Chapter 665: Olysa's Court Shakes
Although the third phase of the Daheng Empire's naval development plan did not make a big splash, it did not even announce any news to the outside world, and even kept some details, such as the detailed number and performance of new warships, especially some new technologies, strictly confidential.
But this is a major adjustment of the naval strategy of the entire empire, and it is impossible for the outside world not to get any news.
Especially the Southern Olisa Empire and the Krull Kingdom, who are more concerned about the development of the Great Heng Empire's navy, they are more or less aware of the turmoil within the Great Heng Empire's navy in recent months, and they have even heard some rumors that the Great Heng Empire's navy has adjusted its naval development strategy.
Of course, they don't know the details, but they can still get some key information from some public sources.
For example, the Great Heng Empire stopped building an improved version of the Endless Sea-class battleship, which was very puzzling to be honest, because in their opinion, the Endless Sea-class battleship and its improved version of the Great Heng Empire Navy were a very successful warship design.
It is the most mainstream cutting-edge warship of the contemporary era, and its combat effectiveness is enough to compete with the King-class series battleships of the Krull Kingdom, and it can even barely compete with the new generation of battleships Harold-class battleships equipped with 350 mm and 30 times the caliber of naval guns in the Krull Kingdom.
The King-class battleships and Harold-class battleships of the Krull Kingdom have successively become the battleships of the Blue Star Navy in recent years, and the newly built battleships of the navies of various countries are basically extended from the King-class battleships, including the endless sea-class series of battleships of the Great Hengren.
If it weren't for the very successful design of this class of ships, the Daheng Imperial Navy would not have placed four additional orders after the construction of the first two ships, bringing the total number of ships of this class and its improved models to six, of which two have already been completed and put into service.
The total number of ships built in this class is only a little less than the King-class battleships of the Krull Kingdom Navy in the entire Blue Star.
The navy of the Krull Kingdom is even crazier, after they designed the King-class battleships, although only six were announced in the fourth year of Qiansheng, there are actually three improved ones under construction.
The Navy of the Kingdom of Krull has built a total of nine King-class series battleships in just a few years, and all of them have been completed and put into service.
Subsequently, they successively built three Harold-class battleships, bringing the number of new warships in service to twelve, and there are several more under construction.
This is still their first-class battleship, in fact, the navy of the Krull Kingdom has also built a number of new second-class battleships of eight or nine thousand tons, and more first-class protection cruisers.
At the same time, over the years, they have also undertaken the construction of six battleships for many countries, two of which have been completed and delivered by the Orisa Imperial Navy.
In just a few years, these Krull kingdoms have started to build a total of twenty-four battleships, and as many as fourteen have been built, and the fastest one of them only took a year and a half to build and enter service, and more than a year in many other countries, even the hull has not been built, but they have not only built the hull, but also completed the outfitting and completed the sea trials and entered service.
From this, it can also be seen that the Krull Kingdom has a strong industrial strength!
Building a battleship is easier and easier than finding an ordinary cruiser in other countries.
As for building cruisers or something, it's easier for them.
In fact, in the past ten years, the total tonnage of cutting-edge warships built by the Krull Kingdom, including new warships for self-use and foreign trade, accounted for more than 60% of the total tonnage of new warships on the Blue Star.
The total tonnage of cutting-edge warships currently owned by the Navy of the Krull Kingdom exceeds the total tonnage of cutting-edge warships of other countries.
From this, we can see the strength of the contemporary Krull Kingdom, and the emphasis on the Grand Krull Kingdom Navy has set off a change in naval technology, redefining the battleship with a King-class battleship, and other countries are forced to follow suit whether they want to or not.
The Great Heng Empire is no exception.
But now, the Great Heng Imperial Navy has stopped designing the extremely successful Endless Sea-class improved battleships, could it be said that their naval strategy has changed? Having financial difficulties? Or do they have more advanced technology?
Many people guessed at the first time that it was very likely that the Daheng Empire had already mastered the technology of 350 mm and 30 times the caliber of naval guns, so this would stop the construction of the Endless Sea-class follow-up ships, and the next step was that they would build Harold-type battleships with a larger tonnage.
However, the diplomatic attaché of the Orissa Empire collected a lot of information, especially after focusing on the intelligence of the Jingzhou Machinery Company, but it was judged that the Daheng Empire still failed to solve the processing technology of the 350 mm long-barreled naval gun, because they got the news that the Jingzhou Machinery Company had just tested a new large-caliber naval gun some time ago, although the specific process was not clear, but there was no doubt that it failed.
The new large-caliber naval gun, they judged that it was a 350 mm caliber naval gun!
Soon, a report from the Olisa Empire's legation in Daheng Jingshi was sent back to the Olisa Empire, appeared in the Olisa Empire's court, and caused a great shock in the Olisa Empire's court.
However, they didn't know that the test of Jingzhou Machinery Company was not a 350 mm naval gun, but a 300 mm naval gun!
A few years ago, the Naval Naval Artillery Research Institute did focus on the 350 mm and 30 times caliber naval gun project, but the progress was not smooth, and it was not until April this year that the problem of mass production was initially solved.
However, at this time, the technology of 300 mm 35 times the caliber of naval guns was already very mature, and after the use of smokeless gunpowder as the propellant, the armor-piercing ability of the 300 mm 35 times caliber was even stronger than that of 350 mm and 30 times the caliber at medium and long distances because of the longer barrel.
At the same time, it has the advantage of lighter weight of the whole gun, and the 350-mm 30-caliber naval gun has reached 670 tons, but the weight of the 300-mm 35-caliber naval gun is less than 50 tons.
In the first half of the year, the Navy had already decided to abandon the 350 mm 30 times caliber naval guns and use the 300 mm 35 times caliber naval guns on the new generation of battleships; at that time, the summer exercises had not yet begun, and the third naval development plan had not yet been shadowed, and the planned new generation of battleships was still low-freeboard battleships.
Because it has accumulated rich experience in research and development, production and technology in the 300-millimeter caliber naval gun, the Naval Naval Artillery Research Institute continues to invest the current naval artillery research and development strength into the 300-millimeter naval gun, and tries to further enhance the power and begins to develop 40-fold caliber gun barrels.
At the same time, the pre-research of 300-mm naval guns with a caliber of 45 or even 50 times that of caliber was launched.
Of course, the larger caliber 350 mm naval guns were not abandoned, but continued to be studied, but considering the power of the 300 mm caliber naval guns and the subsequent 40 times the caliber naval guns were 45 times the caliber naval guns, the large-caliber 350 mm naval guns were set at a higher technical standard from the beginning, requiring 40 times the caliber.
Because taking into account the future technological development, only this kind of long-barreled 350-millimeter naval gun can have a greater technical advantage over the 300-millimeter long-barreled naval gun.
However, the research of a new generation of naval artillery is a secret project in the Daheng Empire, and outsiders can't figure it out at all, and the people of the Orissa Empire still think that the Daheng Empire has already come up with a 350 mm and 30 times the caliber naval gun, and is ready to design and build a warship equipped with this kind of naval gun.
This made the Olisa Empire more panicked.
They had already struggled to counter the Yonglin-class battleships and the Endless Sea-class battleships of the Great Heng Empire, and over the years they had adopted a plan of naval expansion to deal with the threat, including the construction of a large fleet of torpedo boats, shore defense heavy gunboats, and more importantly, new battleships.
They had already ordered two improved versions of the King-class battleship with 300 mm and 30 times the caliber naval guns from the Kingdom of Krull, and then built two of their own based on the ship.
Although the scale was not as large as the Daheng Empire's navy, with some of their second-class battleships, shore defense ironclads, torpedo boats and other auxiliary forces, they were confident that they would resist the Daheng Empire's navy moving south.
However, if the Great Heng Imperial Navy began to build and equip it with 350 mm guns, then the performance could be further improved, and then it could suppress its four battleships.
At this time, they must act to maintain the size of the navy, as well as combat effectiveness!
If they deny it, they know very well that as soon as they show signs of weakness, those great Heng people in the north will pounce on them like mad dogs.
Through a lot of public information and gossip, the Orissa Empire is already very sure that the Daheng Empire's navy has started construction of more powerful cutting-edge battleships, and it is likely to be equipped with 350 mm cutting-edge battleships.
And they judged through the analysis of clues that the movements of the Daheng people would not be small.
They may be building three, four, or even more cutting-edge warships.
Based on this situation, even if they were unwilling and even if their finances began to be tight, they still officially launched the fleet expansion plan in August of the seventh year of Qiansheng to increase funds to build two more advanced and larger battleships.
This is already their fourth fleet expansion plan after the unification of Daheng.
From this, it can also be seen that the huge pressure brought to the Orissa Empire after the unification of Daheng.
n.