Empire Conquest
Chapter 268 - 264: The Shortcomings of the Imperial Navy

Chapter 268: Chapter 264: The Shortcomings of the Imperial Navy

Dunz was certainly honorable, perhaps driven by a sense of military glory.

He tried to make small talk for a bit, but seeing that Bai Zhizhan did not engage, he didn’t shift the conversation back to the negotiations and instead returned to discussing the softer topic of friendship.

This was also why Bai Zhizhan was willing to interact with Dunz.

If it can be said that a focus on honor is a trait shared by all soldiers around the world, then a strong sense of discipline is most definitely a distinguishing characteristic of Tiaoman soldiers.

Simply put, no matter what they do, everything is by the book, and they seldom break the rules purposefully.

On the battlefield, Tiaoman soldiers who strictly adhere to discipline possess astonishing combat power, and a corps comprising millions of Tiaoman soldiers is an invincible war machine.

But in everyday life, this might not be so advantageous.

As Gui Boyong would say, they are rather thin-skinned, often unable to let go of their pride, and regardless of what they do, they can appear extremely stiff.

Suitable for collaboration, not for conviviality.

Before long, the hall was crowded with people.

The negotiation delegates from the Tiaoman Empire had just arrived today and had not yet settled in, so everyone came to the main courtyard restaurant for lunch.

When going to get food, Bai Zhizhan ran into Wang Kaiyuan.

After an introduction from Bai Zhizhan, and getting to know Wang Kaiyuan, Dunz took his leave.

"You’re on good terms with him?"

"I suppose so."

"Then you should seize the opportunity."

"Seize the opportunity for what?" Bai Zhizhan didn’t understand what Wang Kaiyuan meant.

"He’s currently the Chief of Staff for the Tiaoman Navy’s submarine corps and will soon be promoted," said Wang Kaiyuan as he walked over to close the room door. "In this round of negotiations, if the Empire’s Navy has any demands, it’s for Tiaoman’s long-range submarines, especially the technology for building them."

Bai Zhizhan furrowed his brow. Wang Kaiyuan wasn’t talking nonsense; this was indeed the case.

Compared with the Liangxia Navy, the Tiaoman Navy is almost not worth mentioning in other aspects. Let’s not even talk about not having a carrier; even their main battleships are worked on at a pace of one every decade.

The only thing they could present with pride that surpassed the Liangxia Navy was their submarines.

The Liangxia Navy never placed much emphasis on submarines, didn’t even consider them as primary warships, much less invest in in-depth research.

Are submarines really useless?

Obviously not!

In more than a decade’s worth of war plans formulated by the Imperial Navy, submarines have always held immense value—albeit mostly in the later stages of war.

At the onset of war, there isn’t much use for submarines.

Even when strategically blockading the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom, the main ocean-going vessels were light cruisers and destroyer leaders.

The most critical reason for limiting submarine use in the early stages of war is to avoid giving Great Powers like the Newland Federation reasons to join the conflict.

Unrestricted submarine warfare is a conduct of war explicitly forbidden by international laws of warfare.

The Liangxia Empire was one of the initial signatories of the international laws of warfare, and it staunchly opposed unrestricted submarine warfare even during the previous great war.

If restricting submarines’ operations, it would be better to build light cruisers.

Submarines are essentially torpedo boats capable of submerging; they rely solely on surprise attacks, and without that capability, a destroyer of comparable tonnage would be superior.

Only in the later stages of the war, when the Newland Federation and Bulan Kingdom entered the conflict, did developing submarines become necessary.

As Zhu Shijian put it: If we need to engage in unrestricted submarine warfare against the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom, we might as well not fight at all, better to compromise early.

The Empire’s Navy submarine corps has always been developed with "long-term goals" in mind.

The main focus was on training personnel, and building subs was of no immediate rush.

Those dozens of small submarines that could only operate in coastal waters were almost all training vessels, whose value lay in cultivating submariners.

According to the original plan, the mass production of oceanic submarines was scheduled to happen after the year 100 of the New Calendar.

But now, it seems it must begin sooner.

If the Newland Federation enters the war this year, even in the second half, the Imperial Navy must consider immediately expanding the scale of its oceanic submarine fleet.

At the very least, they should accelerate the construction pace immediately.

Clearly, this is where the problem lies.

It’s not a lack of industrial strength to build submarines, but the absence of suitable design plans!

Building submarines can be done even in small shipyards; in the lower Nanjiang and the northern coastal regions of the Empire, there are at least ten shipyards with the capability to build them.

Yet up until the outbreak of the war, the Imperial Navy had no suitable design plans for oceanic submarines.

Those twenty oceanic submarines were all emergency products, developed from the last type of large submarine built during the last war.

Frankly speaking, they were just to make up the numbers and fill the tonnage gap specified by the treaty.

Obviously, they were already obsolete.

At its root, this situation is due to the Imperial Navy itself.

In the past decade or so, almost all capable designers were poached by projects such as the Fleet’s carriers and fast battleships.

Designers like these are in short supply in any country.

Moreover, designing submarines isn’t so easy.

In terms of complexity, submarines exceed any other type of surface warship.

Theoretically, all surface warships have an open architecture; simply by enlarging dimensions and increasing displacement, the design targets can be reached.

Submarines are the exact opposite.

Because they have a closed architecture, once the basic parameters, such as dimensions and displacement, are set, they cannot be changed at will. What designers need to do is to strictly meet all, or at least the main, design targets within this predetermined space and tonnage.

This characteristic makes it very difficult for surface warship designers to switch to submarine design.

Zhao Yu had attempted this but ultimately abandoned the effort.

It was after hitting this wall that Zhao Yu proposed to the Navy headquarter to support the formation of a design and construction integrated shipbuilding consortium in both Wuzhou and Changzhou in the lower Nanjiang, competing with other large shipyards and mainly focusing on the design and construction of special warships such as submarines.

The result of this proposal was the establishment of Wuzhou Shipyard and Changzhou Shipyard.

Unfortunately, the integration of the two shipyards was only completed at the beginning of the year 99 of the New Calendar.

Moreover, the lack of designers had always been a problem.

Before the outbreak of the war, Wuzhou Shipyard and Changzhou Shipyard each submitted several submarine design plans, all of which were rejected by Zhao Yu.

Because the designers lacked experience in designing oceanic submarines, these designs were simply scaled-up versions of existing small submarines.

After scaling up proportionally, do they become oceanic submarines?

If it were that simple, why would we need designers when a few measurers would suffice?

According to Wang Kaiyuan, one goal of these negotiations is to secure the introduction of oceanic submarine design plans from the Tiaoman Empire through a technical exchange.

With existing plans in hand, shipyards can start training workers and gaining hands-on experience.

By improving upon the introduced designs, submarine designers have the opportunity to practice and gain a completely new understanding of advanced oceanic submarines.

After everything is mature, they can then design new oceanic submarines from scratch.

If successful, it’s actually just a matter of one or two years’ work.

These matters don’t need to be kept secret; they will be disclosed to the representatives of the Tiaoman Empire once negotiations begin. Besides, the lack of oceanic submarines in the Liangxia Navy is no secret.

When it comes to serious matters, Bai Zhizhan became interested.

After lunch, he followed Wang Kaiyuan back to the east yard.

As Wang Kaiyuan put it, he had slept all the way here and still had much to catch up on, so it was best to avoid going out and about too much.

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