The Rise of the Empire

"No matter what, we must succeed this time! Even if we lose money, we can't throw away this huge market!" Gustav Krupp, the major shareholder of Royal Wilhelm Shipyard and Wegner's backstage boss, heard After this matter period, he fell into a long silence. For half an hour, he was weighing the pros and cons, thinking about how to do this business!

After all, Krupp is not playing with ships. The major shipyards in Germany have also built ships according to the drawings of the Bavarian Ship Design Bureau over the years. But can Krupp give up? Obviously impossible! The construction of the German Navy has begun, which has become a well-known secret among the German high-level. This big construction is not the original kind of small trouble! The displacement of a battleship is directly over 20,000 tons! Cost over £2 million! One can hold up to three ships! So what if the profit margin is low? The total amount is huge!

According to information disclosed by high-level sources within the Navy, in the recent five-year plan of the German Navy, the High Seas Fleet will serve 7 super warships! Even if the construction of only 3 warships can fall into his own hands, that is 130 million marks! Even a 20% profit is more than 26 million! And the cost of auxiliary battleships such as light cruisers has not been calculated. How could the military-industrial group headed by Krupp give up such a large business? Even if you can't make any money this time, you must first occupy the market!

"But our large cruiser design has been ruled out, and the battleship plan has to be greatly changed. We need time, and the construction profit will be very low." Wegner said with some embarrassment.

"Have you seen the plan of the Bavarian Design Bureau?" Krupp asked after thinking about it.

"Through the help of the people inside the Admiralty, we have seen some of their designs. I have to say that they have done a very good job in terms of armor defense. The hull defense volume is not very large, but the core area can guarantee absolute safety. The turret, gun mount and The command tower and other parts are even more tightly defended!" Although he is a competitor, his integrity as a designer still allows him to fairly evaluate the opponent's design.

"That's good, our battleship defense standards will be changed according to theirs!" Krupp said.

"But that would lead to an increase in tonnage, and their side string defenses would not weigh much more than ours, because their armor belts would be shorter, and the layout of our plan B with 5 guns in the center would result in longer armor belts, The most important thing is that their horizontal armor is very thick, after improvement, the total tonnage of our battleship will be similar to theirs, the cost will also increase, and the economic advantage will no longer exist." Wegner said hastily.

"We don't need to make money this time." Krupp said after thinking for a moment. "Even if our price is comparable to the opponent's, but we use a double turret, the structure is simpler, the technical difficulty is lower, and the walk is better. The actual situation of our 10 artillery pieces is not worse than the opponent's. The Admiralty still has more Great opportunity to choose us."

Now that the boss has made a decision, Wigner can only execute it. Royal William Dockyard finally abandoned Plan A in the battleship plan, and devoted all efforts to improving Plan B. This battleship can be regarded as a replica of the King-class battleship in history. The five turrets are arranged on the central axis. The thickness of the armor belt is appropriately weakened.

Wegener learned very thoroughly. He almost designed the entire battleship according to the Bavarian defense system. The main armor belt on the side chord is 4.8 meters high. Thickness 270MM inclined 15 degrees. Among them, the armor height of 270MM thickness is 3.5 meters. 170MM weakened below the waterline. The horizontal armor is connected to the upper part of the main armor belt,

Thickness 75MM. Upper armor belt 150 to 200MM. The front and rear armor belts have been weakened to 80MM. The front of the turret and the gun mount are both 350MM.

An empty cabin has also been added to the underwater defense system, which adopts the three-layer cabin layout of Air Liquid and Air, and the defense depth reaches about 3.5 meters. On the whole, the vertical defense of this battleship is close to that of the king in history. And horizontal defense and underwater defense go beyond the latter. Under the influence of the time traveler, the level of German designers has been "essentially" improved!

After such a design, the total tonnage of the warship has risen to 24,000 tons! The cost is also almost the same as the Bavarian plan. Reached around 2.18 million pounds. This time Wigner learned his lesson and WSW's designs were written in great detail, especially in terms of defense. After reporting to the Kaiser through Tirpitz's channel, the emperor smiled helplessly at the rather "Bavarian" style defense. But still expressed satisfaction with the program.

The same plan was also given to the prince, and the prince was not angry when he saw this stuff that almost completely "plagiarized" his own design concept. Cleanly signed his name on the primary election review, the battlecruiser plan, the Kaiser has promised to adopt the Bavarian plan. And the first battleship, if nothing else happens, should be this plan. And the construction work has nothing to do with me.

But it doesn't matter, because the military expansion plan within 5 years will build a total of 7 battleships. The first battleship and the first battlecruiser are just testing the waters, and there are 5 more in the future! After the primary election, Bavaria competed with the opponent for the contract of the next five warships!

Whether it is the Royal Wilhelm Shipyard, the Kingdom of Bavaria, or the Kaiser, they are all very satisfied with the current situation. They are all full of confidence and think that this matter will proceed according to their wishes. There are still many details of the order plan for the next five battleships that have not been finalized, for example, the ratio of battleships to battlecruisers, and the lack of funds for shipbuilding.

The former is that the internal strategy of the German Navy has not yet been finalized. To be more specific, it is a question of whether to build 2 battlecruisers or 1 ship! As for the latter, it is because the original plan of 7 warships was set according to the quotation of Royal William Dockyard, but now, as everyone's quotations have been increased, there have been certain loopholes in funding. It's not too big, maybe hundreds of thousands of pounds...  

"Okay, don't worry about these things for now. The final plan for the next five warships is about to be finalized. I have clearly told Ruprecht that if their plan does not have an overwhelming advantage, we will choose the Wei Garner's plan. From the current point of view, our choice must be the latter."

"Think about it, for the plan of seven warships, Bavaria can only get one or two this time. I think the prince must be in a very good mood now! Haha!" The Kaiser smiled proudly. But he seems to have forgotten a word, that is, until the moment when the matter really ends, everything is possible!

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