"What a coincidence this time,"
Hearing this, Liang Mingwei smiled.
"My lord, you want to renovate the Great Eastern. I also got some inspiration from the Great Eastern."
After unfolding the drawing, Zhu Xianhai still saw the structure of the ship's hull.
"This is?"
"Lord, look, this is the hull structure of the Great Eastern. When the Great Eastern was being built, it pioneered the longitudinal inner frame structure and grille double-bottom structure of the hull, which was formed from more than 30,000 19mm iron plates.
The double-layer hull is extremely strong. When it sailed to New York, even though it hit a rock outside the harbor and the hull was cut 28 meters apart, it still did not affect its navigation. "
Why did Zhu Xianhai dare to change the "Great Eastern" into a high-density immigration ship and cram 40,000 to 50,000 people into the ship? To put it bluntly, it was his trust in the safety of this double-hulled steamship. If Brunel had not done so for "
The "Great Eastern" designed a double-layer hull, so in 1862 the "Great Eastern" was probably another "Titanic". At that time, it accidentally hit the rocks of Long Island. This accident caused the outer hull to form a double-layer hull.
The Great Eastern suffered a crack that was more than 60 times larger when it hit the iceberg in Nepal. However, because of this safety structure, the "Great Eastern" not only did not die at the bottom of the sea, but could also safely reach New York by relying on its own power.
"However, my lord, what really attracts me is its all-iron structure."
Liang Mingwei said as he opened another drawing.
"At present, whether it is the iron-clad "mosquito cannon ship" we build or the iron-clad ships of various countries, they either have outer iron armor lined with wooden boards, or the iron armor is directly nailed to the wooden shell. If there is not enough reliable technology to isolate wood and iron,
The result must be that the wood rotted and the iron armor rusted, so I was thinking, since the "Great Eastern" is an iron ship with a pure iron shell and iron ribs, why can't we build a real ironclad ship?"
A real ironclad ship!
Zhu Xianhai glanced at Liang Mingwei, "Good guy, his ambitions are not small. Today's warships are all "hybrid structure" warships lined with wooden shells, even the two iron-deck ships that the company is negotiating to purchase in the UK.
, also lined with 8-10 inches of oak behind the 4.5-inch main armor.
This is the mainstream around the world, but Liang Mingwei wants to build a real "ironclad ship".
"So, my idea is to learn from the structure of the Great Eastern, especially the structure of the double-hulled ship, and replace the 19mm-thick double-layered iron plates with 25mm-thick double-layered iron plates to build an iron-framed ship.
"Mosquito Cannon Boat"."
Still a "mosquito cannon boat"...
Looking at the drawings of the "Mosquito Cannon Ship", Zhu Xianhai's expression became a little complicated, but he did not interrupt Liang Mingwei's introduction.
"...In this way, its tonnage is about 600 tons. In my opinion, with Nanhua's current shipbuilding capacity, there is no problem at all in building an iron-hulled ship of about 1,000 tons. After all, not many of our employees
Shaodu once participated in the construction of the "Great Eastern", from engineers to workers."
Liang Mingwei looked at the silent lord a little nervously. He walked to the window and seemed to be looking at something, then turned around and said.
"About a thousand tons..."
Zhu Xianhai opened his mouth and said,
"We are currently negotiating to purchase two ironclad ships in the UK."
"The Lord is referring to the two Confederate ramming cruisers that were confiscated by the British, right?"
Liang Mingwei said.
Last year, Captain James Bullock of the Confederate Navy ordered two twin-turret ram ironclads from Laird Shipyard in a private name to break the Union Navy's sea blockade against the Confederacy. Construction of the two ships began in April of that year.
Named North Carolina and Mississippi. However, the matter eventually attracted the attention of the British Foreign Office, so Foreign Secretary Lord Russell informed Bullock that if the two ships were to become the fleet of a warring country, then the British would not
Two battleships are allowed to be launched.
As a result, Bullock had to transfer the ownership of the two ships to a French bank. In name, the two ships would be ordered for Egypt, and they were renamed the Tucson and the Manasir. But as we all know, this was just a cover. In the end, it was definitely
It will be delivered to the Confederacy. Under constant urging from the American ambassador, the two ships are now seized by British Customs.
"Yes, those are the two ships."
Zhu Xianhai nodded and said.
"The telegram sent from London shows that in order to ensure the legal legitimacy of this matter, the British Navy plans to purchase two ships. However, it seems that the Navy does not have the extra money to buy these two ships. Considering that our navy
In order to meet the construction needs, I have instructed the purchase of these two ships."
Those are two ironclads of nearly 3,000 tons! Of course, even in this era, these two ironclads are not very eye-catching. After all, there are already nearly 10,000 tons of ironclads in Europe.
But this is South America!
Let's play it out. The navy here basically uses wooden hulled ships. With these two ironclad ships, at least in the next few years, Nanhua's navy will be basically invincible here.
After all, an ironclad ship versus a wooden-hulled ship is a proper dimensionality reduction attack.
Although the lord didn't say it clearly, Liang Mingwei guessed what the lord meant. Maybe he didn't have the funds to build a new mosquito cannon boat.
"Lord, I understand..."
"What do you understand?"
Looking at his disappointed look, Zhu Xianhai smiled.
"You think I mean not to let you build a new ship?"
"Lord, those two ironclad ship companies must have spent a lot of money."
"25,000 pounds per ship, just the hull, not including weapons."
Zhu Xianhai smiled.
"However, we don't need British weapons. After all, our cannons are much better than theirs. 25,000 pounds is so cheap! If it wasn't a "second-hand ship", we definitely couldn't buy it at this price! To be honest, we should be grateful.
Confederacy!”
"25,000 pounds is really not expensive!"
Liang Mingwei breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed like it didn't cost much. There was still hope for a mosquito cannon ship with an all-iron structure.
"However, you cannot buy a navy by buying ships. The future navy must build its own ships as much as possible."
The lessons learned in the simulator are too profound. After the embargo imposed by the United Kingdom and the United States on South China, its own weak shipbuilding industry made it difficult for the South China Navy to make up for its losses in the war. This is why Zhu Xianhai will increase investment in shipyards and introduce a large number of talents and
The reason for the equipment is to promote the construction of the shipyard and have the ability to build its own ships in future wars.
"Your idea of building an iron-hulled warship is right. We thought about it together."
Zhu Xianhai said,
"But you also know that we sell mosquito cannon boats to others to make money. At most, we can only accumulate some skills. But if we use them ourselves, we definitely cannot use such small boats. What we need are warships with navigation capabilities.
Not that kind of small gunboat. Of course, it can also sail, but its seaworthiness is very poor. So, since we have the ability to build ships of about a thousand tons, why not consider larger ships? Of course
It can be built a little later, but there is not much difference between 600 tons and more than a thousand tons! After all, it is a start."
When he said the words "after all", Zhu Xianhai waved his hands to emphasize his tone.
"After eliminating all difficulties and making this start, we will be able to build bigger and more warships in the future!"
This chapter has been completed!