176

July 192, northern Hans, North Sea region.

The Navy held a decommissioning ceremony for its only large battleship, the Zalingen. This old battleship has faced serious power problems since it suffered a mechanical failure in the Far East.

To repair these problems, it will require an investment of approximately US$3 million to completely replace her old power system. This amount of money is not a small sum for the Navy, and the Zalingen battleship is already over the age of 20 years ago, it was already far behind this era, so after naval research, this battleship was finally abandoned by the navy and withdrawn from active service

"General, I..."

Although the battleship Zalingen is old and has low combat effectiveness, it is, after all, the face of the Hans Navy. She represents the past glory of the Second Empire and defends the last glory of the Hans since the High Seas Fleet.

And this veteran finally came to an end at this time

"Do you feel complicated?"

Mainz glanced at Colonel Dönitz, the navy commander with red eyes, and said to him

"Well, it is a bit. Although the Zalingen is relatively backward, this battleship is the only large battleship we currently train crews on. If this battleship is retired, we will not even have a battleship to train new recruits!"

The current strength of the Navy is only 5,000. When the Army was expanding its recruitment, Dönitz also made an application to expand the Navy, but Mainz did not approve his request. The Navy still maintains a small scale until now.

"I have already considered this issue for you!

Mainz smiled and patted Dönitz on the shoulder and said to him:"The Navy has ordered a batch of cruisers from the shipyard. If nothing else happens, they will be launched in the second half of this year!""

"Really? Are you trying to comfort me?"

After Dönitz heard the news, he was surprised at first, and then immediately began to doubt it.

In Dönitz's view, Mainz's attitude towards the navy has never been very important!

Because from 1918 to the present, In three years, not a single warship has been launched in Hans's country, and the strength of the navy has been declining.

This has led to a widely circulated saying within the navy that the reason why Hans's navy has not developed is.

Hans' commander-in-chief was from the army.

General Mainz would give priority to the development of the army and allocate a large amount of funds to the army.

The money allocated to the navy was only enough for them to maintain the current scale and could not go further.

Although Dönitz did not believe this statement based on his understanding of General Mainz, the current facts are indeed true. For some reason, General Mainz did not attach great importance to the development of the navy. , at least not as seriously as the Army!

Therefore, Dönitz felt suspicious when he heard the good news from General Mainz. Seeing Dönitz's expression, Mainz sighed slightly.

He didn't mean to neglect the navy in the past few years. In fact, if the mess in Hans's country is not sorted out, neither the navy nor the army will be able to develop.

Moreover, due to the existence of the Treaty of Versailles, Hans's sea has been greatly restricted!

The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that the German sea level could not exceed 100,000 tons, and the tonnage of the main battleships allowed to be produced could not exceed 10,400 tons.

This regulation placed restrictions on the navy, especially for the main battleships at the end of World War I. The tonnage of the main naval battleships of various countries has exceeded 30,000 tons, and is even approaching the 40,000-ton level!

The displacement of the Royal Navy's Queen Elizabeth-class battleships and the improved Revenge-class battleships both exceed 30,000 tons. , and the displacement of the Kongo-class battleship they produced for the foot basin even exceeded 35,000 tons, and the tonnage of the Fuso-class battleship developed and produced by the foot basin people also exceeded 30,000 tons.

Spurred by this, the navies of the Eagle Sauce and the Gauls in the same era. The tonnage of the main battleships of the generation has increased one after another, and various countries have launched an unprecedentedly fierce arms race in the field of naval battleships!

According to this trend, given them another ten years, they are expected to increase the tonnage of the main battleships to an exaggerated 40,000. tons or even 50,000 tons!

The reason for this phenomenon is very simple. The fundamental reason is the limitation of weapons and attack methods!

The main weapons of warships in this era are artillery and torpedoes. Because of their range and speed, Therefore, it can only be used at a very close distance. If the distance is too far, the range will be out of reach, and the enemy can easily make evasive actions to avoid the torpedo attack.

Therefore, as a super destructive weapon, torpedoes are only suitable for those with relatively large tonnage!

Small, very fast small warships are used.

During combat, these small warships rely on their own speed to separate from the main fleet and launch a desperate charge against the enemy.

As long as they can hit the opponent's main warship with a torpedo, they will make a profit.

, it doesn't matter even if it is destroyed.

Anyway, the cost of small battleships is cheap and the construction speed is fast.

It can be easily replaced if it is lost!

Large warships are expensive to build and have a long construction period. If they lose one of them, it will be a serious injury to a country's navy!

Therefore, large warships cannot use short-range weapons such as torpedoes, but must use long-range weapons such as artillery!

In order to pursue stronger firepower and increase the destructive power against enemy warships, various countries have been studying how to increase the caliber of warships' main guns since the birth of warships!

On the other hand, in order to pursue stronger protective performance and prevent their own warships from being sunk by enemy artillery shells, while they are considering increasing the caliber of the artillery, they are also considering increasing the armor thickness of the warships and widening the armor protection zone. Let the warships withstand enemy artillery attacks!

Whether it is increasing the caliber of the artillery or increasing the thickness of the armor, these will greatly increase the tonnage of warships, and the increase in tonnage also places higher requirements on power, so countries have to frequently change design standards to build warships. Growing bigger and bigger, this arms race continued until the pinnacle of battleships at the end of World War II - the Yamato-class battleships!

The tonnage of this battleship has reached an exaggerated 70,000 tons!

Compared with this terrifying steel behemoth, the tonnage of the main battleships Hans was allowed to produce was limited to 10,000 tons. If Hans really produced his own main battleships according to this standard, then both sides would The battleships met at sea. Hans's warship faced the enemy's warship with larger artillery caliber and thicker armor. Hans's warship had no power to fight back!

Once something like a main battleship is sunk, it will have a huge impact on the morale of a country's military. Therefore, Mainz would rather not produce main battleships than produce such a useless thing under the restrictions of the treaty. A defective product with fighting power!

However, just because the main battleship cannot be produced does not mean that other warships cannot be produced either, such as cruisers and destroyers!

The general tonnage of these things in this era is around a few thousand tons. The tonnage of a destroyer is even only more than a thousand tons, while the tonnage of a light cruiser is less than 400 tons. The 10,000-ton limit is of little significance to this kind of warship. Big, they have a lot of room to play!

Even if he is dancing with shackles on, Mainz does not intend to let others laugh!

The first batch of battleships he ordered were two cruisers, based on the historical Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruisers. The weapons and armor configurations were reduced, the power system was improved, and their tonnage was reduced to about 1,040 tons.

This line happened to be the maximum tonnage that the Hans Navy could have as stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles. However, no country could have imagined that what Mainz produced was not a main battleship, but a sword-carrying escort cruiser!

Even a light cruiser!

If other countries knew that Mainz treated the 10,000-ton battleship as a light cruiser, they would be shocked!