Except for a few fast cruisers in the Empire, which were incorporated into the First Fleet, the other conventional cruisers were actually not incorporated into the main fleet, but into the Second Fleet of the second-tier forces or the task forces, and did not form a formal sub-fleet of the same type, some were used as the flagship of the escort fleet, and some were simply formed separately and directly under the command of the fleet.

Because these conventional cruisers are generally two cruisers at a time, and then carry out tasks with several small ironclad ships and the like, this kind of mixed formation is the organizational mode of daily tasks.

However, the empire does not have many conventional cruisers, the empire is different from the traditional European maritime powers, the empire does not have large-scale overseas colonies, the main area of activity of the imperial navy is in the western Pacific, there are no colonies in the Indian Ocean and the depths of the Pacific Ocean, so there is no need for too many conventional, low-firepower cruisers.

The Imperial Navy is still carrying out a defensive strategy, with the core objective of defending against the British East Indies Fleet, and the sea area where large-scale engagement is scheduled is in the coastal area, mainly in the South China Sea.

Therefore, the Imperial Navy pursued warships that could be used to participate in decisive battles, including battleships, armored cruisers, fast cruisers, etc.

Some offshore tasks are undertaken by small offshore ironclad ships, which are represented by Zhenguang-class small ironclad ships.

As a result, there were two extremes in the construction of ships in the Imperial Navy, one was mainly concentrated in small coastal warships of less than 1,000 tons, and the other was concentrated in large warships of more than 7,000 tons.

And among the cruisers, apart from a small number of fast cruisers, there were not many regular cruisers. For so many years, the Imperial Navy also built three Cullen-class cruisers.

In addition, a dome-armored cruiser was developed in 1869. Known as the Guilin-class cruiser, it features an innovative dome design. and the use of coal to improve the defense capability, the tonnage is slightly more than the Cullen class, reaching 3,400 tons, two ships are currently being built, and they are sent to the Hawaiian task force and the Japanese task force, each of which is used as a flagship.

The Dome Cruiser, which is relatively cheap and at the same time barely passable in terms of protection, is positioned as the flagship of the overseas fleet in the Imperial Navy.

However, this dome design has already aroused the idea of the Imperial Navy's top brass, and it will be used on other medium-sized ships in the future.

After Shen Tongdeng reported to Lin Zhe on the current naval situation. He took out a report again, which, like most of the Navy's documents, was stamped with large top secret letters.

"This is the latest design plan for the third-generation battleship submitted by the Ministry of Shipbuilding!" Shen Tongdeng said.

"Oh, there's a new design again!" Lin Zhe didn't care, since the design plan of the Shundi-class battleship was determined in 1869, the Navy Ship Administration Department had already begun to discuss and design a new generation of battleships even before the Shundi started.

From 1869 to the present, in the past three years, the Ministry of Naval Affairs has submitted at least seven or eight design proposals, but Lin Zhe is very disappointed.

Perhaps it is the bottleneck of contemporary warship design. The design plans submitted successively are all similar, and there is no essential difference between them and the Shundi.

At most, it is a modification of some details, but it is still very far from Lin Zhe's requirements.

If there is not much change, why do you need the Ministry of Naval Affairs to make a new design? Just continue to build more Shundi Ships.

Flipping through the report, Lin Zhe found something different, and then he was quickly stunned!

First of all, the design of the ship is very different from that of the Shundi class. The ship was not the diamond-shaped layout commonly used by the two levels of battleships in front of the Empire, and the number of main guns was not four twins. A total of eight guns.

Instead, it adopts a two-seat double-seater, front and rear center axis layout.

This layout is similar to that of many contemporary ironclads. At the same time, it is also the layout of the dreadnought ironclad in later generations.

The artillery used was not the 250 mm rear-loading gun used by the Imperial Navy, but was prepared to use a 320 mm rear-loading gun, and Lin Zhe noticed that the 320 mm rear-loading gun that was expected to be used had a barrel length of 25 times.

When did the Empire's industrial strength become strong enough to make a breech-loading gun with a caliber of 320 mm and a barrel 25 times as long?

The turret is also a closed turret that has always been used, and the armor is expected to be advanced armor, at least the people of the Ministry of Advanced Armored Ships do not know, anyway, it is required to improve the performance by more than 30% compared with the existing steel surface iron armor.

And the power system is preparing to use a more advanced three-cylinder reciprocating steam engine, which is commonly known as a three-expansion steam engine, what is this? When did the empire have a three-expansion steam engine, didn't Linde Machinery Company say that it was still under development?

Lin Zhe is very clear that although the empire began to research the three-expansion steam engine as early as the sixties, the progress has been relatively slow, but now there is no mature and reliable ship-based three-expansion steam engine in the previous world, even if you want to buy technology from other countries, you can't buy it.

In the end, the ship was designed with a displacement of 11,000 tons, equipped with four rear-loading naval guns of 320 mm and 25 times the caliber, then four 200 mm naval guns, and a dozen 150 mm naval guns.

It adopts a three-expansion steam engine, equipped with 12 boilers, with an output power of 8,500 horsepower and a design speed of 15 knots.

And what is even more interesting is that this ship is not yet a low freeboard design, but a conventional freeboard design like an armored cruiser.

Looking at this strange design scheme, Lin Zhe couldn't help but ask: "Can we build this boat?" ”

The ship looked like a powerful man, but neither the 320 mm guns nor the triple expansion steam engine were found in the Empire.

And in the case of a large number of guns, it is not even a low freeboard design, so you are not afraid of the center of gravity being too high and then capsizing?

In Lin Zhe's opinion, no matter how you look at this ship, its design is too advanced!

Three years beyond the current level of design, that is to look to the future, hard work can still achieve the technical indicators.

But more than 10 years beyond the state of the art. That's!

Hearing Lin Zhe ask this, Shen Tongdeng also showed a hint of embarrassment. This design plan was not proposed by him, but by a group of people from the Ship Administration Department. Those designers are all very brainy, and the previous design was criticized for not being new, so they simply made an advanced design.

In fact, he himself thought that with the industrial heritage of the empire, it would be impossible to build such a warship for the time being, and even if it could be built, the cost would be high.

For example, with a 320-millimeter naval gun, Shen Tongdeng knows very well that the main naval artillery contractor of the empire is the Shanghai Arsenal. The artillery they are currently able to produce is still a 250-millimeter 25-caliber rear-loading gun, and the artillery they are currently developing is mainly a 250-millimeter 32-fold gun and a 280-millimeter gun.

They now have no plans to develop even a 300-mm gun, let alone a 320-mm one.

The same is true for steam engines, although Linde Machinery already has a so-called model, but it is still far from practicality.

In other words, the design of this battleship is based on unreliable technology or technology that has not yet been mastered.

So it's no wonder Lin Zhe was surprised.

Shen Tongdeng said: "This is a bit difficult. When we held a meeting with the Admiralty before, our opinion was to develop this warship. ”

Hearing Shen Tongdeng say this, he knew that the navy was still more pragmatic, at least he didn't say that he would start construction of this kind of warship immediately. If this kind of warship is the goal, it is not impossible to build it in a few years if the technical reserve is carried out now.

After all, technology advances slowly. Now the naval guns of three hundred and twenty mm twenty-five times the caliber make the imperial industry powerless, well. Its realization is on a global scale, and no country can build a warship of the same class.

Although many countries have started to use twelve inches. Even fourteen-inch and sixteen-inch naval guns, but the power of naval guns cannot only be judged by the caliber, but also by the length of the barrel.

At present, no company, including Britain, has the technology of naval guns with a caliber of 12 inches and 25 times.

The British tossed the Indomitable, which was not commissioned until 1879, and the sixteen-inch naval guns on the top were more than ten times the front-loading guns.

Historically, the 12-inch 25-caliber rear-loading naval gun was not developed until the end of the 70s, and the main gun of the Dingyuan-class ironclad ship known to the Chinese people was developed by the German Krupp Company in 1880 at this level.

It's only 1872, and there is no such technology in the world.

Lin Zhe put down the design book in his hand, this design book only let Lin Zhe understand the future development direction of the navy, but it did not mean that it was going to be built immediately.

"So what do your navies have in mind about the new battleship?" Lin Zhe didn't think that the navy could bear to continue to use the current Shundi-class design.

Sure enough, Shen Tongdeng said: "Now the upgrading of the 250 mm guns at the Shanghai Arsenal has been greatly improved, and in the last two years, their 30 times the 250 mm guns will be finalized. ”

Lin Zhe nodded: "The construction of the new warship cannot be delayed, you have to pay more attention!" ”

According to the established development strategy of the Imperial Navy, and also according to the number of large docks in the country, it is basically determined that the Empire can start construction of more than one warship of more than 10,000 tons every year, and if there are more, it cannot be built, and if there are less, the Navy does not know when it will be able to put together a large-scale battlefleet.

Therefore, the construction of one ship every year has been a policy that the Navy has not been able to shake in recent years.

Now, judging from the large docks of the Empire, by the summer of this year, the 20,000-ton dock in Canton will be freed up, and the construction of this dock will take longer than expected, and the main construction will not be completed until 1871, and then the Guangzhou shipyard will test the experience of building large warships.

It was also used in this dock to build an 8,000-ton cruise ship, which was ordered by the Nanyang Shipping Company and was the largest luxury cruise ship ordered by the imperial private shipping industry in recent years.

The ship has not yet completed the interior decoration, and the tickets have already been sold out.

This summer, the 20,000-ton dock in Guangzhou will be able to officially undertake the construction of large warships of the Imperial Navy, and this largest dock in the imperial shipbuilding industry will naturally not be used to build small ships of several thousand tons, and its tonnage can only be matched by those battleships.

Therefore, the navy must also complete the design of the new battleship as soon as possible to ensure that the sixth battleship of the imperial navy will start construction on time.

At this rate of construction, if the battleship served in the first-line fleet for ten years, the second-line fleet served for ten years, and the main service career was twenty years.

Then the Imperial Navy can maintain a fleet size of ten main ships, ten second-tier fleets, and a total of twenty battleships.

Of course, a 20-year service period is not realistic for this era, and the main warships of this year will only have a first-line life of five or six years at most after they are in service, and they will be reduced to second-rate after five or six years, and warships of more than ten years will be delivered to the battlefield as food delivery.

As for twenty years, I'm sorry, the level of industrial technology in these years is very limited, and in twenty years, it will have to fall apart first, so after twenty years, if the ship is still not in tatters, either you spend a lot of money on mid-term refits, or you park the ship in the harbor and just see that it is not needed.

The most optimistic estimate is that a warship will have a life of about 15 years, the first seven or eight years is the best service period, and once eight years have passed, it will be a second-line force.

Therefore, according to the fifteen-year service period, if the empire replenishes one a year, it can maintain a fleet of fifteen battleships all year round.

Such a fleet is enough to safeguard the interests of the empire in the western Pacific region. (To be continued.) )