"Your Royal Highness Mingjian, since 1869, when China built the first ironclad ship Peter the Great, China has been using 12-inch main guns, and for 30 years, the 9-level capital ships built in China have been using 12-inch caliber naval guns, so my country ordered a first-class battleship with 4 12-inch main guns.

Although your country's shipbuilding technology is first-class, in recent years it has been building six second-class battleships with 10.25-inch guns, so it cannot meet the needs of our country, so we have to seek help from other countries, please forgive me. Makarov replied neither humbly nor arrogantly.

, then pull, aren't our country's Oldenburg-class and Elector-class battleships with 4 12-inch guns? And the Caesar of our country? The standard displacement of the Frederick III-class battleship is 12,000 tons, which also meets the technical requirements set by you, and the design of 6 main guns and 3 turrets can't we change to the design of 4 main guns and 2 turrets? Look down on our designers or how?

Of course, it is impossible for Jochen to dismantle Makarov so directly, so that everyone is not good-looking, and Jochen also knows that the Russians' little ninety-nines, isn't it that the Franco-Russian economy is closely connected, the Russians issue a huge amount of negotiable bonds in France, and French banks and enterprises invest in Russia on a large scale, and even the Trans-Siberian Railway, which Nicholas II attaches great importance to, also has the figure of the BNP Paribas oligarchy behind it?

Jochen is also helpless about this, Jochen's efforts in recent years are only to prevent the deterioration of German-Russian relations, in order to ensure Germany's commodity exports to Russia and grain purchases, but in terms of investment, it is indeed the French who have done more thoroughly, which is also helpless, Germany itself does not encourage large-scale financial speculation, and the re-injection of capital into industrial production is the foundation of Germany. It is indeed incomparable to the French who lend money all over the world.

In 1899, the 5,900-ton protective cruiser Ascold was ordered from the Germania shipyard in Kiel, and in February this year, the 3,000-ton reconnaissance cruiser Novik was ordered from the shipyard in Stettin's Shuoxiao, but this was a small amount compared to the order for two battleships.

So here are a few words to show dissatisfaction and let the Russians understand. Hurry up and get a few big orders, otherwise I'm very unhappy, and I won't give you good goods when the time comes.

Jochen also stopped: "I see, this is really a pity, my country sincerely hopes to help your country build capital ships and improve your country's naval strength in the Far East." ”

Makarov also replied with great interest: "Nikolai is also convinced of this, and has always kept in mind the friendship of Germany, so this time my country hopes to receive help from your country." ”

"So what your country wants to buy this time is still an armored cruiser, right?" Jochen finally brought the conversation back up.

"Yes, Your Highness. There is no shortage of battleships in our country now, and our country has now begun the construction of 5 new battleships at the same time. However, China lacks a large number of excellent cruisers, and in recent years, China has ordered a number of protective cruisers from your country, the United States, and France to meet some of our needs, but armored cruisers still need to be ordered from your country, which is the world's leading in technology. Makarov replied.

Makarov was talking about the Borodino-class battleships built on the basis of the Crown Prince, and it was too difficult for them to build 5 "advanced" battleships at the same time with the capabilities of the Russian shipbuilding industry, so they had to purchase some parts from abroad, and part of the armor plates of the Borodino and Tsar Alexander III were imported from the Škoda Arsenal. Of course, Jochen is clear about this kind of thing.

However, Makarov's remark that there is no shortage of battleships in our country made Jochen want to laugh, indeed. Tsarist Russia really did not lack battleships, but there was a great shortage of good ones.

The Russians looked to Jochen to be shabby, and the Russian Pacific Fleet now had five battleships, three of which were Petropavlovsk-class battleships, which had an unusual position among Russian battleships.

She is the first class of battleships in the Russian Navy to meet the pre-dreadnought standard, and the first class has the ability to compete with the battleships of other powers. Its historical position in the Russian Navy is similar to that of the Sovereign class to Britain and the Brandenburg class to Germany.

Like the German Brandenburg class, as the country's first generation of former dreadnoughts, the Petropavlovsk class has a slightly smaller tonnage and a displacement of 11,300 tons. It is about the same level as the Brandenburg class.

Equipped with 4 305 mm 40 times diameter Pattern 1895 naval guns, the performance is not bad, although the 4 twin 152 mm auxiliary guns are a little less, but the auxiliary guns are all raised to the upper deck and all turrets, which is a good design, which is conducive to the application of secondary guns in high sea conditions.

It stands to reason that this is also a fairly decent design, not to mention excellent, but not bad, the problem lies in the ship's armor protection. The main armor belt of the waterline is 406 mm Harvey steel armor, which is simply amazing! But if you look closely at the coverage area of the armor belt, it is less than 50 meters long and less than 2 meters high, which is not even enough to protect the ammunition depot of the two main guns, except for this narrow and short main armor belt, the protection of other places is not excellent.

In a real battle, places other than the main armor belt will really be beaten by others, I really don't know what this 406 mm thick main armor belt can do except comfort itself? .

As for the Borodino class built by himself, they are also a bunch of pit goods that waste taxpayers' taxes, to be honest, Jochen really doesn't understand, the basic technical standards of the battleship Retvizan ordered by the Russians from the Americans are similar to those of the crown prince, the indicators are quite excellent, the design is quite balanced, and the ship type is also more suitable for the sea conditions in the Pacific region.

The superstructure of the Crown Prince is huge, the center of gravity of the whole ship is high, and the French broadside inversion design greatly reduces the reserve buoyancy of the hull, and the problem of high center of gravity makes the stability of the ship extremely poor.

What's worse is that the French shipbuilding technology is excellent, so that the Crown Prince's steering gear is very responsive, so the steering is very fast, but because of the high center of gravity and poor stability, the tendency of the roll is very obvious, so that in the Battle of the Yellow Sea, the Crown Prince turned quickly Japanese observers even thought that the ship might capsize.

Of course, the Borodino class, which was copied from the Crown Prince, has the same problem, and it would be good if the Russians could really build the same battleship as the Crown Prince, although there were some problems, but the Crown Prince was still a good work of the French shipbuilding industry, and the level was not bad.

However, the Russians did not have this ability at all, the power machinery produced by the Russians was heavier than the French, and the turret size was larger than that of the French, so it was not possible to copy the French design exactly the same, so on July 19, 1898, the Russian Naval Technical Committee (MTK) instructed the shipbuilder D? V. Skovosov designed a new scheme based on retaining the Crown Prince's speed, main scale, armament, armor and endurance of 5,500 nautical miles, and allowed a slight increase in displacement.

This design is the Borodino class, but even with the relaxation of the displacement, the Russians designed it as a comic, since in order to increase the 75 mm rapid-fire gun to defend against torpedo boats, the MTK agreed to reduce the thickness of the main armor belt to 203 mm. The Crown Prince also has a main armor belt of 250 mm or more!

However, what the Russians made was still overweight, and in order to remedy it, they had to continue to reduce the thickness of the main armor belt to 194 mm, which was not as good as the Grombowie! And the coverage area is smaller than that of the Crown Prince, the main armor belt is only 1.8 meters high, of which the part that is submerged in the water is 1.5 meters, and the part above the waterline is only 0.3 meters high!

What really has a protective effect is the 1.65 m high upper side armor of 152 mm, that is, the actual level of protection of the Borodino-class battleships is not much better than that of the second-class battleships!

Of course, the 6-inch Krupp armor was already at the artifact level during the Russo-Japanese War, at least there is no record of the 6-inch armor of the upper armor belt of the Russian ship being penetrated by the Japanese ship, but this does not hide that the armor protection design of the Borodino class is a mess!

In 1904, the Eagle accidentally flooded the port side while preparing for the installation of an armored deck in Kronstadt, which led the ship to tilt to an angle of 24 degrees, and in order to prevent her from being forced to pour water into the starboard side, the tilt was reduced to 15 degrees, but this led the ship to sink directly and had to be drained before refloating.

On October 6, 1903, when Tsar Alexander III was on trial, he tilted the hull 15 degrees at full speed with only 15 left rudders, and the sea water would pour into the ship through the doors of the 75-mm rapid-fire guns at extremely low altitudes.

It's really not strange that such a broken ship was beaten by the Japanese, so Jochen's words to Makarov are hehe.

However, I didn't expect the Russians to be able to fight the battleship duel beautifully, such a long distance and a long journey, even if the performance of the battleship is good, the performance will decline after running so far, plus there are so many broken ships in the fleet, so Jochen is not ready to help the Russians improve the strength of the battlefleet, and strengthening the strength of the cruiser fleet is the right way.

Joheng did not hide it at the moment, and told Sù Makarov bluntly: "This is not difficult, with our country's shipbuilding capacity, it can naturally meet the needs of your country." Then he got up, walked to his desk, took out three copies of the paper, and then put them in front of Makarov: "This is the design plan of my country's three super armored cruisers, Your Excellency, you can take a look at it first." (To be continued......)

PS: There are some errors in the description of the Petropavlovsk-class battleships in the previous chapter, I got the number of Rostislav and the Rostislav wrong

So some changes have been made to the content of the previous chapter