From the second-class battleship Pingbo, to the second-class battleship Tongyi, to the armored cruiser Chongke and even the first-class battleship Yonglin, which is still undergoing final outfitting.
Almost every one of these four types of warships has achieved substantial leap-forward development, which has resulted in a huge gap in performance between some warships that were in service in the past few years and newer warships.
For example, the Pingbo, which was commissioned in the 52nd year of Yongchang, has only been in service for more than four years, but the performance of the ship has lagged far behind.
Even the two unified-class second-class battleships that were commissioned last year have only been in service for a year, and the second ship Luohe has not even been in service for a year, but their performance has already lagged behind.
This situation actually occurs not only in the Daheng Empire Navy, but also in several other naval powers.
When the navies of many countries woke up, they found that the new warships they had just commissioned were already outdated...
Not to mention those warships that are already in service, some are even under construction and have not yet been completed, but they are already facing the embarrassment of falling behind.
This is because the naval technology on Blue Star has progressed too fast in the past four to five years!
A few years ago, the Daheng Empire began to equip battleships with breech-mounted rifled naval guns, and adopted an open-air rotating turret or turret design. Overnight, almost all naval powers quickly followed suit, and even their movements were even wider.
For example, the Navy of the Kingdom of Krul, even the Navy of the Daheng Empire, had successfully produced a 300 mm and 30 times caliber naval gun a few years earlier.
This suddenly marks the transition of naval guns from the era of front-loading smoothbore guns and front-loading rifled guns to the era of breech-loading rifled guns.
At the same time, there have also been major changes in the firepower layout. As long-barre breech-loaded artillery entered service, the ancient shipside columns were completely abandoned, and the central gun gallery design was completely thrown into the garbage heap by warship designers from various countries. In recent years
The double-mounted layout at the front and rear of the central axis, and the two-string crossbody double-mounted layout are both popular.
At the same time, it is almost exclusively equipped with four rear-mounted large-caliber rifled main guns.
These two main gun firepower layouts have completely swept all the previous messy artillery layouts into the trash heap of history.
In addition to the firepower layout, the protective layout has also undergone tremendous changes.
Five years ago, everyone was happily having fun and using wrought iron armor. However, since the Kingdom of Krul took the lead in applying steel-faced armor to warships on a large scale, the era of steel-faced armor was entered overnight.
Countries quickly followed up and successively built steel-faced armored battleships. The Daheng Empire Navy was a few years late. Due to domestic technological limitations, it was not until the Endless Sea-class battleships that it was ready to use the steel-faced armor that had just been successfully imitated.
Power also changed greatly. The Kingdom of Krul began to apply the forced ventilation technology originally applied to high-speed passenger ships to warships on a large scale. This technology was actually nothing special, so it soon attracted other countries to imitate it. The Daheng Empire
I am also researching forced ventilation technology. Although it has been tested several times and tested on a frigate, it is not yet perfect. If it is perfected, it will be quickly assigned to a series of new battleships such as the Endless Sea-class battleship.
.
In the future, it is expected that the upgraded and improved old warships will be technologically upgraded.
The three core technologies of firepower, protection, and power have successively achieved breakthroughs in just four or five years. The continuous breakthroughs in this technology have enabled the upgrading of warships in the navies of various countries to change very quickly!
Without paying attention, I discovered that the main battleship I was building was already out of date...
But at any rate, after four or five years of radical technological changes, especially after the Krul Kingdom Navy announced their King-class battleship, the development tone of the Blue Star navies has stabilized again.
What tone?
Copying the König-class battleship!
The boss of the world has been constantly trying to make trouble, and has built a powerful King-class battleship that surpasses all the warships currently in service and under construction in various countries. Why are you messing with it? Just copy it!
As a result, four years after Qian Sheng, navies around the world have basically reached a basic consensus on the construction of capital ships!
The speed was sixteen knots, and the lowest speed was 15.5 knots.
It is equipped with four large-caliber breech-loaded rifled guns and adopts a double-yellow central axis layout at the front and rear.
The turret adopts a semi-enclosed open-air turret with a low freeboard design.
The use of steel-faced iron armor further enhances the protection strength and expands the protection area.
These technical characteristics have gradually become a consensus reached by navies of various countries.
Not to mention the navies of big countries, even the navies of small and medium-sized countries are closely following the world trend. For example, the Navy of the Kingdom of Orr, when they ordered the Princess-class second-class battleship, they hesitated about the firepower layout and turret design, but then they hesitated. After that, I still chose the central axis plus semi-enclosed open-air fort layout.
In the fourth year of Qian Sheng, the warship designs of various navies were basically finalized. Even the Marshal Colin-class battleship of the Kingdom of Krul, which was exposed in the fifth year of Qian Sheng, although it used a very scary 350 mm and 30 times caliber naval gun, But it still does not break away from this design framework.
Time has entered the seventh year of Qian Sheng. Just when the navies of various countries thought that warship design would continue according to this design concept, the Daheng Empire Navy chose to change!
However, the Daheng Empire Navy canceled an improved version of the Endless Sea-class battleship that was originally scheduled to start construction in July this year in May of the seventh year of Qian Sheng.
At the same time, the third phase development plan of the Daheng Empire Navy was submitted to Emperor Lin Ziran.
It is not the preliminary plan in the second phase of the development plan, nor is it a mid-term plan. Instead, it starts from scratch and directly creates the third phase of the development plan.
More importantly, the strategic thinking in the third-phase development plan and the second-phase development plan has undergone tremendous changes!
In the second phase of the development plan, the core idea is to attack the navy globally, and the core tactic is to drive the battleship directly to someone else's doorstep and implement a close blockade!
Close blockade and counter-close blockade are common naval ideas of the Kingdom of Krul, other naval powers, and even the navies of small and medium-sized countries.
A naval power uses battleships to block enemy ports and blockade the coast.
Countries with weak navies will find ways to use coastal defense armored ships and coastal defense forts to conduct defensive operations and counter blockade.
Although the two are in an antagonistic relationship, they actually follow the same naval battle ideas.
In the past many years, the Daheng Empire Navy also followed this idea!
However, in the third phase of the Daheng Empire Navy's development plan, the navy no longer mentioned close-range blockade, but began to mention long-range blockade.
Even based on this change in core ideas, a series of new warship designs were submitted!
In particular, the design plan for a new generation of battleships, which had been debated for a long time within the navy, was directly overthrown and redone, and then a design plan was chosen that was completely different from the main battleships of contemporary navies: a high freeboard design plan!