The detailed design of the technology verification ship developed by the Navy was quickly determined.
The design process of the technical verification ship this time is different from the previous warship shooting of the Datang Navy, because this time it does not consider the layout of the existing warship's hull, firepower, armor and other performance, but prepares a completely new design.
When the Tang Navy designed new ships in the past, it rarely started from scratch. Most of the time, it would refer to the original warship design in order to inherit technology and reduce technical difficulties.
This is particularly evident in the design of the battleships of the Tang Dynasty, such as the Wandan, Luzon, Xi, etc., which are more than 10,000 tons, although the tonnage and technical details of each ship are different.
However, the design concepts of the hulls are almost the same, such as all-steel hulls, relatively small length-to-width ratios, comprehensive protection, hydraulic rotating turrets, dual-mounted main guns at the front and rear, and a large number of 150 mm secondary guns.
Therefore, strictly speaking, in fact, the 10,000-ton battleships designed and built by the Tang Navy in recent years are generally the same type of battleships. In later generations, they are called pre-dreadnought battleships.
The design of other battleships is similar. For example, the recent cruisers are all designed on the basis of the Xiyin-class dome-armored cruiser. Whether it is to improve performance or reduce performance, it is still the same as the Xiyin-class dome-armored cruiser.
thing.
Not to mention the frigate, because this thing doesn't even have an armored belt, and only relies on the steel hull and coal bunker as a means of protection. This design was designed more than ten years ago, and it was the first of the Tang Navy.
The steel steam frigate, also known as the Qinzhou-class frigate, has such a protective arrangement.
At present, the most advanced and most powerful frigate of the Tang Navy is the New Antarctic frigate, which was started in the 33rd year of Xuanping and put into service in 34 years. Although this thing uses better steel to build the hull, it also uses the most advanced
The 120mm 35x breech-mounted rifled gun is also faster, but in terms of design concept, this thing is actually no different from the Qinzhou-class frigate.
As for the Datang Navy currently under construction, the latest generation of frigates, the Sanhe-class frigates, was built only in the 35th year of Xuanping, and the first ship was not put into service until 30 years ago. However, the actual combat power of the Sanhe-class frigates is not as good as that of the New Antarctic.
As for the frigates, the Mikawa-class frigates are originally cheap, shrunk versions of the new Antarctic frigates, with weakened firepower and weakened protection. The only thing worth mentioning is that the power system has been improved, but it still uses mature technology steam engines, and its maximum speed is only fourteen.
Festival.
Throughout the design and construction history of the Tang Dynasty Navy, although it was only a few decades, it was divided into several periods. In the early days, it was a pure sailing warship. The hull combined the advantages of the East and the West, using multi-mast soft sails and side sides.
Smoothbore gun, this is also the first professional ocean-going sail warship in human history. This type of ship is called Tang-style warship by the outside world. At the same time, Europeans were still playing with armed merchant ships.
However, within a few years, Europeans, especially the Portuguese and Spanish, successively designed and built professional ocean-going sailing warships that imitated the Tang warships or were improved from the Galen ships.
In the second period, nineteen years after Xuanping, Tang Dynasty made a breakthrough in high-pressure steam engine technology. Then steam engines were put on ships, ushering in the steam age. However, at that time, wooden ships were still used, and the sails were still retained, and the steam engines were only auxiliary.
Power. During this period, the navy tried to build iron-ribbed wooden shells and lay a layer of steel on the wooden shells to build large-tonnage ships and increase protection capabilities. Smooth-bore guns were still used on naval guns.
The important technical features are the sail power, the iron-ribbed wooden shell, and the smoothbore cannon. The pure steam engine has relatively low power and can only be used as auxiliary power. It still relies heavily on sails for navigation.
The representative ship type is the Jiangnan-class ironclad ship.
In the third period, Datang's steel production technology achieved a breakthrough. The price of steel dropped significantly. At the same time, the performance of steam engines was further improved, and front-mounted rifled guns appeared. With these new technologies, the Guangxi-class battleships were built and put into service (
The latter type of battleship is represented by the Armored Cruiser. Its technical characteristics are that it is an all-steel battleship. Its speed is generally increased to more than twelve knots under pure steam power, and it has a rifled gun in the front.
In the fourth period, the breech-mounted rifle was successfully developed, high-performance triple-expansion steam engines entered a mature stage, and high-performance armor appeared.
During this period, the capital ships began to abandon sails, use pure steam power, adopt all-steel construction, lay thick armor, and adopt rotating turrets. The typical example was the 10,000-ton battleship.
These periods seem to be distinct, but in fact these classifications can only be used to distinguish the top battleships at that time. In fact, the technological innovation of many auxiliary ships, namely cruisers and frigates, is not so fast.
Battleships have long begun to use all-steel hulls, but the Haishu-class frigates built and put into service in 1931 still have iron-ribbed wooden hulls.
Even many ship types combine technologies from different periods, such as the Zhangzhou-class cruiser. The first ship was built and put into service only thirty-four years ago, but it still has an iron-ribbed wooden hull. However, it was subsequently modified into rifled guns.
The armor also adopts wrought iron armor belts, and it also has a belt-type layout.
This is because after the industrialization of the Tang Dynasty, technological innovation developed too fast. There were different changes almost every year. New technologies continued to emerge. As a result, the warships built back then were subject to small changes every year and then year after year.
This situation has only changed in the past four or five years.
With the completion of the new Antarctic frigate, the Xiyin-class cruiser, and the battleship Luzon, it is officially announced that the Tang Navy has entered a new stage of development.
Many newly designed warships in recent years, regardless of their size, often still follow the design concepts of earlier years.
Three 10,000-ton battleships have been built. Although each one is larger in tonnage, the core concept has not actually changed.
The same is true for most other ship types.
But the current technology verification ship intends to put aside the constraints of existing warships and re-explore a new warship design and even combat mode.
Therefore, the technology verification ships designed by the navy this time are all different.
The first is firepower. It is expected to deploy four twin-mounted 150mm 40 times naval guns, two at the front and rear. More importantly, it is expected to use a unified firing director, requiring eight main guns to be able to fire at the same target simultaneously.
shoot.
All other hull designs are centered around these eight main guns.
When we were working on this technology verification ship, looking at the drawings produced by the designer, many people were worried that this thing wouldn't cause the whole ship to fall apart after a single salvo!