"Admiral, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my design."
Cuniberti looked at the head of the navy in front of him and reiterated his attitude once again.
"However, the armor of non-important parts of the battleship is weakened or even eliminated, which will make the battleship more vulnerable and may cause greater casualties."
Admiral Argier expressed his concerns about the words of chief designer Cuniberti. What they were talking about was the design of Italy's first battlecruiser, the Taranto-class battlecruiser.
According to Cuniberti's design, the Taranto-class battle cruiser has a total length of 210 meters, a width of 28.9 meters, and a draft of 9.1 meters. The ship's firepower uses the same eight 305 mm main guns and 12 105-caliber secondary guns as the Dante class.
.And it uses 24 naval oil-fired boilers, two steam turbines, and four shafts for power. The maximum output power is 56,000 horsepower, and the maximum speed is 26.5 knots.
The ship has a standard displacement of 20,480 tons, a full-load displacement of 23,600 tons, and an endurance of 8,100 nautical miles/14 knots. The maximum waterline armor belt is 250 mm, the bulkhead armor is 70 mm; the deck armor is 76 mm, the maximum turret is 280 mm, and the maximum armor of the gun mount is 250 mm.
250 mm; the maximum armor of the command tower is 250 mm.
From all aspects, the performance of this battleship is very excellent. However, one thing that has criticized the navy is that in order to ensure that the performance of the ship meets the standards, Viscount Cuniberti significantly reduced the armor of the ship.
This is not to say that the armor has been reduced. In key core areas, the armor is quite thick and has not been reduced. However, in non-core areas, Cuniberti has drastically reduced its armor, and even canceled it directly in many areas.
Armor.
As a user, the Italian Navy is somewhat dissatisfied with this approach of canceling the armor in the non-core area. Because the boundary between the core and the non-core is not so clear. In addition, the non-core area does not mean that it is unimportant, and the non-core area is hit
If the number is too high, there is still a risk of sinking.
On Cuniberti's side, listening to Admiral Yagir's words, he said helplessly. "Admiral, the Navy not only wants the ship to have the firepower of a new battleship, but also wants the ship to be 3 times faster than the Dante class.
—The speed difference is 4 knots, and the cost cannot be much higher than that of the Dante class. With such stringent requirements, I can only think of ways to deal with the armor."
It is this realistic helplessness that Cuniberti said. First of all, the Italian Navy's shipbuilding funds are limited, and it is impossible to arbitrarily increase the construction cost for a single warship. And this Taranto-class battle cruiser also takes into account its huge size.
function, so it was able to obtain 10% of the cost of building a Dante-class battleship.
Some people may ask why there was such a big price gap between Genoa-class battleships and Garibaldi-class battleships before? That’s because the construction costs of these two warships are not high, at least compared to new main battleships.
With a limited budget, the new battle cruiser must have sufficient firepower, so its weapons cost will not be low, at least not much lower than the purchase cost of Dante-class weapons (with less secondary guns).
Weapons are relatively easy to solve, but the most critical issue for battle cruisers is the high speed. First of all, if you want high speed, you need a sufficient power system, and these big boilers and steam turbines take up a lot of space. In addition,
If you want to achieve high speed, the shape of the battleship can also help. The slender hull can help the battleship achieve higher speed.
This also results in the hull and power system accounting for a higher proportion of the battleship's weight than that of new battleships. The remaining proportion is gained by armor.
In this case, the same approach as sprinkling pepper noodles will definitely not work. This will result in insufficient armor. It seems that everything is protected, but in the end, the protection is not in place.
Therefore, focused protection is an inevitable choice. Only by giving priority to the armor in the core area can the warship avoid fatal damage. Although this will cause it to suffer greater losses in naval battles, it is the best choice.
After all, the Navy itself requested that the ship return to the battle line if necessary and not protect the core area. The power of this large-caliber artillery shell would not be enough to kill one shot at a time.
"But, isn't the 4,250-ton armor ratio too low?"
"Yes, I also think it is a bit low. If the Navy increases the construction cost of this class a little more, it only needs to be increased by another 10%."
Admiral Yagir didn't want to accept what Cuniberti said. Even though the Navy got 400 million lire from selling ships, if you don't spend this little money sparingly, it can be tinkered with for you in a few clicks. For example, new models
The research and development and verification of technology, as well as the construction of battleships. If the cost of building battleships is not blocked, these ship designers can let themselves go and accumulate for you a new gadget with excellent performance but high blood pressure.
In addition to new technologies, the purchase of new equipment also costs a lot of money. For example, the purchase of aircraft and airships, as well as new radios, mechanical calculators, large optical telescopes, etc. In addition, the navy also needs to invest in some emerging maritime things.
Funding to verify whether it meets the needs of the Navy, etc.
It can be said that as long as you are willing to spend money, the Navy can find hundreds of legitimate reasons to spend all the money.
Therefore, Admiral Yagier is very careful about the extra funds in his hand and will not be easily persuaded to use them. The construction of Taranto this time is more to make up for the lack of large high-speed warships in the Italian Navy.
There is no vacancy. However, its construction cost of 47 million lire makes it impossible for Admiral Yagier to continue to increase funds for this battle cruiser, which has become the most expensive battle cruiser in Italy.
Since he didn't want to pay, Admiral Yagier couldn't say anything when faced with Cuniberti who had put a difficult problem in front of him. However, Admiral Yagier had an idea. Maybe this battle cruiser could be given to Tirpitz.
Let's see, the Germans may also appreciate this battleship, so they can charge some processing fees and use it to build other battleships.
Speaking of other battleships, Admiral Yagir immediately spoke. "Cuniberti, what do you think of the Piedmont-class cruiser?"
As the chief warship designer, Cuniberti certainly knows all kinds of warships built by the navy, and the Piedmont-class cruiser mentioned by Admiral Yagier is the product of new technologies in the new era.
This ship is used for fleet reconnaissance and escort. When necessary, it can also take on the important task of defending one's own or destroying the enemy's sea lines of communication. Therefore, the ship has excellent endurance, firepower and speed.
"Have I not mentioned this class of cruiser before? It is very good. This new cruiser designed by Giuseppe Orlando takes into account all aspects and is a general-purpose cruiser that meets the needs of our country's navy."
The Piedmont-class cruiser he praised has a total length of 147 meters, a width of 16.1 meters, and a draft of 5.2 meters. The ship's standard displacement is 5,120 tons, and its full load displacement is 6,380 tons.
It is equipped with 4 twin 152 mm guns, 4 105 mm single barrel guns, 6 75 mm single barrel guns, and two quadruple 533 mm torpedo launchers. Its waterline armor belt is 52 mm and the deck is 24 mm.
, the turret is 80 mm, and the command tower is 100 mm.
The power output is 28,000 horsepower, the maximum speed is 27 knots, and the endurance is 2,900 nautical miles/15 knots.
From the data point of view, this cruiser is already very good. Even if Cuniberti designs it himself, it will not be better than this one. After all, he is used to designing large battleships. If he is asked to design small and medium-sized battleships, it may not be as good as
Other excellent designers.
Of course, he also heard the news that this excellent cruiser is not cheap at all. The construction cost is 12 million lire. This is the reason why Admiral Yagir has been unable to decide how many ships to build. However, there is news that within the Navy Ministry, there is no decision on how many ships to build.
I really like this ship. Some say they plan to build 6 ships, and some say 8 ships. However, no matter how many ships there are, this is a headache for the Admiral.
