The Coconut City Navy meeting did not discuss the part about submarines. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

This stems from France's insistence and Lan Fang's encouragement.

The French were given a quota of 175,000 tons of capital ships at the Coconut City Naval Conference, which is actually meaningless, because France has no plan to build ships at all, and France cannot afford to build 175,000 tons of naval capital ships.

Like the Germans, when competing with the British Navy, the French had their hopes in submarines.

In the world war, the submarine force of the Germans was impressive, in fact, the performance of French submarines was not bad, especially after the cooperation between the Foreign Legion presided over by Qin Zhiyuan and the French Navy, France's submarine technology improved by leaps and bounds, and by the end of the world war, it had surpassed Germany and built the most advanced submarine in the world. With the new torpedo technology extorted from Qin Zhiyuan, the combat effectiveness of the French submarine force is indeed bursting, which makes the French have high hopes for the submarine force.

Like France, Lanfang's submarine technology is equally advanced. After the end of the World War, Lan Fang continued to study submarines and developed a new type of submarine that completely belonged to Lan Fang, the "Swordfish" class submarine.

The shape of the Swordfish-class submarine still uses a drop-shaped shape, using the latest diesel-electric engine to provide thrust, the maximum speed under the surface can reach fifteen knots, the maximum speed on the surface is twenty-one knots, the Swordfish-class submarine can dive to a depth of 200 meters, equipped with six torpedo launchers, and can carry twenty-three torpedoes of 533 mm caliber.

In this era, the submarines of other countries' navies have different ideas, the "Swordfish" class submarines are not equipped with any machine guns and artillery, and the streamlined shape of the hull also ensures that the "Swordfish-class" submarines have excellent underwater mobility and combat capabilities, Qin Zhiyuan has also invested a lot of effort in the submarine force, and Lanfang's submarines are equipped with the latest radio equipment and sonar equipment, which can ensure that the "Swordfish-class" submarines have the strongest combat effectiveness in this era.

It is a good thing that the Coconut City Naval Conference does not impose restrictions on submarines, which allows the Lanfang Navy to develop submarine forces without any scruples, and with the combat performance of the "Swordfish-class" submarines, coupled with the extraordinary range of the new torpedoes, the Lanfang Navy will not be too difficult in the face of the US Navy.

After determining the direction, Qin Zhiyuan immediately convened the heads of relevant departments to discuss the possibility of increasing the number of submarines to counter the threat to the US Navy.

"Submarine forces are the best weapon against surface ships, not just against merchant ships, with the right tactics, small submarines can send huge battleships to the bottom of the sea, which has been proven during these two days of exercises." Hearing that the submarine force should be vigorously developed, the commander of the submarine force, Douglas, immediately raised his hands in approval.

The submarine force also took part in this exercise, because the speed of the submarine is relatively slow, so the submarine force arrived in the Marshall Islands a little later than the three major fleets, but this did not affect the submarine force to be in the limelight; just yesterday's exercise, Douglas organized 16 submarines to set up an ambush circle, and in just half an hour, Douglas's submarine force annihilated nine warships, including the battleship "Vladivostok." This caused a blow to the "giant ship artillery" party, including Antonio.

In the exercise a few days ago, Xie Rundong commanded the task force to fight against the Cam Ranh Bay Fleet and the Vladivostok Fleet with one enemy and two without losing the slightest advantage, and sank all the capital ships of the two fleets at the cost of only two aircraft carriers.

In the face of the facts, Antonio and they had to abandon the idea of developing battleships with all their might, and began to attach importance to the role of aircraft carriers. Tan Xueheng, commander of the Vladivostok fleet, made the most thorough change, and Tan Xueheng even suggested to Qin Zhiyuan that all the three "corps-class" battleships under construction should be converted into aircraft carriers to adapt to the future development trend of the navy.

Qin Zhiyuan also had this idea, but considering the restrictions of the "Coconut City Naval Treaty", Qin Zhiyuan had no choice but to give up.

The four "Surabaya-class" aircraft carriers have already used up all of Lan Fang's aircraft carrier quotas, and if Lan Fang wants to take the quota of capital ships to develop aircraft carriers, this will definitely attract the attention of Britain, the United States, and other countries.

Compared with the results of the task force, the results of the submarine force are not so impressive, after all, in the world war, the German submarines had an amazing record of one submarine sinking three cruisers of the British in one hour, which made everyone have a certain psychological preparation.

"Then there is only one question now, whether the current 'Swordfish-class' submarines can meet the needs of the Navy, and whether it is necessary to develop a more powerful submarine." Qin Zhiyuan's requirements are relatively high, and he is not very satisfied with the existing "Swordfish-class" submarines.

"From the current point of view, there is no problem for the 'Swordfish class' to meet the needs of the navy, although the Americans are refitting their warships, but after all, there is a process, as long as the performance of the Americans' warships has not been greatly improved, then the advantages of the 'Swordfish-class' submarines are unshakable." Douglas has confidence in the "Swordfish".

The current battleships are powerful enough, and it is not easy to improve the performance of the battleships, unless the Americans go crazy and start building super battleships like the "Yamato" like the Japanese, the current battleships are the pinnacle of battleships.

"So how many submarines do we need if we are going to deal with the threat from the Americans?" Qin Zhiyuan raised a most practical question.

Lanfang has a long sea frontier, and in terms of land scope, it is not an exaggeration to say that Lanfang has the longest sea frontier in the world, after all, Lanfang is mostly composed of islands, and if the Americans want to attack, there are countless possibilities for the Americans to choose from.

"If only to counter the threat from the Americans, then we need to double the size of the existing submarine forces." The Minister of the Navy, Antonio, had a spectrum in his heart, and this was on the premise of taking into account the strength of the three major fleets.

At present, Lan Fang's submarine force has a total of 110 submarines, and a total of 40 of these submarines are assigned to the Cam Ranh Bay Fleet and the Vladivostok Fleet, Xie Rundong's task force is not equipped with submarines because of its high speed, and the remaining submarines are all concentrated on Laute Island and Surabaya, except for the 25 submarines in the port of Hedland.

At present, the number of submarines in Lanfang is the largest in the world, followed by the United States, followed by France and the United Kingdom, the total number of submarines in these four countries accounts for as much as ninety percent of the number of submarines in the world, of which the number of submarines in Lanfang is one-third of the total number of submarines in the world.

If it is doubled on this basis, then the total number of submarines in Lanfang will reach half of the world, and if there is another war, Lanfang may be able to blockade the coastline of the United States with submarines.

At least it's okay to blockade the west coast of the United States.

"Then let's build it." Qin Zhiyuan made up his mind.

Hearing that Qin Zhiyuan had finally made a decision, the joy in Antonio and Douglas's eyes flashed, and then Antonio asked an embarrassing question: "So-what about money?" ”

Money, this is indeed a big problem, it is now 1923, the military budget for 1923 has been determined, and there is no room for squeezing out this money in the budget of all two billion Lan Fang yuan.

Lan Fang's army is still Qin Zhiyuan's personal support so far, and the annual funding of 2 billion yuan also makes Qin Zhiyuan a little stretched, 100 submarines is not a small number, according to the cost of "Swordfish-class" submarines, this cost will reach 650 million Lan Fang yuan.

"Money, I'll figure it out, what you have to do is to train more captains and sailors, and you don't have to worry about the rest." Qin Zhiyuan took care of everything and didn't let Antonio worry about the funds.

"Okay." Antonio doesn't object, Antonio really can't help much in terms of money.

In front of Antonio and Douglas, Qin Zhiyuan was of course extremely firm, but after Otonio and Douglas retreated, Qin Zhiyuan also began to worry.

650 million Lan Fangyuan, even for Qin Zhiyuan, this is not a small number, it is impossible to say that Qin Zhiyuan has to borrow and borrow in order to cope with this hurdle.

If there is someone in Lanfang who is qualified to make Qin Zhiyuan open his mouth to borrow money, then in addition to Huang Bohan, who cries poor all day long, there is an old Renault who has made a fortune in a muffled voice.

Even Qin Zhiyuan didn't know how much money Old Renault had, but it was certain that Old Renault's money would not be much less than Qin Zhiyuan's.

Many of Qin Zhiyuan's businesses are owned by Renault, including United Petroleum, United Biologics, Pilbara Mining Group and Lanfang Automobile Group, etc., strictly speaking, this is the partnership between Qin Zhiyuan and Renault, in addition to these, Renault Lao also brandished a cheque book to buy factories and mines all over the world, vowing to become the world's largest mining tycoon.

In addition to the above-mentioned industries, there are other industries that Qin Zhiyuan has not set foot in, such as the bauxite company in Madagascar, which is a sole proprietorship of Renault.

Although Qin Zhiyuan is rich, he also spends a lot, so Qin Zhiyuan, a rich man, is a bit unworthy of his name, so it seems that Old Renault is the richest man in Lan Fang's seriousness now.

Of course, Qin Zhiyuan is not trying to "kill the pig", it should be regarded as a treasury bond issued in accordance with international practice, and the money lent by Old Renault to Qin Zhiyuan has interest.

Qin Zhiyuan was not prepared to only let Lao Renault pay, Lan Fang still had other rich people besides Lao Renault, and they were all obliged to contribute.

Qin Zhiyuan's initial budget is to issue 2 billion Lan Fang yuan of treasury bonds, so that with the output of those enterprises in Qin Zhiyuan's hands, then Lan Fang will not be short of money in the next few years.