"This time, the British didn't hide it, and generously announced their ship-building plan?" Jochen smiled and shook his head: "Is this a clear battle with our country to build a ship, and wants to put pressure on us?" ”

Unlike the strict secrecy of the construction of the Dreadnought or the Invincible in the past, and the secrecy of the battleship after the subsequent dreadnoughts started, this time the British were extremely high-profile about their upcoming new battleship, and the newspapers in London were all about to start the construction of the world's strongest super battleship equipped with 10 13.5-inch guns. Super dreadnought, this is the word that appears most frequently on the front pages of British newspapers.

"The British seem desperate to overwhelm us in the shipbuilding race to regain their confidence." Tirpitz also responded with a smile: "Only 3 of the 8 St. Vincent-class ships that the British had previously started have been completed, and a total of 10 dreadnoughts have been built with the previous Dreadnought and 6 Bellerophon-class." And our 4 Nassau-class ships have also been completed, and after 4 years of ship-building competition with us, the British can only be on par with our country in terms of the number of battleships, although there are still 5 St. Vincent-class and 4 battleships under construction last year, but we also have 8 under construction on our side, so the British still have no advantage.

The British have built 3 Invincible-class armored cruisers, 4 warships of the same type under construction, we have completed 2 Blucher-class large cruisers, and the third will be completed within this year, and we have already started 2 Moltke-class large cruisers in terms of the number of projects under construction, which is only 2 fewer than the British. The British still don't have any advantages, so the Royal Navy is in a hurry, right? ”

"I don't think I'm in a hurry, but I'm scared enough, right?" Jochen retorted with a smile at Tirpitz's conservative statement: "The eight dreadnoughts we are building are all equipped with 12 305mm guns, and none of the new battleships of the British can compare, and we can comfort ourselves with the relatively small caliber and small number of our naval guns before." Now they can't fool the people. ”

The British's rhetoric that their dreadnoughts were stronger than the Germans was not new in Germany, although this was very helpful in concealing the true performance of the German warships, but it also made some German media reproach the navy for being too conservative, but as soon as the news of the 12-gun Helgoland-class came out, everyone immediately shut their mouths. Ah, not all of them. Or some people will point to the 15-gun Argentine foreign trade battleship and ask why the navy didn't build this.

"If you can't overwhelm us in the number of naval guns, you have to choose to increase the caliber?" Tirpitz said with a smile, and there was not the slightest hint of nervousness in his tone about the British building super-battleships.

"I have to say that George did a pretty good job this time." Jochen's tone was equally relaxed: "Uncle Edward has just died, and the people of England really need exciting news. After the Asquith government came to power, it only built 6 capital ships last year, and 2 of them were paid for by the Australian and New Zealand governments, which means that the British government only paid for the construction of 4 battleships itself, which is less than ours. This greatly eased the financial constraints caused by the construction plan of 10 capital ships approved by Sir Bannerman.

At this time, the announcement of the construction of a super-battleship capable of overpowering us was a great encouragement to the depressed British people, and he, the new king, was able to win the support of the people. The navy that was suppressed by Asquith before will also be grateful to Dade for this, and he will count it in one fell swoop.

But before I left London, he talked to me about Anglo-German friendship, and when he turned around and stabbed me, it seems that my conformist cousin had learned ten out of ten ways of dealing with people by my dissolute uncle. Jochen said sarcastically.

"I'm afraid 4 super battleships is just the beginning, and I'm sure the British will soon have this kind of gun on their armored cruisers." Tirpitz speculated.

"That's for sure, Britain is looking for a battleship that overwhelms us in all its aspects. Face. Press. Pour! Jochen laughed and teased, word by word and accentuated pronunciation, which seemed very funny: "Therefore we want to overwhelm our large cruisers." Fitting this 13.5-inch gun onto their armored cruisers was the most efficient and quickest way to do it. ”

"It is estimated that the British can finally proudly claim that after 4 years of hard work, the Royal Navy has finally regained the pinnacle of naval technology, right?" Tirpitz said with a smile on his face.

"Alfred. You forgot? They had already said this once after the completion of the Invincible. Jochen scoffed.

"Ah, what Your Majesty said is that I'm getting older and I don't have a good memory." Tirpitz's feigned answer provoked a burst of laughter between the two.

Actually, this is really thanks to the two Excellencies, Bannerman and Asquith, Jochen thought to himself. If it weren't for Bannerman's support for Fisher's nonsense, the British would have started construction of 16 capital ships in 2 years. The UK government's financial pressure will not be as great. If it weren't for the financial pressure on the United Kingdom, Asquith would probably not be able to withstand the pressure from the navy and the civilian population, and since last year, he has approved the construction of super-dreadnoughts equipped with 13.5-inch guns.

However, although the layout of the main gun of the Orion class, the world's first super-dreadnought, is still the classic design of 5 twin-mounted turrets in the first 2 in 1 and 2 in history, but the caliber of the main gun is only 305 mm, and the tonnage has shrunk to a standard displacement of 21,000 tons.

It looks like the British built more battleships in a short time than in history. However, the performance of a single ship has dropped a lot, 1 Dreadnought, 6 Bellerophon class, due to the use of naval guns, the performance is not as good as the historical combination of 1 Dreadnought, 3 Bellerophon class and 3 St. Vincent.

The current St. Vincent class is similar in shape and performance to the historical Giant Elephant class because of the siding diagonal design, and the number of 8 St. Vincent class ships is 5 more than the scale of the historical 1 Neptune and 2 Giant Elephant class. However, the performance of the four Orion-class ships shrank and suddenly wiped out such a numerical advantage.

Although the British tinplate battleships could not be protected, the threat posed to the German ships by the 13.5-inch and 343-mm guns was real, even if the British shells were sensitive and the German battleships were solidly armored, it was not a matter of waiting to be ignored by 343-mm shells.

Now that the British have lost 4 343 tinplate all at once, how can such a situation make Jochen unhappy?

"Your foresight has allowed us to avoid the passivity of the British, and those in the navy are still agonizing over how to pretend to be panicked." Tirpitz said with a smile under control.

"That being said, the progress of our own super naval guns isn't very satisfying." Jochen said with a sigh.

Indeed, the news that the British were preparing to build a 13.5-inch cannon battleship did not make the German navy, which was already developing a 15-inch gun, nervous, but the progress of the development of naval guns was not as smooth as expected.

Krupp believed that it was extremely difficult to develop a large-caliber naval gun like 380 mm, and the navy required to fire 880 kg of super-heavy shells, which itself hoped that the naval gun would have a relatively curved trajectory, so it strongly required that the length of the body barrel should not exceed 45 times the diameter (42 times the diameter of the British standard), so that the difficulty of developing a shorter body barrel would also be reduced.

Skoda was opposed, Skoda's technicians believed that the performance requirements of close-range flat fire should not be ignored in the North Sea engagement, and the longer gun body could also improve the shooting accuracy, and when it was necessary to obtain a curved trajectory, the naval gun could be fired at a large elevation angle with a reduced charge, so that it could take into account both. For this reason, the length of the body tube should be 50 times the diameter (46 times the diameter of the British standard).

However, in this way, the difficulty of developing naval guns will increase significantly, so the two sides quarreled, and finally went to the navy. The result was obvious, and the Navy's cattle immediately fully supported Skoda's idea. The consequence of this decision was that the development of naval guns was slowed down, and the two companies needed a lot of time just to build larger vertical heating towers, and the navy itself could not laugh at this.

"Yes, Your Majesty, originally we planned to start construction last year that the four new battleships were equipped with 380 mm naval guns, but now we have to install three 305 mm naval guns to avoid the use of no guns. If I had supported Krupp's idea, it might not have been so wolfy. Tirpitz was also a little helpless about this, who would have thought that just a five-fold increase in diameter would make the development progress so long all of a sudden.

"Plans can never catch up with change." Yoheng comforted: "This is also something that can't be helped, fortunately, we still have a backhand, that is, this will weaken the combat effectiveness of the navy for a period of time, but it is better than nothing." ”

"And it will lead to considerable waste." Tirpitz reluctantly added that the navy's budget was already tight, and such a big waste had to be digested carefully.

Due to Jochen's re-requirement for the naming rules of naval ships after Jochen came to power, the battleships will all be named after the principalities and provinces in Germany, so although the specific names of the new battleships have not yet been determined, I am afraid that they will no longer be called the Caesar-class.

Although the hull design of these four new battleships is continued from the Helgoland class, the tonnage has been appropriately enlarged to leave sufficient room for transformation, and this transformation space will become an important backhand for greatly improving combat effectiveness. (To be continued......)