“zha－zha？ Your Highness, what does this mean? And the protective cruiser is outdated, where to start? Muntz was startled by Jochen's remarks and asked urgently.

Taking another sip of coffee, Jochen said nonsense without hurrying: "Dregs, is a word of the Qing people, a phrase formed by the combination of two first words meaning dregs, meaning the dregs of the dregs. So that means worthless. And what I said is about to become obsolete, not obsolete, and there is a big difference in this, so you need to distinguish it. ”

Hearing this, Muntz's face turned green, and he said with a bitter face: "Your Highness, don't be kidding, this is a warship worth 9 million marks, if you don't give me a proper explanation, I can't object to this budget." ”

"Okay, seriously." Jochen cleared his throat, and Muntz was full of black lines again, "You know you weren't serious," of course, just thinking about it.

"In fact, the reason is very simple, that is, in the battle between spear and shield, the spear is sharper, and the original shield cannot be blocked, so we need a stronger shield." Looking at Muntz's painful expression on his face, which was nonsense at all, Yochen smiled slightly and continued: "The core performance of a warship is armor, firepower, and speed, not to mention the speed, and the contest between armor and firepower has been going on, armor is a shield, firepower is a spear, and the contest between the two has continuously given rise to thicker shields and stronger spears. Before the 18th century, the spherical solid projectile fired by the breech smoothbore gun could easily break the armor of the wooden sail battleship, and since then the wooden sail battleship began to put a layer of iron shell on itself, and the ironclad launched during the American Civil War made these old guns have been challenged like never before, so there are rifled guns that fire conical projectiles, and in order to fight rifled guns, we were born composite steel surface armor. The spear and shield are in such a spiral cycle, and now we need to face a sharper spear. ”

Johenton paused, stared at Muntz and said, "Don't ask me where I got it from, and don't say it. ”

Seeing that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince was very strict, Muntz immediately knew that he might hear some secrets, and immediately said that today's conversation is known to God and I know.

"The concept of the protective cruiser was first proposed by the British in 1882, in the report of our nemesis, Baron William George Armstrong, the owner of Armstrong & Co., at the annual meeting of the Society of Civil Engineers." Jochen said that no one would know such clear information at this time, which Munz was very surprised, knowing that German intelligence officers did not have the ability to sneak into the annual meeting of British civilian engineers to listen to the report, and also knew why His Royal Highness the Crown Prince was so cautious, the value of the information itself may not be important, but the value of the channel to obtain this information is immeasurable, which means that the crown prince may have an intelligence source in his hand that can go to the British high-level scientific and technological conferences. Jochen himself didn't think about it so much, but on the contrary, he put a veil of mystery on himself, and the technology proposed later could even be considered "the British are researching" and be valued by the navy, which Jochen did not expect.

"Mr. Armstrong proposed the future development of the navy with armored protection and heavy artillery cruisers. And his reasons are threefold:

First, as the main guns of large ironclad ships become more and more powerful, with the performance of steel-faced armor, the thickness of such heavy guns must be at least 600 mm or more, and due to weight limitations, it is impossible to cover all key protection areas with such armor. Therefore, when only partially protected battleships are attacked in non-critical areas such as torpedoes, angles of attack, etc., their protection is essentially the same as that of small ships.

Second, in terms of efficiency, the cost of a large ironclad ship can build two or more cruisers, and the cruiser can launch an attack on an ironclad ship with heavy armor in only some areas by means of heavy artillery, torpedoes, and angles of attack. Therefore, cruisers can be used to assume the role and function of large ironclads. Moreover, it has the advantage of speed and quantity, which makes it more complementary and replaceable.

These views are clearly biased in the present view, and large ironclads have an incomparable advantage over cruisers. Therefore, it is unrealistic to replace ironclads with cruisers. But this line of thinking also led to great progress in cruiser design. Because it was clear that an unprotected cruiser could not engage a large ironclad ship, a protective cruiser was born. Because of the small tonnage of the cruiser, the length of the hull, and the large protective area, it was simply not possible to lay enough side armor. So the cruiser was forced to abandon the ability to defend against shells in the vertical plane. And this choice is not unreasonable, even if the ship's guns are powerful, but the rate of fire is low. The British's Indomitable 1st class ironclad had 406 mm guns, but its breech loading design gave it an extremely low rate of fire. Even our 305-mm 25-fold breech gun had no better rate of fire. Therefore, even if the cruiser did not have waterline armor, with the pitiful rate of fire of large-caliber naval guns, the probability of hitting the waterline in an artillery battle was extremely low. But although it is extremely low, it does not mean that there is none, and once hit, the unprotected cruiser simply cannot withstand such a blow, what to do? So there were protective cruisers. The waterline armor is still not laid, but the dome armor is set in the ship's hull, and the installation of the dome armor will not lead to a sharp increase in weight, and the arrangement of firepower and power will not have much impact, but the protection is on a higher level, because even if the waterline is penetrated, the straight ballistic trajectory will be bounced off the inclined plane of the dome armor, and the water will be limited to the triangular area formed by the inclined plane of the dome armor and the gunwales of the hull. So there will be no irreversible damage to the hull, which is where the protective cruiser comes from. But now the conditions for the survival of the protective cruiser are being challenged. At this point, Jochen paused, and Muntz listened intently, waiting for Jochen to say the next. So Jochen continued, "Uh, can I have another cup of coffee?" ”

Seeing that Muntz angrily asked the secretary to pour coffee again, Jochen smiled secretly in his heart, but he still made a serious look on his face and persuaded: "Your Excellency, minister, have a cup of coffee, calm and calm, this kind of thing is not something that can be solved in a hurry." Muntz nodded yes, and then went to drink his cup of coffee, which was already half-cold, and when he saw his expression, he knew that he couldn't taste it in his mouth, and his mind was not on it. Waiting for the secretary to bring coffee again, Jochen began to continue with the old god: "The birth of the new rapid-fire gun has threatened the storage conditions of the protective cruiser, and the rate of fire of the tube gun has been greatly increased, taking Krupp's latest 105 mm 35 times the diameter tube gun as an example, with a rate of fire of 7 rounds per minute. The application of smokeless propellant makes the artillery more powerful and more accurate. At that time, the protective cruiser will face the situation that the waterline will be beaten into a hornet's nest, and if the waterline is beaten into a hornet's nest, it will cause a large amount of water to enter the side side, and eventually the guide will overturn. We can't wait for the whole world to start using tube guns instead of rack guns and then let the protective cruisers be sent to the bottom of the sea before we think about new designs, as I've been saying, forward-looking, so we have to give up on the protective cruisers before everyone realizes this, and give up completely, so that we can get ahead of others. ”

"So we're going to equip the protective cruisers with waterline armor to protect against rapid-fire artillery shells. It's also simple, just let them add armor belts to the original design. Muntz said immediately.

"No, it's not the best option." "Since you increase the weight of the waterline armor belt, you have to reduce your firepower and sacrifice your speed," Jochen said. And for cruisers, speed is life, so if the speed is increased while maintaining armor, then firepower will inevitably be greatly sacrificed. So my proposal is to simply make it bigger, so as to achieve the perfect balance of speed, firepower, and protection. Since it is impossible for our navy to form a huge scale at present, it is better to increase investment in a single ship, and each new ship will use the latest technology, so that it is not necessary to be too harsh on the cost of a single ship, so as to form a small but refined naval force. Moreover, these ships are also a test bed for technology, on which to be applied, evaluated, and improved, and when we have the funds to build ships on a large scale, we will have quite mature and advanced technology to use. ”

"Building a bigger one can indeed greatly improve the performance of the ship, but the cost will also be more expensive, our budget is just that, so we will face the dilemma of insufficient numbers and difficult to complete the combat mission." Muntz said hesitantly.

"Your Excellency, we must first clarify what the role of each type of ship is, even if it is a 5,300-ton protective cruiser, it is impossible for her to do colonial protection work, and our overseas colonies can only accommodate such large warships in the port of Douala in Cameroon. Taking a step back, wouldn't it be a bit of a fuss to protect the colony with the 5,300-ton Imperial Navy's strongest cruiser, even if there were ports to dock at. This kind of work is more appropriate to be done by small ships of about 2,000 tons, which were originally built for this purpose. And the positioning of the new armored cruiser is clearly the backbone of the rapid mobility of our Navy. And not only that, but her job also includes being a reconnaissance fleet independent of the main fleet, responsible for reconnaissance of the enemy situation and annihilation of the enemy's reconnaissance fleet. Britain, France, Russia all had their own armored cruisers, of course, because they all used armored cruisers as secondary capital ships, so it seems to me that the design of these armored cruisers was not perfect. But who can guarantee that they will suddenly open their minds with a lot of experience in the construction of armored cruisers. Then then we will be faced with the tragedy of being caught up by the enemy's armored cruisers, our waterline being pierced by the enemy, and our shells being ricocheted in front of the enemy's armor. Indeed, the world's first "regular" armored cruiser that was not of armor structure, the French Dubuy de Lorme, began construction this year.

"You have convinced me, Your Highness, that I will re-ask for the design of a new cruiser, and I hope you will come and give me guidance."

"Of course, Your Excellency, it is my honor to serve the Imperial Navy."