If there are no aircraft carriers to disrupt the situation, the tactical effects of high-speed battleships after they are formed will be somewhat similar to those of aircraft carriers.
There is no need to clearly distinguish between vanguard battles and decisive battles. The main fleet can also be divided into several squadrons like the screen guard fleet and go out for independent activities.
Each squadron is assigned an aircraft carrier. After searching and discovering the enemy's screen fleet, the main squadron moves forward to destroy the enemy's screen fleet.
Then continue to search for the enemy's main fleet, and after discovering it, notify other main fleets to assemble, and launch a superior decisive battle at the most appropriate angle.
The actual effect may be like skirmishing squads versus line infantry, and the combat pattern will change very significantly.
The craftsmen and military personnel at the scene did not immediately realize this change in combat logic without a complete concept of high-speed battleships.
But everyone's military literacy was there. After Zhu Jingyuan's reminder, everyone quickly understood.
All battleships have defense and firepower that exceeds that of enemy battleships, and at the same time, they have speed that exceeds that of cruisers. This is totally unreasonable.
It would be a bit unreasonable for a high-speed battleship to appear in this era.
It's just that the construction and use costs of such a fleet are conceivable and will also be unreasonably high.
With the same budget, the number of high-speed battleships that can be built may be only half, or even only one-third, of traditional battleships.
Cao Zhenyong and other officials, as well as designers and the emperor, quickly realized this.
So after a brief period of consternation, Cao Zhenyong, who had already stood up, once again asked relevant questions as a representative:
"Your Highness, the cost of building this kind of battleship... will obviously be too high, possibly two or even three times that of a traditional battleship.
"What if the enemy avoids a decisive battle with us and uses traditional capital ships to act alone to destroy our sea lines of communication and attack our cargo fleet?
"If we only use high-speed battleships, we obviously cannot guard one-on-one. How should we respond at that time?
"So I feel that although it is not cost-effective to build large cruisers, there can be more of them and they can deal with the enemy's traditional battleships..."
After hearing this, Zhu Jingyuan felt that this situation was still a bit familiar.
This is the United States, which has a lot of money. It wants to build an Alaska-class cruiser to deal with the super cruiser plans of Germany and Japan?
But in history, countries such as Germany, Japan, Britain, and the Soviet Union were not financially wealthy at the time. How could they build the most uneconomical large cruisers in batches?
The grand cruise plans of Germany, Japan, Britain and the Soviet Union were all abandoned midway. The British "super cruiser" drawings were not even finished before they discovered that this thing had "unclear purpose".
The B65 (Azuma), O-class (Egil), and Pr69 (Kronshtadt) are all impossible to exist.
Only the Americans foolishly built it. They ordered six ships at once, but eventually two were built, one was dismantled on the slipway, and three were cancelled.
"So what did I build?"
This may have been the mentality of the U.S. Navy at that time.
No wonder General Ernest King would evaluate the Alaska-class cruiser as "the most beautiful piece of trash."
Zhu Jingyuan, with some complicated emotions, tried hard to stop Ming Dynasty's military staff from embarking on the wrong path of large cruisers again:
"Cao Junji, if the enemy's traditional capital ships you are talking about are the previous ships with a displacement of less than 20,000 tons and a speed of less than 20 knots, we also have them.
“We can use traditional capital ships to resist, while using high-speed battleships to hunt separately.
"When faced with a high-speed battleship, that kind of old ship has no room to escape, let alone fight.
“The old ships accumulated in the past are quickly used up in this kind of battle, and the speed of building new ships cannot keep up with the hunting speed.
“So the enemy will definitely abandon traditional battleships and build similar all-main-gun battleships.
“If the enemy adopts a conservative strategy and builds a ship with a displacement of 25,000 tons and a speed of 25 to 27 knots, he will fall into the medium-sized ship trap.
"The cost is 60-70% of ours, the combat effectiveness is only 40-50% of ours, and two ships cannot defeat one of ours.
"The key is that their construction numbers do not have an absolute advantage over our high-speed battleships, and they will still be quickly hunted by us.
“If the enemy chooses to follow us head-on, build a high-speed battleship with a displacement similar to ours.
“That will be because their technical level is slightly lower, the overall construction cost will be slightly higher, or the final performance will be slightly worse.
“Even if the cost and performance are the same, their military expenditure limit and production capacity are lower than ours, and their overall construction quantity will be less than ours, so they still have no chance of winning.
"I think that after the enemy considers this, he may choose to take a radical route and build a larger capital ship than us."
Cao Zhenyong was stunned for a moment and realized that this was indeed the logic, so he subconsciously asked:
"Then if the enemy really builds a bigger ship, how should our navy respond?"
Zhu Jingyuan said decisively and directly:
“We can also build larger capital ships, or simply the other way around, we can proactively control the pace and allow the tonnage of capital ships to continue to expand.
“After the mass production of the 40,000-ton battleship, we began to design and produce the 60,000-ton battleship, and after the 60,000-ton battleship, we continued to design the 80,000-ton battleship.
“Enemies whose overall strength is inferior to ours will be crushed by our arms race no matter which level they choose to follow up.
"Of course, if the enemy calmly gives up pursuit and stays at a level that is clearly behind us, then we don't need to continue to increase our strength.
"We just need to continue to maintain relative fleet superiority and ensure the power to maintain world order."
Cao Zhenyong was obviously stunned for a moment. This kind of arms race is really exciting:
"Thank you for the ideas provided by His Highness. I will conduct strategic discussions with my colleagues immediately after I return and formulate a strategic planning document..."
This concludes the cruiser discussion.
The Ming Dynasty will no longer build large-size cruisers in the future, and will use high-speed battleships paired with 10,000-ton light cruisers to form the Ming Dynasty's main battle fleet.
Further down, there are six to seven thousand ton colonial guard light cruisers, two to three thousand ton fleet chore destroyers (cruisers), and more than one thousand ton escort destroyers (frigates).
The design requirements for this kind of warship are to find the correct positioning, meet the target needs, and then make it as cheap as possible and as easy as possible to mass-produce it.
Therefore, Zhu Jingyuan instructed relevant designers to try the feasibility of modern destroyer ship types.
That is, the sides of the hull are completely straight, and the tail is also completely cut flat.
The top view of the ship's hull looks like a slender square with a rounded tip. It can be said to be extremely simple.
The simpler it is, the more convenient it is for design, production and mass production...
At this point, Zhu Jingyuan's plan for the future ship system of the Ming Dynasty and the design indicators of all major ships have been officially announced.
But the formal design work has just begun.
The on-site designers will continue to hold meetings when they return home, study the design indicators given by Zhu Jingyuan, slowly plan specific implementation plans, and finally draw design drawings.
During this process, Zhu Jingyuan still had to follow the whole process, answer questions and give various tips to ensure that the design direction would not deviate.
When the presentation on design indicators finally ended, it was almost noon, and the meeting should have ended.
However, Zhu Jingyuan still had one small matter in his mind.
Zhu Jingyuan looked at the craftsmen and officials around him, then at the old emperor who was closest to him, and tried to make his final request:
"Grandpa Huang, can I directly specify the naming of these battleship designs now?"
There are no certain rules for naming warships in the Ming Dynasty. Mountains, rivers, lakes, places and names, and various common phrases can be used as ship names.
There are no clear rules for the naming time. It can happen from the beginning of design to order placement, construction, launch, and service. Especially unimportant ships may not have ship names at all.
So the old emperor doesn’t think too much now:
"Then tell me now, and I'll see if it works."
Zhu Jingyuan said directly:
"Two battleships, named Dauntless and Invincible..."
Zhu Jingyuan subconsciously wanted to say more, but the old emperor interrupted him with a wave of his hand:
"It's okay to be fearless, but it's not good to be invincible. It's easy to break if you're too strong, so let's call it fearless."
Zhu Jingyuan was stunned for a moment. What the old emperor said made sense and was in line with Eastern culture.
Then he nodded:
"Then we'll call them Wuwei, and the two aircraft carriers will be called Dinghai and Zhenhai respectively."
This time, after Zhu Jingyuan finished speaking, he glanced at the old emperor and found that he nodded directly without making any comments.
Zhu Jingyuan breathed a sigh of relief and continued:
“The two cruisers are named Chongqing Fu and Jinan Fu respectively.
"The two destroyers are named Weihaiwei and Jinzhouwei respectively."
This time the old emperor had no doubts and nodded directly again:
"Okay, let's name these ships like this."
