Although the strength of the Daheng Empire's navy is currently weak, the most combat-effective one is the Pingbo ironclad with a cannon layout beside the ship. A few dome-armored cruisers with only over 2,000 tons shoulder the heavy burden of the Imperial Navy's capital ships.
Several unprotected cruisers of one to two thousand tons have become important warships currently used by the empire to perform reconnaissance and patrol missions.
As for the large number of old cruisers and ironclads that have long since fallen behind, there seems to be a lot of them. However, the reason why they have not been retired yet is simply because the new ships have not yet entered service, and they are still needed to maintain the size of the fleet, maintain coastline security, and
Just training naval officers and soldiers.
However, the weak Daheng Navy is extremely ambitious!
Because behind them stands an empire with strong war potential!
The Daheng Empire has completed its unification, and the subsequent naval construction plan is directly aimed at competing with the Krul Kingdom to compete for the world's largest navy.
Although the time span will be relatively long, it will take at least ten or twenty years to complete.
Even if you want to make the Daheng Empire a regional naval power, it will take more than four or five years.
However, this did not stop the huge ambitions of the Daheng Empire Navy!
From the beginning, they have been formulating naval development plans for the global offensive navy and the world's number one navy.
This is also directly reflected in the Navy's series of shipbuilding plans, other ancillary facilities, and personnel training.
The two unified-class battleships built before were just a test of the waters. These two battleships have a standard displacement of more than 7,000 tons and a full load displacement of more than 8,000 tons. Although they are not bad, they are already far away from the needs of the Imperial Navy, so this
Only then did the plan for the Yonglin-class battleship come into being.
The initial design has a standard displacement of more than 9,000 tons and a full-load displacement of more than 10,000 tons.
And now, due to the emergence of the combined-image range finder, the scheduled naval battle distance has increased, so the Yonglin-class battleship still on the slipway has directly undergone design changes, and is preparing to be directly equipped with a 300 mm and 30 times the caliber main gun.
, for this reason, we do not hesitate to risk extended construction time, extended service time, and increased cost.
This is so that the warships, which cost millions of dollars, will not be faced with an embarrassing situation of being outdated and backward when they are built.
Fortunately, this is because the construction of the two Yonglin-class battleships, the first ship Yonglin, has only been under construction for less than three months, and is still in the early stages of hull construction.
As for the second ship Yong'an, the keel has just been laid not long ago, so it is easier to modify it.
This also allows the two Yonglin-class battleships to make design changes. Otherwise, with the two Tongyi-class battleships, when most of the hull engineering has been completed, it would be difficult to make major design changes. At most,
It only reserves a certain amount of space for the subsequent installation of a gun mount with a longer barrel.
The same is true for the construction plans of other warship types!
The Daheng Navy has made targeted improvements to every ship under construction or scheduled to be built, regardless of whether it is a cruiser or an auxiliary ship.
One of the most common improvements is to increase the elevation angle of the artillery, so that long-distance bombardment can be carried out with the assistance of a combined-image rangefinder.
At the same time, some warships that have recently been under construction or are preparing for construction have directly changed their designs and prepared to equip them with longer barrel guns.
For those that have reached the mid-to-late stage of construction, space is also required to be reserved for replacement of long-barreled naval guns of the same caliber.
The large caliber must be maintained, but the barrel must be longer, so that sufficient accuracy and power can be maintained after the distance of future naval battles increases.
Even the construction plan of the 4,000-ton coastal defense ironclad Fengyang Gengshi, which was to start construction next month, was directly canceled.
Last year, when the Navy formulated its shipbuilding plan, although the construction plan of the ocean-going fleet was certainly the focus, it also chose to build a limited number of coastal defense ironclad ships, small-tonnage shallow-water heavy gunships, and offshore patrol ships to perform offshore defense tasks.
Waiting for the offshore river fleet.
The original intention was to give the Imperial Navy a certain defensive power before the ocean-going fleet, especially a large number of battleships, was built and put into service.
But today, a few months later, the Navy itself has rejected the idea of continuing to build a large fleet of coastal defense ironclads.
The Navy believes that even though a certain amount of defensive force is needed in the early transitional period, after several months of internal discussions, the Navy believes that those shallow-water heavy gunships of a few hundred tons, or at most more than a thousand tons, can be upgraded to the task of port and estuary defense operations.
There is no need to build a medium and large coastal defense armored ship of three to four thousand tons. After all, these four thousand ton coastal defense armored ships are not cheap. A three to four thousand ton coastal defense ironclad ship costs more than one million yuan.
, after all, even if it is a coastal defense armored ship, if it wants to play its role, it must adopt new large-caliber naval guns, new steam engines and armor.
But the cost of the three major components of current warships, armor, naval guns, and power, accounts for almost the majority of the cost of the entire warship.
Using expensive steam engines, large-caliber naval guns, and armor to build an offshore defense ironclad with slow speed, low endurance, low freeboard, and inability to sail across oceans. It only has protection and firepower. The Daheng Imperial Navy believes that this does not meet the needs of the Imperial Navy.
.
With this money, why don't we build a few more large cruisers or even battleships?
Coast defense ironclads or similarly positioned ironclads with heavy firepower, high protection and low speed are not bad, but they are not suitable for the Daheng Empire Navy.
Relatively speaking, the Orr Kingdom has a special liking for this type of warship. Not only the Orr Kingdom, but many other countries, and even the Orissa Empire's navy are full of this emphasis on firepower and protection, and despise it.
A battleship with speed, endurance and seaworthiness.
Because the strategic mission of their navy is to control and defend the coastline and resist enemy invasion from the sea. Even if they have some overseas interests to protect, they generally prefer to use small and medium-sized ironclads or cruisers to perform overseas missions.
But that’s not the case with the Daheng Empire Navy!
The Daheng Empire Navy has never regarded itself as a regional defensive navy!
What the Daheng Empire Navy needs is not defensive warships, but offensive main battleships, which can attack the city for Daheng's industrial and commercial goods in the future, and can seize the ocean-going main battleships for Daheng to seize the endless straits.
As for the transitional period in the past few years, the naval generals of the Daheng Empire did not think that any country would declare war on the empire. Even if a certain king had his brain burned out, his subjects probably would not collectively commit a crime!
It is not a question of whether the navy can defeat it, but a serious imbalance between effort and benefit.
Your navy is powerful. You sent it and slapped the Daheng navy to death. Then, there was no more...
Is it possible that you still want to log in?
Even if you give them 10,000 courage, they would not dare to send army troops to land on Daheng mainland!
As for bombarding coastal cities, the fact that the Daheng people have a weak navy does not mean they have few coastal defense guns!
There are too many large-caliber artillery in the coastal defense forts. If they dare to go to a coastal city like Luohai City, or even go deep into the Luo River or the Mirror River, even the navy of the Kingdom of Krul will have to consider whether its battleships can outdo the Daheng people.
Coast defense fort.
The only thing left is to block the coastline
However, the Daheng people's import and export trade is very small, and they do not rely heavily on sea routes. The only ones they have are grain exports and weapons trade. If the weapons trade is lost in the war, they will definitely stop doing it. They will use it first.
As for grain exports, it doesn't matter. You can't make much money anyway, so the Daheng Empire can take the opportunity to reform its agricultural structure.
The export trade of the Daheng Empire, which sells weapons on one hand and food on the other, is a very painful export trade structure. When that country really wants to block the Daheng coastline, I am afraid that those food importing countries will send their own ships to transport food.
Already.
Otherwise, many countries will welcome rising food prices and subsequent famine.
Once the world's largest share of grain exports disappears from the international market, it will be enough to cause huge fluctuations in the grain market on Blue Star!
Therefore, blockading trade is also like taking off your pants and farting. It is unnecessary. Maybe the Daheng people who are drinking wine and laughing on the shore and watching their naval officers carrying out the blockade task are stupid.
The most important thing is that the Daheng people also have a reputation for shame, and their attitude towards the outside world has always been extremely tough. They will not just sit back and watch the enemy troops drifting in their own coastal waters without fighting back.
Moreover, the scale of their defense industry is so large that even if the performance of the warships they build is a little poor, as long as they are given a few years, they can produce a large number of warships.
Will you follow up or not when the time comes?
In short, for many countries, it is certain that they hate Daheng, but if you want to declare war on Daheng, unless there is a severe conflict of interest between the two parties, the possibility is extremely small.
Based on its strong confidence in the Daheng Empire itself, the Daheng Empire Navy does not believe that there will be too much uncertainty in the transitional period in the past few years. Even if there is any accident, the Imperial Navy does not believe that a few coastal defense armored ships can change the empire.
The dilemma facing the navy.
On the contrary, if the funds are freed up and used to build other cutting-edge new warships, the effect will be better.
Anyway, the Imperial Navy has decided that in the next two or three years, it will rely on the two Tongyi-class battleships Tongyi, Luohe and Pingbo battleships, coupled with three Luohai-class dome-armored cruisers and the Anhui-class battleships under construction.
The Su-class dome-armored cruiser conquered the world.
As a result, the construction plan for a coastal defense armored ship that was to start construction next month was cancelled.
The funds for the ship were moved to the large cruiser project. At the same time, according to technological changes and the new needs of the navy, it was decided to strengthen the defense and firepower of the large cruiser and build a stronger and larger one, even with the same model as a battleship. However,
An armored cruiser with slightly weaker armor and firepower.
The Navy had such a plan because it received a reminder from His Majesty Lin Ziran. After Lin Ziran learned about the troubles the Navy was currently facing and the cancellation of the coastal defense ironclad plan, he mentioned something and asked the Navy to try to build a ship with similar protection as a battleship.
mode as well as fire mode for the cruiser.
Well, Lin Ziran just mentioned it, but the Navy was very interested and quickly came up with the design plan.
The Navy hopes that in addition to the inherent reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance missions of this new armored cruiser, it also requires this new armored cruiser to serve as a support force to assist the main ship in line duels during fleet decisive battles, or to assume the main line on secondary battlefields on its own.
List duel tasks.
Finally, if necessary, you can lead alone or a few cruisers deep into the ocean to attack the merchant ships of the enemy fleet. Anyway, relying on high speed and strong firepower, it is very easy to clean up the cruisers, just encounter the first-class battleship cannon.
Because the Daheng Empire Navy does not have a plan to build a second-class battleship of seven to eight thousand tons, nor a first-class cruiser of seven to eight thousand tons, the navy hopes to strengthen the Daxin cruiser to complete the above-mentioned multiple tasks at the same time.
The armored cruiser plan of the Daheng Empire Navy has actually broken away from the category of cruisers and should belong to the category of battleships. It is a combination of second-class battleships and first-class cruisers.
After this kind of armored cruiser is built, although it is expected that its main combat opponents will be second-class battleships and large-tonnage cruisers from other countries, they are very different from each other.
And this also puts forward higher requirements for this kind of warship, which is much higher than the previous large cruiser plan.
I am afraid that the tonnage will skyrocket, and the cost will also skyrocket!
The original large cruiser plan was just a pure cruiser, with a larger tonnage at most.
This is the flagship of the reconnaissance cruiser fleet in the second phase of the naval development plan. It leads the cruiser formation to perform reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance missions.
The task is simple and clear!
According to such mission requirements, a large cruiser needs to have a high speed that is not weaker than that of an ordinary cruiser, and has stronger protection and firepower than a cruiser, in order to suppress the reconnaissance cruiser in the enemy fleet. To put it bluntly, it is a slightly larger cruiser.
To this end, the Ministry of Military Affairs enlarged the Ansu-class dome-armored cruiser and designed a Zhenbei dome-armored cruiser of more than 4,000 tons, which was officially constructed in April.
The ship continues to adopt a perfect dome armor layout. The naval gun layout follows the main gun turret layout of the battleship's central axis. There is a double-mounted 200mm 30x naval gun at the front and rear. A total of four 200mm three-guns are deployed.
Ten times as many naval guns.
In addition, the secondary battery firepower is also very good, deploying a bunch of 150mm secondary guns and a bunch of machine guns.
This machine gun is specially used to deal with the torpedo ships that other countries have begun to equip widely. Although the Daheng Empire also has anti-war forces, its development is not going smoothly.
It is also annoying to say that the Daheng Empire can even build 10,000-ton battleships, but it has not been able to solve even a small torpedo. Although some samples were obtained through abnormal technical means, the performance of the torpedoes obtained after imitation
Extremely poor. Although the problem has been solved, it is not very easy to use. There are many faults and the performance is poor.