At all times, the first task of the navy is to seize and control the sea, and the fleet must face the sea, that is, engage the enemy's fleet.

According to the conventional routine, priority should definitely be given to the development of a task force with aircraft carriers as the core.

It's just that for the Nuland Navy, this road does not work.

As mentioned earlier, even if the Nuland Republic has developed rapidly for decades, in terms of comprehensive strength, it is still far inferior to the Liangxia Empire.

If the vital population size is the standard, even if the Nuland Republic is given another century, it may not be able to catch up with the Liangxia Empire.

Here, there is a natural factor that no one can change.

Climatic environment!

Because it is located in the northern isolated continent and spans the entire continent from east to west, everyone knows that the Republic of Nuland has a unique geographical advantage that other countries cannot match. But how many people know that the Liang Xia Empire also has a unique geographical advantage.

The eastern region of the huge continent where the Liang Xia Empire is located is the only monsoon continent on this planet!

Looking at the whole world, only the huge eastern region of the Liang Xia Empire meets the conditions of the monsoon continent, which has four distinct seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, and the area is large enough.

This monsoon continent not only supported the Liangxia Empire, but also gave birth to the Eastern civilization.

Crucially, there are two world-class rivers on this continent that are more than 5,000 kilometers long and basically run east-west, namely the North River and the South River, which were called the mother rivers by the Liang Xia Empire. The area where these two super rivers are located is the core area of the Liangxia Empire.

In addition to the North and South rivers, there are several large rivers with a length of more than 2,000 kilometers and extremely extensive basins.

If anything, the climate with four distinct seasons and abundant rivers have kept this ancient oriental country alive for thousands of years. It is this continent that can provide space and resources for 1 billion or more people.

Comparatively speaking, the climatic conditions in the Republic of Nuland are significantly worse.

Fundamentally, the North Continent is not a monsoon continent, and is blocked by the mountains on the east and west sides, and the climate in the central part of the continent is relatively harsh.

As for the coastal areas, they are too narrow and have a typical maritime climate.

For example, the eastern coastal region is slightly warmer than other regions at the same latitude due to the warm ocean current, and the rainfall is abundant, but the hot summers and cold winters make it difficult for the region to survive and give birth to a strong civilization.

Looking at the entire Beigu Continent, this is actually the case.

It is precisely because of this that the indigenous people of the Northern Lonely Continent have not been able to enter the industrial age for thousands of years.

For the Nuland Republic, the most realistic problem is actually that it is impossible to compete with the Liangxia Empire by relying only on local resources.

In this way, the geopolitical advantage of the Nuland Republic is of little value.

In other words, in order to realize the value of its geographical superiority, the Nuland Republic must have a navy sufficient to crush all its opponents, that is, control the global seas, and rely on its status as an "offshore state" to blockade and attack the powerful empires that emerge on the huge land.

The most representative is actually the former Bran Kingdom.

For hundreds of years before the rise of the Liang Xia Empire, the Bran Kingdom relied on its status as an "offshore balancer" to win over second-rate powers on the western continent and attack the number one rival that posed a threat to its hegemony. For example, during the period of the Locke Empire, the Bran Kingdom co-opted the Riman Kingdom and the Luosha Empire to form the "Anti-Locke Alliance". When the Luosha Empire grew stronger, the Bran Kingdom immediately formed an alliance with the Locke Republic, which was already much inferior to the previous one, and supported the There Empire to fight with the Luosha Empire for several decades, during which it even united with the Liangxia Empire, which was about to become large, to attack the Luosha Empire from the east. After the Empire became the number one hegemon in the Western Continent, the Bran Kingdom repeated its old trick and co-opted the Luosha Empire and the Locke Republic to form the "Anti-Empire Alliance", and this alliance group eventually became the source of the First Global War in the Western Continent.

It is not difficult to see that the kingdom of Bran has been able to dominate for hundreds of years; If it weren't for the sudden rise of the Liang Xia Empire, especially the Liang Xia Navy, under the leadership of Chen Bingxun, the immortal god of war in that era, it conquered Shiquan City and Jibu Fortress in one fell swoop, won the absolute sea control of Fan Yanyang, and mastered the economic lifeline of the Southern Subcontinent; I am afraid that the national fortunes of the Bran Kingdom will be able to maintain for a hundred years, at least not lose the crown of overlord before the First Global War; And the basis of all this is actually to have a powerful navy that is invincible all over the world in that era!

Without the most powerful navy in the world, a small country that succumbs to the three islands of Bran is not even a fart!

Among other things, the mainland area of the Bran Kingdom was less than seventy percent of that of the Sagi Empire, and the population size of the contemporaneous period was much smaller than that of the Sayi Empire.

If it is placed in the east, the status of the Bran Kingdom is not as good as that of the Sayi Imperial State.

From this point of view, in order for the Nuland Republic to rewrite the glory of the Bran Kingdom and suppress the huge land superpower as an "offshore balancer", the first thing it needs is actually a strong, and it must also be a global invincible fleet, and the absolute dominance of the global seas obtained from it.

Unfortunately, the best time has been missed.

In hindsight, World War II was actually the best, if not the only, chance for the Nuland Federation to seize global hegemony.

According to the relevant information declassified after the war, the Nuland leaders at that time did have ambitions.

To put it simply, Nuland's leaders tried to use the strategy of the First Global War to wait until the other powers had fought hard before they came forward to clean up the mess, and took the opportunity to strike at their number one enemy, the Liangxia Empire, which had quickly recovered from the "20-year truce".

As long as this road is cleared, even if there is no way to completely defeat the Liang Xia Empire, it will definitely be able to seize global hegemony.

In fact, all the Nuland regime wants is global hegemony.

Who would have thought that it was the greatest of the era and the greatest statesman in the history of the Liangxia Empire who led the Liang Xia Empire into battle.

As a result, by the time the Nuland authorities reacted, the Liangxia Empire had already won a decisive victory.

In the words of historians, the Nuland leaders got away with it.

Also from an after-the-fact point of view, if the Newland Federation had not delayed the precious time of one year, but had followed the Narrow Empire and other powers to participate in the war, and sent troops to participate in the battle against the Liang Xia Empire, then the Second Global War would probably have been a different ending.

The key point is that at the outbreak of World War II, the Liangxia Navy had only 6 fleet aircraft carriers, while the Narrow-Yi Navy and the Nuland Navy had a total of 9 fleet aircraft carriers. Even if the Liangxia Navy has the White Stop War, it may not be able to make up for the gap between the three fleet aircraft carriers by one person.

Of course, this is only hindsight.

In reality, if the Nuland Navy wants to dominate the world, it must first defeat the Liangxia Navy, especially the powerful aircraft carrier battle group.

Well, for the Nuland Navy, there is definitely a need for anti-ship missiles with advanced performance.

It's just that it's not just the Nuland Navy that needs advanced anti-ship missiles.

Comparatively speaking, the Empire faced a greater threat to sea power. That is, the Manman Empire is easily blockaded by the sea, and after being blocked, it is impossible to rely on its own resources to win a global war, even if it controls the entire Western Continent, the chances of victory are not great.

It can be seen that whether or not the sea routes can be ensured will determine the future of the Riman Empire and even the entire Western Continent Group.

The same is true for the kingdom of Bran.

The key is that neither the Empire nor the Kingdom of Bran expected to rely on the fleet to seize sea supremacy, and the ultimate goal was only to drive the Liang Xia Navy out of the North and the Sunset.

It is precisely for this reason that in the past few decades, the Western Continent member states such as the Empire have attached great importance to anti-ship missiles.

Previously, the Empire relied on air-launched anti-ship missiles to defeat the 51st Task Force of the Liang Xia Navy and seize the sea supremacy of Lu Xinhai.

Due to the limitation of the operational area, the Western Continent Group does not attach much importance to submarine-launched anti-ship missiles, but pays more attention to air-launched anti-ship missiles.

After all, Lu Xinhai is so big, there is no room for submarines to show their strengths.

As for fighting in the North Sunset Ocean, bombers can also be deployed on the islands, and the North Sunset Ocean is not as wide as the Guia Ocean.

However, this did not prevent the Western Continent Group from developing anti-ship missiles with advanced performance.

It was from the Western Continent that the Nuland Navy got its inspiration.

Use strategic submarine-launched cruise missiles to carry out anti-ship missions, gain more than 1,000 nautical miles, and even reach a strike range of 1,500 nautical miles.

In the beginning, the Nuland Navy valued not submarine-launched cruise missiles, but submarine-launched ballistic missiles!

The related technology, to be precise, is also inspired by the Westland Group.

As mentioned earlier, the Western Continent Group has the largest ballistic missile force in the world, and is also expanding the scope of use of ballistic missiles.

The use of ballistic missiles against warships has always been a key research direction.

Although ballistic missiles have many problems, such as the extreme difficulty of terminal guidance and the lack of tactical flexibility, they have two very prominent advantages over cruise missiles. First of all, the flight speed is faster, cruise missiles need to fly for several hours, and ballistic missiles can arrive in a few minutes, at most ten minutes, which is more suitable for dealing with time inscriptions, that is, fast-moving targets. The second is that the terminal penetration speed of ballistic missiles is several Machs, and some are above Mach 10, and they still attack from the zenith direction, which is more efficient in penetrating defense, or more difficult to intercept; At least so far, no air defense system has been effective in intercepting ballistic missiles.

It is for this reason that the Nuland Navy has set its hopes on ballistic missiles from the very beginning, hoping to develop a submarine-launched ballistic missile capable of attacking warships.

Relatively speaking, the development of missiles is not very difficult, and the real difficulty is at the front end of the attack chain, that is, the search, track, and lock stage.

To put it bluntly, if you can find the enemy's aircraft carrier, you can also defeat the enemy by using a large number of bombers.

The Manman Air Force attacked the 51st Task Force of the Liangxia Navy using super-saturation attack tactics!

In addition, the submarine is equipped with ballistic missiles, and the submarine launches all the missiles in a very short time, and it has to hit accurately.

This difficulty is not ordinary!

If nothing else, how to maintain confidence in liaison with submarines and ensure that tactical intelligence is sent to the submarine on attack mission in a timely manner after the target is discovered is a huge problem. In addition, submarines are mainly concealed and are often not under the control of the theater command system, that is, it is very difficult for commanders at the theater level to directly direct submarine operations, and it is rare for submarines to be used as the main force in combat operations.

If necessary, fleet commanders prefer to have warships floating on the surface of the sea carry and use ballistic missiles.

As a result, in the direction of "submarine-launched anti-ship ballistic missiles", the Nuland Navy wasted more than 10 years of time, but did not make a name for itself.

At this point, the Nuland Navy actually has little choice.

As the Liang Xia Empire came out of the valley, especially after Zhou Yongtao moved into the Shoufu Residence, the risk of a global war was increasing.

In order to be able to win the decisive battle of the fleet in the future, the Nuland Navy had to rush to the hospital.

It is in this context that the "trident" C4, which has become a chicken rib, has ushered in a new life and has gained attention again.

The reason is also very simple, the "Trident" C4 is capable of carrying a 2000-pound warhead to fly 1500 nautical miles!

In addition, if the range is reduced to 1000 nautical miles, the mass of the warhead can be increased to 3000 pounds.

This range means that the "Ohio" class can launch attacks outside the combat radius of Liangxia carrier-based anti-submarine patrol aircraft, and even outside the cover area of large attack submarines. As for the warhead that reached 2,000 pounds, or even 3,000 pounds, the "Trident" C4 has an unparalleled ability to destroy.

Such a large carrying mass means that better warheads can be used, such as self-propelled warheads equipped with rocket booster engines, capable of maneuvering with high overloads at the end of the trajectory, or even attacking from a high altitude, thus greatly increasing the probability of penetration.

According to the tests done by the Nuland Navy, as long as the terminal velocity of the warhead reaches Mach 3, it can break through all the current fleet air defense systems.

Within the range of 3,000 pounds, it is not difficult to get the warhead to reach a penetration speed of Mach 3.

The point is that it is not necessary to deal with a warship with a warhead, even against an aircraft carrier, a 500-kilogram warhead is enough.

Even the "Xue Yuanzheng"-class supercarrier could not withstand a direct blow from a 500-kilogram semi-armor-piercing warhead.

In addition, in anti-aircraft carrier operations, the first consideration is to incapacitate the aircraft carrier and destroy the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, and then to sink the aircraft carrier.

In the heat of battle, the aircraft carrier, whose flight deck was damaged, could only wait to be beaten.

All in all, using the Trident C4 for anti-ship combat missions is indeed a very good choice, at least to make this missile worth the money.

To this end, the Nuland Navy has been investing in the development of warheads specifically designed to carry out anti-ship missions.

After all, the poor performance of the "Trident" C4 has been criticized by many members of Congress, and it is difficult to obtain funding in the name of the "Trident" C4, so the Nuland Navy directly used procurement funds to purchase a batch of anti-ship warheads in the name of supplementing training consumption, and replaced some conventional warheads when the submarine was overhauled.

These missiles, equipped with anti-ship warheads, are carried by 10 Ohio-class ships of the Guia Fleet.

In total, about 70 "Trident" C4 warheads have been replaced, accounting for nearly one-third of the total, but they are scattered on 10 submarines.

In other words, these 10 Ohio-class cruise missile submarines not only serve as strategic reserves, but also shoulder the heavy responsibility of anti-ship operations.

If I have to say, this is also the biggest headache for Stark.

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