Travel through the Qing Dynasty and become emperor

Chapter 221 Dreadnought Class Battleship

On the other side of the world, the struggle between the British and the Germans for Ottoman dominance has never stopped.But the British also really felt that the control of the Germans over the whole of Europe is growing with the increase of their own strength.They clearly know that what flows in the blood of the Germans has always been the factor of war. Once the fuse of the Ottomans is ignited by the Germans, the honor of the empire on which the sun never sets will be threatened.

Precisely because they were unsure about the direction of the war with the Germans, they turned their attention to Malacca, the throat of Asia.The purpose of their control of Malacca is to block the rising China. China and Germany are strategic alliances. Containing China is tantamount to cutting off the German aid in the East.

Therefore, the British played Tai Chi in foreign policy. On the one hand, they tried to block China's sea estuary, and on the other hand, they offered an olive branch of Anglo-German reconciliation to William II. They tried to find another way to maintain The method of British Empire interests is to establish a regular consultation mechanism with Germany on European issues, so as to ease the contradictions with the Germans and avoid the early outbreak of a world war.

However, William II, whose self-confidence was extremely inflated, arrogantly asked the British to regularly open the latest battleship design drawings to Germany. The British rejected this arrogant and rude condition, just like the British Prime Minister asked As Woodsbury said: Will the Germans tell us their airship plans!
After being rudely rejected by the Germans, the United Kingdom accelerated the pace of maritime hegemony, which is also a key step in its strategy of penetrating into Asia and containing China.After the Royal class and the improved Royal class entered service, they summed up some experience and lessons, especially the beyond-visual-range naval combat mode in the Far East naval battle, which attracted the attention of the designers of the British Empire's giant ships.They have started a new epoch-making battleship project called "DREADNOUGHT".

The Royal-class cruiser on the Pusmouth slipway had just been launched.The high-profile handover ceremony was conducted by the leader of the House of Commons, the founder of the Primrose Society, Randolph?Churchill presided over, this is also to thank the large number of orders from the Chinese for bringing a large number of employment opportunities to the British industrial working class.

The person who came to pick up the ship was Lang Weili, the staff officer of the newly established Chinese Imperial Navy. In front of this majestic warship, Mr. Churchill handed over the Royal Battleship, which symbolizes the highest level of the British shipbuilding industry, to the Chinese.This ceremony is extremely stupid in the eyes of many politicians. They think that the Royal Navy "sold the tiger's sharp teeth to wolves." Dreadnought-class battleship.

A few months ago, in a villa on the outskirts of London, he himself and two senior officials of the Royal Navy had just met the British epoch-making naval warship designer William?Mr. White had a two-hour long talk.

The first half of the conversation was White's endless complaints to the British Treasury, because his ship completely subverted the existing battleship theory, and carried out revolutionary innovations in armament, power, protection, etc. These changes seemed It is so crazy. If it succeeds, it can indeed create a new ocean era, but at the same time, its reliability is also difficult to evaluate. In this case, investing a huge amount of money in it is undoubtedly a huge gamble. The Ministry of Finance, it is normal for them to have difficulty making this determination.

When Churchill handed the Ministry of Finance shipbuilding approval plan to White with a smile, White was so excited that he almost went crazy.

"If it weren't for Germany's helplessness, the British Ministry of Finance might never pass the design blueprint of the dreadnought ship. Now the arms race between the two countries has reached a fever pitch, and Germany's development momentum is obviously higher than that of the United Kingdom. If you don't engage in high-tech , the UK will not be able to suppress Germany. Of course, both the Admiralty and the Admiralty hope that Mr. White's design will be unique and pragmatic. It is not enough to remove a few secondary guns from the original design of the warship and add a few main guns. If it is built according to this requirement, it will not be regarded as a dreadnought ship at all, it can only be regarded as a variant of the Victoria class, and it is still a very failed one." Churchill said very humorously.

Of course, White saw the intention of Churchill and others. They didn't want to squander the huge amount of money, so he wanted to present his best design concept to convince these people and the politicians who criticized him completely.

"The Dreadnought is unparalleled. Simply removing a few secondary guns and adding a few main guns is not feasible in the theory of early ships. Why do you say that? Because ordinary Victoria-class warships are not capable of carrying more main guns. The large-caliber main gun is very heavy, and once it enters a naval battle, the rotation and firing of the main gun will bring great pressure to the ship. Victoria-class warships can only withstand up to four main guns firing at the same time. If there are more, I'm afraid I didn't hit the opponent's ship, but my own ship sank first because of the recoil, so even if 4 main guns are deployed, no more than 10 can participate in the battle."

White licked Tim's dry lips and continued: "If you want to add artillery, you must improve the performance of the entire ship so that it has a greater carrying capacity. For this reason, I have proposed four improvement plans.

First, use a steam turbine engine to provide power.This kind of engine can heat the water to obtain the kinetic energy of water vapor, and then convert it into a turbine to rotate to drive the machine.The turbo steam engine has greatly improved thermal efficiency, is closer to the ideal reversible process in thermodynamics, and can provide greater power, which is more advanced than the reciprocating steam engine.

Second, widen the hull and provide thicker armor, so that the stability of the deck can be guaranteed when the artillery is attacking.The hull of traditional ships is narrower, which is to reduce water resistance, improve agility, and obtain faster sailing speeds.But the Intrepid does not need this. In naval battles, it can completely suppress enemy ships with super powerful firepower, and there is almost no need to worry about being counterattacked. This is a design idea that focuses on offense and defense.

Third, improve the watertight cabin and use the flow of stored water to control the stability of the ship.The watertight cabin is generally below the waterline, and the cabin is divided into compartments that are not connected to each other by bulkheads. In this way, if a cabin is damaged or leaks, it will not affect other cabins, which greatly improves the safety of the entire ship. .But I came up with a crazy method, which is to specially design a pilot cabin, which can open the gate to put seawater into the bottom cabin, and then guide the seawater to the correct cabin area by controlling the gates of other cabin areas. .

Fourth, we also need to carry out a comprehensive transformation of the artillery. I call this the "full heavy artillery" concept, using 10 305-inch caliber main guns of the same model and consistent ballistic performance. Five dual-mounted main turrets are arranged on the centerline of the hull. In addition to being able to control the gunners, they can also use the unified firepower system in the bridge for macro control.This design has a special advantage: due to the completely consistent ballistic performance, once any main gun successfully attacks and obtains the correct attack data, other artillery can immediately follow suit, and can cause terrible damage to the enemy in a short time. After finishing this long speech, White looked at Churchill proudly.

"Mr. White, your design is very wonderful. Technology needs to be driven by imagination, but I hope this design is not just theoretically feasible." An accompanying officer raised his concerns.

"The Dreadnought-class battleship I designed is unique in the world. I can guarantee that no warship can survive for more than 10 minutes in front of it." White's tone was aggressive, and his blue eyes flashed with crazy light. .Perhaps White didn't know that his amazing design provided the blueprint for a super maritime weapon in later generations, and this weapon is the aircraft carrier.

(End of this chapter)