Year-End

In the end, the shipbuilding plan, which included two battleships and nine aircraft carriers, was approved.

After all, 50 million Australian dollars was not a major expense for the current government, and with the payments spread over two or three years, it amounted to even less.

If it could further strengthen the nation's navy, it was absolutely a worthwhile deal, and the Cabinet Ministers were not unreasonable people.

What Minister Melun had been worried about was funding cuts to his Public Security Department. But after Arthur stated that the funds for the shipbuilding would be drawn directly from the treasury rather than diverted from other departments' budgets, Minister Melun no longer opposed the plan.

With the addition of two battleships and nine aircraft carriers, Australasia's naval strength could climb another step, reaching the level of the world's third naval power, behind only Britain and the United States.

Of course, compared to the other naval powers, Australasia's naval composition appeared rather extreme. Aircraft carriers were its true mainline warships, while battleships had fallen to a secondary position in both status and numbers.

Although this might seem strange, the navies of other countries were still primarily focused on building battleships. Aircraft carriers, designs converted from battleships and destroyers, served only as auxiliaries.

But once one had seen Australasia's advanced aircraft designs, it was easy to understand the reasoning behind using aircraft carriers as the mainline warships.

With the aircraft-carrier technology Australasia currently possessed, especially when combined with radar, it was already capable of completely overpowering battleships.

A battleship's attack range was the range of its main guns, while an aircraft carrier's attack range was the flight distance of the aircraft it carried.

Radar could also ensure that an aircraft carrier detected a battleship before entering the battleship's attack range. This technological gap