"Design displacement of 10,000 tons......" William muttered, and did not go any further; But Tirpitz, who had known him for seven years, heard the emperor's words. The size of this armored cruiser is already on par with the tonnage of the Brandenburg-class as a battleship, and its cost is bound to soar, and it will not be like those 4,000-ton protective cruisers that can be won for just over 6 million marks. As for why the Naval Design Bureau wanted to make the tonnage so large, Tirpitz still knew a little in his heart: in addition to satisfying their YY desires, it was more important to leave sufficient margin for possible enemies in the future.

At present, the armored cruiser is in the ascendant, and the great powers only know that Lu Dao wants to add vertical armor to the cruiser, but they do not know what Lu Dao wants to make this new type of cruiser. In order to succeed in future unknowable naval battles, the new armored cruisers must be equipped with sufficiently powerful guns and protection; Under the guidance of Qingying's idea of "appropriately enlarging the tonnage", it is understandable that the designers directly enlarged the tonnage of the armored cruiser to 10,000 tons, which was on a par with the previous battleships.

Seeing a look of displeasure on William's face, Tirpitz hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, I have to say that although the cost of a single ship has gone up, its combat effectiveness has been greatly improved!" If this 10,000-ton warship is replaced by two 5,000-ton warships, due to the huge overlap in the protective space of the power system, they can only be equipped with a total of 2 240-mm guns and 12 150-mm guns, and the protection of a single ship is even worse than that of this 10,000-ton large-scale patrol. At the same cost, 1 10,000-ton warship is much more effective in an engagement between reconnaissance fleets than 2 5,000-ton warships! ”

Hearing this, William's gloomy face was not soothed in the slightest, but even more aggravated. As a die-hard enthusiast of battleship design, William certainly knows the benefits of tonnage amplification; But if the construction starts according to this design, there is an unavoidable hard factor, that is, the cost.

Tirpitz gave this armored cruiser scheme, the design displacement of which reached 10,000 tons; Due to the relationship between the high-power power system, no matter how conscientious the domestic shipyard is, the purchase price of a single ship is bound to exceed 16 million marks. As a result, the price of a new cruiser will exceed 75% of that of a battleship, and the role of a new cruiser in naval warfare is only the reconnaissance vanguard of the main fleet, but it cannot play the role of arbiter like a battleship. If too much money is invested in this kind of arms that cannot carry out a decisive battle of the fleet, it will inevitably directly affect the number of battleships built. Due to its late start, the German Navy was far inferior to Britain and France in terms of innate size, and even a little reluctant compared to Russia; And its awkward location in Central Europe determined that it had to give priority to securing land, and it was impossible to invest all its financial resources in the navy like Britain. Under these circumstances, Germany had to diversify the tasks that its warships could perform in order to maximize the combat effectiveness of the Navy and make up for the inherent lack of numbers in the German Navy.

William's face was solemn, he collected his thoughts, and stated his ideas to Tirpitz.

Tirpitz was taken aback when he heard this, and he had recently only been concerned with urging the Admiralty to design a good warship, and he had not thought of the question that William had mentioned. If you think about it carefully, the emperor's worries are not unreasonable: after all, armored cruisers are not the decisive weapon in a decisive battle at sea, and if too much money is spent on this, the cost performance is indeed a little worrying.

But if this does, who will deal with the enemy cruisers? In the last five years alone, Britain has 7 5,600-ton Orlando-class, 2 9,150-ton Blake-class, and 9 7,350-ton Edgar-class, a total of 18 large and medium-sized cruisers have been put into service, and two supercruisers with a displacement of more than 14,000 tons have been built. During this period, the German Navy only had one 6,000-ton "Empress Augusta" cruiser completed and put into service, and its performance was really not on the table. Even if Britain is not the imaginary enemy of Germany at the moment, in this case, Germany should make a move on the cruiser; Otherwise, the disparity in strength between the two sides will be as great as heaven and earth. Moreover, if a country wants to pursue sea power, it must use a large amount of money to smash a naval fleet, cruisers are indeed a little more expensive, but they play an irreplaceable role in the naval fleet!

Hearing Tirpitz speak his thoughts, William's eyes showed a look of struggle, and then he was overshadowed by determination. He said slowly: "You are right, building a fleet does require a lot of investment, which I was prepared for when I decided to build a navy five years ago. However, due to the limitations of Germany's national conditions, it is destined that the development of the navy cannot be like the British to build ships regardless of the cost, and it is necessary to make careful calculations on every warship. Our main hypothetical enemy now is the French, and we only need to defeat the French navy, and as for the British, let them burn as much money as they want. ”

William Yun said lightly, but a strong humiliation and unwillingness emerged in his heart, and even his tone became a little hoarse. For more than 20 years, although the reunified Germany has made great progress in all fields such as industry, economy, and science and technology, it has made great progress like a roaring machine, but because the reunification of Germany was too late, there is still a big gap in many respects compared with the British Empire, which is the largest in the world accumulated over the past century. If it is just a congenital deficiency, it can be made up for through acquired development, but Germany is still located in Central Europe, facing the double pressure of the Franco-Russian alliance from both sides. Under these conditions, Germany simply could not develop its navy as single-mindedly as the British; Watching the British warships launch one after another like dumplings, William at this stage can only be jealous.

Tirpitz's lips were slightly open, and a "but" stuck in his throat almost burst out; But seeing the emperor's glances, he finally swallowed it and turned into a sound of promise. He nodded slowly and said, "If France is only an imaginary enemy, then my German Navy will have a much smaller need for cruisers. In the current French Navy, there are only four Charner-class protective cruisers that were able to fight in the first line: they have a displacement of about 4,700 tons, are equipped with two 194 mm main guns and six 138 mm secondary guns, and have a speed of less than 19 knots; Except for firepower, there is hardly anywhere that can be seen. With the current level of ship design in Germany, there is no problem at all in building warships that surpass them. The only thing that is slightly noteworthy is a protective cruiser that the French started construction in January last year, and due to the slow pace of construction by the French, it is only known that it has a design displacement of 5,300 tons. ”

Hearing Tirpitz reveal his French family background, William was slightly surprised, and then his expression became relaxed. What he was most worried about was that France, like Britain, would build some 10,000-ton cruisers, but he didn't expect that the French would be inferior from generation to generation. Although its naval tonnage ranks second in the world, it is so far behind the world's first in the world, the United Kingdom; The glory of the Napoleonic era was completely wiped out with the defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar. If Germany also built a 5,000-ton cruiser, it would only take 8 million marks to get one, which was the ideal tonnage difference between the cruiser and the battleship in Wilhelm's mind. He paused and said, "In that case, Alfred, you can ask the Naval Design Bureau to redraw a plan for the cruiser, and then show it to me." You go back and tell those guys that if the cost is too high, even if I can defeat the corresponding French battleship, I won't pass here. ”

Tirpitz replied and said, "Your Majesty, rest assured, your will will be fulfilled." ”

(Wilhelm II's idea was not a fabrication of the author.) Historically, with the start of construction of the Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers, the Kaiser was quite dissatisfied with this matter, believing that cruisers were becoming more and more expensive, and the price gap between them and battleships was getting narrower and narrower, and that cruisers were not the decisive weapon in naval warfare. Based on this, the Kaiser came up with the idea of allowing large cruisers to join the battle line, and built large cruisers into battleships similar to high-speed battleships. Here, due to the time difference, the author only let William find the problem, and did not let him come up with a way to solve the problem. ）

PS: Today's second chapter, ask for some collections