Chapter 726 The powerful heritage of an industrial power
Fengyang Steam Engine Company obtained a generous contract from the Navy with the successful start of a test machine. The Navy commissioned the company to develop steam turbines and advanced funds to purchase two carrier-based steam turbines for testing, but the performance must meet the requirements.
Judging from the current progress of the steam turbine being just starting, I don’t know when it will be possible to meet the needs of boarding the ship, so to put it bluntly, this first purchase is to give money first...
When Fengyang Steam Engine Company was happy, Luohai Electric Company was also very happy. They also obtained the Navy's steam turbine project research and development contract.
Whether it is a naval project or an army project, when the Daheng military is engaged in the research and development of new equipment, it has always adopted double or even triple insurance measures, and never puts eggs in one basket.
The same is true for this steam turbine project. In addition to Fengyang Steam Engine Company, another company currently engaged in steam turbines has also been included in the list of key support manufacturers by the Navy.
As for why Luohai Electric Company, as an electrical company, did not start with the Navy's ship-based steam turbine orders, but for their own high-speed generator projects.
Luohai Electric Company mainly deals with power generation equipment. Recently, they have developed a high-speed generator equipment. However, the current steam engine speed is too low, so it is difficult to drive such high-speed generators. However, the application prospects of high-speed generators are very large. When the existing steam engines are not reliable, they have set their sights on steam turbines that can obtain higher speeds.
So, a manufacturer that operates high-speed generators started to build steam turbines. Not to mention, they did a good job, and their progress was not much worse than that of Fengyang Steam Engine Company.
However, the steam turbine is just starting to be studied now. Don’t expect to be practical in a short time or even in several years.
This is similar to many of the Empire's R&D projects. They have theories and ideas in advance and conduct research in advance.
Just when the Great Heng Empire entered a new round of hard work to practice internal strength after the talks between Hengke and the two countries, and once again clarified the future development direction of the navy, the naval development of the next few countries naturally did not stop.
Countries around the world have successively built new warships to serve their own based on the experience of the Ian Naval Battle.
Because of the impact of the Ian Naval Battle, low-freeboard warships were directly abandoned by major naval powers, and high-freeboard warships were gradually started to be built. At the critical moment of the renewal of such warships, countries with some ambitions and some strength would not give up.
Traditional naval powers need to follow up in time to maintain their traditional maritime advantages.
Small and medium-sized countries and some backward major countries also want to take advantage of this opportunity to turn the situation around.
The traditional naval power is naturally the Kruhr Kingdom. They are also the first country to build high-freeboard warships on a large scale after the Navy of the Great Heng Empire secretly started to build high-freeboard warships. And it was built in one large amount. In just over two years, the number of high-freeboard battleships it has served has reached as many as three, and more warships will be put into service within the next year.
In the field of pure ocean high-freeboard warships, they have come from behind with their strong shipbuilding strength. It is expected that by mid-next year, the Great Heng Empire Navy, which was planned one year in advance, will be behind again.
In addition, the Kyle Empire and the Valia Empire are also considered traditional naval powers, and their industrial strength is also very strong, so they can also keep up with the pace in this naval warship innovation.
The backward countries are naturally represented by the Great Heng Empire. The two major powers of the Gafia Empire, well, the Oliza Empire is also considered. These three countries are actually similar. They all saw a large number of low-freeboard warships from naval powers such as the Kruhr Kingdom and lag behind in their outdated and backward opportunities to catch up.
However, the only one who truly has the strength to challenge the three naval powers is actually the Da Heng Empire. This is determined by the economic foundation. Everyone's basic industries are similar, but the Da Heng Empire has a larger population, a larger economic volume and industrial scale, so it can support a larger naval expansion.
The Jingzhou-class battleships of the Great Heng Empire started to be built in one go, and with four Fengyang-class armored cruisers, the scale of these ten main battleships is globally, and only the Kruel Kingdom can overcome them, not to mention that the Great Heng Empire has several Klan-class armored cruisers under construction.
However, due to the future naval strategic development, the empire has been unable to finalize the development plan for a new generation of warships, which has led to the construction of this year's main battleships revolving around experiments, and two completely different warships, Gaoqing and Jinghe, were started.
However, with the Yuqian Navy Development Conference and clarifying the direction of the development of full-heavy artillery warships, the navy has already clarified the development ideas of the next generation of warships.
The unified full-heavy artillery warship is now unavailable. The technical restrictions in all aspects are too great. If you barely do it, the construction period will be delayed too much. Now the Hetai cruiser is still lying on the board, and you can't even install it...
Considering that the empire will still need some new warships to serve in the next few years to maintain the scale of the imperial naval, deter hostile countries such as the Kruhr Kingdom and the Olisa Empire, and protect the overseas interests of the empire, the shipbuilding operation cannot be stopped.
Therefore, after careful consideration within the Navy, it decided to adopt a compromise plan, that is, to build a batch of transition warships first. These transition warships must meet the existing technical conditions and be able to be constructed smoothly and quickly for service.
At the same time, this batch of new warships is also required to have the ability to upgrade and modify in the future and install unified fire control for volleys, so that after the full-heavy artillery warship is released, these warships are as outdated as Jingzhou-class warships, and they cannot even be modified.
At this time, the intelligence department of the empire came from a news that the armor used on the new generation of warships in the Kruel Kingdom was clearly defined as composite armor after surface hardening. At the same time, the intelligence department also learned about the news that the Kruel Kingdom was developing research on surface hardening of homogeneous steel and was concentrating its efforts on surface hardening of large areas of steel plates.
Although there is no clear news of success yet, with the scientific research strength of the Kruel Kingdom, once they are allowed to follow the right path, the success will not be far away, perhaps one year or two years, but it will never be too long.
This news is very important to the empire, which means that the new generation of warships built by the Kingdom of Kruel have generally used surface hardened composite armor. Although this hardened composite armor has great defects, such as it is easy to break and collapse when attacked by large-caliber naval guns.
But there is no doubt that this armor can still greatly improve the protection performance of the warships in the Kruel Kingdom, thereby saving more weight for firepower and power. No wonder they can be equipped with 350 mm 35 times the caliber naval guns on the new warships and ensure a speed of 18 knots, and can also control the tonnage to about 15,000 tons.
After they complete the performance hardening technology of large-area homogeneous steel, they will be able to obtain the same surface hardened armor as the Great Heng Empire. At that time, the protection performance of the Navy warships of the Kingdom of Kruel will be further improved and offset the armor performance advantages of the Great Heng Empire.
In addition, the intelligence department also learned that the research on rapid-fire guns in the Kingdom of Kruel is progressing very quickly. Although the technical details are different, they have been revealed from multiple channels that their new guns have extremely fast firing rates. There is no doubt that it should be a retardation speed gun, otherwise it would not have been possible to have such a fast firing rate.
Speaking of which, the research on rapid-fire guns of the Navy of the Kingdom of Kruel was directly affected by the Orr War. The huge threat brought by the torpedo boats made the Kingdom of Kruel attach great importance to the research and development of rapid-fire guns. With their technical strength, they concentrated their efforts on research and development for two or three years, and it was not surprising to create rapid-fire guns.
This means that perhaps in a few years, the warships of the Kruhr Kingdom Navy will be generally equipped with hardened armor and rapid-fire guns.
Although the senior executives of the Imperial Navy have always known that even if they keep the hardened armor and rapid-fire cannons highly confidential and never allow their secrets to be leaked, they cannot stop others from studying it themselves.
There are many smart people. When basic technology is achieved, it is natural to study these things.
After all, technical experts from the naval powers of various countries are thinking about improving armor protection capabilities, increasing power, and increasing firepower all day long!
It is already rare for the Empire to complete research and development and equipment several years ahead of schedule.
But now knowing that the Kruel Kingdom is about to complete the research on hardened armor and rapid-fire cannons, the Imperial Navy still feels helpless!
These two intelligences have also made the Daheng Empire Navy more cautious in selecting future warships!
After all, once the Kruel Kingdom is equipped with a large amount of hardened armor and rapid-fire guns, it will be enough to offset some of the current performance advantages of the Imperial Navy, and then the two will stand on the same starting line again.
Under this circumstance, the Imperial Navy attached more importance to the development of unified full-heavy artillery warships.
Therefore, it was soon confirmed that the new warship must retain the potential for upgrade and modification. After the unified fire control system is successfully developed, it can obtain the ability to engage in ultra-long-distance distances through upgrade and modification.
If the new warships want to continue to play a role in future long-distance combat, the number of main guns cannot be too small and the caliber cannot be too small.
Four main guns like Gao Qing are definitely not enough.
However, we cannot pile up twelve second-class main guns like Jinghe, because the Imperial Navy's imagination of future naval battles is to assume that the combat distance of naval battles is 10,000 meters or even more than 15,000 meters.
At this ultra-long distance, the existing second-class main gun with a caliber of 250 mm caliber even if the range is increased by enlarging the elevation angle, due to the caliber problem, the threat will be very limited for enemy warships equipped with large thickness hardened armor.