"Admiral, there is absolutely no problem with my design."

Kuniberti looked at the head of the navy in front of him and once again reiterated his attitude.

"However, the weakening or even elimination of the armor of the non-vital parts of the battleship will make the battleship more vulnerable, which may cause greater casualties."

In response to the words of the chief designer, Kuniberti, Admiral Yagill voiced his concerns. And they were talking about the design of Italy's first battlecruiser, the Taranto-class battle cruiser.

According to Cuniberti's design, the Taranto-class battle cruiser is 210 meters long, 28.9 meters wide, and has a draft of 9.1 meters. The ship's firepower uses the same eight 305-mm main guns as the Dante class, with 12 105-caliber secondary guns. It is powered by 24 naval oil-fired boilers, two steam turbines, and four axles, with a maximum output of 56,000 horsepower and a maximum speed of 26.5 knots.

The ship has a standard displacement of 20,480 tons, a full load displacement of 23,600 tons, and a cruising range of 8,100 nautical miles / 14 knots. waterline armor belt up to 250 mm, compartment armor 70 mm; deck armor 76 mm, turret up to 280 mm, gun mount up to 250 mm; The maximum armor of the conning tower is 250 mm.

By all accounts, the performance of this battleship is excellent. However, one thing that made the navy criticize was that in order to ensure that the ship's performance was up to standard, Viscount Kuniberti greatly reduced the ship's armor.

It's not that the armor was reduced, in the key core area, the armor was quite thick, and it was not reduced. However, in non-core areas, Kuniberti has greatly reduced its armor, and even in many areas, the armor has been directly removed.

As a user, the Italian Navy was somewhat dissatisfied with this elimination of armor in the non-core area. Because the line between core and non-core is not so clear. In addition, the non-core area does not mean that it is not important, and the non-core area is hit too many times, and there is still a risk of sinking.

And on Kuniberti's side, listening to Admiral Yagill's words, he said helplessly. "Admiral, the navy not only wants the ship to have the firepower of a new battleship, but also wants the ship to be 3-4 knots faster than the Dante class to form a speed difference, and the cost is not much higher than that of the Dante class. With such harsh requirements, I can only think of a way from the armor. ”

It is precisely this kind of practical helplessness that Cuniberti is talking about, first of all, the Italian Navy's shipbuilding funds are limited, and it is impossible to arbitrarily increase the construction cost for a single warship. The Taranto-class battlecruiser was also designed to earn 10% more than the Dante-class battleship's construction cost.

Some people may ask, why is there such a big price gap between the Genoa-class battleships and the Garibaldi-class cruisers before? That's because neither of these two warships is expensive to build, at least compared to the new capital warships.

And in the case of a limited budget, the new Battlecruiser needs to have enough firepower, so its weapon cost will not be bottom, at least not much lower than the purchase cost of Dante-class weapons (a little less secondary guns).

The weapons are quite easy to solve, but the most important thing for the battle patrol is the problem of high speed. First of all, if you want to have a high speed, you need a sufficient power system, and these big boilers and steam turbines take up a lot of space. In addition, if you want to achieve high speed, the shape of the ship can also help, and the slender hull can help the ship achieve higher speed.

As a result, the hull and power system of the ship will account for a higher proportion of the weight of the battleship than the newer battleship. And the small proportion that remains is what the armor obtains.

In this case, the same method of sprinkling pepper noodles is absolutely not possible. This will lead to insufficient armor, which seems to be all protected, but it turns out that it is not protected in place.

Therefore, key protection is an inevitable choice, and only by giving priority to ensuring the armor in the core area can the battleship avoid fatal damage. Although this will make the losses suffered in the naval battle even greater, it is the best choice. After all, the navy itself demanded that the ship return to the battle line if necessary, and not protect the core area, and the power of this large-caliber shell was not a sour one.

"However, isn't the 4,250-ton armor ratio tonnage too low?"

"Yes, I also think it's a bit low, or the Navy's construction cost of this class will increase a little more, just another 10%."

Kuniberti said this, Admiral Yagill did not want to answer. Don't look at the 400 million lira that the Navy got from selling ships, but if you don't save a little money, you can mess it up in a few clicks. For example, the development and validation of new technologies, as well as the construction of warships. If you don't get stuck in the cost of building a battleship, these ship designers can let themselves go and pile up a new gadget with excellent performance but high blood pressure for you.

In addition to new technologies, the purchase of new equipment also costs a lot of money. For example, the purchase of airships, new radios, mechanical calculators, large optical telescopes, etc., and for some emerging maritime things, the navy also needs to invest in verifying whether it is suitable for the needs of the navy.

It can be said that as long as you are willing to spend money, the Navy can find hundreds of valid reasons to spend it.

Therefore, for the extra funds in his hand, Admiral Yagill is very close, and he will not be easily taken out. The construction of the Taranto patrol this time was more to make up for the lack of large high-speed warships in the Italian Navy. However, the cost of 47 million lire made it impossible for Admiral Yagill to continue to increase the cost of this warcruise, which won the most expensive battle patrol in Italy.

Since he didn't want to pay for it, Admiral Yagill couldn't say anything in the face of Kuniberti, who had the problem in front of him. However, Admiral Yagill had an idea, maybe this battle cruiser could be shown to Tirpitz, and the Germans might also appreciate this battleship, so they could charge a fee for the construction of other ships.

Speaking of other ships, Admiral Yagill immediately spoke. "What do you think of the Piedmont-class cruisers, Kuniberti?"

As the chief warship designer, Kuniberti certainly knew about the various warships built by the Navy, and the Piedmont-class cruisers in Admiral Yagil's mouth were the product of new technologies in the new era.

The ship is used as a fleet reconnaissance and escort, and when necessary, it can also be used as a heavy duty to defend oneself or destroy the enemy's sea lines of communication, so the ship has excellent endurance, firepower and speed are not bad.

"I won't have said this class of cruiser before, it's very good, this new cruiser designed by Giuseppe Orlando, taking into account all aspects, is a general-purpose cruiser suitable for the needs of our navy."

And this Piedmont-class cruiser, which he praised, has a total length of 147 meters, a width of 16.1 meters, and a draft of 5.2 meters. The ship has a standard displacement of 5120 tons and a full load displacement of 6380 tons.

Armed with 4 twin 152-mm guns, 4 105-mm single-barreled guns, 6 75-mm single-barreled guns, two quadruple 533-mm torpedo launchers. Its waterline armor belt is 52 mm, the deck is 24 mm, the battery is 80 mm, and the command tower is 100 mm.

It has a power output of 28,000 hp, a top speed of 27 knots, and a cruising range of 2,900 nautical miles at 15 knots.

Judging by the data, this cruiser is already very good, even if Kuniberti himself designed it, it will not be better than this. After all, he is used to designing large warships, and let him design small and medium-sized warships, which may not be as good as other excellent designers.

Of course, he also heard the news that this excellent cruiser was not cheap at all, and the construction cost of 12 million lire was the determination of Admiral Yagil to decide how many ships to build. However, there is news that the Admiralty really likes the ship, one says that it plans to build 6 ships, and the other says that it plans to build 8 ships, but no matter how many ships, this is a headache for His Excellency the Admiral.