No one expected that the negotiations on cruisers would be so difficult, and the time consumed would be longer than the negotiations between capital ships and aircraft carriers! It's not that cruisers are more important than capital ships and aircraft carriers, but that the definition of cruisers is varied, from tonnage to firepower! For example, in China and Italy, the main guns of armored cruisers used are all of 10-inch caliber. THE BRITISH HAD 234MM GUNS, THE AMERICANS HAD 8-INCH AND 10-INCH GUNS, AND THE FRENCH, GERMANS AND AUSTRIANS HAD 240MM GUNS. As a result, it is difficult for the two sides to reach an agreement on firepower alone. Everyone has been fighting for N years, and they all know that artillery with a large caliber at the same tonnage is advantageous. And at the same time, each country has its own set of naval systems, and the development of various artillery pieces is carried out in the established direction. It's not easy to convince others to use their own artillery caliber. Especially the 234MM main gun of the British, what a strange storage zài in the eyes of other countries!

Historically, everyone chose 8-inch guns because the British produced 8-inch guns equipped with 8-inch guns and sold them to Japan, the Italians also used 8-inch guns produced by Armstrong, and the Americans also had 8-inch guns. So you can set this caliber at once, but this time, it can really be described as a hundred ghosts walking at night! Do you want to unify the 8-inch gun? Well, a bunch of countries are against you! DEAUFA WAS STILL VERY SATISFIED WITH HIS 240MML45 GUN. China and the United States and Italy both favored 10-inch guns. But here comes another problem, the artillery is so big. The tonnage of ships will rise. The requirements of various countries for endurance are different, the United States and Britain have relatively large requirements for endurance, and the allies basically do not have much demand. As a result, along with the increase in artillery performance, this led to a vicious expansion of the cruiser's tonnage.

According to historical experience, if a treaty cruiser wants to have armor that can resist 8-inch guns at a certain range, it needs at least 10,004 tonnage, and if it is replaced by 10-inch guns, then this number will be more terrifying! It's a small battle patrol! And after Xu Jie saw the records of the naval armament negotiations reported by his subordinates, he also said that he was messy. He was still unsure how to set the tone of the cruiser. In fact, cruisers are a bit of a problem for China, which is not so far away from overseas colonies to patrol, and at the same time, it is not as ready to cross the Atlantic as the United States is ready to support European operations at any time. Air defense and anti-submarine will naturally be left to destroyers, and the main force in future naval warfare will be aircraft carriers, which will either be transferred in or rely on battleships at night. The cruiser is a little high, not too low! No matter how powerful the 10-inch guns are, they can't hurt the battleship.

After arguing for about 4 days, the negotiating parties did not even finalize the upper limit of the cruiser's artillery. In the end, the Allies put forward this opinion: "The maximum tonnage of heavy cruisers does not exceed 15,000 tons, and everyone will watch and get the rest!" "The Germans put forward this tonnage on a basis, since most of the tonnage of the largest armored cruisers of the countries in the 1 World War was of this class. If it's bigger, it's a small battlecruiser. Since it is to be different from the capital ship, the tonnage of 15,000 tons is just about the right one. No one can put forward any rebuttal opinions about this construction, but considering the caliber of the guns of the original armored cruisers of various countries, the upper limit of the guns of the heavy cruisers finally proposed should not exceed 10 inches.

In addition to heavy cruisers, there were also light cruisers, and when defining the caliber of light cruisers, the British built yì using 7-inch guns as a ceiling. IN WAR 1, THE UNITED STATES HAD GUNS OF THIS CALIBER AS THE 2ND CLASS MAIN GUNS OF THE FORMER DREADNOUGHTS, WHILE THE CORRESPONDING GERMAN AND AUTRO-HUNGARIAN COUNTERPARTS ALSO HAD 170MM GUNS. So this class of artillery is more in line with their respective circumstances, (the British cried) everyone can accept it, and about the tonnage of light cruisers, the countries did not make relevant regulations. After all, if you are willing to build a 15,000-ton ship, but only install a 7.5-inch gun, you will suffer a loss, and the big ship will resist the small cannon, and no one will care about you!

The rest is the tonnage of cruisers, in fact, the demand for cruisers in various countries is great, the United States needs to take into account both the Pacific and the Atlantic, Britain and France have colonies all over the four seas, the German Navy came out of the North Sea, and because it was affected by the insufficient number of escort warships in the 1st World War, the importance of cruisers has increased, as for China? In order to protect the seas from the Arctic Ocean to the equator, it is also necessary to have a large number of auxiliary warships, and this money is absolutely unsavable for the vast majority of countries participating in the jump. So in the negotiations, the maximum tonnage of the cruiser was set at 350,000 tons, and other countries acquired their own tonnage in proportion.

Because the cruiser category itself is divided into two kinds, one is a heavy cruiser equipped with 10-inch guns, and the other is a light cruiser equipped with 7.5-inch guns, so now the question arises, how to define the proportion of these two types of cruisers? The Allies naturally wanted to have more heavy cruisers, after all, they wanted quality rather than quantity, and naturally wanted to increase the proportion of heavy cruisers, while Britain and France had to maintain a certain number of light cruisers to meet the needs of the patrolling colonies. And it was hoped that by increasing the proportion of light cruisers in order to reduce the quality superiority of the Allies in terms of cruisers. However, Huaxia and the United States do not care much about this, because as the two most combat-effective navies, their superiority in capital ships and aircraft carriers is enough to erase some differences in cruisers.

"Cruisers are different from capital ships, the latter can only have one role, that is, to deal with the capital ships of other countries, and cruisers are different according to the needs of each country, so there will be some differences in use, for example, some countries need to maintain a sufficient number and maintain the security of overseas colonies, while some national cruisers need to overwhelm the cruisers of potential enemy countries. For this reason, it is arbitrary and unreasonable for us to directly use a one-size-fits-all approach to determine the ratio of heavy cruisers and light cruisers of all countries with a fixed ratio! To this end, the countries of our country have implemented a floating ratio in terms of cruisers, and the proportion of heavy cruisers does not exceed 6% of the total tonnage. In the end, Huaxia came up with a compromise. However, in the eyes of some people, this aspect is obviously in favor of the Allies, because the requirements of the Allies for heavy patrols are close to 60%. And the opinion of the Entente was half to half.

However, the Entente also conducted internal research on this construction, and believed that although the heavy patrol side may have suffered a loss, considering that at the beginning, in order to take care of Britain, the treaty agreed that Australia and Canada would each build a second-class capital ship of no more than 20,000 tons, so the secondary warships would not suffer any loss. So I finally agreed.

After the conclusion of the negotiations on cruisers, the countries did not immediately negotiate the tonnage of destroyers and submarines, but negotiated the replacement time of all the above large and medium-sized warships, and in this regard, the United States, Britain, Germany and Italy were particularly concerned, because the fleets that these countries could retain had a large number of old warships that needed to be replaced, such as the three 13.5-inch guns of the British Super Dreadnought, some of the 14-inch iron turtles of the Americans, and the King-class and Caesar-class battleships of the Germans. I have to say that the ship replacement cycle is a double-edged sword, you can replace it, and others can replace it, so this makes both sides feel quite tricky. And Huaxia? Although the construction time of the 3 Longxu-class battleships is not short, Huaxia never thought of replacing them at all, so let's make do with it, anyway, the main force in the future will be the aircraft carrier, and according to the jump, 8 fast battleships equipped with 16-inch naval guns are definitely enough. The last 6 ships are all marginal, and the length of the battleships is longer than that of the South Dakota class of the United States in the later generations, and after replacing the power system, there is no problem at all when it runs above 27 knots. More than 27 verses is sufficient.

In addition to the replacement, another problem was the replacement of guns, the Germans obtained permission to exchange the Izmail-class battleships for larger caliber guns, and the American and French 3 14-inch guns also had the potential to be replaced. To this end, the two sides have also held consultations on this issue. As for Huaxia, the two French warships will be replaced if they are replaced, but if the American Iron Turtle is really replaced, which Huaxia will not suffer? In this regard, Huaxia resolutely stood on the side of the allies.

"The fundamental starting point of this naval negotiation was the principle of equivalence of naval strength, according to which the two capital ships of the German Navy were replaced by the abandonment of a 14-inch turret by each of the three King-class battleships, and at the same time to balance the excessive number of 15-inch guns of the British Royal Navy. However, the U.S. Navy does not have this problem, and the main fleet of the Huaxia Navy, which is equal to the U.S. Navy, is at most equal to the U.S. Navy in terms of the number of 16-inch main guns. At the meeting, the Huaxia delegates sternly rejected the US Navy's request to replace their guns, but as a balance, Huaxia said that it would be understandable if the French Navy was willing to replace the two Brestani-class battleships with 16-inch guns.

"It's not right to just hit one side." Later, when someone asked why he opened up to France, Xu Jie explained it like this. It is true that the U.S. Navy is one of China's greatest potential enemies, but at the same time, why not the German Navy? In the previous period, Germany gained too much advantage in capital ships and aircraft carriers, when it comes to actual combat capabilities, after the construction of all warships stipulated in the treaty is completed, the German capital ships have an advantage in both application and firepower, and the speed of Bismarck-class battleships will also increase after changing power, if the Germans grit their teeth and abandon the turret in the middle, then after the modification, it will be a standard fast battleship, which can play a considerable role in future naval battles. As for the aircraft carriers, it is needless to say that even the overall combat power of the cruisers is superior to Germany, since this is the case, Huaxia naturally needs to support France to balance Germany's too strong maritime power.

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