With the support of Grand Duke Ferdinand, in February 1903, the Imperial Parliament finally passed the naval budget for four "Emperor"-class battleships with a displacement of 12,000 tons and required 280 mm main guns. Not the three in history, but because the Hungarians said that since they had borne 30% of the ship construction costs, one battleship must be built in the Hungarian shipyard. The Navy distributed the construction orders for the four battleships to the only four large shipyards in the Empire: the Isleya Shipyard and the Royal Shipyard in Trieste, the Navy Shipyard in Bora and the Danau Shipyard in Fum.

The design of the warship was chaired by the Navy Technical Committee headed by Admiral Popper, and Lee Haydn served as the construction engineering director of the four warships.

When determining the design plan, Lee Haydn proposed a new design idea.

"How about the design of the 'full-heavy main gun'?" said Lee Hayden, who began to promote the new idea that he had discussed with General Popel and Colonel Rozner many times. This plan was first proposed in a 1900 article about the design concept of armored cruisers written by Italian naval designer Colnipoti, published in the German journal Naval Lookout.

Colonel Kunipetti's plan was originally designed for the Argentinian "Rivadavia". As a competitor, Li Haidn obtained this information at the first time, and also discussed this issue specifically with Rozner, and later added General Popel.

Kunipetti's design had a fatal flaw. He installed a main turret with the same caliber as the main gun on both sides of the warship, which occupied the power bay and weakened the defense of important parts of the warship. Therefore, when building the "Habsburg-class armored cruiser with a displacement of 8,900 tons for the Argentines and the Imperial Navy, Rotzner did not care about this solution.

During the discussion, several people realized the benefits of having four double main turrets, and even immediately thought of the solution of arranging two main turrets in front and back along the central axis, or two main turrets along the central axis. The benefits of this are obvious. The lateral firepower of the warship can reach eight gates, which requires two identical warships to achieve such firepower effect.

However, it is obvious that a warship with only 12,000 tons cannot bear such a burden unless a smaller-class main gun is installed.

"'All-heavy main gun'?" This was obviously the first time that Navy Secretary General Sbone heard this term. He turned sideways with a little confusion and looked at the chief designer of the Imperial Navy.

"Oh, it means unifying the caliber and caliber of the entire warship to replace the second-level main gun, which is conducive to the unified shooting command of the entire ship." Popper explained to him and his colleagues sitting, "In this way, the number of main guns that can be fired on the side of the warship will be increased to eight or more, which is enough to create an overwhelming fire advantage over the enemy ship."

"Well... how should it be arranged? The arrangement along the center line will affect the firing boundary of the rear turret, and the arrangement in the upper part will not increase the firepower." Admiral Sbön paused for a moment, "Of course, there are still some benefits."

Since there are some benefits, the next thing is the arrangement of these main guns. At present, the battleships in the world are almost all in one mode: one front and one rear each equipped with a main turret. Of course, they will definitely be arranged on the central axis, except for the French, who once arranged three turrets in a font shape on the front deck.

Now their discussion focuses on the third and fourth main turrets, and of course, there are more.

Admiral Sbonn's first reaction was most in line with the aesthetics of the later generations. Two main turrets were arranged along the central axis on the front and rear decks. However, he did not expect that the two turrets were at the same height, just like the later Russian Gangut-class battleships, the problem was that it would affect the forward or backward shooting range of the turrets behind.

"I prefer the plan of Admiral Sponn's two main turrets on the front and rear decks," said Lee Hayden. He picked up a drawing pen and drew it on a white paper. "But it is not a horizontal arrangement, but a high and low load-type." In fact, the layout of the load-type main gun is not uncommon. Many warships in countries have adopted this method to install second-level main guns or secondary guns.

"Well, it's very reasonable." Admiral Poper looked for a while before speaking, "Of course, this will cause the entire ship to move upwards, and additional displacement is required to balance."

"Of course, can't I get the same warship built with some additional displacement?" Lee Hayden said with a smile. He was surprised by Popel's keen intuition and pointed out the crux of the problem in just a few minutes, which requires a lot of practice to have.

"It's definitely cost-effective. It needs to be increased by about 1,000 to 1,500 tons to maintain balance." Popel also smiled. The cost is less than one-twentieth of the construction cost of the entire ship.

"Oh, it's shocking, maybe we can start a whole new naval era!" Admiral Sbone became excited, and this prospect was encouraging.

The design work of the new "Emperor" class battleship is progressing slowly. Since it is a brand new design plan, most parts of the hull structure need to be rearranged and calculated, and some places even need to establish models to verify the feasibility of the plan. There are hundreds of thousands of design drawings for a warship, and even with all efforts, nearly 260 designers completed the design work of the new warship five months later.

This is almost May 1904.

Lee Hayden also got bad news: the Argentines and Chileans finally could not stand the endless naval ship purchase competition, and both showed their willingness to negotiate peacefully. With the British mediation, the two countries finally reached a border settlement, but the British demanded that both countries give up the naval ships currently under construction.

Argentina refused to pay the remaining two final payments for the two Rivadavia-class armored cruisers that are being installed, with a total of about 830,000 pounds.

In June 1904, the "Emperor Carl" and "Emperor Maximilian" laid keels in the Royal Shipyard and the Istria Shipyard respectively, while the Naval Shipyard in Bora and the Danube Shipyard in Fum are intensifying renovation and expansion. They do not have enough ships to build this large warship with a designed displacement of 14,300 tons. The high-quality alloy structural steel needed for the warship comes from the Austrian steel plant in Li Haydn in Linz, and the surface carburized armored steel used for armor comes from the Carlson Steel Plant and the Yudenburg Steel Plant controlled by the Krupp Consortium. The weapons are mainly provided by the Skoda Arsenal.

The performance of the Skoda artillery is even better than that of the German Krupp factory. The range of the 240mm naval gun reaches 21 kilometers, exceeding the level of the Germans.

In terms of artillery construction technology and technology, Islaia Machinery Manufacturing Company still has a considerable gap with the Skoda factory. However, what Li Haydn felt a little pleased was that all the power devices and electrical cables on the warships were provided by his subordinate Islaia Power Company and Imperial Standard Electrical Company.
Chapter completed!