Chapter 778 Five-Year Shipbuilding Plan

"Minister Thomas, isn't the Ministry of National Defense's naval construction plan too exaggerated? Even if we don't consider the country's financial problems, do we really need to build so many warships in five years?" In the Government Affairs Council, Prime Minister Raul looked at Defense Secretary Thomas asked with a look of disbelief on the report on the shipbuilding plan submitted.

Prime Minister Raul knows that the Naval Limitation Treaty is bankrupt, and he also understands that Australasia must join the naval arms race in the next time and improve the country's naval strength as much as possible.

But the problem is that the naval construction plan submitted by Minister Thomas is too exaggerated. It is a huge plan that has never been seen in Australasia.

"I hope you can give me a suitable reason, otherwise, you will have to convince the cabinet and His Majesty yourself!" Prime Minister Raul said with an annoyed look on his face as he looked at Thomas who was there.

"Your Excellency, Prime Minister, I believe you also understand the importance of building the navy at present." Defense Secretary Thomas explained unhurriedly: "Now is no better than before, and our relationship with the British is not as close as imagined.

In order to ensure our territorial security, we must strengthen our naval forces in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Secondly, the islanders have obviously regarded us as potential competitors. If their shipbuilding plans are allowed to go unchecked, the navy of the island country will surpass ours, which is absolutely unacceptable to us.

If we lose our advantage over the navies of island countries, we are very likely to fall behind in competition with island countries, and even lose our hegemony in the Pacific.

It is precisely for these reasons that I believe it is necessary to greatly expand our navy to ensure our hegemony in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. "

"That being said, there is no need to build ten aircraft carriers at once, right?" Looking at Minister Thomas who was talking seriously, Prime Minister Raul said angrily: "Do you know how much the cost of ten aircraft carriers is?

Judging from the cost of the latest aircraft carrier, the cost of the aircraft carrier alone is close to 100 million Australian dollars!

If you let other ministers know that you plan to spend 200 million Australian dollars on the navy, I am afraid that the next cabinet meeting will directly turn into a busy vegetable market.

Our fiscal revenue last year was only AU$0.7 billion. It is impossible for me to agree to this naval construction plan of more than AU$200 million. "

"No matter what, Your Excellency Prime Minister, we must establish naval superiority over the island countries." Minister Thomas explained: "Your Majesty's dislike of the island countries is not unknown to you. I think it is very likely that we will break out a war with the island countries. .

Instead of waiting until war comes to build warships, we should prepare in advance and strive to crush the island countries in all three aspects: land, sea and air.

If you don't agree with this shipbuilding plan, how about taking another look at this plan? "Minister Thomas took out another prepared shipbuilding plan and handed it to Prime Minister Raul with a smile.

"Damn it, I knew you were definitely prepared." Prime Minister Raul glanced at Minister Thomas angrily, but still accepted another plan from Minister Thomas.

Compared with the previous very exaggerated shipbuilding plan, the second shipbuilding plan handed to Prime Minister Raul by Minister Thomas seemed much more normal.

Also taking five years, this shipbuilding plan includes 2 super-dreadnoughts, 3 aircraft carriers, 2 battlecruisers, 10 destroyers, and nearly a hundred small and medium-sized warships.

Among them, there are 7 main battleships, which can ensure that after the completion of the shipbuilding plan, the main force of Australasia's navy will be slightly larger than that of the island countries.

Coupled with the previously determined submarine construction plan, Australasia's naval superiority in the Pacific can be guaranteed.

If a conflict or even war breaks out between Australasia and the island country, with its naval superiority, Australasia can easily block the island country's logistics transportation lines and turn the island country into an isolated country in the ocean.

For countries like island countries, being cut off from their sea transportation lines is like cutting off their life supply lines.

This is why Minister Thomas has repeatedly emphasized the importance of maritime superiority, which can basically determine Australasia’s war advantage against island countries.

"Do all warships adopt the latest designs?" Prime Minister Raul frowned and asked for some instructions in the plan.

"Yes, Your Excellency Prime Minister." Minister Thomas nodded with a smile and explained: "As you know, our previous research and development focus was on aircraft carriers. Compared with aircraft carriers, our other warship designs have lagged behind slightly. , not even as good as the islanders.

Although it is necessary to expand the navy, we must not spend huge amounts of money to build backward products.

All major warships, including aircraft carriers, will adopt the latest designs and strive to create the world's most advanced maritime warships. "

After hearing Minister Thomas's explanation, Prime Minister Raul nodded without any objection.

As an official who was promoted from Defense Minister to Prime Minister, Prime Minister Raul naturally understands the impact of advanced warship design on the combat effectiveness of the entire warship.

It also spends huge sums of money to build warships. Being able to build warships with the most advanced design and best performance is naturally the first choice of the Australasian government.

"How much budget is expected to be needed for this shipbuilding plan?" Prime Minister Raul asked the question he was most concerned about.

Only after becoming Prime Minister did I understand the importance of reducing the country's budget. It seems that Australasia has a lot of fiscal revenue, but there is also a lot of money that needs to be spent every year.

Take last year as an example. Last year's fiscal revenue reached 0.7 billion Australian dollars, which was second only to Britain and France in terms of total fiscal revenue.

However, last year's fiscal expenditure was as high as 5.5 billion Australian dollars. Not only did the fiscal year have no surplus, but it also suffered a loss of nearly 48 million Australian dollars.

Although a large part of the reason is due to the large-scale construction that the country is undertaking, financial losses are not always a good thing.

Without Prime Minister Raul’s efforts to save province after province, I am afraid that last year’s fiscal expenditure would have been close to 500 million Australian dollars.

"The budget for the seven main warships is at least 65 million Australian dollars. Together with other small and medium-sized warships, the estimated budget is about 100 million Australian dollars." Minister Thomas reported truthfully.

Regarding the financial budget required for warship construction, Minister Thomas did not dare to conceal or fabricate anything.

After all, the construction of warships is all Arthur's industry. Doesn't Arthur still know how much budget is needed to build warships?

Hearing Minister Thomas's answer, Prime Minister Raul frowned and said slightly dissatisfied: "Do aircraft carriers and battlecruisers also cost close to 10 million Australian dollars? What kind of warships are you going to build?

This cost is too much. Let’s reduce it to about 85 million Australian dollars. It will be built over five years, which is an annual cost of 17 million Australian dollars, which the government can barely afford.

Among them, the Ministry of National Defense squeezes out 5 million Australian dollars every year, and the government subsidizes another 12 million Australian dollars. "

After all, it is the official level that crushes people to death. Prime Minister Raul directly cut Minister Thomas's budget by 15 million Australian dollars with just a few words.

Moreover, of the annual construction cost of 17 million Australian dollars, 5 million comes from the Department of Defense budget.

This also means that the government only needs to invest an additional AU$60 million in this naval construction plan, and the remaining AU$25 million needs to be allocated by the Ministry of Defense from other places.

"Understood." Although Minister Thomas was reluctant, he could only nod helplessly to express his understanding.

There is no way, this is because Prime Minister Raul was born in the Ministry of Defense, so he has some bias towards the Ministry of Defense.

If the Prime Minister comes from a conservative force, I am afraid that the budget of 85 million Australian dollars will have to be reduced some.

Prime Minister Raúl cannot be blamed for his frugality. Although the construction of the navy seems to only require 85 million Australian dollars, of which the government only needs to contribute 12 million Australian dollars per year, it does not seem to be a big deal.

But in fact, the cost of the Navy does not refer to the construction cost of warships. In addition to this construction cost, the training of naval soldiers, daily maintenance and repair of warships, etc. are also one of the major sources of military expenditures.

The reason why the navy is one of the most expensive arms is that the maintenance and repair costs of warships are too high.

Just for these seven main battleships in the shipbuilding plan, the subsequent maintenance costs are not a small number.

This is also the real reason why only countries at the level of great powers can afford large-scale navies. Even some top powers with relatively high fiscal revenue can afford large navies with more main battleships.

As for those small countries, they only have small navies to maintain order on the coast and patrol.

Even if they are given warships, they cannot afford the training and daily maintenance of soldiers. This is the natural gap between small countries and large countries.

After the demise of the United States, the strength of the world's navies has formed a relatively obvious level.

The strength of each country's navy is basically linked to its own fiscal revenue. As the country with the largest fiscal revenue, the British Empire also controls the most powerful Royal Navy.

The French rely on a large number of colonies, but they can maintain a relatively good-sized navy, which can be regarded as the second largest in the world.

Australasia relied entirely on lying down to win, and with the support of its peers, it secured its position as the world's third largest naval power without doing anything.

Although the island country is not at the top among the great powers in terms of fiscal revenue and industry, with the perseverance of the entire country to build a navy and the motivation to support its ambitions, it has managed to create a navy that is the fourth in the world.

After that, there is the weakest existence among the unrestricted powers, the fifth navy in the world owned by Italy.

In fact, it can be seen from this point that there is currently a huge gap in the strength of various countries in the world.

From a naval point of view, the navies of the United Kingdom, France, Australasia and island countries can barely see it.

Starting from Italy, the navies of all countries are suffering from great restrictions, and the gap between them and the top four is already very large.

The sixth navy in the world should be the fleet in the hands of Tsarist Russia that has been reduced by more than half.

For his own war, Nicholas II sold most of the warships in his hands in exchange for military assistance and weapons and equipment from various countries.

This has also severely weakened Russia's naval strength, which is currently not even comparable to Italy's.

As for seventh and eighth in the world, these rankings are actually not ranked. Because the ones on the list are neither Germany nor Austria, but the three South American countries that have slightly increased their naval strength due to small-scale naval arms races.

As for Germany and Austria, which have significantly stronger overall strength, their navies have been greatly restricted since World War I. All their main battleships have been taken over by Britain, France and other countries, and they only have small-scale gunboats offshore.

Because of this, what is said to be a naval arms race is actually mainly the naval competition between Britain, France, Australasia and island countries, plus the accident of Italy fishing in troubled waters.

Although the protagonists are only four countries, there are still many conflicts between these four countries.

The most obvious one is the contradiction between Britain and France. Although the power gap between Britain and France is already huge, this still cannot hinder France's ambition to become a European hegemon.

Coupled with Britain's willingness to intervene in the European situation, the contradiction between Britain and France has become increasingly irreconcilable.

If you want these two countries to resolve the conflict, unless another more powerful country rises and threatens the security of Britain and France at the same time.

In addition to the contradictions between Britain and France, the competition between the island countries and Australasia in the Pacific is also one of the contradictions.

This is actually what the British want to see. Although Britain and Australasia still maintain an alliance, Britain has become wary of Australasia.

There is no way, Australasia's achievements in the past few decades are too exaggerated.

The current Australasia has completely unified Oceania, and also has two territories, the Persian Gulf and Alaska, and its sphere of influence extends across Southeast Asia and the United States.

Such a huge country is bound to conflict with Britain's global hegemony.

Coupled with Australasia's relatively good army strength and navy size, it is normal for the British to be wary.

Although the British are unwilling to break up with Australasia, it is still easy to create some competition and rivals for Australasia.

The island nation’s continuous naval expansion does not necessarily have the British influence behind it.

Especially after the United States was defeated, Australasia had no rivals in the Pacific. It was also during that period that the relationship between Britain and Australasia had become increasingly estranged, and the conflicts between the island country and Australasia had become increasingly fierce.

From this point of view, the main reason for this naval arms race is because of Britain's global hegemony and regional balance policy.

The British did taste the bitter consequences. Because no matter which country's navy becomes stronger, Britain's global hegemony will be challenged and threatened.

As various countries' naval construction plans are released one after another, the British government is under tremendous pressure at the moment.

Regardless of the fact that the UK’s fiscal revenue is the highest in the world, the UK’s fiscal expenditure is also the highest in the world.

As Britain's sphere of influence spread across the world, its colonies were not so peaceful.

Just to maintain peace in India and the United States, the British invested a lot of manpower and financial resources.

The naval arms race at this time was a competition that the British had to participate in and cost a lot of extra money.

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