Daming 1805

Chapter 62 "Cruiser"

On January 34, the [-]th year of Taiping of the Ming Dynasty, at [-]:[-] p.m., the time of the capital of the Ming Dynasty, the Anti-Ming Alliance and the Ming Empire officially ceased fire.

This world war, which has lasted for more than ten years, has finally ended in a basically even state, or a state in which both sides have worked in vain.

Potential preparations before the formal peace talks began, and Honglu Temple immediately became the busiest institution in the Ming Dynasty.

Honglu Temple and the British-led anti-Ming alliance discussed the specific time and place of the peace talks, and each selected and reported the composition of the participants.

According to Zhu Jianyan's experience, this process would take at least half a month, but what took longer was the retreat of the troops on both sides.

The trust between the two sides is very low, and you will definitely keep quitting one division, then I quit another division, and you quit another division, so that the implementation is staggered and slow.

All these matters are handled by special personnel from Honglu Temple, and Zhu Jianyan, the former minister of Honglu Temple who has been dismissed, presides.

Zhu Jingyuan, who actually acted as the minister of Honglu Temple, completely rejected Honglu Temple's pick and devoted himself to the design of the battleship in the Ministry of Industry.

The next day, at [-]:[-] am on January [-]th, in the old city of the capital of Daming, the Ministry of Industry Propaganda Hall.

The layout of the lecture hall is similar to the lecture hall of Zhu Jingyuan's previous life, with a podium equipped with a desk and a writing projector in the front and center, and a row of fixed seats below.

Several young craftsmen from the Ministry of Industry were busy inside and outside the lecture hall, checking the site again and debugging the equipment needed.

Zhu Jingyuan, who did not go to the morning court, sat under the podium, sorting out the materials he had prepared for the last time, and sorting out his naval ship development plan.

Traditional naval combat ships can be roughly divided into three types: main ships, screen guard ships, and auxiliary ships.

The main ships are mainly battleships, pursuing perfect defense and powerful firepower. Similar to the main force of the Chinese army in the traditional army, it may be heavy armored infantry or heavy cavalry.

Screen Guards are mainly cruisers, seeking maneuverability and perception capabilities, like the traditional perimeter screen troops of the main army, such as light armoured skirmishers and light cavalry, and scouts.

Auxiliary ships are mainly destroyers, which pursue economical benefits and complete categories. They are auxiliary units in the traditional army. They have to do errands, rescue, exploration, mine clearance, and defense.

The most basic combat mode of the navy is to spread out the head of the Guard Fleet, patrolling and guarding the periphery of the main fleet.

After encountering the enemy's Guard Fleet, the two sides engaged in "avant-garde warfare".

After winning the avant-garde battle, the Guard fleet continued to search for the enemy's main fleet.

After finding the main force of the enemy army, call your main fleet to come over and conduct a "fleet battle" at the right time.

In theory, only the decisive battle of the fleet can determine the outcome of the naval battle, and the avant-garde battle is only information reconnaissance and early testing.

But if you win the avant-garde war, you will also control the information advantage.

The main fleet entered the battlefield at a more suitable time and angle, and gained the first move and a very important heading advantage.

So avant-garde warfare is actually the most important, and even more important at some point.

This resulted in increasingly powerful cruisers responsible for avant-garde warfare, and eventually the era of dreadnoughts reached its limit.

Developed "Battle Cruisers" with cruiser speed, battleship firepower or defensive power.

Battleship cruisers are like special warfare units, carrying the firepower of capital ships to fight avant-garde warfare.

When encountering the enemy's screen guard cruiser fleet, the battle cruiser can directly kill it with the firepower of the capital ship level.

Encountering the enemy's main fleet, the battle patrol does not suffer in firepower, and still has the strength to fight.

After the battle cruiser has finished the avant-garde battle, if the injury is not serious, they can follow the main fleet and continue to fight the fleet battle.

This is the so-called one ship two eat.

Therefore, even though the battlecruiser was the most expensive battleship at that time, about 25% more expensive than the main battleship of the same level in the same period, it was still a very cost-effective type of battleship.

The richer the navy, the more cost-effective the battlecruiser is.

If the Guard Fleet is patrolled by a large amount and has a sufficient scale, it is basically impossible for the enemy to win in the avant-garde battle.

When it comes to the decisive battle of the fleet, the main fleet of its own can have a very obvious advantage in firepower density.

On this basis, battlecruisers are still very valuable battleships.

The early low-speed battleships designed in the early 20th century were basically eliminated in the [-]s.

Newly designed low-speed battleships in the 20s, such as Colorado, Nelson, Nagato, etc., by the end of the 30s, when World War II began, they could no longer keep up with the times.

The cutting-edge battleships that were just designed before the outbreak of World War II, Yamato, Iowa, Richelieu, etc., were quickly eliminated and retired after the end of World War II with the maturity of guided weapons.

To sum up, the orthodox dreadnought battleships in history usually have an effective service life of only a dozen to 20 years.

And what about the great battlecruisers of World War I?

Take the British battlecruiser HMS Prestige as an example. She was built in 1915 and dismantled in 1947. She has experienced two world wars before and after, and has played the role of a capital ship.

The effective service life of this battlecruiser exceeds 30 years, and may even reach twice that of traditional battleships.

The main reason is the speed competition, which gives the design of the battle cruiser passive foresight.

The speed of ocean-going ships is usually expressed in "knots", and 1 knot means "1 nautical mile per hour".

1海里等于1.852公里，是地球子午线上的1分弧长，60分为1度，360度为1圆周。

If the object is moving at 60 knots, it moves exactly 1 degree arc length on the surface of the earth every hour, and it circles the earth in 360 hours.

From World War I to World War II, the ship's power system was rapidly upgraded, and the speed of the naval fleet continued to increase.

The aircraft carrier tactics formed during World War II required the fleet to have a speed of at least 27 knots, or even more than 30 knots.

The shape of the shell of the part below the waterline of the battleship should also be adapted to the target speed of the battleship.

The early traditional battleships were stubby hulls adapted to 20 to 23 knots.

Even if a new power system is modified and replaced, it is difficult to achieve a speed of more than 27 knots, and it is very ugly to force the fuel consumption to increase.

Moreover, traditional battleships have limited power compartment capacity and often cannot accommodate newer models of power systems.

On the contrary, the early battle cruisers were originally slender hulls designed for speeds above 27 knots.

In order to accommodate early low-density powertrains, the power compartment is usually quite large, and the upgrade space is very rich.

Therefore, the battle cruisers built in the era of World War I can continue to be used after the upgrade in the era of World War II.

It may not be able to be the main core of the real fleet, but the main force of the fleet in World War II has also become an aircraft carrier.

However, before the guided weapons are mature, the aircraft carrier formation still needs high-speed battleships to escort and serve as large-scale air defense platforms.

Relying on the inherent high speed, the battle cruiser can continue to have a place in the large fleet of World War II.

As for the traditional battleships of World War I, they were directly eliminated from the main fleet because they could not keep up with aircraft carriers in the era of World War II.

Unless a piece of hull is attached to the low-speed battleship, the length of the waterline of the hull is lengthened, and all the structures inside the hull are demolished and rebuilt.

The cost of this kind of transformation is too high, and only Italians have done this in history.

They converted four old World War I ships before World War II, and the cost was enough to build 2.5 new high-speed battleships.

The "new battleship" or "high-speed battleship" of the World War II era is the final complete body of the dreadnought battleship, and it is also the totem and symbol of the era of large ships and giant artillery.

Including the Iowa-class, Richelieu-class, Veneto-class and other cutting-edge high-speed battleships, they all possess the defense and firepower of traditional battleships, while also possessing the high speed of battlecruisers.

High-speed battleships can be regarded as complete battlecruisers.

However, the tactical successor to the battlecruiser was not a new high-speed battleship that only appeared during World War II.

It is another flower from the foundation of the cruiser - the aircraft carrier.

The combat mode of aircraft carriers has abandoned the traditional ideas of avant-garde warfare and fleet decisive battles.

If you insist, the aircraft carrier will directly destroy the enemy's main force during the avant-garde battle.

Battlecruisers are capable of both avant-garde and decisive battles.

Aircraft carriers combine avant-garde warfare with the decisive battle itself.

And the limit of this road is...

To discover is to destroy.

　The network has been restored. I thought it would take a few days to do this kind of small place, but I didn't expect the efficiency to be quite high...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)