Lin Zhe has never had much contact with design work in his two lives, and he is very good at it if you let him intrigue with others, play conspiracy, and then formulate strategic development plans and the like, but it will be a little difficult for him to let him look at this thick stack of design drawings.

So he put down the detailed design drawings in his hand and looked directly at the design sketches and text descriptions of the three warships.

This time, the navy presented three warship design schemes, each with its own differences, which is not only reflected in the performance data of the warships, but also in the naval tactics and even the direction of the navy's development.

The No. 1 case is a very orthodox ocean-going decisive battleship, and it is also the most important scheme for the navy, the basic design reference or copy of the British Warrior, using teak-wrapped wrought iron side armor, sail-steam hybrid, equipped with four 150 mm main guns, six 120 mm secondary guns, four of which are equipped with rotating gun emplacements, and a ring of armor on the outer layer of the battery, the maximum speed can reach 15 knots, and the design displacement of the ship has reached 2,100 tons.

This is a very standard ocean-going ironclad ship that conforms to the industrial technology base and naval tactics of the mid-nineteenth century.

Its main mission is to fight a decisive battle with enemy ships at sea and destroy the enemy fleet at sea!

From the design of this battleship, it can basically be seen that the top brass of the Imperial Navy is still trying their best to destroy the enemy's fleet at sea, and even use the initiative to attack to protect the sea frontier.

But this battleship is not without problems, this battleship seems to be relatively mediocre in all aspects, and there are no design concepts that are too prominent. But for a country's technical capabilities, it is necessary to create a design that is modest. And it can be built well, which is far more difficult than some innovative and wonderful warships.

Shanghai shipyard in the face of the Navy's tender consultation. It has been made clear that even if the Navy can provide a large amount of funds for technological upgrades, the Shanghai Shipyard cannot guarantee that the construction of the ship will be completed within three years, and even if it is built, then the Shanghai Shipyard does not guarantee the stability of its quality.

After all, China's current industrial base is too weak, and Britain can build more than 9,000 tons of ironclad ships in this era, which does not mean that China can too, and this gap in industrial base is not something that Lin Zhe can change with his arrival.

Therefore, the ironclad ship of the No. 1 program is facing great technical risks. At best, it will take three years to build and put into service, and if it is more serious, I am afraid that it will be extended to five years or even longer, and it may even be inexplicably sunk when it comes out of the sea.

Compared with the mediocre but great technical requirements of the No. 1 plan, the No. 2 ironclad ship plan has much lower technical requirements.

First of all, the side armor of the second scheme is not a mixed armor of wood and iron, that is, from the inside to the outside, iron plates, teak, wrought iron are successively laid, and then riveted with screws and nuts.

The broadside armor scheme used in the second scheme is to nail a layer of wrought iron armor directly to the teak outside, which is the armor mode of ironclad ships in the early forties and fifties, which is also the side armor mode of the Glory, which was launched and commissioned by the French not long ago. The technology is simple, the main cost is cheap, but the protection ability is naturally much worse.

In addition, the power has been reduced, and it is designed for a maximum speed of only twelve knots. The firepower configuration is the same as the No. 1 scheme.

This No. 2 solution is actually a scaled-down version of the technology and even the cost of the No. 1 plan.

The best is the No. 3 plan, which is more special, and it is a newly improved design of the coastal warship that has been carried out by the Navy before. The scheme completely abandoned the sails and used only the steam engine as the power. Its top speed is only eight knots.

Its armor scheme is the same as that of the No. 1 scheme, and the firepower configuration is basically the same. It is expected to be equipped with four larger-caliber guns, or six 150 mm guns and six 12 mm secondary guns. In addition, the maximum range is also small, because it is pure steam power, but the space and buoyancy of the hull are occupied by armor and artillery, so the coal on board is only, its maximum range is only a short 1,000 kilometers, and the design displacement of the ship is slightly smaller, only 1,800 tons.

This No. 3 plan is a very typical coastal defense warship, and the navy's use of this ship is also very clear, that is, it is deployed in naval ports such as Guangzhou and Shanghai, and once a war breaks out with the enemy, then the ship will be dispatched to fight a decisive battle with the main force of the enemy fleet in the coastal waters near the port, such as Hong Kong and the Taiwan Strait.

For the navy, these three plans are wanted, but the navy's military spending is limited after all, and the domestic industrial base is also relatively limited, so it is difficult to invest in the direct development and construction of three different ironclad ships in the early stage, so there is a trade-off.

There is no trade-off within the navy, so it is best to send all three plans to Lin Zhe's desk!

However, Lin Zhe is also a little hesitant, from the bottom of his heart, he naturally hopes to build an ironclad ship like the No. 1 plan, after all, this kind of ocean-going decisive battleship is the core force of a navy, and it is the best choice to control coastal defense, but the No. 1 plan is not only expensive, but also has great technical risks, and it may not be seen in three or five years It will not be completed and put into service.

As the ruler of this empire, can he not take into account the technical risks of the No. 1 battleship, in case tens of millions of them are smashed down and finally get only a pile of scrap iron, and it is scrap iron that can only be seen after three or five years, this is a loss that the imperial navy can hardly bear, if it is really unlucky, when war breaks out with Britain and France, in the face of these foreigners' ironclad fleet, what will the imperial navy use to resist at that time?

However, it is also inappropriate to engage in the No. 2 plan, a warship whose technology is already outdated, although the No. 2 plan is simpler in technology and lower in cost, but it is not cheap.

In the case of the No. 3 plan, compared with the No. 1 plan, it sacrifices speed in exchange for protection and firepower, and in addition, the most restrictive technical requirements for ironclad ships in these years are not artillery or armor, but power.

For example, if you want to let the battleship run fifteen knots, there is a big difference in technical requirements between letting the battleship run only ten knots. The same hull to make the battleship run faster. It is necessary to have a steam engine with more horsepower, if you only have a steam engine with less horsepower on hand. It is possible to assemble multiple steam engines to achieve greater speeds, but this is quite technically demanding for the transmission system.

In addition, whether it is a mode with fewer steam engines, a single high-power model or multiple steam engines, and a single steam engine with low power, their total weight will not be light, and these huge weights are quite a test for the hull, so to make the battleship run fast, you need not only enough horsepower, but also a strong hull.

That's why the technical risks of Option 1 are so great. The navy wants to install so many guns on this battleship, but also wants to be equipped with wrought iron armor plates, and also wants the battleship to run fifteen knots, which not only has great technical requirements for armor and power systems, but also has great technical requirements for shipyards when manufacturing hulls.

Relatively speaking, the second and third solutions do not have too high technical requirements due to their low performance requirements.

After thinking about it for two days, Lin Zhe called Lin Chengjia, the chief of the Admiralty, over, and said, "Since you want to catch up with the enemy's pace." Then we can't always follow the enemy's path, and the enemy has already pointed us in the direction of the latest path, so at this time there is no need for us to follow their old path more than ten years ago! ”

This sentence basically concludes Lin Zhe's support for Plan No. 1.

Although the technical risks of the No. 1 plan are very large, in order to shorten the power gap with the naval powers such as Britain and France. It was impossible for Lin Zhe to watch the navy follow the butt of the British and French navy step by step, and sometimes jump over when he should jump.

However, although Lin Zhe supports Plan No. 1, he is still a very realistic person in his bones. He knew that the stragglers would be the standard trend of the army's establishment in later generations, but he still did not insist that the army should comprehensively reform the establishment at the first time. Just two new divisions were created for experiments.

This time, although Lin Zhe supported the No. 1 plan, the project failed in order to avoid the technical risks of the No. 1 plan. or greatly extend the time, so Lin Zhe also said to Lin Chengjia: "The other kind of offshore warship is not bad, you continue to follow up and strive to build one for service as soon as possible!" ”

Lin Chengjia listened to Lin Zhe's words quietly, he had been under Lin Zhe for many years, and he naturally understood Lin Zhe's words very thoroughly, His Majesty's meaning was very obvious, that is, to study and develop the ocean-going decisive battle navy represented by the No. 1 plan, and in this process, in order to ensure the security of the imperial coastal defense, a warship was needed in a short period of time to defend the sea frontier, and at this time, the offshore warship with low technical requirements and good firepower and protection performance became the best choice.

After receiving Lin Zhe's reply, the navy quickly began its work, perfected the No. 1 and No. 3 plans in the shortest possible time, and directly placed an order for the No. 3 plan to the Shanghai Shipyard.

The reason why the No. 3 plan was ordered first, but the No. 1 plan, was because the No. 1 plan was too high, and the steam engine of Linde Machinery Company could not meet the requirements, and it was still developing and imitating work, and even if the order was placed now, it could not be started.

In addition, the first and third schemes have great similarities, the armor scheme of both is the same, both use a mixed pattern of teak and wrought iron, and the deployment mode of the artillery is also the same, and the main gun is the use of open-air rotating turrets.

The difference between the two is mainly in the speed, and the other aspects are that the hull of the No. 1 scheme is more slender, very fast, the draft is very deep, and the side is higher, and it is equipped with a sail system, which has excellent wind and wave resistance and endurance. In the case of the No. 3 plan, it is pure steam power without sails, low speed, shallow draft, low broadside, poor wind and wave resistance, and the endurance is also very limited.

The navy clearly wanted to test the teak wrought iron hybrid armor and open-air rotating turrets on the No. 3 plan, as well as the technology of the iron hull.

After the construction of the No. 1 ship of the No. 3 program officially started on March 17, 1861, the Admiralty gave this battleship a special name, not the previous model of using the name of the place as the name of the ship, but directly using the mythical character 'female snail' to name, with this name is a great meaning, that is, it is hoped that the construction and service of the ship can create a new era of steel warships for China.

At the same time as the keel was officially laid for construction, the Navy's internal research and development work on the No. 1 scheme did not stop, and the Navy's internal naval department continued to improve the detailed design of the scheme, and at the same time wanted Linde Machinery to bid for a more powerful steam engine.

The Navy has also cooperated with the Royal Academy of Sciences to fund the establishment of a number of joint laboratories for the research and development of some new technologies that are vital to the Navy.

Among them, the steam engine and steel are the key funding directions of the navy, because these two involve the three major technical cores that limit the development of the navy, that is, power, armor, and artillery.

The steam engine represents power, while steel, to be precise, represents armor and artillery.

And power, armor, and artillery are the core elements of the steel battleship!

The start of construction of the Snail means that the Imperial Navy has shifted most of its energy to the Iron Age, but this does not mean that the Navy has completely stopped building wooden warships.

Not only did it not stop, but on the contrary, after the construction of the Female Snail began, the Navy also ordered another ocean-going warship with wooden armor and sails and steam hybrid.

Why?

Because the Female Snail is only a defensive warship in the near sea, it is impossible to go out to the ocean, and the ocean-going ironclad ship is the No. 1 plan, but now the No. 1 plan has not even set the exact construction time.

And the Imperial Navy could not stop for several years to wait for the technology to mature before ordering ocean-going warships, so the Imperial Navy still ordered one, although it knew that wooden warships were still outdated.

In addition, the Imperial Empire has further increased the construction of major naval bases and coastal defense batteries, and has shown a determination to build Wusong Fort into the first fort in Asia, proposing to replace all the guns of Wusong Fort with new rear-loading guns, and at the same time develop and equip larger calibers, such as 180 mm or even 210 coastal defense guns.

Just when the Imperial Chinese Navy was full of ambitions to develop the navy, Lin Zhe also looked at the telegram delivered by the diplomats stationed in the United States to return to China.

The content of the telegram in his hand was not just a few words like the non-governmental telegram, but a telegram of more than 100 words, which was able to make diplomats stationed in the United States spend a huge amount of money to send a transoceanic telegram of more than 100 words, and the only thing that could be caused by the civil war in the United States.

The cable said that a few days earlier, on April 12, the United States Confederate sent troops to raid Sumter Fortress, and war officially broke out between the North and the South of the United States. (To be continued.) )