African Nationhood

In 1915, the British and French forces launched several attacks on the German army in northern France in an attempt to drive the German army out of France, but met with fierce resistance from the German army.

On February 2, Britain and France launched the Battle of Gallipoli in order to achieve the goal of opening up the Dardanelles Strait and the Bosporus Strait and occupying the Ottoman Turkish capital Istanbul.

As a result, although Britain and France invested a large number of troops in the attack, they were ultimately unsuccessful. They were severely punished by the old coastal defense artillery positions along the Ottoman Turkish coast and had to conduct a major retreat from November 1915 to January 11.

In April, the German army ignored the Hague International Convention and used poison gas for the first time in the Second Battle of Ypres, causing serious losses to the British and French allied forces.

Since then, both warring parties have used poison gas on a large scale.

The German army, which was in a strategic defensive posture on the western front, began to shift the focus of its operations eastward, trying to first defeat the relatively weak Russia in order to get rid of the dilemma of fighting on two fronts.

On April 4, Italy, which originally belonged to the Allied camp, decided to defect after receiving the territorial compensation promised by the Allied Powers and signed the Treaty of London with the Allied Powers camp.

In May, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, severed diplomatic relations with Germany, and officially joined the Allied Powers.

From May 5 to June 2, the German and Austrian armies concentrated their superior forces. Germany launched 6 armored fighting vehicles on this battlefield (the Germans deliberately called them so in order to distinguish them from the armored vehicles in South China). In West Galicia, They exchanged fire with the Russian army in the Gorlitz area and defeated the Russian army.

The Russian army was defeated and the front retreated more than 200 kilometers before stopping its decline.

When the German army launched its armored fighting vehicles, Chairman Shi Jintang immediately summoned the German consul and denounced Germany as a shameless thief who had imitated Nanhua's armored vehicles.

The German consul did not respond to this accusation and only said that he would report to His Majesty the Emperor.

Nanhua issued a public statement in the media, accusing the Germans of ignoring patent rights, and Nanhua reserved the right to hold Germany accountable for stealing Nanhua's confidential designs.

The British cabinet contacted Nanhua urgently, hoping that Nanhua could license the technology of armored vehicles to Britain.

He also informed that Great Britain had a similar design and hoped that military technicians from both sides could merge and study new armored vehicle technology together.

Chairman Shi Jintang directly refused, telling the other party that Nanhua's military research progress far exceeded the armored vehicles introduced by the Germans. This style was Nanhua's technology more than ten years ago.

……

The British cabinet became even more excited and sent a procurement team to Nanhua, hoping to obtain Nanhua's latest armored fighting vehicles.

At the end of August, the British procurement team arrived in Nanhua and watched the actual combat drill of Nanhua's Type A-8, Type A-1905 and Type A-1910 armored vehicles.

The powerful off-road performance of armed military vehicles has also been favored by the British.

英国人遂下了1905式200辆，1910式300辆，1913式200辆，武装军车1000辆的定单。

The prices of these three armored vehicles are not cheap. The earliest type 1905 is 6 pounds each, the 1910 type is 4 pounds each, the 1913 type is 9 pounds each, and the armed military vehicle is 4000 pounds each.

The Type 1913 is not a new type of tank, but an improved model of the Type 1905.

The improvements are in the armor thickness, speed and cannon, which have been directly upgraded from the original 8mm to 16mm, and the speed has also been increased, reaching a speed of 28 kilometers per hour.

The cannon has been upgraded from the original 45mm caliber short-barreled cannon to a 47mm rapid-fire cannon. The rate of fire has been directly increased by 2 times. The improvement of this armored vehicle is still obvious.

After the British domestic R&D team obtained Nanhua's armored vehicles, its design ideas were immediately led astray.

Their tank design ideas also followed Nanhua's ideas and expanded towards lightweight.

……

After the British purchasing group concluded their talks, the French also went to Nanhua to pursue the order for armored vehicles. The French ordered 200 units each.

Then there are Italy, Russia, Japan and the Balkan countries.

In just two months, Nanhua has received orders for more than 5000 armored vehicles.

……

In October, after witnessing the defeat of the Russian army on the Eastern Front and the difficulties of Britain and France in the Battle of Gallipoli, the Kingdom of Bulgaria joined the Allies and joined forces with Germany and the Ottoman Empire to occupy the entire territory of Serbia.

In November, after Germany gained an advantage on the Eastern Front, it accelerated its domestic production of armored vehicles.

On November 11, 28 armored fighting vehicles drove onto the Western Front, intending to smash the defense lines of the British and French coalition forces on the Western Front.

The British cabinet desperately urged Nanhua to transport armored vehicles as soon as possible. At the same time, it hoped that Nanhua could open the patent license of armored vehicles to the United Kingdom.

The British cabinet also hoped that Nanhua could speed up the supply of aircraft and open up the production authorization for biplanes.

... Both sides of the war were also running out of aircraft very quickly, and Nanhua's biplanes were still bombers.

After Nanhua exposed the aircraft, the development of air defense weapons in various countries has not stopped.

This kind of aircraft is very powerful on the battlefield, but it is unable to cope with powerful anti-aircraft machine guns and airborne machine guns.

Consumption has increased dramatically, so it is natural to hope that Nanhua can increase supply and open up local production rights.

In view of the fact that Nanhua's production capacity bottleneck has arrived, Nanhua agreed to authorize the UK to produce the A-1905 and A-1910 armored vehicles and the SY-1910 aircraft. The A-1913 armored vehicle will not be opened for the time being.

In addition, the agreement signed by Nanhua and the United Kingdom also stipulates that armored vehicles and aircraft produced by the United Kingdom can only be used for its own use and cannot be sold or given to third countries. Otherwise, Nanhua has the right to prohibit British authorized production.

Daying had something to ask for at this moment, so he naturally agreed to it.

December 12, Christmas, was spent by the British, French and German-Austrian forces on the battlefield.

……

The early appearance of armored vehicles increased the intensity of the war between the two sides by several levels.

Armored vehicles have also begun to stimulate European countries to start studying "anti-tank rifles." Although there are no results, various countries already have design ideas.

That is to increase the caliber, and use solid steel warheads and special alloy warheads.

Naturally, Nanhua will also participate in this track, and the Nanhua General Equipment Office has already developed it.

Nanhua took the initiative to contact Britain, France and Russia and told them that Nanhua's 13.2mm anti-armor vehicle rifle could provide a complete solution.

This rifle uses an enlarged version of the NH-90 rifle and can fire specially designed 13.2×92mm ammunition.

Approximate length of the whole gun: 168cm, barrel length: 96cm, weight (including tripod): 15.8kg, the best shooting distance is within 300 meters.

Because of its weight and powerful recoil, this heavy rifle must be operated by a team of two.

Although this gun uses a pistol grip and is equipped with a bipod to enable the shooter to cope with the powerful recoil of this gun.

However, the British frontline soldiers did not have a good experience with this gun after using it. They called this gun the "elephant gun" and there was a saying that "shoot once in the left shoulder, once in the right shoulder, and then go directly to the field hospital." "horrible statement.

There are even rumors that some novices who were not well trained had their collarbones broken by the recoil and their shoulders were dislocated due to the recoil.

Despite all the bad opinions, the "anti-armored vehicle rifle" still achieved good results.

After the Germans received feedback from the battlefield, they immediately found the Mauser Arsenal and asked them to imitate the corresponding "anti-armor vehicle rifle" as soon as possible.

With only one battlefield photo, the Mauser Arsenal copied a new rifle in January 1916 and named it the Mauser M1 single-shot bolt-action rifle.

As a result, the two opposing sides once again returned to a state of even rivalry.

……

Because of the excessive consumption on the battlefield, the material supply in Britain could not keep up.

Nanhua once again reached an agreement with the British mainland based on sufficient inventory and a huge industrial population.

Throughout 1915, a material supply contract worth 6000 million pounds was signed between Nanhua and the British mainland.

This does not include the arms and supplies ordered by other countries in Nanhua. All kinds of factories in Nanhua are working overtime and operating at full capacity.

Factory owners in the light industry, seeing such good orders, immediately worked hard to expand production capacity.

A large number of industrial and commercial owners have flooded into the coastal ports of Mapu, Beira, Durban, Buffalo and Port Elizabeth. They have invested in building factories and hired a large number of workers, just to gain more from this war. Some orders.

Thanks to the explosion of production capacity in various factories, oil refining, mineral excavation, transportation vehicles, and engines have also received large investments, and industrial upgrading has accelerated.

In addition, the Nanhua Cabinet decided to invest in the establishment of sisal processing plants, cotton factories and other factories in the port of Dar es Salaam. After all, setting up factories here can save a long period of sea freight.

……

The Ministry of Finance of Nanhua was suddenly devastated. However, the United States, which was supposed to receive a large number of orders, had not fully recovered from the chaos caused by the "counterfeit banknote case", and the domestic situation was in a mess. (End of chapter)