After the meeting, the emperor and prince returned to Berlin by special train, while Chentian and Tirpitz went to the airport to catch a plane.
"Your Excellency, His Royal Highness seems to be quite dissatisfied with the Admiralty, isn't it?" On the way to the airport, Chentian invited Tirpitz to ride with him in the same car.
"Yes! At present, most of our defense budget is spent on naval construction, and the shipbuilding plan in recent years has repeatedly expanded to occupy too much military expenditure. Therefore, the cabinet did not approve the Prince's application for additional allocation to the army due to insufficient funds. A sum of military expenses, and later he hoped that our Admiralty could give up a sum of military expenses. I did not agree. After that... alas!" At this point, Tirpitz, who was over 60 years old, was rather helpless.
"That's it! But on the other hand, the army seems to have not made any major moves recently, why did the prince spend more military expenses? It seems that the amount is not small!"
"It is said that the additional military spending is used to build large airships! The total amount requested by the prince exceeds 20 million marks, which can almost build 3 new battleships!" It can be seen that Tirpitz did not intend to oppose the prince, but If three less battleships are built, then his shipbuilding plan will be disrupted, with disastrous consequences.
"Zeppelin?" Chentian was surprised to find that he had forgotten the position of airship in human aviation history, and now it seems that the period of rapid development of Zeppelin has come. Although in the eyes of most people, the airship was originally a huge lighter, and its flying speed was not as fast as that of an airplane, but its endurance, flight altitude, and load capacity far exceeded that of an airplane. If it hadn't been for his own appearance, the range of the plane would be only a few hundred kilometers by the end of World War I. It is no wonder that the prince would value the value of airships so much.
"Presumably the Admiralty's funds are also very tight, so how much money can we get for this aircraft test?" Chen Tian said and glanced at Tirpitz, he was frowning in embarrassment.
"His Royal Highness, first tell me how much money this experiment will cost, and then I will try my best to find a solution!"
"Not a mark!" Chen Tian stretched out a finger and shook it in front of him.
"What?" Tirpitz couldn't believe his ears.
"Yes, the Admiralty doesn't need a mark. It only needs to provide a target ship for the test!" In fact, the test does not require much money, but it is not easy to find a suitable target ship, especially for air-dropped torpedo tests and draft Shallow freighters or sailing ships are simply not up to the task, and it is too expensive to build target ships or use large ships.
"There is no problem with this. I happen to have two retired old cruisers in hand, and the Admiralty will send them to you as soon as possible!" Tirpitz readily agreed. Those two ships are also in line with Chentian's Claim.
"Your Excellency, thank you so much!"
Before they knew they had arrived at the airport, Tirpitz said something that made Chentian memorable:
"Work hard! I am old, and the future of the German Navy is in the hands of you young people!"
After returning to Königsberg, Chentian immediately gathered experts to form an air-to-ship attack test team, which he personally presided over. These experts include Thieleman, who is in charge of aircraft design in the Aircraft Factory Research Office, Roves and Raheiro, the engineers who developed aerial bombs, and they developed the aerial bombs dropped by the mercenaries in Turkey, and Riken, the torpedo expert in the Submarine Research Office. , Lake, the torpedo that sank the Turkish navy cruiser was improved by them. In addition, it has been half a year since the launch of the first aircraft carrier "Super Duck Mother", and the construction of the superstructure is basically completed. One of the engineers responsible for the design and construction of the aircraft carrier Fabit Lehman also participated in this group.
"Gentlemen, all present here are the best experts in various fields. We have gathered here for only one purpose, which is to accomplish something that no one has ever done, or even thought of!" The 6 people in front of Chen Tian Experts used to be unknown little people. Aircraft designer Thielemann used to be an ordinary engine engineer. Bomb experts Roves and Raheiro used to be technicians in charge of fuze research at the Krupp factory. Torpedo experts Ricken and Lei Ke is a low-level technician in charge of maintaining torpedoes in the Navy, while Lehman is an engineer in a small shipyard, but they are all reused here because they have the courage to accept new things and have been working hard to learn and research in their own fields.
On the oval table in front of everyone was a battleship model and several small wooden planes. Chen Tian picked up one of them and looked around for a week.
"First of all, everyone must believe that the aircraft can sink the battleship! Then, what we have to do is to find a way to do this with bombs and torpedoes!"
Everyone's eyes moved silently back and forth between the model of the plane and the battleship.
Soon Ricken and Lake said that air-launched torpedoes are theoretically feasible, and they need to find ways to improve ordinary torpedoes into aerial torpedoes dropped by aircraft.
Roves and Raheiro kept frowning. It's no wonder that now their aerial bombs are only 5KG, and they use delay fuzes. This kind of bombs has almost no threat to battleships with armor thicknesses of 200-400mm in key parts.
"The armor of battleships is concentrated on the sides and turrets. Their decks are relatively thinner. As long as the bombs falling in the air have sufficient speed and weight, they can penetrate the deck and explode inside the battleship. Even if the bombs are powerful The ship's side explosion can also cause a certain amount of damage to the battleship!" After Chen Tian's suggestion, the bomb experts finally woke up like a divine initiation.
"Torpedoes have the benefits of torpedoes, and bombs have the benefits of bombs! Let's start now to study how to use them to attack surface targets!"
Although the engineers all have the direction to work hard, Chentian feels that success is not at hand, after all, they basically started from scratch. Sure enough, in addition to the smooth modification of the aircraft used to carry bombs and torpedoes, the improved torpedoes exploded after entering the water in several consecutive airdrop tests, causing torpedo experts a headache. There are more problems with aerial bombs. Although the factory quickly produced hundreds of kilograms of aerial bombs, Roves and Lahero had their own opinions on the use of trigger fuzes or delay fuzes. The last half of the bombs The trigger fuze is installed, the other half is equipped with a delayed-fire fuze, and the hit rate of aerial bombs is also an annoying problem.
Fortunately, these are only technical issues. When the target ship provided by the Navy Department arrives at the port, they can already officially start the first test.
An old warship is moored on the calm sea outside the port of Königsberg.
The two target ships provided by the Admiralty to Chentian are the 3,000-ton Landshut and the 3,500-ton Ulm. Now this ship is the iron bone of the Landshut launched in 1876. Wooden cruiser.
Chen Tian and the others are expecting to make observations on a hill in the harbor.
The first to fly over the port were two Sky X planes that conducted aerial bomb tests. This kind of aircraft has tried its skills in Turkey, but at that time it used hand-thrown 5KG aerial bombs. This time their belly has been modified to accommodate 4 new 50KG aerial bombs, one carrying 4 trigger type bombs. The bomb, the other is 4 delayed-fire bombs.
Five minutes later, two planes dropped bombs from 100 meters in the air, and four huge water columns rose 30 meters away from the right side of the battleship. A few seconds later, there were several muffled noises from the bottom of the water, and a lot of mud rolled over the water. .
"Oh!" The engineers beside Chen Tian sighed, and the pilots seemed to drop their bombs too early.
"Tell Captain Fritz, let his pilots practice bombing during this time! I don't want this to happen again when the Emperor visits!" After putting down the binoculars, Chen Tian summoned the officer on the side to give instructions. sentence. Fritz, known as the "Landing Angel" in the Turkish War, has been promoted to captain, and the flying team participating in this test is under his command.
"Yes! Your Royal Highness! The plane for the torpedo test in the following was piloted by him!"
After listening to the officer's introduction, Chen Tian nodded slightly. Captain Fritz is now one of the few pilots with actual combat experience, and he has also heard of the angel's deeds.
As they were talking, a plane flew slowly over the port, and the aerial torpedo under the belly was very conspicuous. Fritz was frustrated when he learned that all the bombs had been lost before, he was taking a breath to show it. The plane was gradually lowered to a height of more than 20 meters above the water, and the nose was facing the starboard side of the target ship. At a distance of about 600 meters, Fritz pressed the button. The plane became lighter in an instant. Then he controlled his own The plane turned and began to climb.
After seeing the torpedo in the water for several tens of meters from the telescope, everyone began to draw a white water mark on the water surface and rushed towards the target ship.