The fuzhou tour ended on May 3rd, which is really unfinished! Many friends recommended places that didn't have time to visit! Although there are some regrets, but this will become a driving force, so Fuzhou, I will come back!
After returning to his home after his trip to Fuzhou, he had planned to write about the simulated battle of ironclad ships, but later decided to write about the contrast between the second-class cruisers "Yangwu" and the unprotected cruisers "Kaiji" seen in the ship administration, because they were very representative of the development of world navies in the 1870s and 1880s (from side-gun cruisers to modern cruisers).
First of all, the "Yangwu" ship, which was built in 1871, completed and commissioned in 1872. As the seventh warship built by shipping administration, it abandoned the previous tradition of "military and commercial integration" of shipping administration and was a completely complete warship. The ship has a displacement of 1560 tons, a length of 60.8 meters, a width of 11.5 meters, a draft of 5.1 meters, and a speed of about 15 knots. It is equipped with 1 Westworth 190 mm breech-loading main gun gun, 10 160 mm breech-loading secondary guns, and 2 100 mm breech-tail guns.
The second was the Kaiji ship, which was built in 1881 and completed and commissioned in 1883. As a pioneering work in the construction of a new type of cruiser by Shipping Administration (shipbuilding ships built in the 1880s began to abandon the "integration of arms and merchants" thinking and formally focused on the design and construction of warships). The ship has a displacement of 2200 tons, is 83 meters long, 11.5 meters wide, has a draft of 5.4 meters and a speed of 16 knots. It was equipped with 2 210 mm Krupp main guns and 8 120 mm Krupp secondary guns, as well as a collision angle at the bow.
After introducing the situation of the two ships, let's formally look at their defensive and offensive powers, and make a comparison.
defense
The first is the contrast between defenses! The "Yangwu" ship is a wooden shell structure (simply a wooden structure), and the hull is not equipped with any armor, so the ship can also be called an unprotected cruiser (as for the origin of the classification of second-class cruisers, it comes from the time and space background when it was built: in the 1860s and mid-1870s, it was the era of the transition from sail warships to steam warships, so the steam warships at that time still retained many characteristics of sail warships, and the layout of the artillery was part of this feature, known as the "shipside column gun type", Even the guns were mounted on the side of the ship. Both ironclads and cruisers are classified according to the number of guns they have, for example, some warships with guns installed on the deck and first deck will be classified as first class, only one of the layers will be called second class, and those with fewer guns will be divided into third or fourth class).
The Kaiji ship is an iron-wielded double wooden shell structure, although it is a double wooden shell, the defense power has been improved, but it is still not covered by armor, and it is also an unprotected cruiser.
Therefore, although the two ships have a 10-year generation difference, there is not much gap in terms of defensive power, the only thing is that the double wooden hull defense power of the "Kaiji" ship will be slightly better than that of the "Yangwu" ship, but in the face of modern artillery, their defense power will not be too far apart.
attack
After reading the "shields" of the two sides, let's take a look at the "spears" of the two sides. The Yangwu was equipped with 1 190 mm main gun, 10 160 mm secondary guns and 2 100 mm tail guns. Among them, 190 main guns are equipped on the changing mast of the bow, and the steering and firing of the main guns are realized through the orbit, the remaining 160 guns are installed in the gun gallery on the side deck of the ship, and the last 100 guns are installed in the gun gallery of the stern, which is the typical column gun method of the sail age. Although this approach would give the battleship a powerful side firepower, the artillery has a smaller angle of fire, which limits the play. Once the bow is against the enemy, the lack of firepower will also be reflected (not to mention that after the Battle of Lisa in 1866, the bow against the enemy became the mainstream tactic of the navy at that time, and most of the new warships designed during this period strengthened the firepower of the bow).
In addition to the layout of the artillery, there is also the artillery itself. The guns used by the "Yangwu" ship are all Wisvos hex-rifled front-loading guns, although there is little information can be found on hexagonal guns (especially large-caliber ones), but it can still be known that 160 mm caliber hex-bore guns can penetrate about 127 mm of armor at a distance of 730 meters, and its maximum range is about 2500 meters. Taking this as a benchmark, it is believed that the most favorable combat range for the "Yangwu" ship should be about 700-1000 meters (after all, the power of the 190 main gun must be stronger than the 160).
Now look at the "Kaiji" ship, equipped with 2 210 mm caliber main guns and 8 120 mm caliber secondary guns. The main guns were mounted on the lugs on the left and right sides of the bow, and 8 secondary guns were mounted on the side of the ship, of which 2 were mounted on the ear platform near the stern and 1 was mounted on the stern, all of the German Krupp models. As a product of the early 1880s, the gun layout of the "Kaiji" ship is the layout of modern cruisers, a warship has 4 ear platforms, the guns installed on the ear platform have a great angle of fire, can exert greater power, which makes the "Kaiji" ship whether it is the bow against the enemy, the side of the enemy, or the stern against the enemy, have a relatively strong firepower (2 210 main guns when the bow is against the enemy, 1 210 main guns on the side of the enemy plus 4 120 guns and tail guns, and 3 120 pairs of guns and tail guns against the enemy in the stern).
The guns of the "Kaiji" ship were made by Krupp, and the 210 mm caliber main gun was not the 1880 type 210 mm 35 caliber naval gun that was later equipped on a large scale by the Beiyang Fleet, but the old 22 caliber naval gun. It is slightly more powerful than the 190 mm hex-bore gun equipped by the Yangwu ship. However, the power of its 120 mm secondary gun may not be stronger than that of the 160 mm hexagonal gun of the Yangwu ship.
Therefore, in terms of firepower, the two sides do not have too obvious advantages, and even when they engage on the side, the firepower of the "Yangwu" ship may still have a slight advantage! The "Kaiji" ship is more dominant in firepower, and it is definitely the rate of fire, after all, the speed of reloading determines the speed of firing. Although it is difficult to find the specific information of the guns of these two warships, it can be known from the training materials left by the "Yangwu" that after each completion of each firing, the gunner must first reach out half of his body to take the gun to clean the barrel, and then stuff it into the medicine package, and then stuff the shell, and after completing these processes, the second gun can be fired. This set of processes takes 7-8 minutes at the earliest. Due to the simple loading of the breech gun, it is generally possible to load and launch the second gun in 3-5 minutes. Maybe everyone thinks that 7 minutes and 5 minutes will not be too long, and 2 minutes have passed all at once. However, the battlefield is a place of racing against the clock, even if you are only one second slower than your opponent, you may die, so the rate of fire of the artillery is also a key factor in determining victory or defeat.
By comparing the defensive and offensive powers of the two warships, it is believed that the strength of these two warships is actually between Bo Zhong! If they are really opponents, it depends on who takes the lead. If the "Kaiji" ship preemptively attacked, then if its speed and artillery rate of fire were slightly superior to those of the opponent, the "Yangwu" could be seriously damaged. On the contrary, if the "Yangwu" ship takes the lead in firing, relying on its flank superiority in firepower, if a salvo can seriously injure the "Kaiji" ship, then the next to dominate the battlefield is "Yangwu". I don't know what everyone thinks?