The rise of the German Empire and the establishment of the German-Austrian alliance broke the balance of power in Europe, and sooner or later it would endanger the British Empire's dominance over the world. The declining British Empire's industrial capabilities made this situation even more precarious. The British needed to engage in a war against Germany as early as possible, and to nihilate this danger in the cradle.

If the decisive battle was not in 1914, but was postponed to 1920, it was estimated that by that time the navy of the British Empire might not be the opponent of the Germans at all, both in terms of quantity and quality.

The British needed to drag the Germans into the war as soon as possible, and the Germans now do not have the patience.

The economic crisis caused by overproduction of industrial production is overwhelming every country. Everyone needs to consume too strong industrial production capacity or destroy these production capacity through a war.

The most direct and effective way to pass on the crisis and resolve it is war. The huge damage caused by war is enough to make the whole of Europe penniless.

After being pushed back, the world really needs to be reshuffled.

He wanted to escape, such as going to the United States or South America, but as a member of the empire, he had the responsibility and hope to reduce the injustice and hunger that the people suffered after the war as much as possible.

This is an era of speaking with cannons, and compromise has no meaning at all.

In October 1912, the British Royal Navy began to build five "Queen Elizabeth-class battleships equipped with 15-inch main guns. At this time, the German Navy and Austro-Hungarian Navy, as potential opponents, had no response to this. The German Navy did not arrange any battleship construction plan in 1913.

According to information obtained from the intelligence department in all aspects, due to the decline of national strength, the Royal Navy is no longer able to maintain its absolute advantage over the German Navy in terms of the number of main ships, which makes the Royal Navy unable to guarantee its sea control over the North Sea during wartime.

Under such circumstances, the British obviously began to pay attention to improving the quality and performance of the main battleship. According to the requirements of the British Admiralty, the development of the 15-inch naval guns equipped by the "Queen Elizabeth" class was carried out simultaneously with the construction of the hull, which made the firepower and protection of this class of battleships significantly improved compared with previous battleships.

Fortunately, in this era, due to Lee Hayden's instigation, the German Navy began to use 330mm main guns when building the Helgolan class battleship. After absorbing some of Skoda's advanced main gun manufacturing technology, Krupp also made great improvements in the large-caliber naval gun manufacturing technology.

The Austro-Hungarian Navy adopted the SK-13 330mm main gun developed by Skoda in the latest "United Forces" class, which also forced the German emperor, who was unwilling to fall behind, to force Tirpitz to equip the 350mm/L42 main gun developed by Krupp on the "King" class built later. Although its performance is not as good as the Skoda naval gun, it is greater than the 14-inch Armstrong main gun made by the British.

Since the beginning of the Dreadnought, the Austro-Hungarian Navy's main battleships have always adopted the four-turret layout in the overall artillery layout. From the overall design perspective, the four-turret layout is almost the optimal layout of the hull weight, bearing capacity and firepower distribution plan.

Although three triple main turrets are easier to optimize armor and reduce water displacement, their gun force distribution method is not balanced. This arrangement is not easy to reasonably allocate firepower when retreating or when suffering from more than two enemy ships. This arrangement is suitable for use in navals with confidence in the number of ships, but for naval countries with slightly disadvantages, it is relatively embarrassing to use only three main guns when retreating.

In this era, the navies of various countries also like to equip the fifth main turret in the unit, but in this regard, Lee Haydn and German ship design minister Bruckner held the same view: because the muzzle storm of the central turret is very easy to destroy searchlights, ship-based boats and other auxiliary equipment. More importantly, the layout of the five turrets is difficult to balance in the weight of the turret, and there must be the most important part defense that weakens the turret.

Due to the strong opposition from General Lee Haydn and General Bruckner, coupled with the experiments at the "Nassau" class and "Helgolan" class, the German Navy finally changed the arrangement of four turrets when building the "King" class. Although the four triple 330mm main turrets of the Austro-Hungarian Navy "Joint Force" class have strong firepower, their protection is still a bit worrying, so when building the "King" class battleship that is comparable to the "Joint Force" class, the Germans changed the arrangement of 3-2 joint main guns with a symmetrical bow and stern.

In another space-time, since the German Navy increased the caliber of the main gun from 305 mm to 380 mm, it took a year to develop the main gun and redesign the hull structure. In this space-time, this process was much faster.

The most important thing is that Lee Haydn donated three battleships equipped with 380 mm main guns to the Austro-Hungarian Navy, which further promoted the construction of the latest first-class main ships of the German and Austro-Hungarian Navy.

In another time and space, the Austro-Hungarian Navy's battleship equipped with 380mm main guns only started construction in February 1914, and was not built during the war due to the influence of the war. The German Navy's "Bavarian" class battleships also began construction in 1914, and only two were built and put into service during the war.

It is almost impossible to create cutting-edge weapons that transcend the times, but it is still easy to do it in advance of the construction time. Against the background of the current British-German shipbuilding competition, Lee Haydn joined forces with the German Emperor, and General Bruckner of the German Navy Ship Design Bureau, in May 1913, Germany's latest first-class battleship construction projects had begun one after another.

In this way, when the war was at its most intense three years later, the German Navy was able to obtain five latest super battleships in time, and this powerful support was enough to change the course of a naval battle.

In order to speed up the construction period, General Bruckner almost directly applied the drawings obtained from the Austro-Hungarian Navy this time.

There is indeed nothing to change. The dual main gun has the problem of insufficient fire density. The "King"-class design has almost reached a balance, while the "Joint Force" class of the Austro-Hungarian Navy attaches too much importance to firepower, and its defense still has hidden dangers.

As the main gun with a larger caliber was prepared to be installed, the displacement of the "Bavarian" class battleships increased by 2,500 tons compared with the "King" class, and the standard displacement reached 31,200 tons. The power system was comparable to that of the British "Queen" class. However, due to the depth of the Kiel Canal, German battleships generally have wide hulls and shallow drafts, which made their speed reach only 23 knots.

The dreadnought competition also affected various relatively weak naval countries. In addition to the three South American leaders, the Turks also ordered two dreadnoughts designed based on the Orion battleship from the UK. Due to the failure in the Balkan War, the Turks canceled the construction order for one of the dreadnoughts and instead purchased the construction of the "Rio de Janeiro" from the Brazilians - the famous "one-week turret holy relic" equipped with seven twin 14-inch main turrets.

This made the Greeks who had just won the Balkan War and the Greek-Turkish War very nervous, so the financially strapped Greek government and navy went out to borrow from abroad and began to seek two new dreadnoughts everywhere.

Lübeck's North Sea Shipyard received orders for the two Greek battleships. Under Lee Hayden's instructions, the Vienna Imperial City Credit Bank was willing to provide loans to the two battleships. The North Sea Shipyard won the orders from the British and American and French shipyards at a price of less than £500,000 each, which was almost lost to the British.

The battleships purchased by the Greeks are basically enhanced versions of the Austro-Hungarian Navy's "Joint Force" class, with a standard displacement of 31,000 tons, equipped with four 350mm triple main turrets, with a maximum speed of 23 knots, but the endurance is slightly smaller, 5,200 nautical miles/14 knots.

At the same time, the Beihai Shipyard also received an order for the Argentinian "The Trinity of the Holy Trinity" battleship at extremely favorable prices. Its design is basically the same as the "Chirkis"-class battleships ordered by the Greeks. The construction of three battleships of the same model at the same time also allows the shipyard to minimize costs.
Chapter completed!