African Nationhood

1913, October.

The breeze blows in Durban Bay, and the mail boats and fishing boats in the bay are neatly arranged. The port is bustling with people, and all kinds of people gather here.

The port construction here has been greatly strengthened after Nanhua took over.

Before, there was only one cargo port and fishing port here, and its name was Port Natal.

The British unloaded most of the materials shipped from European ships here, and then transported them by land to Marlborough, the central city of the Natal colony (today's Pietermaritzburg, South Africa).

Since Nanhua took over the harbor, it changed its name to Durban Port.

Then the Natal Administrative Office moved all the Indians here, and then began to build houses in the harbor to resettle immigrants.

As a large number of Chinese immigrants arrived here, shipyards, fishery product processing plants, sisal processing plants, canned food factories, and flour mills began to operate one after another, and more and more buildings were built.

The popularity here is also growing. The shipyard in the harbor initially mainly built small cargo ships and small fishing boats, and also did some ship maintenance work.

Starting in 1909, the shipyard in Durban Port suddenly changed its name.

From the previous "Durban Shipyard" to "Nanhua Second Shipyard", the small shipyard began to change drastically and was upgraded to a large shipyard with all German equipment.

All previous businesses were canceled and replaced by the construction of 10,000-ton ships.

Different from Nanhua No. 1 Shipyard, the shipyard here only builds cargo ships and oil tankers.

The production tasks of the Second Shipyard were very tight in the first two years. In 1911, their shipyard suddenly received an order.

This order was placed by the military, calling for the construction of a large ship, requiring the actual displacement of the ship to exceed 5000 tons.

The interior space must be large enough and the seats for the passengers must be arranged.

In addition, the ship also needs openings at the bow or stern to facilitate quick disembarkation and loading of materials in the belly.

Faced with such a weird order, Tian Dameng, the captain's leader, had to contact the military department to ask for details.

The military department immediately sent a military representative and informed Tian Dameng that this was a test boat of the Navy Department.

It is mainly used to help naval soldiers and enable them to quickly land for combat operations in places without docks.

Tian Dameng immediately became energetic after hearing this. He is from the South China generation, he supports South China the most, and he also wants to contribute to the country the most.

Then Tian Dameng asked the military representatives to understand the detailed requirements of the military department. Through communication, Tian Dameng learned that the landing ship intended by the Navy Ministry needed to have the following advantages:
2000. It has a large loading capacity and can hold four battalions of troops and corresponding weapons and ammunition at one time;

Second, the transfer capacity is strong, because large ships cannot drive directly to the shore anyway, so the transfer time can only be shortened.

This requires fast and powerful transfer tools, including better quality boats and cranes;
3. Have certain protective capabilities;

A large loading capacity requires a large displacement, so it exceeds 5000 tons. The specific size needs further study.

To meet the requirement of strong transfer capacity, additional landing speedboats are required. The horsepower must be high, and it will wait slowly on the sea to be harvested by the defenders.

In addition, this speedboat must be able to carry more people. It can carry 2 platoons and a team of 60 people at a time. It is too small to form counterattack firepower on the beach, and it can easily be wiped out by the defenders.

As for the protection capability, the landing ship is required to have a certain amount of armor and protective firepower.

After Tian Dameng received the detailed requirements, he immediately called for ship designers and shipbuilding engineers from the shipyard to gather together to hold a technical meeting.

During the meeting, Tian Dameng directly divided the military department's requirements into two projects. One was to design a large landing ship, and the other was to design a speedboat for landing on the beach.

The large landing craft is codenamed "Kun", and the landing craft is codenamed "Shark".

The shipyard technicians made many assumptions about the Kun ship based on their knowledge, but they were either overturned by themselves or others.

After designing on the drawings and making models, they finally negotiated and determined that the first ship of the "Kun" type ship would have a baseline displacement of 8000 tons and a full-load displacement of 9000 tons.

The landing ship has a total length of 144 meters, a total width of 22 meters, and a draft of 4.2 meters.

The power plant is: two Diesel-13 high-horsepower diesel engines, plus two Tiangong-13 steam engines, with a maximum power of 8500 horsepower.

最大航速为22节，续航距离为7000海里，标准运载兵员为1500名，最多可运载约2200人。登陆舰上的武器装备包括：75mm舰炮6门、12.7mm机枪4门、水雷等。

The 50mm armor of the landing ship is mainly used to protect against machine gun attacks from inshore gunboats. If it is hit by a torpedo from inshore gunboats, there is basically no possibility of escape.

From the overall structure of the landing ship, the whole ship is divided into three layers: the lower layer stores the landing craft, the middle layer is the personnel living area, and the uppermost layer is the hangar. At this stage, it mainly carries seaplanes.

……

There are mixed opinions on the design of landing craft. Some designers emphasize loading more supplies and personnel, others emphasize speed, and still others want to emphasize protection capabilities and counterattack firepower.

Everyone had different opinions, and eventually they decided to each design independent drawings.

After Tian Dameng saw the design drawings of the landing craft, he decided to choose a fast landing craft and a multi-cargo landing craft, that is, two landing craft, one large and one small.

Abandoning protection and counter-fire plans, the landing craft was specially built to prevent the soldiers from staying at sea for a long time. If the enemy is well-defended, why should we fight them head-on?

Wouldn't it be smarter to change the landing point?
Therefore, the defensive counterattack faction was persuaded to join the multi-cargo and speedboat design group.

They finally unanimously designed two landing craft, the Flying Fish Type A and the Flying Fish Type B.

Type A landing ship

Length: 14.8 meters, width: 3.4 meters.

Maximum draft: 0.8 meters, empty weight: 9 tons.

Maximum weight: 21 tons, engine: 60 horsepower diesel engine.

Speed: 9 knots when empty, and up to 8 knots when fully loaded. Crew: 12 people.

Carrying capacity: up to 70 armed soldiers or 12 tons of cargo.

Type B landing craft:
Length: 13 meters, width: 3 meters.

Maximum draft: 0.8 meters, empty weight: 6 tons.

Maximum weight: 18 tons, engine: 60 horsepower diesel engine.

Speed: 10 knots when empty, and up to 9 knots when fully loaded. Crew: 10 people.

Carrying capacity: up to 50 armed soldiers or 10 tons of cargo.

Both types of landing craft have flat-bottomed metal hulls, double-bottom structures, and raised bow and stern ends, which give the landing craft not only a unique appearance but also good seaability.

Since the bow has no upper connections on both sides, its design must be reinforced.

On the other hand, since there is no upper bulkhead, the length of the ramp can be shortened. The barge also has no deck, only an enclosed engine room and a wheelhouse protected by light armor at the stern, and the space inside is also very narrow.

The height of the hull is also relatively low, only 1.5 meters from the bottom to the edge of the middle of the hull, and 2.2 meters to both ends.

……

After calculation, the landing ship can carry 32 Type A landing craft, 30 Type B landing craft, and 14 monoplanes and biplanes.

Type A landing speedboats can be launched from the hatch of the flooding device at the stern of the landing ship, and type B landing craft can be launched from the hatch of the flooding device in the middle of the hull.

There is a boom lift at the front and rear of the landing ship, which can directly lift the landing craft and seaplanes and put them into the water.

Once the design was finalized, construction began.

A year and a half later, it was finally time for the Military Department to accept it. Tian Dameng and the technical staff of Nanhua No. 2 Factory were also happily waiting for the arrival of the Military Department's receiving personnel.

This is the honor of the second shipyard and the first warship design work.

Everyone's heart is full of excitement and joy. (End of chapter)