The development of torpedo ships on the Daheng people's side is somewhat backward, but the enemy's torpedo ships are developing well. In order to deal with the threat of torpedo ships, the Daheng Empire Navy directly expanded the caliber of the heavy machine guns and turned them into machine guns and moved them onto the ships. At the same time,
Used in conjunction with the 11mm heavy machine gun, it forms a medium and close fire network, which can be used to deal with torpedo ships and other small and medium targets at close range, as well as the deck personnel of enemy ships.
This is also a very interesting evolution process, that is, because of the existence of Lin Ziran, the Daheng Empire directly skipped the hand-operated multi-barreled machine guns and machine guns, and directly adopted the machine guns and machine guns based on the short recoil principle of the barrel.
The speed is 17 knots, which is slightly 0.5 knots faster than the Luo Hai-class cruiser that was in service before and the Ansu-class cruiser that was started in advance.
After all, latecomers have the advantage.
In April, the construction of the first warship, the ‘Zhenbei’, was started. The construction cost is expected to be only a few million.
The Zhenbei-class cruiser, as a large reconnaissance cruiser among large and small reconnaissance cruisers, is quite qualified in all aspects. However, from the Navy's perspective, this large cruiser is only suitable for reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance.
But if you want to let it take on more important strategic and tactical tasks, it is very difficult.
That's why the Navy designed a brand new ship type called armored cruiser based on large cruisers and enhanced protection.
In order to accomplish a series of high-intensity tasks, the Navy needs armored cruisers to have a speed of at least 17 knots. In short, it cannot be worse than the speed of the mainstream cruisers of the current naval powers. This mainstream speed is generally between 16 and 18 knots.
In terms of firepower, it is required to be equipped with naval guns with a caliber of 250 mm or more than 30 times, preferably four.
Well, this is a more powerful main gun firepower than the unified battleship. There are only four 250mm 25x naval guns on the unified battleship. Although there is room for upgrading the gun mount, it has not been upgraded.
no.
In terms of protection, it is a little worse than the battleship, but to comprehensively surpass the current dome-armored cruiser, that is to say, the waterline armor belt must be deployed to form an armor box armor layout. The key defense mode can be adopted, but the thickness of the main part of the armor must be guaranteed.
, it must at least be able to withstand the bombardment of a second-class ironclad ship in the navies of various countries, and those messy front-loaded rifled guns or what is expected to be a 200mm breech-loaded gun equipped with armored cruisers.
However, the warships designed by the designers of the Ship Administration Department based on these mission requirements and indicators have seriously injured the navy!
Those guys from the Ship Administration Department may have been lazy and just slightly modified the Uniform-class battleship before throwing it out to fool people, because according to the people from the Ship Administration Department:
The armored cruiser needs to comprehensively suppress the protection and firepower of the enemy's first-class cruisers and second-class battleships. Isn't this the protection and firepower standard of the unified-class battleships? When they built the unified-class battleships, they were aiming for this goal...
As for the speed, if the hull is enlarged and protected against weak alkali, more space can be made to install coal-fired boilers and steam engines, and the speed can barely reach 17 knots.
To put it bluntly, they just built a high-speed battleship, which is completely different from the previously set armored cruiser, which only enhanced the defense on the basis of the cruiser.
To a certain extent, the improved large cruiser now designed can already be called a high-speed battleship.
In order to achieve this high speed, not only the displacement of more than a thousand tons was increased, but the protection was even worse.
Needless to say the cost, you can tell with your eyes closed that this thing is even higher than the Uniform-class battleship. The navy purchase price of the Uniform-class battleship is 2.45 million yuan. This thing is much more expensive than the Uniform-class battleship. They estimate
The purchase price must reach three million yuan.
This left the navy speechless. This thing is too expensive.
However, after Emperor Lin Ziran saw this design plan, he felt that the design plan of the ship administration department was very thoughtful.
In Lin Ziran's opinion, a high-speed battleship with focused protection, or a battlecruiser, is better than the previous simple armored cruiser solution.
And this thing seems expensive, but if compared with the Yonglin-class battleship, it is nothing.
After design changes, the standard displacement is expected to increase to 10,500 tons, and new main guns under development and many other new technologies will be adopted. The procurement budget for the first ship of this class has increased by hundreds of thousands.
, increased to 4 million constant yuan, even the No. 2 ship would probably need 3.8 million yuan.
So the price may seem expensive, but it’s actually not unacceptable!
Although the protection of this armored cruiser is worse than that of a unified-class battleship, the Daheng Empire Navy has already internally clarified its naval development route, which is to rely on the combined-image rangefinder to pursue long-distance artillery battles.
This means that the combat distance can be extended to more than four or five thousand meters. Even then, the enemy will start to use the combined-image range finder and find a way to hit the target from a long distance. However, the longer the combat distance, the more effective the enemy ships will be.
The power of the cannon.
So protection is not unacceptable at all.
The most important thing is that it is fast. If you can't beat the new battleships, you can run away!
As for the remaining second-class battleships, cruisers, etc., the armored cruisers can use whatever posture they like to bully others.
Taking on line combat tasks on the secondary front is still secondary, even irrelevant, in Lin Ziran's opinion.
In Lin Ziran's view, the most critical role of the armored cruiser plan proposed by the navy is still to serve as an avant-garde fleet.
During the decisive battle of the fleet, perform reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, containment and other tasks.
At that time, a few armored cruisers will be formed into a fast formation, which can use protection and firepower to defeat all enemy reconnaissance and secondary formations, and use speed to avoid the enemy's main fleet.
This will bring huge reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance advantages to our side.
Once one's own side gains an advantage in battlefield intelligence, it means that one's own main fleet will be able to take the initiative on the battlefield.
And this is extremely important for the fleet battle.
Therefore, Lin Ziran believes that even though the cost is higher, this armored cruiser still has great tactical value.
For this reason, although there was some hesitation within the Navy, Lin Ziran personally promoted the detailed design and subsequent construction of the armored cruiser.
It is planned to convert the planned construction funds for coastal defense ironclads into the construction funds for armored cruisers.
The design plan is based on the previous design plan with detailed improvements. It is expected that the design work will be initially completed within three months. At the same time, preparations for the preliminary construction will begin. While the construction is underway, we will wait for the 250mm and 30x caliber ship.
If the research and development of the gun is successful, if the research and development of the gun is not successful, there will be a backup naval gun, which is a 250mm 25mm naval gun or a 200mm 35 times naval gun.
After the construction plan of the ship was determined, the plan was promoted as the "Improved Large Cruiser Plan"!
This can be regarded as a kind of strategic confusion. The Daheng Empire Navy will not disclose all its warship plans, and even basically does not disclose the construction plans and data of warships to the outside world. However, other countries can still observe the construction conditions in the shipyards.
and other public or non-public information to determine the basic situation.
This kind of relatively special warship is probably difficult to hide. Just like the Luo Hai-class dome-armored cruiser, it has only been two years since every major naval power has basically known about it and started building dome-armored cruisers.
The Kingdom of Orr came to the door and asked to order the same type of battleship as the Luo Hai class cruiser!
There is a high probability that the armored cruiser will not be able to keep any secrets in the future, but as long as it can confuse the enemy for a few years, it will be a good thing.
If other countries learn about armored cruisers, they will definitely follow suit. This fact has nothing to do with whether armored cruisers are good or not.
The most important one is the Daheng Empire’s navy, the Orissa Empire’s navy must also have it, and the Krul Kingdom’s navy must also have it!
No matter what type of ship it is, no matter how it changes in the future, as long as I have what you have, and mine are more and better, then it will be enough to remain invincible!
This is the core element of naval competition!
However, the navy of the Kingdom of Krul is a bit special. It is estimated that they will follow up in the short term, but I am afraid they will change their direction soon.
The generals of the Imperial Navy estimate that at most they can only build a few test ships, or simply some cheap versions of small armored cruisers of four to five thousand tons for performing missions overseas.
As for this kind of armored cruiser of seven or eight thousand tons, I guess the Kingdom of Krul is not interested. For the navy of the Kingdom of Krul, this thing is actually useless. This thing is not cheap, but it cannot be used in the battle line...
…
As for acting as an ordinary cruiser and playing avant-garde reconnaissance, the cost performance of about 10,000 tons of armor is too low. They have a lot of first-class protected cruisers and second-class protected cruisers. Besides, in fact, they don’t really need avant-garde reconnaissance. They have a lot of them.
The battleships play global presence and global attack.
When the war started, dozens of battleships were directly deployed to the enemy's coastline, completely blocking the enemy's main ports and waterways. They also required a lot of reconnaissance, and even counterattacks to break diplomatic relations were saved.
As for the generals of the Daheng Empire Navy, the reason why they have such speculation is because no one has said it, but in fact, the current Daheng Empire Navy is just crossing the river by touching the Krul Kingdom Navy, and even the core global offensive
Naval ideas are plagiarized from other people’s global presence and global offensive strategic ideas.
As for the student of the Daheng Navy who studied the thoughts of Krul Navy, he can still understand the thoughts of the teacher of Krul Kingdom Navy!
What are the thoughts of the Krul Kingdom Navy:
Dozens of battleships will directly block the door of your home, so that you can't even get out by a sampan. You still want to get armored cruisers to conduct avant-garde reconnaissance and break up diplomatic relations. Just dream!
If your armored cruiser can get out of the port, or find a port for supply and maintenance operations after coming out, I will sink the 800,000-ton warship collectively!
Battleships are the way to go!
However, the only navy that can do this, even considering armored cruisers as worthless, is the Navy of the Kingdom of Krul.
If nothing else, other countries don’t have as many battleships as they do!
A country's naval construction and specific warship design are often influenced by many aspects. It does not mean to build whatever it wants, but to build the most suitable naval tactics and warships.
The naval generals of almost every country on Blue Star are particularly envious of the navy of the Kingdom of Krul.
I envy their "global presence, global attack" naval strategy, and even more envy of their large ocean-going fleet composed of a large number of first-class battleships, second-class battleships, and first-class cruisers, second-class cruisers, and third-class cruisers.
However, there is only one Krul Kingdom navy on this blue star!
The navies of other countries are not like this, but their strength does not allow it!
Many countries, such as the Orissa Imperial Navy, do not want to build a bunch of coastal defense armored ships of several thousand tons. Even the main battleships of eight to nine thousand tons have to deliberately focus on firepower and protection, resulting in extremely poor seaworthiness and endurance.
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They also want a large number of first-class ocean-going battleships to span the world!
But that thing is expensive, and if it is only used for coastal defense, it is a bit wasteful to be honest. The actual utility is not as good as a bunch of short-legged battleships and a bunch of coastal defense ironclads of several thousand tons.
Even the Daheng Empire will not be able to build several new battleships and a lot of cruisers every year like the Krul Kingdom Navy in a short period of time. In an emergency, they can even start construction at once.
More than a dozen battleships were completed and put into service within two or three years...
The shipbuilding capabilities of the Kingdom of Krul are stronger than those of the rest of the world combined!
Therefore, even if the Daheng Empire is unwilling to provoke other countries, its naval development cannot be as luxurious as the Krul Kingdom's navy, at least not now.
What makes other countries afraid of the Daheng Empire's navy is its powerful army. As for the navy, it is much more powerful.
There is a preliminary small goal within the Daheng Empire Navy, which is to strive to increase the size of the Daheng Navy to the top ten in the world within five years through the preliminary plan of the second phase of the naval development plan, and to become a regional naval power with basic control
The ability to defend the coastline and attack enemy merchant ships.
In order to achieve this goal, the Daheng Empire Navy will need to serve a large number of cutting-edge warships in the next five years.
And these cutting-edge warships must also meet the needs of future naval battles.
In the internal debate of the navy in the past six months, the Daheng Navy has reached a conclusion on the future development of naval warfare, that is, the future will definitely be an era of line duels!
We must resolutely follow the offensive naval route and resolutely adopt broadside firepower and horizontal team tactics to better utilize the first-mover advantage of our own rear-mounted naval guns and the long-distance auxiliary aiming advantage of the closely guarded imaging rangefinder.
Based on this strategic thinking, the Daheng Empire Navy made drastic strategic adjustments between June and July.
Even the classification of ship types has been reclassified to conform to the navy's new strategic thinking.
The new ship type classification is based on the use of battleships and other circumstances. All combat ships and auxiliary ships are classified into new ship types, and the vague classifications of ironclad ships, armored ships, etc. are cancelled.
The new ship type classification adopts battleships, cruisers, torpedo ships, coastal defense ships, minelayers, minesweepers, transport ships and other ship types.