Chapter 216 The Confused French Navy
Charles once again played hide-and-seek with the citizens of Paris, and when he went home for the next day, he staggered out the back door at a different time.
When we returned to the small town of Darvaz, we saw a large crowd of people blocking the way in front of the town from afar. I thought it was another triumphal ceremony organized by the neighbors.
Charles had no choice but to let Major Laurent take another route and go home in another direction.
However, when he got home, he found that someone had gotten there first. A young officer with the rank of major general was sitting on a cheap sofa in the living room, and Djoka was chatting with him.
Charles thought he was sent by Gallieni, so he put on his cap again, stepped forward, saluted, and called out: "General!"
The young major general was startled, and quickly put down the coffee cup in his hand and stood up. He shook hands with Charles enthusiastically and said excitedly: "You, you must be Charles, it's an honor, my name is Tijani."
Charles felt that the name was familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere.
Tijani explained, "I am the commander of the 2nd Special Artillery Division, Tijani."
Charles said "Oh". He had seen this name when he was commanding operations, but it was just a code name at that time.
Deyoka looked at Charles with a smile: "General Tijani came to thank you for rescuing them."
Camille came out of the kitchen: "The general is very polite, and he even brought a gift!"
"It's my duty!" Tijani responded respectfully, "You have a very good son, Mr. Deyoka, Mrs. Bernard!"
Camille smiled proudly. She liked people praising Charles like this, especially when they praised him as a major general.
Camille warmly invited Tijani to sit down at the dining table and served pizza to both of them.
Djokovic said he had finished eating and gave the table to Charles and Tijani.
Charles knew that Djokovic had never eaten it, so he knew that he should avoid it, otherwise he would inevitably hear some military secrets.
Tijani didn't hesitate. He grabbed a piece and chewed it like a hungry madman, praising loudly while eating: "It tastes great, Mrs. Bernard, I think I will eat it all!"
"You probably can't get used to it, General!" Charles despised such naked compliments.
He remembered Tijani's identity. He was Wells' only son. He was well-dressed and well-fed wherever he went. How could he be so interested in a pizza?
"No, Major!" Tijani smiled and continued chewing his food. "I am not what you think."
"Indeed." Charles answered bluntly: "For example, your family owns half of France's warships, but you joined the army and became a major general!"
There was a hint of sarcasm in Charles' tone, and the subtext of his words was: You, young master, should just go and cause trouble for the navy, but don't come and cause trouble for the army!
Tijani was not stupid, he certainly knew what Charles meant, but he was not angry.
He replied vaguely: "Major, do you think there is a way out for the French Navy?"
"That's none of my business!" Charles answered directly: "I'm from the Army, I don't know anything about the Navy."
Tijani hummed, "I don't know either. I'll tell you a few things I know. When it comes to warships, they are divided into two groups: one group advocates the so-called green water navy, and the other group advocates the traditional navy."
"Green Water Navy?" Charles was stunned.
He didn't know this, but the navy had little presence in World War I and World War II. The most well-known thing about it was that they collectively sank themselves to avoid being captured by the enemy.
"Yes!" Tijani said while eating with relish, "The idea of the Green Water Navy is to use small-tonnage speedboats equipped with torpedoes to fight. They think this can solve all problems."
Charles said "Oh", hoping to gain a big advantage with a small effort.
This is indeed very tempting, because even a powerful battleship can be taken down with just one torpedo. Although the torpedo hit rate at that time was not high, if a large number of torpedo boats were developed to fire at the target...
(The picture above shows an early torpedo boat, which was first invented by the British, but the French Navy, which was at a disadvantage, believed that it could overtake the British, so the Green Water Naval School emerged and was built in large quantities)
"We now have at least 200 torpedo boats," Tijani said. "The Green Water Naval School believed that this was the trend of the future navy, until the British dreadnoughts appeared and they realized that they had fallen behind."
The dreadnought was the dominant force on the seas during this period. Its concept was to unify the different caliber guns on battleships as much as possible, with one or two main guns of the same caliber.
The benefits of doing this are obvious. Main guns of the same caliber and model will have similar trajectories. In wartime, by calculating just one element, the impact point range of more than a dozen or even dozens of main guns can be determined.
It can even fight by test firing: after calculating all the parameters, one gun fires, observes the point of impact, then calculates the offset to correct all the parameters, and then test fires again... Once it enters the range, the remaining guns will immediately fire in unison.
If the enemy battleships do not have a unified artillery caliber, they will need to calculate multiple parameters, each of which may be wrong, which will put them at a disadvantage in actual combat.
"We only have three dreadnoughts now." Tijani smiled and shook his head. "The UK already has more than 20, and Germany has more than a dozen. We used to be the second-best navy, but now we are far behind them. Even so, they are still wavering between the green-water navy and the traditional navy. Today they build torpedo boats, and tomorrow they have plans for a new dreadnought."
Ciel said "hmm" expressionlessly, uncertain about the direction of development and in a confused state.
Tijani went on to say: "The same is true for submarines. There are even three factions. Some people think that submarines should use steam engines, some think that they should use diesel engines, and some think that submarines should be equipped with naval guns so that they can fight against enemy warships!"
(Note: The picture above shows a submarine equipped with naval guns, the Surcouf, which France started building in 1927. France calls it a cruiser submarine)
Tijani took a sip of the milk and said angrily: "We are the first country in the world to realize mechanical power-driven submarines, the first country to realize electric propulsion submarines, and the first country to carry torpedoes on submarines. But what about now?"
Tijani then concluded: "We no longer have a navy, they can't do anything!"
"Isn't it the same in the Army?" Charles asked.
Charles was referring to the vagueness of direction and the repeated vacillations. The army was not much better, as this was determined by the political system of the French Third Republic.
"I used to think that they were not much different." Tijani stopped what he was doing and looked at Charles. "But now, I find that the army and the navy are two different things!"
(The picture above shows a torpedo from World War I. It has a short range and a low hit rate. It once failed to hit the target when launched at a distance of 150 meters, but it can still cause a fatal blow if it hits.)
(End of this chapter)
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