My Italy

I don’t know why London was called the Fog City, but at this time, Fog City was still a complimentary term, which can be understood as praising its industrial development and numerous factories.

However, this heavy fog with the smell of coal is still somewhat irritating to the throat, so this also leads to more people suffering from respiratory diseases in London in winter.

Admiral Fisher, who is in his sixties, is still a little unaccustomed to the smog in London.

As Admiral Fisher, who served as First Minister of Sea Affairs and became the head of the Navy, time was not waiting for me at this time.

Although the British Empire's navy is still at its peak, it has many hidden dangers.

First of all, externally, although the Russian Navy, one of the major problems, suffered devastating losses, it did not need to pay too much attention to the Russian Navy. However, Germany and the United States, the rising stars, are building their own warships aggressively. Since the British Empire has formulated the standards for the two powers, it must be implemented.

So starting in 1902, the Edward VII-class battleships, named after King Edward VII, began to be built on a large scale. At present, the British Empire has built five warships of this class, and two more have just laid down their keels.

In addition to these two rising stars, Admiral Fisher was even more dissatisfied with the British Empire's backwardness in technology and concepts.

For example, as early as 1892, when he was still a colonel, he called for the British navy to change the current situation of using coal as power fuel and should use new oil fuel. And it also details the various advantages of oil fuel, but what?

More than ten years have passed, and the British Empire still uses coal as the power fuel for warships. At most, the fuel is mixed into the coal to increase the combustion efficiency.

How could the new Admiral Fisher not be worried about such slow efficiency? Take a look at the Italian Navy, old warships are decommissioned, and are for sale.

Although the warships sold by the Italian Navy were too ruthless and almost disrupted the layout of the British Empire in the Far East, its courage and keen insight into technology and warships were unmatched by the sluggish British Empire Navy.

Among other things, its Turin-class battleships have led the trend of battleships in various countries, not to mention the currently popular Dreadnought, which is a masterpiece that integrates various new technologies.

Not to mention new technologies, the navy's revolutionary equipment radio communications was invented by the Italians and first used on battleships. And so far, Italy's Marconi Telegraph Company is still the most advanced telegraph manufacturer in the world. It basically provides radio instruments used by navies of various countries.

In addition to the epoch-making masterpiece of radio, the unified firing director of battleships was also first used by the Italians. According to the information he received, as early as the Sino-Japanese War, Italy used a unified firing director to shoot Japanese warships with more than three times the accuracy. The day of the fight

Our fleet is completely defeated, so we can only admit defeat.

Sometimes he would think that if the Italian navy was not too small, Italy would definitely be a powerful enemy of the British Empire's navy. However, since last year, the Italians have begun to significantly expand their navy. Perhaps they need to think more about the direction of the Mediterranean.

However, Fisher is not afraid of this kind of strong external enemy. He is more afraid of the sluggishness within the navy.

You must know that there is a group of people in the military of every country. They have fought for the country all their lives. They are highly respected in the military and influence the military with their words and deeds. But these people are immersed in their own glorious era, hold old ideas, and scorn many new technologies and new tactics, thinking they are flashy gadgets.

Sorry, there are many people like this in the British Empire Navy. If it weren't for these old stubborns with outdated ideas, how could the British Navy, which is in charge of the world's waterways, lag behind in the research and development of new technologies and warships?

"Admiral, this is a report from the statistics department."

The secretary handed a thick document to the old man in charge of the British Empire's navy.

"Okay, I finally got it."

Fisher took the document and started reading it immediately.

This document is a list of various warships that Fisher requested the Navy Department to conduct statistics. These warships have one characteristic. They were all built before the 1990s and are products that lag behind the times.

And since he is at the helm of the Navy, he must do things that are useful to the British Empire Navy. Such as his previous role as Second Sea Lord in 1902.

When he was Second Sea Lord, he did a very famous thing. That is to break the class barrier between general officers and engineering officers, achieve personnel balance between the two departments, and enable officers to have a more comprehensive understanding of modern ships.

In the past, the mainstream concept of the British Royal Navy officer corps was that officers who stayed in the dirty engine department all day long were synonymous with vulgar and uneducated "fools", "sluts" and "country bumpkins". Officers in the ship's surface department and engine department were A reassignment of officers would have been unthinkable for a long time.

This move caused an uproar among a group of naval officers with aristocratic backgrounds. They all criticized Fisher for "wantonly subverting the glorious tradition of the Royal Navy." However, Fisher, who was in control of the power, was not moved at all and acted selectively. Ignore it.

Although under the control of these powerful and "powerful" people, Fisher only served as Second Sea Lord for one year before packing up and leaving, but his successor did not restore the "ship surface". The "old system" in which the officers of the department and the engine department had no contact with each other, so Fisher's personnel reform achieved initial success.

Moreover, after serving as commander of the Home Fleet in Portsmouth for more than a year, he returned as First Lord of the Sea. This was more like a silent declaration of the failure of those aristocratic officers who were stuck in the rules.

And now Admiral Fisher, who is in great power, read through this thick list, and on the last page, he very thoughtfully gave the number of these warships, a total of 154.

And these warships have been sentenced to death in Admiral Fisher's mind. They will either be sold or sent to the shipyard for dismantling. There is no third way.

The money saved by cutting off these old warships will be used in the construction of new ships.

Take the most popular dreadnoughts as an example. Italy already has one (Dreadnaught) and is preparing to build four (Dante-class), and Germany is preparing to build four (Nassau-class), which are roughly the same as the Italian Dante-class. Two can be counted as one class), the United States announced that it will build two (Mississippi class, but I heard that this class of warships is temporarily modified, and also uses a triple-expansion reciprocating steam engine, and the speed does not even exceed 20 knots. It is considered a pseudo-dreadnought. ). No news has come out about the French yet, let alone Japan and Russia. The two countries had just finished fighting a war and had no money to get involved. You must know that the emergence of dreadnoughts has greatly increased the cost of new warships.

After the advent of the epoch-making dreadnought, all countries began to build this powerful battleship. As the world's number one British Empire, of course it will not ignore it. Just last month, the British Empire announced that it would build eight Dreadnought-class battleships within two years, 1905 and 1906.

The dreadnought ship called the Bellerophon class was to be built in 1905. The ship had a standard displacement of 19,100 tons, a length of 160.3 meters, a width of 25.2 meters, and a draft of 8.3 meters. It was equipped with five twin 10-door 305mm main guns. Gun (adopting 212 layout). It uses 18 mixed-fired water boilers (pure oil-fired boilers have not yet been developed). The main engine is a Parsons direct-drive steam turbine with 2 sets/4 shafts. The maximum power is 28,000 horsepower and the speed is 22 knots.

Of course, for Admiral Fisher, the importance of the construction of new battleships to the British Empire Navy cannot be said much.

Just as he was about to continue working, he heard a knock on the door.

"What's up?"

"Admiral, we have the latest information from Italy."

The secretary's words made Admiral Fisher feel nervous. After he took office, the intelligence work of the Italian Navy was raised to the same level as that of Germany. Firstly, it is because of the large-scale shipbuilding of the Italians, and secondly, Italy always follows the development trend of naval warships. These two alone deserve enough attention.

"come on in."

As General Fisher finished speaking, an intelligence officer led by his secretary came to his desk.

The intelligence officer didn't waste any time and handed over a document directly. "Admiral, this is a new type of warship that the Italians are preparing to build. This is the basic information we understand."

Fisher took the information and started to read it, and his expression became more and more solemn as he read it.

"This is trouble."

What troubled Fisher was that the performance of the battleship in this information was a bit unbelievable. It was equipped with 8 main guns of the same caliber as the new battleship, and the maximum armor was 250 mm. These were not bad. The most puzzling thing is that the ship has a speed of up to 26 knots.

As an old navy man, of course he knows the importance of speed. This means that such a battleship has the speed of a cruiser, the firepower of a battleship, and is not weak in armor. Moreover, the tonnage is limited to just over 20,000 tons. He wanted to talk to his Italian colleagues about how they did this.

Of course, he also saw the threat of a warship. If such a high-speed warship appeared on the transportation lines of the British Empire, it would be a disaster. Cruisers can catch up but can't beat them, battleships can beat them but can't catch up. It would be unspeakably bad for the British Empire if a few more countries owned such warships.

After feeling the troublesome nature of the matter, Fisher immediately spoke to his secretary. "Immediately notify all departments of the Navy to hold a meeting. We need to solve this new big trouble."

Sorry, I typed the chapter name wrong. I'm embarrassed.