My Italy

"Admiral, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my design."

Cunibody looked at the head of the navy in front of him and reiterated his attitude once again.

"However, the armor of non-important parts of the battleship is weakened or even eliminated, which will make the battleship more vulnerable and may cause greater casualties."

Regarding the words of Chief Designer Cuniberti, Admiral Yagir expressed his concerns. What they were talking about was the design of Italy's first battlecruiser, the Taranto-class battlecruiser.

According to Cuniberti's design, the Taranto-class battle cruiser has a total length of 210 meters, a width of 28.9 meters, and a draft of 9.1 meters. The ship's firepower uses the same eight 305mm main guns and 12 105-caliber secondary guns as the Dante class. Moreover, it uses 24 naval oil-fired boilers, two steam turbines, and four shafts for power. The maximum output power is 56,000 horsepower and the maximum speed is 26.5 knots.

The ship's standard displacement is 20,480 tons, its full load displacement is 23,600 tons, and its endurance is 8,100 nautical miles/14 knots. The maximum waterline armor belt is 250 mm, the compartment armor is 70 mm; the deck armor is 76 mm; the maximum armor of the turret is 280 mm; the maximum armor of the gun mount is 250 mm; the maximum armor of the command tower is 250 mm.

From all aspects, the performance of this battleship is excellent. However, one thing that the navy criticized was that in order to ensure that the ship's performance met the standards, Viscount Cuniberti significantly reduced the ship's armor.

This does not mean that the armor has been reduced. In the key core areas, the armor is quite thick and has not been reduced. However, in non-core areas, Cuniberti drastically reduced its armor, and even canceled the armor directly in many areas.

As a user, the Italian Navy is somewhat dissatisfied with this approach of canceling armor in non-core areas. Because the boundary between core and non-core is not so clear. In addition, the non-core area does not mean that it is unimportant, and if the non-core area is hit too many times, there is still a risk of sinking.

On Cuniboti's side, listening to Admiral Agil's words, he said helplessly. "Admiral, the Navy not only wants the ship to have the firepower of a new battleship, but also needs the ship to be 3-4 knots faster than the Dante-class to create a speed difference. In addition, the cost cannot be much higher than the Dante-class. With such stringent requirements, I We can only think of solutions from the armor."

It is this realistic helplessness that Cuniberti said. First of all, the Italian Navy has limited shipbuilding funds, and it is impossible to arbitrarily increase the construction cost for a single warship. This Taranto-class battlecruiser also took into account its huge role, so it was able to obtain 10% of the construction cost of the Dante-class battleship.

Some people may ask, why was there such a big price gap between Genoa-class battleships and Garibaldi-class cruisers before? That's because the construction costs of these two warships are not high, at least compared to new main warships.

With a limited budget, the new battle cruiser must have sufficient firepower, so its weapons cost will not be low, at least not much lower than the purchase cost of Dante-class weapons (a little less secondary guns).

Weapons are relatively easy to deal with, but the most critical problem for battle cruisers is the high speed. First of all, if you want high speed, you need a sufficient power system, and these large boilers and steam turbines take up a lot of space. In addition, if you want to achieve high speed, the shape of the battleship can also help. The slender hull can help the battleship achieve higher speed.

This also results in the hull and power system accounting for a higher proportion of the weight of the battleship than that of new battleships. The remaining small proportion is obtained by armor.

In this case, the same approach as peppering noodles will never work. This will result in insufficient armor, and it may seem that everything is protected, but in the end, the protection is not in place.

Therefore, focused protection is an inevitable choice. Only by giving priority to ensuring the armor of the core area can the warship avoid fatal damage. Although this will cause greater losses in naval battles, it is the best choice. After all, the Navy itself requested that the ship return to the battle line if necessary and not protect the core area. The power of this large-caliber artillery shell would not be enough for one shot and one shot.

"But, is the 4,250-ton armor ratio too low?"

"Yes, I also think it's a bit low. Otherwise, the Navy's construction cost for this class will be increased a little more, and it only needs to be increased by another 10%."

Admiral Argyle didn't want to accept Cuniberti's words. Don't look at the fact that the navy got 400 million liras from selling ships, but if you don't spend this money sparingly, it will be gone for you in a few clicks. For example, the research and development and verification of new technologies, as well as the construction of warships. If the cost of building battleships is not blocked, these ship designers can let themselves go and accumulate a new gadget for you that has excellent performance but raises your blood pressure.

In addition to new technologies, the purchase of new equipment also costs a lot of money. For example, the procurement of aircraft and airships, as well as new radios, mechanical calculators, large optical telescopes, etc. In addition, for some emerging maritime things, the Navy also needs to invest funds to verify whether they meet the needs of the Navy, etc.

It can be said that as long as you are willing to spend money, the Navy can find hundreds of legitimate reasons to spend all the money.

Therefore, Admiral Yagir is very careful about the extra funds in his hand and will not be easily persuaded to take it out. The construction of the Taranto patrol this time is more to make up for the lack of large high-speed warships in the Italian Navy. However, its cost of 47 million lire made it impossible for Admiral Yagier to continue to increase funds for this battle cruiser, which has become the most expensive battle cruiser in Italy.

Since he didn't want to pay, Admiral Yagir couldn't say anything when faced with Cuniberti who put a difficult problem in front of him. However, Admiral Yagir had an idea. Perhaps this battle cruiser could be shown to Tirpitz. The Germans might also appreciate this battleship, and then they could charge some processing fees and use it to build other battleships.

Speaking of other warships, Admiral Yagil immediately spoke. "Cuniberti, what do you think of the Piedmont-class cruiser?"

As the chief warship designer, Cuniberti certainly knows all kinds of warships built by the navy, and the Piedmont-class cruiser mentioned by Admiral Yagir is the product of new technologies in the new era.

The ship is used for fleet reconnaissance and escort. When necessary, it can also take on the important task of defending one's own or destroying the enemy's sea lines of communication. Therefore, the ship has excellent endurance, firepower and speed.

"Have I not mentioned this class of cruiser before? It is very good. This new cruiser designed by Giuseppe Orlando takes into account all aspects and is a general-purpose cruiser that meets the needs of our country's navy."

The Piedmont-class cruiser he praised has a total length of 147 meters, a width of 16.1 meters, and a draft of 5.2 meters. The ship has a standard displacement of 5,120 tons and a full load displacement of 6,380 tons.

Equipped with 4 twin 152 mm guns, 4 105 mm single barrel guns, 6 75 mm single barrel guns, and two quadruple 533 mm torpedo launchers. Its waterline armor belt is 52 mm, the deck is 24 mm, the turret is 80 mm, and the command tower is 100 mm.

The power output is 28,000 horsepower, the maximum speed is 27 knots, and the endurance is 2,900 nautical miles/15 knots.

From the data point of view, this cruiser is already very good. Even if Cuniberti designed it himself, it would not be better than this one. After all, he is used to designing large battleships. If he is asked to design small and medium-sized battleships, he may not be as good as other excellent designers.

Of course, he also heard the news that this excellent cruiser is not cheap at all. The construction cost is 12 million lire. This is why Admiral Yagir has been unable to decide how many ships to build. However, there is news that the Navy Ministry really likes this ship. Some say they plan to build 6 ships, and some say 8 ships. However, no matter how many ships, this is a headache for the Admiral.