Autumn 1907, Portsmouth, England. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Under the guidance of two barges, the German battleship "Alsace", flying the black, white and red tricolor flag, landed firmly on the pier. Nominally, it was to participate in the traditional exchange of gunnery between the British and German navies, but it was obvious to everyone that the Germans had interrupted this exchange for three years and had now offered to resume it in order to see the honor of the Dreadnought -- the all-heavy artillery British Dreadnought had quickly become the focus of attention of the navies since its sensational appearance at the celebration of King George V's 42nd birthday. Based on the experience of the Russo-Japanese Battle of Tsushima, the naval combat power of this new type of battleship far surpassed that of the traditional battleships with two-stage main gun configurations in the past, and was widely regarded as a revolutionary innovation in the development of the navy. Portsmouth, the home port of the British Home Fleet and the port of call of the Dreadnought, quickly became the popular Jerusalem of the navies of various countries, attracting diplomatic officials and naval delegations from all over the world to make a "pilgrimage". So much so that some people jokingly said that in Portsmouth now, half a dozen military spies can be found in any café.

After more than a month of watching from the periphery and secretly probing, the German military decision-makers finally put down their high-end shelves and sent a proposal to the British Navy to resume artillery exchanges, and clearly pointed out that the last exchange was a visit by a British warship to Germany, and this time it should be a visit by a German warship to Britain.

The British Navy replied in the affirmative, but they invited the German warships to visit the port of Dover, and arranged for the ships of both sides to hold a gunfire drill near the Strait of Dover. The Germans then appointed Prince Heinrich, commander of the High Seas Fleet, to negotiate, and through the efforts of the German prince, who was quite popular abroad, the British Navy reluctantly agreed to change the port of exchange to Portsmouth. Next, the German Navy very cautiously chose the "Alsace", a warship that was not too new, not too old, not too strong, and not too weak, and sailed to Britain with a professional observation group composed of more than 600 crew members and nearly 100 naval officers, staff officers, and engineers.

At this time, Natsuki was still serving as a staff officer of the "Alsace" with the rank of lieutenant.

"Five twin-mounted main guns, three with a central axis arrangement, and two amidships side by side...... Tripod mast, firing command room, island bridge...... The length of the hull is about 160 meters, the width of the ship is about 25 meters, and the aspect ratio is 6. 4 to 1...... There is no turret-type secondary gun, there is no gun-profile secondary gun, and the small-caliber single-mounted secondary gun is all open-air and external...... The appearance is atmospheric and concise, and the actual performance is unknown. ”

Behind the bulletproof observation window in the command room of the bridge of the "Alsace" was Friedrich, then chief of staff of the German High Seas Fleet. Feng. Vice Admiral Ingnoll murmured as if talking to himself, while his deputy, the young and handsome Hahn. Captain Heidlinck, faithfully recorded it.

At a berth less than five hundred meters apart, the battleship Dreadnought in gray paint was quietly moored there. The Battle of Tsushima three years ago shocked the world, and also made the naval circles of various countries see the inevitability of a warship revolution. For three years, the debate over the new warship has not stopped, and when people realized that the British Navy was once again at the forefront of technological innovation, the debate had a realistic reference, and the British almost airtight secrecy measures really whetted people's appetite.

One day, the truth will be laid out in front of us unveiled, and there will inevitably be a strong sense of shock in my heart.

In addition to the dumbfounded, someone searched for important content in his memory, and then sighed: "Ladies and gentlemen, think about the model that His Royal Highness Prince Joachim made a year ago, don't you think this is incredible? It's hard to imagine how His Highness had access to precise data that the British considered to be absolutely secret. ”

If these words come out of someone else's mouth, Natsuki will probably take them as a compliment and ignore them, but William. Gudesa is a different story. He was the best expert in gun construction and ballistics in the German Navy, and he was upright and dedicated by nature, and once publicly questioned Natsuki's proposal for a new battleship. After understanding and embracing the new design concept, he became a loyal supporter of Natsuki. It was thanks to the efforts of Gudsa and other naval engineers that Germany's first dreadnought was finalized in December 1906, and the keel of the first ship was laid at the Royal Shipyard in Wilhelmshaven on February 3 of the following year, and it was built under the code name "Ersatz Bayern", and most of its technical details were faithful to the overall design proposed by Natsuki.

As the lowest-ranking officer in the command room, Natsuki stood in the corner with great interest, and as soon as Gudsa's praise came out, he inevitably became the center of attention. Facing everyone's gaze, he stopped the sketch in his hand that was nearly completed, and humbly dedicated this honor to the unsung heroes who fought in the field of espionage. In later films about the two world wars, Allied intelligence officers were always portrayed as agile and courageous, and in contrast, German spies were dull and incompetent, especially the cruel but clumsy "Gestapo" in black trench coats. In fact, although the German spy agencies have not been able to achieve victories in influencing the strategic landscape, they are not all inactive.

Germany's military intelligence activities can be traced back to 1740, with the consolidation and expansion of the kingdom, King Frederick II of Prussia established the first intelligence organization out of military needs, thanks to the rigorous dedication and excellent organizational skills of the Germanic people, this intelligence organization developed rapidly, and played a great role in all wars. In the beginning, German intelligence was not a full-time department, for example, in mid-1866, the intelligence service was also responsible for political and propaganda work, and it was quite small, with only a few dozen intelligence officers. By the middle of the 19th century, Wilhelm I, under the help of the iron-blooded Prime Minister Bismarck, had achieved the unification of Germany and led his country to one of the great powers of Europe, during which time Germany's intelligence organization had developed considerably. Wilhelm I appointed a specially talented head of an intelligence organization, William Stiebel, a name that was often mentioned repeatedly in later espionage history, and the espionage community hailed him as "half a god". Germany gradually laid a dense spy network in Britain, France, Russia and other hostile countries and border areas, like tentacles reaching into all areas of these countries, insight into all aspects of their situation, one of the most convincing examples of this period is that the German army at that time drew a map of France more accurate and detailed than France itself!

Another master of ship design in the German Navy, Erich. Dawson, who is also a die-hard supporter of Natsuki, said with a tendency: "Those cannons should be 12-inch caliber!" Look, folks, its turret arrangement makes it possible for only 8 of the ship's 10 main guns to be used against the same target, compared to how sensible the design of the main turret is in the full central axis! I believe that the salvo of the whole main gun will soon become the development trend of the capital ships of various countries. ”

With the support of the German royal family and naval decision-makers, Natsuki's dreadnought design was finally put into practice, but not everyone was convinced. In the naval design department, many supporters of the "six-turret design" also objected to the configuration of the main turret in the central axis, feeling that the overall strength of the German navy could not catch up with Britain in a short period of time, and that once the two countries went to war, whether it was a small-scale naval battle or a fleet battle, Germany's capital ships would inevitably face a situation of fighting more with less. In this case, a six-gun turret that could fire "in all directions" was more practical than a four-gun turret that "fired a salvo to the same side".

Dawson's words were clearly aimed at these stubborn minorities.

Among the people present, some people immediately looked very unnatural.

"Well, objectively speaking, the merits of the design of the ship need to be tested in practice before a real conclusion can be drawn. For example, before the Russo-Japanese naval battle, many people praised the Russian Borodino-class battleship and felt how powerful it was, but what happened? The tone was tactful, but the content was unambiguously retorted by naval engineer Fritz. Waldmann, a leading expert in the armor of German naval vessels, was also a close friend of Bruckner, the chief designer of the Navy.

It stands to reason that a warship with a roughly fixed total tonnage, firepower equipment and defense facilities are a pair of contradictions, and increasing the firepower configuration is bound to reduce the weight of armor, and vice versa. According to theoretical calculations, the weight of four triple turrets is lighter than that of six twin turrets of the same caliber, but Waldman is a proponent of the hexagonal turret design, and his reasons are simple: the twin turret design is mature and balanced in attack and defense, and the triple turret is still a novelty, and it is difficult to say whether there is a fatal weakness in defense. To be on the safe side, a new Tier 1 ship should not be experimented with an all-heavy gun design and steam turbine power at the same time as it was equipped with a triple turret that had never been used.

In Natsuki's view, a big reason why some German naval designers are resistant to the triple turret is that the British, who are at the forefront of technology, have not yet come up with a successful example that can be used for reference. In fact, the Italian and Austro-Hungarian designers of the same period had already entered the practical stage of research on the triple assembly of large-caliber main guns, and the main guns were both 12-inch caliber, and the weight and structural complexity of the turret exceeded the 11-inch guns that the new German warships were intended to equip with. History proves that they all achieved satisfactory results in the end.

"If a navy only knows how to chase the trend and imitate and improve, but cannot create the trend and lead the times, even if it can build a huge scale with manpower and material resources, it will be difficult to truly enter the first ranks."

Hearing Dawson's words, Xia Shu suddenly felt that it was speaking his heart. Shortly after the launch of the Dreadnought, the British began building their first-class battlecruiser, the Invincible class. A few months later, the British Navy began construction of the second class of dreadnought battleships, the Bellerophon class. Drawing on the experience gained from the construction of the Dreadnought, these battleships and battlecruisers were more aggressive, and when they were completed and commissioned, the Royal Navy would use these groundbreaking new warships to form a top-notch naval force to surpass the great powers. Informed by this information, the German Navy's decision-makers were on pins and needles, and the Reich Navy Office explicitly requested the Naval Design Department to complete the design of the German First Rank Battlecruiser by mid-1907. Due to the fact that the British Navy kept everything in place about the new battleship, the German engineers could not get any further information about the parameters. Crossing the river by feeling the stones, they came up with a strengthened version of the design of a large cruiser, that is, the historical "Blucher".

In order to avoid another historical detour of the German Navy, Natsuki took the initiative to ask Tirpitz to take charge of the design of Germany's new fast warship. During the hottest two months of 1907, he left the Alsace to the Naval Technical Committee in Kiel, where he led a design team of 12 naval engineers and a number of technical draftsmen to work day and night. After nearly sixty days and nights of hard work, the design of the German war cruiser equipped with four twin 280-mm guns and a new steam turbine was born. It has a standard displacement of 1. 60,000 tons, full load 1. At 860,000 tons, the tonnage and size are smaller than the British Invincible class, which can be called a pocket version of the battle cruiser. Because of the planned installation of impulse steam turbines, the space and weight saved to strengthen the defenses, the survivability of the "Blucher" designed by Natsuki was still superior to that of its natural rival, the Invincible.

Despite the fact that he had come up with a satisfactory design under limited conditions, and the proposal was eventually approved by the upper echelons of the Reich, Natsuki had painstakingly repaired the flaws and flaws in the design of the German Navy, from the Scharnhorst-class armored ships to the Nassau-class battlecruiser and the current Blucher battlecruiser, and the work that should have been undertaken by professional designers consumed a lot of time and energy. In the long run, his steps towards fleet commander will be more and more slowed down, and one man's thinking will inevitably fail, and the fundamental solution to the problem lies in changing the way of thinking of German naval engineers, so that they can devote themselves to ship design with a higher vision and more bold thinking.

(End of chapter)