The scorching sun is like a fire, scorching its heat everywhere in Central Europe. In this blazing August time, Tirpitz, who was in charge of the German Navy, gradually felt a strange aura.

In February 1908, on behalf of the British and German governments, Haldane and Billlow signed a series of treaties to stop the dreadnought race between the two navies; However, after half a year, Tirpitz did not see any willingness on the part of London to fulfill the treaty in good faith. According to the Naval Enlargement Act passed by the British Parliament, the Royal Navy was to start construction of five new battleships or battle cruisers in 1908; In the first two years of its overall military expenditure, the construction of a large number of ships was not substantially reduced at all, and still accounted for more than 20% of the British government's annual revenue. Compared with Britain's continued high-speed construction of capital ships, the expansion rate of the German Navy this year is quite sluggish; Tirpitz's Admiralty issued only two new orders to shipyards for new battleships, and even the Battle Patrol, which had been maintained once a year, canceled its budget this year!

London's continued high speed of ship construction after the signing of the treaty was undoubtedly a dangerous signal for the German navy; If it continues at this rate, even if the German Navy has accumulated a considerable number of dreadnought fleets, it will also be surpassed by the British in a short period of time, and form a numerical ratio with considerable superiority! Annoyed, the German ambassador immediately approached British Foreign Minister Gray and demanded an explanation from London for the continuation of its rapid military buildup after the signing of the disarmament agreement. However, Foreign Minister Gray, who had been prepared for a long time, unhurriedly declared that the treaty only stipulated that the ratio of the number of capital ships between Britain and Germany was 5 to 4, and there was no limit on the number of ships built in the year. The Royal Navy continues to massively start construction of new capital ships. It is precisely in order to achieve the quantitative comparison provided for in this treaty!

Faced with this situation. Tirpitz already had a faint sniff of the mentality of the London authorities. These force-only Saxon bandits were always concerned about the rise of Berlin. He was not willing to surrender his 300-year-old sea power to the German challenger; Once they have the opportunity, they will still be driven by the compulsion syndrome to further expand their fleet like a madman. When Tirpitz reported the contents of London's reply to Wilhelm, the Kaiser, who was greatly disturbed by the "capriciousness" of the British, immediately smashed the statue of Uncle Edward in his study to the ground and trampled back and forth: these Britons were desperately surpassed by Germany in terms of economic and industrial output, so why would they not let go of their disgusting "noble stature" and arrogance to listen to their own demands?

William decided to retaliate with a tooth for tat. The signing of the Anglo-German naval agreement made him feel the power of this risky fleet in his hands; Face this gang of British robbers who are full of the law of the jungle. Only the cannon is the only solution to have a normal dialogue with them! As long as Germany can continue to maintain the ship-building speed of the previous two years, the panicked British will definitely put away their dancing minions and automatically obediently return to the normal track!

However, when William summoned Bülow to prepare an additional amount of money for the construction of capital ships for the Navy, he was stunned to get a calm answer from Bülow for lack of funds this year.

Although the German economy in this dimension has improved significantly compared to its historical history, the places where it is spent are also very expensive. Machine guns, mortars, howitzers, corresponding ammunition...... These large quantities of equipment for the army undoubtedly require a lot of funding to support, and the cost of airships, submarines, tanks and other equipment is even more watery: a large zeppelin costs nearly 100,000 pounds, and a 750-ton ocean-going submarine also needs more than 65,000 pounds, which will undoubtedly greatly squeeze the funds that can be invested in dreadnoughts. As Bülow recounted every expenditure of the government as a treasure, William's face gradually became gloomy. If you want to respond to the rapid shipbuilding of the British, you can only wait until next year!

Just when William was angry because it was difficult to counter the British shipbuilding operation in time. Qingying's advice allowed him to find light in a confused depression.

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Ten years ago, under the strong advocacy of Qing Ying, the German Navy started a number of unique and unprecedented frenzied ships in the world. Fleet decisive armored cruiser. Compared with conventional gun-type ships, the biggest difference of this ship is that the torpedo is raised to the main weapon at the same height as the gun; It is equipped with a combat torpedo tower on each side of the ship's amidships, which reloads the torpedo tubes under heavy armor in the form of ammunition inside the turret.

Between 1898 and 1901, the German Navy built seven of these unique ships in four years, and its unusual shape was undoubtedly questioned and troubled by almost all naval experts. Because the loading speed of the torpedo tube was not satisfactory, its design speed of one round per 2 minutes could only guarantee 4 minutes per round after service, and the torpedo strike that the designers expected was in vain; Even if it is 4 Bismarck-class Marquis class ships equipped with twin torpedo towers? The decisive battle is equipped with patrols, and its torpedo firing density is also unsatisfactory. As the distance of naval warfare increased, this direct application of artillery experience to torpedoes was considered extremely stupid by naval experts. Because even the German Navy improved its technique and increased the range of torpedoes to 5,000 meters, which was able to attack enemy ships at the same time as artillery at long distances; However, the slow torpedo attack at this distance can be easily dodged by the opponent with a slight maneuver, making the torpedo completely lose its hit rate.

However, Qingying's original intention in building this kind of ship was not to use torpedoes as a main weapon at all; His true purpose was predestined from the beginning!

Due to the huge technical gap between the Dreadnought era and the previous era, it was extremely difficult for Germany to build ships that could be used in dreadnought duels in the pre-Dreadnought era; However, in front of Qingying, who is well versed in the essence of shipbuilding, this is not an insurmountable barrier. Through the theory of "appropriately large warships" and the precise control of speed, freeboard, and range, Qing Ying found that his vision could be turned into reality: that is, the technique of the previous dreadnought era, to build a large capital ship equipped with eight 283 mm guns, a speed of 20 knots, and a main armor of 250 mm. Compared with the performance indicators of the original British dreadnoughts (8 305 mm guns on a single side, speed of 21 knots, and 250 mm of main loading), this kind of ship is fully capable of fighting with it; And with the absolute superiority of German battleships in shells and damage tubes, this kind of ship even has the possibility of blowing up the original British dreadnought!

However, such a ship with a displacement of 14,000 tons cannot be directly started. The pre-dreadnought era was the golden age of the British Navy's massive force, and they built an average of more than 7 new battleships and large armored cruisers every year; If the concept of full heavy guns were introduced in advance, and Britain had turned all 24 dreadnoughts and 35 mounted cruisers built since 1898 into dreadnoughts, this would be an extremely unfavorable situation for Germany! Therefore, Qingying must find a way to disguise this kind of ship, which is actually a small dreadnought. After much consideration, he finally set his sights on armored cruisers and combat torpedo towers.

Compared with the practice of making the armament of this kind of ship into 2 twin 283 mm guns + 2 triple 210 mm guns, and retaining the triple secondary main gun with a twin 11-inch capability, the combat torpedo tower can obviously cover up the intention of replacing the main gun later, and reduce the butterfly effect on the British Navy caused by the large number of guns piled up by German battleships! With this idea in mind, Qingying concocted two decisive battle armored cruisers in turn according to the technical conditions and difficulty risks at that time, based on the modified parent type.

3 remodeling? The decisive battle type is equipped with two single-mounted 450-mm torpedo towers arranged diagonally on the two broadside sides, which can be replaced by two single-mounted 283-mm main guns in the modification, with side-firing fire of six main guns. 4 ships really? The Battle-Mounted Cruiser increases the size of the torpedo tower to a twin, and after modification, it becomes a powerful battleship with four twin-twin guns! In order to make these essentially small dreadnoughts transform as quickly as possible, the seat of the torpedo tower is not only exactly the same as its corresponding turret main gun, but even its system weight is roughly the same as that of the corresponding main gun system; In this way, they can complete the perfect transformation from a chicken rib ship to an all-heavy gun dreadnought by simply replacing the corresponding internal ammunition delivery system and the upper turret!

Compared with the huge cost of building a new dreadnought, it is obviously much more economical to transform the decisive battle patrol that Qingying has already planted. Due to the size of the seat and the internal space of the structural bearing capacity have been reserved in the design, the modification of the decisive battle outfit cruiser does not need to move the knife on the hull at all, and both the construction period and the capital can be effectively saved. Tirpitz, who knew something about the situation that year, immediately placed an additional order for 6 single-mounted 283-mm L42 and 8-seat twin 283-mm L45 turrets to the domestic military industry, as well as supporting bomb delivery systems. The torpedo towers had fulfilled their historic mission, and the decisive battle cruisers were reclassified as battleships after breaking away from the slightly awkward title. In addition to the two Adalbert-class ships originally built, the nine decisive battle cruisers will be formed into a new squadron, which will be assigned to the ranks of the home high seas fleet. (To be continued......)