Chapter 2: On Ships

  "Mr. Xu, may I ask you a few questions?" asked Delegato Rio Kunberti, his face slightly changing color. After all, it was quite impolite to directly ask someone about their private matters. "Please go ahead," said Xu Jie with a smile. "Have you ever worked in a ship design institute?" asked Delegato Rio. "To be honest, I haven't worked in any design institute, but my father used to work in the naval ship design institute of the Southern Army during the American Civil War. I've been interested in ship design since I was young, but I only have a superficial understanding and can't complete detailed drawings on my own. I can only draw simple line diagrams." Xu Jie made up his "revolutionary family history" while observing Delegato Rio's expression. Fortunately, Delegato Rio didn't seem to mind and quickly shifted the topic to those drawings.

  "Very good design, even the chief designer of Armstrong shipyard in Britain is no more than that." Li Ao complimented.

  "It's nothing, just a ordinary design, you're being too modest, sir." Xu Jie replied politely.

  "But there are a few things that I have never figured out, and I hope you can enlighten me." The tone of Rio's words suddenly changed.

  "If I'm not mistaken, it should be ramming, torpedoes and sailing speed, right?" Xu Jie said with a smile.

  "Can you tell me the reason?" Rio asked in surprise.

  "First of all, let's talk about the cost," said Xu Jie. "Do you know how much a 4,300-ton armored cruiser is worth?"

  "If it's an overseas order, it should be around 300,000 pounds." Liao calculated and said.

  "In actual combat, if a dome-shaped cruiser wants to collide with another dome-shaped cruiser, is the probability high?" Xu Jie asked.

  "This is going to be tough. After all, both sides are moving too fast. And the closer we get to the cannons, the higher the hit rate will be. It's possible that we'll be sunk before we even collide." Delegated Rio thought for a moment and said.

  "Do you think ramming is necessary? Not to mention that it's basically useless. And even if it was useful, using a warship worth nearly 300,000 pounds for ramming isn't a bit too wasteful?" Xu Jie smiled.

  "Is this it? But if we can crash into the corner just in case, it's still necessary, right?" Rio replied.

  "As for torpedoes, I have a similar view to that of the ramming. Currently, the effective range of torpedoes is only a few hundred meters, and they are generally installed at the bow of the ship. Not only is the range short, but it's also not suitable for use in a line formation. So the cost-effectiveness is very low. As for the speed issue, I personally think that as long as it's enough, it's fine. There's no need to pursue high speeds like the British do." Xu Jie said with a smile.

  "However, from a design perspective, a good cruiser should be equipped with quick-firing guns, ramming ability, and torpedoes. Its speed should be as fast as possible, and its protection should also be as good as possible." Although Rio somewhat agreed with Xu Jie's opinion, the deeply ingrained traditional views of his time were not something that could be changed with just a few words.

  "What conditions does Your Excellency think a good ship should have?" Xu Jie asked after taking a sip of his coffee.

  "Higher speed, stronger firepower, better protection, stability." Rio spat out.

  "Hmm, not bad. But this is more like a work of art than a weapon." Xu Jie leaned forward slightly, showing interest in the Italian warship designer, who seemed to be still far from being as mature as when he designed the Garibaldi.

  "What does your lordship mean?" Riole asked with a hint of mockery.

  "Good design, suitable speed, balanced offense and defense, suitable cost, stability. This is the standard for evaluating whether a warship is excellent. Getting a balance in all aspects of constraint is the goal pursued by designers." Xu Jie said confidently.

  "Excuse me, could you elaborate on that?" Rio suddenly showed interest in the commission.

  "I won't say much about the four points you just mentioned. Let me emphasize again the cost control and design concept." Xu Jie took a sip of coffee to moisten his throat.

  "Cost and design. First, you have to understand that any performance of a warship is piled up with pounds. And when the military purchases, they must consider the cost. So a warship must make appropriate trade-offs on some performances. Overly pursuing excellent indicators and comprehensive equipment will lead the warship design astray. For example, if you pursue firepower and protection, you will definitely increase the tonnage, and to ensure speed, the power must be strengthened. And strengthening the power will push up the cost and technical difficulty, directly affecting the stability of the ship. It has increased the difficulty of design." Xu Jie said calmly, without a hint of hesitation or unease, as if he were a teacher lecturing students.

  Delegato nodded in agreement. The Italian Navy's battleships built in the 80s were mostly of that type, with strong firepower but limited protection, and Delegato was well aware of this. At that time, the Italian Navy pursued too much firepower and protection, resulting in insufficient tonnage to equip armor for warships. Some million-ton class warships didn't even have waterline armor. When designing warships himself, he also considered the balance of performance subconsciously, but when it came to specific trade-offs, he always failed to grasp them well.

  "Take the armored cruiser I designed, for example. Knowing that the ram and torpedo are not very useful, even dangerous, I abandoned them and used the saved tonnage to strengthen other main capabilities of the warship. The entire ship has 10 6-inch guns, with a maximum of 6 6-inch guns on each side. With the new recoil mechanism, theoretically, it can fire 36 6-inch shells per minute. Such firepower is already beyond that of all existing same-class armored cruisers. At the same time, in order to strengthen combat effectiveness, the armor belt covers almost the entire length of the ship. This makes it possible to protect key compartments such as the engine room and ammunition depot even if the warship is hit. The armor at the bow and stern is not redundant, and once the bow or stern is penetrated, the armor can prevent serious listing. In terms of gun placement, I raised the guns to avoid the situation where some guns are submerged due to high speed. At the same time, the 4.7-inch armor is sufficient to defend against attacks from 120mm caliber naval guns, preserving firepower. As for speed, you've seen it. Achieving such firepower and defense on a 4,000-ton warship is already close to the limit. Therefore, pursuing excessive speed is difficult to achieve. At the same time, since cruisers are meant to fight in formation, unless the entire fleet can reach extremely high speeds, there is no point in having just one or two ships maintain high speed. From a technical standpoint and from actual combat needs, there is no need for speed to exceed 20 knots. According to my calculations, if a 4,000-ton armored cruiser wants to achieve a speed of over 23 knots, the propulsion system must be close to 15,000 horsepower. (Historically, the main engine of the Yoshino had 15,000 horsepower and reached 23 knots, while the later Chōyō Maru, with a similar main engine, could reach 20 knots at nearly 10,000 tons displacement. It can be seen that the price paid for an additional 3 knots of speed is quite high.) However, if we maintain a speed of 20 knots, less than 10,000 horsepower is needed. I think which option is better is clear to you, sir." Xu Jie finished speaking and raised his glass beside him to conceal his pride, knowing that this speech was the result of a night's worth of thinking, enough to calm down this immature designer.

  At this point, Delegato thoroughly abandoned his initial arrogance and contempt for the Chinese man in front of him. He listened carefully to Xu Jie's words, taking notes as he spoke. After Xu Jie finished speaking, Delegato remained deep in thought, staring at the records in front of him for a long time. Several minutes later, Delegato suddenly jumped up from his chair and gave Xu Jie a hearty bear hug: "Thank you, I finally know where my bottleneck is! Your words have benefited me greatly. Thank you so much!" Meanwhile, Xu Jie smiled slightly, patting Delegato's shoulder in approval while secretly letting out a sigh of relief: "Y has finally passed the test."