Lee Haydn had a fierce quarrel with German Navy Secretary Tirpitz.

As the largest shipyard in the Second German Empire, the Beihai Shipyard has only received construction orders for several destroyers from the German Navy since its start in 1898. In the view of the conservative Tirpitz, all of Lee Haydn's designs were too radical and adopted many new technologies that he thought were immature.

Although the "German King" built by the North Sea Shipyard for Deutsche Shipping Company won the "Blue Ribbon Award" in 1903, it still cannot dispel the doubts of the German Navy Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.

In 1904, the German Empire Navy decided to build two improved Lun-class armored cruisers with enhanced firepower in view of the successful construction of the "York" armored cruisers. In May 1904, the German Navy issued design indicators to various shipyards, stipulating that the displacement of the new armored cruisers was 12,000 tons and required 8 210mm main guns.

Beihai Shipyard completed the bidding design for the new ship in September, basically applying the design plan of the "Emperor"-class armored ship that the Austro-Hungarian Empire had built. However, in order to improve airworthiness and wave resistance, it adopted the appearance plan of a high freeboard long forecastle. However, the German-style reinforced armor design made its displacement slightly exceed the standard, reaching 13,700 tons, but the four 240mm double-mounted main turrets arranged along the central axis greatly exceeded the design standards.

After this plan was submitted to the German Navy, it immediately caused great controversy.

Lieutenant General Dietrich, head of the ship design department, strongly advocated the adoption of the North Sea shipyard design plan, while the conservative Navy Secretary Tirpitz opposed this less secure construction plan.

Tirpitz was appointed as the Minister of the Navy by German Emperor William II in 1897. With his efforts, the German Navy had 19 battleships, 8 armored ships and more than 20 cruisers by 1903, surpassing France and becoming the huge maritime force in the world second only to Britain.

However, since the 20th century, the progress of industrial technology has brought about more and more innovations and changes, which have had a profound impact on the strategic and tactical ideas of the navy. As the supreme leader of the German Navy, Tirpitz has also been troubled by this.

In the application of new naval technologies, Tirpitz has always advocated a prudent and conservative attitude. Therefore, compared with other German industrial technologies, the German Navy has made very little contribution to the technological progress of the entire world, and has always followed the British.

His own shipbuilding plan was rejected, and Li Haidun angrily found his elder brother, King William II.

He was very annoyed that his idea of ​​strengthening the German fleet was blocked by that conservative old guy.

Although William II is a half-baked naval enthusiast and is not a stubborn and conservative person, he has a very keen intuition in the concept of warship design, perhaps because this naval enthusiast often reads publications such as "Ship Yearbook" and "Naval Observation".

Lee Haydn described him a very beautiful prospect: in front of a super armored cruiser with a displacement of nearly 14,000 tons, equipped with 8 240mm main guns, and a speed of 25 knots, nearly thirty armored cruisers built by the British Empire have become garbage, and they are in an embarrassing situation where they cannot fight but cannot run away.

Lee Haydn was looking forward to what the British would look like at that time, and William even hoped to see it.

Although he does not want to fight with the British, it does not mean that he does not want to see the British eat. On the contrary, he is willing to do everything that can disgust the British.

Of course, the premise is that the British battle cruiser has not been built yet.

"You see, its armor is enough to deal with the attack of the 203mm main gun of the armored cruiser, but its main gun is much stronger than the armored cruiser. The saved armor weight is used to increase power, which makes it have a directional speed that exceeds all current armored cruisers. Think about it, if these two excellent cruisers gallop on the vast ocean, what else can be its opponent? With a battleship's speed of less than 20 knots, even its shadow cannot be seen."

"Haydn, I think you're targeting the British?"

"Oh, I don't deny this. Our navy is naturally aimed at the strongest country, right? Only in this way can we become stronger."

"Okay, I will try my best to convince General Tirpitz, but it's very difficult." William II frowned. Tirpitz was stubborn and might have to pile up his picks. This was not what he wanted to see.

Lee Haydn was allowed to participate in the discussion of the design of the new ship in the German Navy Department. As the honorary marshal of the German Navy, it was nothing. William II is currently the honorary commander-in-chief of the Royal Navy of the British Empire.

"First of all, I doubt the operational stability of the steam turbine. This kind of thing has never been installed on large warships. Who knows what will happen? The Imperial Navy will never allow valuable expenses to build some useless test ships." Tirpitz came up and attacked the first time.

"Don't worry about this. We have nearly ten years of experience in steam turbine manufacturing and have successfully verified it on various ships. As for large ships, the "German King" has a displacement of 33,000 tons. It has successfully won the "Blue Ribbon Award" for Germany. I don't know if it is considered a large ship. So far, we have successfully installed steam turbines on four large ships, which has proved that its reliability even exceeds that of the reciprocating steam engine. Oh, its economic performance is indeed

Improvement. "Li Haidn said, "As for the idea that you will never allow the precious expenses to be used to build some test ships, I dare not agree with the view that technological progress is always achieved through constant testing and failure. If we choose to avoid the risks of new technologies, how can we make the technological progress of the naval forces? Of course, except for the situation where we are not willing to follow others. I think a navy that cannot even bear the risk of testing is actually not necessary for construction. If the warships go to sea, it may sink. So we will keep it in the port?"

Lee Haydn spoke very sharply, and he wanted to force the old guy who had already hindered the development of German naval technology to resign.

Seeing Tirpitz's old face flushed, William II hurriedly came out to smooth things over, "Okay, there is no need to argue about this issue. Using a steam turbine is the solution I decided before. Let's talk about the problem of the power system, is it an oil-fired boiler or a coal-fired boiler?"

In this regard, Li Haidn advocates the use of heavy oil boilers, while Tirpitz advocates the use of coal-fired boilers.

Lee Hayden's idea was that the oil-fired boiler was lightweight and heated up quickly, which could achieve better acceleration and speed. However, Tirpitz believed that Germany had no oil. If the oil supply was cut off during the war, the German Navy would face many difficulties.

“Isn’t using low-temperature distillation to solve the problem of fuel?”

"The problem is that it is not economical," said Tirpitz. The German Navy needs to invest in the construction of two artificial oil factories, but it can only be left idle or subsidize its costs.

Neither of the two could convince each other, so they finally adopted a compromise plan, using a kerosene mixed boiler. Six of the 18 boilers use fuel and 12 use coal.

Finally, there is the armor problem. Tirpitz thinks it is too thin. The problem is that increasing the armor will inevitably increase the displacement, which will further drag down the speed. It seems to be trapped in a paradox.

"It is acceptable to increase the armor and drainage appropriately, and the speed problems caused by the increase in displacement can also be solved by adding boilers locally." Lieutenant General Herlingen, the head of the German shipbuilding department and chief designer of the naval ship, proposed a plan to increase the hull.

This means that all designs have to be redone.
Chapter completed!