Seven Seas Beacon Fire

Zhu Miaoyun's eyes widened, then she grabbed Li Che's face and started kissing him passionately: "Ahhh, Ah Zhi is so good to his sister! Sister loves you!"

"You're only a few months older than me..."

"Even though you're a little older, you're still my older sister. Besides, isn't this your kind of thing?"

Chapter 354 The Strongest Main Warship in the Inter-War (1)

Two months passed in the blink of an eye, and Zhu Miaoyun was about to give birth. Li Che stayed by his pregnant wife's side all the time, after all, it was his first time becoming a father, and he was a little nervous.

Even Zhu Miaoyun noticed that Li Che might be a little nervous and anxious. So when the Crown Prince and Crown Princess came to the ward to visit their daughter-in-law, they saw their beloved grandson burying his head in Zhu Miaoyun's chest, just like a younger brother being comforted by Zhu Miaoyun.

Then, Li Che received a scolding from his father, who called him "useless" and asked, "How are you like me?" Meanwhile, the Crown Princess took Zhu Miaoyun's hand with concern, chased the father and son away, and used her own experience to give Zhu Miaoyun some advice on childbirth.

The father and son arrived outside the ward. Because the Crown Prince had been too busy recently, the two hadn't seen each other much, and now they were even a little awkward. Their eyes met, and neither knew what to say. Li Che had probably entrusted his mind to Zhu Miaoyun for the time being. He took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and asked, "Want one?"

He immediately realized that he was showing off the bad habits that the navy guys had instilled in him. Sure enough, when the prince found out that this guy hadn't quit smoking even when his wife was about to give birth, he was furious and immediately pulled out Seven Wolves cigarettes from his waist.

Fortunately, at this time the navy provided crucial assistance. Oh no, it was the navy that sent an urgent document. Because Zhu Miaoyun was in the most critical period of her pregnancy, Li Che had not focused his main energy on military affairs as he had in the past. Generally speaking, the navy would only bother the Crown Prince when there were particularly important issues. If there was nothing major, they would not bother the Crown Prince on days like these.

Li Che immediately found an excuse to leave, and took the documents, leaving the hospital first.

After getting into the Navy Department's car waiting outside the hospital, Li Che finally let out a long sigh of relief, opened the file bag, tore off the wax seal on the back, glanced at the documents inside, and then stared at Xu Yueming sitting opposite him with a strange expression: "Are you sure this is intelligence gathered by the Military Intelligence Bureau's intelligence network in Victoria?"

"Not only from intelligence networks in Victoria, but also from intelligence networks in Colombia, it is believed that the Victorian Navy may be building a brand new, revolutionary capital ship, an aviation battleship."

Li Che's eyelids twitched. An air battleship?

Is there any solid evidence?

"Yes, Your Highness, yes." Xu Yueming said, pointing to several photos that Li Che had taken out along with the documents from the file bag: "These are photos of the 'Nelson'-class battleship in the harbor, which is preparing for its launching ceremony. Although only the hull of the ship has been completed so far, and the turrets have not yet been installed, you can still see that the layout of the three main gun turrets of this battleship is very unique."

Two of the main gun turrets are located at the front of the ship. The No. 2 main gun turret is raised to form a negative-back layout, which is normal up to this point. However, behind the bridge, the ring of the third main gun turret can be seen. Further back, only the opening of the propulsion system can be seen. The entire rear half of the ship has no main gun turrets.

This layout was unprecedented in battleship designs from various countries. According to information we obtained from the Colombian Navy, they began paying attention to these two super battleships of the Royal Victoria Navy earlier than we did. The Colombian Navy seemed very certain that these two ships, inspired by their Constellation-class aircraft carriers, were intended to achieve the dual functions of battleships and aircraft carriers with the tonnage of battleships.

Li Che took another serious look at the photos, taken by an unknown person. In the Victorian Empire, these photos would definitely be considered "leakage would be punished with arrest and execution." Judging from the pictures, the layout of these two Nelson-class battleships was completely different from that of the Nelson-class battleships in the other world.

In another world, the Nelson-class battleship, as an "economical version" of the three-line battleship design, adopted a rather extreme concentrated firepower layout, placing all the main gun turrets at the front of the hull, thus gaining the best protection capability among the Big Seven during the interwar period. In terms of armor-piercing shells, it can be said that until the Nagato-class battleships completed their final large-scale refit, the Nelson-class battleships could be called the kings of armor-piercing shells in the world.

In another world, the Nelson-class ships, due to their unique layout, were mistakenly considered by the Beacon Navy to be a revolutionary aviation battleship even before their completion. They were believed to possess the advantages of both battleships and aircraft carriers, becoming a multi-functional all-rounder that would dominate future naval warfare.

However, this conjecture disappeared after the Nelson-class battleships were finally completed. In fact, the reason why the Lighthouse Navy had such a conjecture was that they estimated the Nelson's armor protection capabilities based on the design capabilities of their own naval designers. The final estimate was that the Nelson-class battleships' armor protection capabilities were on par with the Lexington-class battlecruisers. They never expected that the designers of the Nelson-class were not like the Lighthouse designers of the same period who grew up on pig feed. The main armor, which was like a wall of sighs during the interwar period, could be compared with a number of cutting-edge battleships even if it was dragged into World War II.

The ship in the Victoria Navy was indeed not the Nelson that Li Che was familiar with in another world, but regarding this arrangement, Li Che felt as if he were Jia Baoyu meeting Lin Daiyu—this younger sister was someone he had clearly seen before.

Isn't this an M3 or N3?

Li Che was 99% certain that the layout the Victoria Navy was going through wasn't intended to be an aircraft battleship at all. This unique layout was simply for concentrated protection and to pursue the ultimate in decoy warfare! By deploying all the main guns and ammunition magazines in the middle and forward of the hull, the thickest armor boxes could be fitted in front, while the protection of the engine room could be appropriately weakened. In short, the design language of the entire ship can be summed up in one sentence.

I will launch an attack in the ultimate armor-piercing form!

As for why this layout, which is indeed very suitable for arranging aircraft battleships, will not evolve into an aircraft battleship, it is naturally because the wisdom of the Victoria Navy is good when it is used to design dedicated battleships or dedicated aircraft carriers, but once it is to design a hybrid warship, it will immediately make people throw up their hands and faint.

He still remembers that in another world, RN had written an article specifically arguing for the inefficiency of the so-called new air battleship design. The conclusion of the article was not actually wrong, but the problem was that the process of arguing was extremely stupid.

In short, those idiots argued that a so-called air battleship that could only carry a dozen or so aircraft was ineffective, and that it was no good... But the problem is, how the hell did you manage to only carry a dozen or so aircraft?

Despite having a smaller aircraft carrying area and more complicated seaplane operations than you, Ise, a company that started out in the seaplane industry and can only carry seaplanes, still carries more seaplanes than you!

This kind of argument is like trying to prove that the Rafale is inferior to the J-10C. The conclusion itself is not wrong, but your argument that the simulated performance of the Rafale is even worse than the Mirage 2000 is completely unconvincing. Anyone who doesn't know better would think you're just trolling and criticizing the J-10.

“I don’t think this will be an aircraft carrier battleship.” Li Che waved his hand: “At least for now, the Victorian Navy is not only not at a disadvantage compared to our and the Colombian Navy in terms of aircraft carriers, they even have an advantage in that regard. However, the only thing they lack is gunboats. Although the strength and quality of their fleet’s mid-strength are excellent, the Victorian Navy lacks a sufficiently powerful top-tier force. These two Nelson-class battleships are the only two warships that can supplement their gunboat fleet for the next ten years or so. If I were in charge of the Victorian Royal Navy, I would only make these two ships the ultimate surface gunboats.”

Li Che's words were not simply a recitation of his experiences in another world. He had previously studied in detail the composition of the Royal Victoria Navy's fleet strength in this world, and his statement that the Royal Victoria Navy was currently stronger than both the Tang Dynasty and Columbia in terms of naval aviation was absolutely true at present.

The reason lies in those three aircraft carriers that were converted from the Courageous-class large light cruisers. Due to their relatively small tonnage and the fact that the Royal Victoria Navy's aircraft carrier conversion program involved fewer structural changes (the positions of the gun mounts were not even changed), two of these three 20,000-ton aircraft carriers, each equipped with two quadruple 9.2-inch main guns, have already completed their conversions and joined the Royal Victoria Navy's combat fleet this year.

In addition to these three aircraft carriers, the Victoria Navy also has a battleship hull awaiting the operational experience of these three carriers before undergoing modification. Although these carriers have various problems from a long-term perspective, especially when operating larger carrier-based aircraft from the late 30s, their aviation operation capabilities will inevitably be stretched thin unless they undergo a complete overhaul. However, you must admit that when operating the current small aircraft, these carriers are at least as good as the Colombian Navy's Constellation-class aircraft carriers of more than 3 tons.

As for the Tang Dynasty... the Dragon Phoenix-class aircraft carrier, which is still under high secrecy, is still considered by outsiders to be a monster carrying 280mm naval guns. Its aviation operation capabilities are considered by outsiders to be slightly inferior to those of the constellation.

Under such circumstances, the Royal Navy of Victoria has really no reason to further enhance the strength of its naval aviation.

Replenishing the combat power of large ships and heavy artillery is the best option.

Chapter 355 The Strongest Main Warship in the Inter-War (2)

Victorian Empire Newcastle Shipyard

On this rare day of fine weather for the Victorian Islands, high-ranking military and political officials, nobles, and celebrities of the Victorian Empire gathered here to witness the launching ceremony of the most powerful capital ship in the history of the Victorian Royal Navy, which had been invincible for the past century.

Stanley, who just led the Conservative Party to defeat the Liberal Party again this year, also successfully took over the power of Prime Minister of the Victorian Empire from Lloyd George. It should be noted that the last time a Conservative was Prime Minister was 20 years ago when Balfour was Prime Minister. Counting from the date Balfour stepped down, the Conservative Party has not held the highest power in the Victorian Empire for a full 17 years.

Although Lloyd George led the Victorian Empire to victory in the World War, defeating the Leitanian Empire, its greatest enemy since Prime Minister Salisbury, any discerning person in the Victorian Empire could see that the Victorian Empire gained nothing from the World War except for the victory itself.

After the fall of the Lytanian Empire, although the Gallic Kingdom, having also suffered heavy losses in the world war, did not expand or contend for supremacy in Europe, many in the Victorian Empire believed that once the Gallic Kingdom recovered, it would seek to dominate Western Europe. At that time, Europe would return to a situation where the Gallic Kingdom was the sole dominant power, and the Victorian Empire's long-standing strategy of continental balance would once again fall apart.

Furthermore, the Empire was forced to accept the independence of Barat, its most important colony. Although this was in fact the best outcome that Prime Minister Lloyd George and the elites within the Liberal Party had managed to achieve, the economic situation had not improved in the two years since the war ended. Prime Minister Lloyd George and the Liberal Party were helpless in the face of the increasingly shrinking domestic economy. No matter how great Lloyd George's contribution in leading the Empire to victory in the war was, it was not enough to win the Liberal Party another election.

In fact, these problems that were difficult for the Liberal Party were equally difficult for the Conservative Party, which won the election. Andrew, who was originally prepared by the Conservative Party to run for prime minister, directly withdrew from the race. Stanley stepped up and eventually won the prime ministership. However, when Stanley handed over the reins to Lawrence George, he found that Lawrence George did not show any frustration at losing the election, but only a sincere and relaxed smile.

Stanley has been in office as prime minister for a month now, and in that month he has not found an effective way to deal with the current troubles. In fact, right now, outside the iron bars of the gates of the Newcastle shipyard, many unemployed workers gather every day in the hope of getting a job that will allow them to support their families.

Seeing the dire state of affairs within the country, Prime Minister Stanley couldn't help but worry about the future of the empire. After all, a country that could be described as an anomaly had emerged in Eastern Europe. Although this country was still young and had just managed to drag down a small country like Polania through a less-than-honorable war, forcing it to make concessions on border issues, all of this seemed somewhat shameful from the perspective of the former Ursus Empire's status. However, many powers, including the Victoria Empire, dared not underestimate the Ursus Federation.

After all, following such a war, new schools of thought were spreading in various countries, and no one wanted to end up like those nobles of Ursus, hanging from a lamppost by the new schools of thought.

In this situation, without any effective solutions to the economic and livelihood problems, Prime Minister Stanley could only resort to other methods to maintain stability, much like a helpless Paradox Interactive player.

The launching ceremony of the lead ship of the Nelson-class battleships, HMS Nelson, is one of the most pressing matters that Prime Minister Stanley has been working on since taking office.

In fact, anyone familiar with the past construction process of Royal Navy warships in the past can see that the current Nelson-class battleship is far from being ready for immediate launch in peacetime.

In theory, once the main body of a battleship is completed, it can be launched and vacated on the slipway to complete the outfitting work at the berth. Especially during wartime, even for a long-established naval power like the Victorian Empire, large dry docks of 200 meters or more are relatively precious, and it is very important to maximize the utilization efficiency of these large dry docks.

However, during this naval holiday and economic downturn, these large slipways are unlikely to have any heavy tasks, and it would be good enough if they were not left idle in the future. Under these circumstances, the Nelson-class battleships could theoretically have achieved a very high degree of completion inside the slipway, such as completing the superstructure and main and secondary gun turrets before launching, instead of rushing to hold a launching ceremony with three empty seat rings and a bridge that can only be described as a rough shell.

The difference between the two can be seen by comparing the different states of our own Type 003 aircraft carrier and India's newly launched Vikrant-class aircraft carrier.

However, both the newly appointed Prime Minister Stanley and the increasingly declining Victorian Empire need a "world's strongest battleship" to demonstrate their strength to their citizens and other "friendly nations." This propaganda tactic is actually part of a Germanic approach to winning.

However, it is indeed very useful in the short term, especially for the celebrities from all walks of life who attended the launching ceremony today. Looking at the unprecedentedly huge ship in front of them, it is as if the glory of Sir Nelson has returned to the Victorian Empire along with this steel behemoth.

Prime Minister Stanley was delivering his speech into the microphone, while David Beatty, the current Royal Navy Admiral, First Lord of the Navy, and First Earl of the North Sea and Brooksby, stood alone in a relatively secluded corner next to the podium. Unlike the others attending the launching ceremony, his gaze was not focused on the Prime Minister who was giving a speech. Since entering the shipyard, his eyes had been fixed on the steel behemoth in the distance.

The once flamboyant and fierce Royal Navy commander now seems to have lost his passion and impulsiveness. It seems that there is a kind of curse in the Royal Navy of Victoria: no matter how charismatic, flamboyant, or ambitious a naval commander was before, from the moment they became the Commander of the Royal Navy of Victoria, they would be molded into the same character by the position and adopt similar strategies.

It's like a monkey wearing a golden headband.

At that moment, David Beatty heard whispers coming from not far away through his other ear. He turned his head and saw two military attachés from the Colombian Navy. The two men were also focused on the large ship in the distance. They were so engrossed in their discussion that they hadn't lowered their voices enough for Beatty to hear what they were saying.

"Did you see that? Judging by its appearance, it should be 220 to 230 meters long. This ship may be slightly longer than the Tiger-class battlecruiser."

"Yes, there are no heavy cannons in the stern of this ship. I suspect that these Britons will build a hangar and flight deck on it. This should be a fast capital ship similar to the Queen Elizabeth-class battleship. After all, the faster the speed, the greater the deck wind, which will be beneficial for the operation of aircraft on this warship."

"How fast do you think this ship will be? Will it be the same 25 knots as the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, or even faster?"

"I think it might reach close to the Tiger-class battlecruiser's 27 knots. After all, this is the Victorian Empire's newest and most powerful capital ship, and they have no reason not to equip it with the best boilers..."

Hearing the discussion between the two Colombian military attachés, David Beatty almost burst out laughing. In the past period of time, countries around the world have paid the highest level of attention to these two newest battleships of the Victorian Empire, and have made all sorts of speculations.

Given the Royal Navy's past glory and outstanding performance in this world war, the speculation surrounding these two battleships is much like the various "science fiction warships" predicted by military commentators when the Zumwalt first appeared in another world—it's safe to assume everyone is guessing the worst.

After all, at the time the treaty was signed, the two Admiral-class battlecruisers of the Royal Navy of Victoria only had 15-inch guns, so the two Nelson-class battleships were allowed to retain 18-inch guns. It is well known that they became the battleships with the largest caliber guns during the treaty period.

As the world's largest and most powerful battleship, it is naturally expected to be the best in every aspect.

However, David Beatty was well aware that this super battleship, which represented the glory of the Royal Navy over the past century, embodied both the pride of the Royal Navy and the helplessness of the Victorian Empire today.

Chapter 356 The Strongest Main Warship in the Inter-War (3)

The final design of this Nelson-class battleship was finalized by Dave Incourt after David Beatty's final review. Beatty was equally astonished by the ship's size when he first saw it; at 230 meters long at the waterline, it was the longest surface gunboat in the Royal Victorian Navy, except for the Admiral-class and Renown-class battlecruisers.

Its waterline width of 32 meters surpasses that of the Admiral-class battlecruisers in the Royal Navy, and its draft exceeds 10 meters.

This size is actually the same as that of an Admiral-class battlecruiser, which is no longer able to pass through the Suez Canal. Although the Suez Canal had an average depth of 13 meters when it was first dug, by the beginning of this century, due to the lack of dredging work for a long time, the average depth had been reduced to 6 meters.

Although dredging work was carried out during the war, it was not thorough due to the enormous scale of the project and the lack of sufficient manpower. As a result, the average depth of the Suez Canal is currently 10 meters, and only ships with a draft of no more than 9.5 meters are allowed to pass through as a precaution.

Given the size of the Nelson-class battleships, reaching the Indian Ocean would naturally require rounding the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, which would be somewhat inconvenient for the Royal Navy's deployment. However, under the pressure of the Longyuan-class and South Dakota-class battleships, the Royal Navy of Victoria had no choice but to temporarily relax its requirements for ship deployment and prioritize the pursuit of ultimate combat power.

As the chief designer of the Nelson-class battleships, when David Incourt introduced the ship to David Beatty, he was most proud of the battleship's world-class firepower and revolutionary protection capabilities.

Based on the total tonnage of 58 tons for each of the three powers under the naval treaty, the Royal Navy of Victoria, after retiring those 343 battleships, left behind two Nelson-class battleships with a total tonnage of up to 10 tons.

However, since the Tang Dynasty and Columbia agreed that the Victorian Empire could retain the 18-inch naval guns that had already been developed (in fact, they did not exist at the time) on the Nelson-class battleships due to the caliber disadvantage of the Admiral-class battlecruisers, it was naturally impossible for the Victorian Empire to create two more monsters with a standard displacement of 5 tons.

The Nelson-class battleships were limited to a displacement not exceeding that of the South Dakota-class battleships, which was 43,000 tons.

This was indeed quite challenging for DNC, since the Royal Navy of Victoria had already begun its research on the next generation of battleships before the signing of the naval treaty. These next-generation battleship designs were divided into 15-inch, 16-inch, and 18-inch designs, and these different designs proposed at different times were named using the number 3 followed by a letter.

Of all the designs equipped with 18-inch naval guns, apart from the H3 design which only has two main gun turrets, none have a displacement of less than 4.8 tons. In particular, the standard displacement of the L3 series, which was initially proposed, was over 5 tons. Now, to reduce the tonnage to 43,000 tons based on these designs of around 5 tons, DNC's first thought was to cut firepower.

Anyway, the 18-inch guns were unparalleled in power, and the Renown-class battlecruisers with six guns did perform well in the war. Those two triple turrets weren't unusable, were they?

但是皇家海军对此提出了强烈的反对，我们尽力争取来这两条18英寸的炮舰就是为了最大程度的抹平同唐帝国以及哥伦比亚合众国在16英寸及以上大口径火炮上的差距，结果你们设计部门把主炮数量砍到六门，那我这拿着6门18英寸火炮面对12门16英寸或者8门420毫米舰炮，我优势在哪？

The Royal Navy hoped that the battleships would have 8 to 10 main guns, but at the very least, they had to have at least eight.

This requirement posed a significant challenge for the designers. The most difficult aspect of warship design is simplification, especially when it involves reducing the weight by several thousand tons. Some designers suggested referencing the Furious-class aircraft carrier's quadruple 9.2-inch turrets and using two quadruple 18-inch turrets to compress the length of the citadel.

However, it is clear that the 18-inch MKI naval gun is already the largest and heaviest in the world. The size and weight of the triple-mounted turret are already quite astonishing, and it is unthinkable to increase it to a quadruple-mounted turret.

Ultimately, after much deliberation, Day Incott chose the three triple turret design. After all, if four twin turrets were installed, the number of guns would be less, but the citadel would be longer. Thus, HMS Nelson became the first battleship in the Royal Navy of Victoria to use triple turrets.

To maximize protection, all of the Deincourt's turrets were located in the forward half of the hull. Due to tonnage and size limitations, it was impossible for the entire ship to maintain the original design protection in the traditional core area. However, the Royal Victorian Navy, which had been hit by fireworks several times during the last World War, had very high requirements for protection this time. Therefore, the Deincourt divided the core area into primary protection for the forward ammunition magazine section and secondary protection for the aft engine room section.

At the ammunition magazine end, the main armor belt reached an unprecedented thickness of 14 inches (356 mm) and was arranged at a large angle of 20 degrees. This level of protection truly surpassed the 13.5 inches (343 mm) of the South Dakota-class battleship in thickness and exceeded the 15 degrees of the Ryuen in angle of inclination.

Even though the engine compartment section has been weakened, it still has a 12-inch (305 mm) thick, 20-degree angled main side armor. In other words, if it weren't for the thick dome armor behind the Longyuan, the engine compartment of this thing would be better protected than the Longyuan.

As a masterpiece by Deincourt, this super battleship is not only strong in terms of its protective structure in terms of numerical value, but also unique in its horizontal armor structure.

First, the entire battleship uses an internal armor box, meaning that all the armor is located inside the hull. This can also serve as a kind of reserve cap to some extent (although the probability is very low, since the hull is too thin). Although this design is not conducive to maintaining buoyancy reserves during combat, it can achieve the maximum armor thickness with the minimum weight.

Even so, if the unprecedented main armor were to extend upwards and connect with the horizontal armor in a normal manner, it would still not be enough to reduce the standard displacement to 43,000 tons. Therefore, a designer in DNC pioneered the division of the horizontal armor into horizontal sections and inclined extension sections.

On the Nelson-class battleships, the horizontal armor sections along the sides of the ship sloped downwards and connected to the main side armor extending upwards from below, so that the full thickness of the main armor section, which was 14 inches thick, only required 8 and a quarter feet (about 2.5 meters) in height.

Of course, anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that such an angled extension would create a weak point against armor-piercing projectiles. However, the solution is simple: just increase the thickness of the angled extension. This way, the effective thickness of the angled extension will be about the same as that of the horizontal part, which reduces the overall volume of the armor box and saves weight.

Compared to the side armor, the horizontal armor of the Nelson-class battleships was even more formidable. The increasingly distant combat scenarios during the World Wars made the Royal Navy realize that future challenges would place greater demands on horizontal armor. In addition, their own 18-inch MK1 guns had relatively slow muzzle velocities and their shells had rather curved trajectories, making the test on horizontal armor even more demanding.

Therefore, the horizontal armor of the ammunition depot section is a terrifying eight inches (203 mm) thick, while the sloping extension section is even thicker at 11 inches (279 mm).

Even the engine compartment has six inches (152mm) of horizontal armor and nine inches (229mm) of horizontal inclined extension. Without considering the advancements in armor steel, numerically speaking, even the main horizontal extension of the engine compartment is comparable to Richelieu, my wife, who is famous for her outstanding horizontal protection among the three European musketeers in another world.

This is the ultimate in armor-piercing anti-tank warfare. Even considering the advancements in armor steel quality, its side and horizontal main armor protection capabilities are second only to the Yamato.

As for secondary armament, the Nelson-class battleships became the first warships in the Royal Navy of Victoria to adopt turret structures for both main and secondary armaments. There were a total of six twin-mounted 6-inch secondary guns, four of which were arranged on both sides of the bridge and two were arranged superimposed on the stern centerline, allowing four secondary guns on one side to fire simultaneously.

The Royal Navy spared no expense in developing the Victoria battleship. Many parts of the Nelson-class battleships could have been made of structural steel, but the armor steel used was left over from the two Admiral-class battlecruisers that were cancelled.

However, this extreme layout did not come without a price. The Nelson-class battleships were by no means perfect. While the extreme layout provided strong armor-piercing shell resistance, the firing arc of the No. 3 turret, sandwiched between the bridge and the funnel, was significantly affected.

What's most regrettable is the speed of these two battleships. After the Royal Navy of Victoria decided that it would not compromise on firepower and armor, all high-speed options were cut. The current design has a significantly shorter engine room compared to some other high-speed options.

However, to make matters worse, after the war, the Victorian Empire faced serious economic problems. Although the Nelson-class battleships were built to very high standards, those high standards were actually achieved using stockpiled assets.

It's like using armor steel where structural steel could be used. It seems like a luxury, but the armor steel has actually already been produced. Even if you don't use it, it can only be stored in a warehouse. The 18-inch firepower system was already under development at the end of the war. All of this money had already been invested before.

However, in terms of power, the Nelson-class battleships did not use a new generation of boilers, but instead used the same boilers as the Admiral-class battlecruisers. Even though the properties of these boilers were much better than those used by the Hood battlecruiser in another world, that was based on the fact that the original boilers of the Hood were too conservative.

The boilers currently used by the Admiral-class battlecruisers are at the mainstream technology level, so their power is only over 6 horsepower. For a ship of 43,000 tons, this level of power can only maintain a speed of 23.5 knots.

This is a somewhat awkward speed, considering that the Royal Navy's Queen Elizabeth-class battleships have a top speed of 25 knots, while the Revenge-class battleships only reach 21 knots. If these two Nelson-class battleships were to be deployed with the Queen Elizabeth, they would slow down the Queen Elizabeth's speed; if they were deployed with the Revenge, the 23-knot speed would be unusable…

However, in any case, when the Nelson-class battleships enter service in the future, the competition for the title of the strongest battleship during the entire naval holiday period will be a foregone conclusion, and no one will doubt the absolute dominance of the two Nelson-class battleships.

Just like those who attended the launching ceremony of the HMS Nelson today, they seem willing to believe that the future of the Victorian Empire will be like these two powerful battleships, maintaining the glory and strength of the empire.

As the eldest princess of the Victorian Empire forcefully threw a wine bottle at the warship, amidst flowers and applause, the HMS Nelson began to slowly slide down the slipway into the sea. This most traditional method of launching was also the safest and most reliable.

After all, once the ship starts to be propelled by gravity, the process of sliding towards the sea will not stop, and there will be no situation like some ships sliding into the sea that might cause accidents when the ship is too large.

As clearer photos of the Nelson battleship's hull being launched became available, designers from major naval powers began scrutinizing this world's premier battleship, belonging to the world's leading navy.

However, before professionals could evaluate the ship, the mainstream media published their reports on the Nelson-class battleships.

However, the article's title was full of irony—"The Royal Navy is building battleships like oil tankers again."

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