Chapter 164: Where Does the Money Come From?
Li Guang looked at the amount calculated by the staff officers, and he needed 20 million US dollars before the end of the year, he scratched his head a little, where did the money come from?
If it was only 20 million US dollars in front of him, Li Guang thought that the proceeds from the sale of the trip to Dunkirk would be about the same.
But when Li Guang saw next year's financial plan, this financial plan was quite conservative, except for the warships and submarines that had already placed orders, he did not add a single battleship. For the existing and soon-to-be-formed troops (more than 10,000 people in the country), the navy, army, and air force will cost 15 million dollars.
Like a miser, Li Guang carefully analyzed the various expenses in the army to see if he could save some money. But he found that he was already saving enough.
Not to mention several escort destroyers planned and the Pickup III destroyer under construction, as well as two aircraft carriers. Just two battleships and two pickup destroyers, two gunboats, two Jairwood torpedo ships. A formation of eight surface ships is like a money-eating machine.
The Maritime Resistance Army has a total of two oil tankers, with a total load of nearly 10,000 tons, and they are constantly buying crude oil from Argentina, but they can't keep up with the consumption of these eight warships.
There was not much money for the renovation of the battleship Atlantic, but if you were to really calculate the value, the more than 40 anti-aircraft guns that were being added were worth millions of dollars. In half a year, the battleship Pacific spent millions of dollars on renovation alone.
The money was spent in the bright place, equipped with hardware, Li Guang thought it was worth it, and there were plans. But the cost of training and maintenance made Li Guang feel a lot of pain.
Take the most basic battleship training subjects to know how battleships cost money. The first item, dodging dive bombers, torpedo planes at high speed. Fighters consume fuel, engines, training bombs, and training torpedoes. And the consumption of battleships is even more staggering, five or six hundred tons of crude oil will be consumed in one day of exercise.
In order to save, a lot of the training subjects were borrowed from the captured old cruiser.
And the training of anti-aircraft artillery is also very costly. In addition to simulated training, the training of ship-borne antiaircraft artillery also includes live-fire training. The method of live-fire training was a water reconnaissance plane, with a thin rope of one or two hundred meters towed out of the tail and a 10-meter-long cloth bag dragged behind the rope. The target of the anti-aircraft artillery fire was this cloth bag.
The Naval Resistance Force is quite economical, and each artillery only has one chance to fire each piece of fire for each live-fire training. But there were enough anti-aircraft guns for these eight battleships, and it was the consumption of hundreds of anti-aircraft artillery shells at a time. It's a staggering amount of money.
Of all the training, the most expensive main gun shooting has only been done once so far.
Originally, Li Guang thought that even if a battleship costing 30 or 40 million yuan was nothing to a country, he still had land and despised some countries for being just such a battleship. But when he really owned two battleships that made the world blush, he realized that it was definitely not easy to feed a battleship. Nearly $7 million is needed for maintenance, training, and military expenses, and even if the Naval Resistance Force strictly controls the cost from all aspects, it will cost $5 million.
Even according to the military spending of the Navy, five million US dollars is enough for half a year's financial revenue for a country like Uruguay. Battleships are really not something that ordinary countries can feed. Li Guang estimated that he had given the battleship to Chairman Chiang, who could not afford to support it. With five million dollars of weaponry, it can arm five German armourers.
As a matter of fact, it is impossible for the Naval Resistance Force not to increase its armaments, nor for it to refrain from fighting, so the $15 million can only guarantee training, and it is even difficult to fight. The army is really a tiger that eats money, and it is too scary for more than 20,000 people to consume so much money.
Li Guang was confused again at this moment, if he handed over so much money to the domestic battlefield of resistance, would it be more effective?
After thinking about it for a long time, Li Guang felt that this money was useful for the domestic battlefield, but it did not guarantee that China would get its due benefits after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
Even more frightening is yet to come, according to the scale of artillery and tanks possessed by the Naval Resistance Army, if you want to make full use of it, you need to expand the strength of two more divisions -- one tank division and one artillery division. Even so, there is a surplus of equipment. And if these two divisions were to be built, even if they already had equipment, it would cost them three to five million dollars a year. Especially for an artillery division, if it is so large, it will cost 10 million dollars to reserve 35,000 tons of shells.
Casually, Li Guang quickly ordered the staff officers to stop. These young staff officers are too barbaric, and if they continue like this, it will not be enough to sell Li Guang. After driving out a few young staff officers, Li Guang still tried to think hard about how to solve the source of the 20 million US dollars that he urgently needed at present and the 15 million US dollars next year.
Thirty-five million dollars.
The money comes from two aspects: open source and reduced expenditure.
For the Maritime Resistance Army, there are only two major projects that can make money, one is shipbuilding. According to the current situation, the number of German submarines has increased dramatically, and the demand for merchant ships is extremely high, and the Uruguayan shipyard can now build an average of one freeship a month, and the renovation of guano ships can earn less than 800,000 US dollars. That is to say, in the next year or so, if nothing else, it will be able to provide 10 million US dollars for the naval resistance army.
The other income, lead-acid batteries, I don't know how long the business can last, but the profits are extremely considerable. According to the monthly output of 500 tons, it can create a profit of 1.2 million US dollars. If nothing else, it can also provide 15 million profits for the Maritime Resistance Army for more than a year.
However, it is difficult to get cash from Germany for this business. For example, the recent salvage team in Uruguay has basically salvaged the Count Speer, and its six main guns have also been completely salvaged. However, according to the identification of technicians, two usable main guns can be put together, and they are now being repaired. Li Guang prepared to install these two main guns in the southern part of Shixiang Island. Only artillery of this caliber could really counter the sneak attack of battleships and heavy cruisers on the Statue Island.
The artillery shells had to be purchased from Germany, and Li Guang's lead-acid batteries were black enough, but the Germans' armor-piercing shells were even blacker, and the price per ton was 3,000 US dollars. Li Guang's high-tech batteries and such shells can only be one ton for another.
Li Guang knew that he was slaughtered, but he had no choice but to admit it.
Not to mention armor-piercing shells now, even grenades (high-explosive shells) can only be barely produced, and large-caliber naval artillery shells cannot be manufactured at all. So this kind of business has to continue. The Germans were now very bullish, having just defeated the Anglo-French army and once again gained the upper hand in trade with Li Guang.
Fortunately, there are not many armor-piercing shells needed in the Naval Resistance Army, otherwise the reserves of such shells alone would have to consume Li Guang. The life of two 280mm guns with a full charge is only 400 shells, and Li Guang purchased 500 cannons, which is enough to use. There is an important reason why 500 units were purchased, and the Naval Resistance Force needed this kind of shell weighing 370 kilograms to be transformed into a smart bomb.
No matter how valuable the shells were, Li Guang was still very satisfied with the work of the salvage team. Another nice bonus, two twin 105mm anti-aircraft guns. The Germans' armament is indeed advanced, and the other surnames of this double-linked anti-aircraft gun can not be considered, just the proportion of the body and tube is called Li Guang's tongue, such a large-caliber cannon, the proportion of the body and the tube is sixty-five times that of the murderous. This can really be called the big brother of the 88mm anti-aircraft gun. The 88mm cannon with a 56-fold body-to-tube ratio is already ferocious enough against a tank, and one can imagine how domineering this cannon with a 65-fold body-to-tube ratio is. (The longer the body-tube ratio, the faster the muzzle velocity of the shell and the greater the penetration.) )
For such a ferocious artillery, Li Guang's thoughts were even more ferocious. This kind of barreled artillery is simply invincible if it is used as a tank gun, not to mention the thin-skinned iron coffin of the Soviet Union, it is the Soviet KV heavy tank, and the German Tiger King is not an opponent at all, not to mention the use of armor-piercing shells, even a solid fifteen-kilogram steel warhead can sweep all tanks.
Now the Huyi tank developed by Li Guang has actually been basically completed, the chassis has basically matured after a long period of use and transformation, the tank gun has also been sampled, and the turret is now being manufactured, but it needs to be further improved in practice.
While consolidating existing products, while developing new varieties, this is Li Guang's habit all along. Li Guang once again gave the tank factory a task to design a heavy tank. The engine adopts two 400 hp double combined. The track adopts a heavy-duty track, and the total weight is controlled at about 50 tons. This research and development work can only be made in the early stage, this heavy tank is much more complex than the Tiger tank, this kind of gun loading, indexing and aiming are all electric, and not specifically designed for tanks, just to install this gun on the turret is a super problem.
If this gun is used in air defense, it is naturally good, but it is difficult to say how much effect the two guns can play. But when it comes to tank battles, sometimes an advanced tank can make the difference between victory and defeat. Compared with quantity, it is difficult for the Naval Resistance Army to compare with this country in any case, and Li Guang intends to win by quality.
Speaking of which, the current top priority is not only to get the guns and ammunition obtained from the European trip as soon as possible, but also to expand the battery business. Although the shipbuilding industry is very profitable, Li Guang is satisfied that it can guarantee the source of funds for the few warships under construction.
The battery business is definitely going to make money, and it's definitely going to make a lot of money. According to Professor Yuan Ye's reply, the British are now interested in buying batteries. However, it is mainly used in fighter jets, and the demand is not large. I believe that to a certain extent, the British will definitely transfer the use to submarines, and at that time, the profits brought to the naval resistance will definitely not be less than that of the Germans. In addition, the Americans are the bulk of the demand for batteries, and now only Curtis uses this kind of battery in aircraft, and when the Americans begin to demand, the current monthly output of 500 tons of the Maritime Resistance Army will definitely not be able to keep up.
Li Guang needed money, but he had to invest more before making money, and plans for the expansion of the battery factory were soon on the desk. The expansion of the battery plant is a breeze, with plans starting in August and starting production by the end of the year, by which time the monthly output could easily exceed 1,000 tons. It is estimated that it will bring Li Guang a profit of 30 million US dollars in 41 years, of course, the premise is that the supply and marketing are balanced.
In terms of throttling, for Li Guang, the most important direction is to increase the production of ammunition. At present, the production capacity of propellants under the industries of the Maritime Resistance Army has basically reached 30 tons per month, and it is estimated that it may be able to reach a scale of 100 tons per month next year. If it is on this scale, the output of shells and bullets of the Naval Resistance Army can fully produce a thousand tons per month.
However, just relying on the existing few workshop-type factories, it is good to be able to produce thirty or fifty tons of shells and ammunition per month. If he wanted to expand, Li Guang couldn't draw up the money, and he couldn't raise a lot of money just by relying on Su Maode as a businessman, so he planned to raise funds from the Nanyang Chinese.
The ammunition industry of the Maritime Resistance Army is not Li Guang's, it should be regarded as a merchant group, but they manufacture ammunition, at least give the Naval Resistance Army a cost price, which can be regarded as throttling.
The real estate, agriculture and other projects of the Navy's resistance army in Uruguay will be difficult to achieve results for a while.
If the Navy, Army, and Air Force want to build up their combat effectiveness, there will be a huge gap in funds. The army can also be perfected battalion by battalion. However, in addition to submarines capable of reading operations, warships and aircraft carriers do not have a complete escort system, and it is a death to go out.
In the Norwegian battle between Germany and Britain and France, the German navy suffered heavy losses, but towards the end of the campaign, the German navy once again brilliant. A German battleship sank an aircraft carrier in a few minutes with naval guns. This naval battle set two records, the first German naval guns fired at a distance of twenty-four kilometers, which is by far the longest artillery range (referring to hits) in the history of naval warfare. In World War II, this was the first time that a battleship sank an aircraft carrier. (Professor Yuan's eldest son, Yuan Zi, served on the carrier.) )
This was a wake-up call to the top and bottom of the Naval Resistance Army, as well as to Li Guang, that it would be unsafe if there were no battleships or heavy cruisers in the aircraft carrier formation. After all, the weather on the sea is capricious, and it is impossible for fighters to ensure a reconnaissance state all the time. And when approached by enemy warships, aircraft carriers are lambs to the slaughter.
This scenario in a war is undoubtedly something that aircraft carriers try to avoid, but who can guarantee that it can be avoided completely?
The naval battle in Europe was thrilling to see Li Guang, and the naval battle needed to be more cautious than the land war, and it was simply a war that determined the fortunes of the country.
After the Battle of Norway, the German Navy began to die down, and it was no longer able to fight a large-scale decisive battle with the British and French navies, so it had to enter the stage of hard training of internal skills.
For the weak and small fleet of the Naval Resistance Army, it is absolutely not allowed to go into battle before the configuration is complete and the training is not perfect.
Going around and around, or back to the starting point, it takes money to configure training. Money is needed even more to reserve war materiel.
On many occasions, Li Guang wanted to hand over this almost maddening problem to others, and he was only in charge of military training and operations. But at present, with the lack of numbers, it is difficult for him to get out.
;