Since the successful sea trial of the Jiangning frigate demonstrated the feasibility of iron-ribbed wooden hull ships, the Da Chu Empire Navy has not hesitated to fully implement the large-scale construction and service plan of iron-ribbed wooden hull ships.
After all, the source of raw materials for iron-ribbed wooden hull ships is completely controllable. As long as the key iron-rib materials are removed and you spend money to expand production, you can have as much as you want.
With the current output of more than 100,000 tons of wrought iron per year in the Dachu Empire, it is more than enough to meet the navy's demand for wrought iron.
Unlike when building a pure wooden boat, once you have money, you can only build it slowly and slowly, because there is a serious shortage of ship rib materials, and it cannot be solved in a short time.
In addition to the issue of material sources, the construction cost and life-cycle cost of iron-ribbed wooden hull ships are also lower than those of pure wooden hull ships.
Building a wooden warship requires a large amount of precious and high-quality wood, and the material cost alone is very high.
After the large-scale use of wrought iron materials, although the current price of iron products is not cheap, with the further increase in production and the further maturity of the process, the price will inevitably continue to decline.
This can be seen from the mass production orders for the first batch of frigates. The first batch of orders for frigates iron-ribbed wooden hull ships issued by the Navy was for twelve ships. The ship type was improved from the Jiangning.
The estimated standard displacement is 550 tons, including guns and sails.
The total price of the twelve ships is 1.11 million Chu Yuan. On average, the unit price of each ship is more than 91,600 Chu Yuan.
This is less than the previous estimate of 100,000 Chu Yuan ships.
And this is just the first batch of orders. Strictly speaking, the price is quite expensive, and the subsequent second batch of orders will definitely be cheaper.
In addition to frigates, the Imperial Chu Navy also designed and built cruisers and battleships with iron-ribbed wooden hulls.
These two ship types are very different from the previous wooden warships.
The first is that the tonnage must be larger!
The designed first-class cruiser Quanzhou-class cruiser has a standard displacement of 1,300 tons. This tonnage was equivalent to the tonnage of a third-class battleship in the Dachu Empire in the early years, and in Europe at the same time It is also the standard for battleships.
The newly designed battleships are also larger in tonnage. The newly designed third-class battleship Tianjin class battleships have a tonnage of 1,800 tons.
The first-class battleships are even more terrifying. The first-class battleships that are still under design are expected to have a displacement of more than 3,000 tons.
This is also an inevitable path for the development of warships, that is, warships continue to become larger. This was true in the era of wooden warships in the past, and it is also true in the era of iron-ribbed wooden hull ships.
A larger hull can make the ship's stability and navigation performance better, and it can be equipped with more and larger artillery.
Of course, it is not easy to build a larger hull. This also poses a great challenge to shipbuilding technology. If you want to build a pure wooden battleship, it does not mean that a battleship of three to four thousand tons cannot be built, but It will be very difficult and the cost will be very scary.
But if a large amount of wrought iron is used, it will be much simpler to build such a large-tonnage warship, and the cost can be effectively controlled.
In addition to being larger in tonnage, the new generation of iron-ribbed wooden hull warships also has two more obvious features.
One is that almost all the superstructure has been cancelled, even the poop has been cancelled, and the whole ship looks flat.
The purpose of canceling the superstructure is to lower the center of gravity to deploy more large-caliber artillery. In addition, it is also related to changes in the tactical philosophy of the Dachu Empire Navy.
That is to pay more attention to the role of naval guns than before, trying to directly use naval guns to eliminate opponents in naval battles, instead of continuing to fight by jumping gangs as before.
What needs to be explained here is that tall superstructures have great advantages for gang-hopping operations. After all, they can allow sailors to fight from a high position.
The superstructure was lowered and eventually eliminated. This development was also the development of artillery technology. The main combat method of naval warfare changed from gang-hopping combat to naval gun engagement.
Therefore, the elimination of the superstructure in the new generation of warships is also directly related to the second obvious feature.
The second obvious feature of the new generation of warships is the unified large-caliber artillery!
In later generations, the concept of unified heavy artillery was not only found in the era of steel battleships in later generations. In fact, it existed in the era of sailing wooden hulls and front-loaded smoothbore guns, probably in the 1920s and 1930s... and continued to the rifled era. Until the gun can be used on a large scale.
Therefore, you can also regard the unified heavy artillery as the final firepower layout in the era of sail forward-loaded smoothbore cannons...
Based on this concept, the Jiangning-class frigates built in batches have main guns of six 130mm medium-barreled cannons and six 130mm short-barreled artillery.
The basic idea is to replace the previous 100mm and 115mm long-barreled cannons with larger-caliber 130mm medium- and short-barreled artillery.
Instead of pursuing the muzzle velocity of the artillery shell, we pursue the terminal kinetic energy of the artillery shell and the charge of the artillery shell.
Artillery with a larger caliber naturally has a larger grenade charge, so that the explosion power is greater and can better kill enemy deck personnel and damage sails.
A small frigate of more than 500 tons is equipped with twelve 130mm naval guns. This was unimaginable in the past, and even saying it would be considered treasonous...
But in fact, these seemingly larger-caliber artillery, because the barrel is not long, the actual weight is similar to the previous 115 mm cannon and 100 mm cannon, or even lighter. In addition, the new ship type eliminates the superstructure. The center of gravity of the ship is more stable, so equipping these large-caliber guns will not affect the stability of the ship.
The concept of unified large-caliber artillery firepower layout is not obvious on frigates, but it has been fully implemented on the newly designed and built third-class battleship Tianjin.
The artillery layout on the Tianjin is to equip the lower deck with twenty-eight 170mm long-barreled cannons, the middle deck with thirty 170mm medium-barreled naval guns, and the upper deck with sixteen 170mm short-barreled naval guns. .
The main guns of the entire ship are all 170 mm... converted to the weight of European projectiles, it is 32 pounds.
And there are as many as seventy-four doors!
Once this firepower breaks out in battle, it will be very terrifying.
At the same time, after unifying large-caliber naval guns, logistics has become simpler. Because the calibers of these main guns are unified, the calibers of the shells are also unified.
At the same time, daily training is also more convenient.
The Navy is looking forward to the Tianjin-class battleship very much, because this thing is not only more powerful in combat and has better protection capabilities, but also not expensive... The purchase price of one is only about 280,000 Chu yuan, which is the same as the previous Jinling-class third-class battleship. The price of the improved battleship is actually quite the same.
Not only will it adopt a unified large-caliber artillery layout in new warships, the Navy also plans to gradually improve the firepower layout of existing warships.
The improvement method is very simple, just replace the artillery.
The basic principle is that battleships use 170mm naval guns. For this purpose, the 150mm cannon needs to be replaced with a 170mm medium-barreled gun, and the 115mm or 100mm cannon should be replaced with a 170mm short-barreled artillery.
First-class cruisers of more than 1,000 tons use 150 mm caliber artillery.
However, second-class cruisers and frigates below a thousand tons and even large offshore gunboats, small offshore patrol ships, inland river gunboats and other vessels have many types of ships and their tasks are relatively complex. Modification.
In short, try to equip larger-caliber naval guns as much as possible to better utilize the destructive power of grenades.
In this wave of major innovations in naval gun firepower, several naval gun manufacturers have been overwhelmed by the massive orders...
The frantic navy plans to purchase 500 170mm medium-barreled naval guns and 170mm short-barreled naval guns at one go!
Used to build new battleships and refit old battleships. In addition, there are a large number of 150mm naval gun orders and 130mm naval gun orders.
The sudden orders for naval guns have made several domestic arms companies that produce naval guns extremely excited, and all of them are trying their best to compete for orders.
The three major naval gun manufacturers, Hantian Weapon Company, Jiangnan Weapon Company, and Guangdong and Guangxi Weapon Company, fought hard to compete for new naval gun orders.
Because these naval guns are not new naval guns, they are all technologically mature naval guns, and compared to 170mm cannons, they are medium and short-barreled artillery with simpler technology, so there are no technical problems.
The only things that can be compared are quality, production capacity, delivery time, connections and most importantly, price.
When the Navy purchases so many naval guns, it will not place orders casually. Instead, it will place many small orders and let each manufacturer bid on their own.
Although in order to support multiple manufacturers, at least three major weapons companies have the R&D and production capabilities of large-caliber naval guns, the Navy will definitely not give all orders to one of them in the end, but to all three.
But the problem is the distribution ratio of orders!
If one of them takes 80% of the order, the other two can only take 10%. What is the difference between this and a failed bid?
In order to avoid becoming losers, these three major naval gun and weapons companies are all struggling.
Compared with the three major weapons companies' fierce competition for naval gun orders, several domestic warship shipyards are much calmer.
Especially for Songjiang Naval Shipyard, they don’t have to worry about orders at all. They did before, they still do now, and they will probably still do so in the future...
Not because they are the biological sons of the navy, but because their technology is the most advanced... In terms of shipbuilding technology, Songjiang Naval Shipyard has always been at the forefront.
Their slipway is never idle, and they are always producing naval warships.
Especially for battleships and other capital ships, the Navy's orders are not even based on its own needs, but based on the production capacity of Songjiang Naval Shipyard...
As long as they have production capacity, the Navy will place orders directly.
In addition, the same is true for Guangzhou Shipyard!
Because so far, only these two shipyards can build battleships of more than 2,000 tons, and other shipyards cannot!
Of course, this is only limited to battleships. There are more options for cruisers. There are at least five domestic shipyards that can build them.
As for frigates of several hundred tons, offshore patrol ships, inland river gunboats, as well as various transport ships, hospital ships and other auxiliary warships, there are even more shipyards that can build these warships.
After the era of iron-ribbed wooden hull ships, because the construction technology of this type of ship is different from that of pure wooden warships, so far only Songjiang Naval Shipyard can mass-produce them, while Guangzhou Shipyard is still undergoing technological upgrades. , although it can also accept orders, the production volume is not yet sufficient.
So...Songjiang Naval Shipyard is calm now.
However, it is difficult to say how long this situation can last. The construction technology of iron-ribbed wooden hull ships is difficult to say, and it is not difficult to say it is not difficult.
It’s difficult because a large number of wrought iron parts are difficult to produce!
It's not difficult to say, because these parts are made by heavy machinery factories and have nothing to do with shipyards... what shipyards do is actually assembly work.
This is why Luohua Shipyard is eyeing iron-ribbed wooden hull ships!
It's just assembly work. If the Songjiang Naval Shipyard across the street can do it, their Luohua Shipyard can do it too.
What, you mean technical issues?
As for this question, the technical team of Luohua Shipyard came from Songjiang Naval Shipyard... The technologies of these two companies come from the same source, and their theoretical levels are actually similar.
More of a problem is equipment. After all, processing and installing a large number of iron parts is different from processing and installing pure wooden parts.
But equipment can be bought if you have money. Even the most top-notch large-scale machine tools and equipment, Hantian Machinery Company is selling them, tens of thousands of them, with clearly marked prices. Do you want it or not...
In addition, Luohua Shipyard is also considering purchasing a batch of high-horsepower steam engines to drive various large-scale equipment.
After thinking about it internally, they felt that the iron-ribbed wooden hull ship could be done. Although the investment was a bit larger, the market would be bigger after it was built.
The most important thing is that Songjiang Naval Shipyard, the leader in the shipbuilding industry, and Guangzhou Shipyard, the second largest shipyard, have built iron-ribbed wooden hull ships. As the fourth largest shipyard in China, it is very necessary for their Luohua Shipyard to follow up on new technologies in a timely manner. .
After making up their mind to do this, Luohua Shipyard invested in upgrading technical equipment while conducting preliminary marketing, looking for armed trading companies such as Nanyang Trading Company to promote iron-ribbed wooden hull armed merchant ships.
However, before the promotion was successful, the Navy itself came to the door. When people asked, Luohua Shipyard had finalized the construction of iron-ribbed wooden hull ships, and had a clear timetable. The upgrade of technical equipment would be completed by next fall. After production, without saying a word, orders were placed for two first-class cruisers and six frigates.
He also said that you will build it first, and I will still have orders after it is completed... Even if your technology passes the test and you have corresponding large-tonnage dry docks, you will also have orders for larger-tonnage battleships!
This shows that the Navy is eager for iron-ribbed wooden hull ships...
On the other hand, Lee's Steel, the third largest shipbuilder in the country, was a little slower to react. They actually noticed changes in the shipbuilding industry and were aware of the emergence of iron-ribbed wooden hull ships.
They also want to follow up in time... However, they invested hundreds of thousands of funds to acquire Wuhu Machine Tool Company some time ago, and continued to invest heavily in research and development of technology, improvement of production lines, etc. Although this investment is quite large, Part of it was a mortgage loan, but it also temporarily used a large amount of their own cash flow.
And the loan must be repaid!
Before Lee Iron Company's machine tool business turned a profit, it was already difficult for them to invest huge sums of money to follow up the iron rib shipbuilding technology in the first place.
After all, technological upgrading is very expensive...not only various technical research and development, but also the mechanical equipment alone is not cheap.
Hantian Machinery Company is very evil... The high-end large-scale machine tools cost tens of thousands, and the cheap ones cost tens of thousands, which is more expensive than that crappy steam engine.
If you want to upgrade a large shipyard, you will need to build three to five top-notch large machine tools. The price starts at 100,000 yuan!
If you want to play more smoothly, you have to match some small and medium-sized machine tools, steam engines, etc.
In the end, the equipment purchase cost alone would be upwards of 150,000 yuan!
Coupled with other technology research and development and other expenses, you can't even think of playing smoothly if you don't have 200,000 yuan for the whole set.
The current cash flow is a little tight. Li's Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., which has to pay off its debt every month, really can't afford to spend 200,000 yuan on it.
But iron-ribbed wooden hull ships are the technological direction of the future. You can’t do it if you don’t do it. In a few years, the technology will be completely backward. By then, not to mention maintaining the status of the third largest shipyard in the country, it is estimated that it will not be able to maintain the top five...
I am short of money, but technology upgrades also cost money, what should I do?
What else can we do? Continue to introduce strategic investors to raise funds!
In the past decade or so, why has Lee's Ironmaking been able to develop so rapidly, and why the Lee family's shareholding has dropped from 100% to less than 15% now? It's because Lee's Ironmaking once Strategic investors have been introduced many times to solve the funding problem!
The news that Li Steel was going to introduce strategic investors instantly detonated the top business circles in the Dachu Empire!
Li's Iron is the largest private enterprise in the country. It owns the largest production base for agricultural tools and cooking utensils in Guangdong and Guangxi, the largest daily hardware factory in the south, and the third largest shipyard in the country. It has also just acquired the country's third largest shipyard. The second largest machine tool factory.
In addition, there are a lot of messy supporting industries.
Moreover, Li's Steel is not only huge, but more importantly, it also makes money!
Needless to say, its shipbuilding business. The various iron products they started, including cooking utensils, farm tools, and daily hardware tools, are sold well domestically and are widely exported.
It can be said that at least half of the domestic households have purchased or directly owned one of these products.
That is the sewing needle... The first major product of Lee's Iron Daily Hardware Factory is the seemingly inconspicuous sewing needle.
Known for its high quality and low price, it is not only popular domestically but also globally. This stuff has even been brought back to Europe by Dutch and other European businessmen for sale.
Li's Iron, which has many superior products and many flagship products, is recognized as the mother machine that lays golden eggs in the industrial and commercial circles of the Dachu Empire...
Now, this hen is about to introduce a new round of strategic investors. Many domestic large companies or financial institutions with strong capital are gearing up and preparing to take the opportunity to buy shares of the company in order to make money by paying dividends. Just sit back and wait for the shares to increase in value.
Even Hantian Machinery Company came over and said: I have money, do you want me to participate in a share...
This left everyone at Li's Ironmaking speechless... Brother, we are direct competitors. I just spent hundreds of thousands to compete with you in the machine tool market.
But Hantian Machinery Company said that competition is competition, and cooperation is cooperation... Besides, my stake is not your subsidiary Li's Machine Tool Company, but your parent company, Li's Iron.
But... Before Li's Steel could reply, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce immediately rejected it... Are you kidding me? The largest machine tool company in the country and the second largest machine tool company are going to have a strategic cooperation? You think we are stupid. If we let you enter into strategic cooperation, the domestic machine tool industry will not be dominated by you and form a de facto monopoly.
Don’t even think about it!
Although there is no formal anti-monopoly law in the Dachu Empire, many of the policies of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce are to encourage healthy competition, and a number of anti-monopoly administrative documents (non-laws) have also been issued.
Under such circumstances, if you monopolize the market through technological research and development, then others will have nothing to say...
After all, the purpose of patents is to allow technology research and development manufacturers to obtain early monopoly on patented products, and to encourage manufacturers to carry out technology research and development through high profits from patented products.
But if you try to engage in malicious competition and monopoly through capital means such as investment and acquisition, or by destroying the market through low-price dumping.
The Ministry of Industry and Commerce is going to slap you!
Not to mention Hantian Machinery Company's naive plan to penetrate the enemy's interior, let's talk about Li's Steel's progress in the normal introduction of strategic investors.
Lee's Steel's intention to enter strategic investors has attracted a lot of attention, and the manufacturer that is most concerned about it is undoubtedly Guangzhou Iron and Steel Company.
Guangzhou Iron and Steel Company, formerly known as Guangzhou Iron and Steel Plant, and its main personnel actually came from a large number of local ironmaking workshops in Foshan that were officially integrated in the early years.
However, just a few years after the establishment of the Guangzhou Iron and Steel Plant, due to the lack of high-quality large-scale iron ore and coal in the local area, ironmaking has been unable to develop. It can only rely on some small iron ore and charcoal industries around the Pearl River water system to survive.
In terms of scale, it is naturally much stronger than the Foshan iron-making industry in the pre-Ming Dynasty, but its strength is limited.
It was not until iron ore was discovered on Qiongzhou Island, and the Qiongzhou Iron and Steel Branch was invested in, and coal from Guangning Coal Mine in Annan was introduced, that the Guangzhou Iron and Steel Plant began to improve and truly enter industrial-scale production.
Later, the Ministry of Industry integrated these steel industries, and Guangzhou Iron and Steel Works, Qiongzhou Iron and Steel Works, and several other small steel plants in Guangdong were merged into Guangzhou Iron and Steel Company.
Guangzhou Iron and Steel Company has always been Li's main raw material supplier, and the strategic cooperation between the two parties is very close.
Now that Lee's Steel wants to attract strategic investors, Guangzhou Iron and Steel Company also hopes that the two parties can further strengthen their relationship and directly implement this relationship into shares to completely bind such a large customer as Lee's Steel.
In addition to Guangzhou Iron and Steel Company, another company that is very interested in Li's Iron and Steel Company is Dachu Commercial Bank. This is a government-run bank that has been established for less than five years. It is also one of the two major banks directly under the Finance Department of the Dachu Empire. one.
However, Dachu Bank has no intention of directly using depositors' money to invest in industry. This is a serious violation...
Da Chu Commercial Bank's plan is a bit more special. Their plan is to let Li's Steel Company split the shares used to attract investment into scattered shares, and then let them sell them to various target customers in order to obtain higher profits. For the unit price and more funds, Dachu Commercial Bank charges handling fees.
This plan attracted the attention of Lee Iron and Steel Co., not least because it could raise more funds for the same amount of shares, and scattered small shareholders did not have to worry about what trouble they would cause to the company's operations.
Likewise, the plan also attracted the attention of the financial regulator, the Central Bank of the Chu Empire.
