Chapter 688 Heir to the Throne

Arthur was still very interested in the automatic rifle developed by Browning, and even watched the actual test of the BLN-28 rifle in person.

For the convenience of the later stage, this rifle was designed with the same rifle ammunition as the Lee Enfield, with a caliber of about 303 inches, that is, 7 mm caliber ammunition.

The use of this ammunition gives the Lee Enfield rifle a good lethality, which can play an unexpected role in trench warfare.

The actual test limit speed of the Lee Enfield rifle is about 30 rounds per minute, which is almost the limit of the current semi-automatic rifle.

You know, the Lee Enfield magazine only has a capacity of ten rounds, which also means that it is quite difficult to empty three magazines in one minute.

This is why Arthur said that the firepower of the Lee Enfield rifle is enough, and no country can afford to consume more weapons and ammunition.

Although the fully automatic rifle looks more attractive, even the test version of the BLN28 automatic rifle can fire more than 60 rounds per minute.

But this also means that the consumption of ammunition in the war has doubled, which is a huge test for logistics and national finances.

Although fully automatic rifles can also effectively improve the firepower of the troops, a large part of this firepower is redundant and has little impact on actual combat.

If firepower is really needed, it is better to continue to increase the number and power of light machine guns and artillery, which is the real way to effectively improve firepower.

Although Arthur has no idea of ​​equipping fully automatic rifles on a large scale, the current BLN28 automatic rifle still has a great role.

After the rifle test, Arthur expressed the idea of ​​forming a new army to several generals in the Ministry of Defense, and said that the new army would be named "Royal Commando".

In a monarchy like Australasia, anything with the word "Royal" has extraordinary significance.

Without Arthur saying much, these generals were instantly interested in the Royal Commando to be established, and many generals even asked Arthur to appoint them as the commanders of the Royal Commando.

But it is obvious that as an excellent special forces in Arthur's mind, the commander of the Royal Commando is also destined to undergo strict selection.

Even if it is just an ordinary member, he must be carefully selected from the hundreds of thousands of troops in Australasia, at least one in a thousand.

Yes, regarding the size of the Royal Commando, Arthur did not plan to train too much for the time being, but just built a framework first and explored specialized training.

This also led to the number of members of the first batch of Royal Commando being limited to about 200, and they were selected from all soldiers in the army, including regular troops and guards.

Arthur even regretted revealing the plan to form a special force to the generals of the army in advance.

During this period, many people have recommended themselves just to become the commander of the first special force in Australasia.

Helplessly, Arthur could only announce some other news to attract attention and prevent the news of the formation of the first special force in Australasia from leaking out.

This news is about the research on artillery. World War I was the era of giant cannons. A large number of giant cannons were born in World War I, and the caliber even exceeded 400 mm.

Such a huge cannon is extremely wasteful to use in land warfare, and the large caliber also represents a huge volume and weight, which is very difficult to transport.

After the end of World War I, the artillery research in Australasia was basically focused on 127 mm and below. Although this has repeatedly made breakthroughs in the technology of small-caliber artillery, there is indeed not much progress in medium and large-caliber artillery.

In order to change this situation, under Arthur's order, the Royal Arsenal also developed a new generation of M1928-150 mm howitzers and CA1928 105 mm semi-automatic artillery to enrich the artillery system of Australasia.

First of all, the M1928-150 mm howitzer is a masterpiece of another munitions factory controlled by Arthur, called the Melbourne Joint Arsenal.

The capital of this munitions factory is controlled by multiple people on the surface, but in fact it is fully controlled by the royal consortium.

With the capital support of the royal consortium, the Melbourne Joint Arsenal has developed into the largest "private" munitions factory in Australasia, with its main business including the research and development and manufacturing of artillery and firearms.

The code name M1928 is actually very easy to understand. M stands for model, which means standard model. The code name of this artillery means the standard 150mm howitzer developed in 1928.

Through the news from the Melbourne Joint Arsenal, we can actually see Arthur's idea of ​​supporting other military enterprises.

Although the Royal Arsenal is getting bigger and bigger, it is good news, but Australasia cannot have only one large military enterprise.

It is a good thing to have competition in the development of weapons. Only inward-looking enterprises can exert the greatest passion and motivation, and they can also have more ideas when developing weapons.

More importantly, from a strategic perspective, it is more difficult to infiltrate multiple large military enterprises, at least the enemy's intelligence work will become much more difficult.

The 150mm artillery basically meets Arthur's ideas. Although the transportation conditions in World War II have improved a lot compared to World War I, the transportation of 150mm artillery is still too difficult.

Most of the wars in Australasia are going to Europe or other regions, so it is even more impossible to have too much expectation for logistics.

The CA1928 105mm semi-automatic artillery, its predecessor is actually the GA1 jointly developed by Australasia and Germany

This is a large-caliber semi-automatic artillery developed by Germany and Australasia based on the M1897 artillery, which is generally quite successful.

But after all, it is a product from more than 20 years ago. The CA1928 105mm semi-automatic artillery is basically a new product improved by the Royal Ordnance Factory.

If nothing unexpected happens, the artillery that the Australasia army will be equipped with in large quantities in the next large-scale war should be the CA1928 105mm semi-automatic artillery, the M1928-150mm howitzer, the M1922-75mm semi-automatic artillery and the CA-2-27mm anti-aircraft gun.

The first three types of artillery are used to suppress the enemy's firepower, while the anti-aircraft gun is specifically used to fight against the enemy's aircraft.

In addition, Australasia's light and heavy machine guns can also be improved into anti-aircraft machine guns, which can be regarded as having a certain anti-aircraft firepower.

After all, real air defense depends on one's own aircraft, and having air superiority in a certain area is the real hard truth.

Compared with shooting down aircraft with artillery and machine guns, Arthur obviously hopes to directly destroy enemy aircraft with aircraft and obtain complete and thorough air superiority.

As expected, once the news of the two artillery pieces was announced, it immediately caused a scramble among various army units.

Because the number of troops has increased significantly, artillery equipment cannot be equipped to all troops at once.

In addition to the original few divisions, the new army must have a fight for these weapons and equipment.

Under the condition of similar training, whichever side has more new weapons and equipment will definitely have stronger combat effectiveness.

As for the candidate for the Royal Commander of the Special Forces, Arthur has not made a good choice yet.

After thinking about it, Arthur still thinks that former Prime Minister Kent is more suitable. But Kent's political career is much longer than his military career, but this does not mean that Kent's military talent is weak.

As Australia's first Minister of Defense, Kent himself graduated from a military academy, but he also frequently studied in various universities, and he is considered a more versatile talent.

Arthur is more relieved to temporarily hand over the special forces to Kent for training and management.

Wait until there is a more suitable candidate in the future before replacing him. Anyway, Arthur is also groping forward in training special forces, so it is better to let Kent, who graduated from a military academy, give it a try.

After all, before the Royal Commando formally trains, what needs to be done is to select the most suitable special soldiers from hundreds of thousands of troops in the army.

To select only 200 people from hundreds of thousands, how to make a fair selection, to select the most potential and powerful soldiers, this is the biggest test for Kent.

Arthur will definitely not provoke a war before the British take action, which also makes Arthur quickly focus on domestic development.

In the absence of war, what Arthur must do is to carry out various constructions in Australasia to make the country's potential and comprehensive strength go to a higher level, and then there will be more capital.

In fact, according to reason, the sixth cabinet government should have ended its term in the middle of last year, and the seventh cabinet government has already arrived.

However, due to the economic crisis, Arthur naturally announced a one-year extension, which delayed the cabinet election to this year.

The economy has completely improved this year, which also allowed this year's cabinet election to be held smoothly.

Arthur is also looking forward to the birth of the seventh cabinet government. Each change of the cabinet government also represents a further development of Australasia.

The efforts of six cabinet governments have created the current Australasia, and Arthur has also witnessed the development and growth of Australasia in these six cabinet governments.

Borrowing the words of foreign media to evaluate Arthur's status in Australasia: "He created and witnessed the development of this country. In the eyes of those people, he is the whole country."

This sentence is not an exaggeration at all, and it is also the best language to describe Arthur's status in Australasia.

It is precisely because of Arthur's deliberate influence that Arthur himself and this country are completely bound together.

Arthur represents this country, which is the real reason why the current royal status is so stable.

But in other words, because the royal family and the country are highly tied together, Arthur himself, including the entire royal family, and the country are in the same boat.

In terms of Arthur's personal prestige and status, even without the royal consortium and those armies, no one can compete with Arthur from a purely political perspective.

Arthur's status in Australasia has surpassed Queen Victoria's status in the UK, and Australasia is willing to fight for Arthur, even at the cost of their lives.

Although the cabinet election is held in May and June, the whole of Australasia has become lively since April.

The government election system has changed again and again, and Arthur has been trying to find the most suitable election method for Australasia.

The current election method is not much different from the previous one. Each member of the House of Representatives can nominate candidates for various cabinet positions, and the one with the highest votes will get the final cabinet position.

However, the election of the prime minister can only be contested among the members of the previous cabinet and candidates from various parties (with more than 5 seats in the House of Representatives), which increases the difficulty of the prime minister election.

As for the previous rule that the prime minister was nominated by Arthur for election, such election rules undoubtedly weakened Arthur's power.

However, this is what Arthur is happy to see, and he began to weaken the royal power in advance in some places.

Although so far, the training of several princes has been very smooth. William, the first heir to the throne in name, has shown good talent and was even recognized by Arthur as a good ruler.

But this cannot hinder Arthur's pace of weakening the royal power, which must be completed before Arthur abdicates.

Compared with Arthur's limited and purposeful weakening of the royal power, if the next ruler is allowed to weaken the royal power, it is likely to be forced.

At that time, Australasia will be like the Netherlands when the constitutional monarchy was established. The monarch will lose power overnight, and almost lose most of his rights.

Instead of this, it is better for Arthur to weaken the royal power in advance and limit the king's power to a controllable range.

If the future monarch is capable and prestigious, he can completely rely on the system established by Arthur to obtain higher rights.

If the future monarch is not very capable, his royal power will be greatly restricted, and he will be a constitutional monarchy king in peace and stability.

In this way, it will be possible to make wise monarchs gain power, make mediocre monarchs lose power, and make the status of the royal family more stable.

Judging from the framework and foundation left by Arthur to future monarchs, it is no problem for Australasia to become one of the great powers and spend hundreds of years in peace and stability.

Without competing for the world hegemony, the Australasia royal family will also be safe and stable.

As for what will happen hundreds of years later, Arthur cannot predict it, and naturally it is impossible to prepare for hundreds of years in advance.

But in other words, hundreds of years of rule are enough, after all, the future monarchs and Arthur don’t have much blood relationship hundreds of years later.

At least for Arthur at present, how to deal with several adult children is the most important issue.

William and Anna were both born in 1909 and are now over 18 years old, which is definitely the standard of adulthood.

Arthur has not yet decided on the division of titles between William and Anna. It is indeed a headache to create what kind of titles.

Fortunately, he did not give titles to several sons at once, at least there is a certain amount of time for planning and preparation.

Arthur is still very confident in William's ability. The next king of Australasia is basically William.

It is also decided to create a title exclusively for the heir to the throne, just like the Prince of Wales in the United Kingdom.

The crown prince automatically obtains this title, which also represents the crown prince and is specifically used to designate the next heir to the country.

This is the only update today. Please take a leave. Sorry!

Let me explain. My second uncle has passed away. As a nephew, the author has been very busy these days. I have to send him to the mountain tomorrow.