After the two tests, the Navy of the Republic of China began to further familiarize itself with and master the battleship, and the German Navy was not idle, they were working out the next development strategy based on the results of these two tests, and at this moment the ambitions of Tirpitz and his German Navy were once again revealed. "The battleship with 12 12-inch guns is only the beginning of a plan, and we will continue to work hard until the strength of the High Seas Fleet is recognized and respected by the world." Tirpitz wrote in his diary.

True, as Tirpitz wrote in his diary. After the tests, the German Navy was already attracted by the prospect of a bright future. The German Navy was impressed by the strong combat power embodied in the Longxing-class battleships. Subsequent tests proved that the construction of the Longxing-class battleships was very successful, and the power system, weapon system, command and communication system performed perfectly. This has proven that the German Navy has the ability to build larger tonnage warships, so the German Navy is preparing to build 4 Nassau-class battleships of the same model as the Longxing class, and on the other hand, it is preparing to start construction of new warships!

"We need to be equipped with larger caliber naval guns, 12 inches will not meet the needs of the future, relatively speaking, if I can, I would like to be able to replace up to 12 12-inch naval guns with 8 to 9 larger caliber naval guns, such as 350MM, or even 380MM." Scheer wrote in his report. At this time, the German Navy had completely broken away from the old system of emphasizing the amount of projection and rate of fire, and their demand became to emphasize the destructive ability of naval guns, and to see the knife to the blood!

And in Hipper's report. He focused on his vision of the future fast fleet. At this point, he is exactly the same as in history, and he is not very important for speed. In his report, he wrote: "Competing for fleet speed in the battle of the avant-garde fleet is not a very good choice. Or even go astray! The role of the reconnaissance fleet is to defeat the opponent's reconnaissance fleet, and then break through the blockade of the enemy's avant-garde and pass on the location, scale and other relevant information of the opponent's main fleet to the main fleet. ”

"Under this requirement, the most basic requirement of the avant-garde fleet is to be able to deal with the opponent's avant-garde fleet, otherwise, even the opponent's avant-garde will not be able to clean up, and how can the enemy's main fleet be discovered? The British needed ships faster than armored cruisers to pursue and break ships across the vast oceans, and the German Empire did not need this, and our avant-garde fleet only needed to be faster than the opposing main fleet. And you can use better protection and firepower to buy time to evacuate the battlefield when encountering the opponent's main fleet. ”

In the face of the report of the two subordinates, Tirpitz agreed. However, in the subsequent communication with the naval ship design department, the issue of the firepower layout of the new warship was once again placed in front of him. The use of more powerful 14-inch guns for the new ships was a foregone conclusion, and after developing a new 12-inch 50-liter long-barreled naval gun for the Nassau-class battleships, the next step was to equip the 14-inch 45L naval gun. But when it came to the specific arrangement of firepower, the Germans were back in a state of hesitation. The numbers 8, 9, 10, and 12 were once again dangling in Tirpitz's mind!

Is it 4 twin guns or 3 triple guns. Or is it a 5-seater twin and a 4-seater triple? Faced with these four firepower combinations, Tirpitz once again fell into deep thought. In terms of the number of artillery, it is the 12 guns that are the most violent, but in fact this is not the case, but the most undesirable. If a battleship is to be equipped with 12 guns of more than 14 inches and has decent defense and speed, then the tonnage must be at least 30,000 tons! Not to mention whether the German shipyards will have anything to do when building such huge warships, purely in terms of performance, the Germans also have a better choice. Or rather, the layout of the 12 main guns is just a helpless momentary choice.

For example, the New Mexico class and the Tennessee class built by the Americans represented by the US Imperialist 1 War Iron Turtle. They were armed with up to 12 14-inch guns, a performance at the pinnacle of World War I. Overall, the hardware performance is stronger than that of the Queen and Vengeance-class battleships. At least when it's hard fighting. If you exclude the fire control and artillery elements, it is not inferior to the German Bavaria. But don't forget, the New Mexico class is 4,000 tons heavier than the Bavaria!

The reason for this is that the Americans did not have naval guns of more than 15 inches at that time, and in this case they could only make up the numbers with 14-inch guns! When the U.S. imperialists replaced four 16-inch guns on basically the same ship type, this class of battleships born from the 14-inch iron turtle had a new name, that is, the Maryland-class battleship, BIGSEVEN!! A powerhouse of the era, known as the strongest battleship along with the British Nelson-class and Japan's Nagato-class! A product that is a notch above the standard battleship! So to put it bluntly, the battleship with 12 main guns is a contingency before the next generation of naval guns is developed. If there is a larger main gun, countries will choose to equip it with a smaller number of guns but a larger caliber.

Then there is the layout of 5 twin installations, in fact, this road was also walked by the Chinese Navy back then, it is nothing more than the central axis layout of 5 turrets, just like the design scheme provided by the Republic of China to the British, or similar to the 2 warships built by the Kingdom of Italy for the Republic of China, with two turrets placed diagonally on the amidships. At present, there are these two options, or generally speaking, these two options, as for the advantages and disadvantages, they have already been said before, and I will not say more. But at this moment, a certain designer came up with a rather bizarre design, that is, the 3223 layout, with turrets 1 and 4 being triple, and turrets 2 and 3 being twin!

This design was really amazing at the time! But all the designers did not give it in vain, although they would be annoyed by all sorts of unforgivable mistakes that were seen in later generations, but at that time, they all had their own reasons, including the artillery layout of this 3223! From the point of view of maintaining firepower, more turrets mean that once a turret is destroyed or stuck, the loss of firepower as much as possible, there is a saying that the turret is a cannonball magnet, this sentence is quite accurate, for example, the British battle cruiser in the Battle of Jutland was shot by various guns, for example, the remaining turrets of the 4 German battle cruisers after returning from the war can't even make up a battleship! For example, in the 2nd battle, the battleship Bismarck was finally knocked out with 4 turrets. Bloody examples. Although these things have not yet happened, or will not have the opportunity to happen in the future, there was a consensus among all circles of the Navy at that time on this understanding.

So, although the Germans temporarily accepted the layout of the three triple turrets in the plan of the fast battleship, in general, the German designers and the Admiralty still wanted four turrets to share the losses. The weight required for the 4-seat triple main gun is too great, so let's cut the weight while ensuring as much firepower as possible. First of all, it is certain that it is the same turret, but the weight difference between the carrying turret and the non-carrying turret is much different, after all, it is one gun mount. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the weight of the turret and the weight of the piggyback turret as much as possible, adhering to this principle, the German designers came up with a layout in which the piggyback turret is a double and the non-piggyback turret is a triple load.

Does this layout work? Historically, it did. For example, the Americans' battleship USS Nevada has a normal displacement of 27,500 tons in the 3223 layout, while the Pennsylvania-class battleship with a four-seat triple layout has a normal displacement of 31,400 tons. Although the power of the latter is slightly higher, the tonnage reduction effect is still obvious. And in history, such a layout has indeed attracted the attention of many designers, if you count the unfinished ships and design ships, the Austro-Hungarian super dreadnought plan is the Loudoin-class battleship equipped with 10 350 naval guns, and the Japanese Kongoyo ships also use a similar layout!

As a result, when some people in the Admiralty came up with the layout of 3223, another handful of people even came up with the layout of 2332! In the face of this layout that is even more bizarre than bizarre, people also have good reasons. This group of people considered from the point of view of underwater protection and ship type, and they believed that the damage caused by mines and torpedoes to the battleship would be greater than the strike of naval guns, and that ensuring a sufficient thickness of underwater armor and sufficient longitudinal and subdivided compartments was the only way. And if the No. 1 and No. 4 gun positions are placed with 3 main guns, it will inevitably cause the width of the head and tail armor boxes to increase, which directly occupies the depth of the underwater mine protection layout, which directly leads to the underwater protection, and once the ammunition depot is ignited by torpedoes or mines, the result will be tragic! At the same time, because the bow is too hypertrophied, it will directly cause greater resistance.

But the only problem is that this coordination of fire is very problematic, if it is a half salvo, it may take a bit of effort, and it will not be very low in terms of weight, at least a little heavier than the three-seat triple layout. As for the last two plans, the battleship with four twin turrets was the most basic, simplest, least risky, but least firepowered. And the layout of the 3-seat triple is to take into account the promenade of the 3-gun turrets, as well as the problem of fire coordination of the half-salvo. In short, the German Admiralty was arguing about the various schemes. Tirpitz, as Lord of the Navy, had no choice.

However, it is still early, and the Germans have plenty of time to test the cost-effectiveness of various solutions, after all, Germany has not yet completed even its first level of Dreadnought. The development of the 14-inch naval gun has not yet been completed, and it is far from the time to start super-dreadnought. It's just a matter of R&D and discussion in advance. In this way, the German Naval Design Institute ushered in an era in which a hundred flowers bloomed and a hundred schools of thought contended!

Thank you for the reward of the book friend Kong Chen, as well as the monthly ticket support of the book friend Hell Queen and tianlang588~~~. (To be continued......)