。 If it is understandable that the Russians continue to improve and produce armored cruisers of the Azov type, then the actions of the French may have confused the whole world. The French decided to produce an armored cruiser similar to the Azov type. Do not seek top-notch firepower and protection, only seek higher cost performance and greater cruising power.

Long before the Azov-type armored cruisers came out, the French did not give up the development of cruisers when they updated a large number of capital ships, although the idea of the green water navy did not have much market in France, but after seeing the armored cruisers produced by the Italians in the Sino-Japanese Naval War, the French felt that even in Europe, where there were strong opponents, armored cruisers could not be used for decisive battles, but relying on the French colonies in the world, once the war started, It is also a good idea to wage a cruising war on a global scale to strike specifically at the sea lines of communication of hostile countries.

I thought about it, but on the issue of ship selection and other issues, the French made another difficulty. Small ships of 4,000 to 5,000 tons, the French naturally do not look down on them, such a small tonnage simply cannot meet the French requirements for endurance and combat effectiveness of warships, "This kind of small ships are equipped to maintain law and order in the colonies, and they are not suitable for fighting on the ocean at all." "The French Admiralty Minister categorically rejected the proposal to decorate the miniaturization.

Large-scale patrols are certain, but how big is appropriate? This is a question worth pondering, especially the breaking of the intersectional patrol, under the condition of ensuring sea trials and range, it is certainly impossible to pile up armor and artillery like the battleships designed by Italy for the bathtubs and coastal waters of the Mediterranean. This directly leads to the fact that there is no advantage in a single ship duel. Since you will definitely not be able to beat your opponent, you must at least ensure that you can outrun your opponent. And in order to prevent an increase in tonnage. The increase in power, in turn, the increase in the weight of the power system further requires greater power, and the emergence of this kind of water with more surface and more water on the surface, the French limited the tonnage of the new warship to about 7,000 tons.

It is basically impossible to have all-round excellent performance at this tonnage, so the French sensibly set these requirements for the new cruiser, first, the speed must be as fast as possible. Speeds below 21 knots are absolutely not considered. Second, the armor protection was based on sufficiency, taking into account the situation in the Sino-Japanese War. Even the fact that the 6-inch main outfit was enough to withstand the British 92-inch guns, so the French required the main outfit to carry 6 inches, but the armor height was sufficient. And the upper armor had to extend to the gun emplacement. The third is firepower, since it is a broken ship, then the firepower can deal with the opponent's 4000-ton dome cruisers and merchant ships, so the requirements for firepower are quite low, 2 76-inch guns and 8 64-inch guns are enough. In this way, a new low-cost special broken battleship is baked!

The pertinence of this new warship is really too strong, looking at the world, in addition to the British imperialism, who else in the world navy is worthy of the French? In terms of tonnage, the Russians are the third in the world. And the French are allies. The fourth largest in the world is Italy, which is also a potential enemy for the French in the Mediterranean. But in the bathtub of the Mediterranean, the French did not need to build such a battleship that specialized in breaking diplomatic relations at all, even if they were enemies of Italy, they also needed to build battleships for a decisive battle. So the Italians say there is not much pressure.

But the British are Alexander! This thing is clearly preparing for another war, and it is against the British transport line. I put on a patrol in consideration of where Maozi is. If France and Russia joined forces and fought a cruising war in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans at the same time, even if the British Empire could trap the main fleet of France and Russia in the harbor, the various broken and camouflaged cruisers running around the streets of the ocean alone would be enough to make the British Empire big! So the British decided to also start building a 10,000-ton armored cruiser, which was equipped with twin 92-inch guns at the head and tail, and 12 6-inch guns on the side chord. The main armor thickness is 7 inches, and the body is 5 inches. The mass-produced armored cruiser with a power of 180,000 horsepower, a speed of 20 knots, and a coal load of about 1,500 tons, was finally recognized by the British. …,

And this was only the beginning, and the French and Russians might really intend to compete with the British on the maritime issue, or to force the British to make some concessions in a joint way. Just when the British decided to build a new 10,000-ton cruiser to deal with the new French broken cruiser and the Russian production version of the Azov cruiser. The French decided to follow the Russians and began construction of an armored cruiser collar similar to Rurik!

The new type of armored cruiser lead ship built by the Russians in France gave the French a new way of thinking, and in the eyes of the French, this expensive battleship was definitely worth the money, first of all, this kind of battleship could be used in a decisive battle of the fleet, although the caliber of the main gun may be slightly lower than that of the battleship, but it was enough to suppress the avant-garde armored cruisers in the British fleet. It can also be used as a capital ship when necessary. Secondly, as a battleship, although it is not cost-effective to use such an expensive battleship to break the battleship, the greatest significance of this kind of cruiser lead ship is deterrence, except for the battleship, all battleships are not its opponents, and the speed of the battleship is too slow. The speed does not need to be too high, 20 knots is enough, and the idea is the same as that of PISA. However, the firepower and protection were appropriately weakened, and the remaining weight was used to strengthen the range and sea trials.

In this way, the British really could not sit still, and they could predict that once the French and Russians launched a large number of armored cruisers, once these various ocean-going cruisers that were faster and stronger than the fast were scattered over the ocean, this would be a huge threat to Britain, which was extremely dependent on sea transportation. The British principle is that once the situation is tense, they will track any potential hostile warship cruising on the high seas, and destroy the warships that come with support once the war officially starts, but the premise of this tracking is that you can keep up with others!

And if you don't have this prerequisite, it will be really difficult to catch high-speed armored cruisers scurrying around on the ocean, and what is even more terrifying is that France has colonies all over the world, and if people nest in a harbor and put some mines outside, then what can you do? Waiting?! There are shore defense artillery on the go, and the small fleet does not dare to move people at all, and if you go back, it will be in vain!

Faced with this situation, the British Navy immediately began to study countermeasures, and as the research deepened, they found that their difficulties were not only in the response to countermeasures, but also in the technical skills, the British also encountered serious bottlenecks. First of all, the first problem is the problem of speed, and in the case of the use of vertical steam engines, the speed of a large warship now reaching 22 knots is basically the limit. If the shipyard continues to increase the power, then the speed increase effect brought by the increase in power will be smaller and smaller, (the so-called law of diminishing marginal returns) relatively speaking, the power-to-weight ratio of the power system of a large warship is much smaller than that of a small warship, because a considerable part of the power weight of a large warship is used in places such as the propeller shaft that cannot produce direct power, (the propeller shaft of a large warship is much longer than that of a small warship, which is understandable.) So in the end, the designers found themselves adding N boilers, which led to an embarrassing situation in which the power and tonnage of the battleship increased dramatically at the same time, but the speed did not change much.

The second is the shipboard armament, since the advent of hardened armor, it is no longer a fantasy to defend against the strongest artillery with less than 10 inches of armor. After testing by the major naval powers, under the current situation, 12-inch shells are basically unable to penetrate 8-inch hardened armor, and when a 300+KG heavy shell hits only 8-inch hardened armor at a speed of more than 700 meters, what happens is either the body of the projectile is shattered or ejected! What a shame this makes the artillery!! In this case, as for the picric acid high-explosive bomb, its effect against warships with a large protective area is relatively limited, and the side chords are basically not worn and cannot be burned. can only point to the building, and after people go back to extinguish the fire and repair it, they are a good man again! …,

Although there are many reasons, but the battle still has to be fought, in order to smash as much as possible the layer of turtle shells on the opponent's battleship, which is not thick but quite strong, the unanimous agreement of all countries is to install larger caliber guns as much as possible! Since the artillery reached 12 inches, it was basically the limit of turret at that time, so it was very difficult to study larger caliber guns, and even if they came out, they would become flashy due to the rate of fire and other reasons. So countries can only work on 12-inch, 11-inch and 10-inch guns! Against the 6-inch hardening of an ordinary cruiser, don't think about it if you don't have a gun of more than 10 inches, and against the hardening of more than 8 inches, you can't crack it with 12 inches! And if there are more main guns, the secondary guns will be reduced, and how to balance the firepower has become a very important problem! So in terms of firepower, it also made the British very hot!

The last problem is fire control. Since the British equipped their battleships with rangefinders, the officers and men of the Navy finally got rid of the primitive way of using a sextant to measure the range and then fighting against the gun table! WITH THE UPPER RANGEFINDER AND THE SIGHTING DEVICE ON THE ARTILLERY, THE BATTLESHIP CAN FINALLY ENGAGE AT A DISTANCE OF 3KM! But the hit rate is still low pitiful, if you want to improve the hit, the first way is to increase the hit rate as much as possible, the second way is to increase the rate of fire, in the latter case in a short period of time can hardly be improved, then how to improve the hit rate, especially the main gun hit rate is a problem worth thinking about.

So to sum up, the British suddenly found that in the face of these technical problems, it is not at all that the current Royal Navy can solve on the original technical system! Therefore, in this case, the reform and innovation of naval technology are about to come out! And in this world, not only the British, but also the French, Italians and Germans have discovered the bottleneck of the current naval development, so a big controversy and innovation gradually began!

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