Chapter 287 14 million test ships?

The tinkling sound of the rivets drilled straight into the head like a needle. A wire passed through the feet and connected to the large electric fan in the corner. The fan leaf rotated rapidly, bringing a little coolness to the bottom cabin of the warship like a stuffy jar.

Ryukyu in this season is the hottest season, especially in the huge duke-class cabin. Master Li has long been sweating profusely, and his cheeks are mixed with oil.

"Tang Xiao, when did you say that Tesla got the air conditioner last time?" The sultry weather finally reminded Master Li of the air conditioner studied by Tesla before participating in the American World Expo, and quickly asked Tang Xiao, who had just arrived from Honolulu.

Tang Xiao was dressed in shorts and shorts. Hearing the young master's words, his face turned into steamed buns. He hurriedly said, "Young master, didn't you say last time that it was not a good job to make an air conditioner?"

"Who said that!" Master Li jumped up as if he had been stepped on his tail: "It's rubbish, it's all rubbish! After taking so much money from the young master, I don't know how to worry about it. Tell him to get the air conditioner quickly.

Master Li fanned his clothes and complained, "It's too hot this day."

Tang Xiao's head is bigger. The emotional young master is for his own enjoyment! Didn't you get the fan out? Isn't it enough? He quickly spread out his hand and said, "Young master, have you forgotten? The Ministry of Science and Technology is not under my control. Chang Lin is busy transferring the Ministry of Science and Technology. I'm afraid he doesn't have time to ask.

"And I heard him say that Mr. Tesla's electrical laboratory has been making every effort to study the wind turbine you proposed recently. At a critical moment, he has said that no one should disturb him."

"

It's true that it's self-inflicted. After giving Tesla the greatest autonomy, even the young master can't disturb it!

Master Li can only sigh. After all, compared with the air conditioner, the wind generator project is too critical, which is related to the future development of so many islands under his rule that are not suitable for the construction of large power plants.

More importantly, because the control area is too far away and the sea area is too vast, there are big problems in both contact and communication. There is an urgent need to build a complete radio network that can cover the whole territory, but radios need electricity, and it is impossible to build a large radio station to get a few fuel generators. It's too luxurious and fuel-consuming.

In addition to the construction of small hydropower stations on large islands such as Nauru, many islands are not suitable for power plants, so Li Mo thought of more economical wind turbines and threw them to Tesla and marked 100,000 yuan. Unexpectedly, now he blocked the road of developing air conditioners, so he could only give up and continue to blow the fan.

Seeing the young master's disappointment, Tang Xiao quickly flattered: "Young master, don't worry, the air conditioner last time has been almost studied. I will ask Changlin to transport it to the equipment department first, and our equipment department will send someone to take over, and then let Changlin find a few technical students to continue to do it. Anyway, I will get it for you first. One by one."

"Get out of here!" Master Li said righteously, "Do you think I want to blow the air conditioner? I'm doing it for everyone. It's too hard for so many shippers to get in and out of this stuffy cabin.

"Yes, yes, I'll find someone to make mung bean soup later, and I will provide it to everyone to relieve the summer heat every day in the future."

"It's almost the same." Master Li clapped his hands and continued to walk deep into the bottom cabin, and soon found McKinson, who was carefully observing the setting and construction details of the surrounding watertight cabin.

Li Mo sat down and did not disturb their work, and McKinson and the designers did not notice Li Mo's arrival. They still drilled in and out of the narrow bottom cabin with their eyes. For the ship design department with shallow design experience, they can see the best battleship in the world built by the United Kingdom. Design style and construction technology are undoubtedly a good opportunity to make up for it.

In fact, this has become a tradition of the ship design department. Shortly after McKinson's arrival, he, who loved the design of warships, took people to carefully study the structure of the Arctic star battleship and the determination-class heavy cruiser. He didn't even let go of the old ships of the Longxiao and drew sketches.

What makes Li Mo satisfied is that the design department may not have enough experience. Maybe it is not as good as Britain and France in terms of drainage utilization and reasonable structure, but in terms of concept and forward-looking surname, it is far beyond this era because of his existence.

The seizure of different styles of ships, coupled with the experience gained through the study of their own equipment, undoubtedly makes the gap between them and the powerful countries smaller and smaller. Especially after a large number of actual combat experience, the various shortcomings of the navy feedback and the actual needs in the naval battle have benefited the designers a lot.

If it is reluctant to force the Ma Jinghai class before, then when they absorb the most advanced captured battleship technology built by the United Kingdom in front of them and digest the gains and losses of this naval battle, the design department will undoubtedly rise again.

Looking at the mapping and sketching drawings of McKinson and the designers, the corners of Li Mo's mouth hooked a curved arc, which spread almost all over all the units he led. In addition to the simple and down-to-earth style of people in this era, it also made them deeply deeply because of the advanced concepts brought by his later generations. Confatuated.

Several boatmans took the lunch box into the bottom cabin and found that the young master was also there. While saluting, they also shocked McKinson and others and gathered around one after another.

The boatmen are no longer very curious about Li Mo's appearance in the shipyard. During this period, many people saw the young master going in and out of the shipyard. Sometimes they stayed all day and walked in the workers to accompany them in and out of the dock. With this kind of help, everyone was also very energetic during this period, and almost all the food and accommodation were in the factory. I hope to complete the modification of these four battleships and deliver them to the navy as soon as possible, and then accept the new mission.

Lunch is a factory-wide unified steamed bun, braised pork and fish soup. Although it is simple, in the eyes of many people who have just emigrated from the Qing Dynasty, this is an unexpected good day.

The food problem used to be Li Mo's biggest headache. Although he bought it in the three provinces later, the land was vast and the population was very small. It was not until he remembered the scene of the development of the Northern Wilderness in later generations and set up the Construction Corps that he recruited a large number of landless farmers from Shandong, Henan and other places, and established more than a dozen large-scale farmers in the three provinces. The political axe farm, full-time reclamation and cultivation of grain, and the livestock breeding industry, coupled with the purchase of Luzon, so that there is no need to worry about the open supply of grain.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to eat, Li Mo said his intention, hoping that the design department could come up with the design plan of the new destroyer as soon as possible, but what everyone didn't expect was that McKinson was so excited that he didn't even eat and dragged Master Li into the ship design branch building in Ryukyu with a surprised look.

After rushing into the office, McKinson rushed into a large number of drawings without saying a word, and took out a few design drawings from the cabinet like a person picking up a Taobao.

When he saw the drawings, Master Li couldn't help but be a little surprised: "Mike, are these all designed by you?"

"Oh! How can it be? Boss, please believe my ability. How can I design such a small warship? My dream is to design the most powerful battleship in the world, just like the plan you gave me last time. It surprises me!"

"Fuck you, I've given you the dreadnought data and information for more than half a year, and I haven't seen you get it out!" After contemptuing the big designer, Master Li turned his head: "Then how do you know that I want to build a destroyer?"

"This is the boss's request from your navy last time, saying that the army needs a small and fast warship." McKinson said proudly: "Although there is no formal order, didn't the boss say that? Do you want to do more design and research on prospective surnames? So I organized a competition for young students. These are all their works.

"All right! We all know how to practice with small warships for everyone. Li Mo praised and looked at the design drawings, but did not show much joy, because most of them have not yet got rid of the current design styles of various countries. The most important thing is that they are all too small!

Destroyers are currently called torpedo ships or lightning ships by various countries. Previously, they were mainly used to deal with torpedo boats. With the increasing use of torpedoes, they have gradually become a favorite small warship in various countries, and with their rapid agility, they have become the main type of ships to protect the outer barrier of the fleet and detect patrol.

Britain was the first country to propose to enlarge the destroyer, and European countries later followed suit. At present, most of the new destroyers in various countries have a displacement of about 1,000 tons, but it is still a little small for Li Mo, not because he is greedy for everything, but because of the actual tactical needs of the navy at present.

First of all, torpedoes. Compared with torpedoes with a small caliber in various countries and a maximum range of only 1,500 meters, spear torpedoes not only increase their caliber a lot, but also have a surge in weight. After later improvement, they will definitely increase the volume and weight. If the destroyer is too small, they can't fit a few and form a density. .

And in these maritime military operations, the powerful destructive power of the navy's submarines and the Uraga waterway mine array, which once gave him a headache, are also profound. Especially recently, the airship technology has also begun to be sold. Once it proliferation, it also has a certain potential threat to the side, so the navy must have the above The new weapons have certain countermeasures. Although most of the submarines in various countries are still on the drawings, even the blue and whitefish class is not comparable. With the passage of time, this gap will become wider and larger, but submarines are born extremely difficult to deal with. Unless the sound system is made against the sky now, even the bluefish class appears in front of the fleet, with the current The means are also very dangerous.

What's more, Li Mo clearly knows what kind of damage the submarine will cause more than a decade later. At the same time, he also feels that while developing a new offensive weapon, the army must have countermeasures against it, otherwise he would rather rot in his hands than make money.

Although it is still time to fly away from the dirigible and the submarine to run around, it is not possible to temporarily enlarge the destroyer at that time. In that case, there is no need for Master Li to cross over, so this design must also take into account anti-submarine, waterproof lightning and certain air defense capabilities. Force!

When McKinson saw Li Mo turning back, he knew that he was definitely not satisfied with these designs, and that he often had unique ideas in the design of warships, so he immediately took out a pen and paper to ask about the destroyer he imagined.

Li Mo did not sell his mind and quickly said his ideas. First of all, tactically, the destroyer is not a capital ship. Even if the cost is low, it is impossible to waste it to build it frequently. Therefore, it is necessary to have a certain forward-looking surname and reduce the cost as much as possible, which is suitable for the requirements of large-scale production.

For small warships of more than 1,000 tons, any armor is superfluous, so we must find more ways in the watertight compartment and anti-sinking type. In the direction of power, the Honolulu Gas Turbine Factory and the rebuilt Liaodong Combustion Turbine Factory have the possibility to provide a large number of steam turbines, and the unit price has also been reduced a lot with the increase of production. Therefore, the power combination of oil-fired boilers and steam turbines has the possibility of large-scale equipment.

After the use of the Atlantic bow in the Jinghai class, the anti-wave surname of the ship has been significantly improved, so the destroyer will also adopt this new type of ship, but abandon the current mainstream flat deck design and adopt the long bow ship type, with a full load of at least 1,500 to 1,600 tons.

The maximum speed must reach 30 knots, and the endurance must be more than 15 knots/3000 nautical miles, so as to truly reflect the combat concept of rapid maneuver.

In terms of naval guns, Li Mo is in pursuit of Gao Daquan. Because the main weapon of the destroyer is a torpedo, and the naval gun is only an auxiliary, he changed his habit of loving multi-loading, and chose a three-door single-loading 130mm main gun that has been programmed into the navy system, using a lighter semi-enclosed anti-fragment turret.

Although it seems that the firepower of the three main guns is weak, in fact it is not much worse, because the L47/130mm naval gun has been tested in actual combat, and the manual filling can reach more than ten rounds per minute, which is enough to deal with general conflicts. As for the rapid-fire firepower, it will be improved, with high attack for the first time. The 37mm double rapid-fire cannon with angular capacity. At the same time, the new destroyer must also be able to carry two sets of triple spear launchers and six spare mines, with the ability to fill itself at sea. At the same time, it can also carry 20 mines or 20 deep-water bombs.

With detailed requirements, McKinson immediately started. Even for a whole week, the radio communication from Ryukyu to Ogasawara Islands to Honolulu was occupied by the ship design department. After a large number of forward-looking experiments and designs, the naval ship design department finally came up with a general plan and sketches like lightning ten days later. .

The standard displacement is 1,350 tons, with a full load of 1,550 tons. Using the long bow ship type proposed by Li Mo, the forward tilt angle of the bow has also been increased from 10 degrees to 15 degrees of the Jinghai class for the first time, making it look more floating and further improving the anti-wave surname.

Three single-loaded L47/130mm naval guns, each with 300 bullets, adopts the layout of the front two and the last one. The front two doors adopt a backpack layout, and the four double 37mm rapid-fire machine guns are arranged diagonally on the back of the bridge.

Although the Tingfeng-class reconnaissance ship also ran at a speed of 30 knots before, the Tingfeng-class was only 1,000 tons. When the tonnage increased by one-third, the internal space increased not much to ensure a speed of 30 knots. McKinson and others chose a more slender hull with a length of 96 meters. It is 9 meters wide and 2.8 meters wide. It adopts a double chimney layout, which increases the use area of the deck, especially the stern. In order to load mines and deep-water bombs under development, the No. 3 gun position of the stern has been moved a lot to the middle, leaving a wide position of nearly 20 meters. At the same time, the underwater part has been greatly modified to make it It is more plump and smooth, reducing resistance.

Double-axis propulsion, more efficient rudder, improve the mobile surname of the destroyer, and at the same time, five enhanced fuel boilers, two single machines are stronger than the five megawatts of steam turbines currently used in the Jinghai class, with a maximum of 25,000 horsepower and a theoretical speed of thirty-two knots.

In order to meet Boss Li's requirement of minimizing the unit price, McKinson, in addition to expensive equipment such as automatic loaders and rangefinders, still adopted an older simple aiming design. After some efforts, the unit price was finally compressed to S$700,000, about 100,000 pounds.

But this price still made Master Li frown. You should know that the seven destroyers currently equipped by the navy and the five additional ships built in the later period did not exceed 50,000 pounds. Now it has doubled all of a sudden, and according to the calculation, at least 24 ships are needed, which made him a little hesitant and immediately sent a telegram to Li En of Lushun. Fu, I hope to seek the opinion of the State Council first.

After receiving the telegram, Li Enfu almost swallowed his tongue. He was not scared by the huge purchase volume and unit price, but was shocked by Li Mo, who had always been lavish in the navy, to solicit his opinions this time. According to the previously formulated principle of special funds, the navy got 200 after selling four old ships. Ten thousand pounds, the airship business has also made a lot of money, which is enough to pay for this fee, but why does the young master still ask for his opinion?

And Li Mo not only asked for his advice, but also planned to eliminate all kinds of small gunboats and armed patrol ships in the current navy, retain only the necessary torpedo boats, and change the 12 currently in active service destroyers to patrols. At the same time, after the first batch of destroyers are launched, they will be eliminated. The current four Sky Cruiser-class small cruisers are even required to save naval expenses as much as possible under the guarantee of not reducing the amount of training in the next three years.

This strange telegram shocked Li Enfu. Since the young master began to gradually announce the status of his property, he knew how much money Li Mo had. If the financial pressure of the State Council was too high in the past, the young master would definitely use his own money to subsidize the navy, but this time it not only did not subsidize, but also decided to shrink. It's really strange to reduce naval spending.

What the hell is the young master going to do?!

With surprise and doubt, Li Enfu dragged on the Dragon Kingdom Chapter, occupied the test ship Honolulu, which had just come to Lushun for training, and rushed to Ryukyu to ask for clarification, but when the two arrived, they were completely dumbfounded!

Before the two of them had a cup of tea, Li Mo officially proposed a budget of S$14 million to build a test ship! He also said that if the State Council could not guarantee the funds, he would consider reducing the size of the naval capital ships, decommissioning and selling two Arctic star battleships, and even temporarily sealed the four heavy patrols if necessary to reduce training expenses!

14 million new coins! Significantly reduce naval auxiliary ships, reduce naval expenditures, and even build a test ship at the expense of retiring four main battleships!

God, what on earth is that? Is it worth paying such a big price?

(to be continued)