At the same time, the difficult birth of the Fengyang-class armored cruiser was also related to the delay in finalizing the design plan of the secondary ship of the Jingzhou battleship.

After all, in the Daheng Imperial Navy, the Crane-class armored cruiser is a relatively decent armored cruiser, and it is positioned as an ordinary cruiser......

But the Toyoyang-class armored cruiser, the last two modifications of that thing are 13,000 tons, which is larger than the previous Endless Sea-class battleships, and this thing has the name of a first-class cruiser, but in fact it is already a veritable capital battleship.

And the design and positioning of this kind of high-speed capital ship naturally have to match each other with the battleship, so it is difficult for the navy to engage in high-speed battleships before the new generation of battleships has no ideas.

Besides, many people in the navy believe that although the Crane-class armored cruiser is only 8,000 tons, its combat effectiveness is no weaker than that of the 13,700-ton Fengyang-class armored cruiser, because the ship uses 200-millimeter rapid-fire guns and a large number of 150-millimeter rapid-fire guns, and the fire projection is expected to be very fierce, while although the main armor belt of the Fengyang-class armored cruiser can resist, the secondary part and the unprotected part will definitely not be able to withstand such a dense rapid-fire artillery fire.

Moreover, both the Fengyang-class armored cruisers and the Jingzhou battleships had a problem, that is, in order to control costs and reduce the center of gravity, they adopted an open battery design, not a turret design.

This open turret design has almost no protection against dense rapid-fire high-explosive shells!

The navy even conducted a test for this purpose, using the second-class cruiser Charlin, equipped with a large number of rapid-fire guns, to intensively bombard the simulated battleship.

As a result, the main armor belt and the main protection area of the simulated ship are basically fine, but the weaker secondary parts and unprotected bridges and other places are almost potholes.

The gun mount on the exposed turret is fine, and the main gun is even better, but the animals used to simulate the members of the gun crew are flesh and blood......

Because of this test result, the rapid-fire faction within the Navy shouted: Washing the deck with rapid-fire guns is the king!

Under the dense high-explosive fire of rapid-fire guns, even a battleship could not withstand it!

These tests and theories have seriously affected the future development ideas of the Great Heng Imperial Navy!

And what makes the Daheng Navy even more depressed is that in the past, they could still touch the development of the Navy of the Krull Kingdom to cross the river, but now, the outside world has no reference object at all, they can only continue to conduct various tests, simulations, experiments, and then draw various conclusions.

But here's the problem......

There are too many conclusions.

At the great discussion of the imperial warships in October of the ninth year of the Qiansheng Dynasty, the opinions of many high-ranking generals of the navy were obviously divided!

Quan Zhenhua, secretary of the Navy and deputy director of the Navy Ship Administration, made very radical remarks: "The current 300-millimeter main gun, even if the 300-millimeter main gun in the future adopts a rapid-fire gun mount, but the rate of fire is still limited. ”

"In addition to being expensive, there is nothing to be gained, and I seriously propose to design a new type of battleship on the basis of a new two-hundred-and-fifty-mm rapid-fire gun."

"Moreover, the weight of the large-caliber main gun is so large that it can only be designed as an open battery, and the resistance to small and medium-caliber rapid-fire guns is almost equal to zero."

However, Xie Chunde, the secretary of the Navy and executive director of the Naval Staff, who supported the main artillery, said: "The current hardened armor is enough to resist medium-caliber naval guns, even if it is a rapid-fire main gun with a caliber of 250 millimeters, it is difficult to threaten the main armor belt of the battleship, and if you want to sink the battleship, you must use a large-caliber main gun of more than 300 millimeters." ”

Zhongqing Xie Chunde continued: "As for the current problem of insufficient protection of the secondary parts on some ship types, as well as too many unprotected areas, we can make design adjustments in the future and adopt more comprehensive protection tests, which are enough to make the two-hundred-millimeter rapid-fire gun or even the two-hundred-and-fifty-millimeter rapid-fire gun unable to create a threat!" ”

"Regarding the problem that many colleagues said before that the existing semi-enclosed open turret is not effective in protecting the members of the artillery crew, we are already studying the enclosed turret to increase the protection capability and make the threat of medium-caliber naval guns disappear directly."

This is also the main idea of the battleship faction in recent months: on the basis of the Jingzhou-class battleships, the open battery will be changed to a closed turret, and the protection of the secondary gun emplacements will be increased, and the battleships will be fully protected.

However, Quan Zhenhua Zhongqing quickly retorted: "If the large-caliber main gun adopts the turret design, it will cause the center of gravity of the battleship to be too high, which will lead to the extremely poor stability of the ship. ”

Xie Chunde said: "The turret we expect to use is not a traditional turret, but the turret design on the cruiser Hetai is very good, this is a newly designed integrated enclosed turret, combining the advantages of the open turret and the rotary turret, which can not only reduce the center of gravity but also ensure protection, and this shell is directly raised to the turret to achieve omnidirectional loading!" ”

After that, he also looked at the crowd with a triumphant expression!

That expression seems to say: such an unprecedented, enough to shock the world turret design, just ask you if you are awesome, awesome!

Quan Zhenhua didn't bother to take care of him, no matter how awesome your turret is, but this garbage main gun can only fire once in a few minutes, and it seems that only your battleship can use a new turret, and naval guns of 250 mm, 200 mm and other calibers cannot be used.

The argument between the two sides now is not about battleships or armored cruisers or the like, but about the caliber of the main guns of the new generation of capital ships.

One side wanted to keep the battleship equipped with high-powered guns of more than 300 mm caliber, while the other side wanted to use rapid-fire guns of 250 mm as the main guns.

One is the pursuit of the power of a single shell, and the other is the pursuit of ammunition projection.

And according to this basis, those who support the use of 250 mm caliber main guns say that after the caliber of the main guns is reduced, more main guns can be equipped with them, and at the same time, the speed of our new warships will soar to more than 20 knots, and they will be coquettish in position, whether they are used to fight against battleships or those armored cruisers.

And the three-hundred-mm main gun, the rate of fire is too slow, and it is useless against some flexible armored cruisers, and the one-hundred-and-fifty-mm secondary gun is too rubbish to threaten the protection of armored cruisers!

In this regard, Xie Chunde Zhongqing smiled: "Who said that our secondary artillery can't wear patrol armor, our secondary artillery is a rapid-fire gun of 250 mm caliber!" ”

At this time, when Quan Zhenhua heard that the secondary guns of the new battleship were actually 250 mm, and he was going to install ten guns and eight guns.

Instead of being angry, he laughed: "Aren't you just admitting that the 300 mm main gun is useless, and you want to use 250 mm as the secondary main gun to supplement the firepower, in this case, why don't you just get a battleship equipped with multiple 250 mm rapid-fire guns?" Why do you have to hold on to the 300-mm gun? ”

But Xie Chunde said: "How can you not have the main gun, the 300-millimeter caliber main gun is the decisive battle guarantee of the main battleship, without the 300-millimeter large-caliber naval gun, what should I do if I encounter a turtle-shell battleship in the future, and the 250-millimeter rapid-fire cannon can't penetrate it, won't I be blind when the time comes?" ”

"According to reliable intelligence, the Krull Kingdom and other countries have already had relevant hardened armor research, although our hardened armor is very well kept secret, but there is no impermeable wall in this world, and now countries have more or less known that we have adopted hardened armor on new warships, do you think they will follow up?"

"With their industrial base, even if they can't get hardened armor for a while, but what about three years? What about five years? ”

"Even if they can't find the mystery of Lee's process, but even if they continue to use composite armor for surface hardening, with the current technical process, even though there may be some shortcomings, compared to our hardened armor, but it will still get a significant performance improvement, this must be proved by the research and testing of Luohai Iron and Steel Company in the past few years!"

"And the service time of the battleship is not three or five years, at least ten or eight years, so we can't just think about the present, but also think about the future, considering if the enemy ship is also equipped with hardened armor, our naval guns can still penetrate the opponent's armor!"

"And there is no doubt that among our many naval guns at present, only the 300 mm 35 times the caliber naval guns have this ability, and the other two main guns, whether they are 250 mm 30 times the caliber naval guns, or 200 mm and 40 times the caliber naval guns, cannot pose a threat to the main armor belt of the battleship with hardened armor!"

"Considering the future, these 300 mm main guns must be available, otherwise, the newly built battleships are very likely to be completely outdated in a few years, and I am afraid that they will not be as good as the Jingzhou-class battleships at that time!"

Listening to the arguments between the two parties, Lin Ziran basically didn't express his opinion, he was just listening!

But in fact, he had already made his own decision!

All-heavy gunboats are the future!

This is also why there is a lot of opposition within the Navy, but Lin Ziran still firmly supports the Navy's unified caliber full-rapid-fire gun cruiser project: the Hetai.

This thing is expected to cost more than four million, and there is no end in sight......

Even now it is forced to be in a semi-suspended state, but Lin Ziran still did not give up the project, but continued to clearly support the development of the project.

Because, this type of ship is to pave the way for future unified caliber all-heavy gun battleships.

The new technologies that are expected to be used on the ship are all prepared for real battleships!

The unified fire control system, the knapsack turret layout, the omnidirectional loading of the integrated turret, the triple turret, the vibration problems caused by the unified salvo, etc., were all prepared for a real battleship.

As for the ship itself, it is not too important.