After a long time, the howling sea breeze gradually subsided, and the red sun lifted the cloud curtain and sprinkled every inch of the harbor with its golden brilliance. Qingying bathed in the bright sunshine, only to feel a trace of warm temperature soaking in every pore of her skin, and couldn't help but stretch her muscles and bones, revealing a pleasant smile.

"At berth 3 is another masterpiece of our German naval shipbuilding community - the battleship Vidin! The battleships of this class belonging to the Wicchersbach class were so successful that our German team had started construction of six such ships in a row over the past four years without making any substantial changes to the design. Qing Yingji pointed to the more majestic and majestic figure not far away, and introduced Tirpitz in an approving tone; However, the look of reluctance and regret on his face showed that this kind of battleship was not exactly in line with his wishes.

Due to the shortcomings of the former dreadnoughts themselves, it was impossible to follow those dreadnoughts that could easily exceed 20 knots in the future; This limited their role in the decisive battle against Britain in the future, and they could only provide fire support on the second line, as the Battle of Jutland that broke out in history is a very typical example. At that time, the German Nassau class had been replaced with kerosene mixed-fired boilers, and the speed had been increased to more than 20.5 knots, and it could exceed 21 knots under overload, while the six Dreadnoughts that followed the main fleet could only run at a speed of 18 knots on the battlefield due to their age. In order to take care of these old ships, the Scheer formation has been sailing at the previous fearless speed almost all the time, and the battlefield maneuverability has been greatly reduced, so that the high seas fleet has been greatly constrained in the encirclement and suppression of Betty in the early stage and the transfer under Jericho's artillery fire in the later stage; And these 6 old-fashioned former dreadnoughts followed the main fleet into thousands of miles, not only did they not build an inch, but they were also torpedoed by British destroyers by 1!

As for the idea of speeding up the former dreadnought and increasing it to 20 knots, Qingying vetoed it before crossing it. Because in this way, it is tantamount to the one-sided pursuit of tall and complete in the design of warships, and this will inevitably cause a serious and vicious increase in tonnage cost, and the final result will definitely outweigh the losses. With the technical level of the 1900s, if you want to make a 12,000-ton standard dreadnought run from 18 knots to 20 knots while the firepower and defense remain the same, the tonnage will at least soar to 1.6 or even more than 17,000 tons, and this kind of ship has completely lost its balance in terms of cost.

Therefore, the only ships that can really contribute to the German High Seas Fleet and still fight for the front line after 15 years are the three types of armored cruisers proposed by Qing Ying. Since they all have a good power base of 20 knots, after 10 years, they only need to replace the main engine and slightly repair the power system to let them follow in the footsteps of the dreadnought; The combination of 250 mm main armor + dome armor can also ensure that it has strong survivability on the frontal battlefield. It is a pity that William, because he did not have the conceptual knowledge from later generations, has always clinged to the battleships with greater frontal power, and has never been willing to tilt the main resources of the navy to the field of decisive battle and patrol. For this situation, Qingying is also powerless, and he can't tell him bluntly that the speed of the battleship will reach more than 21 knots in 6 years, right?

"The Wicchersbach-class battleship in front of us is exactly the same in length, depth, draft, and even shape as the decisive battle patrol called 'York' just now; it is 126 meters long, 11.6 meters deep, 8.0 meters draft, and also adopts a low freeboard and long bow type, the only difference is that the hull of the battleship is 2 meters wider than the latter, reaching 24 meters. If it weren't for the fact that it has one less chimney and an extra main turret than the Battle Patrol, it would be barely recognizable in appearance. Due to the width of these 2 meters, the standing displacement of the six Vicchersbach-class battleships reached 13,650 tons, which was 1,350 tons heavier than the decisive battle load. Qingying gathered her mind and briefly introduced Tirpitz to the side.

Along the way, Tirpitz had a slight fever, and with the cold wind and clear skies, the heat became even more unbearable. As he unbuttoned his coat, he asked, "What is the actual speed of this class of battleship?" For some reason, the actual performance of the two Frederick III-class battleships we built in 1894 and 1895 was very unsatisfactory: the output power had reached the target, and there were no problems in the drag calculation, but the speed of these two ships could only reach 16.8 knots and 16.9 knots, which was far from the design speed of 17.5 knots! The new battleship was designed to reach a speed of 18 knots, how fast can it reach in actual sea trials? ”

"As for the problem of the non-standard speed of the Frederick III class, the Naval Design Bureau began to solve it three years ago. After dozens of tank simulations, we finally figured out the reason for this, that is, the wet length of our main propulsion shaft outside the hull is too short, and the three main propulsion axes are too close to each other. Hearing Tirpitz ask about this area, Qingying's spirit couldn't help but perk. Hurriedly said to him in detail with a smile on his face.

In his previous life, whenever Qing Ying looked through the information of the main ships of the Second German Reich, he was always puzzled by the strange speed of German warships. Unlike the imagination of ordinary military fans, the output power of German battleships is actually not lower than that of British counterparts, and even better; However, this extra power did not translate into a corresponding speed, so that the speed of the German battleships was always at a low level.

For example, the King-class battleship that started construction in Germany in 1912 is a typical case. 12 coal-fired boilers and 3 oil-fired boilers provide it with 45,000 horsepower, referring to the design displacement of 25,390 tons of King, running 22.5 knots is also a stress-free thing. However, the final result was a big surprise: with such a strong power system output, the speed of the four kings was only 21 knots, and the fastest was only 21.3 knots with 46,200 horsepower, while the British Iron Duke class also had a displacement of 25,000 tons, but it achieved a speed of 21 knots with 29,000 horsepower! Even if the German battleships were slightly fatter than their British counterparts, they would not be able to create such a huge gap in the low-speed field!

In addition to the kings, the speed of the early Nassau, Helgoland, and later Bavaria was equally incomprehensible; Compared with the output power of 28,000, 35,000 and 56,000 and the displacement of 19,000, 23,000 and 30,000 tons, respectively, their speed is 1-1.5 knots less than the normal value. The situation of the German battle cruisers was slightly better, but when it came to the large-tonnage and high-power De Fleeter class, its speed also began to fall unscientifically. Needless to say, the Germans had to spend an additional 50% of the power space and weight on the normal basis in order to achieve the design speed, which would inevitably lead to a significant reduction in the performance of the warship. Even if Germany used small water-tube boilers on warships, and its power-to-weight ratio was one grade higher than that of the British, it could not withstand such a toss!

What is the reason for this? In the previous life, Qingying mixed up the forum, looked at the books, and finally found the crux of it. In order to improve the propulsion efficiency of the propellers, the wet length of the power spindle outside the hull was short, and the external spindle bracket of the hull was eliminated to reduce drag. However, this design is far from worth the loss, the increased wet area of the hull brings greater frictional resistance at medium and low speeds, and because the propeller is too close to the hull, the incoming flow is more disordered, which seriously affects the actual efficiency of the propeller. In addition, the distance between the three propulsion spindles is also too close, and the agitated water flow has serious mutual interference, which makes the actual efficiency of the propeller even more unbearable, and completely wastes the performance improvement brought by the technical advantage of small water tube boilers.

Previously, Qingying was busy with affairs, and he neglected to oversee for a while, so he actually threw such an important issue into his mind, and it was not until 1897 when the battleship Frederick III was completed and the sea trials were completed, that he suddenly reacted. Under his auspices, the German Admiralty set up an extraordinarily sophisticated simulated pool laboratory, and built several self-propelled pocket-sized mini-hulls in strict accordance with the proportions of active battleships, and began repeated tests. With the meticulous and rigorous character of the Germans, coupled with Qingying's side-tapping hints that lost no time, the designers finally solved this technical problem "on their own".

Qingying smiled and said, "Fortunately, this problem is not impossible to correct, we can adjust the spacing between the spindles by changing the layout, and replace the original color with a slightly longer propeller shaft." After this change, the speed of the battleship is no longer the same problem as before. The Karl was modified to increase its speed from 16.9 knots to 17.7 knots, exceeding its original design speed of 17.5 knots, and will be refurbished when Frederick III is replaced. The Wicchersbach class also solved this problem after its launch, and both the lead ship and the Vidin reached a set point of 18 knots in sea trials. Speaking of the last sentence, Qingying had the excitement and pleasure of wanting to sing loudly. Because as long as this obstacle was overcome, with the intervention of his own foresight, and with the advantage of Germany's subsystem, the Cult of Battleship Abuse during World War I was officially established!