The Technical Committee of the Royal German Navy is one of the most important departments of the Imperial Navy Office (formerly the German Admiralty, renamed as this in 1889), starting from the Saxony class, the first-line capital ships of the German Navy are designed by this committee, which brings together the best naval designers, electrical engineers and naval weapons experts in Germany, and is the indispensable foundation for Kaiser Wilhelm II and Admiral Tirpitz to build the ocean-going fleet. The office of this department www.biquge.info located in the old town of Kiel, next to the historic Nicholas Church. The brown pedestal and white balustrade wall separates the outside world from the tranquility of the courtyard, and the tall red maple blocks the sunlight like a large umbrella, making the white two-story building in the courtyard look particularly quiet.

In the southeast corner of the building, the room with the best light conditions is used as a meeting room, and it is a small area, with a long oval wooden table taking up most of the space, and the interior furnishings are simple, except for the east-facing wall with a colorful portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the other three walls are mainly decorated with oil paintings depicting sailing ships.

When the staff closed the door of the conference room lightly, there were nearly twenty people sitting at the oval wooden table, dressed in only two kinds - navy uniforms or white shirts and black dresses, most of them in their thirties and forties, and all of them with very serious expressions. At the top was a gray-haired man, slightly chubby, with his typical large back and smooth monocles embedded between his right eyebrow bone and cheekbone. After drawing the attention of the participants with a dry cough, he said in a solemn voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to conduct the final review of the plan for the large cruisers C and D, and the details of the previous discussion and modification have been completed by Sir Dietrich's design team, and the technical drawings can be carefully reviewed and put forward with their views and opinions, and strive to make this plan an impeccable work." ”

Out of etiquette, the old man sitting on the left hand side of the big back nodded slightly to everyone, his face was thin, his chin was long, his forehead and cheeks were wrinkled, and there was a kind of intimidating majesty in his eyes. At this point, the standard design was laid out in the center of the long table, and before the meeting began, the participants had put the finishing touches on it, and with more than a dozen discussions and refinements had taken place before, it seemed to be impeccable. In the time that followed, the participants whispered to each other or sat upright, and in the end no one came up with new ideas.

"No more questions and suggestions?"

From the tone of voice, it can be heard that the big back head who presided over the meeting was satisfied with the tacit agreement of the participants, but before announcing the end of the review, he still asked the military-uniformed young man in the remote position in a respectful tone: "Your Royal Highness Prince Joachim, what is your opinion?" ”

In terms of rank, the German prince should sit at the top, not hide in the corner, but with the corresponding position, he is in the right place. Judging from the words and deeds of the participants, they did not feel uneasy because of the uninvited arrival of the royal family, and everything was taken for granted.

"Gentlemen, as you know, I am already a cadet of the Naval Academy, and most of my energy is devoted to naval courses. The large cruisers C and D were one of the trump cards of the shipbuilding program of 1903-1904, to which His Majesty the Emperor and the Minister of the Navy attached great importance to them, and entrusted with them, I would like to make some personal observations with a personal immature eye. ”

Natsuki admitted that he was provocative, but the attendees were not disgusted, and many of them had a relaxed smile on their faces. To them, Prince Joachim was like a boy next door, who grew up like to climb over the fence to play in his yard, who was innocent, never played pranks, and most importantly, helped him to patch the slightest hole in the fence from time to time.

"Dear Sir Dietrich, your design is perfect, and once completed, the two cruisers will be the best of the same class of warships of all countries!" As always, Natsuki was not sparing in praise of the diligent and intelligent designer, and Sir Dietrich was not only the oldest naval director of the German Navy, but also the best naval engineer in Germany. For more than a decade, he has designed ships of all classes and large and medium-sized cruisers of the German Navy. In the field of armored cruisers, the large cruiser "Marquis Bismarck" has well undertaken the heavy overseas dispatch tasks, and its superior performance has been highly praised by the officers and men of the Navy, while the armored cruisers "Prince Heinrich", "Prince Albert" and "Friedrich", which have entered service in the last two years. The "Karl" also demonstrated excellent design performance.

Sir Dietrich stood up with a calm face and bowed in gratitude to the German prince's compliment. When he sat back in his chair, Natsuki raised his voice: "A week ago, I witnessed the Russian expeditionary fleet sailing to the east in the Fermer Strait, and to put it bluntly, this is a fleet that is doomed to failure. ”

If he had said this seven days ago, the naval officials attending the meeting might have reservations about the prince's judgment, after all, the expeditionary fleet that Russia had worked hard to build was very powerful on paper, especially the newly built Borodino-class battleships that reached the world-class level and were equipped with a complete radio system, who would have thought that these invincible warships, which had been built at great expense, would be vulnerable to the Japanese Navy?

As soon as they entered the North Sea, they beat up the British fishing boat as a Japanese torpedo boat, causing one British fishing boat to sink and many to be injured. How can such a fleet sail thousands of miles and win a battle?

"Although the Russian fleet has a lot of newly built warships, as a complete battle formation, their combat performance will be seriously dragged down by those old ships. Ladies and gentlemen, can you imagine what it would be like for an old sailing ship to appear in a modern expeditionary fleet? Can you imagine what it would be like for them to fight side by side with modern battleships? ”

The hoarse voice of the boy during the change of voice controlled the atmosphere of the conference room, and everyone was listening quietly, even if they had several times richer life experience than the speaker, at this moment, they had no words to refute, only silent thinking.

"Many of the battleships of the Russians, such as the Catherine II-class battleships, such as the Vitiz-class armored protection cruisers, were not lagging behind in performance when they were just being built, and were even leading in some respects. It's only been a few years, and they've become a drag on the fleet, why? Natsuki paused for a moment to make his next words more convincing.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now spending a lot of money on building warships, but if war breaks out in ten years, will the warships we design today be just as useless by then?" Natsuki pointed to the blueprints on the table, "If it is not only not effective against the enemy, but instead becomes a grave for the burial of German sailors, not only Sir Dietrich will be saddened, but everyone here, including me, will be whipped from the heart." So...... No, we can't let that happen! ”

"Yes, never!"

Chairman of the Technical Committee of the German Royal Navy, von. Count Warren, the white-haired old man sitting in the middle, echoed in an old but determined voice. Led by him, the participants expressed their support for Prince Joachim's views.

After everyone adjusted their emotions and quieted down, Natsuki elaborated in a firm tone: "I think that the ships we design should not only be based on the existing technical conditions, but also make bold assumptions and professional judgments on the development trend of technology. As far as I heard, the British were working not only on their heavy battleships, but also on a new type of cruiser with battleship firepower and cruiser speed. I can responsibly say that such a large warship with fast speed and firepower will definitely appear in the lineup of the British Royal Navy. One day in the future, in the event of a war conflict between Germany and Britain, our two armored cruisers, which cost more than 18 million marks per ship, are bound to be in a miserable situation where they cannot fight and fight, and they cannot escape, what is the difference between this and the Russians sending old warships against the Japanese Navy? ”

Natsuki's voice fell, and the entire conference room fell silent for a long time. Finally, the presiding officer of the meeting, Bruckner, chief engineer of the Royal Navy's Technical Committee, said slowly: "Does Your Highness have more specific suggestions for improvement?" ”

"First of all, the new cruiser had to be designed to reach a speed of 25 knots, for which I strongly recommended increasing the number of boilers and using a new type of steam turbine (which was more efficient than a piston steam engine, but at that time the Germans were not very familiar with this technology and only tested it on two small cruisers, while the British Navy had already begun to install better Parsons steam turbines on medium ships); second, lengthen the hull and reduce the width of the ship, so that it can change from an ordinary salmon to a sailfish that can shuttle quickly; Third, the firepower and armor configuration should be adjusted accordingly, the two-layer gun profile on the broadside and the underwater torpedo tubes on the bow side should be abolished, and the four single-barreled main guns on the broadside side should be loaded into the twin turrets, so as to achieve a unified attack on the main guns of the whole ship. ”

Listening to Natsuki's list of adjustment suggestions like a machine gun, the first reaction of the naval officers and ship engineers in the meeting was to quickly record them, and when their brains understood the meaning of these sentences, almost everyone showed deep surprise. This is an improvement for them, it is simply a structural overhaul!

With Natsuki's previous arguments as a foreshadowing, no one directly objected to this improvement, but it was not so easy for them to accept these novel ideas. Sir Dietrich, the director of the shipbuilding, immediately retorted in a tactful tone: "Your Highness, your suggestion has opened our eyes, but the Admiralty has limited the construction of these two cruisers to start construction in December this year and January next year, and if the design is adjusted according to your opinion, I am afraid that it will be too late, and the cost of building the ship will greatly exceed the budget, and it will ...... These designs lack practical justification, and all the complexities of ship construction have to be taken into account, and perhaps we can adopt your new design on the next batch of large cruisers. ”

Since it was determined to change the two Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers and even Graf. The fate of Shi Pei and his officers and soldiers, Xia Shu came prepared, he walked to the window and whistled outward. After a while, hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor, and under the curious eyes of everyone, a young man with a drawing paper tube calmly walked into the conference room. He wore the same uniform as Joachim, with the same youthful face and the same gentle temperament, and his presence was clearly a surprise to the attendees—the joint action of the princes of Oldenburg and Prussia was not like the boring farce of the whims of the royal boys. The Oldenburg family estate has traditional shipbuilding resources, and many members of the family are in the German Navy, Christian. August himself was another well-known naval fan. Not to mention Joachim, who was already amazing as a child, and the small torpedo boats he designed and built have recently become a hot topic in naval circles, and his royal background and close relationship with the top of the navy make his ability in the field of shipbuilding very impressive.

(End of chapter)