1910 was much better than 1909, at least for the Italian military.

In the 1910-1911 fiscal year, the Navy received 343 million lire, 46 million lire more than the previous year's 297 million lire.

Don't look at this lot of money, it seems that you can build several super dreadnoughts in one go. But this money cannot be calculated in this way, first of all, the navy needs to pay salaries, and last year the navy spent 64 million lire on salaries alone. Don't think it's expensive, you must know that there are currently more than 80,000 people in the navy, and the average annual salary of each person is only more than 700 lira, and they do not rely on patriotic enthusiasm and nationalist education, they can start at least 150 lira a month when they find a job. After all, the navy is a technical service, and the officers and men of the navy need to know some technology to a greater or lesser extent.

Moreover, the salary of the Italian Navy is already very low among the major powers, after all, the Italian government is not very wealthy, and if it wants to maintain the navy's shipbuilding, it can only find a way to spend other expenses.

In fact, the navy also spends a lot of money on the maintenance of warships. It includes the maintenance of warships, training, military uniforms, food reserves, etc., and its cost increases with the number of warships.

Taking the current Italian Dante dreadnought as an example, the annual cost of maintaining its combat effectiveness is 2.16 million lire.

And last year, the Navy spent 79 million lire on the maintenance of warships alone. After all, the size of the Italian navy is currently the fourth largest in the world, after Britain, Germany and the United States.

In addition, the Navy also has the cost of purchasing ammunition, the cost of building shore facilities and equipment, the cost of fuel, and the cost of research and development of new technologies.

And these costs are not cheap, in the case of ammunition, the price of a 305-mm shell currently reaches 45,000 lira. The price of these thousand shells for the main guns is almost catching up with its battleships.

The price is also so expensive because 90% of its mass is an armor-piercing body made of high-performance alloys, and the process of making such a shell of several hundred kilograms is particularly complicated. Therefore, in general artillery training, the main guns of battleships are to try not to fire guns to save the cost of shells.

This is also why the Japanese Navy in later generations would tie a 150 mm gun to the main gun of the Yamato to simulate the training of main gun shooting, because the cost of one main gun shot was too high.

And last year, the Italian Navy spent 37.1 million lire on ammunition procurement. Most of them are spent on ammunition for small and medium-caliber naval guns. (Naval guns with a caliber of more than 200 mm in the Navy are considered large-caliber)

In addition to the cost of ammunition procurement, the procurement of fuel is also a big head, as long as the battleship starts, then it must use fuel, and how much fuel consumption of thousands of horsepower at every turn will be calculated.

The training and patrol of the daily battleship is very expensive. Fortunately, the navy can use heavy oil after refining diesel gasoline, and its price is several times lower than that of gasoline and diesel. Although the efficiency is much worse than the above two, it is cheaper!

Who is so rich that they dare to use gasoline on warships. (Japanese Navy you sit down)

The oil is okay, but because the efficiency of coal is much lower in coal burning, in order to ensure the performance of warships, the navies of various countries choose the best anthracite.

Last year, Italy's fuel procurement cost was 12.6 million lire, the lowest in three years.

In addition to these, the cost of building onshore facilities is not low, and the construction of onshore facilities is mainly the construction of military ports and wharves, as well as various warehouses, oil storage tanks, dormitories, and other construction work.

At present, the Italian Navy has 54 military ports, including 26 third-class military ports (auxiliary military ports, which can berth various warships of less than 5,000 tons, and can carry out simple repair and maintenance work, and 8 are limited by conditions and can only berth warships of less than 3,000 tons)

13 second-class military ports (secondary military ports, which can berth warships below 10,000 tons, except for overhauls)

There are 8 first-class military ports, (it is possible to berth all the warships of the present, but it is limited to the capacity of the port and cannot accommodate all of them, and all repairs and maintenance work can be carried out.) ）

There are 6 special military ports (which can accommodate all the main warships and can be used as anchorages for the Italian Navy.) ）

The construction and defense of so many military ports was not easy at all. Not to mention that many ports are dual-use, so there are more things to consider.

And last year, the Navy spent 21.4 million lire on land facilities and equipment.

More than half of these costs are spent on defense. The construction of coastal defense facilities is very expensive, for example, the purchase price of a 305-mm shore gun reaches 300,000 lire. You can't just use this cannon, you also need to build a battery to house it, and you also need to train officers and soldiers who can operate it, all of which will cost money.

Therefore, at present, the 305 mm shore guns, in addition to the main ports of the mainland (including Libya Province and Albania Province), Italy only has Massawa and Pontianak.

The main reason is that this gun is not only expensive, but also the shells, which the Italian Navy does not use much.

At present, 305 mm is the ceiling of Italy's specially built shore guns, and it is not that it cannot be manufactured, but it is not suitable, it is too expensive, and it does not conform to Italy's actual national strength.

In fact, not only Italy, but also the maximum caliber of coastal defense artillery in European countries is basically stopped at 305 mm. If there is anything larger than this caliber, then it is basically dismantled from the warship and reused.

In addition, because the navy is a technical service, it needs to pay close attention to the trends of various new technologies, and in addition to paying attention, it is also necessary to study new technologies that are beneficial to warships. In this regard, the Italian Navy is very generous, even if last year's funding was so tight, it did not lose its weight in the research and development of new technologies, and last year a total of 23.5 million lire was allocated for the development of various new technologies.

In addition, there are a lot of small expenses, such as publicity, training and education, etc., which add up to nearly 10 million lira. These costs add up to 210 million lira, which are essential expenses.

So last year, the navy was able to spend only about 90 million lira on building ships. This looks like a lot, but the warships still under construction in the dockyard need no appropriation, and three of them are Cavour-class super dreadnoughts, which were allocated more than 30 million lire last year. In addition, other cruisers, destroyers, patrol boats, torpedo boats, submarines and special vessels divided more than 30 million lire.

Although the remaining 20 million lira is enough to start the construction of a Milan-class battle cruiser, it is impossible for the navy to build only one battle cruiser, and other small and medium-sized warships, so there is no need to build them. Eventually, the Navy abandoned the construction of the Milan-class and used more than 20 million lire for the construction of two Verona-class cruisers, No. 3 and No. 4, as well as six destroyers, sixteen patrol boats, torpedo boats, and other vessels.

Among them, the Verona-class cruiser is an improved version of the Piedmont class, mainly to improve the ocean-going capability, and the firepower has also increased a twin 150 mm main gun, of course, the displacement has also increased from the standard displacement of 5120 tons to 5800 tons. Since the power system remained unchanged, the speed was reduced from 27 knots in the Piedmont class to 26.5 knots. However, the officers and men generally responded that the Verona class was more comfortable and more resistant to wind and waves than the Piedmontese class.

Now that there is more money at his disposal, the Milan-level battle patrol can be arranged.