"General Fisher has gone astray." Jericho looked at the bright moon outside the window and couldn't help but say regretfully. "The Royal Navy is no longer the supreme presence of any other navy 20 years ago. What the Imperial Navy was pursuing was no longer absolute control of the sea, but a return to a decisive battle at sea. ”

When Jericho wrote this paragraph in his diary, he couldn't help but feel a pang of weakness in his heart. Jericho looked at the map of the world posted on the wall, although the allies of France and Russia at this time are still regarded as the greatest threat to the empire in Britain, Jericho is sure that in a maximum of seven years, the threat of France and Russia to the British Empire will cease to exist. The seemingly formidable Russian Navy will be completely broken in the next Sino-Russian war. Maybe even turn it into an offshore navy!

As for the French? Jericho had considerable contempt for the French Navy, because for more than 20 years, the French had not found their own direction of development. His limited national strength has been hovering between breaking diplomatic relations and the decisive battle of the fleet, and he has not chosen a suitable target until the end. And more importantly, with the further improvement of Germany's national strength, the pressure on the French will become very great. When the German navy and army can suppress the French, France will have to change its attitude towards the British Empire, and perhaps it is not impossible for the two sides to become comrades-in-arms again.

What really worries Jericho is the Germans, who, since Wilhelm II came to power, have abandoned the conservative policies that have followed since Bismarck's time in terms of sea power. Especially after 1895, the pace of Germany's maritime expansion accelerated significantly. All kinds of new warships are emerging one after another, especially now, the Germans have undertaken the construction of the most powerful warships of the Chinese Navy. In Jericho's view, the Germans' construction of this battleship not only shortened the gap between the German battleship design and the world's first-class in the world, but also meant that the German naval construction began to really explode!

It must be said that the Germans caught up with a good era. The Germans did not have to worry about having experienced sailors as they did in the sail age, the weather and navigation requirements of the modern new warships were already very low, and there was no need to worry about the various timbers used to build the warships, and Germany now only needed to use its huge industrial capacity. Then the German navy will swell rapidly, and it should not be forgotten that the current German industrial output is already the second largest in the world. More than the British Empire!

Germany did not have many overseas colonies, so who would be the enemy of this huge fleet? French? It is impossible, although France and Germany are old enemies, it is the land war that really determines the fate of both sides. The same is true of the Russians. Then there can be only one potential adversary of this formidable fleet. That's the British home fleet blocked at the exit from the North Sea!

If the German fleet is alone, the British do not need to be overly nervous, Jericho is confident, judging from the current situation, the British Navy will definitely not fall behind, although the German industry is strong, but Germany's foundation is in the army, so the investment in the navy cannot be compared with the British. As long as there were no major mistakes in the construction of the British Navy, then the German Navy had no chance of defeating the British Royal Navy.

But except for the German Navy. In the Mediterranean, the British found that there were two other troubles, Italy and Austria-Hungary. Under the coordination of the Germans, Italy and Austria-Hungary, two old enemies for decades, actually formed an alliance, and when Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary formed an alliance, the people in Whitehall in England wondered if their ears had heard it wrong, but Jericho knew that this seemingly incredible thing was actually inevitable!

Compared with Britain, France and Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy can only be regarded as second-rate Qing countries, and some people even jokingly call these two countries the empire of the poor, Italy has a shallow foundation, and the national problems within the Austro-Hungarian Empire are enough to annoy the rulers. Without the help of Germany, Austria-Hungary could not resist the Russian infiltration into the Balkans, and without the help of Germany, the territories ceded to France at the time of Italy's independence could never be regained. Although the two countries are hostile, they must rely on Germany. So with the help of the Germans, the enemies of the past will also sit together!

If you only talk about national strength, these two countries are not in the stream, but considering geopolitics, it is quite bad, first of all, Italy, Italy is a peninsular country, its army defense line is only on the mountains in the north, complex terrain and high mountains make it quite difficult to carry out large-scale corps operations, so Italy can squeeze out a lot of money to develop the navy, especially after the reconciliation with Austria-Hungary, Italy's defense front is only France, and France's main enemy is Germany, In this way, Italy's naval strength will enter a stage of rapid expansion.

The Italian navy, together with the Austro-Hungarian navy and the German navy, one pinned down the British Imperial fleet in the Mediterranean, and the other waited in the North Sea for an opportunity to fight the Empire. As a result, the British Royal Navy will find itself in a two-front combat situation, and the situation is quite bad.

Although the quality of the Italian Navy is unknown, but in terms of hardware alone, the combat effectiveness of the Italian Navy is definitely much higher than the data reflected in the tonnage, all new warships. This, combined with the funds obtained from the long-term sale of warships, allowed Italy's navy to expand very quickly.

Faced with the above situation, Jericho keenly felt that what the British Empire needed now was to be able to defeat its opponents in a decisive battle, not to deal with those broken warships that were scurrying around. The current situation is that both Germany and Italy are in a relatively closed sea, and they cannot get out of the country to break diplomatic relations. It can only fight fleet battles with the British Royal Navy in closed seas, but for this reason, if the decisive battle is lost, the damage to the British Empire will be fatal! (Historically, Churchill said of Jericho as a man who could lose a war in an afternoon!) ）

But now, Sir Fisher is still trying to carry out his plan of fast ships, which are built super fast and have good firepower, but the idea of protecting the ships on the coffee table, and trying to overwhelm the opponent in a decisive battle with absolute firepower and numerical superiority, seems to be good, but in reality it does not work at all. Fire defense and speed together make up the performance of a battleship, and the loss of a single performance can have a fatal impact on the battleship. For example, in the First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle of that year, the gap between the two sides was not too big in terms of firepower, and the speed was comparable. But one is a dome armored ship and the other is an armored ship, which causes the former to have almost no power to fight back under the blow of the Guiyuan class, don't look at the fact that he was beaten by the group at that time, even if it is a separate decisive battle, it will definitely not work.

The same example was found in the Spanish-American War. In terms of firepower alone, the Olympia is definitely good, but judging from its performance in actual combat, it is still inferior to the improved version of the Guiyuan class. Therefore, those vain attempts to overwhelm the opponent in naval battles solely by firepower and speed are wrong, and they are all conjectured by sitting in the office all day and counting the number of warships! As for the excessively high speed, although the higher the speed, the better, but the increase in speed is limited by the power system and cost, when the speed is high to a certain extent, then the marginal benefit is too low. It is better to use effective resources elsewhere.

Face the challenges of potential challengers. Jericho was sure that the Royal Navy needed not the ones with huge tonnage but not on the battle line, but battleships with moderate speed, fierce firepower and good protection. In peacetime, Jericho, who was only a rear admiral, really could not influence the shipbuilding policy of the Navy, but this time it was different. Jericho was instructed to discuss the transfer of technology with Yan Boxun, the representative of Huaxia, because Fisher did not know much about the situation in Huaxia, so when he explained the task, it was very simple, that is, at least to negotiate the plan for a high-speed warship. As for other ship designs, of course, the more the better.

So before the formal negotiations, Jericho secretly decided to negotiate at least a standard battleship plan, and even if he couldn't get the German 12-gun battleship design, he had to get a standard battleship. As for whether it is agreed upon, Jericho will definitely have a tendency to add some of his own ideas to the report. In short, Jericho hoped that the standard united front ships would make up the vast majority of the fleet of the future.

At the same time, Yan Boxun, who was in Italy, also received instructions from Xu Jie and was sorting out the "commodities" of this transaction. But whether it will be handed over to the British or to the Germans remains to be determined. Yan Boxun wanted to give the British another battle cruiser scheme with a 4-sided arrangement of main guns (the gun layout refers to Lütsov, and the main armor is 6 inches at the same time, and the dome armor is strengthened). This kind of battleship Beiyang, which emphasizes speed and firepower, will also be equipped, mainly against the armored cruisers of the Russians, and is not suitable for participating in the main decisive battle on the battle line.

The last one is the battleship scheme that has not been adopted, which is the last bargaining chip, with 5 twin main guns arranged in the central axis of the hull. Originally, this plan was good, but in terms of tonnage, with the same tonnage, it was possible to mount 4 battleships with triple main guns. The same 10-gun battleship with a staggered layout of the hull and amidships is more tonnage-saving. (The turret layout type is a reference to the German 1 wartime Kaiser-class battleships.) So this plan is a bit high, not low. But it was good to sell it to the British, the performance of the ship was okay, but it was limited by funds, but the British did not have this concern.

Thank you book friends for the monthly pass support ~~~~~ with a breeze and a strong forest! (To be continued.) )