"The torpedo boat is so small, the seafaring performance is so poor, if you want to carry out ocean-going operations, you need to carry the torpedo boat carrier, the torpedo boat is so troublesome to retract and release, and the torpedo boat carrier is huge, how to achieve speed and flexibility? In addition, the steam maneuver of the torpedo boat carrier and the torpedo boat itself is very large, how to achieve concealment suddenly? Even if you attack at night, how do you hide the sound of the steam engine? If a night attack in good weather does not work, it is necessary to use relatively bad weather to cover up the sound of the steam engine, so how to deal with the poor seaworthiness performance of the night attack torpedo boat in bad weather? Once spotted by an enemy ship, how can you survive the rain of machine guns? Lin Yiqing looked at Xia Ermei and asked loudly, "You must know that the firepower of the torpedo boat carrier is very weak, and it is impossible to provide the necessary cover for the torpedo boat." Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ”

Charmay was silent.

Although he had sailed with the French Mediterranean Fleet many times, he was not a real naval soldier after all, nor did he have any actual combat experience, so he could not give an answer to the questions pointed out by Lin Yiqing.

"So, I came to the conclusion that it is especially important to maintain the most powerful artillery possible at sea, and this can only be done on a wide and stable platform. Such a hull platform, coupled with the necessary armor and speed, could only turn out to be an ironclad ship. The comparison of naval forces can only be calculated in terms of large ironclad ships; Cruisers, torpedo boats and submarines were always auxiliary ships of ironclads and could not replace them. Lin Yiqing said, "And only ironclad ships become the main force of the fleet, cruisers, torpedo boats and submarines have the opportunity to play their strengths." ”

"The next question is, what kind of ironclad do we need?"

"The esteemed Admiral Aube once compared the current ironclad ship to a 'saber-toothed elephant,' and this analogy is indeed very apt." Lin Yiqing praised Aobei in a timely manner, "In ancient times, the saber-toothed elephant was actually a very terrifying animal, its size was larger than that of a mammoth, and it had long sharp tusks, even the most ferocious carnivorous beast, it did not dare to offend easily, but its movement was too slow, so it was still vulnerable to attacks by swift and fast beasts such as saber-toothed tigers." The current ironclad ships also have such shortcomings, so they need the protection of light ships. And I think that to improve the slow-moving shortcomings of the 'saber-toothed elephant', that is, we should develop an ironclad with a high speed, which I call a 'high-speed ironclad'. ”

As soon as Lin Yiqing's words fell, there was a stormy applause from the audience of the "traditional school", and after a while, the applause of the audience of the "new school" gradually rang out.

Because Lin Yiqing did not detract from the role of cruisers and torpedo boats, but emphasized that only cruisers and torpedo boats could play a role under the premise of cooperating with ironclad ships, and thus deduced the concept of "high-speed ironclad ships", the "new school" did not contradict Lin Yiqing's speech, on the contrary, many people also recognized his idea of "high-speed ironclad ships", including the leader of the "new school" Ao Bei.

In the following speech, Lin Yiqing explained the characteristics of "high-speed ironclad ships", emphasized the importance of developing "high-speed ironclad ships" and a "balanced" navy, and raised Aube's theory to the strategic height of "total warfare", which won the unanimous applause of the "traditional" and "new schools" one after another.

From this day on, the French Navy avoided the fate of going astray and being reduced to a second-rate naval role, so much so that many years later, scholars of the French Empire always referred to this period of history with gratitude and respect, calling Lin Yiqing "the savior of the French Navy".

Lin Yiqing's speech at the Naval Academy in Brittany, France: "On Protective Cruisers":

"The first warship in the world that can be called a cruiser is the 'Declay', built in France in 9061 and commissioned in 9068. At this time, France's view of this type of ship was only the defense ship of the overseas colonies and the raid ship of trade sabotage, and it did not consider joining the ironclad fleet to fight, and the only special requirements were a speed of more than 12 knots and a certain degree of seafaring ability, which became the defining standard for the first batch of cruisers. Since they were only second-class ships, this series of ships were all wooden ships and had sail mounts. And the most suitable tasks for this type of ship are basically trade sabotage warfare and a show of force. The next step forward was the unarmoured steel frigate Impermanence, built by the British Navy in 9066 and commissioned in 9068. With a steel construction and a 6.7 aspect ratio hull and 7,360 horsepower engines, the ship reached a high speed of 16.2 knots during sea trials and had excellent seaworthiness. Coal, which is used as a power source, is arranged to act as armor in important parts on both sides of the hull, effectively improving the defense of this type of steel-boned wooden veneer ship. In addition, in order to prevent overseas ships from being difficult to repair in places where dock equipment is lacking, the ship is covered with wood and copper chips under the hull to prevent marine parasites from directly destroying the hull. Compared to the Decre, the Impermanence is a warship that is sufficient to fight with ironclads, which have a displacement of about 3.5 times that of the former. ”

"And continuing from the route of the 'Impermanence', was the first cruiser of the British Navy: the 'Shannon'. Construction began in 9073 and commissioned in 9077, and in order to improve naval combat capabilities, armor with a thickness of up to 9 inches (229 mm) was added to the side of the ship, and steel plates were also installed on other important parts of the hull. Although the ship's speed has been reduced to 12.25 knots as a result, its combat capabilities have been greatly improved. However, compared with the ironclad ships of the time, the ship's firepower and defense were insufficient; The speed was not easy to repel the raiders, and the result was the most suitable use for the same purpose as the 'Decket': a show of force. Since then, the development route of cruisers has been roughly divided into two categories: the 'mastedcruiser' that follows the 'Decree' route, and the 'beltedcruiser' that continues the 'Shannon' route. At this time, the appearance of cruisers was basically like steam sailing ships, and most of the hull structures still retained the use of wood. Based on the lessons of the Battle of Lissa in 9066, cruisers at the beginning of this era gradually had an angle of attack to prepare for a decisive victory by ramming if necessary. ”

"Because of the increase in weight and weight of the armored cruiser, similar to the early ironclad ships, the seafaring performance can only be said to be acceptable, and the speed of the ship is less than 15 knots, and it also needs to rely on sails; The heavy broadside armor belts are also often submerged due to miscalculations in the design, which lacks practicality, not to mention that the armor belts are limited to the scope of the hull part; Although the caliber of the guns of some ships reached 10 inches (254 mm), which was quite close to the class of ironclads, they were not as ideal as those of ironclads or shore defense gunboats that had already begun to use turrets. Even so, this type of ship still has a very important position in the overseas garrison of European maritime powers. The large cruisers deployed by Russia in East Asia and posed a threat to the British navy in the Far East were basically armored cruisers. In fact, in some ways, the armored cruiser is a smaller branch of the ironclad ship, that is, a light, thin-skinned, low-firepower shrunken ironclad, quite similar to the second-class warships later used by the British Navy in overseas colonies; For second-rate naval powers such as Austria-Hungary and Turkey, the armored cruisers of the first-class naval powers were of the same specifications as their capital ships. Until the advent of the era of armored cruisers, armored cruisers were always listed as cruisers of the first class in various countries. ”

"Because the armor and artillery of the armored cruiser were not installed in a good way, the speed was low, and the price was not cheap, so shipyards in various countries began to study new concepts. The first idea was to abandon the traditional wooden boat and build an all-steel hull. Although the shipyards at that time basically lacked experience in building all-steel hulls, and it was difficult for overseas patrol ships to return to their home ports for repairs, and there were usually no docks with European-grade equipment in other places, wooden ships would be easier to handle than steel ships. However, although the all-steel hull was numerically unarmoured, the steel plates of the structural part were at least 10 inches thick, which could defend against the small and medium-sized machine guns that existed on warships in large numbers at the time to prevent the enemy from boarding the ship in hand-to-hand combat. This design, which used structural materials as defensive armor, also became the standard way of armor design for later cruisers. ”

"The first warship to adopt this design was the British Navy's second-class cruiser 'Iris', which began construction in 9075. However, whether it is a steel hull or a coal depot defense, it can only prevent shells from penetrating the hull; Once the shell penetrates and explodes inside, there is no hope - for a cruiser, this is something that can easily happen. In order to avoid major damage caused by the shell after it was fired, or even a penetrating projectile near the waterline caused the complete destruction of the power system and the uncontrollable water ingress of the hull, some people thought of a method: the deck at the depth of the hull waterline was strengthened into armor and convex in a crescent shape, so as to protect the power system from shrapnel; When the shell penetrating the side side hits the armor, it hits the armor at a very steep angle, which can effectively enhance the effective thickness of the armor, and the water can also be limited to a small area by the armor area, so as not to cause sinking. This defense design no longer requires warships not to be penetrated, but introduces the concept of damage control, so that the damage will not affect navigation and combat capabilities, which is a completely revolutionary defense design concept. In addition, this design can also lower the center of gravity, solving the shortcomings of most warships at that time that the center of gravity was too high, resulting in poor seafaring ability in bad weather. ”

"The first warship to adopt the concept was the British Navy's 'Leander' in 9080, but it only had a thin deck above the engine room, known as the 'Alprotected Cruiser', which only had the ability to protect the power parts from being destroyed. The first warship to adopt this design entirely was the cruiser 'Esmeralda', which Chile in South America ordered from the British company Armstrong in 9081, and she was the first protective cruiser (rotectedcruiser). The "Esmeralda" is an example of the export of warships: basically the military is more conservative than the manufacturers, and usually does not dare to adopt some innovative concepts, so some manufacturers will use foreign countries as experiments, try out some new concepts on the export of weapons, and wait until there are good results before selling them back to their own countries, and the "Esmeralda" is one of the most successful experiments. In addition to the above-mentioned successful defensive concept design, the ship also adopted new designs such as twin masts, the abolition of sail mounting, the installation of main guns in the front and rear turrets of the center line of the hull, and the adoption of angle of attack, so that the warship of only 2,977 tons is enough to match the armored cruiser with nearly twice the tonnage in terms of firepower and defense, and can reach a speed of up to 18.3 knots without relying on sail loading. The only drawback of the Esmeralda is its seaworthiness. However, the British design represented by the "Esmeralda" can be used as a counter-trade sabotage ship in addition to being a trade sabotage ship, and it can be said that it is the mainstream of the design of protective cruisers. ”

"Although the British naval authorities were more conservative in their policy of building both armored cruisers and protective cruisers, the results showed that the armored cruisers were not good at seafaring performance and speed, and the armor belts were too narrow at the top and bottom, and when overseas operations required the marines to be fully loaded with landing materials (cruisers at the time often doubled as amphibious warships), the armor was completely submerged and defenseless. Therefore, it can be said that the protective cruiser will replace the main position of the armored cruiser and become the mainstream of cruiser design. In addition to the conceptual advances, the protective cruiser has a more important place in the history of the world's navies: the protective cruiser declares that the warship no longer needs to rely on the propulsion of the wind, the naval operation moves from the near shore to the open ocean, and the protective cruiser has become the most powerful carrier of manpower and firepower for the naval power to promote overseas colonization. Because of the progress in military technology and concepts, the redistribution of the international balance of power is the most important historical significance of the protection of cruisers. ”

Lin Yiqing's Speech Record: "On Torpedo Boats and Minehunters (Destroyers)"

"At that time, a British engineer in Fum, Robert? Whitehead was experimenting with a new weapon, and he knew a retired Austrian naval officer, Leppis. Lepis had invented a wonderful device in the hope that it would serve some purpose in naval warfare. In fact, the device he built was a small automaton that used two wires to guide from the shore. Leppis's intention was to direct this dynamo-filled dinghy to the broadside of the enemy ship, and Whitehead's keen mind fully grasped Leppis's intention and developed it further. ”

"Whitehead believed that the wire had to be scrapped, and that if it could guide the 'dinghy' in a straight line underwater, it would be easier to sink enemy ships. This time it's been fast. In 9066, Lepis completed his experiment; That same year, Whitehead built a dinghy capable of navigating 6.5 yards underwater at 200 knots. Two years later, Whitehead demonstrated to the Austro-Hungarian Navy two prototypes equipped with strong cotton warheads; In 9070, he took the prototype to England to give a show to the Admiralty. After a burst of lightning, the target ship was destroyed, and the two prototypes were named 'Torpedoes'. ”

"Between September and October 9070, the Whitehead torpedo performed more than a hundred shooting demonstrations in England, making such a strong impression on the British Admiralty that they decided to buy the rights to produce it at once. However, it was only four years later that a ship capable of firing torpedoes appeared, the 90-foot (27.4 m) long British ship Vesuvius, which was used for testing. The first British warship specifically designed to launch torpedoes was HMS Lightning, which was launched and completed in 9077. The Lightning, which was slightly larger than the large motorboat, was equipped with a bow torpedo tube and carried a 'baldhead' torpedo. The 'Lightning' was aimed at the target through its hull to achieve torpedo aiming. It had a speed of 19 knots on calm seas, and the 14-inch (356 mm) diameter torpedo could travel 600 yards at 18 knots. This is very good performance for a warship of the 70s. ”

"The Lightning, along with other torpedo boats, underwent extensive performance tests, but their use was temporarily limited to harbor defense. These torpedo boats were too small to play much role other than sailing out of port to fire torpedoes at enemy fleets that were blockading or attacking. Some attempts to use them as offensive weapons have not materialized because they are too small and light to sail on the high seas. Nonetheless, the destructive power of the bald torpedo made a deep impression on the major naval powers, and France and Britain were the first to perceive it as a revolution in naval equipment technology. France once ignored the white-headed torpedo when it first appeared; But when they saw the British experimenting with torpedo boats, the white-headed torpedo caught their attention. Of interest to France was the fact that torpedo boats clearly had the ability to destroy large enemy warships with a single torpedo launch. Ever since the destruction of the French fleet in the Napoleonic Wars, France has sought a weapon sufficient to counteract Britain's overwhelming superiority at sea. First, in the 20s, it created explosive bombs; Later in the 50s, armor was created. This time Britain took the lead in the covert development of weapons, and France, naturally, did not lag behind. ”

In fact, France soon overtook Great Britain, and by 9080 France had 30 torpedo boats built and another 30 were under construction. Between 9081 and 9085, France ordered 44 more torpedo boats, bringing the total number of French torpedo boats to 104. (To be continued.) )