Chapter 463: Arms Race and Tanks

The Spanish army expansion was only a microcosm in 1907; not just Spain, but all the major European powers conducted a large amount of military expansion and arms races in this year.

On the British side, they paid close attention to Spain's construction of battleships. In order to wash away the humiliation, the British government high-profilely announced its shipbuilding plan for the next few years right after the war with Spain ended.

After vigorously investing in research on new battleships, the British government formally started construction on the first new-style battleship in mid-1905; the British Navy internally named it "Avenger," and who it was specifically targeting was self-evident.

It had to be admitted that Britain's speed in building a navy was still extremely fast. The Avenger battleship, which started construction in mid-1905, was formally launched in March 1906.

It was currently unclear whether Britain's Avenger battleship was in service, but what was certain was that this battleship was only the beginning for the British government.

As early as the beginning of 1906, the British government made its naval construction plan public, announcing that in the three years from 1906 to 1908, it would build five Dreadnoughts to counter Spain.

Adding the British government's first Dreadnought, the Avenger, Britain would possess 6 Dreadnoughts in 1909, which was enough to prove Britain's high investment in the navy.

In reality, if Spain had not taken a step ahead in Dreadnoughts, it would probably have been truly impossible to defeat Britain in the navy.

There was no help for it; because Britain had a powerful industrial scale and a developed shipbuilding industry, its speed in building a navy was extremely fast.

Spain's first Dreadnought started construction in April 1901; up to now, the beginning of 1907, in 6 years, it had only built five Dreadnoughts.

What about Britain? Britain's first Dreadnought, the Avenger, only took a year or so, and the time taken for each subsequent battleship would be shorter, and it could even build several battleships at the same time.

In such a situation, even Spain, which had taken a step ahead, was somewhat struggling in the face of Britain's crazy pursuit.

Not to mention those countries that had not taken a step ahead of Britain in Dreadnoughts; whether it was Germany or France, wanting to catch up with Britain in the number of Dreadnoughts was inevitably somewhat difficult.

Of course, difficulty is difficulty, but whether it was Germany or France, in a situation where all European countries were conducting a large-scale naval arms race, they were certainly unwilling to fall behind.

On one hand, France ordered three battleships from Spain. Although the delivery time for these three battleships was relatively late, it was enough to ensure that France possessed Dreadnoughts relatively early among the European Great Powers.

On the other hand, the French government was also researching its own Dreadnoughts. According to the French government's plan, their first giant battleship of nearly 20,000 tons had hope of starting construction in 1907 and formally serving in the French Navy before the arrival of 1910.

Although the service time was later than the time Spain delivered the three battleships, for a Great Power like France, a battleship built by itself was the most important.

After all, others could build battleships for oneself, and could also refuse to build battleships for oneself. Only by mastering the technology to build battleships oneself did one have the qualification to become a true naval power.

Among the several naval powers in the world today, basically all had the ability to build battleships themselves. France naturally could not give up building battleships; no matter how great the price, they had to possess the ability to build battleships themselves.

Like France, Germany also decided to build Dreadnoughts itself.

It was also no help for it; although Spain agreed to sell warships to France and Italy, it did not agree to hand over the blueprints and design data related to the new-style battleships to France and Italy.

Italy could not get the relevant design blueprints and data, so naturally it could not share them with Germany. Germany could not get the relevant data, so if it wanted to possess Dreadnoughts, it could only rely on itself to research them.

If it were some unimportant technology, giving it up would be giving it up. But the 20,000-ton battleship represented by Spain's new-style warship was precisely the most advanced naval design at present.

Germany could not give up building 20,000-ton battleships no matter what; they had the same idea as the French government—no matter how much capital they invested, they must build their own Dreadnoughts.

Compared to the two countries of France and Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia did not have such big ideas about Dreadnoughts.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire could purchase Dreadnoughts from Spain, but when they asked about the price of Spain's new-style battleships, after a period of hesitation, they finally gave up purchasing Dreadnoughts for the time being.

Anyway, its two allies, Germany and Italy, would possess Dreadnoughts in the future, so the Austro-Hungarian Empire naturally did not need to attach such importance to its own navy; prioritizing the development of the army was the most important.

As for Russia, its fiscal situation was not much better than that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and could even be said to be even worse.

The turmoil within Russia had just ended, and whether it was the government or the army, they were quite exhausted at this time.

Tsar Nicholas II also had no interest in expanding the navy at this time; the Russian government could not afford such high military expenditure and could only rely on its ally France to be more capable, so that the Franco-Russian Alliance could possess Dreadnoughts sooner.

Italy chose the same path as France. On one hand, they ordered several Dreadnoughts from Spain to expand their naval strength.

On the other hand, they were also researching Dreadnoughts domestically, hoping that Italy itself would possess the ability to design and build Dreadnoughts.

It was mentioned before that Italy still had a certain level in naval design and construction. The Italian government was also quite ambitious; they wanted to become one of the few countries capable of designing and building new-style warships, and sell Italy's battleships globally.

For Italy, they had high hopes of possessing the ability to design and build new-style battleships. Even if there was not much progress in research at present, they could wait until the warships built by Spain were delivered to Italy, and then refer to the design of Spain's warships.

Researching and researching, there would always be results; it was merely a matter of time, and for the current Italy, it was still worth waiting for.

Throughout 1907, European countries were constantly expanding their military strength.

Those with money to build a navy vigorously developed the navy, and those without money to build a navy crazily expanded the army.

It was precisely because of the behavior of the major European powers constantly expanding their military that numerous European newspaper media made various guesses, and some newspapers even boldly predicted that a super war involving multiple Great Powers might be about to break out, and this war would also very likely affect the whole of Europe.

Spain naturally also participated in this arms race. Apart from the conventional army arms race and naval arms race, Gao Da also specifically paid attention to the research progress of tanks and airplanes.

In fact, if it was just a requirement for a tank with combat effectiveness, Spain had actually already researched the first generation of tanks at present.

In the water tank research project of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, Gao Da also saw the tank of this era for the first time.

The principle of the most primitive tank was actually very simple: a machine similar to a car or tractor covered with a layer of thick steel armor, and then installing a machine gun or an artillery piece, basically made a relatively crude tank.

From the appearance, the shape of this kind of tank was still relatively like a tractor, only covered with a layer of thicker armor to make it look taller and clumsier.

The facts were indeed so. Although the engine was specially made, because the first-generation tank was too clumsy overall, the moving speed was very slow.

There was a long gun muzzle sticking out from the top of the tank, and this artillery piece was also the tank's main attack method.

Inside the tank, a total of 4 positions were set up, corresponding to the driver, observer, gunner, and loader.

The observer was generally the commander of the whole tank, because only the observer could clearly see the field of vision outside the tank; he not only needed to command the driver to control the tank's movement, but also needed to command the gunner to aim at distant targets.

The loader's task was the simplest, only responsible for loading shells for the artillery. In normal times, the loader's task was relatively easy.

But if one waited until the war broke out, the loader would immediately become the most tiring position. The weight of the shells was not small, and one had to frequently load shells.

However, compared to other soldiers without any protection, these tank soldiers with safe steel armor protection were still relatively lucky.

After testing by the project team, the crude tank in front of them reached an exaggerated tonnage of 15.7 tons; on the basis of being able to accommodate 4 members, it could also carry 32 shells and the weapons of the 4 members. ===== CHAPTER 464 =====