Conquer Europe from the West

Chapter 165 Air Force Goes to Sea, Navy Goes to the Sky

The letter that Renne had Brinkman write was sent to the capital almost immediately by express courier. However, instead of being prioritized for the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Defense as expected, it was first delivered to Tirpitz and General Burke.

Therefore, it was a week later when Raine received replies from the Department of Commerce and the Department of Defense confirming that they had begun to restrict the outflow of relevant intelligence.

But this is actually not a big problem.

Because during this time, Renn received a letter from the head of the equipment development institute, Lord Brinkman.

The letter was very simple, and could be summed up in just a few words.

Lord first praised Ryan for his knowledge of nylon fibers, then tentatively asked Ryan how he knew about them, and finally added that nylon parachutes would be deployed to the entire army by March of the following year.

Then Ryan pretended to write a letter that would not pass the review process at all. When it was delivered to Lord Brinkman, all he could see were a few pages full of black marks, containing only polite words and nonsense.

It wasn't that Ryan didn't want to talk, but rather that he always felt that saying too much at this time would have a negative impact.

Moreover, there is now something even more troubling for him—the United Kingdom's six fleets have returned home.

The peace treaty signed between the Empire and the United Kingdom in October clearly stated that both the United Kingdom and the Empire could deploy fleets in the agreed-upon sea areas to escort each other's merchant ships—a gentleman's agreement.

However, under this agreement, the ships capable of carrying out escort duties were uniformly limited to dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnoughts.

This is because destroyers and cruisers are fast and lightweight, allowing them to easily enter harbors and obtain valuable hydrographic information from other ships.

Therefore, battleships, which could not enter ports and could only be moored far out at sea, became unrestricted favorites.

On this basis, many curious citizens of the Empire have recently noticed that the escort battleships dispatched by the United Kingdom each time look slightly different.

That may not be entirely accurate, but they quickly confirmed that the battleships assigned to each escort mission were different.

The most eye-catching of them all is the George V class.

In the first week of December, the Empire dispatched a total of forty merchant ships to the United Kingdom, while the United Kingdom deployed all of its George V-class ships to escort them.

Although only one could be seen at a time, considering that the current route was not far from Scapa Flow, the Imperial Naval Staff concluded that the United Kingdom was trying to make its fleet forget the sea conditions of the colony as soon as possible and instead familiarize itself with the hydrographic features of the North Sea and the Ingrid Strait.

On the surface, this is not a problem.

Since the United Kingdom began recalling all its warships from the colonies in August, the resulting port congestion problem was unlikely to be resolved smoothly.

The crew members' skill level will also decrease due to a lack of training, which is obviously not a good thing for a large vessel like a warship.

But the United Kingdom did something really unethical.

Because the ships dispatched by the Empire were all old ships, mainly the Deutschland-class, followed by four Heligoland-class battleships.

Both types of battleships are not the most outstanding models, but they are star ships because of their reputation. They are very suitable for use as escort ships on routes of less than 100 kilometers.

Moreover, since neither of these types of ships is very fast, the Empire often sends out two warships at a time to cruise at the beginning and end of the route respectively to ensure that civilian ships can see the warships throughout the entire journey. Therefore, there are many times when Imperial ships and Kingdom ships sail side by side.

only……

"The General Staff doesn't seem to care much about the Kingdom's large-scale mobilization of its fleet back home."

In the camp in Ostend, Renn looked at the explanatory document in his hand, which had been sent directly from the capital to various units so that the officers and soldiers at the front could have a more accurate grasp of the current situation on the front lines, and his expression was somewhat displeased.

"Although the Empire and the Kingdom are currently at peace, such a slow response clearly indicates that something is wrong."

Brinkman's expression was relatively calm: "Perhaps the ceasefire of the past few months has given the peace faction in the General Staff the upper hand?"

As she spoke, she brought over two cups of coffee from the tea table and placed them alongside several pieces of white bread she had bought from the bakery: "But the United Kingdom certainly won't sit idly by. The Ottoman Empire's envoy recently informed the Empire that the Empire is negotiating an alliance with them, and it seems the Empire is also aware of our plans. If things continue to develop in this way, Farland will soon be completely isolated..."

"The United Kingdom will soon face the situation it least wants to see."

Rein knew what Brinkman was going to say, but he couldn't help but ask, "Speaking of which, how many ships from the kingdom have returned to the mainland in the past two months?"

Brinkman paused for a moment, then replied, "The specific information is still unclear, but judging from the photos recorded by the sailors and various accounts, the United Kingdom currently has at least thirty battleships under its command."

Upon hearing Brinkman's statement, Rein was slightly taken aback: "So that means they basically have no battleships out in the air anymore?"

Currently, the kingdom has a total of 35 ships that can be called battleships. If you include the Lion-class, Invincible-class, and other battlecruisers, that makes 42.

If we include those ships that were relegated to second-line or decommissioned earlier, there are approximately seventy-four ships that can be considered battleships.

Of such a large fleet, at least two-thirds of the ships were already on standby, clearly indicating that the Kingdom was not going to joke with the Empire about naval power.

After all, in a world where the atomic bomb and advanced heavy-lift bombers had not yet been invented, the deterrent power of a battleship was equivalent to that of an atomic bomb.

In other words, no matter who comes, they will feel scared when they see that their outer sea has been targeted by more than forty little boys.

There's another point that Brinkman didn't mention, and Ryan didn't ask about either.

That is the number of ships that the kingdom can currently directly command.

The reason for this is that the kingdom has far too many ships.

A country with a land area one-third smaller than Japan possessing a full four hundred warships seems excessive.

And all Raine had to do was think about how at least three hundred of those four hundred warships had already been recalled to their homeland from all over the world by the kingdom under the pretext of "perhaps going to war with the Empire"...

Well, this battle is one we have to fight, whether we want to or not.

Perhaps the only good news is that the Empire is no longer planning to build warships on a large scale.

Two improved versions of the Zeppelin airship have already been built. In the defense budget, this is referred to as modernization of older ships.

This is the same name used when the four Wave-class ships were refitted, with the aim of ensuring that the Kingdom would not discover that the Empire was no longer prepared to fight alongside them at sea.

Of course, what's even more important is that the United Kingdom had just recently launched a battlecruiser named Kongo.

This battlecruiser, which will be delivered to Asia and will operate in the Gulf of Asia, possesses four terrifying twin-mounted 365mm-14-inch guns.

Its maneuverability, with a maximum speed of 30 knots, allows it to dominate the world in an absolute manner (the Queen Elizabeth-class ships have not yet been officially launched).

But this ship is a typical product of the United Kingdom. Whether it's the main guns, boilers, hull, or other parts, almost everything is off-the-shelf from the United Kingdom.

Vickers even specially produced kits for two ships and shipped them directly to Japan for them to assemble on-site.

It was precisely for this reason that General Tirpitz ultimately chose to temporarily allocate the budget to the Air Force, allowing the Air Force to prioritize the improvement of the airships.

This is very good news for Rennes.

Firstly, because the Air Force's new airships were actually to be assigned to his unit in terms of operational order.

This means he will be the first to receive the Air Force's new toy.

Secondly, the Wave-class ships already had experience engaging naval vessels in August and September. Considering that most ships currently lack anti-aircraft guns and machine guns, as long as the new Zeppelin Type 1 can be put into use, Raine can guarantee that no matter how many battleships the Kingdom sends, they will ultimately only be able to go home and eat dirt.

Of course, the Kingdom and Farland are not without airships.

However, the number of airships they both have is about the same as that of the Empire, and due to their own environmental problems, they have not been able to focus much on the development of airships. Therefore, the Empire has been able to firmly maintain its air superiority to this day.

However, the kingdom has also noticed the importance of air forces.

In November of this year, they put a seaplane carrier named Campania into active service. During an escort operation in early December, they even staged a stunt by hoisting twelve seaplanes into the sea and taking off simultaneously.

General Tirpitz scoffed at this, as he immediately recognized that the device was inefficient, saying, "It's too inefficient; we might as well just take off from the deck."

Ryan, who was standing right next to him, was taken aback by those words, but he quickly dismissed the thought.

Because Tirpitz followed up with another statement—"But instead of putting planes on the deck, we should put more turrets on it. If you ask me, this thing called a seaplane carrier is just a waste of time."

But the air force generals, especially General Burke, were very interested in this kind of seaplane carrier.

Because the new Zeppelin airship is, in a sense, no different from this thing.

General Burke even asked Rennes about it, but Rennes's reply was very straightforward.

"Given the environment in Beihai, let alone getting planes to take off from the water or a deck, even if I built you a sea airport, you still wouldn't be able to transport the planes there."

Then the Air Force's aircraft carrier program was scrapped.

Shaking his head, Ryan turned to look out the window in the restaurant.

Ostend is barely considered close to Farland, but according to the frontline troops, the weather they are currently experiencing is vastly different from that in the territory of the Kingdom of Perijer, which is less than ten kilometers away.

A few months ago, the photo of General Kruker fishing with the Farlans at the beach subconsciously came to mind, and Raine unconsciously said, "I wonder how the situation is on the front lines in Farlan now."

"At Farland's place?"

Brinkman suddenly looked up, took a quick sip of coffee to swallow the bread, and then said with a very complicated expression, "General Crook fell while fishing a while ago, breaking two ribs and his leg..."

"what?"

Ryan was shocked when he heard that Crook was still fishing, and when Brinkman mentioned that he had broken his ribs and leg, he was speechless.

Then Brinkman explained: "I heard that the entire front in Farland is currently experiencing temperatures of minus fifteen or sixteen degrees Celsius with heavy snowfall, and many soldiers and officers have almost perished in such weather."

"General Kruk didn't see the road clearly when he went out and slipped on a piece of ice. His adjutant was more seriously injured and had to be sent back to the capital for treatment."

"How's General Bilo's place?"

Instinct compelled Rein to inquire about General Bilo, who was also in charge of frontline command.

"He's doing much better."

Brinkman looked up at the ceiling: "Because most of General Bilo's defenses are set up along the border, the environment at the front is relatively good. There has been no heavy snow and no one has been injured."

"But I can't say how things are in Farlan, since we haven't seen any Farlaners out for half a month."

"Half a month?"

Brinkman's words made Renn frown.

But he soon remembered the Farland newspaper he had seen some time ago.

Their weather forecast says that the weather will be as bad as it is in previous years, so most people should stay home and avoid going out to prevent injury.

Based on previous letters from General Bryan and his acquaintances in the Seventh Army around Mulhouse, it will likely be quite difficult for the Farrans to survive this winter.

Food may not be scarce, but fuel is another matter.

After all, France has never experienced temperatures below -10 degrees Celsius across the entire country, while also being covered in heavy snow.

This made Renn mutter subconsciously, "It seems the people in Farland haven't been having an easy time either."

(End of this chapter)