The designers of the Imperial Navy's new battleship design were actually designed based on the Andrei of the Kingdom of Krul Navy.
The battleship Andre, which was put into service last year, can be said to be Blue Star's most technologically advanced and most powerful battleship in contemporary times.
With a standard displacement of 11,000 tons, the ship has extremely powerful firepower and protection, and it also runs very fast.
The battleship adopts a central gun gallery design, with four 450 mm front-loading rifled guns amidships, as well as a large number of medium-caliber front-loading rifled guns and secondary batteries.
It also has the most powerful protective armor.
The ship's speed is also very fast and can run 14.5 knots.
Although the firepower layout is different from the central axis front and rear turret layout promoted by the Daheng Empire Navy in the past two years, it has to be said that all aspects of the performance data of the Andre battleship represent the pinnacle of active warships in contemporary navies.
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When designers of the Imperial Navy designed new battleships, they naturally used this battleship as a comparison.
In terms of firepower, it is necessary to have at least four large-caliber breech-mounted rifled guns. Considering that the main large-caliber naval gun developer of the Imperial Navy, the Nanzhou Machinery Bureau, has only just completed the 250 mm 20
Five times the rear-mounted naval gun, ready to be installed on the Unification-class battleship.
As for the 300 mm 25-caliber naval gun, it is still under development. If the development of the gun does not go smoothly, there will be a 250 mm 25-caliber breech-loaded gun as an alternative.
However, the Navy believed that the power of the 250 mm caliber was too small, and strongly requested the equipment of a 300 mm caliber naval gun.
The larger-caliber artillery also places higher demands on the Nanzhou Machinery Bureau and related manufacturers.
In fact, the high demand for firepower can be solved to some extent. After all, the strength of Nanzhou Machinery Bureau is not just a boast. Although the technology in all aspects is still a little behind compared to the powerful countries, there is no generational difference.
It's just that the quality is worse and the performance is worse.
Therefore, although it is very difficult for the Nanzhou Machinery Bureau to produce 300mm long-barreled artillery, they still have it.
The armor is barely adequate, but the steam engine is far behind. If you want a warship of tens of thousands of tons to run more than 14 knots, you must also control the size and weight of the power system, release enough displacement to strengthen the armor, and install artillery.
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This technical difficulty is very high for contemporary empires.
After the naval ship administration department came up with the rough design, Lin Ziran felt that it was pretty good. At least the design route was in line with his requirements for the navy.
Especially in terms of firepower layout, we must unswervingly adopt the main turret layout in front and rear of the central axis.
Nowadays, the firepower layout of various navies is really messy. Even the Daheng Empire Navy itself has a messy layout with various layouts. There are traditional shipside gun layouts, central gun gallery layouts, and front and rear turret layouts along the central axis.
Anyway, there are all kinds of them.
But Lin Ziran's requirement for the new battleship is that the main gun must adopt a central axis front and rear turret layout.
When this firepower layout was determined, the battleship design with this firepower layout was actually very similar to the early pre-dreadnought battleships of later generations.
The only flaw that seemed to Lin Ziran was that the expected firing rate of the 300mm main gun was very slow, and the power of the 150mm naval gun was slightly smaller.
I'm afraid it will be very embarrassing to face some armored fast battleships!
Although the finished product has not yet been released, feedback from the Nanzhou Machinery Bureau is that the rate of fire of the 300 mm caliber naval gun under development is expected to be one round in three to four minutes.
The theoretical rate of fire takes several minutes to fire, but in actual naval battles it may be even lower!
The 250mm main gun of the previous unified-class battleship took two and a half minutes to fire one round. The rate of fire was already slow enough, and the current 300mm caliber naval gun is even slower.
Lin Ziran felt that it was necessary to remind the navy!
After being reminded by Lin Ziran, the navy generals who had spent their whole lives playing with small boats thought that this was indeed not very reliable. The four main guns seemed powerful, but the slow rate of fire could not hit the enemy.
What's the use?
But, you can't do it without it. The armor of the main battleships these days is thick, and the main guns with insufficient caliber cannot penetrate the armor of enemy ships.
As for the problem of insufficient firepower of partially armored cruisers, they proposed another solution, which is to increase the caliber of secondary guns.
There are two specific plans, one is to equip a few more 200mm secondary main guns, the other is to equip 170mm naval guns.
But, another naval admiral proposed that since the firing rate of the 300 mm caliber main gun is too slow, then we might as well equip the 250 mm caliber uniformly, build four twin-mounted turrets, and equip eight 200 mm guns at once.
Fifty millimeter caliber artillery.
The firepower is still strong.
After Lin Ziran found out about this idea, he felt that these navy generals had so many ideas. If they really came up with it like this, wouldn't it be the firepower layout design of a dreadnought ship on Earth?
Lin Ziran basically didn't interfere with the navy's messy ideas. Anyway, what was moving around now was the firepower layout. In fact, with the current technology, simple changes in the firepower layout would not have much impact.
Even if a four-seater twin-mounted battleship with eight main guns of the same caliber is built, it is not a fearless battleship in the true sense. Its combat effectiveness is still limited, and it will also require more armor protection due to the elongated hull.
A series of problems such as weak protection emerged.
For the navy's new battleships, Lin Ziran just let them figure it out slowly, and he could just take the general direction.
However, although the final design of the new 10,000-ton battleship has not yet been completed, the specific shipbuilding plan has been determined.
Next year, we will start construction of a 10,000-ton ironclad ship, an approximately 5,000-ton coastal defense armored ship, two complete dome-armored cruisers and two unprotected cruisers.
If the domestic situation is relatively smooth next year, especially if the Unification War is over, then there will be additional orders for a number of warships depending on the situation.
After approving the above-mentioned warship construction plan, Lin Ziran put aside the navy's affairs. After all, the navy's expansion is to deal with future threats, and they are threats many years from now. There is no rush now.
The most important thing for the empire right now is to agree to the war.
The empire's main military operations recently have been concentrated in the Pingnan Prefecture area.
After the First Army Corps led by Liang Chenglei successfully captured Zhenbei City, under the cover of the Navy's Jinghe Squadron, they continued to march toward Pingnan Prefecture along the Jinghe River. They did not encounter any resistance from the enemy in the early stage, but they penetrated deep into Pingnan Prefecture.
Behind the hinterland, there was frequent enemy resistance, and the small groups of troops and supply lines that dispersed were frequently attacked by the enemy.
In particular, some unarmed inland river transport ships transporting supplies for the army were frequently attacked by enemy army artillery in the Mirror River and some tributary river sections, causing heavy losses.
In this case, Liang Chenglei knew that he had to change the tactics he had formulated before the war.