Chapter 61 61 Ruhr Agreement
Mercedes-Benz was ordered to start mass production of 300 No. 3 assault guns, and at the same time to intensify the development of No. 3 tanks with turrets. The Wehrmacht's claim that 100 of the No. 3 assault guns were used as stockpiles and spare parts reserves, coupled with the favoritism of international public opinion on this occasion, made this blatant over-standard production even less investigated and dealt with by the Allied Arms Control Commission.
Moreover, these No. 3 assault guns completely exceeded the limit, weighing 21 tons, equipped with sloping and thickened front armor plates, equipped with the latest short 75 mm cannons, capable of supporting infantry and using them to make do with opposing tanks.
Of course, according to the concept of Accardo when it was designed, the German armored forces will be divided into two armored divisions, each division will have two armored regiments, each regiment will have two battalions, each battalion will have four armored companies, and one company will be equipped with 21 tanks, so that the standard armored division of the Wehrmacht should have 336 tanks.
However, the Wehrmacht now has 370 No. 2 tanks (the cumulative number accumulated over the past year) and 41 No. 3 assault guns - these 410 tanks are assigned to Guderian's 25th Panzer Division and Rommel's newly created 26th Cavalry Division.
In terms of numbers, both Wehrmacht tank divisions were understaffed, for example, Guderian's 25th Panzer Division had only one regiment of fully equipped tank units, and the other regiment had only one armored training battalion. Rommel's troops were similarly faced with a similar situation.
However, the situation will be greatly improved in the near future, and Daimler-Benz will equip these two units with open-handed production tanks, and the troops of these two divisions will also replace most of their tanks with No. 3 assault guns and possibly No. 3 tanks in the future.
The obsolete No. 2 tanks were simply disassembled with 20 mm cannons and replaced with machine guns posing as armoured vehicles and assigned to another unit, the Wehrmacht's recently secretly formed 27th Panzer Division.
In this way, the Wehrmacht has three tank divisions, and these new units with advanced equipment and powerful combat capabilities are all in the hands of Accardo. And this is not counting several mechanized divisions that were heavily armed with armored vehicles and cars: the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 15th, 22nd. Almost one-third of the Wehrmacht is motorized, and its overall mobility exceeds that of neighbors France and Poland.
Of course, even if there is a certain gap between the weight of the tank, that is, the protection ability and the caliber of the tank gun, there is a certain gap with the French and British, but the German tank is superior to the opponent in terms of maneuverability, and most German tanks are equipped with radio equipment, except for some of the earliest No. 2 tanks in service, which makes the German tanks much higher than the French tanks in command and cooperation with each other.
The German Navy benefited greatly from the revision of the new peace treaty, and Accardo deceived the British authorities with the half-truths, so that the two 10,000-ton armored ships that did not exist were replaced by three light cruisers, and the X general cruiser was planned to be on the horse, and the navy had a new weapon with a long range and high speed.
The British still do not know what the German Navy is thinking, except for a few old battleships and cruisers left over from the First World War, the German Navy has only three "Lützov", "Admiral Spee", and "Admiral Schell" of more than 10,000 tons, and the rest of the newly commissioned naval warships are all destroyers, with a tonnage of only 4,000 tons.
What is even more ridiculous is that these destroyers are all identical, with comfortable living conditions and huge interior space, and are armed only with a ridiculous few 88-mm cannons and a dozen 37-mm anti-aircraft guns. The three newly equipped X-class light cruisers looked similar to these destroyers, and in the eyes of the British, they were just enlarged versions of the Z1-class destroyers.
The three cruisers that began to be built in Kiel used the same parts as the Z1-class destroyers, and most of the weapons and equipment on board were common, except that the three cruisers had three more single-barreled 150 mm guns and more anti-aircraft guns. Compared to the British cruisers of the same period, these 3 small ships were not even a threat.
Of course, the Germans had the shrewdness of the Germans, and they only had small-caliber guns on these ships, and the space saved would allow them to store more food and fuel, and they would be able to travel longer distances - enough to protect their future big guys.
The biggest change was in the Luftwaffe, which was able to send thousands of fighters to fight at a time at its peak, and even after the end of the First World War, the Luftwaffe still had 14,000 fighters of all kinds.
However, after the war, Germany was forced to cancel its own air force, countless fighter planes were transported or destroyed, and German airspace became an undefended blank space.
But now it was different, Germany was allowed to retain its air power, and although this air force was too small to be small—it had only 50 aircraft of all kinds, and even the air force of backward China in the Far East was stronger than it, but this was a leap from scratch, and one could not help but rejoice.
Under the comprehension of the Germans, it was stipulated that the reconnaissance and patrol planes equipped by Germany must be biplanes, and as for the speed limit, there was no such thing as zài, so a new type of combat reconnaissance aircraft was designed by the Heinkel company to rearm the German air force.
This aircraft flies faster than the British fighter "Bull Dog", equipped with powerful machine gun firepower, and it can be said that this He-51 fighter is the pinnacle of biplane design, and once equipped, it becomes the fastest fighter in Central Europe.
The command of the Air Force was given to Major Kesselring, who had just returned from his studies in the Soviet Union, and the 40 combat reconnaissance aircraft were divided into two squadrons, with Captain Dick commanding the 1st Combat Reconnaissance Squadron and another Captain Birhoff, who had distinguished himself in the Soviet Union, as the leader of the 2nd Combat Reconnaissance Aircraft Squadron.
Such a large-scale expansion of the army naturally led to the entire German industry, and Accardo personally flew to the Ruhr region in western Germany to meet with the German heavy industry capitalist group, represented by Krupp, on behalf of the Wehrmacht military.
The two sides signed what would become known as Germany's first five-year plan, which defined the scope of weapons and equipment production at each plant and the number of purchases by the Wehrmacht, including even the entire German economic plan for the next five years.
Continuing the expansion, Germany will build an additional 400 kilometers of highways and 350 kilometers of railways to connect the entire territory of Germany in order to quickly deploy troops scattered throughout the country.
As Accardo's secret envoy, Merkel visited the Soviet Union and built 3,000 kilometers of railways and 3,000 kilometers of roads for the Soviet Union at a low profit. All of this financial aid was signed in the form of a secret cooperation to the new Soviet leader Stalin, who had only been in power for a short time, and helped him to consolidate his position.
In return, the Soviets provided Germany with $4 million worth of oil, as well as huge quantities of grain. Moreover, the size of the German secretly trained soldiers on the territory of the Soviet Union increased to 1,000 people.
Subsequently, German aid to the Soviet Union's heavy industrial bases in Kyiv and Minsk also received equipment from Germany, and these valuable industrial bases provided the Soviet Union with steel and its derivatives, including tanks and armored vehicles.
Of course, an even more crazy plan was offered to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and that was that German engineers helped the Soviets build a new battleship, which Stalin named the "Soviet" class of battleships with nine 406 mm guns, which could be called a supersea supremacy.
Stalin was especially fond of this superweapon and ordered the construction of the first "Soviet Union" at the "Baltic Shipyard" in Leningrad immediately with the help of German engineers, followed by the construction of the second large shipyard "Naval Shipyard" in Leningrad.
In Stalin's plan, a total of 15 Soviet-class battleships were to be built to deal with the Japanese threat in the Far East and British warships from Europe. With the help of German engineers, Stalin believed that it was entirely possible to compete with the British Empire at sea with the Soviet Union's vast land.
As a result, the Germans continued to build small-tonnage cruisers and destroyers for escort warships, while the Soviets built super-battleships with a displacement of more than 45,000 tons with the help of the Germans.
With the Soviet Union paying the bill, German industry was rejuvenated like never before, and the whole of Germany was turned into a huge arsenal, construction site. With unemployment at almost zero for a while, prices were stable, people lived and worked in peace and contentment, and Germany swept away the gloom of a defeated country and became the most economically dynamic country in Europe.
The second half of 1925 was known as the Year of the Greater Deutsche Zeitung, and the Greater German Party brought an unprecedented Christmas to the German people.
In September 1926, just one year after the signing of the Ruhr Agreement, Hindenburg, on behalf of the government, commended Major General Arcardo Rudolf for his outstanding contribution to the economic recovery and social stability of Germany, and privately awarded a bonus to the Wehrmacht, and generously allocated 4 million marks for the secret funds of the Wehrmacht.
And at the end of 1926, Germany actually had 42 troops in the army. 50,000 people (because the expansion was secretly carried out to guide zhì less than expected), a total of 633 tanks of various types, 60 aircraft of 1,400 people in the Air Force, and 21 new Z1-class destroyers and a number of other old ships (3 X-type light cruisers are still in the trial stage and have not entered service).
And when the group of capitalists and businessmen, who had made a lot of money, finally decided to take a break, they remembered that there was still an important matter that had not been implemented, so they hurriedly started to do it.