The dry dock is more than a hundred meters long, more than 30 meters wide and nine meters deep. There is a sluice in the distance blocking the river water. In the future, after the ship is repaired and the water is released from the sluice, the warship can naturally enter the river smoothly and sail to the Baltic Sea.
On the dense concrete support, a dark steel monster lies quietly on it. The hull has been 90% completed, and now there is only some finishing work. There are still many sailors on it for familiarization training.
"This battleship has not yet been named. According to its design tonnage of 00 tons, we have codenamed it as the Ironclad Type 00 Mothership. It has a length of 762 meters, a width of 116 meters, and a draft of 457 meters... Don't look at it as inferior to the British warriors. The size is big, but the combat effectiveness is not weak at all..."
Prince Carl led a group of people down the dry dock. People touched the rough hull and the delicate paint surface with their palms. Everyone was shocked by this big guy.
It is not that people have never seen large ships. In this era, it is normal for sail warships to have a displacement of six to seven thousand tons. The British ironclad Warrior even reached a displacement of more than nine thousand tons. However, pure steel warships and wooden sail warships have completely different qualities. .
More sturdy, more powerful, and murderous intent is coming towards the face as if it were real. Human beings are born with a sense of admiration for super-large metal objects, let alone such military and national weapons.
"Two months ago, we took advantage of the darkness to enter the Baltic Sea to make seaworthiness adjustments. The warship's top speed reached 185 knots, and its cruising speed could reach about 10 knots. It was too fast. A warship can achieve such a speed. A miracle..."
Prince Carl is right. In the middle of the 19th century, the general speed of a sailing battleship was only about 10 knots, and the maximum speed would not exceed 15 knots. Because of the design of the hull, no matter how fast the battleship was, it would be dangerous. There is no guarantee of a fight.
A battleship is not a clipper ship, and it cannot reach a high speed of twenty or thirty knots.
Just when Prince Carl was introducing everyone, a man's smiling face appeared on the deck. "Hello, His Royal Highness, I have been waiting for you for a long time. Please..." Cai Bixia smiled as soon as she saw him and rushed up and shouted. "Professor Kevin, see you again..."
Kevin is a senior engineer at Volcan Shipyard and a designer at the Naval Ship Design Institute. Cai Bixia majored in ship design in Prussia. She studied with Kevin's tutor for half a year and was impressed by Kevin's profound knowledge. Knowledge is highly worshiped.
"Oh, isn't this the little angel from the East? My child, I have prepared the best hamburger sausage for you, which was made by my wife herself..."
As the design and construction engineer of this battleship from beginning to end, Kevin’s introduction was naturally more professional than that of Prince Karl. “Combat effectiveness? Do you not believe in our Prussian industrial strength? I think Eastern Prime Minister Xiao is definitely the most discerning person. , the most indispensable thing for our German Federation is coal and iron..."
"Do you know why our railways and locomotives are catching up from behind? Because we do not lack steel and coal, we have a large number of professionals in this area..."
"Two 210 mm caliber Krupp cannons, twin-mounted at the bow and single-mounted at the stern. The special steel used is completely customized. I can guarantee that you will not consider it until these three cannons have been fired 200 times. The problem of smooth rifling..."
"The accessory weapon system is also very advanced. Two Armstrong breech-loaded cannons, one on the left and one on the right, defend both sides of the warship. The caliber has also reached 1524 mm. Eight 57 mm caliber rapid-fire cannons and six 37 mm caliber machine guns..."
"If you still think the firepower is not enough, we can also equip up to eight Gatling heavy machine guns... Finally, there are four 4572mm caliber torpedo launchers... This is simply a heavy firepower fortress on the sea. , even the British Royal Navy does not have such a configured warship..."
Kevin rubbed his hands and said excitedly, "We have finally reached the forefront of this era... I have witnessed the birth of a new ocean era!"
Everyone was excited by Kevin's words. Everyone present had received very systematic training in naval knowledge. Even Shi Dakai, who had always been the king of land warfare, had been supplementing his naval knowledge in the past two years.
Everyone knows what the series of parameters Kevin mentioned represent, high speed, high firepower, high defense... This is a battleship that stands at the forefront of the times. It has been ahead of British warships for nearly 30 years.
If we have to say that this battleship has any shortcomings, I am afraid that the lack of sails, which causes the battleship to have insufficient cruising power, is not a problem, and the lack of skilled sailors is also a problem. There is also the need for various precision instruments to run into each other, which requires constant troubleshooting. It counts as one.
The last one is the high cost. The cost of 1.9 million taels made King Yi and Prince Carl a little timid after seeing the world.
"No, no, no... you shouldn't think about the problem like this. More than half of the 1.9 million taels of construction cost are scientific research funds. Don't think we spend too much. There are too many places that require innovative thinking..."
"Is it necessary to consider the sealing performance of the steam cylinder to increase power? You can't use manpower to rotate the turret, right? How should the hydraulic transmission system be laid out? We even have to carefully study the formula of the anti-rust paint on the armor..."
"After this battleship sails away, I will start producing the second battleship with all its advantages and disadvantages. I estimate that the second battleship will cost at most 1 million taels... When the industrial systems of Prussia and Ryukyu begin to gradually adapt to these new equipment After that, our costs can continue to drop..."
"How about 800,000 taels? That's the lowest price I can guarantee. It's really not expensive... If you think about it carefully, it's really not expensive. 800,000 taels is equivalent to 260,000 pounds. This is already It’s the lowest price…”
Kevin is as pitiful as a child. This battleship is an epoch-making miracle for him, and his name is destined to be immortalized together with this battleship.
Whether it is 800,000 taels or 1.8 million taels, this is not something that King Yi can decide. After all, the Sino-German Fund is Xiao Letian's industry. After several years of operation, the Sino-German Fund has reached a huge scale of 8 million taels of silver. Although It is not as good as the Jewish foundations in Europe, but as a professional foundation it is already quite large.
But is 8 million taels really enough? It is absolutely not enough. Xiao Letian once told King Yi that this armored ship is not the end but only the starting point. The 00 model warship has only two purposes, one is to train troops and the other is to bully the weak navy.
As long as this kind of warship appears in the world, it can be easily copied with the industrial strength of Britain, France, the United States, Russia and other countries. If you want not to be surpassed by others, you have to make continuous improvements on this model.
Now we are building 00 tons, and tomorrow we will try to build 6,300 tons. In the future, we will also build 10,000-ton armored battleships. This is an arms race with no return. In the era of sailing battleships, a battleship made of oak can theoretically use 300 tons. For example, the USS Constitution of the United States was still able to sail on the sea from its launch in 1798 to 2012.
But ironclad ships cannot do that. Once such a terrifying ocean behemoth appears on the ocean, it will kick off the world's most brutal arms race. It is a competition that superpowers cannot afford.
