A few hours later, Tang Haoran, who was in the shipyard, silently looked at the ironclad ship in front of him, his expression was extremely solemn, on the slipway in front of him, a huge warship was under construction, this is the successor ship of the "Zhenhai class" -- "Jinghai", compared with the "Zhenhai", its armor is stronger, the firepower is also more powerful, and of course the cost is more expensive. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

However, this is not the most important thing, the most important thing is that the "Jinghai" has learned from the experience of the "Zhenhai", its performance is more advanced, and its technology is more mature.

According to the design, its standing tonnage is 16,400, and the full tonnage is 17,200 tons, and the "Zhenhai" is different in that it uses two latest steam turbines, compared with the British three-expansion steam engine, its weight is lighter, and the power is more powerful, its power is an astonishing 25,600 horsepower, and the speed is expected to be not inferior to the "Zhenhai". ”

Looking at the marshal in front of him, Shi Si's expression looked a little proud, if the "Zhenhai" is his pride, then the "Jinghai" under construction in front of him will undoubtedly be the pinnacle of his life, which completely absorbs the various shortcomings of the "Zhenhai", in comparison, it is more powerful, and even in its opinion, it has reached the point of "no one surpasses".

"Steam Turbine ......"

Saying this word, the corners of Tang Haoran's lips raised slightly, after six years of hard work, Beiyang Power finally solved the problem of steam turbine reliability, and successfully applied it to warships, six years, failure and fall again and again, and finally achieved today's success, and now, at least in power. For the first time, the Chinese Navy left the great powers far behind. When the world's navies were still equipped with three-expansion steam engines. However, the Northeast Navy has decided to replace the reciprocating steam engine with a more advanced steam turbine.

Of course, in addition to the persistent persistence in the past six years, the more important thing is that in the past three years, the Navy has proved the reliability of the steam turbine and its development potential through the test of test ships. However, Tang Haoran noticed that Shi Si did not mention another change - the "Jinghai" no longer uses coal-fired boilers, but oil-fired boilers, in the past year. After full testing, high-calorific value and cheap heavy oil are replacing anthracite coal, not only the new warships use new oil-fired boilers, but even the boilers of "old ships" such as the "Zhenhai" are also included in the renovation agenda.

This change has made the Northeast Naval Fleet more flexible than the enemy fleet using coal-fired boiler steam engines in future wars, and at the same time simplified the logistics support link and greatly increased the frequency of naval sorties. Of course, all of this will take time to verify.

“…… The front and rear are equipped with one Shenyang Arsenal redesigned 305 mm 50 caliber twin guns, which has more firepower than the previous generation of warships. The turret can be rotated 150 degrees from side to side, and the barrel can be moved up and down between an elevation angle of 45 degrees and a depression angle of 5 degrees. The 471-kilogram shell fires at an interval of 1 in 50 seconds. ”

1 round in 50 seconds, which is its sustained rate of fire. Although when the British company Armstrong designed the turret of the "Zhenhai Ship", other claims that its turret could reach 30 seconds per shot, but when it was actually used, the navy found that it was only the so-called "best test state", and the actual sustained rate of fire was only 1.5 rounds per shot, but even so, it still exceeded the similar naval guns of the same period.

Unlike the Zhenhai's turret, the Jinghai's turret was designed by the Shenyang Arsenal, and its internal structure was more complex and scientific, and the artillery was further improved, so that it achieved a continuous rate of fire of one round a minute.

The secondary guns were four 254 mm 50 x caliber single-mount guns. The turret can rotate 160 degrees from side to side, the barrel can move up and down between an elevation angle of 30 degrees and a depression angle of 5 degrees, and a 235-kilogram shell can fire at an interval of 3 rounds in 2 minutes with a range of 24,600 meters......"

In the original model of the "Ship of the Sea", it was designed with four twin 203 mm secondary turrets, but in the dispute between the "Ten Inch" and the "Eight Inch" in the naval conference, the final Ten Inch naval gun defeated the less powerful Eight Inch naval gun by virtue of the power of its second stage gun, and became the main gun of the Navy's armored cruisers.

Naturally, this change also affected the "ship through the sea", because the eight-inch naval gun was out of service, and the secondary gun of the "ship through the sea" also needed to be reconstructed. Because of the weight, size and other relations, so that the "Jinghai" that had already started construction at that time could only be changed to a single ten-inch turret, eliminating the twin eight-inch turrets, but the price is worth it, after the upgraded firepower of the "Jinghai ship" single ship firepower is equivalent to a first-class combat ship and a second-class combat ship, which is the reason why the Navy chose ten inches.

Even as far as Shi Si knows, in view of the jump in firepower of the "Jinghai" after using the 10-inch secondary gun, those young people in the Ship Administration Office even imagined a combat ship with unified firepower, which no longer uses 10-inch secondary guns, but 12-inch main guns! For now, though, there are still too many technical issues to solve.

“…… The 152-mm 45-caliber single-mounted rapid-fire gun was used against torpedo boats, while the dispersed design was designed to avoid destroying the dense rapid-fire guns with a single hit. The turrets on the upper deck are protected by armor, making them not easily damaged. ”

In Shi Si's explanation, Tang Haoran just nodded silently, he didn't know much about naval warships, if he had to say that he understood, I am afraid that he knew that heavy oil, steam turbines and unified caliber main guns were the development direction of the warship era, as for the rest, well, that is, at the discussion meeting of the "Sea Ship", it was suggested that its mast be replaced with a tower mast to facilitate the installation of observation and sighting equipment.

Although new technologies such as mechanical ballistic computers and high-magnification rangefinders have not yet been invented, and even the combat distance of the navies of various countries is still stuck at a visual distance of only 3,000 meters, for Tang Haoran, he knows what it means for the navy to increase the engagement distance.

In the Battle of Tsushima in another time and space, the Japanese navy was able to win to a large extent because it suddenly increased the engagement distance from 3,000 to 4,000 meters to 6,000 meters, and it was by virtue of this distance advantage that the hit rate of the Russian warships was reduced, and the targeted artillery training before the war kept the Japanese navy above average and laid a solid foundation for it to win the naval battle.

If the Northeast Navy can train its gunners to shoot accurately at 6000~7000 meters, or even 10000 meters away, it will undoubtedly set off a revolution.

However, the improvement of the combat distance of naval warfare is based on technological progress, such as the popularization of telescopic sights that began a few years ago, of course, more importantly, just a few months ago, the British successfully developed a conjugated optical rangefinder, although the optical rangefinder is not as good as the German body image, but the latter is an invention at the turn of the world, and the former is undoubtedly a cross-era existence in this era, of course, now the conjunctive optical rangefinder is still insufficient, but at least opened a door - the door to increase the distance of engagement. As for the tall mast, it is not only a preparation for the arrival of this era, but once the test of the optical rangefinder is completed, the Northeast Navy will become the first navy in the world to apply this technology.

When will the five "Jinghai-class" ships be completed at the earliest? ”

Looking at Shi Si, Tang Haoran put forward a thing he was most concerned about, it was already September 1897, and the Siberian Railway would be opened to traffic in fifty months at the earliest, so to speak, before the railway was built, every day of the war would only be more beneficial to the Northeast, and every day of delay would be more beneficial to the Russians.

If there was no "compromise" from Werther, Tang Haoran might not feel so urgent, but now, Werther's temporary compromise made Tang Haoran realize that this matter is by no means so simple, and now Northeast Africa should not relax its vigilance, but should even strengthen its combat preparedness for the future war that will determine the fate of the two countries.

And what is the core of preparing for war against Russia?

It's a warship!

It is a fleet that is enough to challenge the Russians, a large fleet with six combat ships and eight armored cruisers equivalent to second-class combat ships as the core, and this fleet of fourteen warships, except for two 10,000-ton armored cruisers ordered from the United Kingdom, the other twelve warships are completely built by China itself, but so far only two Zhenhai-class ships are in service, as for the other twelve main warships, they will be put into service in the next three years.

"The first ship, the Jinghai, is now 40% complete, and if everything goes well, it will be completed by this era next year, and the latest of the other three sister ships, the "Pinghai", has already started construction at the Incheon shipyard four months ago, and now whether it is Dalian or Incheon, almost every slipway is building warships, Your Excellency, Your ......Excellency."

Looking at the marshal beside him, when mentioning the warship under construction, Shi Si couldn't help but think of the word "dumplings", isn't that the word? In the next three years, hundreds of warships will be launched, and the construction of such a huge fleet in such a short period of time is unprecedented in the world.

"In three years' time, you will have one of the most powerful fleets in Asia, enough to shock the whole world, and even the Royal Navy will not be able to take its existence lightly!"

Shi Si, who realized that he was also one of the founders of this fleet, was "the most powerful", and his chest was slightly straightened, and his expression was full of pride from the bottom of his heart, because the core of this fleet was designed and built by him.

"Three years ......"

Slowly speaking out this time, Tang Haoran's brows locked slightly, staring at the giant ship in the dock, his mind couldn't help but sink, and he muttered on his lips.

"Russians, will they give themselves so much time?" (To be continued.) )