The situation in Brazil has been changing for more than ten years. Many countries, including the United States, had no time to react, and Brazil completed the regime change.
The ubiquitous influence of Southern Africa is vividly demonstrated in this process.
With a land area of 8.5149 million square kilometers and a population of more than 50 million, Brazil is not a small country that can be manipulated by anyone.
What's more, there are Americans who are watching eagerly. Southern Africa can complete all this in just one week. In addition to its extremely strong execution power, it must also be thanked for the ongoing world war.
Although the United States wants to restore its influence on Brazil, after all, things have priorities. At present, Europe is obviously more important to the United States, so the Americans have not gone all out to let Southern Africa deal with it calmly.
When the Americans realized that the situation was not good and everything was irreversible, Jack Milton took the American merchant ship "Dream" and left Rio on the day Carlos was elected President of Brazil.
Martinelli resigned sadly and went to Chile to stay away from worldly affairs.
On the day Vargas was "hospitalized due to illness", Rafinha summoned Brazilian military officers and called for protection of the new Brazilian government.
But it is a pity that Raphinha does not have enough appeal, and his control over the army is not as strong as it seems. Except for Raphinha's adjutant, no one is willing to obey Raphinha's orders.
Rafinha eventually died in the office and the cause of death was suicide.
The first thing Carlos did after taking office as the new president was to restore the 1934 Constitution, repeal a series of totalitarian decrees promulgated during Getulio Vargas's tenure as president, lower taxes, improve military benefits, and implement universal compulsory education. Including indigenous populations, and also announced that it would no longer send additional troops to Europe and maintain the current size of the army.
Through this combination of punches, Carlos quickly stabilized the situation and won the support of the Brazilian Congress and the army, as well as the Brazilian people.
These decrees were promulgated after discussions between Vargas, Van Bao, and Hilario.
Carlos also contacted Pretoria in advance about not sending more troops to Europe. Only after getting Pretoria's consent did Carlos announce it to the public.
Brazil currently has about 110,000 troops in Europe, most of which are deployed in the UK and Spain. With the United States joining the war, the tension in the Allied forces has been greatly eased, and it is no longer important whether Brazil sends additional troops.
The Americans have indeed spent a lot of money. In the battlefields of East Asia and Europe, the United States has deployed about 2.1 million troops, and more than 4 million troops are being trained in the country. By the end of the year, in Europe alone, the number of troops deployed by the United States will exceed 2 million. , this number has exceeded that of southern Africa.
The Southern African Expeditionary Force in Europe has a total strength of only 1.6 million so far, and the remaining 1.4 million are Southern African Union troops.
Roque did not pay much attention to Brazil and left the matter to Gavin as a test for Gavin.
Rock was quite satisfied with the answer sheet Gavin handed over. He didn't take it to heart. His main focus was still on Russia.
In September just past, after two months of bloody fighting, the Battle of Kursk finally came to an end.
Both Russia and Germany claimed victory in the Battle of Kursk.
Germany lost 500,000 men, 1,500 tanks, 5,200 artillery pieces, and 1,000 fighter planes.
Russia lost 800,000 men, 6,000 tanks, 3,000 artillery pieces, and 1,600 fighter planes.
From a purely numerical perspective, Russia suffered greater losses.
However, the German army had fewer troops. After this battle, it basically lost the ability to take the initiative to attack. Russia has seized the initiative in the war.
After the Battle of Kursk, the German army shifted from strategic offensive to strategic defense, the Russians began to counterattack across the board, and the Allied forces in North Africa really began to consider opening a second battlefield in Europe.
The second battlefield here does not refer to Greece or Italy, but to the French territory on the Atlantic coast, or the German ports, areas closer to the heart of Germany, so as to deliver a fatal blow to the Germans.
Regarding the opening of the second battlefield, there has been constant controversy since last year.
In the past year, the Southern African Expeditionary Force, which could not be restrained, launched a separate campaign in Greece, and the British and American coalition forces also organized a campaign in Sicily. Although the processes of the two campaigns were different, the results were satisfactory. Not only was the Greek territory recovered, but also the Sicilian campaign was launched.
It successfully weakened Italy's strength, especially the surrender of the Italian Navy, which completely removed the Axis powers' ability to operate in the Mediterranean.
Shortly after the Italian Navy arrived in Malta, it was sent to Cyprus. The two surviving "Veneto" were divided between Southern Africa and the United Kingdom. Southern Africa received the intact "Veneto", and the United Kingdom received the seriously injured "Italy"
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The British Navy has no shortage of battleships, and the performance of the "Italy" is not outstanding for the Royal Navy. Considering that it will cost a lot to repair the "Italy", the Royal Navy changed hands and sold the "Italy" to
Southern African Navy, the price is only R1.5 million.
This price cannot be said to be half sale and half free, it can only be said to be a bargain sale at a bargain price.
Italy built the "Veneto" class battleship with a budgeted cost of 480 million lire per ship. During the construction process, the budget was continuously increased, and when it was finally completed, the cost of a single ship was close to 800 million lire.
With reference to the exchange rate at the time, 800 million lira was equivalent to approximately 8 million pounds.
The cost of each "Nelson" built in the UK is only 7.5 million.
The main gun caliber of the "Nelson" is 406 mm.
So it is normal for the British to look down on the "Italy".
The Southern African navy was overjoyed.
Not counting the local fleet, nor the four overseas squadrons, the two major fleets in the Southern African Atlantic and Indian Ocean, there are still four "Normandy" ships to support the facade. If there is only one "Veneto", it will be difficult to allocate. If there are two ships, then
Just one ship per fleet, four "Normandies" were sent to four squadrons, so that at least every fleet had a battleship as its flagship.
Although the damage to the "Italia" is serious, it is actually not difficult to repair it. It does not even need to be sent back to southern Africa, it can be done in Cyprus.
As soon as the "Veneto" and the "Italia" arrived in Cyprus, Mike Tolan went to the port to enjoy his time.
Go back and ask Arthur for money.
"With the strength of the Cyprus Squadron, isn't it worthy of a 'Veneto' class battleship?" Mike Tolan was very angry. Although the fleet he led was still named "Squadron", its actual strength was
It is already quite powerful, and the number of aircraft carriers has reached four.
Only one of these four aircraft carriers is a true fleet aircraft carrier, and the remaining three are escort aircraft carriers.
However, the escort carriers in Southern Africa are also quite powerful, carrying about 70 aircraft, which is not at the same level as those escort carriers in the United States that only carry 20 or 30 aircraft.
The total number of military ships in the Cyprus Squadron has reached nearly 200, and most of them are new warships built in the past ten years. In terms of fleet strength alone, in the last world war, it was second only to the British.
The United States, Japan, and Germany were all more powerful than southern Africa at that time.
So Mike Tolan was having a hard time.
It's not that southern Africa has no ability to build battleships, nor does it have no demand.
However, the Ministry of National Defense in Southern Africa is picking and searching like rags. First it acquired a few "Normandies" that the French wanted to scrap, and now it snatched two "Venetos" from the Italians that the British disdained. This is simply not true.
It does not conform to the national strength of Southern Africa, nor does it conform to the national image of Southern Africa.
"A mascot worth tens of millions? This is too expensive." Arthur, like Rock, is a thorough pragmatist.
In terms of strength, the Fifth Army, which has more than 500,000 troops, is no less powerful than a medium-sized country. Except for a few major countries, all other countries' armies combined are less than 500,000.
Under such circumstances, it was not easy for Arthur to still be his Viscount of Cyprus with peace of mind.
Faced with the temptation of power, few people can be calm and know how to advance or retreat.
"It's not a question of whether it's expensive or not. Battleships are a symbol of a country's naval strength. Most of the time, we don't need to declare war. We only need to send battleships to the ports of hostile countries, and the enemies will cease." Mike Tolan lamented.
It is not that we hope to build new battleships, but that we can allocate a more powerful "Veneto".
Now that it is clear that battleships are about to be eliminated, if Mike Tolan suggested building battleships, it would be better to just retire them.
The four "Normandies" in southern Africa are all grandfather-class battleships thirty years ago. Although they are still in service, they are actually no longer undertaking combat missions because they are too slow and cannot accompany the fleet operations. They have to be deployed every year.
It wastes precious funds on maintenance and upgrades weapons every few years. Some people in the Southern African Army have long proposed to simply retire the "Normandy" so as not to keep it as an eyesore.
After many upgrades, the average speed of the Southern African Fleet has long reached about 25 knots, and the fastest destroyer has reached 38 knots. The "Normandy" is moving at full speed, and it probably cannot catch up with the slowest destroyer in the fleet.
Supply ship.
Under this situation, the four "Normandy"s stayed in the berths of the military port most of the time, and were only pulled out for a spin during major holidays.
Even so, Patton and An Qi unanimously chose to use the battleship as their flagship.
This fully demonstrates the deep-rooted status of battleships in the navy.
After getting two "Veneto", the Cyprus Squadron will definitely get a "Normandy".
Regardless of Mike Tolan's various dislikes now, when the time comes, he will probably be dissatisfied with integrity and will regard "Normandy" as his flagship.
This would have been a good thing.
But when he thought that Cunningham next door had six battleships, Mike Tolan's mentality was completely unbalanced.
However, Mike Toland did not want to think about it. Although the British Mediterranean Fleet was equipped with six battleships, it only had two aircraft carriers, and the aircraft carrying capacity was far less than the aircraft carriers equipped by the Cyprus Squadron.
Looking at it this way, the strength of the Cyprus Squadron is still stronger than that of the Mediterranean Fleet.
"Don't think about it. There is no room for battleships in the future battlefield." If possible, Arthur wouldn't even want an aircraft carrier, only cruisers and destroyers would be enough.
For southern Africa, battleships can play the same role as cruisers.
This does not require heavy cruisers, ordinary light cruisers can play the same role as battleships.
What Mike Tolan means is that the main role of battleships is deterrence.
Then the question arises. If it is just for deterrence, there is no need to dispatch battleships at all. Even if it is just an unarmed merchant ship, as long as it flies the flag of Southern Africa, it will be enough to act as a deterrent to some criminals with ulterior motives.
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For really serious enemies, such as the United States, battleships cannot act as a deterrent at all. They have more battleships, larger displacements, and larger and larger main guns.
For countries like Greece, ordinary southern Africans can travel from south to north without any hindrance with a southern African passport without facing any difficulties at all.
What Arthur didn't say was.
Mike Tolan is not young now, and he will probably retire after the end of the world war, so why bother? Even if he goes to the battleship, he is still making a wedding dress for the next fleet commander.
What Arthur didn't expect was that the "Italy" had just arrived on the slipway and had not yet started repairs.
Over there, an Italian naval officer who was unwilling to be humiliated committed suicide. His suicide note clearly stated that he would live and die with the fleet.
Damn, this is also a navy tradition.
However, if the naval tradition is applied here, the Southern African navy will suddenly be in trouble.
It doesn't matter if we seize the warship, the Italians can't keep it anyway, and if we don't seize Southern Africa, the British and Americans won't let it go.
Pushing people to death is too ugly, and the consequences will be endless. If the news media adds fuel to the fire, it will arouse Italians' hatred of southern Africa.
"There were no less than ten wine bottles thrown into Colonel Victor's room. He had drunk a lot of wine in the officers' club. After returning to the room, he drank until dawn. We are identifying the handwriting on the suicide note and examining the body at the same time.
An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death." Freddy, the director of Queen's Hospital in Cape East, could not determine the cause of death. There were many accidents among Italian sailors during this period. After arriving in Cyprus, more than ten people died due to various accidents.
The discipline of the Italian army was disorganized, and the navy was not much better than the army, and the situation was even worse.
Problems with drinking and gambling, as well as trousers and belts, were particularly serious in the Italian Navy.
Italian men are amazing. They have a mouth that is useless unless they compliment women. They will court women anytime and anywhere.
But among European men, Italian men are pretty good-looking, with sharp edges and bright faces, which gives people the illusion that all Italians are tough guys.
Just a week ago, after two groups of Italian sailors drank too much, a conflict broke out in a hotel next to the pier. Four Italian sailors died on the spot, and a more seriously injured sailor died in the hospital the next day.
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Five days ago, an Italian sailor slipped and fell into the water while drunk. Another sailor went into the water to rescue him. Their bodies were not found until two days later.
