The Army's use of airships can be said to be very successful. Taking advantage of the characteristics of the airship with a large carrying capacity and being able to land at any time, the airborne troops and air raids were successfully pointed.

The Army is working so hard, and the Navy, as another branch of the military, is certainly not far behind.

On the endless sea, an airship flies slowly in a cloudless sky.

However, this airship looks a little strange, because it is a little different from the mainstream rigid airships now, it does not look like there are as many trusses as support, and unlike the previous soft airships, it is obvious that several traces of support frames are floating on the airship.

Semi-rigid airship, that's the word.

A new type of airship that intends to combine the advantages of both hard and soft airships.

As for why the Navy wants to combine the advantages of the two airships to develop such a semi-rigid airship, this is a long story.

After the military role of the hard airship, the navy has been trying to study other roles of the airship.

Its ability to stay in the air for a long time, as well as its much higher speed than warships, has given the Navy a variety of ideas about airships.

Among them, the use of airships for reconnaissance missions is the best choice for the Navy at present.

Italy's advantageous location, coupled with its surrounding islands, is a great help for airships' maritime reconnaissance.

However, although Italy is in a good position, the navy is ambitious, they believe that the navy is an offensive branch, and it is impossible to operate only in the thousands of miles of sea around Italy, and if it appears in other sea areas, then it will be inconvenient to lack the sharp weapon of airships, which is a convenient means of reconnaissance.

This is not that the Navy does not attach importance to the reconnaissance mission of light warships, but it is providing itself with more choices, and if you want to search for the enemy in the vast sea, the more means the better.

It is not easy to get an airship on board, because of the incompressible nature of a hard airship, which makes it very expensive to use an airship at sea.

You think, a small reconnaissance airship is at least sixty or seventy meters long, and the diameter is also more than ten meters. What's even worse is that the hard airship cannot be disassembled, which means how big the ship that can carry this kind of hard airship should be, not to mention the need to consider keeping up with the speed of the warship, as well as its loading, lifting, replenishment and other aspects.

In this way, the cost of a hard airship is too high, so high that no one can afford to use it, not even Britain and the United States, which have deep pockets and are willing to spend money.

Since the cost of a rigid airship is too high, it is not possible to change to an airship that can shrink. Not to mention, this idea is really tricky. However, the traditional soft airship does not meet the requirements of the navy (too slow and easily disturbed by the weather).

At this time, it was proposed to combine the characteristics of hard and soft airships, and put forward the idea of semi-hard airships.

After hearing about this idea, the Italian Navy was very supportive, and allocated a special amount of money for the development of the project.

The current result is this strange-looking airship in the sky.

Now the airship is undergoing intense tests to be recognized by the Navy, and for the head of the project, Professor Cockburn, the pressure is not at all small.

"Record the wind values."

In the somewhat shaky airship cabin, Professor Cockburn kept giving orders.

"12.3 meters per second, which is a level 6 wind."

A tester, observing the value of the meter, reported to it.

Hearing the tester's report made Cockburn frown in the shaky cabin.

Because of the frequency of shaking in the cabin, Coburn quickly calculated that the wind level of the airship under his feet was not suitable for flying, and the situation was not optimistic.

In fact, in his heart, after several previous tests, Cockburn already had a general understanding of the semi-rigid airship under his feet, and the test data was not as expected, which made him a little anxious in his heart. But these are all hidden in his heart, and he is still a confident Professor Coburn in front of others.

"We found a ship ahead, I don't know if it's our target."

The lookout spotted a ship in the distance and immediately reported it.

"Let's go over and see if it's what we're looking for."

On Cockburn's orders, the eerie airship flew towards the discovered ship.

The Maxwell is a flat-deck ship of the Italian Navy's transport fleet, with a total length of 119 meters and a displacement of 7,000 tons, which normally transports supplies to various naval bases, and this time the transport ship has been tasked with welcoming the landing of an airship at sea.

"Where's the airship?"

On the transport ship, the crew watched the movement of the sky with wide eyes. However, in addition to the clear blue sky, there were only white clouds in the sky, and there was no airship to see that needed to wait.

"Is it possible that the airship can't find us?"

"It's quite possible."

"What are you two talking nonsense, don't you know the rules of the navy?"

The two crew members who were scolded immediately turned into birds and beasts.

"There's an airship, I don't know if it's the one we're waiting for."

Some crew members noticed a small black dot in the sky and reported loudly.

Captain Enrique immediately took out his binoculars and observed the small black dots in the sky. When he found the obvious mark on the airship, he immediately ordered the first mate beside him. "It's the one we're waiting for, so let's get ready."

With the captain's words, all the crew members on the Maxwell began to get busy, some people pulled ropes, some people installed hooks, and some people took out flags and prepared to wave flags, which were all necessary preparations for the landing of the airship.

Soon the somewhat strange airship came over the ship, and several cables were thrown from the air, which were immediately caught by the crew below and hung on the hook.

The landing of the airship is actually not complicated, it mainly depends on the operation of the airship itself, and only the ship needs to be parked by itself. Of course, docking at sea is still more troublesome than land, because you need to consider the shaking of the ship, but the trouble is really only a little bit, but the time is longer.

After the semi-rigid airship was docked, the final test was to reduce the size of the airship and place it inside the ship.

However, since it was only an experiment now, the Maxwell transport ship was not equipped with a special cabin for the airship, so it was simulated in Class A.

And under the monitoring of the timekeeper, after half an hour, this strange airship was divided into several categories, airbags, hanging compartments, engines, etc., were placed everywhere. And the crew, who were tired enough to choke, can finally rest now.

"Half an hour to disassemble."

Professor Coburn, who was also holding a pocket watch, put away his watch and watched as the Navy testers began to measure the volume of the disassembled airship.

"A total of 612.5 cubic meters."

After some measurements, the volume of the split airship was quickly calculated.

As for why it is still so large, it is simply that the helium inside the airbag is not emitted at all. It is said that helium is very expensive to produce, and no one dares to use it once and it will be discharged, which is why it has such a large volume. But that's already a good thing. If it is calculated according to the hard airship, it will need at least double the space to be placed.

After the crew rested for a while, Professor Coburn, who was a little anxious in his heart, said to the naval officer beside him. "Major Odolovane, can we start assembling?"

"No problem."

The crew, who had rested for a while, stood up again at the sound of his command, and began to reassemble the disassembled airship under the guidance of several testers. Unlike disassembly, assembly took longer, and after more than an hour, the airship appeared on the ship again.

Next, they will perform a return test and return to the point of departure.

The results of this experiment were also quickly sent back to the Admiralty, and General Rainard of the Naval Armament Department wrote down instructions on the various data of the experiment after reading them for a while.

Continued research on the semi-rigid airship was halted and all data was sealed.

He would then inform Admiral Yagill of the results that the data on the semi-rigid airship were not as good as expected, and that the Navy would not benefit from continuing the study.