Chapter 223 The Navy's warships are getting more and more weird
Among the many artillery pieces equipped by the Army of the Tang Dynasty, there were many types of 120mm artillery pieces, not to mention the 150mm ones, which were quite intimidating.
But in fact, the number of these large-caliber artillery is not large.
The artillery most equipped by the Tang Army was actually two 75mm artillery pieces. As for the other artillery pieces, they seemed to have many models and were quite important, but many of them only had dozens or hundreds of pieces of equipment.
Compared with the two artillery pieces with a caliber of 75 mm, which can easily reach thousands of pieces, they are far behind.
From the artillery construction of the Datang Army, we can also see the current thinking of the Datang Army in building an army.
That is, troops deployed locally hoard heavy weapons. The troops deployed locally do not fight anyway. Even though they are equipped with a large number of heavy weapons, they are actually of no use except for training. Therefore, the cost of subsequent use is actually not high.
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Therefore, the weapons of the troops deployed locally are mainly high-end.
However, overseas deployments, as well as troops deployed in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, are mainly based on practicality and pay great attention to cost-effectiveness.
Otherwise, the Army would not have equipped all the troops deployed overseas with long-range artillery support and equipped them with 120mm howitzers.
Anyway, this thing is not bad, both in terms of range and power. The purchase price will be cheaper if the production is increased. The key is that the production of cannon shells is large, and the purchase price of cannon shells is also cheaper.
In addition to reorganizing the artillery force and simplifying logistics, the Army also started tightening its belt again to stockpile ammunition after the beginning of the 41st year of the Xuanping Dynasty in preparation for the possible Western Expedition a few years later.
While the Army was doing this, the Navy continued to live its own life leisurely.
The Navy does not have as much ambition and pressure as the Army. The Tang Navy is invincible in the world. Apart from the recent forward strategy, it has nothing to do.
In recent years, what the navy has done most is combating piracy!
However, these pirates were slowly defeated after being beaten. The remaining few pirates were also pirates who specifically targeted European sailing ships. Datang was too lazy to fight.
After all, the Tang Dynasty did not want to see those Europeans continue to engage in maritime trade.
You Europeans can just fight with the Tatars. Whatever goods you want, I will have merchant ships from the Tang Dynasty deliver them directly to your door. You don’t have to go to sea at all. After all, there are so many pirates now. Be careful that you will be robbed as soon as you go to sea...
Therefore, in recent years, the Tang Navy has become more and more troubled. The navy has even taken the initiative to postpone the construction of hugely expensive battleships and armored cruisers several times.
The originally planned huge battle fleet and armored cruiser fleet have been replaced by cruisers and escort fleets.
But now, there are too many cruisers and frigates. The total number of new cruisers and frigates exceeds more than 80. In addition, there are dozens of older cruisers and frigates. Today, the cruisers of the Datang Navy are currently in service.
The total number of ships and frigates exceeds one hundred and twenty.
Such a huge number has made the navy unwilling to continue to expand the navy, and even wants to reduce the size of some cruisers and frigates.
Therefore, the Navy has proposed that newly built cruisers and frigates should pay more attention to range, seaworthiness, comfort, and self-sustainability, so that warships can have longer continuous cruising times and cover wider sea areas, thus reducing the size of the ocean fleet.
Too large a situation.
As for protection, firepower and speed, it cannot be said that there is no such thing, but it only needs to be maintained to a certain extent.
This is caused by the Navy's internal strategy of using the sea to dominate the land.
Since the Navy internally decided to use the sea to control the land and engage in a forward strategy, the Navy has proposed a series of shipbuilding plans.
The core shipbuilding plan is a new type of frigate.
The Navy's internal requirements for this frigate are that the ship needs to have good seaworthiness, a large range, and good living space to facilitate long-term deployment around the world.
It requires a certain amount of firepower, but this firepower does not mean caliber or range, but it requires ammunition reserves.
Because any kind of naval gun can be pulled out at will, its rate of fire and range are good, and it can meet the current strategic needs of the navy. In addition, the indigenous firepower is weak, and the navy's ocean-going warships do not need to have dense ammunition delivery capabilities.
However, the Navy requires this new type of frigate to be able to continuously perform combat readiness missions for a long time and carry out bombardment of imperial land facilities, which requires the new type of warship to carry a large amount of ammunition.
It is also required to carry more coal, fresh water, food, etc.
These are all to increase the long-term combat capability of the battleship.
The Navy's requirement is that even one such new frigate is enough to block the front coastal areas and attack enemy ports, forts and other targets.
Finally, the Guilin-class frigate designed by the Naval Ship Administration Department is, to be honest, a bit nondescript, with a displacement of 2,500 tons. In the past, this tonnage would have been the standard for a cruiser.
However, the attached naval guns are only a 120-mm main gun at the front and rear, and a 75-mm secondary gun at the left and right. There are only four artillery pieces in total. The overall firepower is actually more than 1,200 tons.
The Mikawa-class frigate is still not that good. It still has two 120mm naval guns and four 75mm naval guns. There are six artillery pieces in total.
The protection system seems to adopt a dome armor design, but in fact the thickness of the dome armor is very thin. The outer shell of the entire battleship is also an ordinary shipbuilding steel plate. However, even a relatively thin dome armor plus coal bunker
, the indigenous large-caliber smoothbore cannons also failed to penetrate.
As for those ordinary steel plate hulls, the indigenous medium-caliber smoothbore cannons can't penetrate them, let alone grenades.
As for the maximum speed, it can barely reach 16 knots under strong ventilation conditions, but that is not the important thing. The most important thing is that if you cruise at an economical speed of eight knots, the maximum range can reach 8,000 kilometers.
With a tonnage of 2,500 tons, the protection is average, the firepower is average, and the speed is not outstanding. So what is such a large tonnage used for?
Naturally, it is used to carry more coal, ammunition, fresh water, food and other things.
The remaining space is used to improve the living standards of officers and soldiers.
Although this warship looks nondescript, the top brass of the Navy are very happy about it because it is cheap and uses a lot of civilian ship craftsmanship to reduce costs. Therefore, this warship only costs about 250,000 Tang Yuan.
Get one.
In addition, more importantly, this warship has longer self-sustainability. If used for overseas deployment, it can effectively reduce the number and cost of warships required for overseas deployment.
In addition to the Guilin-class frigates, the Navy has also made certain improvements to its cruisers. The basic principle is to maintain the existing firepower and increase combat self-sustainability. Finally, the Daguan-class cruiser was developed.
The ship's displacement reaches more than 4,500 tons, which is a bit scary at first glance. It is a full 2,000 tons larger than the original main cruiser Gohe-class cruiser.
But the firepower actually only has two 150mm main guns, four 120mm naval guns, and four 75mm secondary guns.
This firepower is not as good as the 2,500-ton Gohe-class cruiser.
Not to mention compared with the West India-class cruiser that was equipped with six 150mm naval guns.
The protection still adopts the design of dome armor and coal field, which is mediocre and useless.
The power system is also quite satisfactory, with a maximum speed of 18 knots.
Its firepower, protection and speed are all inferior to its tonnage...
However, its combat sustainability capability is very strong. Not to mention its endurance of 8,000 kilometers, it has a large ammunition reserve, plenty of food and fresh water, and the living space for the officers and soldiers is also quite good.
Whether it is the Guilin-class frigate or the Dayuan-class cruiser, they are all products of the Tang Dynasty's navy's forward strategy.
Its design idea is not to compete for sea control and fight with the enemy navy, but to be able to deploy overseas for a long time and bombard enemy land targets.
So you can see that although they have fewer naval guns, they are actually new types of long-barreled naval guns. The new artillery used are 150 mm and 40 times naval guns, and 120 mm and 40 times.
Naval gun, 70 mm 45 times naval gun.
This is all to be able to bombard ground targets farther away, expand the coverage of the navy's land attack, and achieve control of the land with the sea.
Of course, although the Navy has successively produced Guilin-class frigates and Damuan-class cruisers, two ocean-going warships that are obviously used for overseas deployment.
However, the battleships and armored cruisers still maintain the goal of fighting for sea control. Although there are no enemies yet, there will be no problems in the future if the ghostwriting is not done.
Because the designs of battleships and armored cruisers are still traditional designs, focusing on the three major elements of firepower, protection, and maneuverability, the Datang Navy has built very few of these two types of battleships.
Basically, only one battleship and one armored cruiser are being built, and not many have been completed and put into service.
In fact, so far, the Datang Navy only has five battleships in active service and one under construction. Three armored cruisers are in active service and one is under construction.
The established plan of the Tang Navy is to maintain six active battleships and six armored cruisers, and requires the ships to be within 18 years old.
As for the plan for dozens of capital ships mentioned earlier, the Navy has already suffered from selective amnesia...
Nowadays, the Navy has chosen to actively reduce the size of its ocean-going warships and supplement them with improvements in the continuous combat capabilities of single ships to control global sea areas and achieve the purpose of controlling land with sea.
But when it comes to shallow-water warships, the Tang Navy chose to continue to expand.
Among the shipbuilding plans that are also within the framework of the forward strategy, the shipbuilding plans for shallow water warships such as offshore inland rivers are the largest and the largest.
First of all, in terms of offshore combat ships, the navy requires features such as shallow draft and strong firepower, as well as features such as easy maintenance, flexibility, and low cost of use.
Because most of these offshore warships will actually be deployed overseas. At the same time, these offshore warships are actually the most deployed types of ships of the Tang Navy, and their daily missions are relatively frequent.
There are many types of shallow-water warships. The largest shallow-water heavy gunships built by the navy have a tonnage of more than 3,000 tons...
However, the main ones are the 800-ton offshore patrol ships and the 500-ton inland gunboats.
In addition, there are 300-ton offshore patrol ships and inland river gunboats, 100-ton offshore patrol ships and gunboats, etc.
Overall it covers the operational needs of offshore and inland rivers.
It's just that the navy has had a big conflict with the army in order to pursue this forward strategy. In response, the army has expanded the size of the maritime transport division in the past two years and also greatly expanded the construction of inland river warships.
Until now, Li Xuan has been having a bit of a headache because of the bad things happening in the navy and the army.
It is not impossible for the navy to use the sea to control the land, but why should it build dozens of tons of inland river warships and then fight deep into the Danube River?
It's normal for the Army to build some river warships, but if you want to build a two- to three-thousand-ton Army armed transport ship, that's nonsense. Take a look, there are six 150mm rear-mounted ships on this design.
Gun, at a speed of eighteen knots, is this a transport ship?
Seeing that the Navy is launching a shipbuilding plan for river warships, the Army is also tossing around plans to expand three maritime transport divisions.
Li Xuan finally couldn't bear it anymore. He called several big guys from the army and navy over, and he didn't yell or curse. Li Xuan hadn't been angry in front of his ministers for many years, and he wouldn't do it because of this.
He gets mad at everyday things.
Li Xuan just called them over, then he sat on it and squinted his eyes, and left a message to the army and navy: "These people are here, if we talk about anything, we can always discuss a solution, right..."
"
Then the army and navy started arguing. Half an hour later, seeing that they still couldn't get a result, Li Xuan left a sentence: "Since we can't solve it, then go back!"
After letting them leave, Li Xuan gave the order. All the Army's plans to build and expand maritime transport divisions were suspended, and all the Navy's plans to build small-tonnage river warships were also suspended.
We will wait for the Army and Navy to discuss the follow-up plan.
In fact, Li Xuan can also make a decision forcibly. For example, if he directly says that all inland river operations belong to the navy, or that all inland river operations belong to the army, then both the navy and the army will comply.
But as a referee, Li Xuan will not leave the game easily.
He is playing chess, not a chess piece, so there is no need to get involved with these things.
Besides, the conflict between the army and navy within the Tang Empire was too big now, and Li Xuan was too lazy to get involved, lest his officials would complain about his favoritism.
It's great now. Let's stop their messy plans first and let the army and navy return to the negotiating table to continue talking. It doesn't matter if the talks don't go well. Anyway, the plans were suspended by Li Xuan. Everything can go on as usual.
If we continue, we can save some money for domestic economic construction.
Li Xuan is naturally on the right side and very stable!