Chapter 211: Naval Orders and Aircraft
In order to reassure Grand Duke Sergey and encourage the Russian government to be more generous, Arthur took Grand Duke Sergey to visit Australasia's largest shipyard, the Royal Sydney Dockyard.
Australasia's naval construction plan was progressing quickly, and work had already begun on smaller and medium-sized warships.
Yes, Australasia decided to begin by constructing smaller and medium-sized warships, leaving the most costly Dreadnoughts for later.
In fact, it wasn't really a matter of waiting until the end; the main reason was that Australasia's Dreadnought design was still in the theoretical phase. Constructing an actual Dreadnought would bring many problems.
Thus, the shipyard experts and workers needed an experimental model to familiarize themselves with the construction of a Dreadnought, and Arthur naturally would not build an additional experimental model.
In this situation, seeking external trade and using foreign orders as experimental models was the unanimous opinion of the shipyard experts.
In reality, it wasn't as severe as it seemed. Australasia's experts wanted to build better and more perfect warships for the country, so they wished to gain more experience and skill before constructing warships for the country.
The Royal Sydney Dockyard had been in operation for more than six years, and in that time, its scale had changed tremendously.
Now, the Royal Sydney Dockyard could fully accommodate the construction of two battleships or five small warships at the same time, and at its peak, it could even begin the construction of three battleships simultaneously.
This laid a good foundation for Australasia's future naval expansion, ensuring that, at least when they had enough funds, domestic production would not lag behind.
In addition to the Royal Dockyard, Arthur's royal consortium had invested in more than ten shipyards across Australasia.
Unfortunately, only one of these shipyards, a former New Zealand shipyard, was capable of building warships.
The remaining shipyards were only able to handle the construction of civilian vessels and fishing boats, most of which were small boats weighing less than ten tons.
Even the New Zealand shipyard could only build coastal defense ships weighing a few hundred tons, with the ability to build small warships of about a thousand tons, but without the appropriate designs or equipment.
Although Australasia had a top-tier royal shipyard, outside of the Royal Dockyard, the country still lacked mid-to-low-end shipyards, and it would take a significant amount of time to make up for this.
Despite the Royal Dockyard not yet constructing Dreadnoughts, Grand Duke Sergey quickly recognized that Australasia's top-tier shipbuilding technology had already surpassed that of Russia.
This was not surprising. Russia, compared to old powers like Britain and France or newer powers like Germany and the United States, had some gaps.
If it weren't for Russia's enormous land area, rich mineral resources, and large population, combined with its proximity to Europe, allowing it to absorb the technological advancements brought about by the Industrial Revolution, the Russian Empire's fate might have been no different from that of the Ottoman Empire.
Fortunately, the Russian Empire valued its military strength and invested heavily in both its army and navy.
Regarding the potential Dreadnought trade, Tsar Nicholas II generously provided Grand Duke Sergey with five million pounds, intending to order at least two Dreadnoughts, and preferably some smaller warships as well.
After visiting Australasia's Royal Dockyard, Grand Duke Sergey successfully shifted the topic to Dreadnought orders.
Arthur could tell that the Russians were indeed eager to acquire Dreadnoughts to strengthen their naval presence in Europe and the Far East.
Particularly in the Far East, the Russian Pacific Fleet had maintained some advantage after the repairs to the Tsarevich, but soon after, the Island nation's battleships ordered from Australasia were delivered, restoring balance in the number of Dreadnoughts in the region.
Both sides were dissatisfied with the outcome of the previous war and were itching to change the result through another conflict.
Maintaining a naval advantage became increasingly important, which explained why both Russia and the Island nation were so interested in the newly developed Dreadnoughts.
After understanding the specifications of the Monarch-class battleship, Grand Duke Sergey quickly inquired about the price.
The price was indeed an important factor in determining the Dreadnought's value for money. No matter how much the Russians desired the Dreadnought, a high price could defeat them.
In fact, Grand Duke Sergey's concern was not unfounded.
Compared to older battleships, Dreadnoughts were significantly more expensive.
Previously, a strong old battleship would cost around 1.2 to 1.4 million pounds, but the British Dreadnought cost nearly 1.8 million pounds, a significant increase.
The Monarch-class battleship that Australasia had designed was slightly more expensive than the British Dreadnought because some technologies were still being acquired from Europe.
The actual cost of the British Dreadnought was around 1.9 million pounds, and if sold to foreign buyers, it could approach 2.5 million pounds.
However, due to the good relations between Russia and Australasia, and Arthur's intention to support Russia against the Island nation, the price for the Monarch-class battleship was set at 2.4 million pounds for Russia.
The price of 2.4 million pounds was a bit painful for Grand Duke Sergey, but it was still affordable.
Considering the powerful data and performance of the Dreadnought, the price was not exaggerated.
Grand Duke Sergey thought for a long while, and ultimately, he gritted his teeth and agreed to Arthur's price. He decided to order two Dreadnoughts on behalf of the Russian government.
Of course, it wasn't just Dreadnoughts. After inspecting the entire Royal Dockyard, Grand Duke Sergey was also highly interested in Australasia's Duke-class destroyers, and he placed an order for over ten destroyers.
This meant that Russia's naval order would total over five million pounds, reaching over 5.1 million pounds.
To express the good relationship between Russia and Australasia and to help Russia save some money, Arthur generously rounded the price down, offering the deal to Russia for just five million pounds.
This gesture greatly pleased Grand Duke Sergey, as the saved funds could be used for other purposes by the Russian government.
On October 17, 1906, after both Arthur and Grand Duke Sergey signed the agreement, the naval trade order between Russia and Australasia officially took effect.
This naval trade order included two Monarch-class Dreadnoughts and more than ten Duke-class destroyers, with a total value of five million pounds.
After negotiating with Arthur, it was agreed that the two battleships would be delivered by the end of 1908 and mid-1909, while the destroyers would be delivered in early 1909.
The entire trade would take about three years to complete, and by then, Russia would become one of the few nations in the world with Dreadnoughts.
For Australasia, this was also good news, as the profit from the deal would amount to a clean one million pounds, which could be used for other projects, such as the aircraft program that was already showing promise.
Yes, after Grand Duke Sergey completed his mission and left after discussing wedding plans with Princess Louise, Arthur shifted his attention back to aircraft.
In fact, it had been over two years since Arthur first proposed the military aviation concepts for three types of aircraft.
In these two years, Theodore and Ludwig, with the help of experts from the aviation laboratory, conducted extensive experiments and improvements on the Pioneer-1, and successfully developed the Pioneer-2 and Pioneer-3.
Additionally, during this time, Australasia, along with the Victoria Prize, attracted many top European aviation talents, and as a result, Australasia now had at least one-third of the world's top aviation experts. The progress of aircraft development was advancing rapidly.
If the Pioneer-1 was simply a test of flight, after the modifications made to the Pioneer-2, the Pioneer-3's performance was comparable to the aircraft used in World War I. With skilled pilots, it could already perform some complex tasks.
The current Pioneer-3 had an average flight speed of about 200 kilometers per hour, with a top speed of 230 kilometers per hour.
This represented a significant improvement compared to the earlier Pioneer-1 tests.
The maximum range of the Pioneer-1 was about 360 to 430 kilometers, but now it had increased to over 500 kilometers.
Although the Pioneer-3 had experienced several flight accidents during the two years of testing, these were inevitable in the development of aircraft.
Arthur compensated the pilots and experts involved in the accidents generously, with some receiving as much as 30,000 pounds.
This significantly boosted the enthusiasm of the pilots and experts, and most were no longer reluctant to participate in the experiments.
Of course, the most important improvement was the aviation laboratory's work on militarizing aircraft based on Arthur's three proposed concepts.
The Pioneer-2 had already been modified to include the Eagle-1 reconnaissance plane, Tiger-1 fighter, and Ghost-1 bomber, all of which had considerable combat capabilities and could even be mass-produced.
(End of Chapter)
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