Secretary of State Lansing, a middle-aged man with a high nose, a pointed chin, and a somewhat pale face, lost no time in interjecting: "If the enemy is allowed to take the West Coast, the prestige of the United States will be seriously undermined, and those resentful Mexican bandits and South American thugs will not let go of this good opportunity." In addition, I would like to ask you to consider the feelings of ordinary people, especially in the western states, when the Chinese have attacked our fleets, captured our overseas territories, and may invade our homeland at any time, instead of dealing with the imminent danger with all their might, but have to transport troops across the Atlantic to fight the Germans who seem unrelated—how many people can figure it out? The legislators of the West have formed a 'Coalition for the Defense of the Homeland' and have threatened to fight to the end against anyone who tries to abandon or sacrifice the states of the West, and I dare say that they have no shortage of sympathizers, and no one wants to see the beautiful land that our forefathers carved out at the cost of their lives be trampled up......"

President Wilson finally put down his cigar, and Renhe's gaze turned to Secretary of War Stimson: "I just want to know one thing, in the next few months, can relying on the Army alone prevent the enemy from landing on the mainland?" ”

Stimson straightened up and said word by word with a serious expression: "Your Excellency, without the support of the navy, we will never be able to prevent the enemy from landing, but if we have enough troops and weapons, we can drive the enemy into the sea with a resolute and powerful counterattack after the enemy lands." ”

"How many troops do you need?"

"Including the defense of Panama, at least sixty fully manned divisions - now we have only sixty regiments."

Secretary of the Navy Daniels retorted unhappily: "According to the Navy's forecast, while conducting operations around the South China Sea, the remaining ocean-going capacity of the East Asian Alliance can only guarantee a maximum of 8 to 10 heavy divisions for transoceanic operations, and against this amount of troops, how can we use 60 divisions!" ”

"Yes, if the navy is not withdrawn, of course there is no need for so many troops, but if you rely only on the army, you can't lose a division! I hope you will remember that at the beginning, I was the first to put forward the strategy of Europe first and then Asia, but the premise was that the navy and army should coordinate to defend the west coast, and now that the navy is gone, the enemy can concentrate and land at any selected location, while we can only fortify everywhere along the vast coastline, and we will be weak everywhere and beaten everywhere. Moreover, as Mr. Lansing said, the fact that the enemy has landed on the American mainland will create instability throughout the Americas. In this way, we must retain a strong mobile force, ready to go anywhere on the entire American continent to fight the Asians or the Americans. ”

Stimson paused and glanced at Daniels, whose face was stiff: "I also want you to recognize the fact that our military strength with our allies around the South China Sea is very weak, and once our fleet withdraws from the Pacific, this area is destined to quickly fall into the hands of the enemy, and the ships of the East Asian Alliance that were originally used for operations in the region can then be diverted to the Americas." Mr. Daniels, have you calculated how many forces the other side can maintain to fight on the American continent in this case? ”

Daniels looked down and counted his fingers: "About 30 reloaders." ”

Stimson stretched out three fingers: "According to Mr. Baruch, chairman of the Military Industrial Commission, the domestic industry can only meet the equipment needs of 20 new divisions at most in the past six months, and the large-scale transformation of civilian industry to military industry and the development of comprehensive economic control will take time, and it is expected that it will not be fully put on the right track until a year later." That is, in 6 months, the US Army will have no more than 36 divisions at its disposal. ”

What Stimson didn't know was that in alternate history, the United States entered the World War in April 1917, and three months later, when the first American troops arrived in Europe, they had to be almost entirely armed with British-French-made rifles and cannons, because America's arms reserves were so limited that they were "only suitable for fighting the tattered peasant army in the Mexican wilderness."

In fact, in the First World War of that time and space, the wartime system of directing and controlling industrial production was not perfected for a long time, resulting in an excessively long delivery time for products, which prevented the United States from being able to exert its maximum efficiency in the relatively short war cycle. In the 19 months before the armistice, American factories poured an impressive amount of ordnance and ammunition, a significant part of which was concentrated in the spring and summer of 1918. However, the equipment was delivered to the user too late to be used. At the same stage, the United States finally surpassed the main allies in the production of rifles and smokeless fires, only in the production of machine guns and automatic rifles, France surpassed the United States.

However, when it comes to the production of cannons, something is wrong with the United States. In June 1917, it was planned that when the American troops arrived in Europe, France and Britain would provide artillery. It is expected that the troops in Europe will be equipped with the same type of Anglo-French artillery made in the United States. However, in the course of taking on this task, the U.S. factory encountered difficulties in translating French data specifications and manufacturing some of the necessary parts. Although these difficulties were eventually overcome, before the armistice, American companies produced less than 2,000 complete artillery pieces.

At this time and space, the situation of the US Army is not much better; because since the Asian-Russian War, successive US administrations have completely pinned their hopes for containing the East Asian Alliance on the naval fleet, and the isolationist sentiment that has permeated the country has persisted for a long time, the US Army has not been taken seriously for a long time, and it is far less favored by Congress and the public than the mighty and majestic ships and giant guns.

After the outbreak of the European war, the army urgently purchased 34 regiments of equipment from domestic manufacturers, in order to achieve the first expansion bill to expand the total strength to 65 regiments within three months, and before the start of the Sino-US war, the plan was basically completed, even so, according to the 1914 army division establishment plan proposed by General Pershing, the most effective army in the army, a total of 16 divisions, each division of 28,000 people, equipped with 72 artillery pieces and 260 machine guns - comparable to the combat power of the Chinese army's heavy infantry division in 1912.

As a result of this emergency procurement, the U.S. military industry has grown to a certain extent, and the military production line that has been transformed by the civilian production line can be put into the production of more orders immediately after the completion of the emergency purchase order, however, this level of growth is really a drop in the bucket for the second military expansion bill passed in early January 15.

The Second Expansion Act stipulates that the U.S. Army will expand to 90 divisions within 18 months, with a total strength of more than 4 million troops.

But the above data is still completely retained on paper, far water can't quench the thirst of the near, and the future can't save the present, which is why Stimson is so stubborn in holding on to the Navy - there is no reason why the Army is alone to support the overall situation, while the Navy is hiding in the backyard and doing nothing.