On the viewing platform with a simple appearance, Edward, the British crown prince, dressed in a white military uniform, watched the marching procession with great ambition. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoCompared with the pre-war and wartime British army, the current British army can be said to have a new look, all the soldiers are wearing flat-topped steel helmets, their uniforms are still light and durable khaki, but the style is more beautiful, the weapons in their hands look more like the German Mauser rifle than the famous Lee-Enfield rifle, which is actually a war emergency product, is the British Enfield imitation of Mauser's new rifle P-14, with a bore sight and a front-end bolt lock, Moreover, the production of these rifles was all commissioned by the American company Winchester and the Remington Union Metal Ammunition Company......

Standing beside Prince Edward, Natsuki silently watched the British infantry unit in front of him that was being reviewed. It was December 14, 1915, Prince Albert's 20th birthday, and as a celebration, the British army held a small internal military parade at Barracks Greene in the suburbs of London.

Before the outbreak of the war, the British Army was a small but highly professional elite combat force, during the war went to France to participate in the war, experienced several of the most brutal battles, the performance is remarkable, the best group of officers and soldiers were sacrificed in France, the divisions and brigades that were withdrawn to the mainland at the end of the war have been basically in a state of fragmentation, and their role in the British military system is naturally replaced by the volunteer troops established under the leadership of the Secretary of War Kitchener. After the war, the British Army continued to use conscription, but the standing army more than tripled in size to nearly 400,000 men before the war, and about one-third of it was concentrated in the Belfast region of northeastern Ireland.

The fledgling intelligence services of the Kingdom of Ireland have long figured out this, which is one of Ireland's geographical advantages, but correspondingly, Ireland's conventional military intelligence is also easy to prevent the prying eyes of British spies.

Natsuki knew that during the war, the British government urgently ordered a large number of military equipment from the United States, and the P-14 was just one of them, and the Americans, who had a strong industrial assembly line, had delivered a considerable amount of orders before the end of the war, which meant that the British army today was full of all kinds of American-made and American-made equipment, and there were pros and cons to this situation. In the Green Barracks, all the artillery units towed by trucks made Natsuki quite envious, not to mention in the Irish Army, even in the current German Army, most of the artillery still has to rely on horses to tow, so there are many troubles such as transfer efficiency and logistics supply.

Today's military parade, King George V did not attend, although Prince Albert is the birthday boy, but the active Prince Edward seems to be the real protagonist here. Before the mechanized traction artillery unit was finished, he looked sideways at Xia Shu with a satisfied smile: "With Your Highness's military vision, what is the quality of our new-style army?" ”

Xia Shu hesitated slightly, the equipment level of this British army was indeed higher than that of the British Expeditionary Force he had met on the battlefield in France, but it was not enough to judge its quality to be better, after all, the combat effectiveness of the army was affected by a combination of factors. Just now, Natsuki was thinking about another aspect, that is, the cost of equipment for such an army. The mercenary American was not inclined to be compelled by Britain's position during the war, and as far as he knew, the military equipment sold to Britain was basically a cash transaction, and the price was quite high.

Looking at Prince Edward's smug expression, Natsuki calmly replied, "Yes, it's good, it can almost be described as 'perfect'. ”

"Really?" The young British crown prince smiled even more proudly.

After he turned his gaze back to the front, Natsuki seemed to "go out" inadvertently: "There are some questions, I have always wanted to ask for advice, but I feel a little reckless......"

"Oh?" Crown Prince Edward responded with a little surprise, hesitated for a moment, and replied generously: "With the relationship between you and me, Your Highness doesn't have to be like this. ”

"Yes, I have always wanted to build a mobile and flexible combat force in Ireland, but due to lack of funds, I have to choose carefully and at a discount. I would like to ask, what is the landed price of such a six-wheeled Dodge truck? Remember that the cost of a 2-ton German Mercedes-Benz truck is about $1,200, and the export price of a French Renault truck is $1,000, but the Renault has a slightly smaller carrying capacity. ”

As soon as these words came out, Prince Edward's face changed slightly, although he was vague on the grounds that he didn't know much about these details, but he was actually poked in the sore spot by Natsuki. During the war, Britain ordered thousands of cars and engines from the United States, and the initial order price was not much higher than the normal market, but with the frequent raids and blockades of the Atlantic route by the German Navy, the loss rate of various military supplies in the transportation process increased sharply, and most American ships no longer sailed to Britain, and Britain had to "buy and ship". Counting the loss of ships and personnel, the British paid enough to acquire a single Dodge truck for three Renault trucks - all thanks to the German Navy.

Prince Edward did not reply, but stared intently at the large group of monsters approaching from a distance, a group of khaki-painted British tracked armored fighting vehicles, which they called "tanks". As early as more than two months ago, they made their debut in a stunning way at a military event, and the reason why they are scheduled to make their last appearance today is obviously to set off a chic atmosphere.

In appearance, these British tanks were slightly taller than the Hubert-14 heavy tanks equipped by Germany, with relatively rigid body lines, rotating turrets like large round barrels upside down, and equipped with short-barreled guns with a caliber of about 40 mm - since there were obvious traces of imitation, with the technical level of steel, engines, weapons and other components of this era, their performance was at most on par with that of Hubert-14, and the smoothness of mechanical operation was estimated to be worse.

"This is the Vickers-Mark II tank." Prince Edward skipped the topic directly, seemingly understatement--in fact, he proudly introduced to Natsuki, "At present, the number of ships delivered to the British Army has exceeded two hundred, and most of them are deployed outside the British Island, so His Highness can only see a small part here." ”

By what he meant outside of the British Isles, he naturally meant the Belfast region.

Natsuki sighed deliberately: "Speaking of which, the Irish army still only has light tanks eliminated by the German army, and the construction of the army is really closely related to the strength of the country!" ”

Prince Edward was not proud, since the tank first appeared on the battlefield on the Western Front, it has only been more than a year, and the countries that are officially installed are only Germany and Britain, that is to say, they are still rare equipment that most countries do not have, the first Hubert-13 light tank used by the German army, the battlefield performance is not so satisfactory, but at least it is a more successful invention, at this time there is actually a knockout of goods, if the situation is true, It shows that the Germans have begun to mass-produce new models with stronger performance. With Ireland's alliance with Germany, and Natsuki's special status, it is likely that the Germans will put their new tanks into Belfast if the war is urgent, and the advantage of the Vickers-Mark II will be lost.

When it came to fighting with each other, the young Prince Edward was obviously inexperienced, especially in front of His Highness beside him. When the rumbling roar of the tank stopped the conversation, Natsuki leaned closer to Edward's ear: "Your Highness, don't look at these guys wrapped in armor, ordinary guns are difficult to deal with, but they are very afraid of bombs dropped by planes. ”

The British crown prince turned his head to look at Natsuki in surprise.

Natsuki nodded affirmatively, and said with a mending knife: "The battlefield of the future must be three-dimensional, whoever can master the sky will be able to take the lead on the ground and the sea." ”

The field of aviation is precisely the sore spot where the British have worked very hard but have achieved little success, and in this respect, Ireland has not bothered much but has been able to sit back and enjoy its achievements -- with the technology brought by Natsuki, the Irish government and private capital have established a large aircraft factory in Limerick with six industrial assembly lines, and now has a production scale of nearly 100 aircraft per month, and the improved model based on the German military aircraft has become a sought-after commodity in the international arms market, and Ottoman Turkey alone has placed a large order for 400 aircraft in one go. Although the number of orders and installations of the Irish army is small, the domestic air transport industry is already in a stage of vigorous development, and with such resources, it is easy to rapidly expand the size of the air force in wartime.

Prince Edward nodded reluctantly and replied loudly, "Your Highness is right, the future war will not be a contest of brute force but wisdom. Our flight forces are still very weak at the moment, but fortunately we have a relatively large number of anti-aircraft weapons. ”

The Irish Air Force has indeed learned this point. With the advantage of aircraft numbers and performance, the Irish army has been conducting frequent aerial reconnaissance of Belfast, and has obtained a great deal of military intelligence from it. In the process, the Irish aircraft were repeatedly attacked by British aircraft and ground artillery fire, and at least 8 of the 11 aircraft lost before and after were shot down by British ground artillery fire, and the two sides blamed each other for this, but at this time, the international aviation convention was still in the stage of discussion and formulation, and the concept of airspace had not yet been clarified, so the result of the diplomatic dispute was that the two sides continued to go their own way.

The deafening roar of the tanks continued, and the air was filled with the strong smell of oil and gas, and this powerful scene could already give a glimpse of how spectacular the battlefield of the future would be. Natsuki and Prince Edward talk to each other, and in the eyes of others, the closeness and friendship between the two young highnesses seems to indicate a bright future for the two countries to move from confrontation to cooperation, but the two are no longer as incompatible as before, which just reflects the subtle changes in the relationship between Britain and Ireland.

(End of chapter)