Chapter 639: Florida-class battleships

Majifen has been depressed lately, first fighting lawsuits over the Navy's military spending and politicians in Congress, and then being questioned about the Navy's rethinking and review of its old development strategy. After half a year of this anxious day, Magiffen finally heard the good news, that is, the new American dreadnought battleship Florida-class battleship is about to enter service! This warship, which concentrates the top shipbuilding technology of the entire United States, is called the new hope of the US Navy, and the Americans have been preparing for a long time to build the world's top warship in the first class, and Majifen, as one of the heads of the US Navy, is not bitter enough for outsiders. Like a father, he was filled with pride and joy as he watched his children grow up soon.

A large part of the reason why the Americans were willing to build Borodino-class battleships for the Russians at a relatively low price was that they were the product of experimentation and training. The U.S. Navy is limited by Congress, and naturally it cannot be as lavish as Britain or Germany...... Therefore, the U.S. Navy requires that every warship of its own must be a masterpiece. And the boutique is not so easy to get, so you must find someone to practice first! In this way, the Russians, who were in dire need of battleships, became the target of the Americans. At the same time, it also has the opportunity to exchange technology with France and other countries.........

When building the Borodino-class battleships, the Americans have always focused on stability, and the entire performance can only be described as decent, and there are some advanced designs and ideas that have not been adopted, such as a new fire control system, such as the layout of the armor belt, and the power system. And in the later stages of the construction of the Borodino-class battleships, the Americans felt that they had enough experience, so they adopted a lot of new technologies and designs in the design of the new battleships.

First of all, the first point is inclined armor. Americans don't have Xu Jie, a time-traveler in later generations. So they were very cautious when they adopted this design. The reason why this design was found to be better is because in a test firing of artillery, shooting at the same target ship, they found that with the same thickness of armor, the defense at the ammunition depot is obviously much stronger than that of the power compartment, the armor is the same armor, and even the back plate at the back is the same thickness! Why?

It turned out that because of the ship's shape, the side chord of the ammunition depot part of the battleship itself had a certain angle of inclination, so even if the inclined armor was not deliberately installed, its armor plates were still at a certain angle. After discovering this phenomenon, the Americans immediately began to conduct experiments as if they had obtained a treasure, and as a result, American technicians found that the advantages of inclined armor became more and more obvious when the distance and the angle of fall were larger! After sufficient experiments, the Americans decided to use 12-inch inclined armor as the main equipment on the new warship. It has an inclination angle of up to 16.5 degrees! The vertical height of the entire armor plate reached 4 meters! And before and after the hull. THERE IS ALSO AN 80MM THICK ARMOR BELT. The entire main armor belt covered the length of the hull 65 ..........

And for the dome armor, the Americans expressed extreme disgrace. The reason is very simple, the speed of the American warships themselves is not very high, if you fill in hundreds or thousands of tons of water, how low will the speed of the ship be? Therefore, the Americans felt that instead of weakening the main armor and relying on iron pants for defense, it was better to directly ensure the thickness and height of the main armor, and after the Americans discovered the advantages of inclined armor, they were even more convinced of this idea.

IN TERMS OF HORIZONTAL DESIGN, THE AMERICANS DECIDED TO CONNECT THE MAIN HORIZONTAL ARMOR WITH THE UPPER EDGE OF THE SIDE CHORD MAIN ARMOR, WHICH IS A PIECE OF HOMOGENEOUS STEEL ARMOR WITH AN OVERALL THICKNESS OF 80MM. ON THE UPPER EDGE OF THE UPPER ARMOR, THE AMERICANS WELDED ANOTHER LAYER OF STRUCTURAL STEEL WITH A THICKNESS OF UP TO 20 MM AS AN AUXILIARY MEANS OF DEFENSE. In the eyes of the Americans, the role of this layer of armor is to protect against high-explosive shells and small-caliber artillery, as well as various shrapnel. If this were to run into battleship-class shells, it would also require lower defenses (). …。

As for why not raise the main level to the upper edge of the upper armor belt. THE REASON IS VERY SIMPLE, IF YOU PUT IT ON IT, NOT TO MENTION THE PROBLEM OF RAISING THE CENTER OF GRAVITY, AS LONG AS THE OPPONENT CAN PENETRATE THE 120MM THICK UPPER ARMOR, YOU CAN SEND THE SHELLS INTO THE CORE CABIN, WHICH IS SIMPLY EQUIVALENT TO GETTING A WINDOW FOR THE OTHER PARTY AND LETTING OTHERS PENETRATE THE CORE CABIN, THIS KIND OF OFFENSE AMERICANS WILL NEVER DO! In terms of underwater protection, the United States has further increased the depth of the underwater lightning protection system. And the thickness of the last lightning wall was thickened, and at the same time, the underwater tank was partially filled with fuel oil as the ......... of the oil depot.

As for the turret and turret protection, the Americans, in keeping with their tradition of focusing on the protection of weapon systems, installed armor up to 14 inches thick on the front of the gun! THE DEFENSE AT THE TURRET HAS ALSO BEEN INCREASED TO 370MM, AND IN ORDER TO PREVENT THE TURRET FROM GETTING STUCK AFTER THE TURRET IS HIT AND DEFORMED, THERE IS A CERTAIN GAP BETWEEN THE TURRET AND THE TURRET SYSTEM, EVEN IF THE OUTER TURRET IS DEFORMED, IT WILL NOT AFFECT THE ROTATION OF THE GUN. As for the caving caused by the shell hitting the gun mount, the Americans also took it into account and specially installed an anti-spall layer in the inner layer of the gun mount.

The new Florida-class battleships also received some improvements in the power system...... Coal-fired boilers have disappeared and have been replaced by 6 kerosene co-fired boilers and 8 oil-fired boilers. Six of the kerosene boilers were used to maintain the normal cruise of the battleship, and the oil-fired boilers were used for rapid sailing. The power system used a steam turbine from the British. In terms of fuel composition, the proportion of fuel oil exceeded that of heavy fuel oil for the first time, which indicates a qualitative leap in naval fuel, which is easier to replenish at sea and has a greater combustion value. So the endurance of the Florida-class battleships is also much greater.

In the end, there is the arrangement of firepower, in terms of the layout of the artillery, the Americans really struggled, whether to use the 3-mounted main gun or the twin-mounted main gun? The Americans have always wanted to imitate the four three-mounted main guns of the Longxing-class battleships, but the problem of the three-pack main guns still makes the Americans uneasy, and if the triple main guns are used, in order to ensure sufficient depth of underwater defense, it is necessary to expand the hull width, and an overly wide hull is obviously not very safe when passing through the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal at this time was earlier than in history. But after all, it has only just begun, so the Americans think it is better to be conservative in this situation ..........

But at the same time, the firepower of 8 main guns is really unreasonable in the eyes of the Americans, and as a result, a designer patted his head and said that we should add 1 twin turret to the amidships? 10 artillery pieces and all of them are double-twinked, it would be nice to take a walk. It may not be worse than the Longxing-class firepower of the Huaxia Navy. Then the new Florida-class battleships became 5 twin 12-inch guns in a pivotal layout. One of the turrets in the middle was still backwards, and the rear of the turret was only in the boiler room, because if the turret was close to the steam turbine room, the mechanical vibration would have a fatal effect on the gun's walk.

In order to make better use of every cent of the budget, and also to make this battleship have greater upgrade potential, the Americans deliberately made the gun mount and gun ring very large. The Americans are even preparing to equip this class of battleships with larger caliber guns in the future. Therefore, when designing, the main gun has a margin from top to bottom. The idea was not invented by the Americans. As early as the Spanish-American War, the turrets of the 3 10-inch guns on the Spanish King-class battleships could actually be replaced with twin 12-inch main guns, but the twin 12-inch turret guns were not very mature at that time, so they were abandoned. However, in the Sino-Russian War, the Chinese battleships completed this ......... of refitting.

In addition to the strengthening and reservation of armaments, for the first time, the Americans put fire control on the same level as artillery. For this reason, the Americans imported a new 5-meter baseline rangefinder from Germany for the first time, and imported 8 units at once. Each Florida-class battleship is equipped with two, along with separate rangefinders and gun scopes on each main gun. It can be said that even if the main rangefinder is destroyed, the Florida-class battleship still has enough observation ability not to be blind. In terms of settlement, for the first time, the Americans added a drawing function to the settlement system, which can clearly mark the trajectory of the enemy and our ships, coupled with a relatively scientific settlement method, it can be said that the Americans' fire control capability is already at the first-class level (). …。

In this way, the tonnage of this super battleship, which embodies the efforts of the US Navy, has reached more than 25,000 tons after various increases! A behemoth with a hull length of 189 meters, a width of 29.5 meters and a draft of 8.5 meters! However, thanks to the use of steam turbines and a large number of oil-fired boilers, the weight of the power system was still saved. The total output can reach 32,000 horsepower, and with the steam turbine driven by 4 shafts, its speed can reach about 21 knots. The fuel reserves are 3,000 tons of heavy oil...... The range is 4,000 nautical miles ......... at a speed of 10 knots.

"In the future, if we can validate a larger caliber gun, as long as we replace it with a new turret, then the Florida-class battleship will become the most powerful battleship in the world, surpassing the existence of dreadnoughts." The director of the Naval Design Bureau said proudly to Majifen.

"Hopefully, after we put it into service. He can be the new pride of the United States of America. Majifen said silently. At this time, it was not only Majifen who was excited, but also the radical forces in the United States after obtaining the new warship, and it was certain that Cuba would be taken out in shame, and Spain would not be able to resist these majestic ships, and the European countries would definitely not take a huge risk to help a doomed country.

"I wonder if we can think about the situation in the Far East?" When Theodore Roosevelt saw the majestic battleship on the cover of the newspaper. I couldn't help but move. Now that the Great War in the Far East has begun, the Chinese Navy and the Russian Navy are fighting inextricably. Roosevelt hoped that the outcome would be a lose-lose situation, and only then would the United States be able to take advantage of the vacuum. But judging from the current situation, the Russian-Dutch navy seems to be very weak, and this situation is really difficult. Roosevelt couldn't help but shake his head and said. (To be continued.)