"The three basic elements that make up a warship are firepower, protection and speed, as well as some fragmentary factors such as stability and navigation. But from a design perspective, no warship can be perfect in all aspects, and it is necessary to make more or less choices in some aspects. Do you know this?" Tirpitz asked.

Qingying nodded slightly and signaled Tirpitz to continue talking.

"'Combining our national conditions.' You said this very well. In fact, all the warships of the great powers are designed and built around their national conditions or imaginary enemies. For a long time, our German Navy has used the French Navy as the imaginary enemy. However, since the German Navy has not many warships now, the activity area of ​​the main battleship is limited to two not-so-wide waters, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, so nauticality is not necessary. Also because of the insufficient number of warships, our main battleships must put armor protection and survivability first, after all, there will be output only when they are alive! If the ship sinks, no matter how powerful the equipment is, it is useless!"

Tirpitz knocked the table with his knuckles and said, "So, the main ships built by the German Empire should be the first to protect themselves! Only with solid armor and excellent damage tubes can we be lower than the enemy in terms of combat losses and hope to waste the second Frenchman in the world! Every warship we build now uses this idea as the core of guidance; if our ships sink faster than the French ships, then there is no need to fight this battle."

Qingying looked at the middle-parted goatbe in front of him in surprise, and did not say a word for a long time. Although the high seas fleet in history was indeed built according to this standard, he did not expect that Tirpitz had planned a blueprint for the development direction of the German naval battleship before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895! From the perspective of the future, Tirpitz's concept seemed to be a waste of money that could be imagined without any effort; but in the era of great changes at the end of the 19th century, various new technologies and new ideas surged out like blows: the small ship torpedo party, the cannon giant ship party, the green water battle party, the high-speed cruise party... Each of them led the way, and a hundred schools of thought contend. Among these flowers, it was an extremely amazing thing that Tirpitz could find a path suitable for his country!

Seeing that Qingying didn't say a word for a long time, Tirpitz guessed that he finally calmed down the genius child. He looked a little proud of his face, and he couldn't help but arch his two goatee beards with both hands.

"Good protection, meticulous watertight compartment and excellent pipe damage capabilities are indeed crucial parts of the German naval ships. It can greatly ensure the survival ability of warships and save the imperial navy's not rich family background." Qingying carefully said, and finally explained the biggest disadvantage of the German high seas fleet in history. "However, we developed the navy to compete for space in the sun, not to create a non-sinking target; if there is no strong firepower, how can we destroy enemy ships and win the naval battle?"

Tirpitz's eyes lit up. But after a moment, he seemed to have thought of something and slowly fell silent. He sighed softly, and a helpless smile appeared on his face: "Your Highness, do you think I didn't think about this? It's just that theory is one aspect, but in actual operation it is the other aspect; warships have to take into account both firepower and protection, but there are two problems that are difficult to solve!"

Qingying was excited and said seriously: "What's the problem? I'd like to hear it carefully."

Seeing Qingying so diligently and asking questions, Tirpitz couldn't help but nodded with satisfaction. Although he knew that what he was going to say next was too much of the one in front of him; but in order to let his students understand the essence of the navy and stimulate his enthusiasm for learning, Tirpitz coughed and said, "Since you want to know, I'll tell you to listen."

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The moon shines, and the lights complement each other, illuminating the entire study. A handsome man and an uncle sit opposite each other across the table, with two cups of freshly brewed coffee on the table, the heat swaying and the fragrance is so mellow. In the whole room, except for the slight sound of the clock, there is only the thick voice unique to the middle-aged man.

"One of them is the problem of the artillery itself. In fact, all the senior executives of the Imperial Navy want to carry more powerful artillery on our warships, but unfortunately, the largest modern artillery that Krupp can build now has a caliber of only 283 mm. Although the old 305 mm gun has a larger caliber, its performance such as single-shot power and armor-piercing thickness are far inferior to those of the two." Speaking of this, Tirpitz's words were a little bitter. "Krupp's military industry has put all its efforts, but due to the limitations of material technology and metallurgical capabilities, we are still inferior to Britain and France in terms of large-caliber artillery. This is a technical problem, not a problem of design concepts. If there is no breakthrough in technology, then even the best design can only stay on the drawings."

Qingying nodded silently and said nothing. He was not a dual-material of metallurgy and artillery. He had no choice but to rely on the artillery engineers of Krupp's military industry.

"The second is the balance of warships. As I said before, no warship can be perfect in all aspects, and there must be some choice. If we emphasize protection while also having powerful artillery, the consequence is that the power of the ship is greatly compressed, and the speed of running is no different from that of a turtle. Even a battleship must have a certain speed to complete tactical maneuver on the battlefield! If a ship has strong firepower, excellent protection, and not slow speed..." Tirpitz paused and smiled, "Then she only had one disadvantage, that is, she would immediately sink into the bottom of the water like a lead-cast duck... just like the cruiser designed by His Majesty the Emperor half a month ago."

Thinking of the embarrassing and annoying look on William II's face that lasted for several days, Qingying couldn't help but smile. Seeing that Tirpitz had finished speaking, Qingying frowned slightly and said slowly in an uncertain tone: "I seem to have a way to do this second question?"

"Hmm?" Tirpitz was very surprised. He thought for a while, then calmly felt calm, and a casual expression appeared on his face. This beautiful Shota must have had a sudden idea and came up with something weird that actually had no effect. Just kidding, how can the three elements of the warship be covered in everything? Unless someone can overturn the physical rules founded by Newton, or develop anti-gravity devices!

However, European education obviously does not kill students' creativity like the Celestial Empire; although Tirpitz knew that this was impossible, he still said, "Is that so? Then let me listen."

Qingying said: "Why not build a bigger ship? If the ship becomes larger, can we equip more powerful artillery?"

"It turned out that it was just an increase in tonnage. I thought it was a magic trick!" Tirpitz was calm on the surface, but he was sneering in his heart. It is important to know that shipbuilding is a technical job, which can affect the whole body with one blow; this method of adding more water and more water is only concerned about the present moment, and it will inevitably have loopholes in actual design, which is the most taboo in warship design!

But... it seems that this is the truth? Although his statement is very general and simple, and it requires adding a boiler to add armor to the boiler, which requires a lot of cumbersome and complicated calculations, these are all issues that the designer needs to consider, and it has nothing to do with the child in front of him. Only from the result, increasing the tonnage can indeed increase the firepower while ensuring protection and speed!

You are blind cats who have encountered a dead mouse! Tirpitz breathed a sigh of resentment with his nostrils and said, "It's right. Increasing the displacement of warships can indeed increase firepower, but the cost will also increase significantly, and there will be no discount at all. In addition, the Empire's shipyard has just completed the construction of a main ship with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons. If the tonnage suddenly increases too much, it will also be a big challenge for our industry."

Qingying said unconvincedly: "The cost will increase significantly accordingly? There are always some things that are universal! If three small boats are merged into two large boats, wouldn't it save a mast and two iron anchors?"

Faced with Qingying's behavior of being dissatisfied with being denied and always trying to get something back, Tirpitz laughed in silence. Just as he was about to comfort the cute handsome man, a lightning flashed in his mind!

"Wait a minute... the large warships will merge with common?" Tirpitz said blankly, as if she had lost her god. Qingying finally breathed a sigh of relief when she looked at Tirpitz like this. After his own guidance, Tirpitz finally realized the key to this!

The laws of physics and a large number of examples have proved that with the same speed, the thrust-weight ratio required by large warships is much smaller than the thrust-weight ratio of small warships. For example, the speed of both warships is 20 knots, and a 22,000-ton warship only requires about 22,000 horsepower, and the thrust-weight ratio is 1 horsepower/ton; while a 6,500-ton warship needs 13,000 horsepower to reach a speed of 20 knots, and the thrust-weight ratio is 2 horsepower/ton, which is 1 times higher than the former! If the warship is built properly, a considerable amount of power and weight can be saved and put into weapons and armor.

Not just power, when the tonnage of the warship is appropriately amplified, its protective area does not expand in proportion; for example, a 10,000-ton battleship and a 15,000-ton battleship, the latter's protective area cannot reach 150% of the former, and will only increase to 120% at most. If the protection strength remains unchanged, the latter's armor weight is only 120% of the former, which can save a lot of weight and use other aspects. In addition, the structural weight and auxiliary machinery can be combined a little, and the combat effectiveness of the two 15,000-ton battleships will definitely exceed 3 10,000-ton battleships!
Chapter completed!