Roosevelt was elected vice president and became Grant's successor, and the reaction of the countries around the world was not too violent, because they all did not know Roosevelt very well. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

Only in the Chinese Empire, Roosevelt's three words aroused Li Weiguo's great attention.

Li Weiguo was well aware of Roosevelt's character and ability, a key figure in history who led America to imperialism and is now Grant's successor.

Obviously, Grant had a great vision, and this Roosevelt was indeed his ideal successor, a figure who could continue the hegemony of America.

However, it is good for the United States, but it is not good for the Chinese Empire.

One Grant has already given Li Weiguo a lot of headaches, and now there is another Roosevelt, who is a strong successor, and the United States will probably become stronger and more aggressive.

Without the constraints of democracy, the United States would turn into a terrifying, aggressive state.

All this was caused by Li Weiguo, but he has no regrets.

Anyway, sooner or later, the United States will embark on the road of foreign aggression and expansion, and the United States in the 21st century is the best proof of its aggressive nature.

Rather than let the United States develop slowly, it is better to drag it down now.

Thinking of this, Li Weiguo's expression became more determined.

As for how to drag down the United States, there is no other way than a large-scale arms race.

Of course, Li Weiguo thought about Star Wars, which was a race that directly dragged the Soviet Union down. It is a pity that this plan of consuming resources cannot be implemented at present, and the only arms race that consumes the most resources is the arms race of the navy to build ships.

"Your Majesty, there are signs that the U.S. Admiralty has ordered shipyard workers to start work 24 hours a day to accelerate the construction of super-dreadnought battleships, which are expected to be launched in a few months."

"However, our intelligence officers seem to think that the armor weight of the American-built super-dreadnought battleship does not seem to be up to standard, and it is more of a super-dreadnought battlecruiser than a super-dreadnought."

Li Weiguo asked rhetorically: "Can you be sure?" ”

Tang Jianzhang shook his head and said: "The American military controls it very strictly, and our intelligence personnel only guess, with experience, he estimated the total weight of the weighed armor and found that it was only about 5,000 tons. ”

"There are only two possibilities for this scenario, one is that the armor manufacturing technology of the United States has been significantly improved, and the strength of the armor has reached the level of the most advanced special steel in the Empire, and only in this way can the 5,000-ton armor meet the protection standard of the battleship level. Another possibility is that a super-dreadnought battlecruiser was built, because in terms of firepower, tonnage and appearance, it is difficult to distinguish between a battleship equipped with the same caliber main gun and a battlecruiser. ”

Li Weiguo nodded and said, "Without enough evidence, we can only treat it as a super dreadnought-type battleship." However, it cannot be ruled out that the United States is conspiring to build battlecruisers to fill up the numbers and confuse us. ”

Tang Jianzhang added: "Your Majesty, the minister has awakened some of the sleepers, hoping to find out the evidence from the US Navy's shipbuilding appropriations. If the American Navy were building super-dreadnought battlecruisers, then the appropriation must have been very large. ”

Li Weiguo agreed: "The cost of a battlecruiser is one or even two times more expensive than that of a battleship of the same class. Give it a try! Be careful to protect the lurkers, though! ”

"Obey the order!"

Tang Jianzhang then received the order.

Three days later, the S.H.I.E.L.D.D. Washington intelligence station was ordered to wake up agents who had been lurking in the U.S. Treasury Department for many years, and soon found out that the actual budget for the construction of four super-dreadnought battleships was indeed twice as high as the public budget for building ships.

A few days later, the news came back to the Forbidden City, and Tang Jianzhang reported to Li Weiguo again.

This time, it can be basically convinced that the four super-dreadnought battleships that the American Navy began to build are actually four super-dreadnought battlecruisers.

"Sure enough, it's a strategic deception on us!"

"This shows that the Entente Group has not yet developed or is developing more powerful steam turbines, so the Super Dreadnought battleships built by the Entente Group this round should all be super dreadnought battlecruisers."

"Are the Entente trying to steal the bell? Build a bunch of battlecruisers to pass off as battleships, and in the event of a war, such battlecruisers are no match for our battleships at all, and the Entente will surely suffer a crushing defeat and heavy losses. ”

"I can't imagine that the Entente has also learned to play strategic deception, but it's a pity that the kung fu can't get home, and we know it in advance, and their strategy will fail."

The Imperial Council was convened, and the civil and military officials expressed their opinions, and on the whole they ridiculed and disdained this tactic of the United States and the Entente.

Li Weiguo said: "Since the Entente group uses super-dreadnought battlecruisers to pretend to be battleships, then we will continue to expand the scale of the competition, first, to continue to force the Entente group to build more main warships, and second, the more battlecruisers they build, the heavier the losses will be in the future." ”

It was a two-pronged move that quickly received the full support of the military.

However, the civilian clique is a little hard, and building more super-dreadnought battleships means spending more money.

As soon as the money is mentioned, the civil servants will feel distressed.

At present, the Chinese Empire has to increase the budget for building ships every day on average, and the investment is increasing year by year.

Especially after the construction of super-dreadnought battleships, because the cost of super-dreadnought battleships is two to three times higher than that of dreadnought battleships, the cost of shipbuilding funds is also increasing.

According to the law of the development of warships of the Chinese Imperial Navy, it is generally the first level of design, the first level of construction, the first level of service, and the first level of decommissioning.

This time, the Imperial Chinese Navy also built 4 super dreadnought battleships, and Li Weiguo has already given them names, namely the Fury [BB-31], the Fury [BB-32], the Fury [BB-33], and the Fury [BB-34].

The Fury-class battleship was designed in 3986 (1886), and the tank model test was created in 3990 (1890), and the engine test and main gun test were carried out the following year.

By the time Li Weiguo ordered the construction of the four Fury-class battleships, the pool model test had been completed and had successfully passed the acceptance, but the engine test and main gun test had not yet been completed.

However, the construction of the Fury-class battleships will begin at the end of 3991, the engine system will be installed in a year, and the main gun system will be installed in two years, so there is still plenty of time.

The Fury-class battleship, because it is to be equipped with a more powerful artillery system, has a design displacement far exceeding that of the Thor class battleship, reaching a standard row of 41,050 tons, and is expected to be fully loaded with 49,400 tons, close to 50,000 tons.

Although this was the largest tonnage battleship built in the history of the Imperial Chinese Navy, all countries in the world did not have the experience and technology in this area, and the engineers of the Imperial Chinese Navy were completely self-promoting, developing and building at the same time.

But due to the good preparations, such as before construction, the drawings are repeatedly calculated, and the numbers are accurate. Before construction, the tank is simulated to check its draft, seaworthiness, wind and wave resistance, etc.

The pool test is similar to the wind tunnel test, the latter is to test the aircraft, and the pool test is to test the surface warship in all directions.

Li Weiguo's foresight and the use of pools to test various designed warships allowed the Chinese Empire to avoid many detours in this regard.

The warship designers of the Chinese Empire can boldly design the battleship, and then make a full-scale model, test it in the pool, and once the test is passed, it can be directly started to build.

Other countries, on the other hand, had to carefully build a battleship, and then revise and modify it to design a new type of warship, not daring to make drastic changes, for fear that if they built a battleship, it would sink as soon as it was launched.

The Imperial Chinese Navy had no worries about this, so it could quickly launch its own new warships, such as dreadnoughts with unified main gun calibers, and engineers from other countries, even if they had such ideas, did not dare to easily get on board.

The full load displacement of the Fury-class battleships is almost close to 50,000 tons, this kind of super behemoth, other countries do not dare to build it easily, especially the internal structure is very complex, in addition to the traditional pipelines, the Chinese Imperial Military has added telephone lines, radio communication lines, air conditioning pipes, etc., these electrification equipment, more complex, European and American countries do not even dare to think about it, but the Chinese Empire has begun to build.

That's the gap!

In addition, the caliber of the main gun of the Fury-class battleship has also been increased from 381 mm (15 inches) to 406 mm (16 inches) of the Thor class, and it is still 50 times the diameter of the barrel ratio, using BM13 armor-piercing projectiles, BM15 armor-piercing blasting shells, and BM9 personnel personnel explosive shells, of which BM13 armor-piercing shells weigh 1.15 tons and are loaded with 18.1 kg of slag (60% ladder NT, 40% six Xiaoji two intrinsic safety).

The maximum angle of fire is 32 degrees, the muzzle velocity is 740 meters per second, the effective range is 30.5 kilometers, the maximum range is 42 kilometers, and a semi-automatic loader is used, with a rate of fire of 2 rounds per minute.

At the request of the Admiralty, Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry has greatly improved the armor-piercing ability of the artillery, which is 10% higher than the armor-piercing ability of the main gun of the Thor class battleship (vertical homogeneous steel armor), which can penetrate 508 mm of armor at 18 kilometers and 381 mm of vertical armor at 27 kilometers.

A total of 12 such main guns were installed, with four triple loads and a knapsack turret, and the turret weight was as high as 2,700 tons.

In addition, 10 twin 128 mm 50x radial rapid-fire guns, 20 quadruple 40 mm rapid-fire guns, and 50 12.7 mm Bloody heavy machine guns were installed evenly around the battleship for close combat against small and medium-sized targets, Fish Radium and pirates.

In terms of armor protection, the overall protection design of the Fury-class battleships is comparable to that of the Thor class, and the thickness of armor protection has not been increased due to the increase in gun caliber.

Among them, the main armor belt on the side is spliced together with the main anti-mine armor, with a thickness of 355 mm (19 degrees), and the total thickness of horizontal armor is 250 mm (three layers).

Among them, horizontal armor protection is the reason why Li Weiguo found that the attack method of the Thor class battleship has changed from the traditional horizontal armor piercing to high ballistic curvature, with an effective range of up to 30 kilometers, and the artillery shells have changed from a straight line attack at sea level to a parabolic curved firing method.

In this way, the angle of attack after the shell falls is no longer a single attack on the frontal vertical armor of the enemy ship, but more often the shell falls on the horizontal armor of the enemy ship and hits at an angle of less than 30 degrees.

So, while seeing the great power of the Thor-class battleship to destroy the enemy ship, Li Weiguo also realized that the enemy ship would probably attack his own side in the same way.

Therefore, Li Weiguo thought of the issue of horizontal armor protection, and when asked, the Imperial Navy engineers really ignored this point, they only saw the powerful power of their own battleship's artillery, and only saw that if they ravaged the target ship, they ignored that the enemy ship could also have such a counterattack capability.

The Thor class then returned to the dock to refurbish the horizontal armor protection.

Fortunately, only horizontal armor was added, and the modification was not very difficult, and the modification was completed quickly, so that the horizontal armor protection of the Thor class increased from 128 mm to 178 mm (taking into account the comprehensive factors, only 50 mm of armor could be added).

And the Fury-class battleship, its horizontal armor weight was designed from the beginning, and the Thor-class learned the lesson of the Thor-class and shared enough armor weight so that the horizontal armor directly reached 228 mm without affecting the distribution of other armor.

At the same time, starting with the Thor class battleships, the Imperial Chinese Navy tried for the first time the design of multiple watertight compartments, as well as the construction of a three-layer bottom to form an underwater anti-torpedo system.

The multiple watertight cabin structure and the three-layer bottom structure greatly improved the anti-sinking performance of the Thor class battleship, and the watertight cabins in four parts were flooded at the same time, that is, theoretically attacked by four 533 mm fish radium at the same time, it could still ensure that the battleship was unsinkable.

The Fury-class battleship follows the design of the watertight compartment and three-layer bottom structure of the Thor-class battleship, and at the same time optimizes the drainage system, which can theoretically resist 6 fish and radium hits at the same time and remain unsinkable.

The shipboard power plant of the Fury-class battleship is composed of 12 heavy oil water tube boilers and 4 sets of Beiyang Electric electric turbine steam turbines, using four-axis propulsion, and the power efficiency and stability of the high-pressure boiler output are currently the best in the world, only 6 boilers are needed in normal conditions to reach a speed of 21 knots, and the speed is as high as 27 knots at full power!

It was the most powerful and highest-speed battleship in the history of the Chinese Empire, with a cruising range of up to 16,600 nautical miles (15 knots).

As a result, for the Chinese Empire, a new problem was raised, that is, after the speed of the battleship reached 27 knots, there was no need to build the battlecruiser, because the battleship could already replace the battlecruiser for combat readiness cruising missions, and the armor thickness of the battleship was stronger than that of the battlecruiser, which had more protection and survival advantages in the decisive battle of the fleet.

Therefore, the Imperial Chinese Navy decided to stop the battle cruiser program, but Liu Mingchuan from the General Staff Operations Department proposed that the construction of battle cruisers should continue to confuse the Entente camp, and in fact replace the battle cruisers with battleships.

In this way, the Entente camp is currently using battlecruisers to pretend to be battleships to deter the Chinese Empire, while the Chinese Empire is doing the opposite, passing off battleships as battlecruisers, and when the two battlecruisers encounter each other in the future, the battlecruisers pretended to be battleships by the Chinese Imperial Navy will definitely fool the enemy fleet and thus take advantage of the encounter.

This plan was approved by Li Weiguo, and after studying it, the Ministry of War and the General Staff Department agreed to Liu Mingchuan's plan.

As a result, while the Chinese Empire was building the Fury-class battleships, it also announced the construction of four battlecruisers of the same class, which was actually the construction of four additional Fury-class battleships, but it claimed to build four battlecruisers to the outside world.

Since the Imperial Chinese Navy had always built first-class battleships, and the following year it built additional first-class battlecruisers, so it would not arouse the suspicion of the Entente bloc, and it could be concealed.

However, the shipbuilding budget of the Fury-class battleship is very terrifying, and the budget for a single ship is as high as 31 million yuan, which is a full 10 million yuan higher than that of the Thor class.

According to the exchange rate in 1891, the renminbi was 1:6.5 against the US dollar, and a Fury-class battleship cost as much as 200 million US dollars.

Of course, in addition to the high cost of the power system, the Fury-class battleships were equipped with more advanced radio communication systems, telephone electrical systems, and extravagant air-conditioning systems, especially air-conditioning systems, which were the only battleships in the Imperial Chinese Navy to install air-conditioning, and the Thor class did not have this treatment.

You know, at the end of the nineteenth century, it was quite expensive to install these epoch-making equipment on warships.

However, even if it costs money, the Imperial Chinese Navy is willing to install these equipment, because these equipment can not only greatly improve combat effectiveness, but also bring a comfortable living environment to the officers and men of the navy, which is crucial to attracting outstanding talents to serve in the navy.

It's worth the money! (To be continued.) )