I want to be emperor

Chapter 1030 The Concept of the Coast Guard

On May 23rd of the 47th year of Chengshun, the inspection fleet arrived at the Hong Kong Naval Base in the Guangdong and Guangxi areas. They will conduct a comprehensive supply here and at the same time merge with a group of coal supply ships in the fleet.

Taking advantage of this time, Luo Zhixue also went ashore to the Hong Kong Naval Base for a brief inspection. After all, the Hong Kong Naval Base is one of the most important naval bases in the mainland of the Chu Empire, and there are still many things worthy of attention.

This Hong Kong naval base was originally used as the headquarters and home port of the Nanyang Fleet.

However, the name of the Nanyang Fleet has long disappeared in history. After the Chu Empire Navy entered the Indian Ocean, the Nanyang Fleet moved south as a whole and then entered the Indian Ocean. The headquarters and home port were established in Colombo, Ceylon Island, and subsequently in the Chu Empire. During the reform of the navy, the Nanyang Fleet was canceled and changed to the Indian Ocean Fleet.

Subsequently, the Da Chu Empire Navy further deepened its reform, first establishing four major administrative fleets, and then the European Expeditionary Fleet detached from the African Fleet also became an independent administrative fleet, renamed the European Fleet, responsible for the European region, including the Mediterranean, the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and other waters combat work.

At the same time, the African Fleet was also renamed the Atlantic Fleet, responsible for maritime defense in the entire Atlantic Ocean.

As a result, the administrative fleet of the Chu Empire evolved from four to six, namely:

The Home Fleet is responsible for the Western Pacific and the waters surrounding Australia;

The Indian Ocean Fleet is responsible for the entire Indian Ocean region, including the marginal sea, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, etc., and covers the east coast of southern Africa;

The Atlantic Fleet is responsible for the entire Atlantic Ocean, including the east coast of the Americas, the west coast of Africa, and ocean operations west of the European region.

The European Fleet is responsible for regional sea areas and offshore operations in Europe, mainly the European offshore waters, the Mediterranean, the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and the waters surrounding the British region such as the North Sea.

The above-mentioned six administrative fleets are not actually responsible for specific combat affairs, but are responsible for administrative management, training, deployment and other routine work, naval construction, base management, and management of various local fleets in their respective regions.

The command of the ocean fleet during wartime was not actually in the hands of the six administrative fleets, but belonged to the Naval Staff of the Great Chu Empire.

Therefore, under the six administrative fleets, there are also nine fleets that have no direct reporting relationship with the six administrative fleets, and are even equal to a certain extent.

For example, the First Fleet, Second Fleet, and Third Fleet in the Western Pacific; the Fourth Fleet and the Fifth Fleet in the Indian Ocean; the Sixth Fleet in the Eastern Pacific; and the Seventh Fleet, which has its home port on the east coast of North America. In Europe, the Eighth Fleet is responsible for the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and the Ninth Fleet is responsible for the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the English Channel and surrounding waters.

In fact, these nine fleets are, in a sense, more similar to wartime mobile fleets or combined fleets. The task force fleet is not an administrative organization, but a typical temporary wartime mission organization... At the same time, they The defense areas they are responsible for are also not fixed. The areas they are currently in are only for deployment needs. The headquarters are temporarily set up in these areas, but they can be deployed at any time according to needs.

It is also possible that the nine fleets will gather in Western Taina on a certain day.

At the same time, none of the nine fleets have fixed warships under their jurisdiction... all warships are drawn from the administrative fleet to perform tasks based on mission requirements.

In other words, in fact, all the warships of the Dachu Empire are under the administrative fleets for daily training and management, and are only temporarily deployed to the major mobile fleets when there are tasks.

For example, if the First Fleet is ordered to go to Fuso to perform a blockade mission, then it will draw warships from the nearby home fleet or even from the Indian Ocean Fleet and Pacific Fleet, and they will also be drawn into groups.

The first battleship fleet, the second cruiser fleet, the third frigate fleet, the fourth transport and supply fleet... these battleships will eventually form a mixed large-scale combat formation with multiple battleships!

During the mission, formations or ships will be ordered to join or leave one after another.

After the mission is completed, all warships will belong to each administrative fleet.

However, the nine fleets in the Dachu Empire Navy are on duty all year round... and are not temporarily formed. Therefore, although the nine fleets have no fixed establishment, they maintain a large number of combat ships and perform exercises and patrols all year round. and various routine tasks, which also led some outsiders to mistakenly believe that these nine fleets are long-term fixed establishments.

But in fact, a battleship of the Chu Empire Navy may perform tasks in the First Fleet this year, but next year it will be assigned to the Third Fleet in the Indian Ocean region to perform tasks...

The reason why this situation occurs is not only the difference between military affairs and military orders, but also related to the particularity of the navy as a ship type.

The reason why the Navy is divided into military affairs and military orders, and has created nine fleets with irregular formations in addition to the administrative fleet, is largely because battleships require maintenance time, and they require a lot of maintenance time. The time is not short.

At the same time, the Da Chu Imperial Navy is still a global navy and needs to dispatch warships around the world to perform tasks. At the same time, the Da Chu Imperial Navy cannot set up a large-scale ship repair shop in every place for on-site repairs or even mid-term repairs. Overhaul.

Due to many restrictions, the ships of the Dachu Empire Navy can undergo simple daily maintenance in overseas directly-administered territories, but for intermediate repairs or even overhauls and upgrades and modifications, they need to be returned to large-scale comprehensive shipyards in the country... overseas Both ship repair shops and shipyards have insufficient technical capabilities.

Under many conditions, the Da Chu Empire Navy has a very special situation, that is, among the many active warships, only one may be performing tasks in the frontline waters... And what are the remaining warships doing?

There may be one that is undergoing overhaul in a local shipyard or undergoing routine maintenance in a regular repair shop in an overseas territory, and another that is returning to base or on its way to a mission area!

The overall duty ratio may be only one-third or even less than that!

In other words, under normal conditions, without considering the preparation for mobilization in advance, in fact, of the four to five hundred ocean-going warships in the Da Chu Empire Navy, there may only be more than a hundred carrying out various tasks, and the rest are either in Dockyard, or en route...

However, the Da Chu Empire's navy controls the global sea areas. There are so many sea areas that need to be controlled. Even if the force distribution is thin, the number of warships needed is not a small number.

It is actually not enough to maintain more than a hundred warships to perform tasks on a daily basis... This is already less. If we still have a fixed establishment and a fixed number of warships are assigned to a certain sea area, then once we encounter any war mission, then what should we do? The warships in the sea area are even more insufficient.

Under such circumstances, in order to improve mission efficiency... and use the existing insufficient number of naval warships to maintain more maritime power in hot spots as much as possible, the Navy has come up with this flexible deployment and deployment system.

Probably, after a cruiser completed an overhaul and upgrade on the mainland, the crew began boarding the ship for adaptive training. After completing the preparations, they were ordered to go to a certain sea area with other ships or alone, such as going to the Indian Ocean Island of Ceylon to join the local Indian Ocean Fleet!

This process is actually a process of ocean training and cruising.

After arriving in Colombo, Ceylon, the cruiser will be officially incorporated into the administrative management of the Indian Ocean Fleet, and will then be incorporated into the Fourth Fleet to perform combat missions according to orders.

Then the operational deployment begins. Each operational deployment usually lasts about a few months, and it may be eight or nine months at most. For example, when you are assigned to a certain squadron for the first time, you are sent to the Persian Gulf for deployment, and you wait several months or even a year after the deployment is completed.

The warships will return to the local shipyard in Colombo for maintenance and repairs. The officers and soldiers will also take the opportunity to take vacations, arrange for veterans to retire, and accept new recruits.

After the warship maintenance is completed, a new round of adaptability training is carried out. After a period of adaptation training, the warship is assigned to a certain squadron again for the second round of combat deployment, such as patrolling and stationing in the Red Sea area.

After the second or even third round of deployment, it depends on the situation. If the ship is in good condition, then the third round of deployment will be carried out. If the hull is in average condition and needs large-scale repairs or upgrades, it will start to return to the local large-scale comprehensive shipyard. maintenance.

At the same time, this time period is generally when a large number of sailors retire from the army, so a large number of sailors retire from the army, and the team accepts a large number of new recruits for training.

After the warship is repaired in a few months, a new team led by the new officer will board the warship to take over the ship, and then begin several months of adaptability training and recruit training. After the training is completed, a new round of overseas deployment will begin.

This cycle continues until the warship expires and is decommissioned.

The above is the logic of the use of ocean-going battleships in the Da Chu Empire Navy... It does not mean that after building a battleship and assigning it to a certain fleet, it will always serve in this fleet. If you really do this, you want to use it every time. If there are enough warships to be maintained in each region, then the size of the Chu Empire's ocean-going fleet is estimated to have to be doubled to be barely sufficient, and tripled to be relatively smooth... And this is impossible... No, it is not necessary. .

Relatively speaking, local fleets, including river fleets, are responsible for a smaller area, and the ships are generally small and lack the ability to sail on oceans. Therefore, the warships they belong to are often fixed establishments and cannot be easily mobilized!

The South China Sea Fleet that Luo Zhixue is inspecting today is this kind of local fleet. The ships under its jurisdiction are often fixed. At most, some ships are occasionally transferred to temporarily join the combat formation, but they will return to the fleet after the mission is over, and the command relationship will not change. of.

When Luo Zhixue inspected the South China Sea Fleet, he saw that many combat ships were relatively old. Many of them were offshore patrol ships and small frigates that were in service in the early 1930s.

But this is not a special situation. In fact, the ships in the local fleets in the local area are relatively old and their performance is not very good!

The main reason is that there are basically no maritime threats in the local area. Many times, local fleets are engaged in non-military tasks such as smuggling inspections and maritime rescues... Therefore, the performance requirements for ships are not high, and some old ships can be used.

On the contrary, local fleets in some overseas hotspots often have a large number of new warships, and not only offshore ships. Some overseas hotspot local fleets are also equipped with ocean-going warships, such as old frigates that have been replaced by first-line fleets, and even cruiser.

The most typical of these are the several local fleets in Europe, such as the Mediterranean Fleet with its homeport in the southern territories of Italy, the Nordic Fleet with its homeport in the northern territories of Denmark, and the Western European Fleet with its homeport in France.

The strength of these three local fleets in Europe is quite good, and each has a number of ocean-going warships.

Speaking of strength, it is much stronger than the local South China Sea Fleet.

Luo Zhixue also understands this, so he doesn't think that some of the old and shabby people in the South China Sea Fleet he sees are just showing off or wanting to change anything.

If you really want to change it, it will cost a lot of real money... So these local fleets in the mainland should continue to use the old and shabby ones. Anyway, they are not required to participate in any combat missions. They only need to do some coastal patrols and cooperate with taxation. It is enough for the agencies to inspect smuggling and cooperate with the patrol agencies to carry out maritime security tasks.

In the future, Luo Zhixue thinks that we might even simply separate the offshore fleets in these places from the navy, and then establish a semi-military armed law enforcement force such as the Coast Guard.

And merge some offshore combat functions in the local fleets into each fleet... This can also better comply with the advancement of the navy's strategy of using the sea to dominate the land.

Otherwise, if the ocean fleet is to use the sea to control the land, but in fact the offshore and land support tasks are still responsible for the local fleet, this will be a conflict of tasks and duplication of construction.

It's just that this kind of thing involves the adjustment of power within the navy, and also involves many departments such as patrol police, tax agencies, transportation departments, and navigation management. It can't be done even if you want to do it for a while.

It is necessary to spend some time and energy to gradually make personnel adjustments, especially to smooth out the Navy's strategy of using the sea to dominate the land, and then promote the integration of multi-departmental offshore law enforcement agencies, and finally create the Coast Guard.

No one knew that when Luo Zhixue was inspecting the Nanyang Fleet and watching their small ships conduct drills, he was already thinking about reforming the local fleet.

If Luo Zhixue's reform is successful, then this local fleet model may completely withdraw from history in the future and be replaced by a new institution like the Coast Guard.

The new agency will be a militarized comprehensive law enforcement agency with comprehensive tasks such as maritime rescue, maritime law enforcement, border control, port defense during war, offshore patrol, and counter-maritime espionage.

This is also a model often adopted by many countries in later generations...to have better flexibility between military and law enforcement.

But for the Navy...that's a burden.

Because there are no local fleets in name, but in fact they are responsible for a large amount of maritime law enforcement work, such as cooperating with taxation and patrol agencies to combat smuggling and maritime crimes... and these tasks are not essential work for the navy, and no one can do it well. Praise, but if you do something bad, someone will blame you and you will be criticized.

The most disgusting thing is that the money spent is the Navy's own money...

Therefore, the top brass of the Navy thought about throwing these messy ordinary law enforcement tasks and maritime collection tasks out to the civilian system and letting them pay for them themselves.

The navy, on the other hand, concentrates its limited funds and armed personnel on military tasks to better cooperate with the implementation of the strategy of using the sea to control the land.

(End of this chapter)