At the end of their trip to Washington, Natsuki and his entourage headed to the last stop of their visit to the United States, the historic East Coast port of Boston. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 During World War II, it was the main base of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, but it was heavily bombed by the Western Allies and most of the port was razed to the ground. After the end of the war, a large amount of European capital poured into the United States, occupying and controlling many highly profitable industries, which not only changed the economic pattern and political ecology of the United States, but also played a positive role in the post-war recovery of the United States. Today's Boston is full of dock cranes, wide streets, new buildings have given the city a new look, and the transatlantic trade boom has made Boston even more vibrant than it was before the war.

In Boston, Natsuki met several old acquaintances, including Admiral Harry Yanel, a rival U.S. Navy member who had been fighting each other in the Atlantic Theater and had lived there since his retirement in 1940, and Raymond Spruance, who was now commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, which was headquartered in Boston. In addition, there is a Russian contingent with a special mission that has been in Boston for almost a month, and one of the leaders of this contingent is the young Russian Navy Colonel Sergei Georgievich Gorshkov, who visited Ireland a year ago under the leadership of Bubnov, deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Gorshkov was a member of the delegation, so he is also an acquaintance. It's just that in that delegation, Bubonov, who was in the core circle of power in Soviet Russia, and Kutunnetsov, a young and talented general, were too eye-catching, and the rest of the delegation members looked bleak.

The reason why Natsuki was deeply impressed by this Comrade Gorshkov was because the Soviet Union in the old time and space built an aircraft carrier "Gorshkov", which later became a typical case of Russian arms exports. Then again, the reason why the Russians named an aircraft carrier after Gorshkov was in honor of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Sergei Georgievich Gorshkov, who actively led the expansion of the Soviet Navy during the Cold War.

The 33-year-old Gorshkov appeared in Boston, of course, not on vacation or defecting, but with nearly 1,000 Soviet and Russian naval officers and men to receive American-made equipment -- in the summer of 1942, Soviet Russia signed aid agreements with a number of European and American countries to obtain a large amount of weapons and equipment in the form of free aid, loans, or spot transactions, and the three countries with the largest amount of aid were Germany, the United States, and Ireland. According to the agreement, the Americans will provide Soviet Russia with a large amount of naval equipment, including 64 T-class submarines and 225 PT-20 torpedo boats, as well as aircraft, combat vehicles, guns, ammunition, and so on. According to the US side, Gorshkov led the team to receive the first batch of nine T-class submarines and 45 PT-20 torpedo boats, and the Soviet and Russian seafarers will undergo training in the United States for six to eight weeks before returning home via the Arctic route.

Although today's Gorshkov has made many military exploits and has the opportunity to become another young and ambitious admiral after Kutunetsov, he is still only a middle-level officer after all, and he is the executor of the existing strategy. During the meeting with Natsuki, he was very restrained in his words and deeds, and basically kept silent on topics at the strategic level. Based on the special status of Soviet Russia in the world pattern, Natsuki did not mean to encircle the other side, let alone expect Ireland and Soviet Russia to become close friends one day, his words only showed the other side his understanding and prediction of the development trend of history: the future world will no longer be based on war and expansion, the great powers will seek peaceful development in competition, and the League of Nations ruling and peacekeeping operations will become the main means of resolving international or ethnic disputes.

Gorshkov reacted meadowly to these macro concepts deliberately instilled by Natsuki, but instead discussed a lot of questions about the equipment technology and tactical organization of the modern navy. Before leading the team to the United States, he had been transferred from the Northern Fleet to the Pacific Fleet for more than a year, and had organized and participated in many naval combat operations. In the Northeast Asian theater, there was a huge disparity in the naval combat forces of the two sides, especially after the sinking of the large cruiser "Kirov," the Soviet and Russian navies were comprehensively suppressed, and under such circumstances, the Soviet and Russian Pacific Fleets did not stop their combat operations, but constantly looked for the enemy's weak points and actively opened up new forms of warfare -- Gorshkov told Natsuki that now their submarines generally do not fight in the Sea of Japan or the southern waters of the Korean Peninsula after passing through the blockade of the Japanese fleet. Instead, they sailed to southeast China to attack unprotected or weakly escorted Japanese transport ships between the Japanese mainland and Southeast Asia, which seemed much less effective and in fact more effective than earlier combat deployments. The Soviet and Russian surface warships and naval aviation stationed on the Amur Peninsula and Peter the Great Bay suffered heavy losses in the early stage, but after adjusting their combat methods, they sank and damaged more than 30 Japanese warships one after another, inflicting relatively heavy losses on the Japanese fleet blockading Peter the Great Bay.

In response to the current mode of maritime operations, the Soviet and Russian Pacific Fleets urgently need newer and stronger submarines and torpedo boats, so after receiving this batch of American-made equipment and forming combat effectiveness, the Soviet and Russian sides are very confident in further reversing the maritime situation in the Northeast Asian theater.

Looking at the look of ambition on Gorshkov's face, Natsuki couldn't help but sigh, to say that Russia is really an out-and-out fighting nation, looking at the world, few countries are more resilient than them, and the more desperate they are, the more they can burst out with the power to survive and win.

In fact, according to the information held by the Western allies, the T-class submarines and PT-20 torpedo boats that have been officially equipped with the US Navy are naval combat weapons with mature design and superior performance, demonstrating the profound technical heritage of the old industrial powers. The former is the second combat submarine designed and built by the United States after the war, with a surface / underwater displacement of 1500 tons/2400 tons, provided by 4 16-cylinder 2-stroke diesel engines and 4 motors respectively for surface and underwater power, two-shaft propulsion, surface and underwater speed is faster than most submarines in the twenties and thirties, the combat radius is very large, and it is equipped with 10 533 mm torpedo tubes and can carry 24 torpedoes, and 1 76 mm deck gun, There are 2 12.7 mm machine guns and 2 7.62 mm machine guns, which can be said to have a lot of firepower. It is said that in accordance with the requirements of the Soviet and Russian sides, these T-class submarines underwent minor technical modifications before delivery in order to launch German-made wire-guided torpedoes, further enhancing their combat capability.

As for the PT-20 torpedo boat, it is also equipment that has withstood the test of war. Compared with the high-speed torpedo boats of twenty or thirty years ago, they have better practicality, higher stability, stronger attack power, and are well adapted to the development trend of the naval warfare mode. When they are in the hands of the Soviet and Russian Navy, as long as the tactics are used properly, they will definitely be able to teach the conceited Japanese Navy a good lesson!

Out of consideration for all parties, during his visit to Boston, Natsuki did not visit the camp of the Soviet Russian military team, but was invited by the US side to visit the flagship "Alaska" of Spruance. Standing on the bridge of the new battle cruiser and looking around the harbor, the US Atlantic Fleet is now far less in size and strength than it was a decade ago, and it poses little threat to the Western Allied forces, but this does not mean the sinking of the US Navy. The baptism of World War II not only gave the U.S. military a deep understanding of the true meaning of modern warfare, but also helped them eliminate a large number of obsolete equipment. For example, the USS "Alaska", the US military regards it as a mixture of a battleship and a heavy cruiser, this class of battleships adopts a flat-deck ship type and a bulbous nose head, with a battleship-style control tower, but the configuration of the seaplane device is still a cruiser model, its standard displacement is 28,000 tons, and it uses a 12-inch or 305 mm caliber main gun, so the outside world generally regards it as a reduced version of the battle cruiser, or a new interpretation of the battle cruiser. Superior seaworthiness and advanced avionics configuration give it the ability to perform a variety of combat missions, and their purpose is not to fight enemy battleships and battle cruisers, but to lead cruiser formations to hunt down enemy large attack ships, as well as to provide escort for carrier formations, or to rely on strong mobility to carry out combat missions alone.

Through conversations with American military officers, Natsuki was convinced that the arduous course of World War II had greatly increased the American people's awareness of national defense, and that the younger generation was highly motivated to join the army, and that the American military, which had to implement a conscription system because of the armistice treaty, had never encountered the problem of a shortage of soldiers in recent years. Therefore, although the United States in 1943 was "castrated" by the armistice treaty and was not satisfactory in some aspects, its military strength and war potential have returned to the forefront of the world.

On August 14, 1943, the Irish royal plane "Celtic Glory" took off from Boston Military Airport and landed at Limerick One Airport after 11 and a half hours of non-stop flight. After returning to Ireland, Natsuki re-examined the aid agreement signed between Ireland and Soviet Russia and the subsequent supplementary agreement, in addition to providing Soviet Russia with two important military technologies, radio-guided bombs and wire-guided rockets, Ireland also provided 46 surface ships, 355 military aircraft, 642 self-propelled guns and a large number of guns and ammunition in installments, this transaction did bring considerable benefits to Ireland, and played a positive role in maintaining the vitality of the Irish military industry and the stability of the economy and society. It is also of great significance to the construction of the Soviet Russian army and the development of the military industry. Since the signing of the aid agreement, Ireland has sent thousands of technical teams to Soviet Russia to teach by word and deed, and accepted six batches of nearly 2,000 Soviet and Russian officers and soldiers to receive technical and tactical training in Ireland.

(End of chapter)