With the growing strength of the northwest, Yang Yuanzhao's influence on the whole of China has put China on a completely different path, and with the intensification of China's influence, it has also increasingly affected the world situation.

In the first world war in history, in the end, Germany did not benefit from Russia, the Eastern Front was more passive, and did not take the initiative to attack, although later, after the revolution disintegrated Russia, an agreement was signed, and before they digested these territories, the next situation took a sharp turn, the Entente occupied an absolute advantage, the United States entered the war, and a revolution broke out in Germany, and in the end, Germany was helpless to withdraw from World War I.

But at this time, history has changed, the United States in 1914 has already joined the war, caught in the quagmire of a protracted war, even if it will achieve benefits, it will be discounted because of a large number of losses under the support of the northwest, Germany in the army situation is far more than in history, in the navy, not weak, although it can not break through the Baltic Sea, Britain does not dare to force too much.

In this case, Germany is capable of interfering in Russia, the most important thing is that Russia provoked in the Far East, was seized by the northwest, suffered a big loss, not only its own territory was occupied, the entire Siberia was in danger, and it was easy to include 20 million square kilometers of land, of course, Russia is not willing to lose it like this, and not Chita is an intermediate point, if lost, it will involve a distance of millions of square kilometers. The tsar himself is a man who will take revenge, and if he suffers such a big loss, of course he will take revenge.

Russia and China are in the Far East, if there is a big fight. That was Germany's chance, not only leveling East Prussia. Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land in the most elite part of Russia, taking Transcaucasia and Baku. That's a nail in the coffin, and it's easy to take it down

A series of changes made Germany also begin to prepare, the navy is still in the Baltic Sea, and Britain is in the minesweeping competition, and the Scheer fleet began adaptive training after half a month of rest, in fact, it cannot be said to be adaptable, but most of the navy has gone through a long rest. It's just a matter of getting back into shape.

Scheer has always been strict with his subordinates, and more than 2 years of training and fighting in Southeast Asia are almost requirements from beginning to end, so after a day, the mental outlook of the entire fleet has changed and become vibrant.

On December 20, five days before Christmas, Wilhelm II took time out of his time. Join Tirpitz and watch the exercises of the Scheer fleet.

The Scheer fleet was very strong, which was recognized by the entire Admiralty, sinking 5 battleships. There are also numerous auxiliary ships, and the heavy numbers prove his strength. But how powerful it is, this is a question that everyone has in their hearts. In particular, Tirpitz, Scheer was appointed commander of the High Seas Fleet. However, the strategic intention was still to be formulated by the General Staff and Tirpitz, and if he did not see the strength of the Scheer fleet with his own eyes, Tirpitz was not at ease at all.

On the command tower, the best observation position, Scheer welcomed Wilhelm II and Tirpitz in, in fact, at the welcome ceremony, Wilhelm II had already climbed the fantasy class, but at that time it was outside, did not enter this command tower, and now he walked in, with novelty everywhere.

In Wilhelm II's opinion, this tower of command is very large, with a wide field of vision, and does a better job than other warships in this regard, but he does not realize what this means, the tower of command is responsible for commanding the entire battleship, his importance is self-evident, it stands to reason that the higher the position, the wider the field of vision, the better.

But the command tower is where the commander is, and the safety of the commander is simply the top priority for a fleet, and a fleet, if there is no command from the commander, will become a plate of scattered sand, not to mention playing a powerful role, and it is good to be able to protect yourself.

Therefore, in the design of the command tower, any warship designer is very contradictory, not only to ensure safety, but also to have a wide field of vision, in the constant entanglement, made, most of the command towers are not high, and even the field of vision is only a few very small windows, for no other reason, the command tower is too important, in terms of observation and safety performance, the Germans chose safety performance, as for observation, you can make up for it in other ways.

A battleship like the Fantasy class, the command tower is at the top of the main building, and it is quite wide, in front of them, it is a result that presents a triangular prism, and it seems to have a little bit of astigmatism, they can see the entire front half,

The Fantasy class is very tall, even after entering the water, the highest point is at a height of 65 meters above the water, and the position of the command tower is actually more than 55 meters.

"Scheer, what the hell is going on, this vision is very good, but in terms of protection!"

No problem with protection! When Scheer saw Tirpitz pointing to the clear glass, he understood what he was thinking, in fact, the first time he stepped on, a Fantasy-class, he was also worried at the time, but Northwest proved his protection with the actual situation.

First of all, it looks like glass, but it is an alloy similar to glass, and it is only used by 4 fantasy-class command towers, and even Orion is not used, the wide and transparent field of view can help the commander judge the battlefield situation more easily, but this glass is not fragile, he is extremely strong,

In the experiments of the shipyard, at about 7 kilometers, he could block the attack of the 15-inch gun using tungsten core armor-piercing shells, without even a trace, and directly bounced off the attack.

The reason why it is so powerful is that its structure, similar to the atomic bonds of diamond, has a hardness of more than 9.5, and most importantly, his toughness is far greater than that of ordinary just now, which will appear and bounce the tungsten core armor-piercing bullet apart.

After listening to Scheer's explanation, Tirpitz was still a little uneasy, after all, compared with the thick, black steel plate, transparent glass products, it seems, is not so reliable,

Tirpitz didn't dwell on this, but began to ask Scheer about the next battle plan.

The battle plan is simple, almost a replica of the Southeast Asian exercise, with a total of five items. The first is to use a high-speed destroyer of more than 40 knots to tow a target ship of about 1,200 tons. So that the target ship can travel at a speed of 33 knots, a total of 12 ships. Scheer's fleet, which needs to sink them in 5 rounds.

The others are similar, they are all different environments, to test the attack power of the battleship, especially mentioned, is the test of armor-piercing shells, because Germany has no physical object, can not dismantle the artillery to the test site on land for testing, can only be at sea. A target ship will be fixed, and the entire superstructure has a square target with a length of 20 meters, width and height, which is constructed of average high-hard steel, although it is not as good as the armor steel used on the battleship, but it is more suitable for testing the armor-piercing ability of the ship's guns.

The first few projects, in the opinion of the officers of the High Seas Fleet, were extremely difficult, but in the case of the Scheer fleet. It's all the usual prescribed subjects, and it's even a little more difficult than the prescribed subjects, you know, under the premise of the limit. The target ship is definitely not 1200 tons, it has been replaced by about 50 tons, on the distance. It was also more than 12 kilometers instead of about 7 kilometers now.

One project at a time, I finish it. Wilhelm II was to watch the excitement every time the battleship of the Scheer fleet hit. He didn't know that all the naval officers were already shocked beyond measure, joking, far away 7 kilometers away, about 33 knots, the rules were running, the body was very small, only 1200 tons of high-speed target ships attacked, and they were hit within 5 rounds, and the speed of each round was still very fast, and it was finished in less than 2 minutes, which is too exaggerated, and even the Scheer fleet has not yet been lined up as a skirmisher line, how can all the naval guns be aimed in one direction

In the midst of everyone's doubts, the last test was opened, this time by Scheer's car, and Tirpitz and Wilhelm II were quite excited, although they were not responsible, but the cannonballs from the ships under his feet.

Scheer ordered very calmly, using tungsten core armor-piercing shells, Tirpitz didn't care much, and then, the salvo of 10 main guns, even if it was a 45,000-ton fantasy class, was slightly calmed, and the cannon rumbled in the distance, and the light flickered,

In the face of a fixed target, even if the aiming system is not used, the hit rate of the fleet is extremely high, not to mention the use of the aiming system, the first round of shooting, 10 guns, and finally hit 8 rounds, of which 7 shots hit the position, which shows the hit rate very much.

This target ship is biased towards sinking resistance, even with a target of several thousand tons, and the first salvo of the Scheer fleet has already shown the effect, and the next step is to test the quality of the effect.

The radio was still very convenient, and after the first salvo, several speedboats rushed to the target ship, and soon the data was given, and when the correspondent finished translating and gave the data to Tirpitz, Tirpitz almost thought that the data was wrong.

The armor-piercing shell with tungsten core, facing the homogeneous armor, the armor-piercing ability is still worth affirming, and each shell hits only, it has obtained a certain armor-piercing ability, the deepest reaches 72 cm, which represents the armor-piercing ability of 720 mm, even if it is converted to carburized armor, this is easy to pass through 30 cm of steel plate.

In terms of armor of this era, 15 cm is already a very thick armor, 30 cm is almost impossible, in this sense, the armor-piercing ability of this armor-piercing projectile can almost penetrate the armor of any capital ship, or frontal armor.

Tirpitz is the founder of the High Seas Fleet, of course, he understands the technical aspect very well, he knows that even a 15-inch gun cannot have such a powerful ability, he was very interested in the fantasy-level attack power before, and now he directly asks the question, why is it so powerful.

Of course, Scheer knew why he was so powerful, and he had doubted it before, but the tungsten core armor-piercing bullet proved his strength with an ability, and when Tirpitz asked, he naturally introduced.

Ordinary armor-piercing bullets, and tungsten core armor-piercing bullets, almost more than 30% difference, such armor-piercing ability, of course, attracted Tirpitz's attention, a shell, has such a huge ability, Tirpitz of course will not let go of such a weapon, he even wants to popularize tungsten core armor-piercing bullets to the public nuisance to annihilate the enemy.

However, after inquiring about the cost of tungsten core armor-piercing shells, Tirpitz did not speak, and the cost of a shell was almost 10 times that of ordinary steel-core armor-piercing shells, and such a cost could not be popularized to the high seas fleet at all.

It was from this moment that Tirpitz understood that the powerful Scheer fleet was almost piled up with money, not only the cost was huge, but the cost of use was also very high, and the 15-inch tungsten core armor-piercing bullet had extremely strong penetration ability, and the high seas fleet and most of the capital ships of the British Navy could not withstand its attack at normal angles.

But such shells, I really can't afford to fight, Scheer is used to it, besides, in Southeast Asia, the harvest is rich, at that time, the Admiralty was thousands of miles away, except to ensure the payment of wages in the country, there was nothing else, the entire operation and training expenses were handed over to Scheer, Scheer in the huge harvest, and he didn't care, that is, such a strong training created Scheer such a powerful fleet, but after he really came back, Tirpitz had a headache, the cost was too high, tungsten core armor-piercing bullets, The price is 10 times that of ordinary steel-core armor-piercing shells, and when it is applied on a large scale, it is really a little expensive, but it cannot be used, the power of the battleship lies in the main gun, in order to save money, the powerful main gun is given up, and the weaker shells are used, which no one will do.

In addition to this, fuel consumption is also a huge aspect, more than 45,000 tons of giant ships, but also at a speed of about 25 knots, even if the Chinese engine is more fuel-efficient, the kinetic energy is placed there, basically more than the two Bavarian class.

For such a big guy, Tirpitz loves and hates, loves his strength, no naval officer, there is no one who does not want a strong, enough to lay the foundation of the battleship, but the price of this battleship, the cost is really a bit painful, the shells are still secondary, the fuel is more expensive, especially when driving at high speed, all the supplies before are borne by the Northwest, this Scheer does not think, when the supply is handed over to Germany to bear, he almost really feels the difference, Germany lacks oil, Even if it was smuggling with Russia, he almost heard the complaints of the officials in charge of logistics more than once that the fantasy class was really an oil tiger.

In the hearts of the Navy, after occupying Baku, to obtain a stable supply of oil, this desire is stronger than the Army, oil can not only be supplied to Germany, but also have a variety of long-term transactions with China, although it needs to be replaced with oil pipes, but it is much stronger than empty driving, and it is not impossible to use some oil barrels and use freight wagons. (To be continued.) )