On January 9, the thirty-fourth year of the Ming Dynasty, at 4 p.m. capital time, the Anti-Ming Alliance and the Ming Empire formally ceased fire.

This world war, which lasted for more than ten years, finally ended in a basically even state, or in a state where both sides had worked to no avail.

As potential preparations for formal peace talks began, Honglu Temple immediately became the busiest institution in the Ming Dynasty.

Honglu Temple and the anti-Ming alliance led by Britain discussed the specific time and place of the peace talks, and each selected and reported the composition of the participants.

According to Zhu Jianyan's experience, this process takes at least half a month, but what takes even longer is the retreat of the troops on both sides.

The trust between the two parties is very low, and they will definitely keep you withdrawing from one division, then I will withdraw from one division, and you will withdraw from another division. This staggered execution will be slow.

These matters are all handled by dedicated personnel from Honglu Temple, and Zhu Jianyan, the former minister of Honglu Temple who has been dismissed, is in charge.

Zhu Jingyuan, who actually acted as the minister of Honglu Temple, completely abandoned Honglu Temple's challenge and concentrated on warship design work in the Ministry of Industry.

The next day, January 10th, at nine o'clock in the morning, the lecture hall of the Ministry of Industry in the old city of the Ming Dynasty.

The layout of the lecture hall is similar to the lecture theater of Zhu Jingyuan's previous life. In the front and center is a podium equipped with a desk and writing projector, and below are rows of fixed seats.

Several young craftsmen from the Ministry of Industry were busy inside and outside the lecture hall, checking again to clean up the site and debug the equipment needed.

Zhu Jingyuan, who did not go to the morning meeting, sat in the seat under the podium, sorting out the materials he had prepared for the last time and sorting out his naval ship development plan.

Traditional naval combat ships can be roughly divided into three types: battleships, screen ships, and auxiliary ships.

Capital ships are mainly battleships, pursuing perfect defense and powerful firepower. They are similar to the main force of the Chinese army in the traditional army, which may be heavy armored infantry or heavy cavalry.

Screen guard ships are mainly cruisers, pursuing maneuverability, flexibility and perception capabilities. They are like screen troops outside the main force of the traditional army, such as light armored skirmishers, light cavalry and scouts.

Auxiliary ships are mainly destroyers, pursuing economical benefits and a complete range of categories. They are auxiliary units in the traditional army. They have to do everything from running errands, rescuing people, prospecting, clearing mines, and deploying defenses.

The most basic combat framework of the navy is that the screen guard fleet first patrols and guards the perimeter, and then conducts "avant-garde warfare" after encountering the enemy's screen guard fleet.

After winning the vanguard battle, the screen guard fleet found the enemy's main fleet and notified its own main fleet to arrive at the right time for a "fleet decisive battle."

Theoretically speaking, only a fleet battle can determine the outcome of a naval battle, while vanguard warfare is only information reconnaissance and early testing.

However, the outcome of vanguard warfare determines the degree to which the participating parties control battlefield information.

Controlling the information advantage can allow the main fleet to enter the battlefield at a more appropriate time and angle, gaining the upper hand and heading advantage.

If you want to win the decisive battle, then it is best not to lose the vanguard battle, so the cruiser as a screen guard ship has a trend of continuous strengthening.

Before the emergence of the dreadnought battleship, the size of the armored cruiser continued to expand, getting closer and closer to the main battleship.

In the era of dreadnoughts, the battlecruiser, a composite battleship with the speed of a cruiser and the firepower of a battleship, was directly developed.

The size and appearance of the battleship cruiser are very similar to traditional main battleships, especially the weapon system may be exactly the same.

It’s just that traditional battleships pursue high defense, their sailing speed is relatively limited, and their hulls are stocky and short.

Battlecruisers pursue higher speeds, their defenses are much weaker than traditional battleships, and their hulls are long and slim.

Battleships and cruisers are a bit like special operations forces. They carry the firepower of capital ships to fight vanguard battles.

When encountering the enemy's screen cruiser fleet, they can be killed directly with battleship-level firepower.

When encountering the enemy's main fleet, it does not suffer in terms of firepower and is still capable of fighting.

If you are not seriously injured after the vanguard battle, you can continue to fight with the main fleet in the decisive fleet battle. This is the so-called one ship with two uses.

Therefore, even though the battlecruiser is the most expensive battleship of its generation, much more expensive than conventional main battleships, it is a very cost-effective type of battleship.

The richer the navy, the more cost-effective the battlecruisers are.

If the screen guard fleet is heavily patrolled and ensures a sufficient scale, it will be basically impossible for the enemy to win in an advance battle.

When it comes to the decisive fleet battle, our main fleet will have a very obvious firepower density advantage.

On this basis, battlecruisers are still very valuable battleships.

The early low-speed dreadnought battleships designed before World War I were basically eliminated during the Naval Treaty period in the 1920s.

The newly designed low-speed battleships in the 1920s, such as the Colorado, Nelson, and Nagato, were no longer able to keep up with the times by the time World War II began in the late 1930s.

The cutting-edge battleships that had just been designed before the outbreak of World War II were quickly phased out and retired as their guided weapons matured after the end of World War II.

To sum up, the effective service life of orthodox dreadnought battleships in history usually does not exceed twenty years.

So what about the excellent battlecruisers of the First World War?

Take the British battleship cruiser HMS Reputation as an example. It was built in 1915 and dismantled in 1947. It experienced two world wars and played the role of a capital ship.

The effective service life of this kind of battle cruiser is more than thirty years, and may even be twice that of traditional battleships.

The main reason is that the continuous speed competition made the design of the battle cruiser objectively prescient.

The speed of ocean-going ships is usually expressed in "knots", and 1 knot means "1 nautical mile per hour."

1 nautical mile is equal to 1.852 kilometers, which is the arc length of 1 minute on the earth's meridian, 60 is divided into 1 degree, and 360 degrees is 1 circle.

If an object moves at a speed of 60 knots, it will move exactly 1 degree of arc on the earth's surface every hour, and it will exactly circle the earth once in 360 hours.

With the development of the industrial revolution, ship power systems were rapidly upgraded, allowing the fleet's speed to continue to increase.

The aircraft carrier tactics developed during World War II required the fleet to have a speed of at least 27 knots, or even more than 30 knots, about 55 kilometers per hour.

At the same time, the shell shape of the part below the waterline of the battleship must be designed to suit the target speed of the battleship.

The early traditional dreadnought battleships were all short and thick hulls suitable for 20 to 23 knots.

Even if a new high-power power system is replaced later, it will be difficult to reach a speed of more than 27 knots. The result of forcing it up will be very ugly fuel consumption.

Moreover, the power cabin capacity of traditional battleships often cannot accommodate new models of large-scale power systems.

On the contrary, the early battlecruisers were originally slender hulls designed for speeds of more than 27 knots, and were naturally able to adapt to high speeds.

In order to accommodate the early low-density power system, the power cabin of the battle cruiser is usually quite huge, and the upgrade space is spacious enough, even too rich.

Therefore, the battle cruisers built during World War I could still be used after modifications during World War II.

Maybe it can no longer serve as the real core force of the fleet, but the main force of the fleet in World War II has also become an aircraft carrier.

The battle cruiser can occupy a place in the large fleet of World War II as an aircraft carrier and large frigate.

As for the traditional battleships from World War I, they would be completely eliminated from the main fleet in World War II because they could not keep up with the speed of aircraft carrier formations.

Unless a section of hull is attached to the front and rear of the battleship, the length of the waterline of the hull is lengthened, and the entire inside of the hull is dismantled and rebuilt.

The cost of this kind of renovation is really too high. Only the Italians have done this in history.

The cost of rebuilding four old World War I battleships was enough to build two and a half cutting-edge high-speed battleships from World War II.

If it were not for the restrictions of the naval treaty, they would definitely choose to build new ships.

The "new battleships" of the World War II era, or "fast battleships", were the final and complete form of the dreadnought battleship.

It has the defensive capabilities of a traditional battleship and the high speed of a battlecruiser.

However, the armored cruiser, the tactical successor of the battlecruiser, was not a complete dreadnought that only appeared during World War II.

It is another flower that sprouts from the foundation of the cruiser - the aircraft carrier.

The battle mode of aircraft carriers has abandoned the traditional avant-garde battle and fleet decisive battle ideas.

If you insist on trapping, the aircraft carrier will directly send the enemy's main force to the seabed to cultivate coral during the vanguard battle.

Battlecruisers can handle both vanguard and decisive battles.

Aircraft carriers combine vanguard warfare and decisive battle itself into one.

And the limit of this road is——
Chapter completed!