Chapter 130: The Next 15 Years Will Still Be A World Of Naval And Air Weakness
Lelouch had to stay in Wilhelmshaven for at least half a month, waiting for the people from the Naval Equipment Research Institute to produce the new sweeping cable sample and arrange actual air-charge moored mine clearance tests.
Only if all results went smoothly could he leave with peace of mind to arrange the next matters.
However, he was ultimately someone who couldn’t stay idle, and time was so precious. During this half month, he naturally had to seize the opportunity to worry about some other things.
Moreover, if it was a trip leaving Wilhelmshaven for three to five days and quickly returning, as long as it didn’t delay the final acceptance, it could still be scheduled.
July 6, that is, the day after assigning the key development focus for the bottom-scraping chain minesweeper.
Early in the morning, after waking up at the naval guesthouse, Lelouch finished washing up and, while eating breakfast, couldn’t help but flip through his schedule and to-do list.
On this return to the country, the matters for armored cars, tanks, and mine-sweeping equipment had all been arranged properly; the remaining work wasn’t any particularly urgent military industry projects.
After reviewing his schedule, Lelouch thought to first call his sister and brother-in-law, then call Krupp’s boss Gustav to check on the latest electric furnace steel cooperation situation and dig deeper into the cooperation scope with Krupp Company.
Calculating the days, the last time Lelouch personally supervised the three-phase electric arc furnace steel plant construction in Dunkirk was three months ago. Calculating the days, he wondered how the progress was on Krupp Company using his steel to make gun barrels.
Under wartime conditions, with Minister Baden providing cover in the occupied zone and his own brother-in-law as the economic coordinator for the Dunkirk-Ypres zone, Lelouch’s steel mill construction speed was extremely fast, much faster than in peacetime.
Construction progress that would take one or two years in peacetime could yield results in possibly three months under wartime resource piling, and any missing equipment or machine tools could be sourced from local Frankish and Belgian factories.
Lelouch first called his sister Cornelia, who managed the steel mill for him. After some pleasantries, he got to business. He learned that the first large furnace capable of producing 80 tons of molten steel per furnace had surprisingly been rushed to completion. It was currently in the trial production stage, with production efficiency not yet high, and still needed gradual break-in.
The investment for this large electric arc furnace, representing the world’s most advanced steelmaking process today, plus R&D and trial-and-error costs, and the time and effort from various engineering and research personnel, translated to a total cost of tens of millions of marks!
The money for this production equipment could build half a battleship!
But everything was worth it, because with such a large furnace, it meant being able to provide all the required molten forging steel for any layer of barrel wall of a 380 mm caliber battleship main gun barrel in one go, without needing separate furnace melts.
And besides this large furnace coming online, the several small furnaces from previous trial production were also operating day and night. At current capacity, they could produce around 50,000 tons of electric furnace steel per year, possibly expanding to 100,000 tons or even 200,000 tons by year’s end.
The current production scale already occupied more than 20% of civilian electricity in the Dunkirk-Ypres region. If truly expanded to 200,000 tons capacity, probably all civilian lighting electricity in the vast area from Dunkirk to Ypres would have to be cut off to exclusively supply his electric furnace steel mill.
So, if further expansion was needed, sister Cornelia made it clear to Lelouch: it could only be done by having brother-in-law Guilford, in his capacity as economic coordinator for Dunkirk and the West Belgian occupied zone, coordinate more coal resources domestically and build new thermal power plants nearby.
Otherwise, they could only choose to expand new three-phase electric arc furnace steel plant sites back in the homeland coal-producing areas, as close as possible to power stations.
Lelouch thought about it and felt that if further expansion was truly needed in the future, it would be at least next year or later.
Right now, Dunkirk’s steel mill was at 50,000 tons per year after one year; even developing to year-end, it wouldn’t reach 200,000 tons annually. Any further increase would exhaust northern France’s existing resources and the shipwreck steel salvaged from the “iron seabed”; no need to keep building there.
According to the previous plan discussed with Minister Baden, the Belgian region might become independent as a ceasefire negotiation condition in the future, and Dunkirk could not be occupied indefinitely after the Western Front ceasefire.
So Lelouch needed to prepare for relocating factories in the future. When the war ended, the factory buildings could be left to the Franks, while all machinery and equipment would be transported away.
Since that was the case, there was no need to build new factories in the occupied zone anymore. The occupied zone was only needed at the start for experiments, bypassing oversight, and rapidly building up through clever acquisition.
Once his foundation was solid, able to self-generate and produce expansion equipment independently, he could openly build back home.
Before hanging up, Lelouch gave his sister one final instruction: “You focus on expanding production as planned this year; I’ll handle next year’s matters.”
After hanging up, Lelouch called Krupp Company again.
When he reached Essen, the people at Krupp said Mr. Gustav was not at the company; he had been in Wilhelmshaven for the past couple of days, talking cooperation with the naval shipyard, seemingly with progress on naval guns.
Hearing this, Lelouch thought it was quite a coincidence, asked for the specific whereabouts, thanked them, hung up, and then had someone drive to another subordinate unit of the shipyard.
Not long after, Lelouch met Gustav Krupp, who was also here on a temporary business trip, in an office building near the outfitting quay of the Baria battleship.
“What a coincidence, how many days have you been here? I only arrived the day before yesterday.” Upon meeting, Lelouch skipped pleasantries and got straight to business.
Gustav poured him half a glass of brandy with ice, and they sat down to chat slowly while drinking.
Gustav: “I’ve been here nearly a week—your sister gave us the first 80-ton batch of electric furnace molten steel last month. For processing gun barrels, we even built a forging and machining workshop in Dunkirk, pulling over several sets of processing equipment from home. But the later secondary heat treatment still has to be done back home; doing everything there would be too troublesome, requiring too much duplicated equipment.
Brother Lelouch, not to criticize, but back when your foundation was still weak and you couldn’t coordinate power plant resources domestically for the arc furnace experiments, going to the Franco-Belgian border was understandable. But for future expansion, it’s best to bring production back home to better integrate with the Ruhr Area, especially Essen’s industrial chain.
After molten steel is tapped, to process it into gun barrels, at least the machining steps before initial cooling and heat treatment have to be done locally, right? We can’t haul cooled rough steel billets back home to reheat and process them.
If you plan to expand, build the large furnace for battleship main gun steel right here in Essen next year; we’ll give you full cooperation. If you don’t build it, we’ll have to build our own, but we’ll definitely pay your patent fees.
As for the Dunkirk plant, the steel it produces later can be dedicated to the Navy’s 140 mm dual-purpose secondary gun steel; one large furnace’s output is enough for that.”
Lelouch originally wanted to discuss expansion directly, but hearing mention of naval gun supply, he wanted to check progress and veered off:
“Oh? The 140 dual-purpose secondary guns and 380 electric furnace steel main guns already have actual products in use? Can we go take a look?”
Gustav: “Of course, right at the adjacent outfitting berth. Let’s walk and talk.”
With that, Gustav led him to put on safety helmets and went down to the outfitting berth.
Lelouch finally saw a battleship around 200 meters long, majestically docked at the quay—that was the Empire’s newest battleship, Baria.
According to construction progress, about seven or eight months remained until Baria’s completion; anyway, it would definitely finish break-in and enter service within a year.
So, the first new main turret had already been hoisted into place. After testing without issues, the rear three would be produced and installed successively.
The casemate deck for secondary guns had also been redesigned, from 8 single 150 mm secondary guns per side, totaling 16; reduced to 4 twin 138.6 mm dual-purpose secondary mounts per side, keeping the total number the same.
It looked like everything was progressing smoothly—not easy; Lelouch had worried about this several times, and the people below had strived hard for months.
“Everything okay with all this?” Lelouch looked at the hoisted turret, stroked the cold steel plate, and asked casually.
“Main guns are fine, very good. The extra 16 old barrels can be repurposed; both Baria and Baden will get new turrets. The dual-purpose secondary guns have some minor issues after installation:
When used as anti-aircraft guns, current tests show 60 degrees elevation, probably maxing at 70 degrees. Any higher, and manual loaders will struggle to insert shells—you think this is a big issue? The Navy folks are nitpicking, wanting perfection, hesitating whether to settle. If you think it’s not a big deal, help persuade the naval top brass to lower the specs a bit; it’s good for both of us.”
Hearing this, Lelouch quickly recalled that on Earth, the 138.6 mm French secondary guns were indeed at the “sweet spot” for manual loading power, optimal in combined loading and firepower efficiency.
But later, pre-WWII Richelieu class didn’t use 138.6 mm secondary guns, enlarging back to 150 mm and abandoning dual-purpose. Slightly earlier Dunkirk class used 130 mm dual-purpose, shrinking 8.6 mm from WWI guns, with max elevation of only 75 degrees, 10 degrees less than German 105 mm’s 85 degrees.
If sticking with 138.6 mm, low-elevation loading was no different from 127 mm guns, but max loading elevation would indeed have a slight shortfall.
So the key issue became: could a dual-purpose gun with only 70 degrees max elevation meet combat needs? Would the missing 15 degrees max elevation difference impact anti-air combat effectiveness?
The Navy lacked full awareness of future sea-air combat threats, making it hard to assess this performance trade-off.
Fortunately, Lelouch knew future war forms. After pondering and mentally replaying in his mind, he confirmed that 70 degrees max elevation anti-aircraft guns should have no impact on sea-air combat for the next 15 or even 20 years.
His reasoning was simple: this world wouldn’t have WWII. And Germanians couldn’t destroy Britannia, so the optimal scenario was winning the Eastern Front and forcing ceasefire on the Western Front.
Such a forced ceasefire would only be temporary; the enemy wouldn’t be satisfied. If it broke in the future, at most 8 to 12 years, as history proved such ceasefires without total submission don’t last.
And in a world of “no surrender, only temporary ceasefire,” things like the purple peanut farm naval treaty wouldn’t appear, so no “naval holiday.”
With both sides on edge, each hoping their navy would surge production to crush the other—8 years or 12, all to build big ships and giant cannons for overwhelming strength.
Historically, aviation tech benefited from that 15-year naval holiday dividend.
On Earth, 1929 saw the world’s first all-metal skinned fighter by Boeing. But Boeing experts later said it was thanks to the naval holiday: unable to build new warships, they turned to carrier fighters. Without the holiday and resource shift to air force, maybe no aluminum-skinned military planes by 1932.
When both know ceasefire could break anytime, their R&D mindset differs completely from pure peacetime. Enemies would deep-dive proven, most effective tech paths, not scattershot exploration.
Without Lelouch’s interference, this world’s carriers and anti-ship attackers might lag, while big ships, giant cannons, and submarines could boom to new heights.
Assuming ceasefire breaks 1926-1930, battleship tech might reach Earth’s 1940s level（ without 15-year naval holiday rest, full R&D makes it possible）, while aviation might stall at Earth’s 1925 level.
Such a future would be one where big ships and giant cannons are stronger, airplanes weaker.
Without metal-skinned anti-ship attackers, dive bombing is impossible; planes can’t handle the overload and would disintegrate.
Thus, until 1935, 20 years from now, battleships’ main air threat should just be torpedo bombers.
Torpedo bombers’ attack differs most from dive bombers: torpedo planes must low-altitude approach, skim sea surface to drop torpedoes. Dive bombers high-altitude enter, near-vertical attack on ships.
In a world without dive bombers, why need 85 degrees max elevation for dual-purpose ship guns? 70 degrees suffices for torpedo planes.
Lelouch wouldn’t let Ugly Country people drag to dive bomber era.
Future Atlantic battlefield might become carriers mutually providing fighter cover and recon spotting, aided by torpedo attacks, but fleet main force still “Montana” slugging “Hindenburg.”
Carriers would emerge but perhaps not fully mature before world long peace.
Lelouch’s prediction might not be accurate, but he’d bet on it. Germania’s resources limited; he must anchor a goal, an estimated war-ending point, then strive and plan for it.
If unachievable needing tweaks, he’d accept the misjudgment and adjustment costs.
No war or military industry without risks; action has risks—face them squarely.
……
Lelouch pondered long, mentally replaying future air threats, and decided to help Gustav.
He said he’d find time these days to see Naval Minister Marshal Tirpitz again, present his deductions, convince the Marshal of his vision on future air-to-sea threats, unite efforts, allocate resources for that form, optimize around core goal.
After hearing the rough deduction, Gustav agreed it made sense.
Given current plane forms, “dive bombing” was too far-fetched. Future planes might grow larger, stronger payload for light short-range torpedoes—very possible.
Thinking of facing sea-skimming torpedo planes and distant circling fighter-recon, Gustav felt 70 degrees max elevation sufficient.
The Empire’s 138.6 mm was the exquisite optimal solution for this specific environment.
Through this deduction, Lelouch gained other insights. He’d never fully deduced future sea-air war endgame, but now had a target: achieve long peace before that timeline.
Military industry details could be fine-tuned for max benefit. By analogy, consider future max tank armor thickness, max tank gun caliber needed. Skip redundant performance, stockpile useful ones early.
Empire hadn’t initiated any 128 mm weapons yet; if endgame is late 20s-early 30s, no need—AA or anti-tank don’t require such large barrels.
88 mm might penetrate everything; if not, convert existing 105 ship guns to tank guns for global dominance. No value in “JagdTiger”-like things. Many such could be cut, focusing R&D, avoiding waste.
Whether achievable aside, set long-term goal first, strive toward it.
Do one’s utmost, leave rest to fate.
