Whether a battleship or even any piece of weaponry and equipment is good or not is a relative concept.

Performance is important, but cost-effectiveness is also very important...but the most important thing is to meet your own strategic and tactical needs.

Weapons and equipment that suit your needs are the best equipment!

If the Great Chu Empire faces competition from one or more powerful industrial countries at the same time and faces certain threats to its national defense, and the other party is not inferior to the Great Chu Empire in terms of military strength and technical capabilities, then the Great Chu Empire's warships or artillery, rifles and other technologies

Equipment, you will definitely pursue performance in order to gain advantages in equipment performance.

This situation was very obvious in the competition between the navies of various countries in the late 19th century and the early 20th century in the original time and space. The navies of various countries spared no effort to pursue warships with better performance.

A more advanced main gun with a larger caliber.

faster speed.

Better battleship protection.

From this, the three golden standards of modern warship design emerged: maneuverability, firepower, and protection.

But it is a pity that the Chu Empire does not have such enemies...not even potential enemies, so the navy of the Chu Empire actually does not face any threats...let alone major threats, there are no ordinary threats.

For the Chu Empire Navy, although their main task is still to fight for sea control, guard the long coastline, and protect the waterways... but in fact it does not require the Chu Empire Navy to invest much energy... Again, if

Just to complete the above tasks, the Da Chu Empire Navy actually does not need any professional warships. It is enough to just pull out a few armed transport ships equipped with self-defense naval guns.

The transport ships in the Da Chu Empire Navy are all equipped with self-defense firepower. Older transport ships are generally equipped with single-barrel 75mm front-loading rifled guns and 55mm front-loading rifled guns.

Among the newly built transport ships launched in the past two years, the super-large tonnage transport ships will be equipped with a 75mm single-barreled breech-loading rifled gun and a 35mm single-barreled rapid-fire gun, while the smaller ones will be equipped with a 55mm single-barreled rear-mounted gun.

Equipped with a rifled gun and a 35mm single-barreled rapid-fire gun.

The artillery installed on the above three types of transport ships is actually the secondary gun on the main ocean-going battleship or the main gun on the offshore and inland river gunboats.

Therefore, the transport ships in the Da Chu Empire Navy are actually quite powerful in terms of firepower.

Coupled with iron-ribbed wooden hulls and even new steel hulls, there is also steam engine power.

All these gave the transport ships in the Chu Empire's navy the ability to fully attack the indigenous sailing wooden warships of various countries.

So... to simply deal with the maritime power of indigenous countries, you don't need any professional warships.

Of course, that's what it is said, but it is impossible for the Navy to really only build a bunch of transport ships, whether it is for reasons such as competing for funds, maintaining staff, competing for domestic voice, etc., or for preventing problems before they occur, combat effectiveness, etc.

Consider that the navy still needs professional warships.

It's just that the professional warships needed by the Dachu Empire's navy were different from the navies of other modern countries in the original time and space.

Maritime operations are only part of the mission. The warships in the Da Chu Empire Navy also have a more important mission in the contemporary era, which is to bombard enemy ports, provide land artillery fire support, and cover the landing of ground troops.

At the same time, it goes deep into the inland rivers of overseas indigenous areas to carry out tasks such as deterrence, strike, and support for the army.

This means that the warships of the Da Chu Empire Navy need to have sufficient land strike capabilities.

Considering that enemies on the shore will have shore defense firepower, and shore defense fortifications are generally relatively thick.

At the same time, when attacking land, it needs to serve as heavy support firepower to clear important enemy targets.

This also resulted in the warships of the Dachu Empire Navy needing a certain degree of firepower...Small artillery such as 75mm and 55mm are very useful against sail warships, but they are used to perform land bombardment missions...this

The caliber is not enough.

Therefore, the warships deployed overseas by the Da Chu Empire Navy need naval guns with a caliber of more than 100 mm, preferably about 150 mm.

Especially the rifled naval gun with a caliber of 150 mm. The Da Chu Empire Navy has a very favorable impression of this caliber of naval gun.

The caliber is large enough, and the shells fired are very lethal, and can effectively destroy enemy artillery shells and other stubborn fortifications.

At the same time, artillery shells of this caliber are not too heavy, and soldiers can load them manually... instead of being like those 200 mm caliber naval guns, the shells are too heavy to be loaded manually, so they need to be loaded mechanically.

In fact, a 170 mm caliber naval gun can also be manually loaded, but the physical requirements for soldiers are too high. At the same time, the production cost and subsequent use cost of a larger caliber naval gun are relatively high, and a ship of this caliber

If the artillery is used to attack indigenous targets on shore, to be honest, there is a bit of excess firepower...

This is why the Dachu Empire Navy, after using a 170mm front-mounted rifled gun, felt that this thing was too low in cost performance and not suitable for use... and the caliber was too small to be used on battleships, and the caliber was too small to be used on cruisers.

Too big.

In the end, in the development and equipment of a new generation of breech-loading rifled guns, the Da Chu Empire Navy did not continue to use 170 mm caliber naval guns. Instead, it used 150 mm naval guns on cruisers and the main guns on battleships.

The above is concentrated on the 200 mm caliber and the 250 mm caliber.

As for why battleships use 200 mm caliber instead of the larger 300 mm caliber... naturally it is still because of the price issue... It is not actually possible to build a breech-mounted rifled gun with a larger caliber. It can be done reluctantly.

However, with the current technology, it is still relatively expensive to build such a 300 mm caliber artillery. The Navy will be reluctant to part with it for a while. It plans to wait for the technology to improve in a few years and the research and development and production costs have been reduced before equipping it with a larger one.

caliber battleship main gun.

As for now, the new Jinling-class battleship can just use a 250mm main gun. The navy is still too expensive for this, so it plans to build a 7,800-ton, second-class ocean-going battleship with a 200mm caliber.

Just the main gun will do.

Anyway, it was just a coastal defense fortification of the natives, and the 200mm rifled gun was already over-performing.

And even if there is a larger-caliber main gun, there is a high probability that it will not be equipped on the ocean-going battleships first, but will be equipped on the offshore battleships in the Second Fleet... The offshore battleships in the Dachu Empire Navy can actually represent

The top industrial strength of the Dachu Empire...

If the offshore battleships are not powerful, how can they fight against the Guards fleet and the several riverside forts controlled by the Guards and the army? How can they fight all the way to Jinling City to escort them?

The most typical one is the new-generation offshore battleship Ryukyu developed for the Second Fleet.

The Ryukyu offshore battleship, which is still under construction, has a displacement of about 6,500 tons. Although its tonnage is not as good as those ocean-going battleships... the reason why it is built is smaller is purely because the Navy wants this offshore battleship to be used even in

During the dry season, you can also sail up the river all the way to Jinling City.

The full load displacement of 6,500 tons is already quite a lot... For this reason, a shallow draft design must be adopted. Because the draft is relatively shallow, in order to avoid an excessively high center of gravity, a low freeboard design is adopted.

In order to counter the forts along the river and other river defense firepower controlled by potential rebels, the ship adopts the highest standard of wrought iron armor. It is also the only fully armored battleship in the Da Chu Empire Navy.

Although the so-called top battleship Jinling class also uses high-standard wrought iron armor, the coverage area of ​​the armor belt is very small. There is only a very narrow armor belt near the waterline.

However, the main armor belt of the offshore battleship Ryukyu adopts a full armor belt design, and the armor coverage area is very large.

At the same time, thickly armored breast wall-type enclosures were added to the two front and rear central axis rotating turrets, and a so-called turret with thick steel plates was built at the middle and front of the naval gun.

At first glance, it seems to have the feel of a later turret...but this is not a turret, just a semi-open-air rotating turret with parapet armor and naval gun baffles.

However, for contemporary times, this is the limit of protection that the Chu Empire Navy can achieve, and its protective capabilities are undoubtedly the best among the hundreds of warships in the Chu Empire Navy.

In terms of firepower, it uses a 250mm breech-loaded rifled gun, with two turrets at the front and rear each equipped with two guns, for a total of four main guns... The firepower configuration of this main gun is actually the same as that of the tens of thousands of tons of Jinling-class battleships.

of.

In terms of power, the latest model of the top-of-the-line combined steam engine is used...the new steam engine that the new Huaiqing-class cruiser finally abandoned because it was too expensive.

Sufficient power can allow this offshore battleship to run at a maximum speed of fourteen knots... This speed is already very sufficient for an offshore battleship whose scheduled combat area is in the Yangtze River... because it is only an offshore battleship, not

Ocean navigation issues need to be considered, not to mention endurance issues, so this class of battleships has no sails, not even spare masts and sails, making the superstructure even simpler.

Because there is too much emphasis on protection, the firepower is not weak, and the power is not bad... In addition, it needs to adapt to the needs of inland warfare, and the draft is very shallow. In order to avoid an excessively high center of gravity, a low freeboard design is adopted.

Then, in order to be flexible and maneuverable in the inland river, it is easy to turn, and it is also to strengthen the protection, so the aspect ratio is very low. The whole battleship looks very thick and fat, not at all as slender as the Jinling-class battleship, but it looks very beautiful.

In the end, the Ryukyu offshore battleship seemed top-heavy and ugly...

Offshore battleships or shallow water heavy gunships are basically like this.

However, despite the fact that this thing looks ugly at first glance, it is actually the crystallization of the top industrial technology of the Great Chu Empire and was also made with painstaking efforts by the warship designers of the Naval Military and Administrative Department of the Great Chu Empire.

Just such a 6,500-ton Ryukyu offshore battleship, if placed in offshore waters, to be honest, it can beat the crap out of tens of thousands of tons of Jinling-class battleships...

The firepower and maneuverability of the two are equivalent, but the protection of the offshore battleship Ryukyu completely exceeds that of the Jinling-class battleship.

Of course, if a naval battle is carried out in the ocean, the Jinling-class battleship does not need to open fire. The Ryukyu itself will capsize directly if it encounters slightly larger waves...

Not only is this new type of Ryukyu offshore battleship, but the current main force of the Second Fleet's equipment, that is, the previous generation of offshore battleships is also powerful in combat effectiveness. It is similar to the design of a shallow water heavy gunship, which also has low freeboard, front and rear central axis turret design, and is fully loaded.

It's only four thousand tons, but it packs four 250mm front-loading rifled guns...

This ship is also the only warship in the Da Chu Empire Navy equipped with a 250mm front-mounted rifled gun... There is no warship equipped with a 250mm front-mounted rifled gun among the ocean-going battleships.

The combat effectiveness of the Second Fleet in offshore areas is no worse than that of the First Fleet, an elite fleet of ocean-going fleets, and is even stronger to some extent.

Therefore, in the navy of the Dachu Empire, whether it is the first fleet or the second fleet in the local fleet, they are all elite units, the core fleet in the navy.

Even the Da Chu Empire Navy has gradually formed a tradition. If you want to be promoted to an admiral as a commanding general in the Da Chu Empire Navy, you must have served as the first fleet commander or second fleet commander at the level of lieutenant general.

The qualifications of a fleet commander...otherwise you won't be promoted at all.

Or to be more precise, in the past twenty years, almost all the Navy's command admirals were promoted while serving as commanders of these two fleets!

Of course, this does not mean that all vice admirals who have served as commanders of these two fleets will eventually be promoted... In fact, many who can and cannot be promoted due to various reasons. Ignoring those generals who made mistakes and were unlucky, I just say

If they serve normally, some will retire directly after their term ends, while a few will be transferred to other lieutenant general-level positions and take a back seat to their retirement.

But in the past twenty years, all admirals in command lines have been in these two positions... without exception!

Therefore, the biggest dream of the commanding generals in the Dachu Empire Navy after being promoted to lieutenant general is to compete for the positions of these two core fleet commanders, thereby opening up further possibilities.

This tradition can be traced back to the Beiyang Fleet (First Fleet) and Yangtze River Fleet (Second Fleet) before the naval reform.

Of course, this is not a unique situation for generals in the Navy's internal command system. In fact, generals in other lines have similar situations.

For example, if a naval general who takes the military and political path wants to be promoted from lieutenant general to admiral, he also needs to have served as a military and political officer in the First Fleet or the Second Fleet.
To be continued...