Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 211: Chapter 153: Warship Design and Acquisition Plan (Part 2)

At present, various countries’ pursuit of warship firepower obviously leans more toward the caliber of artillery. The main gun caliber of the British ironclad warship has reached 318 millimeters, which also means that the gun power is much stronger than the 305-millimeter steel cannon used by this new Spanish warship.

However, because the British warships use muzzle-loading cannons, they are far inferior to breech-loading cannons in terms of firing speed and range.

Although the 318-millimeter artillery power is far greater than the 305-millimeter artillery, both types of artillery can penetrate the steel armor of existing ironclad ships.

In this situation, the faster-firing and longer-range breech-loading cannon is obviously more advantageous. The design documents also mention in detail that although this warship can only be considered first-rate in terms of power, its firepower has indeed reached world-class levels.

The UK, France, and Germany can also achieve this level of artillery, but they cannot surpass it in a short time. With just the four 305-millimeter breech-loading cannons on this warship, designed by the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard, it already ranks among the top tier of ironclad ship combat power.

The Royal Guanizuo Shipyard’s assessment of the 305-millimeter main gun is that its firing range can reach over 7 kilometers.

Such a range is quite excellent and will have a considerable advantage in naval battles.

Due to the continuous increase in Spain’s steel production, this ironclad will adopt an all-steel structure and add a large amount of steel armor as protection.

The armor thickness on the turret’s front is 16 inches, and the side armor thickness is 14 inches, making the entire battleship appear somewhat bulky.

Although the ship’s armor protection capability is considered, this also brings the conventional displacement of the entire ironclad to a staggering 8600 tons (estimated).

When fully loaded, the ship’s displacement will even approach ten thousand tons, undoubtedly placing it in the top tier among all existing ironclad ships.

However, this design clearly has not moved beyond the inherent thinking of current ironclads. With two turrets located on both sides of the dry deck, compared to the later pre-dreadnought designs, such an arrangement cannot fully exert the main gun’s firepower.

But Carlo does not understand much about this, so he cannot offer any suggestions to the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard.

As long as the design of this warship exceeds the current world-class level of ironclad ships, it already meets the needs of the Spanish navy’s development.

Moreover, for Spain now, whether this warship is built for the navy or for export is still unknown.

Considering the ship’s massive tonnage, the designers at the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard estimate the ship’s speed to be around 12.5 to 13.5 knots.

In simple terms, the maximum speed this warship can reach is about 25 kilometers per hour.

However, the top speed can only be the maximum. During normal navigation of the warship, it will generally not maintain maximum speed.

Because doing so would cause immeasurable damage to the steam engines, as the equipment of this era does not have such high stability.

Although the claimed top speed is around 13.5 knots, in actual cruising conditions, the achievable speed is only below 10 knots and will generally remain around 7 to 8 knots.

This is something that cannot be helped. Before there is a substantial improvement in propulsion technology, the speed of large-tonnage warships at sea remains slow.

Those small yachts are much faster than warships, after all. These ships do not need to consider armor protection capability and firepower output, only ensuring stable navigation at sea.

Looking at the warship design drawings, which are relaxing to contemplate, Carlo pondered for a moment and finally decided to personally canvass orders worldwide for the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard.

For Spain, there are still many things to do during this economic crisis, and building ironclads on a large scale is not suitable.

Moreover, the construction cost of such an ironclad is not low. Since relatively advanced equipment and technology have been adopted, the cost price of the entire ironclad is already close to 500,000 pounds.

Even if the warship is built for the Spanish navy, the shipyard certainly cannot make no profit at all. In the Royal Shipyard’s proposal, if the Spanish navy wishes to purchase this warship, it can be offered an internal price of 550,000 pounds.

But if the warship is exported, the selling price must be increased to at least 600,000 pounds.

This means that the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard can earn a net profit of at least 100,000 pounds for each warship sold.

As long as one or two orders for ironclads can be obtained, it would not only provide the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard with sufficient research and development funds and fully revitalize the entire shipyard, but also enable it to gain a large amount of experience in building the most advanced ironclads, paving the way for the Spanish navy to build its own ironclads in the future.

The bad news is that Europe and America are both affected by the economic crisis, making it difficult to find customers with sufficient financial resources to purchase ironclads.

But the good news is that the impact of the economic crisis on Asia is not significant, so perhaps there are countries here that could become customers for Spain’s new ironclad ships.

In fact, Spain’s comprehensive combat-capable ironclad is relatively cost-effective, and Carlo does not intend to make exorbitant demands.

If a suitable customer is found, reducing the selling price to around 550,000 pounds is also acceptable, which is on par with the internal price for the Spanish navy.