June 15, 1897. 1 - Andolsa Shipyard, Italy, on this day, two huge battleships were finally completed, the Dante class, the battleship named after the author of the Divine Comedy in Italian history, and this type of battleship will also become the largest warship exported by the Kingdom of Italy to join the Northern Fleet.

"It was a great moment when the traditional friendship between the Kingdom of Italy and the Qing Empire was consolidated and strengthened, and not long ago, in that epoch-making war, the Guiyuan-class cruisers and Garibaldi-type cruisers produced by the Kingdom of Italy defeated the ferocious Japanese fleet with outstanding performance in all naval battles, and saved this ancient country from many disasters in the midst of danger. And in the ensuing Qing-Russian conflict, it was the powerful Garibaldi-class armored cruisers that inflicted heavy damage on the Russian fleet in the chase. And today, the masterpieces of the Italian naval industry, the Dante-class battleships, will once again join the battle sequence of the Beiyang Navy, and I can say in charge that they will definitely perform even more than their predecessors. "After the impassioned speech of Count Vittorio Cuoneberti, the Beiyang Fleet will add two more ships with a displacement of 14,000 tons, and these will be two real battleships of the first class!

Compared with the two Dante-type battleships previously delivered to the Spaniards, the two battleships ordered by Beiyang were more powerful than their Spanish cousins because of the long construction period and the deliberate care of the Italian shipyard.

First of all, in the selection of armaments, the Beiyang Naval Division did not choose the same 10-inch 40L gun as the Garibaldi class as the main gun. Instead, the new British-made 12-inch 40LMKIX main gun was selected with a newly developed twin-mounted turret from the Italian side, which was said to be the strongest combination in naval armament at that time. As for the reason for choosing a 12-inch gun. Only Yan Boxun and Liu Buyun, who was in charge of receiving the ship, and others knew about it.

Although in the Sino-Japanese War, many actual battles have shown that in the face of new hardened armor, the old armor-piercing shells cannot penetrate at all. In this case, suffocating the enemy ship with a high-explosive charge of picric acid is the best option, but then the outcome of the battle will be very long. And it is quite possible that after a long battle, the two sides will only win and lose and will not be able to completely destroy the opponent. After fighting for a long time, the opponent repaired it and came out again. This situation is clearly unacceptable for the Beiyang Fleet, which takes the elite route! Beiyang's tactical requirements are to sink the opponent as much as possible, and use the performance advantage of their own warships to keep their own warships from losses in the exchange of fire. At the same time, it is the best choice to constantly sink enemy ships and weaken the strength of the opposing fleet, so the Beiyang Fleet must be equipped with the most powerful weapons possible to ensure combat effectiveness.

As a traverser, Xu Jie knew the situation very well at that time, it was not that the power of the artillery was not enough, just take the MKIX 12-inch main gun newly equipped by the Beiyang Fleet, which can hit the muzzle velocity of 778 meters with a 386KG shell! According to calculations, this power should be able to penetrate 12-inch Krupp armor at a distance of 3,800 yards! In fact, even the 6-inch Harvey is difficult to penetrate, and the fundamental reason is that there is no cap to break through the hardened layer of the armor, and at the same time, the picric acid charge is unstable and easy to explode early. Faced with this problem, Xu Jie's solution is to add a layer of quilt cap to the outside of the warhead. At the beginning, mild steel was used as the material for the quilt cap, and then gradually the material after quenching and hardening was used as the quilt cap.

In the case of fuse manufacturing, the detonation time was extended, and TNT explosives were used instead of picric acid in the charge, and wax was used to isolate the charge from the projectile body to make it more problematic, and as the technology matured. Xu Jie is also counting on packing TNT in a wooden container to increase stability. After such improvements, although it may still not reach the theoretical penetration depth, it is not a big problem to penetrate armor of about 8 inches, and even if it cannot penetrate in the face of thicker armor. It can also rely on huge kinetic energy to cause damage to the hull, just like the Rurik fought the Tianjin in the past. It's just that the current armor-piercing projectile body is stronger, and the damage caused will be greater. Although the problem of armor-piercing shells has not been completely solved now, in line with the idea of taking precautions, it is the best choice to prepare the artillery first, after all, Beiyang does not have to face the threat of war at any time like Spain. …,

With the development of torpedo technology, the underwater protection of warships has become an increasingly important issue, so under the guidance of Xu Jie's "advanced theory" and after many tests by the Italians, the new underwater protection system has finally been freshly baked. The purpose of the entire protection system is to ensure a certain amount of longitude, and at the same time to leave a series of empty compartments behind the double hull to absorb the high-pressure bubbles generated by the torpedo explosion. THEN THERE ARE TWO LAYERS OF HIGHLY ELASTIC STEEL PLATES TO WITHSTAND THE IMPACT OF SHOCK WAVES AND DEBRIS, AND FURTHER INSIDE, THERE ARE COAL BUNKERS, IF THERE IS JUST COAL, IT CAN BE SAID THAT THE REMAINING ENERGY IS ALSO ABSORBED, AND AT THE END OF THE WALL IS A 40MM THICK ARMORED PARTITION. The remaining energy that will be used to withstand the impact of the torpedo.

And with the commissioning of 2 Dante-class battleships, the maritime superiority of the Beiyang Fleet in the Far East will be further consolidated. Even if the two new Russian battleships in the Far East were in service, the gap between the two sides was even greater than during the Sino-Japanese War, after all, the combat power of the two Dante-class battleships was much higher than that of the two Russian battleships. And the battleship detachment under Liu Buchan is no longer in name. Since then, the composition of the Beiyang Fleet's combat power has been further optimized, and it has changed from relying solely on cruisers to a pattern of paying equal attention to battleships and cruisers. And with the commissioning of these two warships, the remaining 3 warships of the old Beiyang can finally withdraw from the front line. In addition to the Zhiyuan as a training ship, the Dingyuan and Zhenyuan were used as offshore defense gunboats for port defense.

The impact of the two first-class battleships joining Beiyang was greater than that of Dingzhen joining Beiyang that year. This is not only because the Dante-class is a real first-rate warship, (Dingzhen's so-called first-class ironclad ships in the world are more just boasting, and other countries had enough to suppress Dingzhen's existence at that time), but also because the Beiyang Naval Division began to develop from a coastal defensive fleet to a yellow-water navy, and its strike range gradually developed from territorial waters to open seas. From maintaining the inviolability of territorial waters to medium-distance projection of military development. To a certain extent, Beiyang, like the US Navy, at this time, sent its fleet as far as possible. It's just that the expansion of the North Ocean was hindered only by a not very strong Russian Far East Fleet. And the U.S. fleet was indeed met with a joint strangulation of many forces.

The commissioning of 2 Dante-class battleships increased the strength of the Beiyang Fleet by more than half. And this tremendous progress made the Russians completely unable to sit still. Under the current circumstances, once a war breaks out, the Beiyang Navy and the foreign fleet with a strong Beiyang background will have absolute superiority at sea. Under these conditions, there was disagreement within the Russian Navy about the direction of the construction of the Far Eastern Fleet, and one opinion was that the Russian fleet needed to line up more battleships to the Far East so that it could suppress the Northern Fleet. On the other hand, the other faction believes that at this stage, the Russian navy is scattered in three separate sea areas, and it is impossible to raise enough battleships for a certain fleet in a short period of time, and in the Far East, there is no Russian port that has the ability to overhaul battleships, so it is better to send cruisers to achieve an asymmetric advantage in line with the strategy of fighting if you can fight but not fighting.

As the best admiral in the Russian Navy, Makanov leaned towards the second point of view, with a slight difference in that Makanov emphasized the role of the armored cruiser leader, in his opinion, in the case of not being able to achieve overwhelming superiority in a short period of time, one ship with multiple uses became the best choice, and when it came to the PISA-type armored cruiser, the Russians could gain some advantages in the newly built Grombowie-type armored cruiser in France. And when encountering the more powerful battleships Pinghai and Ninghai of the opponent, the lead ship of the armored cruiser of the Grom Bowie type, whose defensive power surpasses that of the improved cruiser in the Sea of Azov, can cover the retreat, and at the right time, join the battleship formation to start a decisive battle with the opponent. This universal warship is more suitable for the current complex situation in the Far East. …,

In the end, this kind of cost-effective plan was affirmed by the Tsar and the Admiralty. To this end, the Russians decided to start construction of another armored cruiser lead ship in France, which was named the Russia, and the two battleships were sent to the Far East after they were built. And the Russian Admiralty said that the addition of armored cruiser collar ships in the Far East is only a stopgap measure, and after the completion of the construction of the port of Muroran, the Russian Navy will send a large number of battleships to the Far East and turn the port of Muroran into a fortress of Gibraltar in the Russian Far East!

This blatant provocation not only unnerved Beiyang, but also Japan and Great Britain, especially Japan, whose growing power in the Far East and its construction in Hokkaido and other places undoubtedly demonstrated the attitude of the Russians, and as the navy strengthened and more and more Russians poured into the occupied territories, Japan's efforts to regain the territory would become more and more difficult. The degree of difficulty even led the Japanese top brass to believe that it was impossible for Japan to recover its territory alone, and the combat quality of the Japanese army was indeed high, and with the support of the British, there was also a great improvement in equipment. Don't forget, Japan is an island nation, and if the war resumes, it will be easy for the Russian fleet to blockade Japan, which has almost no navy! At that time, the people's livelihood will be unsustainable, what war will be fought?

As for Great Britain, although, as the first phase of the Navy, with the beginning of the construction of the German Navy, and the continued expansion of the Navy by France and Italy, the British had to leave more and more fleets in the Mediterranean and on the mainland, and over time, after the Northern Ocean, the Russian Far Eastern Fleet would also surpass the British in combat effectiveness! This meant that Britain would not be able to suppress the expanding Russian fleet in the Far East or ice-free ports on its own! And this directly led to the urgent need for Britain to support a force in the Far East to deal with the Russians who had gained a foothold in the Far East!

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