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"Your Majesty, the Admiralty plans to overwhelm the navies of China and France with four of the world's most powerful 'Empress of India' class capital ships. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ”

British Admiralty Secretary Robert . Churchill confidently told the Empress: "By the end of this year at the latest, the Empress of India and the Remilis will be completed and delivered to the Navy, and the Hood and the King will be completed by the end of June next year." At that time, the British Empire will have four 14,000-ton super capital ships! ”

The shipbuilding race for the world's naval powers has been going on for more than a decade. The main players are China, Britain, and France -- the present world, that is, these three world empires, which have the financial resources and the need to develop large navies. However, among the three naval powers, the most powerful naval power is undoubtedly the United Kingdom, which is based on sea power. Although after the American Empire joined the British Empire, Britain had become a semi-land power.

Probably for the purpose of reducing the financial burden, the British government did not merge the Army of the American Empire into the British Army, but continued to maintain its independent structure, as the property of the American Empire, and at the same time the American people paid taxes and raised troops -- because of the opposition of the British people, Britain and the United States are now only co-monarchs, and do not live together, the finances of the two countries are completely independent, and the huge American Imperial Army (with more than 300,000 standing troops) is also supported by the Americans themselves.

But the U.S. Navy merged with the Royal Navy 10 years ago, and for the British, who value the navy as their life, they don't mind co-opting all the navies in the world. I don't mind spending every penny to maintain the superiority of the navy.

It is with such determination and huge investments that the British have been at the forefront of this naval arms race, at least in terms of the tonnage of capital ships, defense, and the caliber of artillery. Like now. China's 15,000-ton capital ship is still being designed, and France's 13,000-ton "France" has just been laid keel. Britain's four 14,000-ton "Queen of India" class ships have been secretly under construction in the Admiralty shipyard for two years, and they will soon be completed and delivered.

"Your Majesty, the 'Empress of India' class has an unladen displacement of up to 14,200 tons and a full load displacement of up to 15,500 tons, making it the largest capital ship ever built." Robert. An expression of excitement appeared on Churchill's face, "And the Empress of India has the most powerful firepower." Thanks to the specially designed diagonal battery, the two rotating batteries of the 'Empress of India' class can be pointed in the direction of the bow. At the same time, it is possible to bombard the opponent in front of you with 6 16-inch guns. Even if it is the 'Emperor' class of the Chinese, it is at least a heavy blow to one such shell! As for their armored cruisers, it is quite possible that they will be sunk by a single 16-inch armor-piercing shell. Therefore, the Admiralty believes that once all four 'Empress of India' class ships are commissioned, the Navy will be sure to start a decisive fleet battle with the Chinese Navy in the South China Sea! ”

……

Japan. Seto Inland Sea.

On the sea outside Wu Jungang, at this moment, it was densely packed with steam warships flying the blue background and the golden sun and moon flags. The mighty Daming Pacific Fleet has completed its mission and is returning to its home port from Hawaii. And today, they are arrayed on the sea to be reviewed by the Ming Emperor Zhu Jishi - although this trip did not fire a single shot, but in terms of the harvest is still extremely rich. Taking Pearl Harbor without a fight opened up the North Pacific communication line in one fell swoop. The Ming army, weapons and ammunition can now be transported to the other side of the Pacific Ocean in a steady stream. The fleet has achieved such a feat, Zhu Jishi naturally wants to go to the condolences in person, and at the same time, he also wants to see the superb shooting skills of the Ming Navy with his own eyes.

The sea was rolling, and the flagship of the Pacific Fleet, the "Liberation", had already turned sideways. The two rotating turrets of the "Guangfu" were slowly rotated by two 70-kilowatt generators. The four caliber cannons were all pointed at a 5,000-ton old ironclad about 5,000 meters away -- this is a "Jishi" class ironclad ship, which is the first generation of sail and steam hybrid ironclad ships of the Ming Navy. Now it has been retired from active service and has become a tragic target ship. The ship's guns and sails, as well as the steam engine, have been removed, and the waterline belt armor has been specially reinforced. It has reached a similar level of solidity to that of the "Emperor" class. At present, this target ship is being dragged by another "Emperor"-class ironclad ship, the "Hongwu", on a rope and slowly sailing on the sea, parallel to the "Guangfu" class to the west.

Zhu Jishi, Wang Dehu, the secretary of the Admiralty, Feng Cheng, the ordnance director of the Admiralty, Tong Haifeng, commander of the Pacific Fleet, Lu Maofeng, chief of staff of the fleet, and other naval generals also gathered in the command tower of the "Guangfu" at this moment. All of them were holding binoculars and preparing to watch the shelling show.

However, of course, today's performance is not for the emperor to listen to and watch the excitement. Rather, it is to put an end to the long-standing controversy among the Ming Navy about the role of large-caliber artillery -- on this issue, the Ming navy and shipbuilding engineers have always had two opinions. One is the cannon winning theory; One is the theory of quick shooting. The former believed that large-caliber naval guns were the key to a decisive victory in naval warfare, because only giant guns had the ability to penetrate the thick armor of capital ships.

The latter, on the other hand, believes that the current armor-piercing projectile is not powerful enough, and it is difficult to sink the capital ship with the central ironclad fort. Moreover, the accuracy of large-caliber giant cannons is not high, and the rate of fire is even less ideal. For example, the theoretical maximum rate of fire of the main gun of the "Guangfu" is one shot every three minutes, but it is difficult to even fire one shot every five minutes during exercises, let alone in actual combat. Such a rate of fire, coupled with a very low degree of accuracy, made it difficult for the "Guangfu" cannon to hit the opponent in actual combat, and it was likely that it would not be able to fire a few rounds in a single battle. And it is also difficult to sink enemy ships, at most it is just a few holes in the enemy ship.

In addition, solid armor-piercing shells can penetrate solid armor, but because they cannot explode, there is no way to inflict real heavy damage on enemy ships, let alone sink them. As a result, some navies and engineers believed that the cannon would not play a significant role in future naval warfare. Instead of equipping a few large-caliber guns that are difficult to sink enemy ships, it is better to equip more medium- and medium-caliber rapid guns and bombard enemy ships with explosive shells instead of armor-piercing shells, so that some ships that lack the protection of a central ironclad fort will be severely damaged and incapacitated.

Moreover, since 1865, the technology of artillery artillery mounts has developed extremely rapidly, from the traditional upper and lower artillery mounts to hydraulic tube-assisted retraction, that is, relatively primitive tube-annealed guns. And the advent of tube-annealed guns also allowed a significant increase in the rate of fire of the cannon, with rapid-fire guns appearing with more than two rounds (the highest) per minute. However, most of the rapid-fire guns that have appeared at present are small and medium-caliber guns, and the largest ones are not larger, and the above rapid-fire naval guns are under development. As for the problems involved in the above giant rapid-fire guns, it is not only the hydraulic re-advancement, but also the upgrading of the shell loading method, after all, the weight of large-caliber shells is too large, and it is difficult to quickly reload by manpower.

On the bridge of the "Guangfu", Vice Admiral Lu Maofeng, chief of staff of the fleet, who was also the captain of the ship, looked like iron, listening to the second mate Liu Buyun reporting a series of data.

"Take a distance of 4,500 meters, the angle is ...... Azimuth...... Number of packets......"

Four cannons were about to open fire for test firing.

Zhu Jishi looked intently at the target ship in the distance, his brows furrowed slightly, and he had already made a conclusion in his heart about the dispute between the navy and shipbuilding engineers. He vaguely remembered that in the First Sino-Japanese War in history, the Japanese Combined Fleet defeated the Beiyang Naval Division with rapid-fire guns. Moreover, the most likely place for a decisive naval battle between China and Britain in the future is undoubtedly the Nanyang Islands area. It is half a world away from the British mainland and the shipyards of North America, and nearly 2,000 nautical miles from the British Navy shipyard in Calcutta, India. Once the British battleship was damaged in the South Seas battlefield, it had to be driven back thousands of miles to repair. Most of them won't be able to go to war for months! By the time they were repaired, Singapore would have been captured by the Ming Army...... (To be continued)