Hearing William's words, Qingying couldn't help but sigh in her heart. Although William himself has a keen insight in the field of naval warship design concepts that ordinary people can hardly have, due to the limitations of the times, many things are still not seen thoroughly by Qingying, a traverser. William's plan to start construction of this second-class cruiser with a displacement of 7,000 tons at the same time as the construction of the battleship is quite a headache and a pain in it; And what the German Navy was going to take in the pre-dreadnought era was a completely new path that was completely different from that of other countries!

"Father, you don't seem to have a fundamental understanding of our decisive battle patrol. If you really understand the benefits of this toy, you won't want to replace it with anything! ”

Qing Ying sorted out her thoughts and said, "First of all, our decisive battle type armored cruiser is essentially an armored cruiser. Its speed can reach 20 knots, which is enough for it to follow the operations of the reconnaissance fleet and detect all kinds of information about the enemy fleet for the main fleet. Among the main cruisers in service in various countries at present, except for the British Qiangsheng class, which has reached a high speed of 22 knots, all other cruisers have a speed of about 20 knots; Even the Crown, built by Britain itself, returned to 20 knots. Therefore, in this respect, our decisive battle cruisers are exactly the same as any capital cruiser of other countries. ”

"In the field of speed, we are no different from the ideas of countries such as Britain and France; But in terms of the firepower and protection of the other two elements of the battleship, we had a huge disagreement with them. For an old naval power like Britain and France, because of their solid family background and rich financial resources, the cruiser should do the work of the cruiser, and there is no need to add some other elements. For me, Germany, the situation is completely different. ”

"You mean to say that my main German cruiser must have the ability to join the fleet in a decisive battle?" William suddenly interjected.

Qingying nodded: "Exactly." Since Germany is a Central European empire, its geographical location of Belgium in the west and Tsarist Russia in the east is destined to put land first and ensure that the inheritance of our Hohenzollern family that has been fought for hundreds of years will not be encroached upon by foreign enemies. Even today, Germany has the highest economic, industrial, and technological development on the entire European continent, but because of international relations, we will still have only an ordinary rate of naval development for some time to come. Therefore, every mark we put into the navy must be converted into the combat effectiveness of the imperial navy to the greatest extent, which involves a cost-effective problem. And the cruiser, which is obviously less cost-effective, is the first target we need to improve. ”

"According to common sense, if a warship wants to join the final battle, it must have two hard factors: one is strong firepower, and the other is solid protection. The former can deal an effective blow to the enemy, while the latter can ensure that it can withstand the enemy's attack on the battlefield and not be destroyed. Achieving this performance and maintaining the speed of a cruiser is an unattainable paradox in the dogma of ship design, but physics tells us that it is not impossible! Qingying looked at William, as if waiting for his cheap dad to give him an answer.

William said slowly: "I know this, this is the concept of the appropriate size of the battleship you mentioned, right?" Due to physics, the resistance experienced by a ship while sailing is not proportional to tonnage; As warships become larger, the thrust-to-weight ratio required to reach the same speed will be reduced, so weight can be saved in the power system. In addition, due to mathematics, the relationship between volume and size is cubic, and the relationship between area and size is only quadratic, which makes the increase in the protection area of the battleship much smaller than the increase in volume, that is, displacement, and the protection space is also shared. The designer can use this part of the weight saved by the increase in the tonnage of the battleship to other places to improve the combat performance of the battleship. ”

Qingying's thin lips opened lightly, and said: "It is precisely because of the support of these conditions that I had the idea of turning the armored cruiser into a decisive battle; Our first decisive cruiser, the Prince Heinrich, which we started the year before, was built with this in mind. Compared with the 7,000-ton patrol ship with a unit price of 12.5 million marks proposed by my father, although the cost of our decisive battle type is 1.6 times that of it, the firepower of the main gun is almost 3 times that of it, the thickness of the armor is 1.7 times that of it, and the secondary gun and speed are completely equal to it. We only spent 60% more money, but we increased the combat effectiveness of the battleship by more than 2 times, and gave it the ability to join the fleet battle! Didn't my father think that this money should not be spent? ”

In the face of the slightly questioning sentence in Qingying's words, William did not show half of his anger. After a while, he spoke: "What you said, in fact, I figured it out three years ago. The reason why I want to restore the normal specifications of battleships is that in addition to the purpose of improving the strength of the main fleet, more importantly, I am afraid that Britain and France will imitate our decisive battle-type cruisers! Their capital ships were already much larger than those of our German Empire, and if they noticed the advantages of the decisive cruisers and began to build them in large numbers as a supplement to their capital ships, then we would have no chance of defeating them! ”

Qingying suddenly laughed, her voice full of happiness and confidence. He shook his head with a smile and said, "Father, you can rest assured." Looking all over the world, this kind of fleet decisive armored cruiser can only be built by our German family! ”

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The morning glow poured in through the window, reflecting their faces like mirrors.

William's eyes narrowed slightly, his face was full of disbelief, and he said hurriedly: "What did you just say, Ettel, that only my German family can build it?" This...... Why? ”

"If you weren't fully prepared, how could I have come up with the idea of this decisive battle outfit to you?" Faced with William's question, Qingying was secretly proud in his heart and said: "Although the decisive battle type armored cruiser is still an armored cruiser, its firepower and protection are already at the level of battleships. This almost paradoxical warship, with its heavy firepower, thick armor and high speed, is by no means something that can be built by any country! In order to build an armored cruiser of the decisive battle type of the fleet, four whole factors must be overcome! ”

"One is the efficient use of tonnage. At present, the vast majority of naval powers, including Britain and France, have not grasped the essence of warship design; In order to ensure the reliability of the ship's hull, they only use some extremely clumsy techniques. And this will cost a lot of extra weight, and it will be half the effort, and the work will be fruitless. In addition to the Garibaldi-class Italian Navy designed four years ago, only one of the German Empire is proficient in this way. If we do not give detailed information on the structural arrangement and force calculations, but only allocate the weight of the decisive battle to the British and French; Then I'm sure none of them would think that this is a warship that can exist in the real world. Qingying said leisurely.

William's eyes flashed, and he said in surprise: "Not bad." At that time, my German designers would not have used tonnage at all, and if it weren't for the lead duck turmoil, which completely washed the heads of this group of people, our designers are still in a toddler state. According to the calculations of the previous gang, they almost need 15,000 tons to do this kind of 12,200 tons of decisive battle patrol! ”

"The second is the low freeboard design we use. After the freeboard is reduced, the weight of the hull structure can be greatly reduced under the premise of the same structural strength, so as to reduce the tonnage and save the cost. However, the reduction of the freeboard will also bring a decrease in the ship's ocean-going capabilities. Since our main German fleet is only active in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, it does not have high requirements for seafaring capabilities, and the use of a low-freeboard design is not a problem at all, while Britain, France, and Russia are completely different. Whether it is a breakdown of ocean relations or an attack on escort, these warships sailing in the ocean must use high freeboard to improve seaworthiness to ensure that they can survive the high sea conditions in bad weather. Therefore, without a low freeboard to convert tonnage into performance, the decisive battle type cannot be built! ”

"Third, Germany also has an advantage over Britain, France and Russia in the field of power subsystems. In addition to the fact that the French water-tube boiler may be comparable to our performance, Britain and Russia are far inferior to Germany in terms of both boilers and steam engines, and the power is also the most important thing to consume. Because if you want to increase speed, you have to pay more than just the weight of the power system; The need for space also lengthens the hull; This crucial indirect factor will greatly increase the weight of the structure and armor while maintaining the same structural strength and protection capacity, resulting in a serious and vicious increase in the tonnage of the warship. The two Qiangsheng-class ships completed by the United Kingdom last year are typical negative teaching materials for immature power technology and forced speed-up. So if they want to build a decisive battle-type cruiser, they need a power cabin that is much larger than ours; This will inevitably lead to a larger size of the ship and an increase in the protective area, which will further uncontrol the weight of the whole ship. If the power system can't reach the level of our Germany, don't think about building a decisive battle. Qingying smiled. Historically, one of the reasons why the British battle cruiser was inferior to its German counterparts was due to the backwardness of its power system, which affected the structure and armor, so that it could be used to support the performance of the tonnage was seriously lacking.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival recommendation period, let's support it a lot~~~~