Chapter 184: A Discourse on the Necessity of Sustained Naval Investment — Taking the Construction of a Main Flagship as an Example

A Discourse on the Necessity of Sustained Naval Investment — Taking the Construction of a Main Flagship as an Example

Let us discuss the question of why a flagship is necessary.

First, let me state clearly: the question under discussion here is — why do we need to build a new flagship?

It is not: what kind of new flagship should we build?

Nor is it: how much should we invest in building a new flagship?

This question will be examined from three aspects:

One: Theoretical Foundation.

According to the theory of sea power: a strong navy → securing command of the sea → safeguarding maritime trade → accumulating national wealth → feeding back to strengthen the navy — this is a virtuous cycle in which no link can be missing. Among these, sea power is the foundation of national fortune and holds decisive significance for the rise of a great power. The navy is the core instrument for acquiring and maintaining sea power, and must be given priority in construction.

The key points to emphasize are as follows:

A. Because sea power is exclusive by nature, to guarantee victory in a decisive main-fleet engagement, one must continuously improve and expand — there is no state of reaching a certain height where one can be satisfied and stop there.

For example, historically, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany's "High Seas Fleet" plan built a vast fleet, yet could not gain an advantage in the naval arms race with Britain, ultimately failing to secure command of the sea — the plan was a failure.

B. Because naval construction is enormously expensive, it must be fed back through trade — that is, achieving the positive cycle mentioned in sea power theory — otherwise the national treasury cannot sustain it. (Armor note: this concept may not necessarily apply to the modern era.)

Li Hongzhang's Beiyang Fleet was the strongest navy in East Asia when first built, yet lacking supply and maintenance, and lacking the feedback from maritime trade, it ultimately led to defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95. (Armor note: the corrupt rule of the Qing was the primary cause, but the above reasons also contributed.)

C. Maintaining an absolute advantage in numbers and technology is extremely important. Once an arms race begins, one must see it through to the end — the winner may win at great cost, but the loser will die very miserably.

For example, after the failure of Wilhelm II's "High Seas Fleet" plan, Germany's excessive investment in warship construction directly weakened the army budget, reducing its fundamental capacity to fight a two-front war; the enormous expense of the naval race and the British blockade caused material shortages — especially the "Turnip Winter" of 1916–1917 — bringing the economy to the brink of collapse and popular anger to a boil; in October 1918, when naval high command planned a hopeless final sortie of the fleet, long-discontented sailors mutinied at Kiel Harbor, revolution swept the nation, directly leading to Wilhelm II's abdication and the fall of the German Second Empire.

D. To avoid the meaningless attrition of an arms race, one can secure an absolute position of dominance so that latecomers dare not initiate an arms race.

For example, Britain's "Two-Power Standard" — this concept was established in 1889 through the Naval Defence Act, and was the naval construction principle Britain adopted in the late 19th century to maintain maritime hegemony: namely, that its naval strength must equal or exceed the combined strength of the world's second and third strongest navies.

Of course, attentive readers may have noticed that Britain's method ultimately failed as well. But looking at history, when choosing among the short, this was already the most effective option available.

Later, the Washington Naval Treaty, signed in 1922 with the aim of avoiding a naval arms race among nations, lasted even shorter — barely fifteen years.

Two: The Significance of the Flagship to the Navy.

Clarifying the concept: the "flagship" here refers not only to a command ship, but also to a top-tier capital ship — for example, a first-rate like Britain's HMS Victory.

In the age of sail, the flagship served the following functions:

A. The neural center of command and control. As the flagship of the fleet admiral, it must have enormous space to accommodate senior commanders, the staff team, and communications facilities. This requires that the flagship be large enough and survivable enough to guarantee stable combat command.

B. The pillar and spearhead of combat power. A top-tier warship possesses the thickest armor and the most formidable firepower, able to survive longest and inflict the greatest casualties in line-of-battle combat — it is the key to deciding victory or defeat in naval battle.

C. The culmination of naval technology. The newest and most powerful firepower, armor, and propulsion systems are often first installed on top-tier flagships, and their design and combat experience are then "cascaded down" to guide the construction of subsequent classes of vessels, driving overall technological progress.

It can be said that in the age of sail, the flagship was the "lighthouse" and "engine" of naval technological development. Through the complete chain of integrating cutting-edge technology → undergoing combat testing → feeding back improvement experience → guiding widespread application, it drove the elevation of naval technology — this is a classic model of military-technological evolution.

For example: Nelson's flagship HMS Victory is a perfect embodiment of this process. It integrated Britain's most advanced shipbuilding technology of the mid-18th century, and its successful design concepts (such as the sturdy three-deck gun layout and excellent sailing performance) were inherited by many subsequent ships of the line. Its powerful survivability demonstrated at Trafalgar and other battles further validated the superiority of its design, cementing the British design paradigm for ships of the line. (Armor note: cost-effectiveness balance was also considered, and bottom-up innovation also existed.)

Additionally, when Britain built HMS Sovereign of the Seas (1637), solving the structural and navigational challenges of the great ship drove advances in "soft technologies" such as standardized measurement, systematic timber management, and more scientific shipyard organization — which were just as important as the "hard technologies" of artillery and hull design.

On the importance of naval technology: taking USS Constitution as an example, its design philosophy perfectly embodied the age-of-sail core concept of "quality over quantity." Its design objective from the very start was crystal clear: to counter mainstream frigates.

The tactical goal was to achieve overwhelming firepower superiority in single-ship duels, forcing enemy frigates to be unable to operate independently.

This "one ship counters one ship" capability produced enormous strategic impact: the British Royal Navy at one point ordered its frigates not to engage the American 44-gun heavy frigates in single combat, and was forced to expend resources developing similar vessels, greatly tying down British force deployment.

This philosophy was not about simply piling up numbers of ships, but about offsetting the enemy's numerical advantage through targeted performance superiority — fundamentally changing the rules of naval warfare.

For example, the pre-dreadnought era: in the late 19th century, the world's navies were locked in an arms race over main gun caliber and armor thickness, the essence of which was also the pursuit of decisive superiority in key performance parameters to suppress the vast fleets of obsolete vessels.

And then, the "Dreadnought" revolution: the birth of Britain's HMS Dreadnought in 1906, with its "all-big-gun" armament and steam turbine propulsion, rendered all previous battleships obsolete at a stroke — the ultimate embodiment of the "quality crushes quantity" philosophy, directly ushering in an entirely new era of naval competition.

D. A symbol of national prestige and naval spirit. Ornate stern carvings, admiral's flags, and honor guards manifest the majesty of the nation and the glory of the navy — in themselves a powerful form of psychological deterrence. This is like the Type 055 visiting Africa, or the Shandong aircraft carrier strike group visiting Hong Kong.

This enormous propaganda effect is something most army equipment does not possess, so one cannot understand the navy through a purely army mindset.

In summary, in the age of sail, developing main flagships was both necessary and economical from strategic and tactical perspectives. (Armor note: "economical" here means economical compared to building large numbers of ordinary vessels, not that building a main flagship costs little.)

Three: The State of Naval Development in Early 17th-Century European Nations.

1625 was a critical transitional period in which sailing navies evolved from "galleons" toward "ships of the line." At this time, the top vessels of each nation embodied, technologically, the pursuit of firepower and speed, and politically, served as direct symbols of national will.

For example, Sweden's Vasa began construction that very year. Double gun decks, planned to carry 64 cannons, approximately 69 meters in length, with a displacement of about 1,210 tons.

This ship sank — the primary causes being an excessive length-to-beam ratio, overly heavy guns, and a center of gravity that was too high. This does not represent a wholesale failure of contemporary shipbuilding technology; it was more a problem with that particular vessel's design.

In the same period, European nations successfully built and commissioned numerous vessels of comparable tonnage and firepower. Sweden's subsequent sister ships of the same class also sailed without incident. This demonstrates that the technology of the time was fully capable of producing sound warships.

Another example: HMS Prince Royal, laid down in 1608 and launched and commissioned in 1610, with a displacement of about 1,330 tons and an initial armament of 55 cannons of various calibers including 32-pounder, 18-pounder, and 9-pounder. As a fleet flagship, it became the enemy's primary target of encirclement in the Four Days' Battle. The process of its capture and burning (meticulously depicted by Dutch marine painters) is a vivid illustration of the core tactic of "attacking the enemy flagship to collapse its command" in contemporary naval warfare, and also confirms the critical role of the flagship for the fleet mentioned earlier.

Another example: France's La Couronne, built around 1632–1635, was the first large warship independently designed and built by France, equipped with double gun decks and a large number of heavy cannons (likely around 68).

Overall, naval development in this period was a mix of risk and opportunity, primarily constrained by scientific theory and national finances, yet its technological breakthroughs and organizational innovations laid the groundwork for the later revolution in ship design.

Moreover, because of the enormous returns from raiding, both England and the Netherlands were extremely keen on plundering the Spanish treasure fleets.

At the same time, the Dutch East India Company placed great importance on the Japanese market and vigorously developed the entrepôt trade between China and Japan. (Armor note: there is evidence, but I can't be bothered to write it out.)

Simultaneously, the Dutch control of the spice trade through Batavia and the Spanish control of the China trade through Manila were both core interests that directly underpinned their positions in Europe — truly their lifelines.

Historically, Spain and the Netherlands did not invest heavily in military force in Southeast Asia — this was based on cost-benefit principles. It was not that they couldn't; it was simply that it wasn't profitable.

Should an East Asian maritime power rise and threaten their core interests; or should the Ming Dynasty's smuggling flourish, with massive exports of trade goods causing the entrepôt market to surge; or should the Ming government (or a quasi-official entity) engage heavily in trade, producing a fat prize comparable to the treasure fleets —

Then it is almost a certainty that European nations would send additional naval forces into the Southeast Asian region to compete for spheres of influence.

Expecting history to develop statically, just like the original world, is not very realistic.

Evidence: according to research in the book Wars Overseas: Military Operations by Company and State

Outside Europe 1595–1814 (authors: Gerrit Knaap and Henk den Heijer), the VOC's Heeren XVII sent soldiers, sailors, and ships to Batavia every year, in roughly fixed annual numbers, though these varied during wartime. Between 1602 and 1811, hundreds of thousands of people left the Netherlands to serve in Asia, the vast majority as sailors or soldiers aboard armed vessels. (Armor note: the author verified the two authors of this book — one is a professor at Utrecht University, the other at Leiden University, both engaged in maritime historical research — but I have not read the book myself; the above content is summarized from its abstract.) (Additional armor note: this book appears to have no Chinese edition and cannot be found online; I located it on the Cambridge University Press official website.)

The struggle for sea power is essentially a complex game driven by commercial profit, constrained by technological development, and requiring long-term strategic planning.

And the development of naval technology and the construction of ships are both very lengthy processes, measured in years.

To focus only on the immediate moment and wait until a crisis arrives before developing the navy — I fear that will be too late.

Four: Conclusion.

In summary, I believe that the continuous launching of new ships and the unceasing progress of naval technology is an endless endeavor — there is no point at which one can say "this is enough" and stop investing.

And prioritizing the integration of high-risk new technologies into main flagships for testing is, in turn, a well-considered classic development path that balances risk and efficiency.

As long as this investment can ultimately achieve the virtuous cycle of the theory of sea power, it will be worthwhile.

Therefore, building a main flagship is absolutely necessary.

As for what proportion of trade profits (or GDP) naval investment should account for, there is no precise quantitative standard, nor does it fall within the scope of this discussion.

OK, I am done.

Please review this, esteemed shipowners, master shipbuilders, artillery experts, chiefs of staff, military scholars, fleet commanders, and high-ranking governors.

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