After Mashal left, Tirpitz asked tentatively: "Your Majesty, do you mean to build a heavy cruiser for the Croatian Navy?" Although the newly built battleship was still called a heavy cruiser at this time, Tirpitz knew that His Majesty would understand what he was talking about.

Prime Minister Machar knew that the new heavy cruiser was stronger and more expensive than the Scharnhorst class, but he did not know that the new ship would be equipped with battleship-class naval guns, and Jochen and Tirpitz were very tacitly prepared not to sue him for the time being.

If the main object of disarmament advocated by the British was the battleship, then the armored cruiser or the German heavy cruiser was not in this category, and it was indeed possible to exploit the loopholes of the treaty, and it was natural for Tirpitz to think so.

"No, of course not, what we are preparing now is to let the British veto our proposal, as long as the British refuse to disarm, our contract to build battleships for Croatia can continue to be fulfilled, besides, we really want to build heavy cruisers for Croatia They can't afford it, the price of close to 36 million marks is too much beyond Ferdinand's budget." Jochen said with a smile, what is the use of high-speed battleships for the Croatian Navy? It can't be used in that little pond in the Mediterranean, and it's incredibly expensive.

"Then what is the solution you just said......?" Tirpitz asked, somewhat confused.

"Oh, I mean to put aside the progress of the work on the 4 battleships that we have just started, anyway, the construction has already started and it has been advertised, and the materials and equipment will be allocated to the Trieste shipyard and the Ganz shipyard on the Danube, so that they can start work immediately, and then quickly publicize and create the established facts.

In this way, the heart of Ferdinand can be appeased, and the reaction of the British will be greater. With the relationship between Croatia and us, it is impossible for the British not to be nervous, and the British will not be worried about whether we will simply tear up the contract with Croatia and keep these two battleships for their own use, after all, the British have never done this kind of thing, in the words of a Qing proverb, 'to speculate on the actions of an upright man with the thoughts of a despicable and shameless man' (to spend the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain). Jochen said with a smile.

"And we can bring it up at the meeting. Only the new ships that were started in 1907 could continue to be built, and the new ships that had just been started in 1908 had to be stopped, so that even if the five warships that the British planned to build were started, we could propose to scrap them, so that the British estimated that it would be even more unacceptable. Tirpitz laughed understandingly.

"Then why didn't you just tell Lord Machar directly?" Tirpitz asked again.

"Because if we do this, it will obviously affect the progress of our own warships, and such a resource allocation and ordering the shipyard to rush work will also require a lot of costs, and we obviously can't let the Croats pay this cost, so we will ...... this cost," Jochen said with some embarrassment.

If this is done, the four battleships that have already started construction will be stopped, and the extension of the construction period will definitely lead to an increase in costs. And it is impossible for the workers to let them do other work, because there is no certainty when they will be able to reopen, so they will all have to be idle. Coupled with other adjustments, we can't let the finance pay for this expense, and this cost is not too much, and it is not too little.

"Well, this extra expense was not necessary in the first place." Tirpitz smiled helplessly and nodded: "Now I can't wait to spend such a non-spending amount of money at once when I can't wait to pick the budget one by one, Your Excellency Martial is indeed going to have a headache." ”

"yes. After the second amendment was passed, Adolf had complained to me several times that the financial pressure was too great. Jochen smiled and replied, "So I'm thinking about whether or not to propose this to Adolf."

Actually, it doesn't matter if we don't do anything, and if you explain it to Franz, he will definitely be able to show understanding. And we are not worried that the British will see any clues, because even if they see that we are forcing them to be evildoers, they will not dare to actually sign the treaty that we have drawn up according to our proposal.

It's just that this is not good for our reputation, after all, in the eyes of others, we are all in breach of contract for our own purposes, and even if we continue to perform the contract afterwards, it will inevitably leave a bad impression. I also hope that we can get more orders for dreadnoughts from the British. The British have a bad reputation, so we don't care, it's important that we want to compete with them and maintain a good reputation. ”

"Your Majesty is saying that the Brazilians have ordered new battleships from the British shipyard Armstrong, and I think there will be another arms race in South America, and Argentina and Chile are our potential customers." Tirpitz smiled very happily: "If you follow your advice." Even if we delay the construction of our own warships, we have to prioritize the performance of the contract, which is also a great advertisement. ”

"So the question now is how to convince Adolf." Jochen spread his hands.

"But are you so sure that the British will not agree to stop the construction of battleships and take advantage of the treaty on cruisers? After all, their current 3 armored cruisers called the Invincible class are actually equipped with battleship-level main guns. Tirpitz was a little worried, he could think of exploiting loopholes, and naturally the British might be able to think of it.

The actual situation of the Invincible class is also basically clear to the German side, because the secret process of the Invincible is higher than that of the Intrepid, so the Invincible did not get any information when it was launched, but at this time the outfitting has been basically completed, and in the eyes of the British, they have deceived the Germans into starting construction of two so-called super armored cruisers, and there is no need to hide it anymore.

Therefore, although it was not fully completed, it could also be driven out for power system testing, and at this time the Germans knew what the new armored cruiser of the British was.

After being taken aback after seeing the four twin 305 mm turrets, he secretly rejoiced that if the newly started heavy cruiser was still an upgraded version of the Scharnhorst class, it would probably be outdated as soon as it started.

However, because of this, the German Navy also believed that the Invincible class could also be used as the main force in the battle line, and Tirpitz's concern was also based on this consideration, what if the British took advantage of the loophole and agreed to sign and then desperately built the Invincible class? Then Germany's efforts would be meaningless.

"Create invincibility instead of fearlessness?" Jochen looked as disdainful as if he had heard something very ridiculous: "If the Englishmen really did that." It's too late for me to be happy. If the British really signed the treaty and then built a large number of invincibles, I paid for Adolf the extra expenses of the two battleships of the Croatian Navy to start construction ahead of schedule. ”

"Your Majesty, you're ......" Obviously, Jochen's disdainful expression surprised Tirpitz.

Although when the news of the Invincible was reported to Jochen, Jochen also said with a nonchalant face that he knew, and the German Navy did not follow the British to build any heavy cruisers, but built new warships that were enough to fight, and fortunately there was no other attitude.

Tirpitz thus considered His Majesty the Emperor to be nothing more than a thought that Germany had not been distanced by the British on the new ships. But it was still half a step behind the British, so it was not worth being overly happy, so it was not delved into, but now it seems that His Majesty's indifferent attitude seems to have another meaning.

Faced with Tirpitz's doubts, Jochen smiled slightly: "Alfred, you don't really think that the British are invincible and our newly built warships are the same type of thing, do you?" ”

"You mean that these two types of battleships are actually very different? But they were also equipped with battleship-class guns and had cruiser-class speeds, and I think the British Invincible must have sacrificed a certain amount of armor just like us. Do you mean that our new ships are much stronger than invincible? Tirpitz was still a little confused.

"You're right, Alfred, we've sacrificed our armor the same, but our defense is very different. We completely abandoned the side and upper armor belts of the bow and stern, and all the armor was concentrated on the main armor belt and horizontal armor, and the main armor belt was tilted through the guò in exchange for better protection.

Moreover, our main guns are smaller and lighter than the British, and the oil-fired boilers used save a considerable amount of space, and the use of steam turbines also makes the power system more compact, and even with so many improvements, the tonnage of our battleship is still larger than that of the Invincible.

But the invincibility of the British if they still follow the previous pattern of armor arrangement. It is inevitable that her main armor belt is not thick enough, and the armor belt is arranged vertically. According to her tonnage, speed, technical level of artillery and power. According to our own technical standards, I think that the level of protection of the main armor belt of the Invincible can withstand the 9-inch naval guns, and the protection ability is not comparable to ours at all. Jochen explained.

Now the level of protection of the Invincible, which uses a reciprocating steam engine, could not be better than it was in history, then the main armor belt was only 152 mm, the key areas were only strengthened to 178 mm, and the horizontal armor was only 38 mm. The turret and turret mount were only 178 mm thick at their thickest point, and the Invincible was as thin as paper in front of the 283 mm 53.22 x diameter naval gun.

And it is even very likely that this will happen to the Invincible, which also does not have an upper armor belt: a 210-mm shell enters from an unprotected area above the main armor belt, thus avoiding the top first layer of horizontal armor, and then only by penetrating the 38-mm armor in the horizontal part of the dome, it can enter the boiler room of the Invincible and give the British a big surprise.

If you switch to a more powerful 240 mm gun, it will even be possible to continue to penetrate the top armor of the ammunition depot with a thickness of 25 mm after penetrating the dome armor and send a large firework directly!

Such a level of protection is simply scum in Jochen's eyes!

In fact, the German battlecruisers in history had similar problems. Although the German battlecruisers claimed to have protection not inferior to the British battleships, in fact, the problem of belt main armor was also reflected in the Germans.

The Moltke-class battlecruisers had a thickness of 270 mm in the main armor belt, but in fact the height of the 270 mm thick part was only 1.8 meters, while most of the upper part of the armor belt was 200 mm armor, and the upper armor belt was 150 mm armor. The horizontal armor is divided into three layers, the first layer is 35 mm armor, the second layer is 15 mm armor, and the third layer is the horizontal part of the dome armor with 25 mm armor.

Thus, a large-caliber shell can actually bypass the main armor belt and penetrate the upper 150 mm armor and only need to face horizontal armor with a total thickness of 40 mm, which is much easier than penetrating the weak 200 mm armor in the upper part of the main armor belt and facing the inclined part of the dome with a very small angle of entry.

The D-Fringer-class battle cruisers, which claim to have complete battleship-level protection capabilities, also have this problem, the 300 mm part of the main armor belt is still a belt, most of the area is 230 mm armor, the upper armor belt is still 150 mm, and the horizontal protection is still 3 layers, 50 mm, 50 mm and 30 mm.

Therefore, although the level of protection of German battlecruisers was much stronger than that of the British battlecruisers, there was still a certain gap between them and battleships.

However, the upper armor belt is not very useful, and the problem of insufficient horizontal protection capability is more or less reflected in all fully protected warships, the Bavaria-class battleships, which are known as the strongest protection in World War I, still use the same defense holes, and the 152 mm upper armor belt of the Queen Elizabeth class is not a defensive area at all in front of 15-inch shells, but such a problem is not unsolvable.

The ultimate solution is, of course, the key protection proposed by the Americans! Cutting the protection that can be cut by one qiē, all the weight is distributed to the most important main armor belt and horizontal armor, so that enemy shells cannot penetrate the main armor belt, and shells that penetrate the unprotected area above the main armor belt will be bounced off by the heavy horizontal armor.

Such a design advantage is naturally reflected in the current German high-speed battleships, although there is no upper armor belt, but the thickness of the main installation belt is 250 mm area height of 4.6 meters, and has a 10-degree inclination, although there is no upper armor belt, but the back is directly 80 mm thick horizontal armor, and there is a 20 mm thick dome armor above the core cabin.

Such a level of protection was enough to deal with the attack of the British 305-mm shells, and even 381-mm shells without green bullets could carry a few rounds, so Tirpitz said that the British took advantage of the loophole and built battlecruisers instead of battleships, which would be a head-to-head for Germany. (To be continued......)

PS: Well, I know that even though this chapter is 4,000 words, it still can't hide the fact that I'm lazy.

However, the author's mood when he writes this chapter is tragic.

This time, the summer E4 and E5 only used various resources and passed less than 1.5W.

Then taking advantage of the resources that are still a lot, I want to try my luck and bet on Edinburgh that I have never been able to build

And then...... And then there was no then

I can't stop it, I should chop it!

100,000 steel consumption!

Sister Li, Beizhai, Persian Cat, Guowei, Bei Ye each 1, Rafi *3 were created

But I didn't make Edinburgh......

By the way, it's even more sadding

I made 12 new families, but I didn't get them all! Kako, Aoba, and Kakasa each have 4 each, but there is no Kotaka!

I was shocked when my resources bottomed out!

Now I can only honestly run the expedition.