"General, Betty's opinion was dismissed. In the fleet, Sir Fisher was completely alone. Thomas looked at Jericho and said excitedly. Jericho is finally about to act, and this action will directly determine the future of the British Royal Navy, whether it will go to new glory or destruction, it will be completely up to the next few weeks of action! Of course, the risk of this operation is still very high, and if you are not careful, the future of Jericho and Thomas will be completely ruined, not only is it a matter of leaving the navy, but you may also be sent to prison!

"Wait a little longer." Jericho said with a deep breath, handing a document to Thomas, motioning for him to look at it, and Thomas noticed that Jericho's hands were shaking.

"General? Are you scared? There was a hint of fierceness in Thomas's eyes. He sensed Jericho's hesitation. Jericho didn't worry or fear even in the most difficult times of the Spanish-American War, but now, Jericho was afraid. "Sir Fisher has gone too far in the wrong area, we have built 7 battleships and 3 battlecruisers, they are too backward in performance, the defense is simply straight and we have to change all that. Maybe some innocent people will die, but we are here to save more people, and if today, we give up, then in wartime we will die even more! ”

"This is a very bad precedent. And it will lead to an extremely serious chain reaction, whether it succeeds or not, it will have extremely serious consequences on a national scale, and even if we succeed, it is not only Fisher who will fall. All departments and factories related to the field of warship production will be thoroughly overhauled. It will even lead to a complete halt in the planning of the production of warships. Jericho said as he looked at his confidant.

"So, I want to give Fisher another chance if he can accept my proposal. Then there is still room for redemption. Jerry Co paused and continued. Fisher said that we should first guarantee numerical superiority, and now we have a numerical superiority over the German fleet, if he is willing to refer to the Australian in the next stage of the construction plan. I think we can all live in peace with each other. Looking at Thomas, who was eager to speak, Jericho made a gesture that I had decided to make, and then left the office. Then an attendant officer packed the document and sent it away.

Jericho, deep down, still didn't want to carry out the plan he had been preparing for several years, and for this plan, he tried to contact the front-line officers as much as possible. He takes the trouble to tell his theories and experiences, so that the voice of front-line officers can influence the decision-making of the top management. And to this day, even Betty believes that Fisher's opinion was wrong. The vast majority of officers complained and were dissatisfied with the construction plan led by Fisher to some degree. Today, this discontent has reached its peak, and with Fisher rejecting Betty's simplification, the generals of the British Empire's fleets will not support Fisher at least. Other words. Once something happens, there should be no mistakes on the part of the fleet commanders. Although Jericho thinks that his plan is safe, and if he succeeds, he will immediately ascend to the throne of commander of the Grand Fleet. But Jericho really didn't want to use such a drastic method to settle the dispute within the Royal Navy, this is a bomb, I don't know how much damage it will cause!

"Lieutenant General Jericho, perhaps, from a purely military point of view, you are indeed right. But we can't just think about military issues, the government's military spending is limited. If we increase the performance of the battleship. Then the cost will also increase, with the increasing size of the battleship, the profit margin is sharply compressed, and a large number of shipyards may not be able to accept such orders in the later stage. This will be a fatal blow to the construction of our Navy. The British Empire has production capacity, but if this production capacity cannot be converted into combat power, nothing will be possible. In his reply, Fisher rejected Jericho's request.

Behind Fisher was a huge interest group, made up of Admiralty officers, factory owners, and shipyards. When formulating policy, in addition to the needs of the navy, they also have to take into account the economic interests of these interest groups behind them. If a battleship costs £2.1 million, there are seven factories to share, and if the cost of performance has soared and the procurement funds are not sufficient, then only four shipyards may be able to build it, and the remaining three will be out of the game. And this is a situation that this interest group does not want to see! This kind of thing is conventional, and any country has unspoken rules. Britain is no exception, Britain has actually found that there is a problem with artillery shells in the Jutland period, but the new green hat armor-piercing shell was not put into service until 18 years, which must not be described by technical skills, even if you refer to the M1916 armor-piercing bullet of the US imperialists!

And when Jericho received Fisher's reply, he didn't get as angry as one might think. Instead, he tossed the letter aside. "Next month the fleet will be in the North Sea, Sir Fisher, and I really hope I'm wrong." Jericho muttered to himself.

"How's the preparation going?" Jericho asked Thomas, who was next to him.

"It should be no problem, during the anti-lightning drill, we did tricks and feet in all the torpedoes used by torpedo boats, and at least 10 of them will explode when they collide with the hull. But rest assured, these torpedoes are old from 1900, the first generation of thermodynamic torpedoes, and the charge is only 140 pounds. Why is the new torpedo simply incomparable, the lethality is very limited. According to the analysis of the technicians, even one such torpedo in our first Dreadnought will not be a problem. We conducted a mock blasting test before we built the Dreadnought, and even if it was hit by a mine, there was a 70% chance that the battleship could be withdrawn at a speed of 18 knots. And these 10 torpedoes, we will arrange only three on the first day of operation. ”

"How to deal with the aftermath?" Jericho asked expressionlessly.

"It doesn't matter what the aftermath is, none of our torpedoes have a fuse installed on them, but the charge inside is picric acid explosive, which is extremely unstable and will be in danger of exploding after a violent impact. And we did some tricks and tricks in it, and the most important thing that can only be attributed to the fact that the torpedo with the picric charge is not stable. That's all. ”

"It won't cause any serious consequences, right? The ship you chose? Jericho asked.

"The Bold, this is the first Fisher type super-dreadnought, although its TDS width is only 3 meters. The worst result may be a heavy blow, and there won't be much other problems, the Dreadnought can go back at 18 knots, and the Bold will not be a big problem to go back at 12 knots even if the TDS width is only two-thirds of the Dreadnought, right? "Thomas was a little unsure at the end. After all, they are not professional naval technicians, and their understanding of how much damage a torpedo has is entirely derived from naval tests and battle reports provided by the Chinese Navy. According to the Huaxia Navy, even the seventh provincial level can resist such a torpedo, at least to ensure that it is not sunk, and the problem of its own 20,002-ton super dreadnought should not be big.

"It's ridiculous that in order to correct the mistakes of the Navy, it is necessary to use its own torpedoes to test the defensive performance of the battleship." Jericho smiled bitterly. Jericho's most dissatisfied with Fisher was the excessive contempt for the underwater protection of battleships, with the development of science and technology, the range and speed of torpedoes increased faster and faster, and all kinds of mines were getting bigger and bigger, in the narrow North Sea, the British fleet had to consider the enemy's lightning strike formation and possible submarine offensive minelaying in addition to facing German heavy artillery. And, of course, the threat of a bullet in the water.

The dreadnought that Fisher decided to build was almost a tragedy of tragedies in the underwater protection section, the first of which was the lack of depth, only about 3 meters at its widest point. SECONDLY, THERE IS NO SUBDIVISION COMPARTMENT, AND THE LIGHTNING WALL IS TOO THIN IN FISHER'S OPINION, ONLY 20MM! THE INTREPID IS AVAILABLE IN HIGHLY RESILIENT STEEL UP TO 50MM. In addition, the strength of the longitudinal bulkhead of the bulkhead is also suspected to be insufficient. And the width of the outer empty silo is too small, and the inner layer is the coal bunker, if the coal bunker is full, it can also block water, if the coal bunker is empty, it is two layers of empty silos! Although the Intrepid is also a kerosene mixed boiler, the coal bunker is at the upper part of the waterline, and the lower part is loaded with heavy oil and is the liquid tank. At least the openings reserved for fuel are smaller. In other words, it is relatively easy to control the ingress of water.

According to Jericho and Thomas's plan, there will be an "accident" in this exercise. A torpedo that had fallen into disrepair and malmaintained exploded after "hitting" the battleship, which in turn caused serious damage to a brand new "super dreadnought" ship of the British Empire, and then Jericho could use this as an excuse to raise distrust in the construction of warships in the Ministry of the Navy, and under the hype of some media, this incident would be magnified, and finally the established policy of the Admiralty would be changed by pressure from all sides.

This plan looks crazy. But in Jericho's view, it is still necessary to use a strong stimulus to change the current bad situation. At least damaging a battleship in peacetime is much better than sinking a battleship in wartime! And Jericho thinks he is very measured, how dangerous can an old torpedo with a charge of only 140 pounds be a shot? According to the data analysis provided by the Huaxia Navy, such a torpedo caused at most a partial flooding of the Longxing class. If you hit the widest place of underwater defense, at most this giant ship will be tilted no more than 8 degrees, plus nearly a few hundred tons of water. The problem will not be huge. Even the continuation of the execution of a limited combat is not too much of a problem.

"May God bless the British Empire." On the one hand, he hoped that his plan would succeed, and on the other hand, he hoped that this "problematic" torpedo would not have much impact on the Daring, after all, it was a new warship built for more than 2 million pounds, and if the problem was really big, the navy would lose a battleship and the British Empire would not afford to lose face! In Jericho's opinion, the deterrent effect of the British Empire's Grand Fleet is greater than the actual strength, and it would be bad if it could not be deterred!

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 for the reward, and the book friend athlon9527 for the monthly pass support ~~~. (To be continued......)