The Japanese left and left nothing for Germany, which disappointed the major German shipyards, Krupp and Muntz, and everyone was disappointed that they almost made a moth.

"What are you kidding, you said that Krupp is going to develop a 305-mm 40-fold diameter rack to withdraw guns? Where did they get nervous? Jochen almost jumped when he heard the news.

"Isn't it because the Japanese just think that our main guns are small in caliber, and the major shipyards are unhappy with the loss of orders of at least 2 million pounds, and it is difficult to guarantee that the Japanese will not continue to buy battleships in the future. Therefore, Krupp is ready to develop a 305 mm 40 times diameter main gun, and Krupp said that he has a 305 mm 25 times diameter naval gun, and now it is regarded as continuing to expand on this caliber. Muntz said with a smile.

"Sue Sù Krupp, if they develop a 305-mm 40-diameter cannon, then I will go to Skoda for the main guns of the future battleships of the German Navy! Now that Skoda is very idle, I don't believe that Skoda is not faster than him, Krupp. When the time comes, I will choose whoever comes up with the finished product first, and I guarantee that there will be an order for at least 10 battleship main guns! ”

"Your Highness, don't be angry, everyone just hopes to expand the market and sell to the Japanese." Muntz was immediately persuaded.

"I don't know when Krupp's 305-mm naval gun will be successfully developed, and at that time, it will be a matter of whether it will be sold or not, and the development of our own naval gun will be delayed. He Krupp has a lot of new artillery now, are you sure he can make time? ”

Jochen and Muntz had an exchange on the development of battleships in the German Navy, and the next class of battleships would continue to use 260 mm naval guns because they were to be used in the Brandenburg-class formation. However, the design of the lower class battleships had to be completed by the time the naval program expired in 1898, and construction began as soon as the new naval budget was approved.

And Jochen was not prepared to use the 283 mm 40 x diameter naval guns of the historical Braunschweig-class and German-class former dreadnoughts.

Many people know that the double diameter of the British and German naval guns is calculated differently, so the double diameter of the German naval guns is actually shorter than the British in the same numerical condition as the British. However, the common misconception is that the Germans calculate the length of the medicine room, while the British do not.

However, this view is wrong, in fact, everyone counts. The real difference is that the German-Austrian algorithm calculates the length of the entire barrel, while the Anglo-American system calculates the length of the front end of the bolt.

Therefore, the German and Austrian naval guns are generally about 3-5 times shorter than the British and American guns, and the specific difference depends on the length of the bolt. The 283 mm 40 times diameter naval gun was only 36.7 times the diameter according to British and American standards.

However, this is not the main reason why Jochen is not satisfied with the 283mm SK-L/40 naval gun, but the power of this thing is too weak.

In order to reduce the risk for the sake of insurance, this naval gun is exactly the same as the performance of the 283 mm 40 times diameter MRK-L/40 guns 10 years ago, except for the use of a tube design to increase the rate of fire to 2 rounds per minute.

The armor-piercing projectile was only a measly 240 kg, although the muzzle velocity was the highest among the main guns of battleships at that time, reaching 820 m/s. The rate of fire was also as high as 2 rounds per minute, enough to defy all 12-inch class guns of the time.

It seems that the gun fits well with what the Germans believed was an advantage in close combat with high-speed light bullets and a high rate of fire in the belligerent environment of the North Sea.

However, instead of looking at the 12-inch main guns of various countries at that time, but looking down, the British Royal Navy's 254 mm 45 times the diameter of the Mark-VI naval gun of the same period fired 227 kg armor-piercing shells, with a muzzle velocity of 810 m / s and a rate of fire of 3 rounds / min.

You know the pit, the power is only a little stronger than the 10-inch class naval gun, and the rate of fire is not as fast as others, according to the Germans' idea of high-speed light bullet and high rate of fire, you can simply use the 254 mm naval guns of the British.

So Jochen decided to throw away this useless thing and demanded that Krupp come up with a 283 mm 45 x caliber naval gun that at least performed as far as the 283 mm 45 times the diameter of the historical Nassau-class battleships (42.4 times the diameter of the British and American standards).

Of course, the performance has improved, and the difficulty of research and development has naturally increased, and now Krupp has not even developed a 283-mm MRK-L / 40, not even a reference sample, and is completely starting from scratch in this field of caliber. To catch up with the construction of the German Navy's third-class pre-dreadnoughts, it was not difficult to come up with a finished product in 1900.

Now there are less than 7 years, and Krupp itself has a whole bunch of other artillery development work to do, as an internal arms giant in Germany, Krupp completes almost all the artillery manufacturing work of both the Navy and the Army. Now I want to add another difficult work to develop a 305-mm 40-diameter frame to withdraw the gun, so Jochen said that Krupp is nervous.

"I will communicate with Krupp on my side, they will know how to choose, and it will definitely not affect the development of naval guns for naval battleships." His Royal Highness the Crown Prince said so, and Muntz could only make Krupp extinguish this thought.

After all, the crown prince still has 20% of Skoda's shares, and if he is determined to let Skoda participate in the research and development of the next generation of battleship main guns, it is estimated that Krupp will really worry that he will be preempted.

In fact, it's no wonder that Johenson is so atmospheric, and Krupp is likely to let his plan go wrong if he does this.

The appearance of dreadnoughts made the former dreadnoughts obsolete in an instant, and a large number of former dreadnoughts instantly became a storage zài that could only play soy sauce in World War I. So how to make the early battleships that the Germans had worked so hard to build come in handy in World War I, Jochen considered many options.

The first approach, of course, was to pursue the development of battleships in the direction of dreadnoughts in 1900, but due to technical problems, the cost of such battleships was bound to rise viciously.

It could also cause a ripple effect of a large number of former dreadnoughts built by the British in a shipbuilding race with the Germans to maintain the standards of the two great powers. Then, the quantitative gap between the two sides has not only not narrowed, but has been widened.

In addition to the high cost of dreadnoughts, there was also a large degree of success due to the fact that they had invested too much money in the former dreadnoughts. Therefore, this method is not advisable.

The second method is to learn from Japan, let the armored cruiser be equipped with the main guns of the battleship and then enter the battle line to take on the decisive mission, that is, the decisive battle armored cruiser, the Tsukuba-class and Kurama-class.

But such a thing can be seen as an imperfect version of the battlecruiser, compared to the previous dreadnoughts of the same period, their cost is not cheap, but by the dreadnought period, they have no advantage in speed, no advantage in firepower, and armor is still inferior. At that time it was even more vulnerable than the battle cruisers.

The third method is a derivative of the second method, which is to strengthen the armor on the basis of the decisive battle armored cruiser so that it can reach the level of protection of the battleships of the dreadnought era, so that they are not vulnerable on the battle line.

However, the cost of this plan is higher, and it can almost be seen as a high-speed battleship in the pre-dreadnought era. This solution can indeed meet the needs of the upper battle line, but the performance and price are not proportional.

And considering the hit rate of the 4 main guns, this kind of thing can only play the role of sharing the opponent's DPS on the battle line, and its own DPS is almost negligible, and the specific situation can refer to the German front dreadnoughts in the Battle of Jutland.

So Jochen thought of a fourth method, which was to weaken the dreadnought at low speed. 6 guns are able to meet the minimum standards for salvo hits, and it is not uncommon in history to have the design of dreadnoughts with 6 main guns, such as prestige-class battlecruisers, German-class armored ships, O-class battlecruisers, and so on.

Although the salvo of 6 guns to ensure the hit rate also benefited from the progress of fire control and sighting technology, it was relatively easy to modify fire control and sighting in the later stage, and it was basically impossible to add main guns to the battleship.

This is also the reason why Jochen insisted on the use of six 260 mm tube guns on the Brandenburg-class and next-class battleships. The current 260 mm 40 times diameter (37.1 times diameter of the British and American standard) main gun also uses underweight things, 192 kg shells, muzzle velocity 810 m/s, rate of fire 1.5 rounds per minute.

Although the weight of the bullet is insufficient, the muzzle velocity is much higher than the current British 254 mm naval gun, so the power of a single shot is not bad, plus the rate of fire advantage is enough as a 10-inch naval gun, but looking at the 343 mm main gun on the British Sovereign-class battleship, it is no wonder that the Japanese do not want it.

To make such a sacrifice, Jochen naturally has his own considerations, and in the future, KC steel plate will be invincible in the world without being capped armor piercing. Large-caliber naval guns could not gnaw on the KC steel plate, and the rate of fire was too slow, so the former dreadnoughts entered the era of a large number of second-class main guns.

The secondary main gun can be regarded as a large secondary gun, with a caliber of more than 8 inches and less than 10 inches, the secondary main gun has a high rate of fire, and can use the rate of fire to launch high explosive ** when everyone can't penetrate the KC armor, destroying the enemy's superstructure to make the opponent lose combat effectiveness.

The Japanese Navy's secondary guns in the Battle of Tsushima were much more effective than those of the 305 mm guns.

Therefore, the second-level main gun can hit battleships and cruisers, and it quickly became the darling of the navies of various countries, and the former dreadnoughts of various countries immediately became things piled up with second-class main guns on the ships.

But this not only brings trouble to unified fire control, but also makes the displacement uncontrollably increased. Therefore, after the rate of fire of the first-level main gun is also increased, it will be found that if the 10 second-level main guns are removed, it is completely possible to install 4 more first-stage main guns. And it's more powerful and more convenient for fire control.

The idea of an all-heavy artillery battleship also came from this, and thus the Dreadnought was born.

But when the large-caliber main gun was not yet sufficient, Jochen decided to take a deviant path. That is, abandon the first-stage main gun and take the route of all second-stage main guns.

In this way, the unified fire control and artillery were first tested, and due to the use of the central axis to arrange three twin 260 mm tube guns, the side-firing power of the six 10-inch level was also stronger than the more common configuration of four 8-inch or 9-inch secondary guns on each side.

When the benefits of this layout became familiar to the German Navy, a stronger 11-inch class tube was developed. The German Navy can skip the mixed installation of the first and second main guns in one step and enter the era of full heavy artillery.

This kind of battleship that meets the minimum standard of dreadnought in terms of firepower does not require it to reach the standard of 21 knots of dreadnought, which is slightly higher than the standard speed of dreadnoughts before the same period, and creates a battleship equipped with 6 main guns and 19 speeds, and then refit it for unified firing control in the future.

Such battleships were stronger and weaker than the former dreadnoughts, and Jochen thought they were more suitable for the title of quasi-dreadnought than those that had reached the pinnacle of development.

The speed of 19 knots is certainly not enough to meet the task of the British dreadnoughts in the North Sea, but in the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean, it can have the ability to engage the Russian Navy's Gangut-class and the French Navy's Kubert-class head-on, at least the battle situation will not be one-sided, and it can also hang a number of old former dreadnoughts.

And all the dreadnoughts of the German Navy could be freed from the task of entanglement with the enemy's large number of former dreadnoughts and concentrate on dealing with the British in the North Sea.

Moreover, in the course of at least 10 years of service of these old ships, the maintenance of the power system is indispensable, and if there is a real need, and then the power modification can reach a speed of 20 knots, then it is not impossible to integrate it into the battlefleet.

You must know that battleships such as the Neptune and the Colossus class that adopt a sideboard diagonal straddle layout, because of the limited firing angle, there are often only 6 main guns that can really be used in the broadside gun battle in actual combat. At this time, these quasi-dreadnoughts can even shamelessly call themselves dreadnoughts.

Therefore, the main guns of the German Navy's 3rd class quasi-dreadnoughts had to have the ability to compete with the British Royal Navy's 305 mm 45 times diameter tube withdrawal gun, which is why Jochen could not accept the 283 mm 40 times diameter gun.

If the progress of the development of naval guns is delayed because of Krupp's lack of business, it is possible that the construction progress of the 10 quasi-dreadnoughts will be affected in the case of the fierce competition between the British and German navies, which will affect the construction of the dreadnoughts in the future.

This is what Jochen does not allow.

PS: In the future, the double diameter of each naval gun will still be written according to the German standard, and the new naval gun will be mentioned once to the British and American standards.

C