"Hello, Your Royal Highness!" Natsuki and Christian call each other by the same name, he is the younger brother of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the blood uncle of Prince Joachim, Albert. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info William. Prince Heinrich. In the Second German Reich, where the army was the core of national defense, Heinrich was the first member of the direct family of the German imperial family to devote himself to the navy. He became an officer in the German Navy at the age of 15 (initially on an honorary basis), officially entered the Navy at the age of 18, won the respect and recognition of the Navy for his outstanding ability and enthusiasm for naval affairs, was promoted to German Admiral at the age of 41, and was promoted to Commander of the German High Seas Fleet in 1906, and had a high prestige in the German Navy.

Prince Heinrich, now 46, looks very much like his brother Wilhelm II, but his plain mustache and bushy short goatee make him more approachable, and his good social skills make him popular with the public in all the places he visits. From 1878 to 1880 he made a trip around the world, and in 1884 and 1903 he visited the United States twice, making a useful contribution to the expansion of the German Navy's influence and image.

"You're going to participate in the Navy's sailing training, right? Are you excited, or are you nervous? "In front of his fellow royal juniors, Prince Heinrich showed his warmth and kindness as always.

Natsuki replied, "It should be both." ”

"Young people should experience first-hand the great and cruel laws of nature, and take an important step in growing up in the raging storms. In addition, seeing the customs and customs of various countries in the world will also help you broaden your horizons and broaden your mind. The first half of this sentence is an encouragement to the two young princes, while the second half of the sentence is said to Natsuki alone:

"With the personal supervision of the Secretary of State of the Navy, you don't have to worry about the design of the new battleship, and I am sure that the naval engineers will be able to do a good job."

Natsuki nodded, his new battleship, the first dreadnought in the German Navy, was able to pass the approval of the Admiralty in time, and Prince Heinrich's positive attitude played a big role. Previously, Natsuki's "British New Battleship Model" was unveiled at the naval conference, in order to compete with the British dreadnoughts equipped with 10 12-inch guns. Count Warren, Commodore Goodsa, and Colonel Bruckner presented a general plan for the naval design department, which was the backbone of the main body. As they envisaged, the displacement of the new German battleships of the first rank would also reach 1. 80,000 tons, and equipped with 12 doors 11. Although the caliber of the new naval gun developed by Krupp is smaller than that of the British, the actual power of the 1-inch main gun is almost the same by virtue of its faster muzzle velocity and better performance armor-piercing shells.

In terms of the layout of the main guns, the German naval design team wanted to pick up the "ready-made" of the British, but also wanted to have some national characteristics, so the six main guns were arranged in a double-fret shape into a hexagonal shape, that is, one on the front and rear decks, two on each side of the amidships, three main turrets pointed to the front, and three pointed to the rear, and the beautiful name was "able to fire at the enemy in all directions". From Natsuki's historical perspective, such a firepower configuration is purely non-mainstream, which is not only not conducive to the efficiency of the main gun, but also increases the weight of the hull and the cost of building the ship, and indirectly weakens the protective armor. Therefore, Natsuki made his opinion clear on the basis of careful technical calculations: the new German battleship should use four triple 45x11-inch (280 mm) main guns, two on the front and two on the fore deck, so as to form an unprecedentedly powerful salvo firepower.

Despite Natsuki's successful example of a major overhaul of the Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers, the high expectations of those in power in the Reich, and the very firm posture at the Admiralty meeting, the opposition from the senior experts and engineers of the Royal German Navy's Technical Committee was still strong. On the one hand, they were worried about the success of the design of the triple turret, and on the other hand, they felt that if all four main turrets were arranged along the central axis, the length of the hull would inevitably be lengthened to more than 170 meters, and the longer the hull, the larger the lateral bomb area, and the chance of being hit by torpedoes would also increase, not to mention that German shipyards had never built a battleship with a hull of more than 160 meters.

In this crucial controversy, Natsuki argues that Germany had built 200 as early as ten years ago. The 1-meter-long cruise ship Kaiser Wilhelm did not have a technical problem in building a 180-meter-long battleship based on the dockyard specifications of large shipyards such as Wilhelm, Kiel, Bremen and Danzig, as well as the load-bearing strength of current ship steel. As for the bomb area, when the combat distance of the two ships exceeds 4,000 meters, the length of the hull increases or decreases by 20 meters, and there is almost no difference in the size of the opponent's rangefinder. Finally, the slender hull is good for maneuverability, and the chance of avoiding torpedoes should be increased rather than lowered.

Hearing that a number of veterans of the German Navy's design department were ready to join forces to boycott their own design proposals, in order to end this meaningless internal dispute as soon as possible, Natsuki visited Prince Heinrich with the previous 21 battleship models and the newly made 22nd German new dreadnought model. The well-informed Prince praised his design, believing that this unprecedented battleship, once completed, would greatly enhance the international standing and influence of the German Navy. The two then went to the palace together, and it took only half an hour to completely convince the German emperor. With the support of the Emperor and the commander of the High Seas Fleet, most of the naval officers and generals finally voted in favor at the later Admiralty meeting, and the top-down support gave Natsuki the last laugh - five months before the epoch-making British "Dreadnought" was put into service, the German Navy finally took a crucial step with a hesitant and apprehensive mentality.

Now that the general design of the new battleship had just been finalized, Natsuki was eager to stay behind to oversee its subsequent technical design work and ensure that it was carried out to the letter, but he finally decided to join the Naval Academy's sailing training ship voyage. In his view, the voyage is not only a kind of tempering of personal will, but also an important opportunity to exercise one's organizational and command skills. More importantly, the trainees who train on the same ship will form a close comradeship during their long life at sea, which is an extremely valuable asset for their future development in the Navy.

"They are the world's leading marine engineers and are commendable for their professionalism and dedication. I have no doubt that by the time the voyage training is over, they have completed an impeccable technical design, and even our new warship has been put on the slipway in advance. ”

In front of Prince Heinrich, Natsuki generously praised the German naval designer team that had "failed" to him twice, after all, his own knowledge, vision and mastery of technological development trends are incomparable innate resources, and it is difficult for naval engineers led by Count Warren to jump out of the limitations of the times.

"Uh-huh, I hope so!" Prince Heinrich used "we" in this sentence, once again indicating the unanimous position of the uncle and nephew on the issue of new German battleships.

Given the extraordinary strategic importance of the new battleship, Tirpitz asked the design team to complete major design work by the end of November, with design approval and construction bidding in December in order to begin construction of the first new battleship in the new year of 1907. Inspired by the glorious mission, the ship designers of the German Navy resolutely put aside their personal opinions and devoted all their energies to this new battleship project, codenamed "Ersatz Bayern".

"For a long time to come, it will be a pity to neither help nor understand the progress of the new warship project." "It will be an important milestone in the history of the German Navy, and everyone involved in it has reason to be extremely proud." ”

"Yes, it feels like the difference between our current warship and it is like a wooden-hulled ship and a steel-armored ship." When he first saw Natsuki's model of 22 battleships, Prince Heinrich once expressed such feelings. Now that the ship-building plan has been established, this emotion naturally has some more gratifying content.

"Now that we are fully mobilised, the British do not want to continue to extend their lead." Xia Shu tactfully led to the main topic of this conversation: "Affected by various internal and external factors, the protective cruisers in our shipbuilding plan from 1905 to 1906 also lagged behind the initial expectations -- they should have started construction at the beginning of the year, but now they have preliminarily determined the technical plan, and the day after tomorrow they will hold a bidding for the construction of the ship, and the construction will not start until the beginning of next month at the earliest. ”

In the existing battle sequence of the High Seas Fleet, the cruiser is considered a scout and a vanguard, and the tactical significance is very important. Due to the late start of the overall development of the German navy, and the struggle for overseas colonies must be backed by naval strength, the Germans had to concentrate their main forces on the development of battleships, and with the Brandenburg class and Kaiser. The Frederick III class, the Wiecchersbach class, and the Braunschweig class, which were battleships (ironclads) with better performance, were completed and put into service, and the German Navy's world ranking once climbed to third, but their cruisers, especially small cruisers, still have a fairly obvious gap in scale and quality with the naval powers such as Britain, France, and the United States, and this gap has increased unabated over time. In the German Navy's shipbuilding program of 1904-1905 and 1905-1906, there were only seven cruisers, namely one armored cruiser, four light cruisers, and two mine-laying cruisers, and by the summer of 1906 only two Königsberg-class light cruisers (the first two of which belonged to the 1903-1904 shipbuilding program) and two Nautilus-class mine-laying cruisers. Compared to the five Deutsche class battleships under construction, these numbers are really frustrating.

"Without affecting the design and construction of capital ships, the sooner the new cruiser is put into service, the better. With a specified displacement of 3,600 tons, one was used for reconnaissance of the main fleet, and one for colonial cruises, which was eventually properly enlarged on the basis of the Königsberg class. Continue these missions in the Gazelle, Bremen and Königsberg classes before they enter service! ”

Prince Heinrich's somewhat casual answer represents the current neglect of cruisers by the German Navy's top brass, and in this respect, the old maritime hegemon Britain has obviously done a better job, and their shipbuilding plans take into account different types of ships, and even submarines that have not yet played a prominent role have considerable investment - so far the German Navy has only two experimental submarines in active service, while the British Royal Navy already has more than 20 submarines, and is the first to start building 500-ton double-hull submarines using diesel engines. These stark gaps are probably also Feng. A great regret and hidden worry left by Earl Warren during his tenure to posterity.

(End of chapter)