I Became a Plutocrat in World War I: Starting with Saving France Chapter 692: Revised - 692

The amphibious tank was a makeshift solution Charles ca up with.

When Charles put the sketch in front of Tijani and Brownie, they were both stunned by the idea.

"This is insane," Tijani exclaid, eyes wide open. "You plan to make such a simple modification and throw the tank in the water? And hope it can cross the river? You forget it’s 7 tons, General!"

Charles raised his eyebrows.

What was 7 tons? When the Aricans used this thod, they used the 33.65-ton "Sherman" tank.

Major General Brownie had long developed the habit of unconditionally trusting Charles, but still found this plan hard to believe:

"Are you sure this is feasible, General?"

"Or, should we wait for Colonel Estiny’s troops?"

"What I an is, if we are betting on the ’amphibious tank,’ it might be better to attack with Colonel Estiny."

...

There was so sense in this.

The ’amphibious tank’ was a surprise attack, and so was Colonel Estiny’s unit. Moreover, Colonel Estiny’s chanized regint was also equipped with tanks.

Comparing the two, the latter was obviously safer.

But Charles shook his head to deny this suggestion:

"We don’t have ti, Major General."

"The possibility of Colonel Estiny arriving and joining the battle by dawn is nearly nonexistent."

"And if we miss this dawn attack window, we may never get another chance."

Tijani agreed:

"The Vice Admiral is right, the German units are gathering in large numbers on the other side of the river."

"Now, at night, the assembly and deploynt are slower. Once daylight cos, troops will continuously arrive and strengthen the riverbank defenses."

"So, we only have a chance at dawn."

Brownie was silent.

He had just contacted Estiny, and Estiny didn’t dare to march easily at night for fear of getting lost again.

So Charles was right; the chance of the chanized regint arriving by dawn was almost zero, and even making it by tomorrow was uncertain.

"We have no other choice." Tijani picked up Charles’s sketch from the table, eyes filled with helplessness. "We can only try this thing, although it seems..."

He didn’t finish saying, "Not so reliable."

Tijani knew that morale was very important to the troops; if even the commanders didn’t have confidence in this equipnt, how could the soldiers believe in it and use it to win the battle?

So, from this mont, Tijani decided to trust this equipnt unreservedly.

Major General Brownie thought for a while and finally nodded in agreent.

But he took out his pocket watch and looked at it, his tone filled with worry: "It’s already past eight, and there are only about 10 hours until dawn. Is that enough ti?"

Tijani laughed: "You forget this is zieres, Major General. There is even a shipyard here."

(The image above shows the use River, most of which is navigable, making it one of Europe’s significant waterways.)

Tijani knew of the Charles Shipyard, which had previously exchanged technology with the Brest Shipyard, and Wells even held a 10% stake.

The difference was that the Charles Shipyard focused on building inland river ships, such as small cargo ships, yachts, inflatable boats, and pleasure boats.

And this happened to et Charles’s needs.

Charles entrusted this task to Tijani.

Tijani might not have considered the impact of military equipnt on civilians when he led a hundred tanks directly to the shipyard for modification.

The owner, Charles, was terrified. He thought it was due to his providing boats to the Germans during their occupation of zieres and attempted to escape with his family through the back door without packing his luggage.

But he didn’t succeed. The building destroyed by the German bombardnt blocked his path.

Ultimately, Tijani’s guards captured Charles and brought him back.

Charles was pale and trembling, almost kneeling before Tijani.

"This wasn’t my choice," Charles kept explaining to the guards on the way, "They forced to do it. I didn’t want to build boats for them or let them use the boats to transport munitions..."

The use River connected with Verdun, and many munitions and military supplies were transported upstream from zieres to Verdun.

"Mr. Charles," Tijani called to him upon approaching.

Perhaps due to panic or the dim factory lights, Charles did not recognize Tijani. He continued to explain rapidly, his teeth chattering: "This has nothing to do with , General."

"Please believe , I was only doing what I was supposed to do..."

"No, no, I an, I was only doing business, that’s all!"

...

"Charles!" Tijani raised his voice, "I am Tijani, rember? We t in Paris!"

Charles was stunned for a mont. He stared at Tijani for a while and then shook hands enthusiastically as if holding onto a lifeline: "Oh, it’s you, Mr. Tijani! Of course I rember you!"

"No, it’s General, General Tijani. Look, you’re a General now!"

"How’s your father, Mr. Wells?"

...

"He’s doing well," Tijani nodded. "He’s quite well!"

"If it’s you, things will be much easier," Charles squeezed out a weak smile, glancing at the hundreds of tanks and fully-ard, intimidating soldiers, "You know, I’ll do anything you want. You didn’t need to bring so many people..."

Tijani handed over Charles’s sketches, turning on a flashlight to show them, "Can these modifications be completed? How long will it take?"

Charles was stunned, finally understanding why Tijani brought the tanks here.

He placed his hand on his chest, took a few deep breaths, and silently cursed: This reckless guy almost scared to death, couldn’t you have called first?

But of course, he didn’t dare say any of that out loud. Instead, he looked at the sketches and confidently replied, "It can be done, General. If everything goes smoothly, it will take two to three hours!"

...

The modifications went very smoothly.

The material for the inflatable compartnts was the sa rubber used for inflatable boats, which could be inflated and had compartnts.

The disadvantage of compartnts was slower inflation; the advantage was practicality: If an enemy bullet pierced the rubber, it wouldn’t entirely deflate imdiately. It could still hold for a significant amount of ti, like a hot air balloon.

Two propellers were installed underneath, using external yacht propellers.

The reason for using two was simple operation; one propeller would slow and the other would speed up during turns, requiring minimal extra training.

Rubber and welding were then used to fill any gaps in the tank’s chassis to prevent water leakage.

Finally, a small pump was added to remove water seeping into the tank and the inflatable compartnt.

However, it was found that the pump wasn’t much needed during actual combat, as the river crossing took less than twenty minutes.