The dry dock is more than 100 meters long, more than 30 meters wide and more than 9 meters deep, and there is a sluice in the distance to block the river.

On the dense concrete support, a pitch-black steel monster lies quietly on it, the hull is 90% complete, and now there are only some finishing touches, and there are still many sailors on it for familiarization training.

"This battleship has not yet been named, according to his design tonnage of 2300 tons, we have codenamed him the ironclad 2300 type mothership, the length of the ship is 76.2 meters, the width of the ship is 11.6 meters, and the draft is 4.57 meters...... Don't look at him as big as the British Warrior, but his combat effectiveness is not weak at all......"

Prince Karl led the group down the dry dock, and everyone was stunned by the big guy as they caressed the rough hull and delicate paint surface with their palms.

It's not that people haven't seen big ships, and it is normal for sail warships to have a displacement of six or seven thousand tons in this era, and the British ironclad ship Warrior has even reached a displacement of more than nine thousand tons, but pure steel warships and wooden sail warships are completely two different temperaments.

More fierce, more powerful, murderous like substance, human beings are born with a sense of worship for super-large metal objects, let alone such militaristic weapons.

"Two months ago, we took advantage of the darkness to enter the Baltic Sea for seaworthiness adjustments, and the battleship reached a top speed of 18.5 knots per hour, and the cruising speed could reach about 10 knots, which is too fast, and it is already a miracle that a warship can have such a speed......

Prince Karl was right, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the general speed of a sail battleship was about 10 knots, and the maximum speed would not exceed 15 knots, because the design of the hull was there, and no matter how fast the battleship was, there would be danger, and there was no guarantee of battle.

Battleships are not clippers, but they do not have a high speed of twenty or thirty knots.

Just as Prince Karl was introducing everyone, a man's smiling face appeared on the deck, "Hello, Your Royal Highness, I've been waiting for you for a long time, please ...... here" Cai Bixuan smiled when he saw him, rushed up and shouted, "Professor Kevin, see you again......"

Kevin is a senior engineer at the Volkeng shipyard and a designer at the Naval Design Institute, Cai Bixuan majored in ship design in Prussia, and she once studied with Kevin's mentor for half a year, and she admired Kevin's profound knowledge.

"Oh, isn't this the little angel of the East, my child, I have prepared the best hamburger sausage for you, and it was made by my lady......

Kevin, as the engineer who designed and built this battleship from beginning to end, naturally introduced him more professionally than Prince Karl: "Combat effectiveness? Do you believe in the industrial strength of our Prussia? I think that the Prime Minister of the East, Xiao, is definitely the most discerning person, and the most important thing that our German Confederation lacks is coal and iron ......."

"Do you know why our railways and locomotives are catching up, because we don't have a shortage of steel and coal, so we have a lot of specialists in this area......"

"Two 210 mm caliber Krupp guns, the bow is double-mounted, the stern is single-mounted, and the special steel used is completely custom-made, I can guarantee that after these three cannons are fired 200 times, you will consider the rifling problem......"

"The ancillary weapon system is also very advanced, with two Armstrong breech-loading guns, one on the left and one on the right, defending both sides of the battleship, with a caliber of 152.4 mm, eight 57 mm rapid-fire guns, and six 37 mm machine guns......"

"If you don't have enough firepower, we can also equip up to eight Gatling heavy machine guns...... Finally, there are quadruple 457.2 mm torpedo launchers...... It's a heavy firepower fortress on the sea, and even the Royal Navy doesn't have a warship of this configuration......"

Kevin rubbed his hands together and said excitedly, "We have finally come to the forefront of this era...... I am witnessing the birth of a new era of the ocean!"

Everyone was excited by Kevin's words, and the people present had undergone very systematic naval knowledge training before, and even Shi Dakai, who had always been king in land warfare, had been making up for the knowledge of the navy in the past two years.

Everyone knows what the series of parameters Kevin is talking about, high speed, high firepower, high defense...... This is a battleship that stood at the forefront of its time, and he was already ahead of the British for almost 30 years.

If you have to say that this battleship has any shortcomings, I am afraid that the lack of sails to cause the lack of cruiser cruising power is counted as one, and the lack of skilled sailor operation is also counted as one, and there are all kinds of precision instruments running in with each other, and it is also counted as one that needs to be constantly troubleshooting.

The last one is the high cost, the cost of 1.9 million taels makes the Wing King and Prince Karl, who have seen the world, a little timid.

"No, no, no...... You shouldn't think about it like this, more than half of the cost of 1.9 million taels is scientific research funding, don't think we spend a lot of money, too many places need innovative thinking......"

"Is it necessary to consider the airtight performance of the steam cylinder to increase the power? You can't always use manpower to rotate the turret, right? How should the hydraulic transmission system be arranged? Even the formula of the anti-rust paint on the iron armor must be carefully studied ...... formula."

"When this battleship sails away, I will start producing a second battleship with all the advantages and disadvantages, and I estimate that the second battleship will be 1 million taels at most...... When the industrial systems of Prussia and the Ryukyus begin to adapt to these new equipment, our costs will continue to fall......"

"How about 800,000 taels? The lowest price I can guarantee is so much, it's really not expensive...... If you think about it carefully, it's really not expensive, 800,000 taels to be 260,000 pounds, which is already the lowest price......"

Kevin was pitiful as a child, and the ship was an epoch-making miracle for him, and his name was destined to be immortalized along with it.

Whether it is 800,000 taels or 1.8 million taels, this is not what Yiwang 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 consortium in Europe, but as a professional foundation is already quite large.

But is 8 million taels really enough? Absolutely not enough, Xiao Letian once told the Wing King that this ironclad ship is not the end but only a starting point, and the purpose of the 2300 model battleship is only two, one is to train soldiers and the other is to bully the weak navy.

As long as this kind of warship appears in the world, with the industrial strength of Britain, France, the United States, Russia and other countries, it can be easily imitated. If you want not to be surpassed by others, you have to make continuous improvements on this model.

Build 2,300 tons now, try 6,300 tons tomorrow, and build 10,000-ton ironclad battleships in the future, this is a road of no return to the arms race, in the era of sail battleships, an oak battleship can theoretically last 300 years, such as the USS Constitution, which was launched in 1798 and can still sail on the sea in 2012.

But ironclads can't, once this terrifying sea monster appears on the ocean, it will start the world's most brutal arms race, not a competition that the superpowers simply can't afford to play.