The Floating Battleship No. 1 test product, which is very gratifying in the progress of the project, has successfully combined a large number of cutting-edge technologies, and the hull strength is barely enough to withstand the weaker Mana storm, in case the Mana storm is unlucky...... Pray for the rest of your soul!

Although the plan looks very beautiful, Luo Zhengdao, who has the most optimistic and positive views on the future of the floating battleship, also knows in his heart that the floating battleship with high hopes is floating in the sky above the main continent to bully the goblin air cavalry, and it may be okay to run to the open sea to show off his might, it is pure death! As the saying goes, if you don't die, you won't die, as long as you don't run around the open sea where the Mana storm may blow at any time, stay in the airspace around the main continent, and play the trick of punching the nursing home and kicking the kindergarten, the floating battleship at this stage is still competent.

Floating warships are destined not to sail out to fight in the open sea, and ordinary ironclad ships cannot withstand the numerical superiority of potential enemy clusters.

Similar to Ultraman and Gundam or something, tired Luo Zhengdao can't make it, and if it can be made, it can't be used, and mortal things can't support this level of existence at all. Regardless of whether it is a living organism or a simple mechanical body, it must use the extraordinary power of the magic card, and the gains outweigh the losses!

Knowing this, Luo Zhengdao's goal had to go all the way down from fantasy-level weapons, and finally he aimed at the Yamato-class battleship that was at least more reliable. As one of the largest battleships in the history of the Old World, the Yamato-class is naturally inferior to the monsters of Montana and the Oversized Yama-class, not to mention the super-perverted level demon who the crazy mustachioed Führer once claimed to be putting 800mm cannons on the ship. These fantasy battleships have always been the favorite stalks of the big ship cannon party and the multi-turret god cult, however, except for the Yamato-class battleships, the rest of the battleships are all a bunch of drawings, or they were dismantled before they were launched, and the only monsters that really dominated the sea were two Yamato-class battleships.

Prior to this, the pirate ironclad ship designed and built by Luo Zhengdao had a displacement equivalent to the old world unit of about 5,000 tons, after all, the greater the tonnage of the warship, the difficulty of construction will rise, and this delicate cost-effective balance point is the most difficult link to grasp.

From the perspective of a military strategist, it is more practical to build five 20,000-ton or three warships of more than 30,000 tons instead of exerting all the national strength to build a steel giant beast close to 100,000 tons.

Whether it is an excess of artillery power, a surplus of defensive power, or an excess of tonnage, there is no more appropriate way to describe the great danger of this kind of head-slapping project than that of a cheater and a loser.

In order to meet the needs of building such an unprecedented ship, the regular dockyard that could not meet the requirements of length and width had to be expanded, and this additional expense alone could make the head of the financial department of the Kingdom of Light turn green. This is not an exaggerated literary rhetoric, and at the discussion meeting, Luo Zhengdao witnessed firsthand how the Chancellor's face turned green.

“…… You say it's a waste? No, this is a strategic deterrence, our most effective means of deterring by force at the moment. Before those potential enemies jumped out, they first had to consider whether they could sink this giant ship and seize sea control and land in Qiongzhou, and if the answer was no, they had to postpone the start date of hostilities, which could buy us a precious window of time. ”

Listening to Luo Zhengdao's statement on the side, the subordinates attending the meeting were almost stupid, could it be that the new world's No. 1 giant ship lying in the dry dock at the moment turned out to be a paper tiger used to scare people? It is estimated that Luo Zhengdao's reply will make many people fall into the ditch on the side of the road in shock, but what is the actual situation. At this time, the subordinates who had no bottom in their hearts looked at His Majesty the King with flickering eyes, and wondered if he really had a bad taste relapse, or if he deliberately released a smokescreen to confuse others, or both? All of the above scenarios are very likely!

To build this huge ship, which is expected to be named Titan, consider how much money will be spent and how to get enough metal to make armor, which is a core indicator.

The production of metal in the New World is not high, so although the amount of metal is not low, the price is never close to the people, such as the old world steel is said to be cheaper than cabbage.

In the previous wars, the number of goblin ironclad ships sunk off Wake Reef and Qiongzhou, as well as those second-hand refurbished ironclad ships that could barely pretend to scare people after being captured and repaired.

No matter how much water the quality of this world's largest giant ship is, at least it must meet a few basic conditions, first of all, the keel has to be made of metal materials, because there is nowhere to find such a long natural log to make the keel, the strength of the spliced wood is not strong enough, and it will sink when it encounters a little wind and waves when going to sea, which is not possible! The second is the hull armor belt, which consumes a lot of metal to lay armor, even according to the design concept of focused defense rather than comprehensive defense. Finally, there is the enclosed armored turret, which does not include the ship's artillery and other weapons, which meets the steel required for the first three basic elements, and the number is estimated to be more than 5,000 tons.

This number is not small, don't look at how much tonnage those ironclad ships boast about one by one, that refers to the volume size of the cabin, not that the metal materials used on the ship are so heavy, otherwise, no one needs to attack, this kind of solid weighing stone will directly become a deep submersible as soon as it goes to sea.

The centralized system has a significant advantage in doing things quickly, as long as the leader's head does not twitch, the super action is enough to crush an opponent. Of course, this refers to the fact that when the absolute strength gap is not large, if its own national strength is ten times worse, no strong man can turn the sky upside down, and manpower is sometimes exhausted!

Before setting off for the Yaling Empire, under the leadership of Luo Zhengdao, the General Staff of the Kingdom of Light began to mobilize people to conduct paper operations to assess the cost of building the ship and the time required for the project. The conclusion of the study determined that ten old and dilapidated ironclads would have to be dismantled and put back into the furnace in order to piece together the raw materials that would be used to build this supership destined to shake the entire world.

The Bright Kingdom, which is still financially healthy, can afford to build a ship, and the amount of real money spent is limited, but it is another matter to maintain this huge ship for long-term training and normal combat readiness duty.

In order to reduce the likelihood of battle damage, most of the mast and sail rope systems were eliminated in the design of the battleship, and the main power came from rocket engines. If the No. 1 project on the Wick Reef side is effective, it is not impossible to install a few more steam engines or other types of engines in the future. There is also a lot of bad news, the number of new equipment used has increased, and the task of mechanical maintenance has increased dramatically, and it is a sure thing that skilled workers will not be able to use it. Regarding this, Luo Zhengdao didn't expect it in advance, but it was nothing to add an extra budget, he was used to the atmosphere of the overall low technical level of the new world, and he would not be surprised anymore.

Knowing in advance where the trouble will come from is much better than clinging to the Buddha's feet when the matter comes, holding the spirit of Ah Q that the dead pig is not afraid of boiling water, Luo Zhengdao ordered to train a group of marine engineers and maintenance workers from the technical school. Anyway, the construction period of the next-generation giant ship Titan is long, and it is expected that it will be two years before it is launched, so it will be in time in terms of time.

The steam engine of Project 1 was a top priority, and its important use as a power source was to accelerate the industrialization of heavy industry, which relied on manual forging and hydraulic hammers driven by hydraulic lifting, and it was difficult to machine armor plates and large metal parts. If a powerful steam hammer could be built with a steam engine, the quality of the metal workpiece and the manufacturing speed would increase exponentially, but according to the current research and development progress, the construction period of the Titan may not be able to wait until the day when the steam hammer was born, and this idea can only be stored as a long-term plan.

Luo Zhengdao, who was busy with twists and turns in his life, soon learned a good news from the mage advisors, these guys who burned money like water finally discovered a new alchemy mixture while being a salary thief.

Removing the jargon and simply put, mixing two pastes with different properties can instantly produce ultra-high temperatures that are enough to melt steel, similar to dangerous goods such as thermite in the old world, and most importantly, the cost of this mixture is not high. This means that the Titan no longer needs to be riveted in a stupid black way, which saves the unit weight and also enhances the firmness of the hull connection, which is of course a good thing to congratulate.

When the mages came to Luo Zhengdao with the latest research results and asked for an increase in research funds, Nian Zai finally saw a useful new invention, and Luo Zhengdao reluctantly increased their annual budget by 15%. There is no way, you have to burn money hard to engage in scientific research, and you are reluctant to let the child not be able to trap the wolf! To want the horse to run, but also to want the horse not to eat grass, such a naïve idea is out of reality.

In what can be called a strange atmosphere of war preparation, the new world has stepped into a new year, and in the past few months, almost all countries, big or small, strong or weak, have made full efforts to expand their armaments.

The reason is also quite simple, whether you have a plan to fight others or not, it doesn't matter, the key is that if you want to protect yourself, you have to have enough strength to do it, just talking about declaring yourself neutral, that's tasteless nonsense.

In the last six months alone, the Yaling Empire, which smelled out that the wind was wrong, launched sixty battleships, and the Royal Admiralty restored more than 100 battleships from the battleships that had been mothballed in the past and returned to active service, expanding the scale of sail battleships to more than 600 in one go, and the first experimental ironclad ship of the Yaling Navy also began to outfit. The Elven Federation is not to be outdone, and the total number of ironclad ships has exceeded the fifty mark in one fell swoop, easily surpassing the Bright Kingdom Navy and the Goblin Navy, which occupy the first-mover advantage, and becoming the leader of the arms race in the era of ironclad ships.

At the same time, the Elven Federation pushed for legislation to reinstate compulsory military service, and then began to register merchant sailors on a large scale, including them in the naval reserve system, and set a ready pace for world war.

Needless to say, all-out war in the New World is a terrible situation, and not only ordinary soldiers have to be prepared to carry fire. The guns are bloody on the battlefield, and those professionals who usually think highly of themselves, and even legendary and exemplary powers will participate in it.