On Tuesday, October 22, 1918, it was raining heavily all day long, and the outdoor temperature hovered between 5 and 6 degrees Celsius. The weather was not good, but the Swedish royal family, government officials, military generals and hundreds of Irish expatriates were still waiting for the arrival of the Irish king and queen at the dock.

As the Irish naval training ship "Kuchulin" arrived at the port, intense military music sounded on the dock. Since the late 19th century, the Swedish government pursued a neutral and non-aligned policy, and the Swedish army had not been involved in any war since 1814, so that Sweden's defense power was described by some international critics as "rotten wood sticks". The Swedish army in the early 20th century was indeed incomparable to its historical heyday. You should know that in the first half of the 17th century, Sweden, which had a population of 1.5 million, defeated Poland with a population of 10 million, Russia with a population of 15 million and the Holy Roman Empire with a population of 1 million, creating a military myth that was difficult for future generations to replicate. At that time, Sweden was worthy of the title of Nordic hegemony.

Accompanied by Gustav V, Xia Shu once again inspected the Swedish royal guard of honor. This visit to Stockholm was his second official visit to the Swedish kingdom since he ascended the throne. The Swedes' ancestors belonged to the Germanic clan, and the Irish were descendants of the Ketters. For a long time, the two lived next to each other and influenced each other. There was neither historical dispute nor too close. Now, under the promotion of the friendly and private relationship between the two royal families, the diplomatic relations between Sweden and Ireland have improved to a certain extent. Although Sweden's economy and industry are integrated, and they have a strong relationship with each other.

There are world-famous first-class companies such as Ferbos Military Industry and SKF Bearing, which have no urgent need to join the Ireland-led Three Kingdoms Economic and Trade Alliance, but the Swedish military is very interested in Ireland's submarine and aircraft technology, and Ireland's shipbuilding, aviation and automobile industries also require high-quality balls and bearings. Judging from the trade volume in the first three quarters of that year, Sweden has quietly become the largest trading partner after Germany and Ottoman Turkey. The Swedish government ordered 40 aircraft and 5 submarines from Ireland during the Limerick Expo.

Stockholm is known as "Northern Venice" because of its beautiful scenery and numerous bridges. In addition to its charming natural and cultural scenery, it also has an extremely delicious private Chinese meal. During this visit, Swedish Crown Prince Adolf invited them to attend the Chinese banquet as usual. The difference is that Gustav V and a group of princes and nobles were also invited to taste it, adding a lot of funny and humorous jokes to this sumptuous Chinese banquet. Moreover, Xia Shu noticed that the chef from China had cut off his whip. It seems that the fall of the Qing Dynasty had a little behind the impact on the Chinese living in Europe.

Because of the prelude to the previous meeting, Xia Shu chatted with Mr. Wang, the royal Chinese chef of the Swedish royal family after the banquet. When he heard the blonde and blue-eyed foreigner speak fluent Chinese, the old Wang next door was very surprised. Unfortunately, Xia Shu's language ability was not able to make their communication smooth, because the other party spoke Cantonese and his Mandarin was not as good as Swedish, which also made Xia Shu feel really regretful.

With Xia Shu's last enlightenment and encouragement, the Swedish little prince Gustav found his direction of struggle again. With his active promotion, the Swedish Navy strengthened military exchanges with the Allied camps, drew valuable experience from the German Navy, which had rich combat experience through mutual visits and joint exercises, and saw its own gaps and shortcomings, thus taking targeted measures to improve the combat quality of naval officers and soldiers.

In the past two years, Sweden's domestic economic situation has been good, and the export volume of industrial raw materials and finished products has increased significantly compared with before the war. The Swedish Navy was able to build and serve a batch of new ships. The new generation of flagship 7,100-ton shore defense battleship "Sweden", the shore defense battleship "Sweden", was recently included in active service. Two warships of the same level as the Swedish USS are under construction and are expected to be put into service within four years. The scale of the Swedish naval aviation and submarine forces has also been effectively expanded. Although the Swedish Navy is far inferior to Germany and Tsarist Russia's naval power in the Baltic Sea, it is still competent to rely on shore defense facilities to resist foreign invasion.

As a gift to promote cooperation between the two countries, Xia Shu originally planned to modify the 4,300-ton light cruiser "Gustav" that was served ten years ago at a very low price to adapt it to the technical requirements of modern naval warfare. During his visit to Stockholm, he accompanied Gustav to board the new flagship of the Swedish Navy and had a more practical understanding of this shallow draft, thick armor and medium firepower. Earlier, due to differences between various political parties, the construction plan of the "Swedish" was once cancelled, and later, it was later

It was the Swedish people who raised most of its funds through fundraising, which allowed the construction of the "Swedish" to start construction. It was a gift from the Swedish people to the Swedish navy, so it was highly expected by the people. At the beginning of the design, the main performance indicators of this shore defense battleship were first-class or nearly first-class, and were even regarded as a small battle cruiser. However, under the stimulation of the British-German shipbuilding competition and the world war, the ship's technology has made rapid progress. By the time the "Swedish" was put into service, the performances that were proud of back then had already fallen behind.

Through conversations with Gustav and some senior Swedish naval officers, Natsuki realized that if the Swedish could be successfully modified, the political and strategic benefits would be much greater than the modification of Gustav, but the problem is that the tonnage and structure of the shore defense battleship limit the room for technical modification. From the extreme point of view of the theory, this mere 7,000-ton warship, even if it uses the most cutting-edge technology and the best quality materials, still cannot stop the super-dreadnoughts in the end

The main shell or an armor-piercing bomb was fired. However, in reality, tactical choice and the will of officers and soldiers often play a more important role than the technology itself. The most convincing example is the battle in the Gulf of Riga in 1915. The old battleship of the Russian Navy, the USS Glory, first fought against two German front dreadnoughts in artillery battles, and later retreated calmly under the fierce attack of two German dreadnoughts. The Russian destroyer that fought in concert even waited for an opportunity to injure the German battlecruiser.

Normal military thinking is not to go to extremes. The technical modification of the Sweden is intended to make it meet modern naval warfare standards as much as possible and to make it have the strategic deterrent effect as it deserves. Since becoming the King of Ireland, thanks to the instructions of German Emperor William II, Xia Shu not only did not lose his old skills, but also gained a lot of inspiration by analyzing the British shipbuilding skills. The design of standard heavy cruisers and standard medium-sized aircraft carriers reflects his technical thinking that keeps pace with the times. After thinking and analyzing from a professional perspective, Xia Shu verbally proposed several improvement ideas to Gustav.

To improve performance of a warship, it is nothing more than starting from firepower, fire control, protection, pipe damage, and power. The Bofos 1912 45-diameter 280mm main gun equipped by the Swedish ship has a maximum range of only about 18,500 meters, while the effective range of the main gun of the dreadnought is generally above 20,000 meters. Taking into account the logistics conditions of the Swedish Navy, Xia Shu strongly recommends that the main gun of the Swedish ship be replaced with the 50-diameter model made by Krupp. The safe solution is to still use two dual-caliber main guns, and the bold solution is to directly use the mature triple main gun on the German dreadnought, whose ammunition delivery per unit time is only 15% higher than that of the dual-caliber main gun, but the long-range hit rate must be increased by more than 30%.

Another strong suggestion is to cancel the two torpedo tubes of the Sweden, because judging from the experience of the war, it is undoubtedly ridiculous to allow a warship with a speed of only over 20 knots to perform a torpedo attack mission.

Gustav has always admired Xia Shu's talent and ability in ship design, and is very interested in the suggestions and ideas he put forward, but he could only helplessly tell Xia Shu that all Swedish warships should use artillery made by Forbos, which is not only a military consideration to save costs and ensure combat effectiveness, but also a political consideration to support the country's industries and promote technological innovation, and will not make any changes easily. In terms of actual performance, Forbos 1912 280mm main gun has been a successful work. With the needs of the Swedish navy and potential customers, Forbos has no intention of upgrading or expanding the caliber in the short term. Gustav believes that in terms of the political status of Sweden, not to mention him, as the deputy minister of the Navy, even if His Majesty Gustav V personally takes action, the parliament will not approve the proposal to purchase Krupp artillery.

Including turrets, gun body, steering device and ammunition lifting equipment, the cost of a double-mounted 50-diameter 280mm main gun system is close to 1 million marks, while the triple configuration of the same type of main gun reaches more than 1.2 million marks. Xia Shu is not a super rich man with no bottom limit and can afford such a valuable gift. The so-called cheap or even free modification refers to the Irish government subsidizing the labor and basic materials costs during the ship modification. Since the Swedish Parliament is unwilling to spend such a large sum of money to enhance the firepower performance of the "Sweden" and its subsequent ships, Xia Shu had to give a second-hand proposal.

It is to only increase the new fire control systems and radio equipment made in Ireland, and deliberately strengthen the cooperation between warships and naval aviation, coastal observation posts and other cooperative forces in daily training to indirectly improve the long-distance firepower efficiency of warships, and at the same time improve the protection and damage design of the "Sweden" USS. The Swedish Parliament is really unwilling to let such a warship go to a foreign shipyard for modification projects, it can ask the Irish Navy and the shipyard to send technical consultants to assist the Swedish domestic shipyards to implement technical modifications without charging any technical guidance fees, and the Irish government will pay the bill for personnel costs.

The Swedish has served for only a year, and all performance data are important military secrets. However, since the reign of Gustav V, Sweden has been very close to Germany. After the outbreak of the war, the Swedish king tried to get Sweden to join the Allies, but had to give up due to opposition from the parliament and political parties. During the war, Sweden's exports of iron ore to Germany increased instead, and also secretly provided some combat materials. The military cooperation between the two countries has been underway. During the construction process, the Swedish received the help of German naval engineers. If Natsuki just wanted to obtain its technical data, he could obtain information from the intelligence database of the German Navy.
Chapter completed!