Of course, the British propaganda of the Intrepid was not entirely aimed at diverting the attention of the public, because the Intrepid was not only the largest battleship built in this era, but also a battleship with an epoch-making design, so its service was indeed a major revolutionary change in the history of naval development.

Compared with the battleships before the Intrepid battleship, there are at least three major technological breakthroughs, the first is the full-weight firepower design, the Dreadnought battleship is equipped with 5 twin 305 mm main guns, and when firing on the side side, it can concentrate 8 main guns to fire at the same time, and its firepower is twice that of any other type of battleship; , both reliability and stability have been greatly improved, so that the maximum speed of the battleship Dreadnought can reach 21 knots, and can maintain more than 10 hours.

All these changes made the appearance of the Intrepid battleship a watershed in battleship construction technology and the ancestor of modern battleships. The battleships built in the past were all obsolete overnight, creating a new era of giant ship cannons in the history of naval academia, and determining the basic model of battleship design for the world's naval powers in the next nearly 40 years, so the battleships built by various countries in the future are also called dreadnoughts.

However, the appearance of the battleship Dreadnought was a mixed bag for Germany, including envy, shock, and regret. It turns out that in the past few years, the military cooperation between East China and Germany has been very close with the German Navy, and East China has customized 2 protective cruisers, 2 armored cruisers, and 1 battleship in Germany, and Germany has also sent technicians to guide East China to build its own warships.

The East China ** is to provide Germany with a series of warship design, first of all, the Samoa-class protective cruiser designed on the Qingzhou-class protective cruiser as the model, Germany has built 4, its performance in the German Navy is widely acclaimed; and then Germany adopted the East China ** Chitu-class armored cruiser design, built two Lune-class armored cruisers, after the navy's trial, it is also rave reviews, that both performance and combat effectiveness, are far better than Germany's own built 4 armored cruisers.

In terms of battleships, the design of the Braunschweig-class battleships that Huadong ** helped Germany modify introduced the concept of a 2-class main gun, and Germany soon saw the same design on the Edward VII-class battleships that had just been launched in Britain at that time. Because Britain is the leader of naval technology in this era, the battleship design of various countries is basically following the United Kingdom, the original Tirpitz used the modification plan of East China, and more or less also had the meaning of trying, and seeing that the design scheme of East China was exactly the same as that of Britain, Tirpitz finally believed in the battleship design ability of East China, so he commissioned East China to design a new generation of German-class battleships for Germany.

At this time, East China ** customized the Ganjiang-class battleship in Germany, and applied the design concept of the Ganjiang-class battleship, including full heavy artillery and the central unified fire control system, to the design of the German-class battleship, but the main gun caliber of the German-class battleship is 305 mm, and the tonnage has reached about 17,000 tons, which can be regarded as an enlarged version of the Ganjiang-class battleship, and at this time East China ** The steam turbine jointly developed with Germany has not yet matured, so in the choice of power, the three-rise reciprocating steam engine is still selected, but due to the excellent hull design of East China, the maximum speed can still be ensured to reach more than 20 knots, and the dreadnought battleship has not yet been built.

However, because the design concept of the German-class battleships was too advanced, it also caused a lot of controversy within Germany, and a considerable number of high-level officials of the German navy held that the design of the German-class battleships was flashy and unrealistic, and the design of the all-heavy guns was just a pile of firepower, and the hit rate was not improved, and the rate of fire was insufficient; the firepower arrangement of the piggyback structure would cause the center of gravity of the warship to be too high and the ability to resist wind and waves to decrease; the integrated fire control system would fundamentally increase the hit rate and not be able to bottom the rate of fire of the guns, and so on.

In fact, the essence of these controversial voices is not aimed at the design of warships, but at East China, a group of racial superiority theorists among the Germans cannot accept the guidance of East China to build warships, in their view, the yellow race is an inferior nation, while the Germanic nation is a superior nation, how can an inferior nation design an excellent warship?

Although Tirpitz did not care about these opposing voices, Wilhelm II was somewhat affected, because Wilhelm II was also a racial superiority theorist in nature, but Wilhelm II Hua also knew some naval technology, and these theories put forward by East China ** were indeed logically feasible, so Wilhelm II did not dare to make a decision easily.

For the sake of prudence, Wilhelm II summoned Tirpitz, and after discussion, the two decided that the original Deutschland-class battleships would be reduced from 4 to 2, while the original plan was to build the last two Pomerania, The Silesia changed to the design concept of the Brunswick-class battleship, using the two-stage main gun matching method, and set it as the Pomeranian class, because this is the battleship design that has been approved by the United Kingdom, and the German design is still quite recognized by the British design, so that after the two types of warships are built, a performance comparison will be carried out, and then the future direction of the battleship design will be determined.

Although the construction of the Pomerania-class battleships started almost 10 months later than the German-class battleships, due to the fact that there are more new technologies applied on the German-class battleships, and Germany has to allocate some energy to build the first-class customized cadre-class battleships in East China, the speed of construction is slow, not only by the Pomerania-class battleships, but also by the British Dreadnought battleships, which were started later, have exceeded its progress. At the same time, there are still many people who sneer at the German-class battleships, believing that the construction of this type of warship is a complete waste of time and resources, which also affects the construction of the German-class battleships.

At this very moment, East China won the battle of the Taiwan Strait and completely annihilated the expeditionary fleet, which greatly shocked the German state, although a small number of extreme racial superiority theorists shouted, "This is unscientific, how can an inferior nation defeat an superior nation?" However, after all, Wilhelm II was still a pragmatic monarch, and he immediately thought of forming an alliance with East China to contain Russia, so he naturally gave up the tone of the theory of racial superiority. And the German-class battleships were no longer obstructed.

However, the launch of the Intrepid battleship once again proved the battleship design capability of East China, because the technological innovations made by the Fearless battleship were all proposed by East China first, and in East China. At this time, some details of the battle of the Taiwan Strait and the Battle of the Natuna Islands were also revealed, and the battleships of the Cadre-class performed well in both naval battles, and their combat effectiveness was clearly superior to that of battleships of the same class, which also confirmed that it was not an exaggeration to say that one dreadnought could be worth two old battleships advertised by the British.

Only at this time, no one in Germany said anything about the German-class battleships, but the temporary addition of the two Pomerania-class battleships had completed the hull construction at this time, and was about to be launched, and it was impossible to change them back, and Wilhelm II could only order that all resources should be tilted towards the German-class battleships, and the construction of these two battleships should be completed as soon as possible, and at the same time, the construction of two more German-class battleships was approved, and the construction of four more battleships of the same type was finally completed.

Of course, this also triggered a long-term topic among military enthusiasts, battleship enthusiasts and researchers, that is, whether a Cadre-class battleship is considered a dreadnought, and who is he and the Dreadnought battleship is the first dreadnought.

Those who support that the Intrepid battleship is the first dreadnought believe that the reasons why the Cadre-class battleship cannot be considered a dreadnought are: first, the tonnage is too small, only 12,000 tons, while the tonnage of the Dreadnought battleship reaches 18,000 tons; Steam turbines, the admiral-class battleships only meet the two, the power is still reciprocating steam engines, naturally can not be regarded as dreadnoughts; again, after the dreadnought battleship was put into service, the battleships built by various countries are also called dreadnoughts, not dry ships, which shows that all countries agree that the dreadnought battleship is the first dreadnought.

Those who support the Cadre-class battleships believe that it is inappropriate to divide dreadnoughts by tonnage, because there is no stipulation on how many tons or more the tonnage of dreadnoughts must be counted, and the dreadnoughts built by various countries later are less than 18,000 tons, but they are all dreadnoughts; Unified fire control, using or not using steam turbines, is not an absolute condition for dreadnoughts, other dreadnoughts also use reciprocating steam engines, and although the Cadre-class battleships did not use steam turbines, but the speed also exceeded 20 knots, compared with the 18 knots of contemporaneous battleships, there are obvious advantages, and in the naval battle of the Natuna Islands showed far more combat effectiveness than contemporaneous battleships; as for the battleships built by various countries named after dreadnoughts, this is due to the great influence of Britain, the design concept of the cadre-class battleships is exactly the same as that of the Dreadnought battleships, but the design, construction, service, and participation in the war were all earlier than the dreadnought battleship, so it is the first dreadnought that deserves to be.

Of course, there are some people who think that although the design concept of the cadre-class battleship is exactly the same as that of the Dreadnought, and it is indeed earlier than the Dreadnought battleship in terms of construction and service time, the Bijing is not a mature warship, and it has an obvious experimental nature, so it is more appropriate to call it a quasi-dreadnought, or a small dreadnought.