Chapter 583: Wartime transportation

"You can spend more money than Tirpitz. It seems that we have to increase the budget again." The Kaiser said in a half-hearted and half-playing manner. Of the 100 submarines, more than 60% of them are still large submarines.

"But this is necessary. This is the key to our victory in this war. The Kingdom of Bavaria can even build a fleet of 12 submarines on its own and hand it over to the command of the High Seas Fleet." The significance of submarines is huge, even It surpasses the main fleet, so even if Germany is unwilling to do it, it would rather pay for it to get the submarine fleet out! According to the unspoken rules between kingdoms, since Bavaria will have its own submarine formation, Prussia should always express it?

What's more, although the 12 submarines look a lot, but the tonnage is small, if one is 700 tons, the gross tonnage is only 8,400 tons, and the cost of two 5,000-ton light cruisers is no more than 800,000 pounds. Right. The prince thought to himself.

  "Admiral Liao Le, do you have any comments?" The emperor looked at Admiral von Liao Le.

"This is a brand-new combat method, and the combat effectiveness should be good. After all, there is no technology that can effectively restrain submarines. I believe that His Highness Ruprecht and Admiral Boll can develop a very good submarine warfare system. "Admiral Liao Le first confirmed his work with Admiral Ball, and then continued.

"But what I am worried about is whether this system will face some legal or ethical issues? For example, what should we do if the British hire ships from neutral countries to transport supplies for them? Do they fight or not? This leads to dissatisfaction in other countries. Even if it is an intervention, what should we do? Well, to make it clearer, if we find an American transport ship during the war, should we launch an attack?" Admiral Liao Le put forward a very sharp but realistic one. problem!

"Very good, good angle!" I gave Admiral Liao Le a compliment in his heart. The latter was right. The biggest problem in submarine warfare in World War 1 was not the British counterattack or the escort, but because of the lack of Restricting the various political issues caused by submarine warfare, sinking two transport ships is not a big deal. If the passenger ship is sunk, there will be a problem! More importantly, there is no good way to deal with this situation.

  If you hit a neutral country’s transport ship, it may cause some countries to overreact. Of course, like the reaction of a small country, I won’t say anything about Germany. But big countries, such as the United States, are not the same. Although Britain and the United States have become enemies on this plane, if according to the profit-seeking nature of capitalists, once war starts, there will be American ships to transport supplies to the British, so good, for these ships, Does Germany fight or not? beated? What if the United States enters the war? If not? There would be a huge loophole in the sea blockade against the British.

  Don’t even talk about hitting a neutral country’s merchant ships, even if it hits a hostile country’s cargo ship, it will cause great criticism. After all, at the time of World War I, countries did not have the idea of ​​overall warfare. They thought they were in the hotbed of civilization. This kind of naked killing of civilians is still relatively unacceptable for most Europeans and North Americans. Of course, if it is to hurt, the British blockade is actually more threatening, but it is not so **** on the surface, and the Americans are also At the beginning of the war, Britain was asked to relax its blockade on Germany. Therefore, public opinion in this era is the biggest problem in submarine warfare.

Of course, at the very beginning, there are requirements for submarines to attack merchant ships. They must first warn the transport ship and give the crew time to transfer, and even verify the relevant documents on the merchant ship to confirm the safety of the personnel. Attack, this was the law of war at the time for submarines to attack merchant ships, but even a person who didn’t understand the navy knew that it was a very dangerous thing. It floated in the sea for a long time, and then a torpedo or even a few shells would be enough. The thing that can be solved, it will take a long time for ink. God knows if there are any British destroyers around. So the submarine force asked from the beginning to attack without warning.

What’s more terrible is that many merchant ships were equipped with artillery in the first battle. Don’t say you float up to warn the opponent before launching an attack. If you dare to float up and stand up against someone, you may not be able to fight. Overcome the opponent! At this time, it is naturally impossible to implement the so-called law of war. Just get close and take a torpedo away. What else does it matter? What's more, in the later period, the British also specially created a camouflage submarine hunting ship, specially using this method of war to hunt submarines. This is what later generations often call the Q ship.

  So it is impossible to carry out tasks in accordance with the provisions of the law of war, because it is not realistic, and more importantly, the British blockade has already violated the law of war. If the British cannot destroy it, Germany must abide by it, right? Did the later Americans consider international law when they used cluster bombs or white phosphorus bombs? Obviously not.

  Of course, if it is determined that the United States will not participate in the war~www.wuxiaspot.com~ the prince will definitely support unlimited submarine warfare and will not remind me. But the key question is that no one can determine the direction of American public opinion and politics. The prince can only say that the U.S. imperialism is leaning toward Germany, and the real fight, especially when Germany wins on the Eastern Front, will the Americans make decisions? No one can say for sure.

"What I mean personally is this, submarines performing missions close to the British mainland do not need to be warned, because the battlefield conditions do not allow them, and most of them are British ships. Submarines performing cross-traffic missions in the Atlantic Ocean are best warned. Be cautious when attacking passenger ships. Ships bound for Britain from neutral countries can be attacked, but casualties should be avoided as much as possible.” After thinking about it, he said.

   "This is acceptable. But I am worried whether such a request will be implemented once the war begins." Tirpitz thought for a while and said. In fact, in history, the German high-level officials still had a lot of scruples about unrestricted submarine warfare. Even at the beginning, submarine warfare was mostly conducted in the North Sea and the vicinity of the United Kingdom, and did not start in the Atlantic Ocean, and because of the protests of the U.S. government many times. Termination, even because of the submarine warfare issue, on March 15, 1916, Marshal Tirpitz was also dismissed for wanting to resume submarine warfare.

  The real start of unrestricted submarine warfare was after Ludendorff completely took power. Submarine warfare is a sharp sword, but at the same time political risks are also great. This requires a good grasp, as well as public relations and diplomatic work. In this regard, the prince has not yet thought about it, so he can only give an ambiguous answer first.

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