Steel Dynasty - Chapter 1181

[Chapter 1168: Military power rises]

“Your Majesty, this is the Empire’s first warship equipped with steam turbines – the Jingtao. According to the classification of warships recently launched by the Empire, this warship should be classified as a battleship.”

At the foot of Beisha City, Zhang Liang was introducing to Xiao Ming a behemoth parked in the military port. Different from the ordinary ironclads built by the empire in previous years, this battleship had a displacement of 35,000 tons and was equipped with three triple 406mm Main gun.

According to the standard specified by the empire for the caliber of the battleship’s main gun to be greater than 203 mm and no more than 406 mm, this battleship can be said to be a giant among battleships.

Looking at the 216-meter-long Jingtao, Xiao Ming showed a satisfied look.

Time flies. After the war in Europe came to an end and the Vienna Convention was perfectly established, two years passed quickly.

In the past two years, Xiao Ming focused his main energy on building the empire’s ocean combat capabilities.

And as Tang Wenjie said, half a year after the establishment of the Vienna Entente, Spain, Portugal, Prussia, France, the United Kingdom, and Tsarist Russia announced the establishment of the St. Petersburg Entente in St. Petersburg to strategically confront the empire.

Facing the six major powers in Europe and the St. Petersburg Entente with a population of hundreds of millions, Xiao Ming had no choice for a while. After all, the last war in Europe had already challenged the empire’s ocean transportation capabilities.

Therefore, if a world war really breaks out, even if the empire has the advantage in weapons, it may not be able to make up for the disadvantage in numbers.

It was precisely with this factor in mind that he asked the members of the Allied Powers to curb their aggressiveness in the past two years, mainly strengthening business exchanges and promoting economic development.

The empire uses peacetime to step up innovation of weapons. According to his requirements, if the empire wants to cross the ocean and fight all-out in Europe, the empire’s military level must be at least close to that of the early days of World War II.

This battleship Stormwater is proof that the imperial military industry is advancing towards this goal.

“This will give it the flavor of a big cannon ship. Let’s go up and have a look.”

Xiao Ming said to Zhang Liang. Behind him were many naval generals. They were all waiting for such a battleship to be installed in the fleet as soon as possible.

After boarding the battleship, Xiao Ming visited the internal structure of the battleship one by one under Zhang Liang’s introduction. In addition to using steam turbines, this battleship also adopted automatic loading technology for its artillery. A special conveyor from the ammunition chamber to the breech block position.

The reason for this transmission method is that the battleship’s main gun has a large caliber, which means that the weight of the shells will also be very large. If manual loading is used, the efficiency will be very low.

So this transmission structure was included in the design drawing he gave, so that the battleship’s main gun could fire twice in a shorter period of time.

“This battleship is really big.” Liu Chen almost slobbered. He said, “Your Majesty, as long as the Pacific Fleet has such a battleship, it is enough to destroy a fleet in Europe.” After hearing this,

other generals agreed. Compared with the length, it is An ironclad ship of about ninety meters, this monster with twice the length, armor thickness and firepower is enough to be called the overlord of the sea.

Xiao Ming showed a smile and said: “You are quite hopeless. This battleship Jingtao is nothing. The Imperial Navy has a more grand plan.”

When Liu Chen heard this, he said in surprise: “I hope the emperor will make it clear.

” By now, Xiao Ming no longer gave up. He said: “If we want to defeat the St. Petersburg Allies, we cannot rely solely on land battles. Therefore, I have been planning the Imperial Air Force over the years. Now the major aircraft manufacturing centers in the Empire have produced There are many excellent bombers, but they lack a platform to send bombers to Europe. This platform is something more important than a battleship, an aircraft carrier. “

Liu Chen looked longing for it. One can imagine a huge warship carrying bombers sailing on the ocean.

Xiao Ming nodded. He turned around and looked at the empire’s naval generals. Except for some old faces, most of these generals were young naval generals.

These young naval generals all graduated from formal naval academies and are very proficient in the construction of modern navy. They will be the future of the Imperial Navy.

“Yes, it is an aircraft carrier. This is a large surface ship. Its main combat method is to use aviation to destroy enemy warships. Of course, this combat method is overkill against European navies. For now, these warships mainly play a role The role of transport fighters.” Xiao Ming explained to everyone.

Liu Chen nodded. In the past two years, the empire suddenly put away its fists and asked the Allied Powers to keep a low profile. The purpose was to punch out the closed fists, so that it could have enough power to destroy the St. Petersburg Allied Powers.

After all, the confrontation between the two Allied Powers will sooner or later lead to conflict, and according to the characteristics of the Allied Powers’ mutual defense, no matter who fires the first shot, other countries will be involved in the war.

Therefore, in his view, a total war in Europe is almost inevitable. St. Petersburg will not sit back and watch the empire gradually control the voice of Europe. The empire will not tolerate the St. Petersburg Entente becoming stronger and competing with the empire for colonies around the world.

In the blueprint described by Xiao Ming, endless expectations arose in the hearts of the generals. This Bisha City was just a point for the empire to build warships.

The current empire controls large shipyards across the country. In their view, the fact that the Jingtai has been launched means that other shipyards will also launch battleships similar to the Jingtai.

Just as the generals thought, through these years of construction, the empire already has thirty-six shipyards capable of building large surface ships.

The Bisha City Shipyard is just one of them. It is responsible for the construction of only one battleship, but this does not mean that the Bisha City Shipyard has only this ability.

In fact, in addition to battleships, the Bethesda City Shipyard is also building ocean-going transport ships, large supply ships, and offshore maintenance ships, some of which are commercial and civilian.

The situation in the remaining shipyards is similar. According to Zhang Liang, after the launch of Jingtao, the empire will successively launch forty-seven warships.

These forty-seven battleships include nine battleships and thirty-eight cruisers. As for the aircraft carrier plan he mentioned, Zhang Liang is planning.

Relatively speaking, the technology of aircraft carriers carrying monoplanes is not much higher than that of battleships. Once the main industrial capabilities are reached, they can be built.

During World War II, the United States produced 26 large aircraft carriers, 9 light aircraft carriers, 115 escort aircraft carriers, 10 battleships, 48 cruisers, 349 destroyers, 498 frigates, 203 submarines, and tens of thousands of various landing ships.

The current industrial capabilities of

ships and tens of millions of tons of civilian ships are not as good as before, but the level of 20 to 30% is still there, and this is more than enough for the current world.

(End of chapter)