Chapter 471: Victory-class Super Dreadnought

In September 1908, the climate in Valencia, a city on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, was still quite hot.

At the port north of Valencia, there was the Valencia United Shipyard, one of Spain's four major shipyards.

After Spain swapped the Cuba colony, the original Havana Shipyard in Cuba was replaced by the Valencia United Shipyard, becoming one of Spain's new four major shipyards.

Subsequently, after years of expansion and renovation projects, the current Valencia Shipyard had become Spain's largest shipyard in reality; whether it was the number of docks in the shipyard or the tonnage of warships that could be built, it surpassed the original Royal Guanizo Shipyard and the El Ferrol Royal Navy Shipyard.

As for the Cartagena Shipyard, which ranked last, although it was also listed as one of the four major shipyards, in terms of the number and specifications of docks, it was the solid last place, and it did not pull away much distance from other shipyards like the Barcelona Shipyard and Lisbon Shipyard, which were not among the four major shipyards.

The temperature in the early morning was still quite cool, and bursts of sea breeze blew from the sea surface to the inside of the shipyard, bringing a coolness to the workers in the docks.

With the roar of steam inside the shipyard, the ear-piercing sound of metal cutting and the sound of hammer strikes formed an accompaniment, and the workers also started their day's work in such an environment.

As Spain's largest military shipyard at present, the Valencia United Shipyard possessed a total of four docks, of which the first two docks could build super giant ships of the 2.5-ton level, and the last two docks could build giant warships of 1.5-ton.

Under normal circumstances, the inside of the shipyard would not be completely blocked, and even some media with permission could enter the inside of the shipyard to take some photos, but these photos taken also needed to be reviewed by the shipyard before they could be brought out.

But starting from September, this largest shipyard in Spain had substantially declined any visitors from entering. Apart from various steel materials constantly transported to the shipyard, the rest were workers and technical experts visiting in and out of the shipyard; outsiders had no qualification to enter.

This behavior of the Valencia United Shipyard also caused discussion among some of the public and newspapers. Many of the public believed that the Valencia United Shipyard was building brand-new battleships, and perhaps the performance of the new-style battleships being built was even more powerful than the Dreadnought-class battleships currently in service, which were hailed as the world's number one design.

It was precisely because of this that the Spanish public was quite curious and excited about the battleships being built inside the shipyard.

The news that the Valencia United Shipyard suddenly blocked itself also attracted the attention of other super Great Powers including Britain, France, and Germany.

Among them, the British were the most concerned, and there were even British media that wanted to approach the Valencia United Shipyard, but they were captured by soldiers responsible for patrolling outside the shipyard and then repatriated to Britain.

Back and forth, although the British had no gains, they could basically determine that Spain was indeed building a brand-new battleship.

However, Britain was also building super battleships with larger tonnage, so for the battleship design Spain was building that might be of the same level, the British side did not have such great worry.

Although it was taken a step ahead by Spain in Dreadnoughts, in the eyes of many navy high-level officials and warship design experts in Britain, Britain was still leading Spain in naval design and construction.

Before, it was just that Britain was negligent; like the rabbit that fell asleep in the tortoise and hare race, as long as it woke up, it could still quickly catch up with Spain.

Britain was indeed doing so. Apart from starting to quickly build Dreadnoughts of the same level, they were also simultaneously researching super Dreadnoughts that were more powerful than Dreadnoughts.

The British had quite a lot of confidence in the super Dreadnoughts they designed; they believed that even if Spain's new-style warship design could improve the performance of Dreadnoughts by a small margin, it was absolutely impossible to compare with their super Dreadnoughts.

While the news of the Valencia United Shipyard's blockade caused heated discussion in the outside world, on September 11, 1908, inside the Valencia United Shipyard, a motorcade suddenly arrived and quickly entered the inside of the shipyard.

Being able to enter the shipyard under such highly confidential circumstances, and even being welcomed by the shipyard's high-level officials at the door, needless to say, it was definitely Gao Da.

The reason Gao Da personally came to the Valencia United Shipyard was precisely to see the construction progress of Spain's super Dreadnought with his own eyes.

Since Gao Da saw this quite perfect super Dreadnought design a few months ago, Spain's navy department immediately started the construction work on the super Dreadnought.

The Valencia United Shipyard was the provider of this design, so naturally, it would mainly bear the construction work of the super Dreadnought.

Because they had the experience and foundation laid by the previous Dreadnoughts, Spain did not intend to explore the super Dreadnought step by step, but decided to build two ships at once to see the effect.

The first ship of the Victory-class battleship, the Victory, started construction on September 3, 1908, according to the plan, and was expected to serve within 1911.

If it went smoothly, Spain's super Dreadnought could catch up with World War I, which was naturally a piece of good news for Gao Da.

In terms of super Dreadnoughts, Spain was absolutely considered relatively fast. If Spain needed until 1911 to welcome the service of the super Dreadnought, this also represented that most Great Powers were basically impossible to possess super Dreadnoughts during World War I.

In other words, the Spanish Navy would possess a more important role during World War I, and even possess the ability to change the pattern of the war.

This was also the reason why the Spanish Navy built two super Dreadnoughts at once, rather than the way it did with the original Dreadnought-class battleship, waiting for the first Dreadnought to be built and confirmed to have no problems before building the second one.

Of course, apart from the role the super Dreadnought would play in the future world war, the fact that this design in front of him could satisfy Gao Da and the navy high-level officials was also the reason why the navy department built two ships at once.

The cost of building a super Dreadnought was higher than the cost of a Dreadnought. Spain invested a total of 96 million pesetas to build these two super Dreadnoughts, which was equivalent to 3.84 million pounds, and the cost of an average battleship was already close to 2 million pounds.

Of course, the reason why the cost was so high was that the design of the first two super Dreadnoughts needed to carry out certain renovations to the existing equipment, plus the reason for building super Dreadnoughts for the first time, the construction period would also be dragged out longer.

The increase in material costs, equipment costs, and labor costs together created the huge cost of the first two super Dreadnoughts.

If the subsequent construction was relatively smooth, the cost of each subsequent super Dreadnought could still be reduced to about 42 million pesetas, which was less than 1.7 million pounds. ===== CHAPTER 472 =====