Chapter 185: The Balkan Wars Begin
To say that Germany had made preparations that would astonish their rival powers on the global stage would be the most severe understatement of the century. After extensive testing and trial by error, the Type XXI U-Boat was finally launched.
Or should I say it was an improved variation of the world's first submarine designed to primarily operate underwater? The first of the months following the completion of the mechanical computerized targeting system, which was arguably the hardest part of the U- Boat to develop.
With the submarine's hull being manufactured via pre-fabricated sections, Bruno had managed to streamline the process to where it took a mere 90 days on average to fully commission a single U-Boat. And considering his shipyards in Danzig and Hamburg were capable of producing multiple submarines at once, this meant that every three months, the German Navy received a dozen or so U-Boats per shipyard.
At most, Bruno's shipyards could produce roughly fifty U-Boats a year. Due to Germany's limited coastline, he only had two shipyards, albeit they were significant in size and scale. So much so that each shipyard could produce a dozen U-Boats every three months and half a dozen destroyers every five months.
In addition to this, Bruno's other factories were manufacturing every component that went into these vessels, including munitions and targeting computers. These targeting computers could also be retrofitted onto existing warships of any size and scale.
The reason Bruno had focused on U-Boats and destroyers was twofold: one, he had to start shipyards from scratch, which was a years-long process in and of itself; two, there were only so many vessels he could build in a single year.
When it came to winning the war, protecting maritime trade, and destroying rival merchant ships on the high seas was an easy route to victory, especially if he could freely attack enemy shipping and protect his own with relative impunity.
Sure, such vessels could also be employed in fleet battles to great effect, but at the end of the day, it was a matter of perspective. Perhaps if his family had already been invested in naval endeavors when he was born, producing more state-of-the-art battleships and cruisers would be a route to victory.
But ultimately, he had come from an army family, and because of this, Bruno had limited time and resources to establish the best naval assets he could, hence why he had gone for U- Boats and destroyers.
Speaking of the new destroyers, they had already launched several of such ships. And while they were decades more advanced than their rivals on the sea, such vessels were small and overlooked by the enemy, as in this era, the dreadnought was the most prestigious vessel.