"General, the Admiralty's announcement. If I'm not mistaken, it should be that the Duma agreed to the plan for the construction of a new capital ship. I don't finally have to guard the Baltic Sea with these antiques. A subordinate sent a report to Essen.

"Expected, reasonable." Ethan said with a nonchalant smile. Russia has never forgotten the navy, in the history of the Russian navy after the defeat of the Battle of Tsushima, although the flag died down for a short time, but then after a slight economic recovery, began to expand the navy, throughout the First World War, the Russians completed a total of seven dreadnoughts, and also launched another five dreadnoughts (one dreadnought, the other four dreadnoughts). And these Russian battleships have a characteristic, they are all typical 12-gun gods, the dreadnought is 12 12-inch guns, and the super dreadnought is 12 14-inch guns!

And in this plane, Russia lost too much in a series of naval battles in Southeast Asia, and only three of the more than a dozen battleships were left after hitting the most sinister battle. In history, since 1909, Russia began to build new dreadnoughts, and now at the end of 1910, the Russian Duma finally decided to grit its teeth and start construction of new warships. But it's not that the Russians still have as much ambition as they have. But because if you don't work hard, the Baltic Sea will really become Germany's inland sea.

1910 was definitely a year of disappointment for the Allies, whose most confident aspect, the Allies, believed that 120% of the Navy would not be a problem, and who would have thought that the invincible British Imperial Fleet would be so unbearable! Relative to the Confederates. The greatest advantage of the Entente was that it could use land and sea transportation and mobilize troops, which is why Britain and France were able to fight against Germany and Austria on the Western Front and Turkey in the Dardanelles at the same time. But this time. It seems that the situation in Britain is very bad, even France has begun to find its own way out, can Russia be spared?

After the end of the Second Sino-Russian War, according to the Russian Admiralty's assumption, the British Navy would definitely try its best to annihilate the German High Seas Fleet after the war, and the German High Seas Fleet, which also adhered to the offensive concept, would definitely try to break through the Royal Navy's blockade in the North Sea, if this was the case. The Russian Navy only had to resist the partial division of the German High Seas Fleet, and this partial division probably only had those old dreadnoughts, so the pressure on the Russian Navy was not great. Add to that the economic woes. The Russian Navy has not had a new capital ship expansion plan for almost four years.

But now the Russians are not calm, not only because something happened to the British Navy, but more importantly, the Russians seem to be aware of the Germans' possible intention to cut themselves. The Germans' detailed battle plan was impossible for the Russians to know. But judging from some of Germany's actions, Russia can still detect it to some extent, first of all, the first thing that makes the Russians feel strange is that Germany actually built a fortified area in the area close to the border! The German Army is good at field warfare, and is good at concentrating troops through ultra-high mobility to defeat the opponent in an extreme time, but looking at this plan, the Germans seem to have given up the plan of directly sweeping away France, Belgium and the Netherlands in one fell swoop, and are ready to fight a war of attrition in the border area, like Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. This is very wrong.

And where will the large number of elite field units of the Germans be? After reconnaissance, it was found that the German army in East Prussia had been steadily rising! This turns the fears of the Russians into reality! If Germany really intends to take Russia at all. If the army moves, the navy will definitely take action, and even the choice of landing operations on the Baltic coast is possible. Russia could fortify its defenses by building fortified areas in places such as Russian Poland. But what about the long Baltic coast? You can't repair it for such a long distance!

Once the German Army landed in the Baltic Sea under the cover of the Navy, the Germans would face the soft belly of Russia, and under the front and rear attacks, the Russian Army might not be a matter of defeat. And it will directly threaten several key cities in Russia, the most important of which is the capital of Russia, Petrograd on the Gulf of Finland! (Historically, the Germans did do this in 1917, and those who want to know more can check out Operation Albion.) This is a big problem, the Russians can rely on delay to consume the combat effectiveness of the German Army, but if the other side attacks your vital point and directly fights the field war into a positional war and a war of attrition, although the Germans can't consume Britain and France, it is still no problem to consume Russia! At that time, even if the Russians want reinforcements and have the ability to do so, it will depend on whether the road situation gives you face!

If anything concerns the capital, it is definitely a big deal. No, in order to prevent the British Navy's inability to directly cause the German High Seas Fleet to free up its hands to bully itself, the Admiralty, which had been reduced to a cold yamen, immediately became lively! To this end, they also formulated a set of relatively detailed development plans and strategic goals, and as for the formulator, it was naturally the battle-experienced Admiral Essen.

"The Russian Navy has only one task, and that is to be able to reach forty percent of the strength of the German Navy, and to be able to resist seventy percent of the strength of the German High Seas Fleet for at least two months! In a future war, the Russian fleet in the Black Sea will be dominated by submarines and torpedo boats, and their task will be to hold the fortress of Sevastopol under the protection of mine nets. The Russian Navy should focus its entire attention on the defense of the Baltic Sea, especially the defense of Riga and the Gulf of Finland. "At the beginning of the article, Essen set a very gloomy tone for the Russian Navy. Simply put, it means not to seek merit, but to seek no fault! I don't want to fight out, but I want to be able to resist for a while when I am beaten!

There is no way, after all, even if God commands the Russian army, it is impossible to defeat the German High Seas Fleet, which is at least three times stronger than itself. Although the Russians are ready to make up for the progress they have fallen behind, but even if they do, the expansion rate of the German Navy is still much higher than that of the Russians, so the Russians can only defend, and Essen even hopes that the British Imperial Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet will fight to the death, and then take the time to take advantage of submarines and mine-strike ships or something!

In order to achieve this goal, the Russians have no way to rely solely on the fleet, and in the narrow waters of the Baltic Sea, they will come out of their own house and go to the door of the other side's house! If the main fleet encounters it, it will be a decisive battle, and it is a question of whether it can run back if it can't be defeated. So Essen's opinion is that the role of the capital ship is to serve as a living fleet and a mobile heavy artillery platform. They will form a defensive system together with the batteries and mine arrays on the island, the efficiency of the shore guns is actually very low, although on land can add thicker defense, and the shooting is more stable, but the batteries will be hindered by the terrain, and the general batteries rarely have guns that can cause fatal damage to the battleship, plus they cannot move, so that the opponent can calmly bypass some of the heavy batteries, and then open a gap to occupy them through the navy and army.

The current Russian Navy no longer has the need and possibility to sail out of the Baltic Sea, so any range and endurance can be ignored. The requirements of the Russians for the capital ships now are to resist the beating and have fierce firepower! After the new naval warship order plan was issued, Essen began to compare the various types of warships being produced, considering Russia's own military industrial capacity and slipway maintenance ability, and considering the current needs, Essen believed that the Russian battleship should not exceed 200 meters long. In terms of speed, you can give up, and you can run 21 knots. But in terms of armor and firepower, the Russians demanded relatively high.

"THE THICKNESS OF THE MAIN ARMOR BELT MUST BE MORE THAN 320MM, AND THE THICKNESS OF THE ARMOR AT THE MAIN LEVEL MUST ALSO REACH 85MM. Underwater protection would like to be able to refer to the design of the Americans. The main gun firepower is at least 9 14-inch guns, and it is best to equip 12 14-inch guns. Of course, I admit that the latter is a lot of pressure for our country at this stage, but in order for us to be able to offset the numerical superiority of the Germans, we must do our best in terms of quality. In his report, Essen sketched out a sketch of Russia's future warships.

The 12-gun capital ship was still only a plan, but the battleship with nine 14-inch guns was finalized in 1910, and construction began at the end of the year. The battleship, named Gangut, was laid at a shipyard located in the Baltic Sea. The entire design is based on a French battleship of the Row of Provinces. It is expected that 3 ships will be built.

In addition to capital ships, another important warship expansion plan of the Russians is submarines and torpedo boats. In the Baltic Sea, this bathtub is not actually suitable for the operation of the Grand Fleet, but is a paradise for all kinds of high-speed lightning strikers and submarines. The Russians would rely on mine arrays to hold off the large German warships, while relying on shore defense guns and battleships to suppress the German Navy's minesweepers and light warships, while using mine-striking ships and torpedo boats to launch sneak attacks if necessary. As for why the Russians didn't build light cruisers? What are you building that thing for? Anyway, Russia still has some old cruisers that can deal with the light cruisers of the Germans, and at the same time there are torpedo boat reconnaissance, and after discovering the other side, they run home a few steps, what are you afraid of?

In addition, Essen also applied for a military budget specifically for Kolchak's marines, as the actual supreme leader of the navy, he was somewhat disdainful of the combat effectiveness of the army, which was not only caused by conflicts between the armies, but more importantly, Essen hoped that he could control the entire navy, which included but not only warships, but also various land facilities, and it was naturally not safe to hand over these things to those ordinary Russian GIs. Moreover, Essen also vaguely knew through his own channels that German spies seemed to have some operations in the navy, so in order to ensure that he had a stable rear, Essen asked Kolchak to defend the coast of the Gulf of Finland. And this request was also approved by the tsar. Since they have been included in their own command, Essen naturally cannot treat them badly.

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