"I see what you mean, Your Highness, you're going to focus more resources on this kind of warship, so you don't want us to waste money now, do you?" Kerst reacted immediately.

"Yes, in my vision, this kind of warship will be cross-generational, more firepower, more solid armor, higher speed, more accurate fire control, and her appearance will require more money and more technical support, so now is not the time to pursue numbers, Alfred. And I believe that the day she is built, the warships that all the countries have now spent all their efforts to build will be completely swept into the garbage heap. Jochen said confidently.

"And ...... her design work," Tirpitz asked anxiously.

"It's a work in progress, and it's just an additional turret, but there's a lot to redesign and a lot of new technologies to think about. Alfred, Sigfred is busy with this right now. Jochen said with a smile.

"No wonder the last time I saw him, I asked him what he was up to during this time, and he said with a mysterious look and said that it was a secret. How can such a heavy project be hidden from the General Staff of the Navy? Tirpitz was a little angry.

"This is what I requested, and it is clear that once the design of such a battleship is leaked, then we must be unlucky in the end.

So no one else knew about the plan except for me, Siegfried, and a couple of shipyard senior engineers who were in charge of the final integration. The designers who were responsible for the design of the specific parts only knew that they were designing a part of a battleship, but they could not know the whole picture of the battleship.

The Empire's navy is not strong, and although she is getting stronger, she is still not strong enough considering our opponents, and I have always believed in being ahead of the curve. So in order to shorten, catch up or even surpass our opponents. We need something that will put us ahead.

We can't let anyone, until we have this new warship, start construction of any warship of the same type. It's not that I don't trust the General Staff of the Navy, but I still want as few people to know as possible. As for you, I would have liked to wait for Sigfred to complete the preliminary discussion before informing you.

But your presence today makes me feel like a good opportunity to sue you. Jochen said with a smile.

Step by step, step by step, is not just talk, if the British do not build dreadnoughts. Then the number of former dreadnoughts of the British would have made the Germans despair of the shipbuilding race with the British.

Although the construction of the dreadnought gave the Germans a chance to start together, the British, who had a better start, still had the advantage of being one step ahead.

The Germans wasted a lot of time because of the navigable capacity of the canal, the construction capacity of the shipyards, and the readjustment and modification of the design. When the Germans began to build 4 Nassau-class battleships that could not be said to be very complete (of course, this is not the power system), the British could come up with a modified version of the 6 Dreadnoughts in two stages.

After building the Nassau class, he realized that his 283 mm naval guns were not powerful enough to overwhelm the British dreadnoughts, and he was ready to install 305 mm naval guns on the new ships.

And when it became known that the Germans were ready to install 305-mm naval guns. The construction of battleships equipped with 13.5-inch guns began again, pushing the dreadnought era into the super-dreadnought era, and the Germans could only follow for their lives.

The Germans had to start developing a 305-mm gun while continuing to build warships equipped with 350-mm guns, while the British had already begun to develop a 15-inch gun.

In the Battle of Jutland, when the 15-inch naval guns of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships brought great shock to the German fleet, the Bavaria-class of the Germans, armed with 380-mm naval guns, was still trying in the Baltic Sea.

Therefore, the less people know about the new battleship, the better, so that Germany can always be one step ahead. In this race without referees, the front-runner is often the most effective.

"I'm sorry. Your Highness, you have been troubled by our recklessness. Koster immediately apologized, and Tirpitz bowed to the side.

"Don't worry, but it's good that you're here, I just want you to do some things, and I basically don't care about the navy after I leave the Navy General Staff. I am relieved that Bol is at the helm of the Navy Personnel Department as my successor, and I have asked him to cooperate fully with your work. But there are some things that Bol doesn't understand, so I need you to do it. Jochen said.

Bol, as in history, was a humble and faithful servant that Jochen could rest assured of, and there was no difference between him taking over the Naval Personnel Department and the Emperor taking over. Getting him to cooperate with Koster and Tirpitz was a trivial matter. However, the full cooperation of the Minister of Personnel, who held the power of personnel, was of great support to the work of Koster and Tirpitz.

Knowing this, Koster and Tirpitz were naturally grateful, and Koster immediately responded: "It is our honor to serve His Highness. ”

"Hans, I need you to start working on the revision of the Navy's gunnery training syllabus. Not only that, but not only training, but also the study of new gunnery skills and supporting equipment. Jochen said.

"Because of this brand new warship, we need new gunnery and new equipment." Koster said in a somewhat confused tone.

"Yes, exactly." "Our navy has been emphasizing that in the North Sea climate, our navy should ideally engage within 6,000 meters, which may have been correct before, but now it doesn't apply," Jochen said.

In the past, we were affected by the ability to observe and the power of our artillery, and we were able to achieve better accuracy at a distance of 6,000 meters, and we had enough threat for our artillery. But now, with more accurate rangefinders and more powerful naval guns, we have the conditions to launch an attack at a longer distance.

And the rate of fire of our large-caliber naval guns can also meet our needs for rapid shooting-observation-correction-re-firing. Not only that, but there are two advantages to the long-distance artillery battle, one is technical and the other is tactical. ”

The main guns of the Germans in World War I had a smaller elevation angle. The short range made the Germans suffer several times.

And the Germans' insistence on the common engagement distance of less than 6,000 meters (later increased to 8,000 meters with technological advances) was indeed too much of a waste of the advantage of dreadnoughts.

To the point that it cannot be said that the Germans were completely wrong, and in fact even the British did not all agree that long-range artillery battles were appropriate, and in 1914 commanded the battle cruisers to annihilate Dofton of the German Far East Fleet led by Spee? Stedi is one of them.

As the commander of the British Royal Navy who actually knew how to use battlecruisers, Jochen also believed that within 6,000 meters was the common engagement distance in the North Sea, and in fact, the tactical exercises of the British Royal Navy's Home Fleet in 1909 proved this view correct.

Of course, the distance of common engagements does not mean that there will be no accidents, and the climate in the North Sea has 25 days of poor visibility in a month, so there are also 5 days of sunny weather. The Germans thought it would be unwise to leave their artillery unable to reach far if they were close to each other.

Therefore, in order to improve the level of gunnery of the German Navy and facilitate the continuation of the race in the future, Jochen decided to let the German Navy conduct artillery training at a longer distance from now on.

"Alfred, you are a torpedo technical officer, you should understand how much of a threat a high-speed torpedo attack team will pose to the fleet at a distance of 6000 meters." Jochen said.

"Our new torpedoes are capable of firing at a distance of 3,500 meters, so the destroyer only needs to charge 1,500 meters to be able to fire torpedoes, which means that it only takes about 3 minutes for the destroyer to disengage when exposed to enemy fire. Greatly increases the survivability of the destroyer, and this time will continue to decrease as the torpedo range increases. Tirpitz replied.

After Jochen asked for a longer and more powerful torpedo, the German Navy asked for a new torpedo from the Brushkoop Torpedo Company, and the addition of Levitt accelerated the development of the new torpedo. The new 450 mm thermodynamic torpedo, called the C45/01, has a long range of 3,500 meters at 27 knots, and can be increased to 32 knots if it gets close to 1,800 meters.

Since the end of last year, the German Navy has begun to completely replace the old 450-mm compressed air torpedoes with this new torpedo.

The huge torpedo load of the destroyers of the German Navy, combined with this long-range torpedo, was tested by Commodore Commander Hipper, who had been promoted to the expansion of the 1st Ocean-going Torpedo Boat Group and the expansion of the 1st Destroyer Squadron. A completely new means of attack was proposed.

Instead of aiming and launching torpedo attacks after approaching, a large number of destroyers were targeted in the entire linear formation of the area. Launching a torpedo salvo aimed only at the approximate position of the enemy fleet was called the "Browning Shooting Method", which had to be renamed the "Hipper's Shooting Method".

Tirpitz, on the other hand, went a step further by combining this mode of attack with a duel between the capital ships of the battle line, allowing the destroyer fleet to rush out and attack the enemy fleet at the risk of being hit by the guns of both sides. If the opponent wants to avoid the torpedo, he must make a change of direction maneuver to disrupt the opponent's formation.

For this idea, Jochen naturally supported. Because when the Germans, who also used this kind of attack in World War I, forced the British to evade, the British fire control system was greatly disturbed in ranging and correction, thus affecting the accuracy of the British's hits.

Of course, this torpedo burns air, so the nitrogen left over after combustion is insoluble in water. will leave a clear torpedo track. Jochen hadn't thought about proposing a way to burn pure oxygen, but considering the extremely unsafe Type 93 acid torpedo that killed more of his own people than the enemy in World War II, Jochen put out the idea that it might blow up his own researchers.

Due to the advent of thermodynamic torpedoes, the Germans realized earlier that the range of torpedoes could be further increased, and the German Navy, which was more diverse in torpedo offensive tactics, did indeed want to get torpedoes with a longer range. So when Jochen raised the threat of torpedoes, Tirpitz, an expert in torpedo warfare, immediately realized that the distance of artillery was not safe in front of torpedoes.

"Your Highness, do you think that as the range of torpedoes increases, we need to fire at a greater distance to repel their attacks?" Tirpitz asked.

"Yes, if we can attack from a greater distance, we will have more time to respond, while also weakening the enemy's offensive beyond their torpedo range." Jochen said.

Tirpitz was able to react so quickly, compared to the British, who were much more hindsighted. The poor visibility in the North Sea did allow the torpedo to exert its power, but the British did not pay attention to the threat of torpedoes, because the early torpedoes had a range far less than the visibility in the North Sea. It was not until 1910 that the British had a Mark VII* 450-mm torpedo with a range of 6400 meters, and the British woke up from a dream.

However, the British already had a longer range than the Germans, and the British, who had always insisted on a distance of 10,000 meters, could further increase their engagement range and began to study tactics or techniques for countering torpedo attacks.

Jochen wants the German Navy to increase the engagement distance, and naturally it cannot be said that the British will have a conventional engagement distance of 10,000 meters in the future, or even 20,000 meters to fire, and we must also increase the range. Therefore, it is best to use the threat of torpedo attack to raise nature. If we can do it, then the enemy can do it, and in this case, it would be somewhat inappropriate to hold on to another 6000 meters of engagement.

"I see, Your Highness, dealing with the ever-longer range of torpedoes is indeed something we need to consider." Kerst replied.

"Your Highness, what are the technical advantages?" Tirpitz asked. (To be continued......)