Great Warlord: The Second Ancestor of the Empire

After receiving the battle plan from the Hans Empire, the Gallic Empire held an emergency high-level military meeting.

During the meeting, Millerand elaborated on the plans of the Hans Empire, and then the high-level military officials of the Gallic Empire began to discuss.

After two days of discussion, the Gallic military felt that the battle plan proposed by the Hans Empire was very feasible.

The current situation in Gaul may not be very clear to outsiders, but they themselves are very aware of it.

The Gallic Empire, like the Hans Empire, had its shortcomings in the navy. Therefore, it is somewhat unrealistic to compete with two naval powers on the sea.

As mentioned before, the Gallic Empire actually had a powerful navy. Although it was not as good as the John Empire and Millican, it was very difficult for ordinary countries to defeat the Gallic Empire's fleet.

When they were most powerful, even the John Empire, the maritime overlord at the time, was unwilling to conflict with them.

However, since the middle and second half of the last century, the presidents of the Gallic Empire have frequently changed, leading to political chaos within the Gallic Empire.

At that time, the Gallic Empire had not yet become an ally with the John Empire, nor had it formed the Entente.

Therefore, the Gallic Empire and the John Empire are still in a competitive relationship.

In order to maintain the Gallic Empire's traditionally strong army, the Gallic Empire could only reduce its investment in the navy.

Finally, in 1884, Admiral Hyacinthe Aube, a representative of the Youth Faction, became Minister of the Navy of the Gallic Empire.

He believes that the emerging torpedo is the magic weapon for the navy to defeat the enemy in the future.

Therefore, he proposed in Congress that 100 lightning strike ships would defeat the green water navy plan of the Royal Navy of the John Empire.

The advantage of this plan is that the lightning strike ship requires little investment, construction and maintenance costs are extremely low, but it has very good attack power.

No matter how powerful a battleship was at that time, it only needed one or two torpedoes to sink it. The funds required to build one battleship can build ten to twenty lightning strike ships, or even more.

Everyone within the Gallic Empire at that time was very optimistic about this cost-effective green water naval plan.

This makes people sigh. It's not that battleships are not good enough, but that thunder strike ships are more cost-effective.

The money saved from the navy can be invested in the army.

This is simply the sea and land development plan that the Gallic Empire dreamed of.

As a result, it didn't take long for the Gallic Empire to fully approve Admiral Hyacinthe Aube's suggestions and begin to build a green-water offshore fleet dominated by thunder strike ships.

However, they ignored that such an offshore defense fleet had no ocean-going capabilities at all, which led to the Gallic Empire gradually withdrawing from the competition for maritime hegemony.

Moreover, an offshore defense fleet dominated by lightning strike ships is indeed feasible in theory. The most powerful battleship at the time was indeed unable to withstand two torpedoes.

But the problem is that the torpedo range at that time was less than 5 nautical miles. How can we go head-to-head with a battleship with a range of more than ten nautical miles?

If it really encounters an ocean-going fleet dominated by battleships, if such an offshore fleet wants to attack the opponent, it must brave the opponent's intensive artillery fire and shorten the distance between the two sides to within 5 nautical miles.

For the distance of more than 5 or 6 nautical miles in between, the offshore fleet can only be beaten and unable to retaliate.

If the ocean-going fleet retreats while fighting at this time, it will take even longer for the offshore fleet to catch up with the enemy fleet.

Some people may say that since 100 lightning strike ships are not enough, then two hundred or three hundred ships. Quantitative changes will always lead to qualitative changes.

Then the problem comes, no matter how many you have, it will inevitably cause your own formation to become denser.

And if a dense formation wants to attack the opponent's ocean fleet, it is simply looking for death.

The lightning strike ship is a high-speed, small and fast ship. It is called a thunder strike ship in Europe, but in Daxia, it has another name, and that is called a torpedo boat.

As can be seen from the name, this kind of ship is very small.

The latest torpedo boats in Daxia are only 18 to 20 meters long. It is simply impossible to install heavy armor on such a length.

Basically, such a torpedo boat faces a battleship with a main gun of more than 300 mm. It does not need to make a direct hit at all. As long as it causes a near miss, it can cause fatal damage.

Therefore, facing an ocean-going fleet with a dozen, even twenty, thirty, or more ships of various sizes, the result can only be the complete annihilation of the green water fleet for offshore defense.

What is even more unfortunate is that the Gallic Empire's old rival, the John Empire, while the Gallic Empire was vigorously developing an offshore green-water fleet, they were also desperately developing an ocean-going fleet.

Especially after the rise of Daxia, facing the maritime threat from the Far East, the John Empire became almost paranoid about the development of the ocean fleet.

Therefore, the Gallic Empire was even less able to catch up with the John Empire. In the end, the Gallic fleet, which once dominated the area and made the John Empire feel troublesome, disappeared in the long river of history.

In other words, disappearing is a bit exaggerated. After all, the offshore fleet of the Gallic Empire has always existed. But since they developed the offshore fleet, it can be said that they have made no achievements.

This also led to the fact that among the three alliance countries, the fleet of the Kingdom of Italy became the strongest.

However, even the fleet of the Kingdom of Italy cannot compete with the Royal Navy of the John Empire. Because whether it is the total tonnage of the fleet between the two countries or the quality between the two countries, the John Empire far exceeds the Kingdom of Italy.

Moreover, the current Italian fleet is still blocked in the Mediterranean. If you want to get out of the Mediterranean, you still need the nod of the John Empire.

As we all know, the Mediterranean has only two outlets, one is the Suez Canal controlled by the John Empire. Through the Suez Canal, the fleet of the Kingdom of Italy can appear everywhere in the Indian Ocean.

But control of the Suez Canal was firmly in the hands of the Johns.

The other outlet is in the western part of the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean.

Although the situation in the Strait of Gibraltar is a little better than that of the Suez Canal, to be honest, it is not much better.

As for why we say this, it is actually very simple, because the control of the Strait of Gibraltar is in the hands of the John Empire and the Kingdom of Iberia.

What's even more bizarre is that the John Empire controls the northern side of the Strait of Gibraltar, which is the side bordering the mainland of the Kingdom of Iberia, and the northern shore of the Strait of Gibraltar.

The Kingdom of Iberia controls the southern shore of the Strait of Gibraltar, that part of the Strait in Africa.

In other words, the John Empire grabbed a piece of meat in Ilibia and nailed it here.

On the north and south sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, the narrowest point is only 15 kilometers, and the longest distance is only 22 kilometers.

In such a narrow sea area, it is simply impossible to reach the Atlantic Ocean from the Mediterranean Sea through the blockade of John's Empire.