Chapter 225: Chapter 210: Warship Orders and Airplanes

In order to reassure Duke Sergei and also to encourage the Tsardom of Russia behind him to be generous, Arthur took Duke Sergei to visit the largest shipyard in Australasia, the Sydney Royal Shipyard owned by Arthur himself.

The construction plan for Australasia’s navy moved quickly, and they had already begun building small and medium-sized warships.

Indeed, Australasia chose to build small and medium-sized warships first, leaving the most expensive dreadnoughts for later.

In fact, it wasn’t really leaving them for later; the main issue is that Australasia’s dreadnought designs were still only theoretical at this point. Building a real dreadnought would still bring up many issues.

Thus, it requires a test unit to help the shipyard’s experts and employees become more familiar with the construction of dreadnoughts, and Arthur would naturally not build an extra test unit.

Under such circumstances, seeking foreign trade and using foreign orders as test models for exploration is a unanimous opinion of shipyard experts.

In reality, it was not that serious. Australasia’s experts just wanted to build better and more perfect ships for their country, so they sought to gain more experience and proficiency before building ships for their own nation.

More than six years had passed since the completion of the Sydney Royal Shipyard. The shipyard’s scale had undergone earthshaking changes during this time.

Now, the Sydney Royal Shipyard can accommodate the simultaneous construction of two battleships or five small warships, and in the busiest times, could even begin building three battleships at once.

This laid a good foundation for Australasia’s future naval expansion, at least without worrying that domestic production could not keep up when there were enough funds.

In addition to the Royal Shipyard, Arthur’s Royal financial group had invested in more than a dozen shipyards of various sizes within Australasia.

Unfortunately, of these more than ten shipyards, only one could build warships and that was a shipyard in New Zealand previously established.

The rest of the shipyards could only undertake the construction of civilian ships and fishing boats, and most of the ships built were small fishing boats of less than ten tons.

Although the shipyard in New Zealand could build warships, they only built a few hundred tons of coastal defense ships. The capability to build small warships weighing over a thousand tons was there, but there were no corresponding blueprints and equipment.

In the shipbuilding industry, although Australasia already had the top-notch Royal Shipyard, aside from the Royal Shipyard, Australasia still lacked many middle-to-low end shipyards, which would take a lot of time to remedy.

Although the Royal Shipyard did not start building dreadnoughts, Duke Sergei believed from the professionalism of constructing small and medium-sized warships, that Australasia’s top shipbuilding technology had surpassed Russia.

In fact, this was also a normal matter. Whether it is compared to old powers like British and French or emerging powers like Germany and the United States, Russia has a gap.

If it were not for the vast land area and abundant mineral resources, as well as the innate advantages brought by a large population, enhanced by close proximity to Europe and the ability to effectively absorb the technological changes brought by the European Industrial Revolution, the fate of the Russian Empire would not be much different from that of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.

Fortunately, the Russian Empire does attach great importance to maintaining its military strength and has invested heavily in both its army and navy.

Regarding the potential dreadnought trade, Nicholas II also generously granted Duke Sergei 5 million pounds of funds, aiming for at least two dreadnoughts, or even better, some small and medium-sized warships.

After watching the Royal Shipyard of Australasia, Duke Sergei successfully brought the topic to the order of dreadnoughts.

Arthur saw that the Russians really wanted to acquire dreadnoughts to strengthen their warship power in Europe and the Far East.

Especially in the Far East, after the previous Pacific Squadron’s Crown Prince was repaired, it could still maintain a slight advantage.

However, following that, the island nation also received and launched the battleship it ordered from Australasia, and the balance between the island nation and Russia in the Far East battleships was maintained.

Unfortunately, both sides were not satisfied with the previous war results and wanted to prepare for another war to change the previous results.

Therefore, it becomes important to maintain the advantage of their own army and navy, which is why Russia and the island nation were very interested in the powerful new dreadnought warships.

After learning about the specific performance of the Monarch-class battleships, Duke Sergei quickly asked about the price.

The price is also an important factor in determining the cost-effectiveness of dreadnoughts. Even if the Russians are passionate about dreadnoughts, they may be defeated by the high price.

In fact, Duke Sergei’s worries were not without reason.

Compared to the old-style battleships, the cost and construction price of dreadnoughts indeed increased a lot.

Previously, the cost of a relatively strong old battleship was basically maintained at around 1.2 to 1.4 million pounds.

However, the cost of the British dreadnought battleship has reached almost 1.8 million pounds, a significant increase compared to the old battleship.

The actual cost of the Monarch-class battleship in Australasia is slightly higher than that of the dreadnought battleship because some technologies have yet to be mastered in Australasia and need to be purchased from Europe.

The actual cost of the Dreadnought battleship is about 1.9 million pounds. If it is sold externally, the price may be close to 2.5 million pounds.

However, due to the good relations between Russia and Australasia, coupled with Arthur’s intention to support Russia against the Island Nation, the sale price of the Monarch-class battleship was not set too high, and the price for the Russian side was 2.4 million pounds.

The price of 2.4 million pounds is somewhat heartbreaking for Duke Sergei, but it is not unacceptable.

From the strong data and performance of the dreadnought, this price is not too exaggerated.

After much thought, Duke Sergei finally gritted his teeth and agreed to Arthur’s price, and decided to represent the Russian government in ordering two dreadnoughts.

Of course, it’s not just dreadnoughts. After inspecting the entire Royal Shipyard, Duke Sergei also took a keen interest in the Duke-class escort ships of Australasia and ordered more than ten escort ships as well.

As a result, the total cost of Russia’s naval orders has exceeded 5 million pounds, reaching more than 5.1 million pounds.

In order to express the good relationship between Australasia and Russia, and to save money for the Russians, Arthur very “generously” touched the fraction and said that the Russians only needed to pay 5 million pounds for this deal.

This move indeed won the favor of Duke Sergei, after all, for the current Russian government, the savings of more than 100,000 pounds could indeed be used in many more places.

On October 17th, 1906, after Arthur and Duke Sergei signed together, the naval trade order between Russia and Australasia officially took effect.

This naval trade order includes two Monarch-class battleships and more than ten Duke-class escort ships, valued at a total of 5 million pounds.

After consultations between Duke Sergei and Arthur, both parties agreed that the two battleships would be delivered at the end of 1908 and mid-1909, respectively, while more than ten escort ships would be delivered in early 1909.

This trade will take about three years, and by then, Russia will become one of the few countries in the world to have dreadnoughts.

It is also good news for Australasia, as the profits from this trade will be up to one million pounds, which could be used elsewhere, such as in the airplanes which have already shown promise.

Yes, after Duke Sergei completed his mission and discussed the wedding arrangements with Princess Louise before leaving, Arthur turned his attention back to the airplanes.

In fact, more than two years have passed since Arthur last proposed the three concepts of militarized airplanes.

During these more than two years, with the help of all the experts in the Aerospace Laboratory, Theodore and Ludwig conducted a large number of experiments and improvements on the previous Pioneer-1 and successfully developed the Pioneer-2 and Pioneer-3.

In addition, during this time, the gathering of aviation talents from Europe to Australasia and the Victoria Award resulted in at least one-third of the world’s top aviation talents in Australasia, and the progress of aircraft research and development advanced rapidly.

If the previous Pioneer-1 was simply soaring in the sky, then the performance of Pioneer-3, after the modification of Pioneer-2, is not weaker than the planes in World War I in history, and if piloted by a skilled person, it can already complete some relatively complex tasks.

At present, the average flying speed of Pioneer-3 is about 200 kilometers per hour, and the maximum flight speed can even reach 230 kilometers per hour.

This level has seen a significant improvement compared to the time of Pioneer-1’s experiments.

Previously, the maximum range of Pioneer-1 was about 360 to 430 kilometers, and it has now increased to more than 500 kilometers.

Although Pioneer’s 3rd generation aircraft has encountered several aeronautic accidents in more than two years of testing, this is also inevitable in the development of aircraft.

Arthur also provided substantial compensation to the pilots and experts involved in the accidents, even providing up to 30,000 pounds in compensation directly.

This has indeed significantly increased the enthusiasm of pilots and experts, and at least the vast majority of them are no longer resistant to participating in experiments.

Of course, the main development has been the Aerospace Laboratory’s improvements on the Pioneer aircraft, following Arthur’s three ideas for the militarization of aircraft.

In addition to the Eagle-1 reconnaissance aircraft, the Pioneer-2 transformed Bengal Tiger-1 fighter and Phantom-1 bomber actually have considerable combat capabilities, and they can even be put into production.