What is a friend? Friends are able to seek common ground while reserving differences, and to turn big differences between each other into small matters. What is an enemy? Nothing big can ferment and then it cannot be cured. From the current perspective, Ruprecht and His Highness of the Crown Prince obviously belong to the former. Ruprecht said so righteously that Prince William could not say he refused to bid? And as far as the current situation is concerned, it is possible for the German emperor to invest in the Bavaria-Austrian arms consortium, after all, the other party was not blocked.

So His Highness decisively chose to shelve the dispute and talk about other topics first. "You just said that there are two plans for the new cruiser, so what is the other plan? Can you talk about it now?"

"The other plan is now under design. In terms of tonnage, defense and number of artillery is similar to the first plan. The biggest difference is the deployment method of artillery. The eight 260mm heavy artillery of the No. 2 plan is divided into 4 dual-mounted turrets, two of which are arranged at the end, and the other two are arranged at the diagonal position of the hull. In this way, at a certain angle, the No. 2 plan can exert the firepower of 8 260mm cannons," Ruprecht said and asked someone to bring in another model.

"This is indeed extraordinary!" When the model of the No. 2 armored cruiser with almost the same scale was sent to Prince William, the Crown Prince immediately felt a shock! A feeling that although he didn't understand, he felt very powerful! This strong visual impact is definitely not something that can be described in simple language!

This warship is really beautiful. The simple and clear layout of the ship makes His Royal Highness William feel very comfortable. Although the diagonal arrangement affects the beauty, in terms of overall vision, this warship still makes Prince William feel bright!

"In order to give the artillery a better reverse firing boundary, we have deliberately reduced the number of chimneys and integrated the chimney and snorkels to make the ship surface cleaner. While optimizing the hull layout as much as possible, our artillery reverse firing boundary reached about 90 degrees. We fully utilized the power of the main gun! This layout is more advanced and scientific than the No. 1 solution." Ruprecht said.

Of course, compared with the real central axis layout, the layout of this quadrilateral is definitely not advanced, but in the current technological environment, this layout still has its advantages. The power system of the warships in the pre-Dreadnought era is extremely low per unit weight. If the warships want to have high speed, they must install a large number of boilers, and the proportion of the power cabins accounts for a very large proportion.

Although hardened armor has been used to prevent heavy artillery under the same circumstances, it also requires a huge protection area in close-range high-explosive bombs, so the total weight of the armor is not much... In the era of slow artillery and black powder shells, it was not easy to burn the warships by projection, so the defense area of ​​the warships at that time was usually relatively small.

In the end, the contradiction between the length of the hull and the armor defense has not been completely resolved, so limiting the length of the core area and compressing important equipment into a smaller range has become something that the designer must do. The central axis layout is indeed beneficial, but the length cost is a bit too high. Not only the length of the core area, but also puts great pressure on the area of ​​the ship surface equipment.

Moreover, there is another hidden danger in the arrangement of the turrets on the central axis, that is, if the two turrets are too close, it is very likely that a shell of Bei will destroy two main guns... and this will never happen if the arrangement method of the battlecruiser von der Tinn is similar to that of the battlecruiser!

So after hesitation, Ruprecht still adopted a gun layout similar to von der Tinn, and at the same time optimized the ship surface equipment and pipelines, and completed the fusion design of chimney and ventilation pipelines in advance. The battleship chimney was reduced to two. The sturdy and durable triangular mast design method was adopted. The armed mast plate was cancelled. In any case, this design was indeed trendy and beautiful!

"That's the design!" His Royal Highness the Crown Prince made the decision.

"Your Highness, this design has not been completed yet...it may take a long time." Ruprecht made a helpless expression.

"So what about the battleship plan?" Prince William said with some interest.

"It's an enlarged version of Brandenburg's battleship. The firepower layout is still in front 1 and 2. One of the two turrets at the back is on the extended sales office and the other is on the main deck. The side string armor is 10 inches thick, gradually weakening up to 6 inches, and connected to the upper deck. The thickness of other parts of the armor is referenced to the cruiser plan. The main gun is 6 12 inches l40 guns. The secondary gun is 12 150mm secondary guns. The speed should be around 19 knots, because it is a battleship, and the endurance requirements can be lower. The displacement is about 15,000 tons."

"This plan is not very attractive except for firepower. It is basically a simple upgrade version. Sacrifice speed for defense and firepower." William II said.

"It is true if it is simply about the defense of artillery. But the biggest advantage of this new battleship lies in its defense against torpedoes and mines! We used subdivided compartments at the bottom of the hull and used three layers of TDS for defense. The outermost layer is an empty compartment, and the middle layer is a liquid compartment, which is used to hold ballast water. The innermost layer is a coal compartment, and the back plate of the coal compartment is made of armored steel. In time, the shrapnel breaks through the three-layer compartment outside, so the last layer of steel can also block the remaining fragments and protect the internal facilities." Ruprecht explained.

Originally, Ruprecht also wanted to create a three-layer lightning protection compartment for the armored cruiser, or even a lightning protection protrusion, but considering the high-speed needs of the cruiser, the hull is obviously not good. So the outer empty warehouse and the inner coal warehouse are still used. Then the subdivided partition design is adopted. So this initial design was used on the battleship. As for the layout of the three-layer boiler compartment, let's think about it now.

The situation is now like this. Ruprecht has explained all 2 sub-programs and 3 small plans. It depends on how the German Navy chooses.

"What do you mean?" William II thought about it and decided to listen to Ruprecht's opinion first.

"After completing the two Brandenburg-class battleships, I prefer to build two battleships first and then consider the issue of cruisers." Ruprecht said in contemplation for a while.

"Is there any reason for this?" William II asked with a slight eyebrow.

"Of course there is a reason! The reason is very sufficient!" Ruprecht kept roaring in his heart. Today, he had been useless for a long time, and now he is finally going to talk about serious things! Ruprecht always believed that since he has made so much contribution to the development of the German Navy, it is also worth it to let the German Navy get some difficulties!
Chapter completed!