Chapter Twenty-Five: Striving for Perfection

  October 1st, "Friedrich der Grosse" was laid down at the Imperial Shipyard in Wilhelmshaven.

  Although the warship had many design flaws, particularly its low speed, as the first pre-dreadnought battleship built for the German Empire in recent years, it was still highly valued. On that day, members of the royal family including Frederick III, Victoria, Crown Prince Wilhelm and others, as well as Chancellor Bismarck, Minister of War von Caprivi and other officials attended the ceremony, which was presided over by Frederick III himself. Two years later, Crown Prince Wilhelm personally smashed a bottle of champagne against the bow of the ship, sending this majestic giant into the arms of the sea.

  Feng Chengqian was also very excited at the groundbreaking ceremony.

  This is the first warship he built with his own hands after coming to this era. Although he knew that there would be more warships completed by him in the future, as the creator of a new maritime power, Feng Chengqian was still too obsessed and seemed more dedicated than anyone else.

  The construction of "Frederick the Great" caused a sensation internationally.

  British newspapers, while highly valuing the German Navy, could not help but mock the Germans for not understanding naval warfare and wasting huge sums of money to build a battleship that was slower than a turtle. The Times' comment was most apt: "Friedrich der Grosse" was neither able to defeat nor outrun the main force of the British Royal Navy in battle, and had no chance of winning or even escaping, making it a completely worthless warship.

  The British are proud, and they have every right to be.

  Other countries also followed suit, with newspapers in France and Russia denouncing the "Friedrich der Grosse" and even Italian newspapers showed no mercy.

  Did these nations have capital mocking the German Second Empire?

  Perhaps France does, as France once had the world's second-largest fleet and now has a navy stronger than that of the German Empire.

  As for countries like Russia and Italy, they don't even have the qualifications to mock the Second German Empire.

  There is one thing that cannot be denied, the "Friedrich der Grosse" set off a new wave of shipbuilding frenzy, which can also be said to be a warm-up exercise for the naval arms race ten years later.

  That month, the British Royal Navy proposed building a main battleship with all heavy artillery.

  France, Russia and Italy soon followed with their own naval construction plans, as did the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary.

  At this time, however, the technical level was still insufficient to build a true "dreadnought" battleship.

  After recognizing the technical difficulties, the British Royal Navy retreated and lowered the scale of shipbuilding and the technical standards for new warships. They still adopted the triple-expansion reciprocating steam engine and were equipped with 30-caliber heavy guns. In the end, only one was built due to budget constraints.

  The British Royal Navy retreated, but the German Empire's navy did not stop its advance.

  When drafting the budget for the next fiscal year, von Tirpitz took advantage of the smooth start of construction on Frederick the Great to propose building another battleship. Although Bismarck expressed opposition, believing that the empire did not need to rush to expand its fleet size, Frederick III was not very satisfied with the performance of Frederick the Great and believed it necessary to build a more advanced and powerful warship.

  Finally, with the support of Frederick III, the construction work of the new warship was determined.

  The Imperial government allocated 1.2 million marks, and the Ministry of War added another 600,000 marks to build a super ironclad in the fiscal year 1890.

  In a show of support, Frederick III named the warship "Wilhelm der Gro?e".

  That is, Friedrich III named the still unborn battleship after his father, the founder of the German Empire.

  Thereafter, Crown Prince Wilhelm voluntarily donated one million Imperial Marks for the vessel.

  The emperor personally named the warship, and the crown prince led the donation. Immediately, a wave of donations swept across the empire, and within just one month, the Imperial Ministry of War received 14 million donations. Although only a small portion came from ordinary citizens, hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily donated.

  Once the funding is no problem, other things will be much easier to handle.

  At the end of the year, von Tirpitz was recalled by Friedrich von Holstein and put in charge of the daily administrative affairs of the Imperial Naval Office, while he himself went to the shipyard at Wilhelmshaven.

  Although it has been only a few months, many of the problems that existed in the design of "Frederick the Great" have already been resolved.

  The development of the 350mm giant cannon by Krupp's factory is proceeding smoothly, but this artillery has only thirty times the caliber and its armor-piercing power is severely insufficient. Feng Chongqian hopes to get a large-caliber artillery with sufficient armor-piercing power, so he entrusted Krupp's factory to develop a 40-caliber 300mm naval gun. The research and development of the triple turret is proceeding smoothly, even if it cannot be equipped with "Friedrich der Grosse", it will definitely be equipped with "Wilhelm der Grosse".

  What surprised Feng Chengqian was that after receiving funding from the Imperial Ministry of War, the Mans steel plant also made some progress in the research of surface carburizing hardening armor steel, and several young technical experts came up with many good ideas and were working hard to achieve mass production.

  But when designing the "Wilhelm der Gro?e", there was still an insurmountable obstacle.

  This is the power system.

  Although Feng Chengqian pointed out the direction for imperial engineers, namely small-tube boilers and steam turbines, a technological breakthrough requires a solid accumulation, which is exactly what the empire lacks.

  Not to mention during the design phase, even three years later when "Wilhelm der Gro?e" was completed, the Empire had not made any significant breakthroughs in the field of water-tube boilers and steam turbines. It would take another ten years, around 1900, for the Empire to be able to manufacture usable steam turbines.

  Through designing "Friedrich der Grosse", Feng Shengqian gained a deeper understanding of warship design work.

  Designing a warship, the first consideration is the power system. First, based on performance indicators, roughly determine the output power of the power system, and then combine the performance of the power equipment to determine how many boilers and steam engines are needed, which can also determine the tonnage occupied by the power system. Then, in the remaining tonnage, allocate the tonnage occupied by armor, firepower and other systems, and thus draw up a rough design plan.

  The propulsion system performance is lagging behind, which means occupying more tonnage, and also means that other systems must be streamlined.

  The total budget for the "Kaiser Wilhelm der Gro?e" was 16 million marks, and after deducting design costs, construction cost around 13 million marks.

  By this standard, it can be roughly determined that the standard displacement of "William the Great" is around 14,000 tons.

  In terms of displacement alone, the performance of "Wilhelm der Gro?e" was a big step up from that of "Friedrich der Gro?e", allowing for more tonnage to be devoted to armor and armament.

  The question is, "Wilhelm der Gro?e" could never be a capital ship with a top speed of only twelve knots.

  To persuade Chancellor Bismarck, Frederick III explicitly stated that the top speed of "Wilhelm der Gro?e" had to be at least on a par with contemporary warships.

  According to the standards at that time, it should have reached sixteen sections.

  Once the tonnage and speed are determined, it can be roughly calculated that the output power of the "Wilhelm der Gro?e" propulsion system must reach at least 16,000 horsepower. Considering that the ship type will be affected by the layout of the firepower system during design, the design output power of the propulsion system should also be appropriately increased.

  Rated at 18,000 horsepower, the "Wilhelm der Gro?e" was to be equipped with sixteen boilers and four triple-expansion steam engines.

  Adding the 1,500 tons of coal needed for a range of 3,500 nautical miles, the propulsion system took up 5,000 tons. After removing the 4,500 tons used by the basic structure of the hull and several hundred tons used by other equipment, only 4,000 tons were left for armor and armament, which was clearly insufficient.

  When designing, there must be something to give up.

  Give up firepower or give up armor?

  If the firepower is abandoned, "Wilhelm der Gro?e" can only be equipped with two triple 300mm caliber guns, and its firepower is not as good as that of "Friedrich der Gro?e". If armor is abandoned, when "Wilhelm der Gro?e" is equipped with three turrets, its protective ability is not as good as that of the "Sachsen"-class.

  At that time, most engineers believed that firepower should be abandoned.

  Even with only two triple turrets, the "Wilhelm der Gro?e" had six main guns, which was a mid-range standard for ironclads of her time. Some engineers suggested that three twin turrets should be used instead to increase the survivability of the turrets in combat.

  However, Feng Chengqian insisted again that protective gear should be abandoned.

  There is no doubt that Feng Congqian's understanding was ahead of his time, and extremely so.

  The number of turrets, the way they are arranged, and how the guns are mounted will directly determine the structure of the hull. And in later improvements, what can't be changed is the structure of the hull. So in Feng Chengqian's view, after giving up armor, "Wilhelm der Gro?e" can still shine with new vitality in future improvements.

  To put it simply, after the performance of the power system is improved, the displacement of the warship can be increased by improving the power system without affecting other performances, thereby enhancing the protective capability by increasing the thickness of armor, and the firepower can be preserved.

  But can this design approach pass the test of Frederick III?

  It must be known that this warship was personally ordered to be built by the German Emperor and named after his predecessor. If it were another mediocre one, it would definitely not be able to account for itself to the German Emperor.

  This time, Feng Chengqian played another trick again.

  According to his requirements, the "William the Great" was designed as a three-turret battleship with a unique two-forward-one-aft turret arrangement, with two turrets located forward of the forebridge and one aft of the afterbridge, the first two turrets being superfiring. As for armor protection, Feng only required key protection for the turrets, command tower, magazines, boiler rooms and engine rooms.

  Obviously, at that time no engineer recognized this design method.

  It is worth noting that apart from the main parts, "Wilhelm der Gro?e" had almost no armor protection elsewhere, and even small boat guns could penetrate.

  Feng Chengqian didn't care about that much and handed over the design draft to Frederick III after receiving it.

  Fortunately, the German Emperor did not understand the navy or warships and could not see the problems, especially the armor protection data that was deliberately erased by von Kiederling.

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