"Mr. Xu, can I ask you a few questions?" Commissioned Rio Kuniberti's face changed slightly. After all, it is very rude to ask the other party directly about their privacy. "Please speak," Xu Jie said with a smile. "Have you ever worked in a ship design bureau?" Leo asked. "I'm ashamed to say that I didn't work in any design institute, but my father worked in the Confederate Navy Ship Design Bureau during the American Civil War. I've been interested in ship design since I was a child, but it's only scratching the surface, and I can't do the specific drawings independently, so I can only draw a simple line drawing. Xu Jie was compiling his own "History of Revolutionaries" while looking at the face of the commissioner Leo. Fortunately, Leo didn't seem to care about this, and quickly turned the conversation to the drawings.

"Very good design, even the chief designer of the Armstrong shipyard in the UK." Entrusted Leo complimented

"Where, where, very general design, Mr. is too modest." Xu Jie said politely

"But there are a few questions that I haven't figured out, and I hope your Excellency can advise you on one or two." Entrust Leo with a twist.

"If I'm not mistaken, it should be the angle of attack, torpedo and speed, right?" Xu Jie said with a smile.

"Can you tell us why?" Leo was taken aback and asked.

"Let's talk about the angle of attack first, do you know how much a 4,300-ton dome cruiser is worth?" Xu Jie asked.

"If it's a foreign order, it should be about 300,000 pounds." Leo calculated it and said

"In an actual engagement, is there a high probability that one Dome Cruiser wants to ram another Dome Cruiser?" Xu Jie then asked.

"Well, it's hard. After all, the speed of the two sides is too fast. And the closer you get to the artillery, the higher the hit rate, and it is likely that it will be sunk before it hits. Leo thought for a moment and said.

"Do you think the angle of attack is necessary? Let's not talk about it, it's basically not needed. And even if it is used, is it a bit too wasteful to use a battleship worth nearly 300,000 pounds for ramming? Xu Jie smiled.

"This? But if you can hit the angle of attack, just in case, it's still necessary, right? Leo replied.

"As for the torpedo, it is similar to the point of view of the angle of attack. Now the effective firing range of torpedoes is only a few hundred meters, and they are generally arranged in the bow of the ship, which not only has a short range, but is not at all suitable for playing in a tandem array. So it's not very cost-effective. As for the speed, I personally think that enough is enough. There is no need to be hasty like the British. Xu Jie said with a smile.

"But from a design point of view, a good side-chord engagement ship, if it could, should be armed with rapid-fire guns, angles of attack, torpedoes. The speed should be as fast as possible. Protection should also be as good as possible. Although Leo somewhat agrees with Xu Jie's opinion. But contemporaneous ideas are not something that can be changed in a sentence or two.

"What do you think makes a good boat?" Xu Jie asked after taking a sip of coffee.

"Higher speed, more firepower, better protection, stability." Entrusted Leo blurted out.

"Well, that's good. But this is closer to a work of art than a weapon. Xu Jie leaned forward slightly and looked at the Italian ship designer with interest, it seems that he is far from being as sophisticated as when he designed Garibaldi.

"And what do you mean?" Leo said with a slight sarcasm.

"Good design, right speed, balanced attack and defense, right cost, stable dìng. This is the criterion for evaluating whether a battleship is excellent or not. Striking a balance among the constraints of all aspects is the goal of the designer. Xu Jie said confidently.

"Can you elaborate on that?" Entrusted Leo suddenly became interested.

"I won't say much about the four points you just mentioned. Let me focus on cost control and design concepts. Xu Jie took a sip of coffee and moistened his throat.

"Cost and design. First of all, you need to understand. Any performance of a battleship is piled up in pounds. And the military must consider the cost when procuring. Therefore, a warship must make appropriate trade-offs for certain performance. Excessive pursuit of the excellence of the indicators and the comprehensiveness of the equipment will lead the design of warships astray. For example, if you pursue firepower and protection, you will inevitably increase the tonnage, and in order to maintain speed, the power must be strengthened. The strengthening of power will push up the cost and technical difficulty, which directly affects the stability of the ship. Increases the difficulty of the design. Xu Jie said eloquently, without a trace of hesitation and uneasiness, as if a teacher was giving a lecture to a student. …,

Leo nodded approvingly. Most of the battleships built by the Italian Navy in the 80s belonged to the kind of warships with strong firepower but limited protection, and Leo knew this. At that time, the Italian navy was too focused on firepower and protection, and the battleships did not have enough tonnage to be equipped with armor. Some 10,000-ton warships did not even have waterline armor. When designing warships, I also subconsciously considered the balance of performance, but when it came to specific trade-offs, I never grasped it well.

"Take, for example, this dome cruiser I designed. In the case of knowing that the angle of attack and torpedoes are of little use, or even dangerous. Resolutely abandon it and use the tonnage saved to enhance the other main performance of the warship. The whole ship has 10 6-inch guns, of which the side chord can concentrate up to 6 6-inch guns. Combined with the new brakes, it can theoretically fire 36 rounds of 6-inch shells per minute. Such firepower can already surpass all dome cruisers of the same class in service. At the same time, in order to strengthen the maintenance of combat power, the dome armor belt of the entire ship covers almost the entire captain. This made it possible to protect the power compartment, ammunition depot and other critical compartments even if the battleship was hit, and at the same time, the dome armor at the bow and stern was not superfluous, and once the head and tail were penetrated, even the dome armor was penetrated by a small number of shells. Under the protection of the bow and stern vaults and subdivision compartments. Ships can avoid a stern nose or tail roll. In the setting of the gun emplacement, I raised the gun emplacement to avoid the occurrence of water ingress of some of the ship's guns due to the high speed of the ship. At the same time, the protection of up to 4.7 inches is enough to defend against the attack of 120 caliber naval guns. Firepower was saved. As for the speed, you see it too. Achieving such firepower and defense on a 4,000-ton warship is approaching the limit. Therefore, it is difficult to achieve excessive pursuit of high speed. At the same time, because cruisers are to fight in formation, unless the entire fleet can reach extremely high speeds, there is no point in simply keeping a few or one ship at high speed. Whether it is technical or from the point of view of real combat needs, it is not necessary to reach a speed of more than 20 knots, according to my calculations. If a 4,000-ton dome cruiser wanted to reach speeds of more than 23 knots, the power system would have to be close to 15,000 horsepower. (Historically, the Yoshino main engine had only 23 knots of 15,000 horsepower.) And the subsequent armored ship of Hatsuun, with a displacement of nearly 10,000 tons, can reach 20 knots with a similar main engine. You can see how much Yoshino paid for a high speed of 3 knots) but if he maintained a speed of 20 knots, he would have used less than 10,000 horsepower. I think it's better to know which option is better. After Xu Jie finished speaking, he raised the wine glass next to him to hide his pride, you must know that this set of rhetoric is the result of thinking about it all night, which is enough to calm this immature designer.

At this time, Leo completely abandoned the arrogance and contempt for the Chinese in front of him. I saw him listen carefully and remember something. After Xu Jie finished speaking, he still pondered for a long time about the record in front of him. A few minutes later, Leo suddenly jumped up from the chair and excitedly gave Xu Jie a sturdy bear hug: "Thank you, I finally know where my bottleneck is." I have benefited a lot from your words. Thank you so much," and at the same time, Xu Jie also smiled slightly. While saying that there was a good pat on Leo's shoulder, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief: Y has finally passed.