Cruisers are not capital ships, and their turret protection is often not taken seriously, and as long as they do not violate safety regulations, even if the turret is destroyed, there is no danger of mass explosion.

Therefore, in history, the cruisers of many countries gave up the protection of the turret when they had no spare strength, and the thickness of the armor was only 25mm, which could only block one shrapnel and machine guns.

However, even if there is no devastating explosion, the turret will definitely be paralyzed after it is blown up, and the firepower will inevitably be greatly reduced, and this warship will become the mainstay of the Beiyang Naval Division, not just an ordinary cruiser, so the protection of the turret should not be neglected.

Besides, now is a special period when the shield is stronger than the spear, and there is enough excess load to free up the armor for the turret, so Li Hui naturally has to protect the four main turrets tightly, and the thickness of the armor on the front even reaches 155mm equivalent to the main armor belt of the waterline, and the top armor is 75mm, which is thicker than the horizontal armor.

Even the side and rear armor, which are generally insignificant, Li Hui also strengthened them as much as possible considering the possibility of Japanese siege, although the thickness of 105mm is not as good as the main armor, but it is enough to resist the Japanese army's largest armor-piercing bullet of 240mm caliber.

Since the secondary gun was positioned to deal with light ships of less than 1,000 tons, these targets were fast and flexible, and in order to ensure the turning speed and a large enough field of view, Li Hui had to abandon the invulnerable armored turret and choose a half-hooded turret that could only protect the front.

Fortunately, it is only a secondary artillery, and there must be a building behind it, so the danger is not great. On the contrary, the enemy's small-caliber explosive shells posed a considerable threat to the safety of the artillery crew because of the larger elevation angle.

But there's no way around it.,No matter how perfect the work is, it's impossible to really have no flaws at all.,The secondary cannon is just a secondary cannon after all.,If you can't keep it, you can only forget it.。

In comparison, the protection of the eight machine guns is even weaker, only a 25mm thick cannon shield, but in any case, it is better to have protection than no protection!

The protection of the command tower has always been valued by Li Hui, and in addition, the area of this part is limited, and the armor thickening does not occupy too much tonnage, because he directly added 210mm armor to it.

Although due to the particularity of the conning tower, no matter how thick the armor is, it is impossible to completely guarantee the absolute safety of the personnel inside, but it is much better to have thicker armor than to explode inside after being penetrated by an armor-piercing projectile and directly ending the command system of the warship

Under the strict protection of all aspects, the so-called "superstructure" without protection on this warship has been very few, and from the perspective of the bombed surface from all angles, the normal load accounts for only about one-fifth of the total area on average (within the normal range, the larger the load and the deeper the draft, the higher the proportion). ）。 In other words, the enemy has to hit an average of 5 shells in order for one shot to have an effect.

In contrast, warships like Dingzhen that adopt a key protection design often have more than two-thirds of the bomb surface that are not protected, and although these non-key parts are generally not at risk of sinking even if they are hit by a lot of bullets, casualties and a drop in speed are unavoidable, and in that case, they can no longer undertake the task of pursuing the enemy

Considering that the maximum speed of the four high-speed Japanese ships is more than 22 knots, even if it has the advantage of not being easy to be injured and slow down, the speed of the warship itself designed by Li Hui must reach a very high standard, and a strong power system is indispensable for this.

Although the technology of the steam turbine has not yet been developed, even if it is a three-expansion steam engine, the ultimate output power of the marine power system with the largest power that Li Hui can choose at present can reach more than 35,000 horsepower (3 shafts), but it cannot be used due to the tonnage limitation of this warship, and even a certain system with 24,000 horsepower is very reluctant to be installed, and it is no problem to run for a short time, but it is easy to fail if it is used for a long time.

In the end, after careful consideration, Li Hui referred to the example of the Yoshino and limited the maximum output of this powertrain to about 16,000 horsepower, which can only be reached at the limit of 24,000 horsepower when ventilated under strong pressure, so as to ensure good reliability and unparalleled explosive power.

Strong horsepower is a good thing, but energy consumption will also rise with the tide, fortunately, Li Hui has adopted the latest optional water-tube boiler, which can save more than half of the coal compared with the fire-tube boiler that is still commonly used in various countries, so the endurance of this warship does not have to worry at all.

In addition, Li Hui also removed the ramming angle and changed the bow to a flying shear bow at the same time, which not only improved the seaworthiness of the warship, but also increased the speed and endurance a little, and the advantages in these two aspects are even greater.

After selecting all these parts, the small size of the Garibaldi-class armored cruiser was already overwhelmed, and its draft of more than 7.1 meters was a little deeper, so Li Hui also optimized its basic size, and more than once.

Then, Li Hui used the "Detail Fine-tuning" option of the system optimization function to finalize this masterpiece of his own, and at the same time made the streamlined shape of the warship more perfect, so as to reduce the sailing resistance of the warship as much as possible.

Although the current speed is already fast, as long as it does not affect other performance, the faster the better.

In fact, it is thanks to this function, coupled with the excellent workmanship of the system products, that the ship is able to run at a terrifying speed that even the Western powers find unbelievable.

Well, in fact, all these factors add up to less than five percentage points, but for the speed of a warship, it is already a miracle that it can increase so much without sacrificing other performance.

After Zhou Chunyu almost wore out his lips and finally convinced Liu Buyun and others of the authenticity of the ship's performance parameters, the warship's powerful firepower, perfect protection, amazing speed almost comparable to the new protective cruiser and excellent endurance of more than 10,000 nautical miles/10 knots easily conquered the latter.

They were even more surprised by the fact that it only had a draft of 6.8 meters under its normal displacement, because it meant that the new ship could be repaired at the Lushun Dock, which was almost like tailor-made for the Beiyang Naval Division.

"It's just for you!" , Zhou Chunyu couldn't help but laugh secretly in his heart when he heard it, but he couldn't see anything unusual on his face, and continued to introduce the other party in detail, "The requirements for water quality, coal quality and personnel quality are much higher than those for fire tube boilers, but we will send someone to help you train, and your army should not be difficult to master."