June 15, 1897. On this day, two huge battleships were finally completed, the Dante-class, named after the author of the Divine Comedy in Italian history, and this type of battleship will also become the largest warship exported by the Kingdom of Italy and join the Northern Fleet.

"It was a great moment when the traditional friendship between the Kingdom of Italy and the Qing Empire was consolidated and strengthened, and not long ago, in that epoch-making war, the Guiyuan-class cruisers and Garibaldi-type cruisers produced by the Kingdom of Italy defeated the ferocious Japanese fleet with outstanding performance in all naval battles, and saved this ancient country from many disasters in the midst of danger. And in the ensuing Qing-Russian conflict, it was the powerful Garibaldi-class armored cruisers that inflicted heavy damage on the Russian fleet in the chase. And today, the masterpieces of the Italian naval industry, the Dante-class battleships, will once again join the battle sequence of the Beiyang Navy, and I can say in charge that they will definitely perform even more than their predecessors. "As the impassioned speech of Count Vittorio Kuniberti ended...... The Beiyang Fleet will add two more warships with a displacement of 14,000 tons, and these will be two real first-class battleships! …。

Compared with the two Dante-type battleships previously delivered to the Spaniards, the two battleships ordered by Beiyang were more powerful than their Spanish cousins because of the long construction period and the deliberate care of the Italian shipyard.

First of all, in terms of the choice of armament, the Beiyang Naval Division did not choose the same 10-inch 40L gun as the Garibaldi class as the main gun. Instead, the new British 12-inch 40LMKIX main gun was selected with a newly developed twin-mounted turret from the Italian side, which was said to be the strongest combination in naval armament at that time. As for the reason for choosing a 12-inch gun. Only Yan Boxun and Liu Buyun, who was in charge of receiving the ship, and others knew.

Although in the Sino-Japanese War, many actual battles have shown that in the face of new hardened armor, the old armor-piercing shells cannot penetrate at all. In this case, suffocating the enemy ship with a high-explosive charge of picric acid is the best option. However, the outcome of the battle will be very long. And it is quite possible that after a long battle, the two sides will only win and lose and will not be able to completely destroy the opponent. After fighting for a long time, the opponent repaired it and came out again. This situation is clearly unacceptable for the Beiyang Fleet, which takes the elite route! Beiyang's tactical requirements are to sink the opponent as much as possible, and use the performance advantage of their own warships to keep their own warships from losses in the exchange of fire. At the same time, it is best to constantly sink enemy ships and weaken the strength of the opposing fleet, so the Beiyang Fleet must be equipped with as powerful weapons as possible to ensure that the combat power is ..........

As a traverser, Xu Jie knew the situation very well at that time, it was not that the power of the artillery was not enough, just take the MKIX 12-inch main gun newly equipped by the Beiyang Fleet, which can hit the muzzle velocity of 778 meters with a 386kg shell! According to calculations, this power should be able to penetrate 12-inch Krupp armor at a distance of 3,800 yards! But in fact, even the 6-inch Harvey is difficult to penetrate. The fundamental reason for this is that there is no cap to break through the hardened layer of the armor, and at the same time, the picric acid charge is unstable and easy to explode early. Faced with this problem, Xu Jie's solution is to add a layer of quilt cap to the outside of the warhead. At first, it was planned to use mild steel as the material for the quilt cap, and then gradually use the material after quenching and hardening as the quilt cap.

In terms of fuse manufacturing, the detonation time was extended, and TNT explosives were used instead of picric acid on the charge, and wax was used to isolate the charge from the projectile body to make it more problematic, and as the technology matured. Xu Jie is also packing TNT in a wooden container to increase stability. After such improvements, although it may still not reach the theoretical penetration depth, it is not a big problem to penetrate armor of about 8 inches, and even if it cannot penetrate in the face of thicker armor. It can also rely on huge kinetic energy to cause damage to the hull, just like the Rurik fought the Tianjin in the past. It's just that the current armor-piercing projectile body is stronger, and the damage caused will be greater. Although the problem of armor-piercing shells has not been completely solved now, in line with the idea of taking precautions, it is the best choice to prepare the artillery first, after all, Beiyang does not have to face the threat of war at any time like Spain. …………。

With the development of torpedo technology, the underwater protection of warships has become an increasingly important issue, for which under the guidance of Xu Jie's "advanced theory" and after many tests by the Italians, the new underwater protection system has finally been freshly baked. The purpose of the entire protection system is to ensure a certain amount of longitude, and at the same time to leave a series of empty compartments behind the double hull to absorb the high-pressure bubbles generated by the torpedo explosion. Then there are two layers of highly elastic steel plates to withstand the impact of shock waves and debris, and further inside, there are coal bunkers, which can be said to absorb the remaining energy if there happens to be coal, and finally a layer of 40mm thick armored bulkheads. The remaining energy that will be used to withstand the impact of the torpedo.

And with the commissioning of 2 Dante-class battleships, the maritime superiority of the Beiyang Fleet in the Far East will be further consolidated. Even if Russia entered service with two new battleships in the Far East...... The gap between the two sides was also greater than during the Sino-Japanese War, after all, the combat power of the two Dante-class battleships was much higher than that of the two Russian battleships. And the battleship detachment under Liu Buchan is no longer in name. Since then, the composition of the Beiyang Fleet's combat power has been further optimized, and it has changed from relying solely on cruisers to a pattern of paying equal attention to battleships and cruisers. And with the commissioning of these two warships, the remaining 3 warships of the old Beiyang can finally withdraw from the front line. In addition to the Zhiyuan as a training ship, the Dingyuan and Zhenyuan were used as offshore defense gunboats for port defense work ..........

The impact of the two first-class battleships joining Beiyang was greater than that of Dingzhen joining Beiyang that year. This is not only because the Dante-class is a real world-class warship, (Dingzhen's so-called world-class first-class ironclad ships are more just boasting, other countries had enough to suppress Dingzhen's existence at that time), but also because the Beiyang Naval Division has begun to develop from a coastal defensive fleet to a yellow-water navy. The range of its strikes has gradually developed from territorial waters to open waters. From the maintenance of territorial waters against encroachment to the projection of military power at medium distances. To a certain extent, Beiyang, like the U.S. Navy at this time, wanted to project its fleet forces as far as possible. It's just that the expansion of the North Ocean was hindered only by a not very strong Russian Far East Fleet. And the U.S. fleet was indeed met with a joint strangulation of many forces.

The commissioning of 2 Dante-class battleships increased the strength of the Beiyang Fleet by more than half. And this tremendous progress made the Russians completely unable to sit still. Under the current circumstances, once a war breaks out, the Beiyang Navy and the foreign fleet with a strong Beiyang background will have absolute superiority at sea. Under these conditions, there was disagreement within the Russian Navy about the direction of the construction of the Far Eastern Fleet, and one opinion was that the Russian fleet needed to line up more battleships to the Far East so that it could suppress the Northern Fleet. And the other school of thought thinks at this stage. The Russian Navy is scattered in three separate sea areas, and it is impossible to raise enough battleships for a certain fleet in a short period of time, and in the Far East, there is no Russian ** port that has the ability to overhaul battleships, so it is better to send cruisers to achieve asymmetric superiority in line with the strategy .........of fighting if you can fight and can't fight with artillery.

As the best admiral in the Russian Navy, Makanov leaned towards the second point of view, but with a slight difference, Makanov emphasized the role of the armored cruiser leader, in his opinion, in the case of not being able to achieve overwhelming superiority in a short period of time, one ship with multiple uses became the best choice, and when it came to the PISA-type armored cruiser, the Russians could gain some advantages with the newly built Grombowie-type armored cruiser in France. And when encountering the more powerful battleships Pinghai and Ninghai of the opponent, the lead ship of the armored cruiser of the Grom Bowie type, whose defensive power surpasses that of the improved cruiser in the Sea of Azov, can cover the retreat, and at the right time, join the battleship formation to start a decisive battle with the opponent. This universal warship is more suitable for the current complex situation in the Far East. …。

In the end, this plan of relatively low cost and cost-effective was affirmed by the tsar and the Admiralty. To this end, the Russians decided to start construction of another armored cruiser lead ship in France, which was named the Russia, and the two battleships were sent to the Far East after they were built. And the Russian Admiralty said that the addition of armored cruiser lead ships in the Far East is only a stopgap measure, and after the completion of the construction of the port of Muroran, the Russian Navy will send a large number of battleships to the Far East and turn the port of Muroran into a fortress of Gibraltar in the Russian Far East! …。

This blatant provocation did not only make Beiyang uneasy...... Japan and Britain were at the same time, especially Japan, and the growing influence of Russia in the Far East and the construction of places in Hokkaido and other places undoubtedly showed the attitude of the Russians, and as the naval power increased and more and more Russians poured into the occupied areas, Japan's efforts to regain the territory would become more and more difficult. The degree of difficulty even led the Japanese top brass to believe that it was impossible for Japan to recover its territory alone, and that the combat quality of the Japanese army was indeed high, and with the support of the British, the equipment had also been greatly improved. But let's not forget that Japan is an island nation, if the war resumes. The Russian fleet blockade of Japan, which has almost no navy, can be described as easy! At that time, the people's livelihood will be unsustainable, what war will be fought?

As for Britain, although it was the first navy in the world, with the start of the construction of the German navy, and the continued expansion of the naval power of France and Italy, the British had to leave more and more fleets in the Mediterranean and on the mainland, and over time, after the North Ocean, the Russian Far East Fleet will also surpass Britain in combat effectiveness! This meant that Britain would not be able to suppress the expanding Russian fleet in the ice-free ports of the Far East on its own! And this directly led to the urgent need for Britain to support a force in the Far East to deal with the Russians who had already established themselves in the Far East! …。

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