The order for submarines and torpedoes was placed, and the Admiralty wanted to place an order for the aircraft, unlike submarines, before the return, the real role of submarines could not be seen, and the reconnaissance planes were placed in the suburbs of Berlin, but before that, because of various relationships, they did not notice the huge role of reconnaissance planes, and occasionally when they took off, they noticed that they were only toys for enthusiasts, which Germany has, and there are quite a few, but the military use is quite limited.

But when Herbert carefully explained the role of the reconnaissance plane, even the German Army was alarmed, and they realized how powerful the things they had always despised were. Reconnaissance is very important for any operation, whether it is the army or the navy, know where the enemy is, know the basic number of the enemy, and even the tactics used, so that it is natural to be in an advantageous position in the war, of course, naval warfare can only get a little advantage, but in land warfare, when any movement of the opponent, the strength is under your control, then it is really the same as Sun Tzu's Art of War, knowing oneself and knowing the enemy, and a hundred battles will not be defeated.

Germany also has reconnaissance planes, which are a little faster than take-off boats, and the cost is a little lower, but people are damned than people, and goods should be thrown away, and this kind of aircraft that is still at the level of enthusiasts, compared with China's second-generation, all-metal, and powered aircraft, it is not a little bit worse, almost a gap of more than ten years, and China is also extremely good at professional optical reconnaissance equipment, not only has telescopes and other equipment, but also reconnaissance cameras, which can shoot down all the detected things at a certain ratefor careful comparison at the rear.

In the era of airships, even the first generation of aircraft, they did not have such a function, only more than 100 kilometers of range, at most with the naked eye to reconnoitre, really take a picture back, there is no effect, because you shoot back things, when you want to study, the enemy has already come to the door, but for a range of more than 2000 kilometers, covering a radius of 1000 kilometers for reconnaissance aircraft, it is very necessary, Germany for a short period of reconnaissance, this point, without a reconnaissance aircraft, For long-term and strategic reconnaissance, it is very necessary to use reconnaissance aircraft.

You know, the American army will not land directly in Europe, they will train in Britain for a period of time before they land, and there are major British factories, docks, and even military ports, long-term monitoring, will allow the intelligence department to analyze a lot of things, at least, now the German airship occupies the absolute upper hand, but to bomb the other party's important targets, it is indispensable to self-sustain on the ground, After the start of the European war, Germany had at least 150 intelligence officers, who were exposed because of this, and they also played a considerable role, but after the reconnaissance plane, such a situation would be reduced, or even not appear, which was a great thing for Germany.

After the airship is equipped with a bomb targeting system, it can produce a relatively strong attack on the ground, but even if Germany has an advantage in the airship, it does not use the airship too much, at most it is used on the front line in Bordeaux, but because the anti-aircraft machine gun is getting more and more powerful, the effect is getting smaller and smaller.

However, if there are reconnaissance planes, airships can play an important role, knowing what the main locations below are, especially the British Isles, knowing the location of barracks, arsenals, strategic factories, and even shipyards.

After his performance was confirmed, the reconnaissance aircraft was on the list of orders, and even before the submarine, the submarine had the most influence on breaking the diplomatic relationship, and perhaps in the decisive battle of the capital ship, it also had a little role, but there was nothing else, but the use of the reconnaissance aircraft could be as wide as the army, navy, and even strikes on the rear of the Entente, which was higher than that of submarines.

However, after reading the quotation, even Moltke Jr., who mainly obtains the reconnaissance plane, does not dare to say big things, this price is really a little too high, even if Moltke Jr. because of the appearance of submarines, on the premise that the price of China's elite weapons is at the bottom, they also have concerns about the price of reconnaissance aircraft, you know, now the average ordinary hobbyist plane, but only about 500-1500 US dollars. The dollar of this era is not the future generation, it has depreciated sharply, only the dollar of paper and credit value, and the dollar of this era is called the existence of the dollar, 20 US dollars an ounce of gold, which has kept the currencies of the great powers stable for a long time.

500 US dollars is not less, but compared to an airplane, it is still too little, the price of Ford's entry-level car is also about 400 US dollars, the plane is at least higher than the car, but the aircraft of this era, there is no professional engine, except for China, are modified with car engines, among them, the Ford engine is the focus, the reason is that Ford is cheap, a Ford engine does not exceed 150 US dollars, plus other components, many enthusiasts themselves are engineers, Being able to use a machine tool to process something, when the added stuff is cheap enough, the whole plane is quite cheap.

Cheap on the other side also represents the lack of quality, the power of Ford's engine is only a few tens of horsepower, such an engine, even if it barely makes the plane very sky, and how much effect, China's reconnaissance aircraft, but not so cheap at first glance, and ordinary enthusiast planes are almost the same, but that is only the surface, that is just camouflage, the volume of the real reconnaissance aircraft is quite huge, at least more than 5 times that of the enthusiast aircraft, only in this way, can accommodate so many people, to be able to have such a huge range.

In the eyes of the Germans, the price of this thing is one or two thousand dollars, but when the Chinese side quoted it, it was shocked, 150,000 dollars a piece.

This is also too expensive, Germany was originally going to buy 500 planes, anyway, it didn't cost much money to equip the army and navy, but this is comparable to the price of submarines in the past, it is comparable to half an aircraft, and it is really beyond imagination. China is not casually bidding, they analyze it a little, and the German side understands that aluminum alloy, this thing is still unique in the current world, and other powers in the world have not yet focused on the field of air force, at most in terms of weight reduction of capital ships such as battleships, aluminum alloy will be used, but the utilization rate is not very high, this thing is a unique technology in China.

After saying a few parameters, the German side did not speak, and in such talks, naturally, there were price experts and scholars, who quickly analyzed the value of aluminum alloys from the middle. As a heavier than air aircraft, no little weight, it is very critical for the aircraft, enthusiast aircraft, in order to reduce the weight, mostly used wood, or other light materials, this material is light enough, but the strength is not enough, let alone combat, in the high-speed operation or the premise of a little wind, it will fall apart.

Aluminum alloy perfectly solves this problem, not only light weight, but also close to steel, so that the weight is guaranteed, but also the strength, at least this thing will not fall apart in the air.

The most critical thing for the aircraft is power, in the German flight enthusiasts, and then use a dozen horsepower Ford engine, China has entered the 1000 horsepower, this reconnaissance aircraft, the use of not China's highest 2800 horsepower star engine, but the use of 1200 horsepower engine, after the technology leading, although not the largest engine, but the weight of the engine, the size has been quite reduced, thrust-to-weight ratio has been further increased.

After seeing the engine figures, all the German experts, not in the field of power, stopped talking, before they doubted that the power of China's aircraft is extremely good, because if you still use 100, or even 500 horsepower engines, no matter how much you improve, it is impossible to make the aircraft fly so fast, fly so far, especially in the take-off weight, enthusiast aircraft, still stay in a person, even the pilot in the weight, when it still needs to be limited, The reconnaissance plane can already carry three or four people, and the weight of all kinds of specialized equipment is very large, so it is simply impossible to do without enough power.

I have always been unable to figure out why the Chinese reconnaissance aircraft is so powerful German experts, after seeing the power of the engine, have already understood, the experts have recognized the price of the aircraft, 20 horsepower Ford engine, their price is below 150 dollars, what is the price of a 500 horsepower engine, this is not 100 times as simple, the price of 50,000 US dollars should be OK, horizontal comparison of the same horsepower marine engine, not much less than this.

The power system, which occupies one-third of the price of a battleship, costs more than 7 million for about 30,000 horsepower, and one-20th is as high as 350,000, although this requires various arrangements such as steam turbines and fuel oil units, but this thing, if it is loaded on a ship, it is not impossible.

From this reconnaissance plane, Germany saw more things, and experts began to ask for more power things, but unfortunately, because of the telegraph, what China was able to give was some basic characteristics and technical parameters, which made the German side very helpless, but there was a problem solved, that is, although Germany felt that the reconnaissance plane was too expensive, it still had to pinch its nose and approve the price of this reconnaissance plane. (To be continued.) )