Munitions Empire

The entire world is summarizing this war, and many people's views seem quite sound. Especially the countries on the Eastern Continent, their navies generally performed poorly in this war and failed to accomplish the expected tasks.

Because they had not anticipated the appearance of torpedoes, the navies of these countries dared not approach Dragon Island easily, thus they couldn't leverage their advantage in numbers.

Everyone was contemplating how to make their expensively built navies effective in future wars.

While everyone was thinking about how to strengthen their navies, an engineer from the Eastern Continent announced that he had invented a structure that could effectively protect ships from underwater explosions.

The entire structure was very complex, but it proved to be extremely effective after testing. This design was quickly adopted by the navies of various nations and began to be used to retrofit their battleships.

In the process of retrofitting, battleships fortified the underwater sections of their armor on one hand, and began using similar defensive structures on the other, to increase the warships' defense against torpedoes and mines.

Subsequently, nations gathered together and invited Tang Country to sign the "Endless Sea Maritime Convention." One of the clauses of this convention stipulates that the contracting nations must not use mines to blockade ports.

After discussion, it was directly decided to abolish the use of mines as a weapon, because they were too hazardous for navigation and inconvenient to remove after the war.

Tang Country also signed this treaty because the Tang Navy was increasingly disdainful of using mines as a weapon in combat.

After being passive in the previous war, the Tang Navy, which now had many secret weapons, actually had no need to rely on mines for defense or blockades.

Submarines were still without a great countermeasure from others, let alone the aircraft carriers that were beginning to form a combat force.

As long as these weapons began to function, the Tang Navy was in an invincible state. Not using mines was not a loss for the Tang Navy but a regret for other countries.

They would lose a means to threaten submarines and aircraft carriers and lose a way to protect their ports.

The war had ended, and Tang Mo was looking for ways to improve the various weapons in his hand to make them more effective in the next war.

The original improved submarines were already prepared to start construction; these new submarines had a more rational design that allowed faster underwater movement.

The streamlined design transformed these submarines from "ships that could dive" into "ships that lurk underwater." The significance of this transformation was enormous, and the true power of submarines would soon be showcased to the world.

Another naval weapon that had more development time was the carrier-based aircraft; previously, Tang Country had no time to manufacture specialized naval carrier-based aircraft, so they had to make do with Stuka reluctantly.

Now that the war had ended, the Navy had more time to refine its carrier-based aircraft. Thus, Tang Mo canceled the plan to have Butcher Fighters on carriers and instead opted for the F4U Corsair Fighter as the naval carrier-based aircraft model.

The performance of this fighter jet was definitely unquestionable; its only flaw was that the long nose caused insufficient visibility during take-off and landing.

But the Butcher Fighter also had similar flaws; don't laugh from one to another, Tang Mo was unwilling to use the slightly inferior F6F Fighter, so he had to make do with the F4U Fighter for now.

As for the carrier-based attack aircraft, Tang Mo decided to still use the Stuka, a multipurpose attack aircraft: it could carry torpedoes as well as bombs, making it a relatively qualified choice.

Tang Mo did have many choices, such as the SBD Dauntless Dive Bomber and the TBD Devastator Torpedo Bomber equipped by the U.S. Navy during World War II.

This dual-aircraft configuration had achieved brilliant results during World War II, making significant contributions to the U.S. Navy's victory over the Japanese Combined Fleet, and could be said to have a distinguished record.

However, Tang Mo thought that equipping two types of attack aircraft was truly troublesome, so he somewhat obsessively decided to use a multipurpose attack aircraft for both torpedo attacks and dive bombing.

Of course, during World War II, there were many carrier-based aircraft capable of such multipurpose tasks, including the famous Japanese Type 97 Carrier Attack Aircraft and another improved version, considered the best multipurpose carrier-based attack aircraft of the era: the Rei-shiki.

These two aircraft, frankly speaking, had impeccable performance and were indeed good choices. However, Tang Mo instinctively excluded these Japanese models from his choices because he had always had a disdain for Japanese products.

Among the remaining carrier-based aircraft, there wasn't much good to choose from; the performance of British World War II carrier-based aircraft was really not that great. After all considerations, sticking with the readily available Stuka was the most time and effort saving option.

No need to open new aircraft production lines, most of the parts were interchangeable, and although its performance was not that impressive, it was mature and reliable.

Thus, this quite magical carrier-based aircraft pairing was decided upon: the Navy's carrier-based fighter F4U Corsair and the carrier-based attack aircraft JU-87 Stuka.

Almost simultaneously with these decisions in Tang Country, countries around the world also began to refurbish their own battleships.

To counter the growing maritime threats, navies across the nations started to perfect their own battleships by displaying extraordinary ingenuity, improving them significantly, and deploying increased manpower and resources to build new battleships.

Nobody knows who started it, but some countries began equipping their warships with long support poles on either side, with iron nets attached at the ends to serve as torpedo defense mechanisms.

Honestly, such an apparatus could effectively ward off torpedo strikes, the only downside being that it affected the speed.

However, desperate navies didn't care about speed anymore and quickly started installing this device on various battleships' sides.

This new structure was also first deployed on damaged battleships; the revamped battleships' submerged sections became bulkier and were equipped with thicker armor.

All the new battleships constructed from scratch were fitted with thicker underwater armor from the outset, the hulls designed with more watertight gates and more watertight compartments.

On either side of the battleships, many anti-aircraft guns were installed, not only providing better anti-air protection for the battleships but also theoretically allowing attacks on approaching torpedoes.

The latest battleships commonly used main guns with calibers above 380 millimeters, the designs of which were all sold by Tang Country; some countries purchased 406-millimeter calibers, while others went for 410 millimeters.

Naturally, some countries were also secretly preparing to outfit their super battleships with even larger-caliber main guns, gearing up for the next war.

Regardless of these countries' motives, they all invested more steel, aiming to build a more modern, more powerful navy.

The major loser being Laines Empire, which had two battleships sunk, swiftly commenced the construction of four Brunas-class battleships and added two new-type battleships to replenish its navy.

These countries were not only diverting more steel towards their naval efforts; they were also manufacturing an increasing number of tanks and artillery.

The impact of the Panther Tank resonated worldwide; after witnessing the long-barreled artillery, every country's army grew gravely concerned.

The existing tanks stood no chance against such tough adversaries; to mount a defense, they could only increase their own tanks' armor thickness. Therefore, tanks from each country were redesigned during this period, significantly enhancing the front armor.

Previously, the frontal armor on tanks generally ranged between 20 millimeters to 30 millimeters, which were only effective against machine gun and rifle bullets.

Soon enough, the main armor thickness on tanks was increased to between 50 millimeters and 80 millimeters, seemingly in hope of warding off long-distance attacks from Tang Army tanks as much as possible.

The reason armor was not made even thicker was that the countries' engine technologies were still inadequate for supporting heavier armor designs—moving tanks weighing tens of tons was not an easy feat.

Steel helmets and engineer shovels began to become the standard equipment for soldiers in various countries, while cannons and vehicles also saw a surge in numbers.

In less than three months after the war, the global steel demand spiked, and international steel prices even exceeded those of oil.

Not only the military sector, but the civilian sector too began utilizing steel to accelerate construction.

Previously, buildings did not require much steel, but Tang Country had innovated construction with reinforced concrete, enhancing building sturdiness and speed.

Mixing concrete with steel rods as the framework resulted in unprecedented strength and construction speed also proved quicker than traditional stone stacking methods.

Thus, Tang Country's civil construction market consumed a massive amount of steel as many cities needed to be built, and this consumption reached staggering levels.

The worldwide steel production capacity was put to the test, and every iron mine was incredibly busy. Each mine was frantically increasing production, and the prices for Great Tang Group's mining machinery also soared.

Suddenly, there was a surge in prices for many items; Tang Country made a fortune as well as spent a fortune, making it unclear who ultimately emerged as the biggest winner.

The economy, once held back by the war, began to advance rapidly, with skyscrapers rising quickly. It seemed everyone had found a way to make money, and no one cared about anything else.

Just finding a ship and transporting goods from Tang Country to Brunas could double one's profit. Trading that money for iron ore and transporting it back to Linshui could double the profits again!

Unfortunately, once everyone caught on to this lucrative method, securing a shipload of iron ore from the Eastern Continent became quite challenging.

After all, more steel was also needed by the empires of the Eastern Continent.

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Today, I really couldn't focus, only managed to write one chapter, I'll deliver the other chapter tomorrow along with this one as I gather my thoughts.