Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 134: Temporary Technical Training Classes

The Spanish Army reform is good news for the vast majority.

The existing officers have gained broader promotion channels, and those 11 division commander positions will also become targets eagerly contested by Spanish senior officers.

Fortunately, Carlo has little real power in the army, otherwise Carlo would have no good days during this period.

After all, there are only 11 senior officer positions in the entire Spain. How to become a future Spanish division commander will probably give these officers a headache for a long time.

Below the division commanders, with the army’s expansion, there are also a large number of regimental commander and battalion commander vacancies. Including Andrew and Camann whom Carlo promoted before, as well as those officers who graduated from the Royal Military Academy, they may all have some room for promotion.

If Carlo remembers correctly, Andrew and Camann are currently both majors. After all, they are both Carlo’s men, so Grand Duke Serrano should take care of them a bit in this army expansion.

Not to mention anything else, promoting to lieutenant colonel to serve as regimental commander-level officers is no problem at all. Even at worst, they can serve as deputy regimental commanders, gain a few years of seniority, and rise to regimental commander.

Although there are many Spanish regimental commanders, this does not mean that regimental commanders are junior officers. On the contrary, in Spain where the army size is not large, regimental commander-level officers can also be considered senior officers.

Once there is a need for large-scale army expansion in wartime, regimental commanders like these officers will soon be promoted to division commanders, serving as the main commanders of a 10,000-man army.

Moreover, Andrew and Camann have only been in Spain for a few years, and they joined the Spanish Royal Army as Italians. Their current achievements are already quite good. After all, they are only in their twenties, still very young, with a long time ahead to gain seniority and wait for wars to occur.

For the Royal Arsenal, the army’s large-scale expansion is an extremely good piece of news.

Among all current Spanish armories, only the Royal Arsenal has the production capacity for the Vitali M1872 rifle, which also means that the rifles to arm hundreds of thousands of Spanish troops all need to be produced by the Royal Arsenal.

Although it is an extremely arduous task, it is also an opportunity for the Royal Arsenal’s development.

After completing this order, the Royal Arsenal will rise to become Spain’s largest armory enterprise, with no competitor able to rival the Royal Arsenal.

This is also a necessity of development in this era. The birth of monopoly giants is not a bad thing for the country. For Spain, whose military production capacity is inherently limited, the Royal Arsenal becoming the leader and juggernaut of military enterprises will instead strengthen Spain’s research and development and manufacturing capabilities in military technology.

After all, the research and development capabilities of one super enterprise and many small and medium enterprises are completely different. The combined R&D capacity of thousands of small and medium enterprises might not match that of one giant enterprise. R&D requires real gold and silver plus massive time investment, which some small armories simply cannot afford.

However, there is currently the most important problem, which is about increasing the Royal Arsenal’s production capacity.

The Royal Arsenal’s current production capacity is far too low compared to the Spanish Army’s needs, completely insufficient to meet the Spanish Army’s equipment demands.

Fortunately, the Spanish Army reform and conscription also require some time, and this period is the golden phase for the Royal Arsenal to increase production.

The Royal Arsenal’s current employee count has just broken through 1,000, with annual weapon output: 7,000 rifles, 150 cannons, 2 million bullets, and 15,000 cannonballs.

To fully meet the Spanish Army’s needs, the Royal Arsenal would need to produce overtime for more than ten years.

To solve this problem, Carlo issued an unrestricted expansion order to the Royal Arsenal, requiring it to triple weapon output within the next year.

Of course, Carlo also provided strong financial support to the Royal Arsenal. Over 8 million pesetas can be used freely by the Royal Arsenal, and over a hundred weapon experts supported by the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Spain have all been transferred to the Royal Arsenal to help the armory increase production.

The government also provided policy support for the Royal Arsenal’s expansion, such as approving land in the Seville Industrial Base, including preparing a large industrial zone exclusively for the Royal Arsenal in the future Barcelona Industrial Base, and so on.

The Royal Arsenal currently has two large branch factories, located in Madrid and Seville respectively. Once the branch factory construction in the future Barcelona Industrial Base is completed, it can also effectively increase the Royal Arsenal’s weapon output.

As for the employee issue, there is not much worry currently.

After that cabinet meeting ended, Carlo had already instructed Butler Loren to begin preparations for constructing comprehensive technical schools.

Currently in Madrid, Seville, and Barcelona, a large comprehensive technical school will start construction simultaneously in each, expected to accommodate over 3,000 technical students per school.

This also means that after the technical schools are completed in the future, the three schools combined can enroll over 3,000 students annually.

The training time for technical students is shorter than for regular university students, expected to graduate in 2 to 3 years and enter work to build Spain.

Of course, 2 to 3 years of training is still too long for current Spain. Considering that constructing these technical schools will take at least several months, by the time the first batch of technical students graduates, it will be at least three years later.

To cultivate the technical talent Spain needs a bit earlier, on the premise of simultaneously starting construction of three comprehensive technical schools, Carlo ordered Butler Loren to collaborate with the government to open technical training classes in several Spanish industrial cities, using 3 to 6 months to temporarily train a batch of talent with certain technical abilities for Spain.

No requirement for these temporarily trained technical personnel to be excellent; as long as they can barely meet the factories’ demand for technical talent.

Although 3 to 6 months of training is not long, it is enough for them to master some factory equipment usage experience, so they are not too unfamiliar when entering factory work.

Basically, holding one such temporary technical training class in each industrial city can meet Spain’s short-term industrial development needs.

In the future, once the three under-construction technical schools start enrollment, such temporary technical training classes can gradually be phased out.

Among all the royal industry’s factories, the armory’s development momentum is the fastest.

After all, the military has provided the armory with large batch orders, ensuring the armory will not lack orders in the next few years.

This also means that even if an economic crisis arrives in the future, with orders from the military, the armory does not need to worry about being affected by the economic crisis.

With the armory remaining strong, it can also help the steel mill and other factories better weather the economic crisis.

After all, producing rifles and cannons, including various bullets and cannonballs, requires large amounts of steel, which is also beneficial for the steel mill.

Including factories producing various small components, they will have more hope of surviving this economic crisis.

As for whether the armory will face reduced orders after expanding production scale, Carlo is not too worried.

After all, after weathering this economic crisis, the Tenth Russo-Turkish War will soon arrive. This Russo-Turkish War will focus on the Balkan Peninsula, which will become even more lively.

These wars will create massive demand for weapons and ammunition. Although Spain’s military industry is not famous, taking a share is no problem.

After all, both sides of the Russo-Turkish War, the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, are not strong in weapon production and rely heavily on weapon imports from abroad.

No matter doing business with either side, it can ensure Spain’s military industry will not face large-scale order reductions in the future.

Moreover, Latin American countries are also targets for Spanish cooperation, as well as East Asian countries; they are all weapon importing nations.

As long as Spanish weapons are not too behind compared to those of European countries, plus suitable prices, sales will basically not be a worry.

At the end of June 1872, Carlo once again attended the Royal Military Academy’s annual graduation ceremony.

Compared to last year’s military academy graduates, this year’s military academy graduates will be even luckier. Before even graduating, they have awaited the Spanish Army reform, and upon graduation, they will have positions equivalent to or even higher than their ranks.

After the Spanish Army’s expansion, there will be a large number of vacancies in grassroots officer positions like platoon leaders and company commanders. These freshly graduated military academy graduates are basically lieutenants, which exactly match platoon leader and company commander positions.

The first batch of military academy graduates waited a long time at deputy platoon leader positions before finally awaiting the army reform, gaining promotion to platoon leader or even deputy company commander and company commander opportunities.

The second batch of military academy graduates is much luckier. Their lowest positions are platoon leaders, and some even have hope of direct promotion to company commanders—something the first batch dared not even dream of at graduation.

Considering the Guard will also expand, just like with the first batch of graduates, Carlo conducted a small-scale selection among the second batch, picking a small portion of officers to join the Guard.

These military academy graduates are very willing to join the Guard. As part of the Spanish Army, the Guard’s welfare benefits are much better than those of the Royal Army.

Of course, the main reason is that the Guard belongs to the royal family’s private army, with all current expenses borne by the royal family.

To ensure the Guard’s loyalty, Carlo not only set salaries for Guard soldiers higher than the Royal Army’s, but also higher subsidies and clear pension policies, allowing Guard soldiers to have no worries for their families.

It can even be said without exaggeration that after a Guard soldier is killed in action during a combat mission, his family will receive a valuable compensation, and all his children will be nurtured by the royal family until university, not only with priority admission qualifications, but all tuition from primary school to university will be waived.

Compared to the Royal Army, whose pension system is not so clear and with low pensions, the Guard’s treatment is already very excellent.

However, the Guard previously had only one regiment’s scale, with soldiers all carefully selected from the Royal Army, making it hard for ordinary people to enter directly.

The selection among these young officers is a relatively easy chance to enter the Guard, and they will directly serve as Guard officers.

Officers’ treatment is definitely better than ordinary soldiers. For these freshly graduated from the Royal Military Academy, deeply influenced by the academy’s loyalty and patriotism, the Guard is an elite army directly loyal to His Majesty the King, and entering it is of course an honor.

This year’s military academy graduates are fewer than last year’s, but still reach over However, considering the Royal Army’s expansion requires a large number of mid-to-low-level officers, Carlo does not plan to compete with the Royal Army.

After selecting about a dozen mid-to-upper-level performers from these over 300 military academy graduates, Carlo completed this military academy graduation ceremony.

The remaining over 300 military academy graduates will be assigned to various Spanish troops within a month, and help reform the Spanish troops.

Don’t think they are just ordinary graduates in the military academy; once they go to the troops, they are rising stars, at least platoon leader level, commanding at least dozens of soldiers under them.

Adding last year’s over 400 military academy graduates, in these two years, the Royal Military Academy has cultivated over 700 excellent military academy graduates for the Spanish Army.

These over 700 military academy graduates are crucial for this reform. After the Spanish Army formally expands, just the 6 infantry divisions have over 400 company commander positions.

Plus 3 cavalry divisions and 2 artillery divisions, the previous mid-to-low-level officer reserves in the Spanish Army were simply insufficient.

Even if all these over 700 military academy graduates are filled into the army, it would only barely meet the army’s needs.

But it can be affirmed that these military academy graduates’ military levels are definitely more excellent than the mid-to-low-level officers cleared from the army.

The Royal Military Academy’s training for students is famously strict, and Carlo has personally inspected the military academy’s training system without finding any major issues.

It can even be guaranteed that under the Royal Military Academy’s such harsh training requirements, even if the graduates are not excellent generals, they are absolutely above qualified among company commander-level officers.

After a few years of tempering in the army, serving as battalion commanders or even regimental commanders would be more than adequate. Spain’s lack of notable generals during this period is entirely because Spain did not participate in World War I and World War II, and many officer positions were held by nobles.

The previous Spanish officer system was no different from hereditary, so how could such officer levels be good.

Mid-to-low-level officers have a significant impact on army combat effectiveness. After all, no matter how excellent a high-level general’s abilities are, his orders must be executed by troops at all levels.

Those executing the tasks are these mid-to-low-level officers; their military levels determine an army’s lower limit.

If an army’s mid-to-low-level officers are all those muddling along, only knowing to get by day by day, then even a famous general leading it is doomed to not achieve excellent combat effectiveness.

Senior officers bring an army’s upper limit of combat power; mid-to-low-level officers bring the lower limit.

4200 words second update, seeking support!

A big chapter, tomorrow going to pick up the bride for cousin’s wedding（ cousin getting married）, update might be late.