Chapter 406: Dreadnought Design Plan

March 28, 1901, the coastal city of Valencia in eastern Spain.

At the Valencia United Shipyard, a group of warship design experts from the shipyard were having a fierce discussion. What they were discussing was not the design of the submarine, but the design requirements for the new battleship newly issued by the Navy Department.

In the era of ironclad ships and previous battleships, warships of various European countries were equipped with two different calibers of artillery. Although the caliber of the main gun had reached 13 or even 13.5 inches, the caliber of the secondary gun was generally around 6 to 10 inches; doing so was also to make up for the problem of insufficient main gun firepower.

Don't look at the 13.5-inch main gun as scary; in fact, loading a shell for a main gun of this caliber required a long time, and the process of loading plus firing at least required several minutes.

The advantage of small-caliber artillery compared to main guns was that it could make up for the lack of firepower during the main gun's loading time. Although the lethality caused by small-caliber artillery was limited, it was better than having no firepower directly when the main gun was loading.

Such a design idea was inherited from the era of sailing warships, and because it was indeed very useful, it had been used until now.

And in the Spanish Navy Department's requirements for the new battleship, the Spanish Navy explicitly prohibited the layout of two levels of main guns, requiring the latest battleship to be equipped with the same caliber of main guns, canceling all small-caliber secondary guns.

The warship design experts at the Valencia United Shipyard, the reason they were arguing was precisely the Navy's regulation on canceling the two-level artillery layout.

"Mr. Bruce, I have never heard of any warship canceling the deployment of secondary guns. If this is really done, what equipment can provide extra firepower for the warship when our warship is loading?"

"Equipping all 13.5-inch main guns looks scary, but the firing interval of these main guns is as long as several minutes. Forgive me for speaking bluntly, but after all the main guns have been fired, in the next few minutes, our warship will become a living target for the enemy." Some more conservative warship design experts chattered endlessly about the Navy's requirements; they insisted that the Navy's requirements were wrong and hoped that the shipyard would communicate with the Navy to strive for the Navy to cancel such requirements.

The chief design expert of the United Shipyard, called Bruce, smiled upon hearing this and put forward a completely different point of view: "You are right, Mr. Christie."

"But please also don't forget that because past warships used two calibers of artillery, because the trajectory, rate of fire, and firing distance of the two calibers of artillery were completely different, it was easy to increase the difficulty of hitting when the two types of artillery were mixed."

"If it only affected the hit accuracy of the secondary guns, that would be fine, but such a design has already affected the rate of fire and hit rate of our main guns. In the final analysis, the secondary gun is just a supplement to the main gun's firepower. If it affects the main gun's firepower because of this, it is better to abandon the secondary gun directly and focus on improving our main gun's firepower."

"If our warship uses main guns of the same caliber, as long as it enters the firing distance, all artillery can fire at the same time, causing the greatest damage to the enemy's warship in the shortest time."

"As for the problem of the firepower gap of a few minutes after all artillery has fired a round that you mentioned, this point needs another requirement of the Navy Department, which is the speed requirement to improve."

The Spanish Navy Department's requirements for the new warship, in addition to canceling the two-level main gun pattern, also required the new warship's speed to reach 21 knots and have relatively excellent armor protection capabilities.

Not to mention anything else, if the new warship could have a speed of 21 knots, it meant that after the warship fired all its artillery, it could easily get rid of the enemy's warship and reload shells in a further place where the enemy could not hit.

After the shells were loaded, it would approach to continue attacking the enemy, and after firing the shells, it would continue to run further away to load shells; this was simply the most perfect design idea.

If the warship was really designed according to this, Spain's future warships would lead the enemy's warships in the three major design elements of speed, firepower, and armor protection, which also meant that the Spanish Navy had hope of challenging the British Navy's status as hegemon.

"Mr. Bruce, the other two requirements requested by the Navy Department are even more impossible to satisfy. If our new warship has good armor protection capabilities, its speed can definitely not reach 21 knots."

"21 knots, how is it possible? Currently, the speed of warships of various countries is only 16 to 17 knots, and battleships with a speed of 18 knots are already rare."

"The Navy Department let us design a warship with a speed as high as 21 knots, and such a warship also needs to have extremely excellent firepower and armor protection capabilities; isn't this making things difficult for people?"

"Forgive me for speaking bluntly, but even God cannot do such a thing." The warship designer named Christie still felt that the Navy Department's warship requirements were like a fantasy and did not look favorably on the shipyard's ability to design a warship that met the Navy's requirements from the bottom of his heart.

"I know it is very difficult to design a warship that meets the Navy's requirements, but if the Navy's requirements were very simple, wouldn't it mean that as long as it was a designer, they could design a warship that meets the Navy's requirements?"

"Everyone, this warship design is not for ourselves, but for the development of the Spanish Navy. Everyone is Spanish, and we should contribute to the development of our own country."

"No matter how difficult the warship design is to complete, we must try every hope to complete it, rather than giving up voluntarily before we even start."

"Just imagine, if we can develop a warship that meets the Navy's requirements, does this mean that our country will become a true naval power?"

"Using our own strength to help our country develop, isn't this the most important thing for us?" As the chief designer of the United Shipyard, Bruce did not give up on the research on the new warship because of the opposition of his subordinates, but chose to inspire people, encouraging everyone to invest in the research of naval warships and contribute to their country.

And don't say it, such inspiring remarks were indeed very effective.

There was nothing more proud than building one's own country, not to mention that Spain's national identity and national honor had already been cultivated, and the vast majority of Spaniards were very loving of their country, so these warship designers naturally could not give up the opportunity to serve the country because of small difficulties.

Like the Valencia United Shipyard, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard also received the Navy Department's requirements for the new warship.

It was just that unlike the Valencia United Shipyard, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard had no objections to the Navy Department's requirements, and they soon invested in the discussion about the new warship.

This was also the biggest difference between the Valencia United Shipyard and the Royal Guanizo Shipyard.

Although the former also had a royal background, the royal family's shares were less than half, and the rest were shares from the government.

And the latter was an industry that completely belonged to the royal family; all the warship designers of the Royal Guanizo Shipyard were equivalent to being hired by the royal family, so they naturally could not have objections to the Navy Department's requirements.

In addition to the two largest shipyards, other shipyards with larger scales also received the new warship requirements from the Navy.

Regarding the new warship, the Spanish Navy attached great importance to it.

Because Gao Da finally relaxed the restrictions on naval development after many years, Gao Da also personally promised that as long as the shipyard could design a warship that met such requirements, Spain would build at least one such battleship every year in the future.

Building one battleship a year did not look like much, but in fact, it was quite okay. Let's take the battleships after the ironclad ships as an example; even though so many years had passed, the number of countries that currently possessed battleships could still be counted on one's fingers.

Britain was the undisputed country with the largest number of battleships, France was second, and Spain was third.

For countries like the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy, the number of battleships they possessed so far did not exceed 10.

Even if calculated according to the construction quantity of one ship a year, if World War I broke out more than 10 years later, then Spain during World War I would possess more than 10 dreadnoughts, and the number was already not small.

It was precisely because of this reason that the Navy Department was very much looking forward to the new warship proposed by Gao Da.

Once this kind of warship was designed, the Spanish Navy would likely take a step up and thoroughly become a naval power.

Under the high attention of the Navy Department, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard and the Valencia United Shipyard only took two and a half months to each come up with a warship design drawing and submit it to the Navy Department.

Of course, this was only the most basic warship design drawing. The design drawing only included the various structures of the warship and the various equipment used; as for whether the speed could meet the Navy Department's requirements, that would have to wait until the warship was built to know.

It was precisely because of this reason that after the design drawings were submitted to the Navy Department, they still needed to be reviewed by the Navy Department, and only after detailed discussion and confirmation that the warship design met their requirements would construction be carried out.

If the built warship ultimately could not meet the Navy Department's requirements, then the early investment would basically go down the drain.

Because Gao Da was still the person who put forward the requirements for the new warship, therefore, after the two major shipyards submitted their warship designs to the Navy Department, the Navy Department immediately notified Gao Da and asked Gao Da to judge whether these two warship designs could meet the relevant requirements.

Because the two shipyards did not communicate when designing the warships, the two types of warships designed could also see relatively obvious differences.

The new warship designed by the Royal Guanizo Shipyard could see a clear bias towards speed and armor protection, slightly abandoning a part of the firepower.

Spain's previous generation of battleships, the Monarch-class battleship's main gun caliber was as high as 343mm, which was 13.5 inches.

And on the new warships more than ten years later, the caliber of the ship gun returned to 12 inches, which was the 305mm ship gun.

Although it was equipped with the latest 305mm 45-caliber ship gun, the firepower was definitely still unable to compare with the 13.5-inch, 343mm caliber main gun.

However, the power of the 305mm 45-caliber ship gun was also sufficient; as long as the enemy's armor protection capability was not that exaggerated, basically one artillery shell could make the enemy's warship suffer heavy injuries.

Although there was a slight sacrifice in terms of firepower, in terms of power, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard fully exerted its wealthy character.

According to the deployment of the warship design drawing, the new battleship would adopt a four-axis propulsion mode, equipped with a total of 18 coal-fired steam boilers plus four steam turbine sets, and the maximum power could reach 22,500 horsepower.

Such power was much higher than the power of the previous generation Monarch-class battleship, which was also the reason why the Royal Guanizo Shipyard was confident that the new warship's speed would exceed 21 knots.

In terms of armor protection, because the current steel armor technology had improved compared to ten years ago, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard did not increase the thickness of the steel armor, and the thickest armor of the entire warship was only about 300mm.

According to estimates, the length of the entire warship could reach 159.7 meters, the width 25.1 meters, the draft depth under maximum load could reach 9 meters, the standard displacement was about 17,800 tons to 18,000 tons, and the full-load displacement could reach 20,500 tons to 21,000 tons. ===== CHAPTER 407 =====