Chapter 70 New Toys for the Military Part 4 (Imperial Ruthenian Navy)

The Department of the Navy is on the third priority list when it comes to modernizing the Army. The answer is simple, the Ruthenia Empire is basically landlocked, though not literally, but due to it having no free access to the world’s ocean.

As stated before, in order for the Ruthenia Empire to get into the ocean, there is the Danish strait for the Baltic Fleet, The Barents Sea for the Northern Fleet, and the Bosphorus strait for the Black Sea Fleet, and the Sea of Japan for the Pacific Fleet.

That access or channels are controlled by countries that have an antagonistic relationship with the Ruthenia Empire. They are the Britannia Empire, Deutschland Empire, and the Yamato Empire.

Hence, the Department of Navy, which is temporarily controlled by Admiral Kutnetzov, the Chief of Naval Operations of the Ruthenian Navy, until Alexander appoints someone, proposed to strengthen the four main fleets to get out of this deadlock.

Now here is the problem. Building a battleship cost a copious amount of money. And the advent of aircraft carriers made them obsolete. Alexander is carefully assessing whether it is prudent to build a huge fleet with a battleship at its center.

This world doesn’t have a Naval Washington Treaty nor any other treaties that limit the tonnages of a surface warship. Therefore, there is a huge chance that each superpower is primarily building battleships instead of aircraft carriers.

However, when Alexander was in the designing phase, he studied each superpower’s naval power. All of them are testing a new kind of warship that will revolutionize naval warfare and aircraft carriers.

Turns out, the first use of the aircraft carriers in this world was by the Britannia Empire during a conflict in one of their colonies in the Black Continent.

Still, in this world, the aircraft carrier was considered strategically less valuable than battleships. The conservatives in the Armed Forces of each superpower thought negatively about aircraft carriers where the main idea revolves around sending a flimsy plane to an enemy. Building an aircraft carrier cost a lot of money but the planes, which in this era are quite insubstantial, didn’t gain their confidence.

Alexander would prove them wrong. Not only does he have knowledge in shipbuilding but in naval doctrine as well.

However, there is one problem. Alexander has little knowledge about designing battleships. In his world, the Harrier Industries has a shipbuilding division where it primarily builds aircraft carriers, destroyers, cruisers, and submarines. Some of them are designed by him. Alexander doesn’t have much experience in drawing battleships. Hence he turned to reference materials provided by the Navy, giving him insights into how battleships are designed and constructed. And during the process, Alexander remembered something that could help him create one ultimate battleship.

Despite it being obsolete in the future, Alexander still dreams of building a fleet of battleships for himself, as battleships looked sexier and mightier. To compensate for this shortcomings, he thought of building a more advanced battleship.

“This is the design of the battleship I want to introduce to you,” Alexander revealed, unfurling the blueprint and setting it down on the table.

Admiral Kuznetsov and Andre looked at it with interest.

The ship that Alexander designed is similar to the USS Montana battleship, a planned successor for the battleship Iowa. The design is basically Iowa but with more guns and more armor, basically adopting the all-or-nothing armor philosophy.

In this world, the battleship don’t have radars yet. Though, there are now existing studies about it and testing it for practical purposes. Alexander’s battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines will implement the most advanced radar systems, fire control systems, and anti-aircraft systems.

“This is a work of art, Your Majesty. Who drew it again?” Andre asked as he brushed his hand over the blueprints.

“He wants to remain anonymous but he is working under me, why?”

“Well, despite the specifications of this ship being slightly lesser, this ship employed a design that I’ve never seen before…yet makes sense,”

“I’m more confident in this design, Sir Andrei. Let’s choose this design over the one you proposed to me,” Alexander said.

Andrei’s eyes furrowed “It will be great Your Majesty, this design is superior to mine but we don’t have the capabilities to build this since most of the systems here are new. If possible, I would like to discuss this with the man who drew the schematics. Would that be okay, Your Majesty?”

Alexander hummed in thought and said “I don’t see a problem, you can coordinate with the Imperial Dynamics System Shipbuilding Division,”

“Imperial Dynamics System Shipbuilding Division?” Andrei repeated, tilting his head to the side.

“You don’t know it? Well, basically it’s a company that I started. The man you’re looking for is working under my company so if you have questions regarding this design, you can reach out to me using this number,” Alexander pulled something out of his pocket, it was a business card.

Andrei took it and smiled “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Let’s move on to your next design,” Alexander grabbed the blueprint of the USS Montana from the table and rolled it up, putting it inside the tube before picking another.

The next proposal is about cruisers. Just like how the meeting goes with the Army and the Navy, they will introduce Alexander about the proposal of the ship and then he’ll put in to propose his own design.

Basically, this meeting is not about the branches of the military presenting their proposals, it’ll be Alexander himself presenting his proposal.

For the new cruisers of the Ruthenian Navy, Alexander designed a ship similar to Desmoine Class Cruiser. It will be fitted with missile launchers when Alexander was to make one in the future.

For the destroyers, Alexander selected the Charles F. Adams-class destroyer.

For the aircraft carriers, Alexander chose Midway Class Aircraft Carrier. The one with the angled deck to make way for the future naval aviation, where Alexander planned to make an aircraft powered by a jet engine.

As for the submarines, Alexander now chose the diesel-electric with the Collins-class submarine as the basis for the design.

Once he introduced a new type of power, nuclear energy, where energy is created by splitting the atoms, he’ll make a model of a nuclear-powered submarine.

In the submarine proposal part, Alexander and Andrei had a little problem, with the design of the submarine.

In this world’s era, submarines aren’t actually submarines. they’re commerce raiding dive boats. Which means they are surface vessels that submerge in order to attack or to hide. The ability to dive is essentially their only defense owing to their fragility and the limited scope of their armament. These boats spend most of their active time cruising on the surface looking for targets.

Submarines can’t stay underwater for a prolonged period of time as diesel engines need air to work. When submerged, submarines used batteries to power the propeller, and once it is exhausted, the submarines have to surface to charge it up using the diesel engine and then submerge again.

However, the problem with that is the risk of getting caught or spotted. To solve that, submarines use a snort, like the snorkels you used when you’re swimming to get air. But that also presents a problem similar to the one being submerged. Fortunately, the naval superpowers don’t have a snort on their submarines, thus a new advantage for the Ruthenian Navy.

You might be wondering, is there a way for the submarine to stay underwater for a long, long period of time? There is! It’s called a nuclear-powered submarine. This type of submarine doesn’t rely on oxygen for combustion like a diesel engine does, which means it can stay submerged indefinitely.

This comes with another problem again. Nuclear energy in this world is at its theoretical level. This means the scientists of this world haven’t figured it out yet. So his plan of building a nuclear-powered submarine is halted temporarily until he introduces it.

To accommodate the construction of the new ships, Alexander would’ve had to increase the size of the drydock of the current shipyards of the Ruthenia Empire as well as create new ones.

“Looks like I’m going to make another withdrawal,” Alexander muttered under his breath.

The Navy is indeed more expensive than the Army and the Air Force. To save money, the current fleet of the Ruthenia Empire that is in service yet outdated would be either scrapped or sold to another country.

The estimated time of completion will be five to six years. After that, the Ruthenian Empire will have the strongest and most advanced warship in the world.