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As the head of the empire, Lin Haijiang has realized that the Chinese Empire at this moment is taking the same path as the militarism of the year, and it has become strong to the point of madness through the continuous fighting of the army, and finally goes to destruction, although many times Lin Haijiang will also be grateful for his victories and honors, but he has been trying his best to remind himself that he must be careful not to let himself become fanatical, because in terms of the current situation of the Chinese Empire, fanaticism is tantamount to taking drugs. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

After the corrupt rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the blood and ambition of the Chinese and Han people were still wiped out, and foreign humiliation was already commonplace for the Chinese people, so Lin Haijiang's first thing was to boost the morale and spirit of the Chinese people!

Just when Lin Haijiang was preparing to go to Nanjing to inspect and organize the post-war construction work, the Imperial Shipbuilding Administration submitted to the Admiralty and the Supreme Command a standard design drawing of the Imperial-class battleship and the Reich-class battleship that was revised according to Lin Haijiang's previous proposals, the latest Imperial-class battleship has a standard displacement of 24,500 tons, a length of 189 meters, a width of 28 meters, a draft of 6.5 meters, and the main engine is eight twin-shaft steam turbines driven by 35 high-energy boilers, and the designed maximum speed is 22 knots. Endurance 15 knots standard cruising speed of 3,000 nautical miles, planned to be equipped with 9 308 mm main guns.

Lin Haijiang knew very well that according to this plan, the new ship would have to use triple main guns, and the three triple main guns of the new ship would be centrally arranged on the foredeck like the twin main guns of the Zhenyuan-class battleship.

The advantage is that it is convenient to concentrate fire in battle, but the disadvantage is that once a single turret is hit, it is very likely to damage the other two turrets, resulting in the loss of overall combat effectiveness! In this regard, after careful consideration, the Imperial Admiralty rejected the other three main gun layouts before and after, and finally adopted the design of two triple turrets on the front deck and one triple turret on the rear deck.

However, Lin Haijiang expressed doubts about whether the Imperial General Factory would be able to build a triple main gun, because the Empire-class battleship was a battleship that would be ready to be launched in two years, and its purpose was to fight against the quasi-Zhenyuan-class manufactured by the British because of the leaked drawings, because Lin Haijiang knew that with the industrial strength of the British, they would be able to build a larger-tonnage warship after referring to the design of the Zhenyuan-class, which was very unfavorable to the navy of the Chinese Empire.

The next day, Lin Haijiang did not go to the Guangzhou shipyard and the general military factory to inspect, but went directly to Hainan to inspect Haigang, high-quality steel plates are the foundation of building warships and manufacturing weapons, for this reason the empire deliberately purchased 15,000 tons of the latest hydraulic press and three 70-ton acid open-hearth furnaces from Germany, thus ensuring the manufacture of large forging parts, including 411 mm thick new steel plates.

In Haigang Lin Haijiang held a technical research meeting, only six of the more than 40 expert engineers who participated in the meeting were Chinese, and the rest were basically all Germans, and Haigang is now repeating the entire process before the Germans, the overall production process is a few years behind the Germans, after all, it is a full set of imported technology and equipment, for this Lin Haijiang is also very helpless, originally wanted to talk about independent research and innovation Lin Haijiang was very disappointed, but he also knew that a large amount of money can buy weapons and equipment, You can buy technology, but you can never buy back talents, and talents can only rely on discovery and training.

Battleships need a large number of high-quality special steel plates, especially armor steel and turret armor, the previous empire's armor steel is inferior to the empire in terms of material and processing technology, therefore, Lin Haijiang decided that in the construction process of the new ship, we must strive to develop a new type of armor steel, so the development of new armor steel has become a very urgent problem.

Before the existing battleship side armor steel of the Imperial Maritime Frontier warships, the carburizing surface hardening nickel-chromium alloy steel was mainly used, that is, the so-called VC steel, which is commonly known as Vickers carburizing steel, this steel has two disadvantages, one is that the surface hardening process makes the steel lose its toughness and become brittle, and it is easy to be broken by the opponent's armor-piercing projectile, on the other hand, it takes at least a week or so for the carburizing treatment of the armor steel, plus the calcination time, it takes more than a month to manufacture a piece of armor steel. For the two Imperial-class battleships that required 6,500 tons of broadside armor steel, such a speed was unacceptable, which meant that after the battleships were built, they would have to wait for a year, and the armor might not be able to be fully manufactured.

Therefore, Lin Haijiang can only choose to import a large number of supporting facilities from Germany for Haigang to provide the output of steel and ordnance steel, for technical personnel Lin Haijiang can only continue to send students to study in Germany, this money must be out of the root of his teeth, after all, this will be related to the future of the empire, and his fate cannot always be in the hands of others! Now the empire's industry has become the most painful place in Lin Haijiang's heart, he can't afford it, so he can only spend a lot of money to buy it from the outside, if others refuse to sell it? Lin Haijiang, who has been pondering how to stimulate domestic demand all day long, has put the improvement of the industrial system and the development of the iron and steel industry as a priority.

After returning from Hainan, Lin Haijiang hurried to the Imperial General Factory in Guangzhou, the first director Xia Xuewen accompanied Lin Haijiang throughout the inspection, the current Imperial General Factory is no longer the small factory that can only produce 75 mm field guns and 100 mm Krupp naval guns, under the deliberate management of Lin Haijiang, through the sale of ordnance to Germany and the United States, the Imperial General Factory has more than 20,000 employees at the moment, and the independently designed 380 mm 35 times the caliber of naval guns in the cutting force, Accuracy, range and other aspects are not inferior to the German Krupp products, due to low labor, the production cost is a little lower than Krupp.

As the main gun production plant of the future Imperial-class battleships, the Imperial General Factory also encountered a roadblock, this major problem is how to ensure that the main gun body has sufficient strength under high bore pressure conditions, in the past, the Imperial General Factory tested its own imitation of the 380 mm Krupp naval gun, which was scrapped in the test firing due to insufficient strength.

Xia Xuewen introduced to Lin Haijiang: "The naval artillery department of the Imperial General Factory combined with the opinions of German experts, tried to adopt a new artillery self-tightening technology, in the past, the main gun body of the battleship was manufactured using the sleeve method, two or more tubes were sleeved together, after heating and cold treatment, the tubes were compressed together, and the self-tightening process is to use a steel pipe with an inner diameter smaller than the required caliber to expand its inner chamber under high pressure, so that the made body tube can eliminate small cracks on the inner surface of the barrel through the internal pressure of its own metal. In order to enhance the strength of the gun body, the gun body made by this method was successful in test firing, and the body life was about 100 rounds. ”

For the battleship's main gun is expensive and has a very short service life, Lin Haijiang is also very helpless, the battleship at the beginning of the design, is to pursue the intensive surname of the projection fire of the main gun, so in the ancient sail era, a lot of breech fire was densely arranged on the side of the ship, at that time, the British first-line battleship guns were more than 100, with the emergence of breech guns, blasting shells, rapid-fire guns, armor, steam engines, etc., artillery appeared on the deck of the ship, in order to provide sufficient defense and penetrate the armor of the enemy ship at high speed, turrets in the form of above-deck mounting, appeared, which were adopted by the navies of various countries due to the fact that the turret could provide powerful protection for the gunner. However, with the complexity and heaviness of the artillery structure, the heavy artillery on large battleships became less and less, and the density of firepower could not be guaranteed at this time.

Lin Haijiang himself has a comprehensive and intuitive understanding of the design of the turret, he knows that the earliest designer of the turret is to increase the number of turrets to achieve the density of fire projection, but it is impossible for a single turret to be installed too much in the limited space on the ship, resulting in the dispersion of firepower, naturally there is a combined turret, the Chinese Empire can be said to be the first country in the world to adopt a twin turret, but with the battleship's main gun caliber barrel is getting larger and larger, the volume and weight are also increasing, In history, the twin assembly has developed to the extreme is the British battleship Agincourt, which is equipped with seven twelve-inch main guns, but the ship does not perform well in battle, because the number of turrets is too large to affect the strength of the hull, and at the same time, the huge recoil and weight often have a lot of problems, such as the interior decorations and fragile items on the ship will all be shattered when firing a salvo, and the huge recoil also directly affects the shooting accuracy of the main gun, because under the premise that the structural strength cannot be solved and the hull cannot be extended indefinitely, Too many turrets not only do not increase the density of fire, but also affect the use of the main gun.

Therefore, the Imperial Shipping Agency put forward the design plan of the so-called triple gun, and Lin Haijiang was a little hesitant, because the penetration power of the 260 mm caliber 40 times the main gun that has been tested in actual combat is not less than the 380 mm main gun, and the 380 mm main gun is too heavy, and the overall turret will reach nearly 1,500 tons if it is triadized? This is a very high pressure for the standard displacement of 24,500 tons of the Imperial class.

And because the speed of the artillery turret is affected by the mechanical process, after the artillery rotates in the battle, it generally no longer rotates but aims at a fixed direction, so the number of turrets is not enough to affect the multi-directional firepower and density, too many turrets will make the battleship structure not strong, the armor installation is difficult, the firepower is scattered, and it will also cause the stability of the battleship to be greatly reduced, especially in the form of installing turrets on both sides, which will directly cause the lateral stability of the warship to be damaged, and the broadside armor cannot be thick enough, Therefore, it is only up to the battleship designers to strike a difficult balance between the two.

(To be continued)