Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 477 The South American Naval Arms Race

European countries generally regard the commissioning of the Spanish battleship Fearless as the birth of the Fearless, and only 7 years have passed since then.

During those seven years, European countries were building dreadnoughts at a frenzy, with Britain and Spain building them at the most extravagant pace.

Although Spain was the first country in the world to possess dreadnoughts, based on publicly available data from various governments' navies, the United Kingdom has surpassed Spain in this regard, possessing a total of 11 dreadnoughts.

Spain possesses only 10 dreadnoughts, lagging behind Britain in both the number of dreadnoughts and the total tonnage of its navy.

However, this does not mean that the Spanish government was complacent. On the contrary, Spain's construction speed of dreadnoughts was actually no slower than that of the British. It's just that several dreadnoughts were sold to France and Italy, which resulted in Spain officially only having 10 dreadnoughts.

However, the construction of Spain's new generation of dreadnought battleships, the Victorious-class, is actually progressing quite smoothly.

The battleships Vieira and Peace have been completed one after the other. The former is expected to be commissioned early next year, while the latter is expected to join the Spanish Navy around the middle of next year.

In other words, Spain will have 12 dreadnoughts a year from now, including two super dreadnoughts, and its naval strength will not be weaker than that of the British, even though the total tonnage of the British navy is twice that of Spain.

Led by Spain and Britain, a massive naval arms race was underway in Europe. Almost all the major powers were building dreadnoughts, and even some less powerful nations were eyeing these formidable warships.

This brings us to Brazil, the largest country in South America by land area and a former Portuguese colony.

Although Brazil's overall strength is not particularly impressive on a global scale, it can still be considered a regional power in South America.

The Brazilian government had originally ordered conventional battleships, or pre-dreadnoughts, from the British government a few years ago. However, after learning that Britain had the mature capability to build dreadnoughts, they immediately changed their minds and informed the British government that they wished to convert the pre-dreadnoughts originally ordered into dreadnoughts.

Brazil is far away in South America, and even if they acquired dreadnoughts, it would have no impact on the British Empire. More importantly, converting the pre-dreadnoughts ordered by Brazil into dreadnoughts would also be beneficial to the British Navy.

If the refit of the Brazilian warships is a great success, then Britain could also refit its existing pre-dreadnoughts to give them dreadnought-level firepower and propulsion, so that they would not be completely helpless when facing enemy dreadnoughts.

Such modifications certainly have their drawbacks. Increasing the caliber of the cannons and the power unit without increasing the tonnage of the warship results in a warship that looks somewhat out of place, and its armor protection capabilities are definitely not as good as those of a traditional dreadnought.

However, in terms of firepower and speed, they are still comparable to dreadnoughts, so calling these modified warships dreadnoughts is not entirely wrong.

This is why Brazil acquired two Minas Gerais-class battleships this year, instantly elevating its naval strength to the top ten in the world.

Of course, a more accurate description of Brazil's navy as being among the top ten is that it's tenth in the world. Brazil can't compete with countries ranked higher than Brazil, but it can easily overwhelm those ranked lower.

The acquisition of two dreadnoughts is certainly good news for Brazil, but it is not so good news for other South American countries, especially for its main rivals Chile and Argentina.

Upon learning that Brazil had acquired two dreadnoughts, the Chilean Congress quickly passed a resolution allocating £400 million to help the navy build warships.

The main contents of this warship construction order are two dreadnoughts with a displacement of up to 2.8 tons, six destroyers and two submarines.

It goes without saying that Chile's purpose in building its navy is to counterbalance Brazil. Two 2.8-ton dreadnoughts are more than enough to surpass Brazil's Minas Gerais-class battleships, which are essentially modified versions of pre-dreadnoughts and differ from true dreadnoughts.

In order to acquire powerful dreadnoughts to counter Brazil, the Chilean government launched a large-scale tender, inviting renowned naval shipyards from various European countries to provide rough designs, and selecting the most satisfactory design for the shipyard to build.

As one of the top two countries in terms of dreadnought construction, Spain naturally received an invitation from the Chilean Navy.

Several major Spanish shipyards are quite interested in Chile's requirements. Although Chile is demanding the construction of battleships weighing as much as 2.8 tons, they don't have overly demanding requirements for the warships' armor protection, gun caliber, or power units; they only require that they reach the level of dreadnoughts.

If the Spanish shipyard can secure this order, it can earn at least £100 million in net profit. This is no small sum, and even Spanish shipyards would be tempted by such a large amount of money.

Currently, both the Royal Guanizo Shipyard and the Valencia United Shipyard in Spain have the capability to design and build dreadnoughts. Both shipyards participated in the Chilean Navy's tender, and the Royal Guanizo Shipyard ultimately won the contract from the Chilean Navy.

Although the Valencia Union Shipyard was also interested in the order, it was building the Victory-class battleships for the Spanish Navy, and neither the delivery time nor the sophistication of the ship's design could compare with the idle Royal Guanizzo Shipyard.

The Royal Guanizzo Shipyard provided the Chilean Navy with a naval warship design that they couldn't refuse. The two battleships, named Admiral Latorre and Admiral Cochrane respectively by the Chilean government, were based on the Spanish Dreadnought-class battleships, but with a larger and wider overall design, and were equipped with the same 343mm main guns as the Spanish Victorious-class battleships.

Although its firepower was on par with the Spanish Victorious-class battleships, it was not as impressive in terms of armor protection and propulsion.

Since they were building warships for Chile, the Spanish shipyards didn't need to use all their resources; they still needed to keep some of their more advanced technologies hidden.

In terms of armor protection, the armor of Chile's two dreadnoughts is thinner, which is also to accommodate the dreadnoughts' speed.

This improved battleship, with its lengthened and widened design, has a standard displacement of over 2.5 tons and a full-load displacement of nearly 3 tons, making it a true super-giant.

However, because it was modified from the Spanish Dreadnought-class battleships, there were not many improvements in terms of power equipment.

If the armor isn't made as thin as possible, this battleship might not be able to meet the speed requirements of a dreadnought.

Of course, even with its thinner armor, it was still better than the two Brazilian pseudo-dreadnoughts converted from former dreadnoughts. It was precisely because of the reduced armor weight that this battleship, despite its increased size and tonnage, could still maintain a speed of around 22.5 knots, which was quite respectable.

The Chilean Navy is quite satisfied with the battleship designed for them by the Spanish Royal Guanizzo shipyard.

Although this battleship has some deficiencies in armor protection, it is based on a dreadnought and can at least meet the required standards.

More importantly, the battleship designed by the Royal Guarnizo shipyard had a full-load displacement of an astonishing 3 tons.

This level of tonnage was beyond the reach of even Spain's Victory-class battleships. It was this exaggerated tonnage that led the Chilean Navy to ultimately decide to have the Spanish Royal Guanizo Shipyard build the warship after seeing the design.

According to estimates from the Royal Guanizo Shipyard, the cost of building these two battleships is approximately 7000 million pesetas. Adding the cost of building six destroyers and two submarines, the total cost reaches a little over 8000 million pesetas.

After deducting these costs, the Royal Guanizo shipyard earned a net profit of nearly 2000 million pesetas, which is quite good.

Although Chile ordered two dreadnoughts to counter Brazil, the naval arms race in South America is far from over.

Because there is another powerful country in South America, Argentina has not yet taken any action.

As one of the three major powers in South America, Argentina certainly wouldn't lag behind in terms of navy. All three South American powers possess vast coastlines, and a navy is extremely important for nations in this era.

Upon learning that Brazil had acquired two dreadnoughts from the British and that Chile was conducting a global tender for dreadnoughts, the Argentine government could not resist ordering two dreadnoughts from Europe to counter these two countries.

Because of the Spanish-speaking countries' economic alliance, the Argentine government first approached Spain, hoping that Spanish naval shipyards could design a sufficiently excellent warship to counter the naval arms race initiated by Brazil.

This demonstrates the value of Carlo's formation of an economic alliance of Spanish-speaking countries. When these South American countries have needs, they will prioritize Spain, and Spain can exert greater influence over South American countries through such cooperation, gradually bringing these regions under its control.

Spanish shipyards naturally agreed to the Argentine government's request. Even setting aside the good relationship between the two countries, Spain wouldn't refuse an order for warships from a country with a less-than-ideal relationship.

After all, the price of exporting battleships is completely different from that of ordering them by the Spanish Navy itself. Only by selling warships to other countries can Spanish shipyards earn more revenue.

Argentina didn't have such high requirements for battleships. In short, they just wanted genuine dreadnoughts and for them to be commissioned into the Argentine Navy as quickly as possible.

If speed is the priority, Spain built the Dreadnought-class battleships the fastest. Including those built for France and Italy, Spain has so far completed more than ten Dreadnought-class battleships.

If efforts are focused on building battleships for Argentina, the two battleships could be delivered to Argentina in a maximum of two years.

When the Argentine ambassador was shown the basic blueprints of the Dreadnought-class battleship and told that it would only take a maximum of two and a half years to deliver two Dreadnoughts, the ambassador was quickly interested.

There was no way around it; the prospect of acquiring two brand-new dreadnoughts in just two and a half years was simply too tempting. Moreover, the dreadnought-class battleships built by Spain had already proven their combat prowess in previous naval battles against the British Royal Fleet.

The Dreadnought-class battleships could even defeat the Royal Navy of the British Empire, so dealing with the fleets of Brazil and Chile would be a piece of cake.

The Argentine ambassador was quite satisfied with this, and Argentina did not even haggle much over the price of the warships before agreeing to the Spanish shipyard's request.

As a result, Spain sold two more Dreadnought-class battleships to Argentina for 45 million pesetas each.

The two governments agreed that Spain would deliver two Dreadnought-class battleships to Argentina by July 1912.

The delivery date must not be delayed until 1913 at the latest, and for every month of delay, 1% of Argentina's total purchase price for the ships must be reduced as compensation.

To Carlo's surprise, the historically significant South American naval arms race ultimately benefited Spain.

However, it's understandable when you think about it, since the two countries in the South American naval arms race, Chile and Argentina, were both once Spanish colonies.

After the establishment of the Spanish-speaking countries' economic alliance, Chile and Argentina will definitely lean towards Spain.

Although Chile also has British support, Brazil's battleships were originally built by Britain, so the Chilean government certainly has some doubts about the British government.

In any case, Spain benefited from this South American naval arms race. The four battleships built for Chile and Argentina will ensure that the Royal Guaño shipyard in Spain will have enough profit to sustain it for years to come.

More importantly, while the Valencia United Shipyard is fully engaged in building the Victory-class battleships, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard will not be idle. In the future, Spain will still have two shipyards capable of building dreadnoughts, and can build at least two battleships every year.

The four battleships built for Chile and Argentina will, to some extent, bring Spain and the two South American countries closer together.

While this is not enough to completely replace the British behind Chile, it will strengthen Spain's influence over South American countries and cause some trouble for the British.

(End of this chapter)