technical branches, is more difficult and takes longer."

"However, compared to the navy, the Imperial Air Force and Army have more mature conditions in terms of talent training. As long as it is handled properly, it will be difficult for other countries to figure out our strengths and weaknesses."

“Naval warships are large and distributed along the coast. They also need to go to sea for combat training, making them easy for other countries to detect. This is the main reason why I was cautious about building the main warships of the navy before.”

"As for the air force and army, we can complete our expansion and training missions entirely within the empire's interior. Furthermore, through the demarcation of military restricted areas, even ordinary people in our country would find it difficult to detect the specific developments."

East Africa has a vast territory with many areas far from densely populated regions, making it a suitable military zone. This makes it difficult for intelligence personnel from other countries to ascertain the strength and weaknesses of the East African air force and army.

In this respect, the Soviet Union could do better than East Africa. After all, the Soviet Union had a larger land area and was more sparsely populated than East Africa. Therefore, it was very difficult for intelligence personnel from other countries to figure out the Soviet Union's military industrial deployment.

Not to mention that the Soviet Union had stricter control over its population than East Africa. East Africa, as a free market country, had a high degree of population mobility, while the Soviet Union had much lower population mobility.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union also had the infamous Cheka, which made intelligence gathering even more difficult. Of course, besides the Soviet Union, East Africa should be among the countries with the best military secrecy.

Crown Prince Frederick analyzed, "Currently, all the major world powers are developing their armies according to their respective future strategic plans. However, the three countries that do the best in military secrecy are the Soviet Union, Japan, and us."

"It is very difficult to obtain a lot of military industrial data and internal military information from the Soviet Union. In addition to the Soviet Union's unique geographical advantages, the current political situation in the Soviet Union is also an important influencing factor. If it were not for the purpose of industrial development, the possibility of obtaining intelligence from the Soviet Union would be even smaller."

Because it was "surrounded" by the imperialist and capitalist world, the Soviet Union's politics and society were relatively closed. Of course, this had some merit; when East Africa was weak, it also adopted a policy of isolationism, which greatly reduced its presence in the international community during the colonial period, thus gaining valuable time for development.

Once East Africa has developed to a certain size, by the time other countries realize what's happening, they'll have no way to deal with it. So, the Soviet Union's isolationism is actually an advantage now.

However, the Soviet Union could not be completely closed off. For example, during the two Five-Year Plans, due to the lack of high-end domestic talent and technological deficiencies, the Soviet Union could only hire engineers and technicians from the West to help develop its domestic industry.

These personnel went to work in the Soviet Union and personally participated in the construction of many important Soviet projects, which inevitably led to the leakage of Soviet intelligence.

For example, information such as where the Soviet Union would build factories, how its transportation network would be planned, and the distribution of important resources would inevitably be greatly leaked and exploited by people with ulterior motives.

The Soviet Union was different from East Africa back then. From the very beginning of its existence, it attracted the attention of other countries around the world, and the Western world kept a close eye on every aspect of the Soviet Union.

Back then, even when East Africa dominated the entire East African Plateau and its area was close to one million square kilometers, most people in the world probably had never heard of the existence of this colony.

Crown Prince Friedrich said, "If it weren't for the fact that we had to rely on foreigners for talent and technology, the Soviet Union would certainly be even more closed off. And now, we have a lot of questions about the new factories and military facilities that the Soviet Union is building in the rear."

Like the Soviet Union, East Africa was one of the world's best at intelligence work. As a result, even East Africa was unaware of the development of the Soviet Union's military industry in the rear. It would be even more difficult for other countries to achieve this through espionage.

Of course, the Soviet Union's strategic rear area was not the focus of intelligence work in East Africa, since the relationship between the Soviet Union and East Africa was not too tense.

There were only two countries in the world that truly paid close attention to Soviet intelligence work: Germany, the Soviet Union's arch-enemy, and Japan, which coveted the Soviet Far East. Similarly, the Soviet Union undoubtedly placed intelligence work on these two countries at its highest priority.

Crown Prince Friedrich said, "The intelligence work between Germany and the Soviet Union was inevitably the most intense, so Germany probably knew more about the Soviet Union than the Reich."

Ernst naturally thought so too, but he thought to himself that in this timeline, the Soviet Union had, to some extent, benefited from the disaster. In his previous life, because of Germany's defeat and the restrictions on the development of its military, Germany had cooperated with the Soviet Union quite a bit, which obviously provided some convenience for Germany's invasion later.

After all, cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union made it easy for Germans to gain access to some high-ranking Soviet officials and sensitive locations within the Soviet Union, such as the sites of military technology exchanges between the two countries, which might be important Soviet research institutes or military restricted areas.

Furthermore, the training of the Soviet army by German military advisors and instructors made it easier for the Germans to understand some of the Soviet Union's weaknesses.

In this timeline, Germany had fewer opportunities, which made it easier for the Soviet Union to use deception and obscure its true national strength.

Crown Prince Frederick continued, "Then there is Japan. Japan's intelligence work can even be described as somewhat pathological. They kept many of their previous military developments very secret, making them difficult for other countries to figure out. This has given us a lot of inspiration."

Germany's military development in its previous life was arguably the most meticulous, employing countless schemes and deceptions to secretly advance its military. However, in this timeline, without the loss of a war, Germany's military development naturally doesn't need to employ the same elaborate cover-ups as in its previous life.

In this way, among the Axis powers of the previous era, only Japan remained that preferred to keep its military development hidden.

Although Japan was not a defeated nation, it enjoyed this treatment, especially from countries with interests in the Far East, including Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and East Africa. None of these four countries wanted Japan to dominate the Far East.

The Japanese government is well aware that its ultimate goal—to conquer the Far Eastern empire and dominate the Asia-Pacific region—will directly conflict with the interests of countries such as Britain and the United States. Moreover, the rise of Japan's power in recent years has already caused serious anxiety among countries such as Britain and the United States.

Therefore, in its military development, Japan is more adept at disguise and concealment, thus showing weakness to the enemy, avoiding prematurely provoking the opponent, laying the foundation for future war, and achieving surprise.

The Japanese government will inevitably consider that openly expanding its military will immediately trigger a reciprocal response from the United States and East Africa, causing these countries to also ramp up their shipbuilding efforts. This is the last thing Japan wants to see. The covert development aims to buy a "time difference" so that Japan can launch an attack when it has gained absolute local advantage.

Therefore, the reason why Japan's military development before World War II appeared "secret" was entirely due to a shrewd and cunning strategy.

Unfortunately, no matter how cunning Japan was, it could not hide it from Ernst. From beginning to end, Japan was never free from East Africa's surveillance.

Ernst commented on Japan, saying, "Japan's wisdom surpasses that of many European and American countries. If Germany and the Soviet Union had also learned from Japan's approach, it might have brought more trouble to the world."

Although Ernst spoke of righteousness, East Africa was actually following the same military development script under his control. While the navy was not very effective, the East African army and air force had in fact become the world's largest and most powerful military forces.

In other words, East Africa is following the script of Germany's past life in terms of military development strategy. For example, in the past, Germany used the civil aviation industry as a cover to develop its air force, thereby conducting pilot training and using civilian air routes to reconnoiter the battlefield terrain, artillery positions and other military secrets of other countries.

East Africa's vigorous development of the aviation and civil aviation industries during its Eighth Five-Year Plan period naturally included this consideration.

In terms of the army, East Africa also drew on some of the experiences of its predecessor Germany, such as focusing on training military backbone and establishing a covert military framework in advance, so that East Africa could rapidly expand its army in wartime.

Of course, the conditions for East Africa to secretly develop its military were far better than those for Germany in the previous life. After all, East Africa was independent of Europe, and apart from Britain and the United States, there were very few countries in the world that paid attention to the military development of East Africa. Moreover, the United States and Britain's focus on East Africa was mainly on the development of the East African navy.

After all, the main conflict of interest between East Africa and Britain and the United States stemmed from the ocean, revolving around the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Britain was worried that East Africa might have designs on its Indian Ocean colonies and its many West African colonies, while the United States was entirely concerned with competing with East Africa in the Atlantic market.

The United States and the United Kingdom are both maritime powers, so their focus is on the East African navy, while neglecting the strength of the East African air force and army.

Apart from Britain and the United States, other countries do not pay much attention to East Africa. For example, although Japan regards East Africa as a potential rival, its focus is on the Pacific Ocean.

(End of this chapter)