After the outbreak of the Great War, the Imperial Navy overhauled the construction of battleships, and the first to abandon was the large cruisers.

It was not that large cruisers could not meet the tactical indicators proposed by the Navy, but that the performance of fast battleships was too eye-catching.

Just that naval battle in the Watch Strait was enough for the Imperial Navy to firm its stance on fast battleships.

In some special cases, the 400-mm guns of the battleships were still useful and could play a decisive role, and could not be replaced for the time being.

The main guns of a large cruiser?

If there were two large cruisers on the west side of the Watchman Strait, even if they were equipped with 300 mm guns, they were not two fast battleships of the "Asahimi" class with fierce firepower, let alone sink two "Damin" class, I am afraid that they would have been beaten down by the first main detachment of the permanent fleet.

In this context, the Imperial Navy launched the construction program of the "South Zhuhai" class, which was adjusted to be precise.

According to the pre-war plan, after the completion of the construction of two "Asahimi" class ships, two "Turbid" class ships will be built with only improvements and adjustments in details. The real purpose of the Navy is actually to find out the performance characteristics of fast battleships and their actual tactical use through this small batch construction method, so as to ensure that the construction of more powerful post-treaty fast battleships can start immediately after the outbreak of a major war.

As a result, the war broke out one year early, and the pre-war deployment of the Imperial Navy was all in vain.

In addition, the "Asahimi" class proved through actual combat that its performance was strong enough, and many of the tactics conceived before the war were indeed of high value.

The most representative is to rely on radar to search for targets at night and provide fire control parameters for naval guns.

The point is also that at the beginning of the Great War, the Imperial Navy needed aircraft carriers the most, not fast battleships!

The actual combat also proved that the loss rate of fast battleships was much lower than that of aircraft carriers, and the rate of combat readiness was far higher than that of aircraft carriers.

As a result, fast battleships were not built one-to-one.

It is precisely because of this that the Imperial Navy made an urgent adjustment, canceled the construction project of the two "Turbidity" class, merged them into the next generation of fast battleships, that is, the "South Zhuhai" class, and increased the number of the first batch of construction from the original plan of 2 to 4.

It's just that, when making this adjustment, the Imperial Navy was clearly unaware that there would be two key effects.

The first is that building 4 fast battleships at the same time requires more slipways. It was obvious that the Imperial Navy could not devote precious slipway time to the construction of fast battleships in the early stages of the war, so it was inevitable to postpone the start of construction and prioritize the construction of aircraft carriers.

Secondly, in the early days of the war, because the battle situation was very fierce, the intact rate of fast battleships was not much higher, especially the need to send fast battleships to perform tasks other than escort, so a large battleship that could replace fast battleships and cover aircraft carriers full-time.

Apparently, the large cruiser project was resurrected from this.

Actually, it has to do with the factors mentioned earlier.

In actual combat, the loss rate of large warships covering aircraft carriers, as well as the rate of combat readiness, are above those of aircraft carriers, so the number of escort warships can be appropriately reduced.

The key lies in this "appropriateness".

No one knows how many escort warships will be sunk or damaged in the next naval battle, so it is impossible to decide in advance how many escort warships will be built.

Then, you can only make a fuss about the cost.

To put it simply, it is to build some low-cost escort warships to ensure that they can be on top when the fast battleships are not on top, or if they are not enough.

It was in this way that the large cruiser project was relaunched.

Until this time, there was still opposition within the Imperial Navy.

The point is that this "large cruiser" is not the other "large cruiser", and the two large cruisers before and after the war are not the same kind of battleship at all.

After making adjustments, large cruisers are no longer "cruiser killers", but "aircraft carrier bodyguards".

To put it simply, unless it is related to covering the aircraft carrier, any other performance can be reduced, or even discarded.

In the original design version, the Imperial Navy equipped large cruisers with 200 mm naval guns, the number of which was the standard configuration of heavy cruisers, 3 triple main gun turrets, so in addition to the larger displacement and better shooting stability in high sea conditions, the main gun firepower did not exceed that of heavy cruisers, but because of the large hull and large single area, it could not take advantage of the battle.

It is precisely because of this that at the design stage, large cruisers were still opposed by many admirals.

It's just that everyone has to face reality.

The most stark reality is that the Empire really doesn't have enough large slipways to build enough fast battleships after ensuring the construction of aircraft carriers.

The construction of the "South Zhuhai" class was repeatedly postponed due to the lack of slipways.

According to the plan at that time, at most one-third of the slipway time could be used to build escort warships, and the other two-thirds of the slipway time had to be used to build aircraft carriers. If you still choose a fast battleship, you will not be able to meet the one-to-one standard. Because battleships were more complex to build, they took up more slipway time, and all of them took only half the slipway time, and the number of construction was only about one-third of that of aircraft carriers.

Obviously, this is a very serious problem.

Even if the rate of battle losses of a fast battleship is much lower than that of an aircraft carrier, it is unlikely that it will be only a third of that of an aircraft carrier.

It is precisely in this way that after the start of the construction of the "Provincial" class, the large cruiser was officially launched, to be precise, officially started.

Interestingly, even at the time of construction, the 200-mm gun was chosen.

In order to put large cruisers into service as soon as possible, the Navy could not manage so much. Don't forget, the previous ocean-going cruisers were equipped with 150 mm naval guns.

About three months after construction began, the Imperial Navy acquired the 280 mm guns of the Empire and temporarily decided to use them on large cruisers.

Fortunately, the main gun was taken into account at the design stage to be replaced in the future.

In addition, the main gun turret ordered for large cruisers is actually the turret of heavy cruisers, which can be used directly on heavy cruisers.

As for the hull structure, the turret part had not yet been carried out at that time, and there was no problem of major adjustments.

It is precisely because of this that this kind of large cruiser, named the "Huaihe" class, is actually a relatively simple large warship mainly responsible for air defense.

In terms of combat capability, the "Huaihe" class emphasizes air defense.

Of course, judging by the nomenclature, it is enough to show that the Imperial Navy still regarded large cruisers as capital ships, giving them the name of battlecruisers.

Because the requirements in other aspects have been greatly reduced, including the use of 280 mm guns, the output power of the power system has been reduced to 150,000 horsepower, and the armor protection has been greatly simplified, so the cost of the "Huaihe" class is only 6 percent of that of the "South Zhuhai" class.

The cost of the second batch is less than 50% of the first batch of the "South Zhuhai" level.

According to the shipyard's report, if another batch is built, even small improvements can be made to the exposed problems, the cost can be reduced by another 2%.

Obviously, the price has enough huge appeal.

Purely in terms of air defense combat effectiveness, the "Huaihe" class is no worse than the "South Zhuhai" class, and is even stronger.

Of course, the value of a large cruiser is not limited to this.