As the saying goes, a hundred-year navy is a century-old navy, but this term is actually more true in the age of sail, because the navy in the age of sail has higher requirements for personnel quality. There are not a large number of well-trained naval officers and sailors, giving you an invincible Spanish force.
The big fleet can't even move away.
Not to mention, when contemporary technology is so rudimentary, long-sea voyages are basically a struggle between man and nature. Without experienced captains and sailors, the ship is very likely to sink to the bottom of the sea.
The Age of Discovery has nothing to do with the word romance. What it represents behind it is bloody cruelty!
Words like shipwreck, pirates, and death are the essence of the Age of Discovery.
This is why Colonel Bao Yifen proposed to establish a sea school to train naval officers!
To build a huge navy, you not only need ships and cannons, but also sailors, and the Tang Dynasty did not have any of these three.
This is also the reason why everyone was excited after seeing these plans, but everyone soon became confused: How can such a huge naval development plan be realized?
If the temporary ships can be modified with civilian ships, and the personnel problem can be solved by recruiting Ming navy troops and civilian sailors, the problem of naval guns is unsolvable.
Because according to Bao Yifen's shipbuilding plan, even the early shipbuilding plan will require at least a hundred naval guns, and these naval guns are not the Folang machines in the Ming Navy, but small-caliber shotguns.
Cannons and other auxiliary firearms, these auxiliary artillery are not included in the list of anti-ship naval guns in the Tang Dynasty Navy.
All those included in the list of naval guns are cannons, and a large number of large-caliber cannons are still needed. Cannons with calibers of twelve or even eighteen pounds, twenty-four pounds, thirty-two pounds, and sixty-four pounds are needed.
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And these artillery pieces, even the 12-pound artillery piece, the Tang Dynasty could not build!
Even if it can't be built, the Tang Dynasty is currently in a period of fighting with the Ming Army. The army does not have enough artillery, and the navy cannot allocate the production of artillery.
Based on the above, Bao Yifen's plan sounds very exciting, but in fact it is extremely difficult to realize it. At least the Tang Dynasty at this stage is not capable of supporting such a large-scale naval expansion.
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Although this plan was proposed by Bao Yifen, in fact, this naval expansion plan was formulated under the guidance of Li Xuan. Li Xuan naturally knew that it would be very difficult to build such a large fleet.
Even now, it would be impossible to complete it even if it was given ten years to the Tang Dynasty. Even if it were completed, it would still be an extremely heavy financial burden.
It is much more expensive to maintain a navy of 30,000 people than an army of 30,000 people.
But even though he knew that this plan could not be completed, Li Xuan still needed to propose it, because he needed to set a goal for them to catch up. Even if they could not catch up, the process of catching up would always yield some results.
His ideals for the navy were not high. He could recover the Pearl River Estuary and control the Pearl River in a short period of time. The mid-term goal was to maintain the routes along the coast of Guangdong, and the long-term goal was to completely defeat the Ming Navy and control the coastal waters of China.
As for building a huge fleet comparable to the Spanish Armada, that will take a long, long time. Li Xuan thought, if he is lucky enough to be able to unify the land of China, and is lucky enough to continue to live for decades, it is estimated that
It is possible.
As for now, just download YY!
yy is not illegal!
Focusing on the naval expansion plan proposed by Bao Yifen, a group of naval officers began to discuss it in detail, and during the meeting, the details would be improved.
But Li Xuan doesn’t care about the perfection of these details!
So soon, a group of navy officers expressed their approval of the navy development plan. Immediately, Li Xuan followed suit and said: "Since all the beloved ministers unanimously agree, let's deal with it in order!"
According to this shipbuilding plan, discussions on the models and performance of ocean-going warships have also begun. There is nothing to say about this. The Naval Ship Administration Department has already made plans.
There are currently two plans for ocean-going warships. One is to build a new pure warship, and the other is to use the hull of an existing civilian ship for modification.
Modification is naturally necessary, and because the existing civilian ships have different specifications, it is impossible to form unified model specifications. Just like the previous Weilong-class battleships, they are said to be eighty tons, but in fact there are also hundreds of tons.
, there are also those with more than 70 tons, and almost every Veyron-class battleship is different.
They are said to be battleships of the same level, but in fact they are equipped with roughly the same firepower and are basically different in other aspects. They can be regarded as similar ship types.
Nowadays, large warships need to be refitted, and that is even more true, because ships weighing hundreds of tons are hard to find, and it is difficult to find a few that are exactly the same. If the Tang Dynasty Navy wants to refit warships, it can only refit one ship.
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Because almost every modified warship is different, and the performance data in all aspects are very different from that of professional warships, or at least from the standards for various types of special warships proposed by the eternal sage Li Xuan.
Therefore, at this meeting, the Navy will uniformly refer to existing and subsequent civilian ships as armed merchant ships, allowing these ships to return to their original names.
However, according to the size of the firepower and tonnage, they are called first-class armed merchant ships, second-class armed merchant ships, third-class armed merchant ships, and fourth-class armed merchant ships, a total of four levels.
Among them, first-class armed merchant ships specifically refer to armed merchant ships of more than 800 tons.
Second-class armed merchant ships are armed merchant ships between 400 tons and 800 tons. Most large ocean-going merchant ships these days are basically within this range.
Third-class armed merchant ships are armed merchant ships with a displacement of 200 tons to 400 tons. Armed merchant ships of this tonnage are barely capable of ocean navigation. The current new flagship of the Tang Dynasty Navy, Wuzhou, is a 230-ton sand ship.
A converted armed merchant ship.
As for the fourth-class armed merchant ships, they are less than 200 tons. For example, the previous flagship of the Tang Navy was the Xingquan, which was also modified from a sand ship and had a displacement of more than 130 tons.
Existing warships and warships that are expected to be modified in the future are called armed merchant ships, so where are the real warships?
It’s not hard, it’s still on paper!
In order to establish a grand goal for these idiots in the Tang Navy, Li Xuan put a lot of thought into it. He even decided on the type, standard and title of the warships himself, just for fear that these navy idiots would make something different.
One of them is to rename all existing warships as armed merchant ships. How dare these warships, which don’t even have a few cannons, call themselves warships?
How can you make those warships with double or even three or four decks and equipped with dozens or even hundreds of naval guns feel so embarrassed?
Therefore, Li Xuan imitated the classification of warships of later generations and formulated a simple standard for the classification of warships in the future navy.
First of all, it is divided by purpose. Ships used for ocean warfare are divided into three classes, namely battleships, cruisers, and frigates. Those used for inland and coastal operations include inland river gunboats and shallow sea gunboats.
Battleships will be used for the decisive battles of the ocean-going main fleet, and are divided into first-class, second-class, and third-class according to the tonnage and firepower of the battleships. As for the minimum standard for battleships, which is third-class battleships, Li Xuan proposed the minimum
To have a thousand tons and more than fifty artillery pieces, it needs to have strong firepower and excellent protection capabilities.
Unfortunately, the Tang Navy currently has no plans for this type of ship, whether in active service or in its subsequent shipbuilding plans, even for third-class battleships.
This is beyond the current capabilities of the Tang Dynasty!
Cruisers, this type of warship is used for ocean patrols, serving as the vanguard of capital ships, and attacking enemy merchant ships. They are also divided into first-class, second-class, and third-class cruisers. The lowest third-class cruiser has a minimum tonnage of more than 500 tons.
, have more than thirty artillery pieces, and should have excellent seaworthiness and high speed.
Frigates, this kind of warship will be used to perform escort and low-intensity combat missions. They are also divided into first to third classes. Among them, the third class frigates need to have a minimum tonnage of more than 300 tons and more than 20 guns. They need to have comparative capabilities.
Low cost, fewer crew.
For the above three types of warships, Li Xuan requested that the Ministry of Ship Administration must comprehensively consider Chinese and Western ship designs when making corresponding designs. Don't just design warships directly with the crappy Fuchuan thing. That would be empty tonnage but not enough.
If you can't install a few cannons, don't make it a stupid big thing like a Spanish galleon. Slowly sailing on the sea is looking for death.
We must have innovative thinking and combine the advantages of China and the West to create innovative designs!
In addition to these main battleships, there are also inland river gunboats. This ship is a warship used for fighting in inland rivers. Its biggest feature is its shallow draft.
Shallow-sea gunboats are warships used to operate in coastal areas and some inland rivers with sufficient water depth. Their characteristic is that they sacrifice seaworthiness in exchange for shallow draft, greater firepower, and better defense.
Both types of gunboats are also divided into first class, second class and third class.
However, although Li Xuan formulated a detailed classification for the Tang Navy, it is a pity that so far, the Datang Navy still does not have a single regular warship, not even an inland river gunboat.
Because the existing warships in the Tang Navy were all armed merchant ships, but this did not prevent them from establishing standards and moving towards this goal.
And now, they have taken the first step towards this goal: designing and building the first ocean-going warship of the Tang Navy!