On the night of September, the sky has gradually shortened, about 6 o'clock, it is already dusk, Scheer has not heard the sound of the battleship's boiler starting, the battleship with coal as the main fuel, no matter how it needs two or three hours to warm up, so as to be able to achieve enough energy to push the huge warship of more than 10,000 tons, start slowly, won't you really have to wait until it is dark to go out, there are no people and routes nearby, an hour or two in advance, and it is no problem at all.

Scheer didn't think much about it, since he came here, this ship is still in the dock of Qingdao, and it has not finally belonged to them, and the matter of the sea trial is still up to the northwest to decide, pressing down this problem, calmly wandering around the ship, but he didn't wait for half an hour, he suddenly felt a slight vibration of the ship's hull, and seemed to faintly hear the sound of something continuing to ring, and was in doubt, in the cabin, the red light remembered, and the captain's order came from the pager: "All of them, the power starts, It is expected to reach the peak within 30 minutes, and at 7 o'clock, launch on time! ”

At 7 o'clock, not half an hour later, Scheer was slightly startled, turned to Fabian and asked, "This battleship uses an oil-fired boiler!" ”

Fabian nodded and said, "That's right, a giant ship with a capacity of up to 45,000 tons and a full load of nearly 50,000 tons, if it is not suitable for oil-fired boilers, it is simply impossible to stuff so many boilers into such a small hull, and the speed cannot be guaranteed!" ”

Scheer didn't say much, but there was a trace of worry on his face, in the German Admiralty, there has always been the opposition between oil-fired boilers and coal-fired boilers, although in terms of performance. In terms of practicability, the oil-fired boiler is a deflagration coal-fired boiler. But this is not the case in Germany, which is a European power. It has abundant coal and iron resources, that is, relying on coal and iron resources to become the first industrial power in Europe, but Germany's oil reserves are very small, almost equal to zero, and it needs to import a large amount of oil for a long time.

This is a huge bottleneck, and before it was said that oil was not very important, but in motor vehicles. Under the rapid development of trains and warships, oil has become an obvious shortcoming, and the German General Staff has conducted no less than 100 deductions on the issue of war, and each time it has been impossible to break through the British blockade, so to speak, the resources at sea are almost gone. You have to rely on your own storage. On land, Germany shares a border with Russia, which is Europe's largest oil exporter, but it is in the Entente camp. It was hostile to Germany, and I am afraid that the only place where oil could be imported was Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary is the second largest oil producer in Europe after Russia. The annual output is about 320,000 tons, but this amount is simply not enough for the two large countries of Austria-Hungary and Germany.

Because of this. In the Admiralty, the controversy about this is that coal-fired boilers have the upper hand, even if Yang Yuanzhao provided a good oil-fired boiler back then, as the new capital ship of the High Seas Fleet, the King-class still does not use oil-fired boilers all, but according to the proportion, there are more coal-fired boilers than oil-fired ones. Obviously, the ships in this area use oil-fired boilers in a large area, so that in the case of 9 capital ships, 8 heavy cruisers and many other warships, it is a huge pressure on German fuel oil, and 600,000 tons of warships can eat oil, which is an astronomical amount.

Scheer stopped talking, Fabian knew him very well, knew what he was thinking, and said with a slight smile: "Don't worry, with the help of the Northwest and the German-American Foreign Bank, a total of 400,000 tons of diesel fuel have been stored in Germany, which is enough to be used for a long time, plus the coal oil technology supported by the Northwest and the import of Austria-Hungary, not to mention a fleet like you, even if the entire German fleet has been modified with boilers, it can be supported." ”

"Coal-to-oil?"

"Yes, it's from coal to make diesel, but it's more expensive!"

Scheer glanced at Fabian with a little surprise, such a strategic thing, he actually didn't know it, he heard it from Fabian, more or less, beyond his expectations, what is the high price, for the war, the price is never a problem, as long as the problem of whether there is or not, as long as the price is not too high to accept, then there is no problem, as long as there is no problem with the fuel side, the performance of the fuel unit exceeds the performance of the coal unit, the replacement is inevitable, this can be from another aspect, Boost the strength of your entire fleet.

Fuel oil is more likely to be heated than coal, and the time for power to stabilize is shorter, sure enough, more than 20 minutes later, the power gradually stabilized, at this time, the sky, and the last trace of the sunset, the night has not completely covered the earth, but to all kinds of buildings, shrouded in a layer of gray-black veil, two behemoths, just silently, into the sea, slowly into the depths of the sea. Thanks to the previous sonar and measurements, the surrounding nautical charts have been recorded in the northwest, and along a route with the least number of people, but the smoothest, the two battleships went all the way to the east, deep into the depths of the sea.

The dark night obscured any tracks, in this era, there were not many ships taking the night road, the channel near Qingdao, either to North Korea, or to Japan, the shorter voyage, so that the number of ships sailing at night was greatly reduced, these two ships did not meet any ships, successfully crossed the channel, and entered the depths of the Yellow Sea. After the night, the new warship, at night, did not even dare to sail to the maximum speed, but went to the prescribed sea area 140 nautical miles away according to the predetermined plan, which could take 12 hours at the speed of 12 knots, which is now more economical, except for the necessary personnel who were responsible for sailing overnight, the rest, rested.

Early the next morning, Scheer got up early in the morning, he didn't sleep well last night, the voyage of thousands of miles, he was very tired, plus the expectation of fantasy, tossing and turning until ten o'clock before falling asleep, this is not yet six o'clock in the morning, he has already gotten up. There were quite a few people who rose up at about the same time as Scheer, and under the rising sun, the battleship maintained an economic speed of 12 knots.

In almost 10 hours in one night, we had already penetrated into the depths of the Yellow Sea, which was more than 60 nautical miles away from the shipping route to Japan, and because of the depth and currents, there were few ships passing through here, so it was a safe place.

In the vicinity of this area, there is a small fishing ground, the yield is not high, from China, North Korea, Japan is not close, China is about 130 nautical miles, Japan is more than 300 nautical miles, North Korea also has 180 nautical miles, ordinary fishermen here are almost none, that is, after the establishment of shipping companies in the northwest, because of the production of large and small yellow croaker and some more precious Yellow Sea endemic fish, there are more fishing boats here. At this time, there were thousands of fishing boats of different sizes around the area, all of which belonged to the fishing company controlled by the Northwest, and when they saw the warship, they were slightly alarmed, but the Northwest contacted the commander of the fishing boat and issued a strict gag order, requiring these people not to divulge the secret of the warship's appearance.

When the day dawned, and after determining the radius of 100 nautical miles around the area, Schell and others relaxed and began to conduct a series of tests according to the habit of German sea trials. The two ships, for the time being, could not practice together, and carried out some separate subjects and projects, the first one, of course, was speed. The previous economic speed could not reflect the speed of the battleship, in the battleship duel, speed played a crucial role, looking at the type of battleship, we know that the fantasy class chose speed in order to give up the stability of the shelling, and this speed will not be low.

Even if there is such a hunch, but when the battleship drove at full speed, the German officers, including Scheer, were taken aback, they had not seen it at high speed, the fastest destroyer at present, could easily run at a speed of more than 30 knots, but the battleship, even if it was a battle cruiser, many German battle cruisers, the newly launched Moltke class, was only 25.5 knots speed, but this battleship was obviously faster than the Moltke class, and much faster.

The position of the stern rudder, Fabian and some designers, are also calculating the speed of the ship, because it is a fixed channel, it has already been marked with navigational beacons, and in less than an hour, the battleship maintained its maximum speed, through the guò 48 target segments, 24 nautical miles of line markers to calculate, the average speed of this battleship, It reached 28.3 knots, which is higher than the speed when it was designed, and this is still the result of no afterburner, and when the battleship's power is overloaded, it should easily increase by 0.5 to 1 knot

The real number of jù appeared, everyone stopped talking, not to mention anything else, just by virtue of his speed, it was enough to occupy the position of a capital ship, the German battle cruiser because of the power and protection problems, has always been unable to compare with the British battle cruiser, especially the speed, and the British battle patrol There is a big gap, take the Lion class launched in 1912, the speed of 27 knots, It is 1.5 knots faster than the Moltke class, and in the duel of battleships, the speed of 1.5 knots is nothing, but for the battle patrol formation of guerrilla warfare, it is definitely a huge difference.

Now, the Fantasy class is as a battleship, faster than the Lion-class 1.3 section, which is simply fatal for the Lion class, the speed outperforms the Lion class, and it is a 15-inch gun, a battleship with all-round protection, the relative asymmetry between them will also make him a killer of the battle patrol, and the most important thing is that the Fantasy class has a resounding name under Yang Yuanzhao's Jianyì, and the high-speed battleship is also known as the Perfect class.

It's not a battle cruiser, it's not a battleship, it's a high-speed battleship that combines the two, it's faster than a battleship, it's better than a battle cruiser, and no matter which one it is, it has enough advantages, even Scheer, who still has some doubts about the fantasy class, can't help but be convinced and recognize this title of high-speed battleship. (To be continued......)