With a faint smile, Gao Hongsheng did not answer Poper's question, but looked at Ferdinand, who was also smiling on the side, and said, "It's better to ask His Royal Highness the Crown Prince to tell you about this question." After all, he was responsible for the development of the new torpedo, and I was just providing some construction. ”

With a smile, Ferdinand raised his beard without modesty at all and said: "The development and implementation of the new torpedo has always been carried out in secret, Poper, it is normal for you not to know, even His Royal Highness Joseph does not know about the development of the new torpedo, and only a few people know about it." Ferdinand cocked his beard apologetically and gave Popper a smile.

Then Ferdinand said in a cautious tone: "At present, the 533 mm steam gas torpedo has been successfully developed. However, there is still a little finishing test work that has not been completed, and we have already verified the question of whether the new torpedo can break through the mine protection net and hit the battleship, and even if our torpedoes are at a minimum speed of 38 knots, the mine protection nets arranged on both sides of the battleship are like a layer of waste paper, which can be broken by the light stab of our new torpedoes sailing at high speed, and it has no effect at all, and now I have ordered the removal of all the mine protection nets on both sides of the side of our battleship. At present, our main work is the impact of the torpedo impact angle on the collision fuze, and after this part of the real work, our new torpedoes can be officially equipped with our warships and sold to the outside world. ”

In the 70s of the 19th century, fast motorboats equipped with bald torpedoes had become a very dangerous threat to the fleet, and the most important thing was that the price of such motorboats equipped with torpedoes was very cheap, and the cost of building and training an entire light fleet was comparable to that of an ironclad ship.

And the country that invented this kind of high-speed motorboat and turned into a high-speed torpedo boat after it was gorgeously turned into a high-speed torpedo boat was precisely the United Kingdom, which had the most warships, and Britain could be said to have shot itself in the foot.

When the French discovered that such a cheap thing could threaten the fleet of the British Empire, they hurriedly introduced this kind of small boat from Britain that could threaten the British fleet to carry out the traditional strategy of blockading the enemy's coast. Of course, no one in the rest of the world is stupid, and there is no reason why such a thing that is surprisingly cost-effective should not be introduced, and as a result, the world is full of such torpedo boats converted from high-speed motorboats.

Now it was the British's turn to have a headache, and the best way to do that was to take out the torpedo boats that were messing around before they could pose a threat to the battleships.

In this way, the torpedo boat destroyer, which had a torpedo boat or a similar speed, was equipped with rapid-fire guns sufficient to sink the torpedo boat, and could accompany the fleet on ocean voyages to escort it, and could efficiently expel torpedo boats.

However, destroyers alone could not stop the wolf pack tactics composed of many high-speed torpedo boats that sacrificed their lives and forgot to die, and there were still fish that could fire torpedoes that posed a threat to the fleet at close range.

The lightning protection net of the battleship is actually like the chain mail of the Middle Ages, and to put it simply, an iron net composed of iron rings is arranged on both sides of the battleship, so that the earliest lightning protection net woven by 8-inch iron rings appeared when it was hung 40 feet away from the hull. After continuous evolution, until the early stage of World War I, the British discovered that mine nets could not resist the attacks of new torpedoes. The lightning nets on both sides of the warships were removed, but except for the United States, which considered the mine nets useless, the warships of various countries with the British warships as the foresight were basically covered with chain mail.

Ignoring Poper's incredulous eyes, and not explaining to him, hearing that Ferdinand wanted to sell the new torpedo immediately, Gao Hongsheng stopped: "Don't, Ferdinand, the work of external sales is not in a hurry." First sell a batch to Spain at a high price, and this time when I go back to China, I will bring it to the Spanish fleet in the Philippines by the way, don't forget to bring it together with the launch tube and base, and the triple. I will have to leave for China in less than half a month, and I hope it will be too late. ”

Seeing that Ferdinand wanted to say something, Gao Hongsheng directly rushed to say: "Only weapons that have been tested in actual combat are good weapons, and weapons that have been proven to be real and effective in actual combat can be sold at a high price, if you want to sell our new torpedoes at a high price, find a way to install them on the Spanish warships, so that they can play a good role in the war, as long as they sink an American warship, then our new torpedoes can be sold at a sky-high price." Rather than trying to sell them before everyone saw how effective they were. ”

Finally waiting for Gao Hongsheng to finish speaking, Ferdinand nodded and was not dissatisfied with Gao Hongsheng's words, but said with a sad face: "I understand, what I want to say is not a matter of sales, Gao, now our new torpedo is not as perfect as you designed, now the maximum speed can only reach 46 knots, the range is 3600 meters, the second stage speed is only 38 knots, the range is only 7200 meters, these are still tolerable, but the manufacturing process of this new torpedo is too difficult for us, Many parts have to be reworked by the hands of the old watchmakers, and the production is simply unbearable, even with the assembly line production method you proposed, we can produce six new torpedoes in a week, and the cost of a new torpedo is now more than 2,000 pounds, and if you add the cost of research and development, then the cost of a new torpedo is likely to be more than 3,000 pounds, and now the price of those whitehead and blackhead torpedoes is less than 500 pounds. Such a price is unaffordable for us, and I cannot convince those officers of the Admiralty to buy and equip our new torpedoes. ”

Gao Hongsheng heard Ferdinand say this, he laughed, and said to Ferdinand nonchalantly: "I don't plan to persuade you Admiralty officials to buy our new torpedoes, three thousand pounds is very high?" 5,000 pounds a piece is the lowest selling price for our new torpedoes, and we don't just sell them, if we want to buy our new torpedoes, we must also buy new torpedo boat destroyers of our design, small ones of more than 1,000 tons, with a speed of more than 30 knots, and two five- or quadruple-mounted torpedo launchers, so that a small destroyer is equipped with sixteen to twenty torpedoes together with the torpedoes in the launching tubes, and then equipped with an 85-mm twin or triple rapid-fire gun in the front and rear to be able to hit torpedo boats. The range is so-so, it can run more than 1,000 nautical miles, and you can position it as a large torpedo boat that can accompany the fleet on long voyages. It's probably about 200,000 pounds, we can't be too dark. I'll order seven or eight of these small destroyers and throw them to the South Philippines, and it is estimated that they will be safe there. ”

Without looking at Poper's eyes that had begun to shine, Gao Hongsheng continued: "There is another kind of ocean-going destroyer of more than 3,000 tons, you can refer to the information of the destroyer of more than 3,000 tons I gave you, I don't ask you to get me to run to 37 knots, but at least to be able to run more than 30 knots, the cost control is about 300,000 pounds, and when the time comes, I will sell it for 500,000 or 600,000 pounds, and I will order three or four to form a small destroyer fleet. Add two large destroyers of five or six thousand tons capable of firing twenty torpedoes at a time, and I can go sideways in South Philippines. ”

Gao Hongsheng, with a wicked smile on his face, imagined the scene of his own fast and large torpedo boats fighting guerrillas all over the world in the South Philippine Islands, and suddenly thought of the main weapon of the Republic to defend the maritime frontier, and the wooden torpedo boat hurriedly said: "Oh! Wait a minute, there is another kind of torpedo boat, but it is not the kind of torpedo boat that you are equipped with now, I am talking about another one, but it requires the technology of large diesel engines, but according to the current production capacity, it cannot be produced, let's wait for it, don't do torpedo boats first, or understand the single-cylinder spherical internal combustion engine first. Three or five years later, when our processing technology improves, we will develop gasoline engines and diesel engines, and then we will consider the problem of high-speed torpedo boats. ”

In terms of archipelago and coastal defense, in fact, Gao Hongsheng wants to engage in small wooden torpedo boats with diesel engines, which are the kind of wooden torpedo boats 6602 and NATO model P6 imported from the Soviet Union when the Republic was first founded, with a full load displacement of 65 tons, a length of nearly 25 meters, a width of six meters, a draft of 8 meters, a maximum speed of 45 knots, and a cruising capacity of 450 nautical miles at 30 knots, two 533 mm torpedo tubes, two twin 25 mm high-flat dual-purpose guns, and multiple roll-off depth charge droppers on both sides of the rear deck. Carries 8 depth charges and has a smoke release device at the stern. However, this thing wants to reach speeds of 45 knots, thanks to its powerful M50 diesel engine, which is equipped with four M50 diesel engines with a single power of 1,200 hp, for a total power of 4,800 hp. And this kind of diesel engine in the late stage of World War II is now impossible for Austria-Hungary to produce, even if Gao Hongsheng got a full set of drawings and materials, one is not good for metal materials, and the second is that the processing accuracy is not enough, unless he is not afraid of the leakage of science and technology to copy the entire industrial system in the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century, otherwise a diesel engine factory alone can not produce a light, high-speed, high-power diesel engine, the industrial system is like a wooden barrel containing water, How high the level is always determined by the shortest plank, and if you can't make up for that shortcoming, you can't produce at all.

The current industrial system of the Austro-Hungarian Empire can be described from a very elementary point of view, the mechanical processing method of the steam engine era is very primitive, especially in the field of power transmission, in the field of mechanical processing, it is not a steam engine to drive a piece of equipment, but a separate power workshop outside the plant, which is equipped with one or several steam engines, and then the steam engine drives the transmission shaft leading to the mechanical workshop to provide the power required by the various equipment in the mechanical workshop.

The various equipment in the mechanical workshop is driven by the belt through the guò belt, and the transmission shaft driven by the steam engine across the entire workshop is used to obtain power, and of course, there is also the power obtained through the guò gear transmission, which also forms the most typical characteristics of the machining factory at that time, the high transmission shaft and the canvas transmission belt hanging on it.

However, the power provided by the steam engine is unstable, which is reflected in the machining aspect that the rotation speed of the parts and the speed of the tool cannot be constant at all, and the accuracy of the machining can not be guaranteed at all, and if you want to make the machine tool obtain the power of the stable dìng, you must use the later motor, because the power provided by the motor in the unit time is basically constant, and there will be no high and low, which is also the main reason for the leapfrog improvement of the machining level after the development of the electric power industry.

But now there is no problem with a small destroyer of more than 1,000 tons, the use of oil-fired boilers and steam turbines can basically solve the problem of power, the processing of these equipment belongs to the representatives of stupid big black and coarse, if you want to increase the speed of the ship, the only way is to add boilers, which is also the main reason why destroyers are very long and narrow, this is an era when the speed of the ship is proportional to the number of boilers, don't think about high-speed torpedo boats, that thing is too small, can not add more boilers to provide more steam, This is the main reason why the speed of torpedo boats at that time was not as fast as the small destroyers designed by Gao Hongsheng. (The speed of torpedo boats at that time did not exceed 30 knots at a maximum). This is also one of the reasons why he looks down on those small torpedo boats, how can they play the role of light cavalry at sea when their speed cannot be compared with small destroyers of a thousand tons?

Turning his head to look at Poper, who was still pretending to be demented, Gao Hongsheng asked with a smile: "Poper, you have a job to do now." Throw that battleship blueprint of yours aside, and help me design these three ships first