Empire Conquest

Chapter 491 - 487: Full-time Flagship

The high cost made dedicated flagships a thankless burden, at least diminishing their importance.

Although during this period the Empire Navy repeatedly adjusted the performance and technical specifications of the flagship, reducing requirements to control construction costs, the urgency of dedicated flagships was much less compared to other main Battleships during the war and was not a decisive weapon.

In the words of Liu Changxun, the officers and soldiers of the Fleet Headquarter were used to a fairly privileged life, so it was only right that they should suffer a bit during battle.

It was not until the second year of the war that the Empire Navy determined the main performance indicators for the flagship.

To put it simply, there was only one key point.

Under the premise of ensuring sufficiently high speed, enhance the command ability as much as possible, even if it means reducing or abolishing other combat capabilities.

The first to be abolished were combat capabilities essential to fighting ships, namely the main armaments.

Although dozens of small-caliber High-altitude Guns were added after completion, the installation of weapons was not considered during design and construction.

According to the design concept, it would carry at most a few heavy machine guns.

Since there were dozens of Imperial Guards responsible for maintaining order and they moved with the Fleet, the flagship did not need weapons to deal with small ships.

Secondly, the survivability, including armor protection.

At any time, the flagship would definitely be in the fleet, more precisely behind the combat ships, thus it almost had no chance of engaging in battle.

Therefore, armor protection was not needed.

It was acceptable to reduce the survivability after being hit.

For this, the designers cleverly worked on the ship structure.

Since the "Imperial Capital" class carrier had been successful, the compartmentalized ship structure was proven effective, so the large Battleships built during the war almost all used this structure to enhance their survivability after being struck.

One drawback of the compartmentalized structure was that it was heavier and the construction was more complex.

To control construction costs and reduce building difficulty, the flagship did not use a compartmentalized structure.

Of course, this was related to the basic design of the flagship.

To save time and further reduce costs, the flagship used the hull of the "Wuzhou" class Heavy Cruiser.

Simply put, it involved modifications to the hull of the "Wuzhou" class.

The "Wuzhou" class was a standard Treaty Type Heavy Cruiser and did not use a compartmentalized structure.

Indeed, choosing the "Wuzhou" class hull was not only to cut costs but also related to the tactical requirements of the flagship.

To install various large electronic devices, especially the numerous and bulky long-wave radios, and to arrange the communication center and control center as close together as possible to enhance command efficiency, it was necessary to increase the number of large compartments, thus making it impossible to use a compartmentalized structure.

In summary, because it did not adopt the Battleship standard compartmentalized structure, the flagship had almost no resistance to strikes and was very likely to sink if hit.

Tactically, this was not necessarily a bad thing.

The flagship was the brain of the Fleet, definitely possessing many secrets coveted by the enemy such as communication codebooks. If in a naval battle the flagship was also struck, then the Fleet Commander would certainly hope for the flagship to sink quickly rather than fall into enemy hands.

Put simply, this was also the ship with the poorest survivability built by the Empire Navy during the war.

Strictly speaking, the flagship was not a Battleship, but more like an auxiliary ship similar to a civilian vessel.

However, after sacrificing combat capability, protection, and survivability, the flagship gained enormous internal space and astonishing autonomy.

Although the tonnage was 50% higher than that of the "Wuzhou" class and still used the "Wuzhou" class power system, after adopting a spherical bow for reduced drag and redesigning the underwater part of the hull, the speed still reached 30 knots when the boilers were over-pressured.

This speed was sufficient to keep up with the Special Mixed Fleet.

Crucially, within a standard displacement of nearly 20,000 tons, over 30% of space dedicated to the main guns and ammunition on a heavy cruiser was spared.

Because of this, even when carrying over 600 officers and soldiers, and hundreds of various types of radios—alone numbering hundreds of communication antennas—the flagship’s endurance reached 120 days, with a maximum range exceeding 20,000 nautical miles, and a full-speed range of 7,500 nautical miles.

Furthermore, the flagship could double as a supply ship, providing rations during combat operations to other vessels.

In battle, one of the main missions of the flagship was to supply other battleships with food, freshwater, and other provisions.

The reason was simple: the flagship had the largest freezer capacity in the fleet, capable of freezing and preserving 500 tons of food, sufficient to meet the needs of a fleet for half a year.

Because the power system of the "Wuzhou" class was extremely reliable and highly maintainable, the design and deployment cycle of the flagship reached six months.

Of course, in actual combat, it would definitely be more than six months.

If one were to speak of it, the greatest value of the flagship lay in its communication and command capabilities.

There were twelve long-wave radio stations alone!

Moreover, the flagship harbored enough signal officers to maintain and even modify radios during voyages.

The simplest method was to change the radio’s signal characteristics by swapping antennas and transmitters.

As for the spare parts needed for maintenance, the flagship’s storage could hold plenty.

In fact, in real combat, the flagship often acted as an electronic repair ship, assigning electronic officers to repair damaged electronic equipment on other battleships.

Apart from long-wave radios, the flagship was also equipped with hundreds of different communication devices, including voice radios and short-wave radios.

Additionally, after being handed over to the Navy, electronic surveillance equipment was added.

That is to say, the flagship also had the capability to perform electronic reconnaissance missions; while accompanying the fleet, it could help monitor nearby radio activity.

This was an incredibly great capability.

Although carriers and battleships, main battle ships, as well as cruisers, large vessels generally have radio monitoring stations, due to spatial limitations, their numbers were not many, and their use was strictly limited to avoid interference from the ship’s own electronic equipment.

Clearly, these issues did not exist on the flagship.

This was also a major reason why Bai Zhizhan brought aboard the "Qinling."

Previous naval battles had proven that electronic reconnaissance was an effective means of detecting the enemy and could be regarded as a new form of engagement.

Being able to first detect the enemy through electronic reconnaissance often led to gaining the initiative and securing the final victory.

Clearly, this was also a capability that other active battleships lacked.

If there was a battleship in the fleet with powerful electronic reconnaissance capabilities, the chances of victory in fleet battles would definitely be greater.

Of course, this was not the only reason.

Bai Zhizhan took the "Qinling" and sent her sister ship, "Kunlun," to the Twenty-second Special Mixed Fleet, which was largely related to the battle strategy.

The key to this battle was deception, achieving a surprise attack through deception, and minimizing the initial difficulty of combat.

Taking the flagship was meant to deceive the Newland Navy, or rather, employing the trick of pretending a larger force to make the Newland Navy firmly believe that the Empire Navy’s target was Wei Island.

Bai Zhizhan felt it was an overkill.

However, the plan had already been set, and it was not something that could be changed just by wanting to.