"From now on, the core of the naval warship construction plan is combat effectiveness. We will surpass each other in quantity and quality at the same time. The Queen's government has allocated far more to us than the Germans. I hope every pound can be used to its fullest!"

The British Empire will not only face Germany, but also Italy, Austria-Hungary and Turkey in the Middle East. The French and Russians will fight their enemies on land, and we must ensure that the sea is on our side!"

"The Naval Design Bureau can no longer work behind closed doors. They must widely absorb the opinions of front-line officers instead of taking it for granted to design warships according to their own ideas. In the final review stage of a warship, only officers with professional experience and practical experience can

The Admiralty will pay for this warship only after it is agreed! Tell those businessmen that if they cannot provide the Imperial Navy with sufficiently advanced warships, then the British Empire will not mind purchasing warships from other countries. We once believed that they were interested in the Kingdom

love, but they use our trust in exchange for high profits, which is absolutely not allowed! I swear, any businessman who dares to disregard the interests of the Royal Navy will be jailed or even the gallows waiting for them!"

On the first day that Churchill took up the scepter of the Royal Navy, his speech appeared on the front page of The Times. At this moment, people finally realized that from now on, the Royal Navy has finally entered a new period, a new era.

The period led by Churchill and Jericho. Churchill's determination and perseverance were not only expressed in words. After taking office, he carried out reforms in relevant departments. What the British government and people need is not only the pursuit of the wrongdoers, but also the pursuit of the wrongdoers.

The Navy needs to come up with practical plans to change all this.

The warships currently being built on the slipway must be stopped and re-modified. Ships that have not yet been outfitted are easier to build. These can be added to the original armor. Historically, Hood used the original 9-inch armor on the slipway.

The armor was replaced with 12-inch armor. According to Jericho's requirements, without major changes, the armor of all battleships must be guaranteed to be 12 inches thick, and the height of the main armor belt must not be less than 3.5 meters. In addition,

The armor at the gun mount and ammunition compartment needs additional reinforcement. The gun mount, which is only 10 inches thick at its thickest point, is too weak. It is more difficult to strengthen the horizontal armor. On the one hand, it adds too much weight;

Because the center of gravity will be relatively high. For this reason, under the advice of the technical staff, the main deck connected to the upper edge of the side chord armor remains unchanged in principle, but the thickness of the dome armor is increased. At least the inclined part and the horizontal part of the dome armor are

75mm.

This plan mainly targets battleships. The last two battleships of the King George V class and the two Iron Duke class battleships that have just come on the slipway will be transformed in accordance with this requirement. The transformed battleships will be collectively called the Iron Duke class.

Battleship. The original King George V will be grouped with the dreadnought and listed as the second line instead of the main force. As for the Audacious? This guy is almost dismantled and refurbished! And it was transformed in this way

The result is that the battleship's speed is greatly reduced, to 20 knots at most.

As for the improvement of the underwater protection system, it has been applied to almost all super-dreadnought battleships. The Dreadnought and the following battleships were almost all built according to the drawings of the Chinese Republic, and Jericho and Churchill still attached great importance to their underwater protection.

Satisfactory. But the later super-dreadnoughts almost always reduce the cost by compressing the underwater protection. If this needs to be changed, it will be troublesome. Can't the bottom of the ship be cut out and rebuilt?

Destroying the hull structure is definitely not possible. This is not transformation but destruction. But the British still have a way. They decided to add a piece to the battleship! At this time, the mine protection protrusion that was originally popular in World War II was unexpectedly widely used in World War I.

Now, there are many ways to add additional empty warehouses under the hull, but one of the important purposes is to increase the buoyancy of the hull. It is aimed at overweight warships. But now, the British use this method to increase the depth of the underwater mine protection system.

. Directly applied the one from World War 2. It can be said that this time the British are at the forefront of the world! The British Admiralty plans to add a mine protection protrusion to the left and right sides of the midships of the battleship, and at the same time, in order to reduce the bow of the ship from being mined

After a lot of damage, the British removed all the torpedoes from the super-dreadnought, and then rearranged the front cabin to prevent the torpedo from hitting the bow and causing a fatal explosion. After some troubles, the British at least felt psychologically

As for the actual situation, we can only know it during the war.

As a result, after a series of efforts to increase armor and increase underwater protection, the speed of the British battleships that could initially run 22 knots plummeted, that is, to the level of 19 to 20 knots. They became turtles instead of iron.

I'm not sure yet. Compared with the stubborn Americans, I don't necessarily have an advantage.

Compared with battleships, battlecruisers are much easier to modify. At least the Lion battlecruiser being built on the slipway is easier to modify. This battlecruiser with a standard displacement of more than 26,000 tons has a good build.

, there is a lot of room for improvement, and the 9-inch-thick armor belt was left during the design. Although some stealth indicators such as underwater compartments are not outstanding, at least there is still a lot of room for improvement in armor protection. And

The rated output of up to 70,000 horsepower also ensures that even if the Lion undergoes major changes, its speed is still relatively guaranteed.

As a result, the British boldly strengthened the main armor and main level. According to the speed of the British fleet, only the new Lion, Tiger and Queen Mary can reach such a high speed, and other battle cruisers can only reach 25 knots.

left and right, so even if the speed drops a little, you can still keep up with the formation. The main armor was directly increased to 12 inches, and the height covered all the original 9 inches. The main horizontal armor was increased to 85mm. The upper armor was also strengthened, and the thickness of the upper armor was

8 inches. A mine protection protrusion of sufficient length was installed underwater. After some preparations, the designers of the British Admiralty believed that this battleship was definitely not inferior even when compared with the Australia.

The shipyard's need to improve and upgrade so many warships in a short period of time will definitely occupy a lot of slipways and labor. In addition, Churchill decided to overthrow the entire battleship shipbuilding plan and start over, which made the already somewhat chaotic production system even more complicated.

It became even more disorganized. Judging from this, at least in 1910, the British could not recover. However, Churchill believed that labor pains were necessary, and long-term pain was worse than short-term pain. Moreover, he had already figured out how to make up for the lost production capacity.

"Since Australia and New Zealand can order warships from China, why can't Canada and South Africa?" When Jericho asked about the Royal Navy's production capacity in the next three years, Churchill replied. Although neither Canada nor South Africa

The local government will not be able to come up with enough money to order warships for a while, but that doesn't matter. All the British government needs is an excuse. As long as it is not ordered directly by the British Empire Navy, then it is not a shame. Even if it is a shame, so what? Australia and

New Zealand has already bought 2 boats, so it’s no big deal.

Jericho agreed with this suggestion, because Germany and Turkey have already ordered 4 ships. In order to prevent Germany from ordering new warships, and to make up for the production capacity gap during this period, plus the performance is indeed reasonable.

, at least this is the performance on paper. Therefore, driven by Churchill and Jericho, the British Royal Navy ordered two new Australian-type battleships in China in the name of the Dominion of Canada and the Dominion of South Africa. In addition to a small amount of funds borne by the Dominion,

In addition, the British Royal Navy bears most of the responsibility.

After such rectification, although the shipbuilding speed of the Royal Navy has been greatly delayed, Churchill believes that in the future, the British fleet will be more capable and powerful. Even if the shipbuilding speed drops, the number and tonnage of British warships will still exceed

Germany, and the improvement of old ships has narrowed the quality gap between the two sides. So Churchill believed that what he did was absolutely correct. However, Churchill was not satisfied at this time, because the British had already felt the 343mm artillery and 14-inch artillery.

It does not bring them enough security because the Germans have prepared a large number of 350 guns.

"Our battleships must not only overwhelm our opponents in terms of defense and speed, but we must also surpass the Germans in terms of firepower! The 14-inch artillery is obsolete, and we need 15-inch heavy artillery, which will sweep across all enemies on the sea!

"In a meeting of the Admiralty, Churchill stated his plan like this. The British Navy advocates offense, and fighting the enemy is the product of this offensive thinking. The British have always paid more attention to firepower, at least in terms of caliber.

Otherwise, there would be no such monster as the 18-inch gun in World War I. Of course, the length-to-diameter ratio of this gun is a bit shorter, and it is too heavy, so that no warship can put down a sufficient number of 18-inch guns.

.Okay, except for planned n3.

Ever since, the 15-inch gun development plan, which had been implemented at a low speed, began to improve rapidly under Churchill's strict orders. The British were tired of pure quantity competition. In the future, they would overwhelm their opponents in all aspects! Directly use powerful 15-inch guns.

End the firepower competition between the British and German navies! After completing the transformation plan of the Iron Duke class and the previous super-dreadnoughts, the British are preparing to launch 15-inch battleships. Historically, the British have built 12 ships equipped with 343mm guns.

super fearless, and now, the British plan to build only 10 of them, so the construction of the famous Queen Elizabeth class battleships in history will start around 1911.

Generally speaking, for now, the situation of the British Navy is better than in history. At least the first few dreadnoughts are still full of conscience. Except for the weaker caliber and smaller number of artillery, the armor protection is still good.

Although the 343mm gun super-dreadnoughts that played the leading role before 1916 lost two ships, their quality has improved, and four battleships were ordered from China. All of this made the originally changed history confusing, and even

Even Xu Jie couldn't figure out whether the gap between the British and German navies now has widened or narrowed compared to history?!
Chapter completed!