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On the other side of the globe, the British and Germans never ceased to compete for dominance of the Ottoman continent. Pen ~ fun ~ www.biquge.info but the British also really felt that the Germanic control over the whole of Europe was increasing with the increase of their own strength. They clearly knew that the blood of the Germanic people had always been the factor of war, and the guide of the Ottoman continent

Once the fire is lit by the Germans, how will the honor of the empire on which the sun never sets threaten.

It was precisely because they were not sure about the direction of the war with the Germans that they set their sights on Malacca, the throat of Asia. Their aim in controlling Malacca was to blockade the rising China, which was a strategic alliance with Germany, and to contain China would be to cut off German aid in the East.

Therefore, the British played a tai chi in foreign policy, on the one hand, trying to block China's access to the sea, and on the other hand, throwing an olive branch of Anglo-German reconciliation to Wilhelm II, and they tried to find another way to safeguard the interests of the British Empire, and establish a mechanism of regular consultations with Germany on European issues, so as to ease the contradictions with the Germans and avoid the early outbreak of world war.

However, Wilhelm II, whose self-confidence had been greatly inflated, arrogantly demanded that the British regularly open the latest battleship design drawings to Germany on an almost harsh condition, and the British rejected this arrogant and impertinent condition, as the British Prime Minister Salisbury said: Will the Germans tell us about their airship plans?

After the Germans' rude refusal, Britain accelerated its maritime hegemony, a key step in its strategy to penetrate Asia and contain China. After the entry into service of the Royal class and the improved Royal class, they learned a number of lessons, in particular the over-the-horizon naval combat mode in the Far East naval battles, which attracted the attention of the designers of the British Empire's megaships. They had already begun a new epoch-making battleship program, which was called "Dreadnought".

The Royal-class cruiser on the slipway of Pusmaus had just been launched. The high-profile handover ceremony was led by the leader of the House of Commons, the founder of the Primrose Society, Randolph? Churchill presided over the meeting, which was also to thank the Chinese for bringing a large number of jobs to the industrial working class in Britain.

In front of this majestic battleship, Mr. Churchill handed over the Royal Pole Battleship, which symbolizes the highest level of British shipbuilding industry at present, to the Chinese. The ceremony was utterly stupid in the eyes of many politicians, who believed that the Royal Navy had "sold the sharp teeth of a tiger to a wolf." Churchill didn't care about this, because he also had a trump card in his hand, which was the Dreadnought-class battleship under design and construction.

A few months ago, in a villa outside London, he and two senior officers of the Royal Navy, who had just met with William, the epoch-making British designer of naval warships. Mr. White had a long two-hour conversation.

The first half of the conversation was White's endless complaints about the British Treasury, because his ship completely overturned the existing battleship theory, and made revolutionary innovations in armament, power, protection, etc., these changes seem so crazy, if successful, it can indeed create a new era of the sea, but at the same time, its reliability is also difficult to assess, in this case, it is undoubtedly a huge gamble to put a huge amount of money into it, for the twilight British Treasury, It is normal for them to have difficulty in making this determination.

When Churchill smiled and handed the Treasury shipbuilding approval plan to White, White was so excited that he almost went crazy.

"If it weren't for the fact that the Germans had no choice, the British Treasury would probably never have passed the blueprint for the design of the dreadnought. Now that the arms race between the two countries has reached a fever pitch, Germany's development momentum is obviously higher than that of Britain, and Britain will not be able to suppress Germany without engaging in some high technology. Of course, both the government and the Admiralty wanted Mr. White's design to be unique and pragmatic, not to remove a few secondary guns and add a few main guns to the original design of the warship, if it was built according to this requirement, it would not be a dreadnought at all, it could only be regarded as a variant of the Victorian class, or a very failed one. Churchill said with great humor.

Of course, White saw the intention of Churchill and others, they didn't want to waste the huge amount of government money, so he wanted to take out his best design concept, so that these people in front of him and the politicians who criticized him were completely convinced.

"The Dreadnought is unbeatable, and simply removing a few secondary guns and adding a few main guns will not work at all in the theory of an early ship. Why? Because ordinary Victoria-class battleships are not capable of carrying more main guns, large-caliber main guns are very heavy, and once they enter the naval battle, the rotation and launch of the main guns will bring a lot of pressure to the ship, and the Victoria-class battleships can only withstand a maximum of 4 main guns firing at the same time, if there are more, I am afraid that they will not hit the opponent's ship, but because of the recoil, their ship will be sunk first, so even if it is equipped with 10 main guns, it will not be more than 4 that can participate in the battle. ”

White licked Tim's dry lips and continued, "If you want to add artillery, you have to improve the performance of the whole ship to make it have a greater carrying capacity. To this end, I propose four improvement options.

First, steam turbine engines are used to provide power. This type of engine heats water to obtain the kinetic energy of water vapor, which is then replaced by turbine rotation to drive machinery. Turbo steam engines greatly improve thermal efficiency, are closer to the ideal reversible process in thermodynamics, and can provide more power, which is more advanced than reciprocating steam engines.

Second, the hull was widened to provide heavier armor, so that the stability of the deck could be ensured when the guns were attacking. Traditional ships have narrower hulls to reduce water resistance, increase agility, and achieve faster sailing speeds. But the Dreadnought doesn't need this, in naval battles, it can completely suppress enemy ships with super powerful firepower, and there is almost no need to worry about being counterattacked, which is a design idea of attacking and defending.

Third, the watertight compartment was improved to control the stability of the ship by using the flow of stored water. The watertight compartment is generally located below the waterline, and the compartment is divided into one compartment area that is not connected with each other by the bulkhead board, so that if one compartment is injured and leaks, it will not affect the other compartments, which greatly improves the safety of the whole ship. But I came up with a crazy solution, which was to design a specially designed diversion tank that could open the gate to put the seawater into the bottom tank, and then direct the seawater to the correct tank area as needed through the gates that controlled the other tanks.

Fourth, we also need to overhaul the artillery, which I call the "all-heavy artillery" concept, using 10 305-inch guns of a unified model with consistent ballistic performance. The five twin main turrets are arranged on the center line of the hull, and in addition to being controlled by the gunner, the unified fire system can also be used in the bridge for macro control. This design has a special advantage: because the ballistic performance is exactly the same, once any one of the main guns successfully attacks and obtains the correct attack data, the other guns can immediately follow suit, and can inflict very terrifying damage on the enemy in a short time. After saying this tirade, White looked at Churchill triumphantly.

"Mr. White, your design is wonderful, technology needs imagination to promote, but I hope this design can't just be theoretical." One of the officers who accompanied him raised his concerns.

"The Dreadnought-class battleship I designed is unique in the world, and I can guarantee that in front of it, no warship will survive for more than ten minutes." White's tone was aggressive, and his blue eyes flashed with a crazy light. Perhaps unbeknownst to White, his astonishing design provided the blueprint for a later super-maritime weapon, the aircraft carrier.