Qingying's theory of the obsolescence of protective cruisers once again stirred up monstrous waves in the German Admiralty.

Initially, the reason why the German Navy submitted this budget to the parliament for approval was largely due to the following factors. At present, Britain, France, the United States, and Russia are all starting a large number of small tonnage and low-cost protective cruisers, and the German Navy is not far behind, so it has also thrown out five 6,400-ton construction plans. According to the previous ideas of the designers, the 6400-ton cruiser had a balanced performance, which was enough to deal with all the fast cruisers in service and under construction in France; But since Qingying proposed the obsolescence of the protective cruiser, they realized that this design was a waste of taxpayers' money.

is different from those pure mouth cannons in China, Qingying does not blindly use her lips to deny criticism, but takes out real things. As a substitute for the cancellation of the budget for five protective cruisers, the revolutionary class of armored cruisers of the fleet decisive battle type entered the eyes of the designers of the German Admiralty. The core theory of this kind of battleship is to continue to increase the tonnage on the basis of armored cruisers, and increase firepower and protection to the level of battleships while maintaining the same speed. In this way, such a battleship can serve both as an avant-garde as well as for a decisive battle of the fleet. In terms of specific design details, Qingying also gave corresponding slimming methods for this new battleship: that is, the number of main guns is less than that of battleships, and the main armored defense area is lower than that of battleships. According to Qingying's estimates, the standing displacement of the new type of patrol will never reach a level higher than the 13,200 tons of the newly started battleship!

Tirpitz, who holds the real power of the navy, was pleasantly surprised when he learned of this novel concept. Through the appropriate amplification of tonnage, the new warship realizes the combination of the dual tasks of avant-garde reconnaissance and fleet decisive battle; This was undoubtedly an excellent strategy for the German Navy, which lacked the main battleships, to make up for the lack of battleships! He immediately issued a document canceling the budget for the construction of the five protective cruisers, and ordered the designers to design such armored cruisers that could be used in a decisive battle of the fleet according to Qingying's new concept.

At this time, there was also good news for Tirpitz, that is, the German military industry pillar Krupp company had begun to develop a new type of main gun to be equipped with on the next stage of battleships.

At present, the main armament of the German Navy's battleships is the 283 mm SKL40 gun, which Krupp Military Industry began to develop in 1890. Since this gun was the first attempt by the German Navy in the process of converting the old frame back gun to the new tube back gun, it was the first round of attempts in the 11-inch class; In order to reduce the risk of development, the weight of the shells fired by the cannon was only 240 kg. This weight was not much heavier than the 10-inch shells of the great powers at the same time, and it was an extremely light bullet; Compared with the 386kg weight of the 12-inch cannon that was put on board the British ship in 1895, the power of a single shot is self-evident. Although the muzzle velocity of the gun was the highest among the battleships of the same period, reaching 820m/s, the rate of fire of 2 rounds per minute after adopting the turret structure could also be superior to that of the battleship main guns of the great powers in the same period. However, due to its single-shot power, it has always been criticized by William.

According to the 1895 budget for the construction of new ships, the new battleships would still be equipped with this 40 times the diameter of the 283 mm gun. Seeing this scene, William, who was affected by Qingying's heavy artillery theory, suddenly became a little unbearable. Although he has a soft spot for 11-inch guns, this does not mean that he can gladly accept the 240kg bullet weight; If the charge coefficient of the two was equal, the single shot power of the British battleship's main gun was 60% higher than that of the German, which is really unreasonable. Therefore, Wilhelm issued an edict to Krupp Military Industry to exploit the potential of the existing 11-inch guns and to develop a new main gun for the battleship to start construction next year.

There was no opposition to Wilhelm's order. Because the group of designers also knew that the 40 times the diameter of the 11-inch gun they had developed before was just a makeshift product, and in fact, it was not a success at all. The weight of this cannon is very heavy, a full 45.3 tons, and the bore pressure of the cannon is also high, reaching 3200 atmospheres, but such excellent basic data only achieves 80.7 megajoules of kinetic energy, and the power-to-weight ratio is only a pitiful 1.78 megajoules / ton! What's even more painful is that this ejection kinetic energy must also be achieved under the condition of 240kg flick; If it is replaced with a heavy bullet, even if the propellant remains the same, the cannon is likely to explode, which means that if it is replaced with a normal bullet, it will not even reach the ratio of 1.78! And the general normal battleship artillery, the power-to-weight ratio of 2.4 can only be regarded as basically qualified, 2.7 is considered good, and 3.0 is excellent!

In view of this, Krupp Military Industry quickly drew up the expected data for the new gun. The first thing to do was to increase the weight of the bullet to 300kg, which is the normal weight of an 11-inch gun. In order to maintain a low and straight trajectory after the shell is fired, so as to ensure high accuracy in the current close-range naval combat, the ejection velocity of the shell should also be maintained at a speed of 820m/s. In addition, the potential of the cannon must be fully exploited, and the weight of the new gun must be reduced to less than 42 tons. The whole development process is expected to last three years, and the new gun will be tested in 1899 and delivered to the navy.

Since the new cannon will be 25% more powerful per shot than the existing cannon, the turret structure will still be able to maintain a rate of fire of 2 rounds per minute; Under these circumstances, Tirpitz decided to hold the 54 million marks for the time being, and wait until the ship's designers have come up with a full-fledged design based on the data of the new gun, and then start construction next year. Generally, the construction period of large capital ships is 3 years, and the construction of new ships in 1896 will be completed in 1899, just in time for the entry into service of new guns.

More than two months later, in the Mid-Autumn Festival, a mature design plan was finally placed in front of William's desk.

——————————————————————

The cold wind howled, the dead leaves flew, and although the windows were closed, there was still a painful tremor under the blowing of the wind. In the bright light, William and Qingying sat opposite each other, and in front of them, a page depicting a line drawing and a wooden miniature model.

"Is this the Fleet Decisive Armored Cruiser?" William held out his finger and fiddled with the miniature spinning main turret on the model, then spoke softly.

Qingying nodded slightly and said, "That's it." It has a design displacement of 12,200 tons, a speed of 20 knots, four new 42-diameter 283 mm guns and 10 150 mm secondary guns, and a 3.5-meter-high 250 mm main armor on the waterline. According to my original estimates, the standing displacement of this ship will exceed 13,000 tons, but I didn't expect this group of designers to be so powerful, and it only took more than 12,000 tons to take it down. ”

William flexed his fingers and pointed to the thin piece of armor on the upper part of the side that was obviously different from the waterline, and said suspiciously: "Ettel, is it really okay for you to let these designers deal with it like this?" This 1.6-meter-tall top, with a measly 100 mm armor, can defend against up to 8-inch rapid-fire guns, and is a must-wear if it is visited by enemy battleship shells. ”

"According to the original plan of the designers, the lower edge of the top was aligned with the middle deck; At my insistence, they were able to raise the main equipment by another 0.5 meters, reducing the area of this weak area by about a quarter. The 3.5-meter-high main outfit exposes 2 meters above the water, which is better than the protection area of the battleships of other countries, although its resistance to strikes is weaker than our battleships, but it is definitely not worse than the enemy's battleships, father, you can rest assured. And even if this 100 mm thick light armor was pierced by enemy battleship shells, there was a 65 mm thick horizontal armor behind it, which was enough to ensure that the core compartment was not threatened. After all, the speed of this ship can reach 20 knots, and in order to control the vicious rise in tonnage and cost, it can only make sacrifices to some minor parts. Qingying pointed to the cross-sectional armor diagram on the finger map and explained. In fact, this armored defense mode is the classic dome armor layout commonly used by German capital ships in history; This layout sacrifices space for defense of key points, and it has a much higher defense capability in vertical protection than a barbarian like a tilted armor box. Unless it was empowered by the British 15-inch cannon at a distance of 12,000 meters, this decisive battle patrol could stand tall no matter what kind of firepower it faced during World War I!

Hearing the words tonnage and cost, William smiled slightly and said, "Yes, the factor of cost cannot be ignored at any time. The cost of this design is very well controlled because of the excellent control of tonnage; Whether it's a low-freeboard boat with a long bow or a hull space saved by a water-tube boiler, it's the best way to reduce the weight of the structure without compromising strength. With a set of 18,000 horsepower units, the cost of a single ship was only 20 million marks, which was really unexpected to me. From this point of view, it will be possible to build 3 such ships next year with the cost of adding one more cruiser of the third rank. ”

Speaking of this, William suddenly stretched out his hand and touched Qingying's head, feeling the softness and smoothness coming from his palm, and a strange touch suddenly appeared in his heart. For 2 years, this teenager has already made unimaginable contributions to the development of imperial strategy and the Navy; He'll turn 13 in a few months, so it's time for him to sit on the bench, right?

Strictly speaking, this position should have been his, but William was not very satisfied with Ettel at that time, and the selection of the crown prince has been delayed. And now, this child has achieved results that far exceed William's expectations, both academically and meritoriously; In this case, it's time to determine your heir!