One day in December 1908, Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

In the middle of winter, the low-hanging clouds give people an inexplicable sense of oppression, the biting cold wind whistles in gusts, and the remnants of ice and snow can be seen everywhere in the shade.

It was the first dreadnought of the German Navy, moored at Kaiser Pier adjacent to Wilhelm's shipyard, and it was larger than the surrounding German battleships. The triple-mounted 11-inch guns were particularly impressive, with the four main turrets occupying the main space on the fore and aft decks, the towers facing the bridge and triangular masts, and the two chimneys and four twin auxiliary turrets slightly cramped amidships......

Despite the anticipation of the country's first dreadnought, the German top brass had to wait patiently for several more months. Due to the adoption of a series of new technologies, the main body of this new German battleship still needs to be debugged and modified with corresponding equipment after completion, so scaffolding, riveting machines and some equipment parts can still be seen on its deck, and the bow side has not yet been painted with the ship's emblem.

Amid the sound of mild military music, two officers dressed in the dark blue winter jackets of the German Navy raised the Black Hawk Iron Cross flag of the German Navy on the bow flagpole. Standing on the upper deck with Natsuki to witness the flag-raising ceremony was his boss Reinhardt when he served on the Alsace. Scheer. During his nearly two years as commander of the first battleship, Schell delivered a satisfactory answer sheet from his superiors during training exercises and overseas cruises, which led to his promotion to commodore and the honor of being the captain of the first new battleship. As for Natsuki, his outstanding performance as an operational staff officer on the Alsace still exceeded the perfect score, and with his extraordinary background, he was promoted twice in two years, becoming the youngest lieutenant officer in the German Navy. Unwilling to be a puppet of the drawing board, he repeatedly declined Tirpitz's appointment as chief designer of the ship, accepting only the appointment of the Navy's chief technical adviser, and then resolutely came to the dreadnought of his own design as Scheer's chief of operational staff.

After the flag-raising ceremony, Scheer made a brief speech to the first batch of officers and men to board the ship. The battleship has a combat strength of 1,000 men, and the commissioning process usually requires only two-fifths of the quota, and based on the importance attached to the new warship, the Admiralty has equipped it with three-quarters of the quota at a time, that is, 30 officers and 720 sailors, who will familiarize themselves with the new warship in the next few months in order to form a combat force as soon as it is officially commissioned.

Since the Alsace was still a battleship serving in the main fleet, the transfer of Natsuki and Scheer was a separate transfer and did not involve the other officers and sailors on board, and about half of the Nassau's first crew came from retired Saxony-class ironclads (according to the German Navy Act, with the entry into service of new replacement ships, these old ships that had reached the end of their service were either decommissioned and mothballed, or resold and dismantled), and the other half were newly completed non-commissioned officers and autumn recruits.

Thanks to its large tonnage and size, the Nassau's crew lived in better conditions than previous German warships, which was also in line with a concept that Natsuki had clearly put forward when he first formulated the design: to ensure the morale and confidence of the crew with the best possible hardware and software conditions. Because there was still a lot of equipment in the commissioning stage, the crew of the Nassau had a lot of free time in addition to the daily drills and cleaning, so bridge and football became the most popular leisure activities for the officers and men. Natsuki, who was named to the Navy Soccer League Team of the Year three times in a row and won the assist title twice, became the absolute core of the new team, and put some energy into team building and training games, and more often than not, he went to Kiel to perform his shipbuilding supervision functions, or stayed quietly in his own cabin to read and write, and condensed his personal experience and thoughts into words.

"On the Survival of Ships in the Era of Full Heavy Artillery", this is the first work of Natsuki's "Home Life", which systematically analyzes the great changes brought by all-heavy artillery warships to the naval battle mode, carefully calculates the angle of shell penetration of long-range artillery battles, and clarifies that the long-range artillery fire of all-heavy artillery warships will pose a fatal threat to traditional warships with heavy waterline armor and light deck defense, which means that the former dreadnoughts are not only the difference in the number of guns and armor thickness when facing dreadnoughts, but also the overall disadvantage of design institutions and defense concepts. After reading it, Navy Chief Tirpitz immediately instructed the naval technical department to conduct a comprehensive review of the capital ships in service, improve and strengthen the technical defensive defects and damage management arrangements, and at the same time requested that the work be printed as a booklet, with a copy from the Naval General Staff, the High Seas Fleet Command, and the Navy's Ship Design Department, and even regarded some outline provisions as the guidelines for the design and construction of subsequent capital ships.

Following the sensational "On the Survival of Ships in the Era of All-Heavy Artillery", Natsuki published "All-Heavy Artillery Storm" within the Navy, and conducted a detailed and thorough analysis and discussion on how to give full play to the firepower efficiency of all-heavy artillery warships, which cited the test data of many Krupp naval guns during research and development, and a large number of calculations and analyses also improved Natsuki's ballistic theory level from the academy level to the quasi-expert level, and the article put forward the concept of "unified command system for all-ship gunfire fire" for the first time in the German Navy. It became an important guide for the development of capital ships of the German Navy.

In addition to such systematic essays, Natsuki also provided a number of short and medium-length articles for German naval publications, such as "The Mariner - The Cornerstone of the Navy", "Naval Blockade Warfare", and "Thirty Meters Underwater", all of which became recognized masterpieces by the Navy, and the "Hohenzollern Genius" expanded from ship design to technical, tactical, and even strategic fields.

At the same time, the Nassau's test adjustments are well underway. The commissioning of a new warship covers all aspects of power, navigation, weapons, communications, etc., and usually focuses on testing its reliability and stability. Just after the New Year, the Nassau underwent its first sea trials, and the new combination of the Schultz-Sannikrovt coal-fired boiler and the Shuoxiao-Parsons steam turbine performed quite impressively, with an overload output of 29,500 horsepower and a test top speed of 21. 05 knots, which greatly exceeds the design speed of 20 knots. For a moment, he felt that there was nothing more wonderful in the world than to see his design change from a boring and monotonous line drawing to a majestic object!

Backed by the will of the Reich's rulers and the Naval Amendment Act, the German Navy was building new warships at an unprecedented rate. The Nassau class was not yet in service, and the new Helgoland class had already begun, and it was considered an improved version of the Nassau class, which was adopted by the British Navy on the new battleships.13 Stimulated by the news of the 5-inch gun, the Kaiser finally abandoned his beloved 11-inch gun and ordered Krupp to develop a new 12-inch gun, and asked the new ships to be equipped with such guns - the German engineers in charge of the design of the battleships were caught off guard, but fortunately, their "Hohenzollern genius" reversed the Kaiser's rash decision with convincing words. In order to keep the design and construction of the new ships on schedule, the Helgoland class eventually used the same 45-caliber 11-inch guns as the Nassau class - it fired enough armor-piercing shells to penetrate the armor of all British battleships in service and under construction at engagement distance, and the full axle configuration of the four triple guns would continue the terrifying firepower of the Nassau class, while the increased weight would be used to strengthen the ship's defenses, including the main turret front and gun mount armor from 10. 6 inches raised to 11. 8 inches, waterline armor from 11. 8 inches to 13 inches, these will play a vital role in the future actual combat.

During the commissioning and conversion of the Nassau before commissioning, the German Navy began construction of a new battleship, which was truly comparable to the British battlecruiser "Von der Tann". It was greatly improved on the basis of the quasi-battle cruiser "Blucher", with a standard displacement of 20,000 tons, carrying three triple 11-inch naval guns, using improved high-efficiency steam turbines, four-axle propulsion (German battleships in World War I used three-axle propulsion, and the battle cruiser was four-axle), and the design maximum speed reached 27. At 5 knots, the comprehensive defense capability is a notch higher than that of the Blucher, and although the firepower standards are very close (only the barrel diameter is different), the Von der Tann and the Scharnhorst class during World War II are two very different fast warships, the difference in hull length between the two is 50 meters, and the width is 3 meters, so the former looks more stocky, and the freeboard is also higher than the much-criticized Scharnhorst class.

The Germans were ambitious in building the first two dreadnoughts and battle cruisers, and the British were equally resolute in their leads. By the beginning of 1909, the British Navy's four Palerophon class had been completed and put into service, which was the world's first class of mass-built dreadnoughts, its main structure continued the design of the Dreadnought, and some improvements, and as an improved version of the Palerophon class, three St. Vincent classes have been launched, the leading Invincible class battlecruiser is close to service, its improved model Indefatigable class has been finalized, and the first ship began construction at the Davenport shipyard in February 1909.

The Anglo-German naval race intensified, and the other powers, old and new, were not to be outdone. The United States was one of the first countries to propose the concept of all-heavy gun warships, and their first class dreadnought, the South Carolina class, began construction in 1906, at this time in the long process of commissioning in the late stages of completion; Italy was also the first country to get involved in the idea of all-heavy artillery warships, but due to their usual procrastination, their first dreadnought, the Dante, did not begin construction until 1909; The emerging Asian powerhouse of Japan, after building the world's largest ex-dreadnought, the Satsuma-class, also began construction of what they called the Izumo-class, a class of battleships with the same caliber of main guns, but with different gun sizes.

(End of chapter)