After finishing speaking, Scheer was also a little apprehensive in his heart, glanced at Huang Zhe, and didn't know what East China** had to say about this tactic.

Huang Zhe nodded and said, "Yes, this tactic is very reasonable, it seems that the German Navy has indeed spent effort." So I would like to ask a question, in order to weaken the British Navy before the decisive battle of the main forces, what tactics did the German Navy mainly use, what types of warships did it need, and what capabilities did these warships need?"

"In the event of war, the British Navy will certainly adopt port blockade tactics against us, and we can arrange ** on the shipping lanes where British warships cruise, and send destroyers to approach the British fleet at night and cast **." ”

Harbor blockade is a tactic used by superior navies, and in the Napoleonic Wars, Britain vs. France, and in the Russo-Japanese War in the early part of the just-concluded Far East War, the Japanese Combined Fleet used the port blockade tactics against the Russian Pacific Fleet. In the Russo-Japanese War, the two battleships of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Hatsuse and Yashima, were sunk by mines, of course, the side of the port blockade can also use **, and the commander of the Russian Pacific Fleet, Makarov, was also killed by a ship.

Huang Zhe shook his head and said, "If I were the commander of the British fleet, I wouldn't have used port blockade tactics. As he spoke, he ordered someone to hang up a map of the North Sea, and said: "The North Sea facing the sea facing Germany has only two outlets, one is the Strait of Dover and the English Channel in the southwest, of which the narrowest part of the Strait of Dover is only 28 kilometers, and it only needs to be arranged ** The other is the waters of the Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands in the north, so if I were the commander of the British fleet, I would only have to anchor the fleet in the Orkney Islands and hold the sea to the north, so that the German fleet could be blocked in the North Sea. In peacetime, light cruisers were dispatched to patrol the coast of Germany, and when they discovered that Germany had dispatched a fleet, they immediately attacked and intercepted it from the Orkney Islands, and there was no need to risk a mine to blockade Germany's ports. If Britain adopts such tactics, how can Germany weaken the British navy?"

The officers of the German Navy present fell silent, because the Germans had expected a port blockade of the British fleet, and then another German naval officer, Hipper, said: " If I were to direct the operation, I would send a small squadron to attack as a bait, feigning an attack on the British coast, so that Britain would have to send a fleet to intercept it, and if the British fleet came out, the fleet sent would be withdrawn immediately, and if Britain also sent only one detachment, I would concentrate my forces and annihilate it, so that the goal of weakening the British navy could be achieved. ”

Huang Zhe nodded and said, "Very good, then what kind of warship needs to be used to implement this tactic?"

The officers of the German Navy pondered again, and after a long while, Scheer said: "Speed, fast battleships are needed to implement this tactic, whether it is an outpost fleet serving as a decoy, or a fleet of follow-up support, fast battleships are needed. ”

Spee said: "The Nassau-class that is being built now, and the Helgoland-class that will be built, are both designed to be 22 knots, which should be enough. ”

Huang Zhe shook his head and said, "No, 22 knots is just the most basic speed, we think that to implement this tactic, we need at least 2 battleship fleets with a speed of 25 knots." ”

All the officers of the German Navy present were taken aback, and even Tirpitz, who had always been calm, took a breath. At this time, Scheer suddenly thought of the so-called "ideal cruiser" under construction in Britain, and said that its speed had reached 26 knots, and he couldn't help but say: "Are you referring to the kind of ideal cruiser built by Britain?"

Huang Zhe still shook his head and said: "Britain is building an ideal cruiser, we know, but the ideal cruiser is just a code name, this is a new type of warship, the real name given by Britain is the battlecruiser, that is, it has the powerful firepower of the battleship and the high speed of the cruiser." ”

The officers of the German Navy once again showed surprised expressions, it seems that the intelligence capability of East China is stronger than that of Germany, at least Germany has not found out the real name of this kind of warship, and from the characteristics of this kind of warship, it is indeed worthy of the name.

Huang Zhe continued: "Regarding the issue of battle cruisers, we will talk about it later, here is just a brief explanation, battle cruisers can serve as the task of decoy fleets, but I am not talking about battle cruisers, but battleships, battleships with a speed of up to 25 knots. ”

In the navy of this era, the general view is that battleships do not need to be too fast, first, the speed of battleships will affect the accuracy of shelling, and second, battleships are usually lined up in columns to fight on the battle line, so of course there is no need for much speed. Therefore, in the pre-dreadnought era, the speed of battleships was generally about 18 knots, the speed of armored cruisers was 20-21 knots, and the speed of protective cruisers was 22-24 knots, forming three speed classes, and the warships built by Britain and Germany were basically within this range.

In the era of dreadnoughts, because the power of warships was changed to steam turbines, the speed of the dreadnought battleship reached 21 knots, and this speed also became the speed benchmark of dreadnoughts in the old time and space, before the First World War, all dreadnoughts built in Germany, except for the first type of Nassau class because they still used reciprocating steam engines, the speed was only 20 knots, and the other dreadnoughts using steam turbines were 21 knots; 。

However, Britain's naval heritage and experience are far from being comparable to Germany, because it is after the mass production of battlecruisers, the British are very keen to find that increasing the speed of battleships can also have great tactical value, so they pioneered the creation of fast battleships, Queen Elizabeth-class battleships reached a speed of 25 knots, and its follow-up revenge-class battleships because of the reduction of costs, cut power, but also reached a speed of 23 knots, thus completely breaking the speed benchmark of 21 knots of dreadnoughts.

In World War I, the performance of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships was very eye-catching, much better than the weakly defended battlecruisers, and it also proved the success of this new type of warship pioneered by the British, which also influenced the development of battleships after World War I, and by the time of World War II, the Iowa-class battleships built by the United States reached an astonishing speed of 33 knots.

Huang Zhedao: "High-speed is one of the directions of the development of battleships, 21 knots is by no means the speed benchmark of battleships, high-speed battleships can participate in ordinary battleline operations, with their sailing speed, to perform a variety of combat missions. Even on the battle line, fast battleships could line up in front of the fleet battle line, taking advantage of their speed and disrupting enemy fleet formations. This was actually demonstrated in the Battle of the Natuna Islands in the Far Eastern War. ”

The German naval officers of this war case all know that before the expeditionary fleet entered the war, a naval battle was fought between the navy of East China and the British Far East Fleet, the main force of the navy of East China was 6 battleships and 2 armored cruisers, and the British Far East Fleet was 8 battleships, but East China was The speed of the two Cadre-class battleships reached 20 knots, while the speed of the British battleships was only 18 knots, so the Cadre-class battleships performed very well in this war by virtue of their speed advantage, and made the first contribution to the victory of the KPA Navy in the naval battle of the Natuna Islands, and also became the first example of the success of fast battleships in this era.

And Germany has conditions for building fast battleships, first of all, in terms of industrial manufacturing capacity, Germany is not inferior to Britain, and with the intervention of East China, it has caught up with Britain in steam turbine technology, and Germany's small tube diameter boiler technology is stronger than Britain, so under the same conditions, the power provided by German boilers is greater than that of Britain, coupled with East China's ship design capabilities, Germany can build fast battleships.

Although the German naval officers are still skeptical about the tactical value of fast battleships, in terms of the navy, East China is undoubtedly more authoritative than Germany, and it is supported by successful combat examples, so the German naval officers do not dare to question it for a while, anyway, listen to it now, and then slowly study and digest it after this exchange is over.

At this time, Tirpitz said: "If you need a fast battleship, does the design of the Helgoran-class battleship need to be revised?"

Huang Zhedao: " We believe that the construction of the Nassau-class and Helgoland-class is still carried out according to the original plan, and there is no need to modify it, because the modification of the design, which is to modify the power design of the warship, involves too much, which is almost equivalent to redesigning a type of warship, which will drag down Germany's ship-building speed, and the design speed of these two types of battleships is 22 knots, in fact, it is a little conservative, the actual speed is likely to exceed 22 knots, reaching or approaching 23 knots, even if it is only 22 knots, compared with the same type of British battleships, there are still certain advantages. Therefore, we tend to design a completely new type of battleship, not only to increase speed, but also to increase firepower and develop larger caliber naval guns. ”

Tirpitz was stunned for a moment and said, "Isn't the 305 mm caliber gun enough?"

Huang Zhe said: "Of course it is not enough, maybe it is enough to use it in the Nassau class and the Helgoland class, but the technology of the navy is constantly improving, the caliber and speed of the naval guns are advancing, and the 305 mm caliber gun is not the benchmark for battleship artillery, with the development of technology, the battleship will only be equipped with larger caliber guns." According to our intelligence, Britain is developing 13.5 and 14 inches, that is, 343 and 354 mm caliber naval guns, and it is close to success, if Germany cannot keep up, it will only be thrown further and further away by Britain. ”