Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 155: Warship Design And Acquisition Plan

While other countries were plagued by the economic crisis, Spain was engaged in fervent large-scale construction.

Under Prime Minister Primó’s order, the Spanish Government acted swiftly, formulating a specific plan for large-scale construction and appropriating funds for implementation in just a few days.

Among them, the Spanish Government placed particular emphasis on road traffic construction and slum renovation projects.

Spain, unlike Britain, France, and Germany, did not possess vast expanses of plains; most of its domestic land consisted of mountains and hills.

Building roads in such terrain was far more difficult than in plain regions, which was why Spain’s transportation environment had always lagged behind European powers like Britain, France, and Germany.

Taking advantage of the economic crisis, the Spanish Government planned to invest over 50 million pesetas nationwide to extensively construct a road network connecting Spain’s various regions and major cities.

The Government conducted a detailed classification of Spain’s existing domestic road system, dividing it into two-way four-lane national highways, two-way two-lane regional highways, and single-lane two-way town roads.

Connecting various regions and major cities were naturally the widest two-way four-lane national highways. Since cars had not yet been invented, the demand for road width was relatively low.

In posterity, a two-way four-lane highway would not even meet a city’s traffic needs. But in this era, it was already quite wide for Spain, at least sufficient to meet transportation demands for the next 30 years.

Within those 30 years, the Spanish Government would certainly further expand the transportation system, even building wider two-way six-lane highways. Not long ago, Benz had specifically reported good news from research and development to Carlo. They had successfully developed a four-stroke gas engine and were researching engines using other fuels as energy.

Although the engine’s birth did not mean the car’s birth, the two were closely related. With the four-stroke engine, rudimentary cars could already be made for experiments.

However, to solve issues with the engine’s stability and related power aspects, Benz and the others needed to conduct more research on engines to improve the existing ones.

To manufacture cars and put them into commercial use, car safety and economic applicability also had to be considered.

In short, this was not a problem that could be fully solved in the short term; in the next at least ten years, even if cars were born, they would only be transportation luxuries affordable by the rich.

However, considering Spain’s countless nobles, if cars could be developed earlier, these nobles alone could provide considerable sales volume.

Moreover, cars would indeed provide obvious improvements to the transportation environment. Journeys that took horse carriages several hours might take cars less than an hour.

Horses defecating anywhere would cause additional environmental damage, but cars, aside from exhaust emissions, posed little harm to the environment.

Exhaust emissions were not something current Spain could consider. Developing cars earlier and effectively improving the existing transportation environment through cars was the most important thing.

If cars were available, material transportation and personnel mobilization would also be much more convenient. Armies in Madrid could reach various cities and towns more easily via highways, further strengthening government control over regions.

Under such circumstances, it would become extremely difficult for regions like Catalonia and Basque to cause trouble.

The results of engine research were certainly gratifying, but compared to the blueprints submitted to Carlo by the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard, they seemed far less important.

Yes, after half a year of design and discussion, the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard had finally improved a warship design that satisfied all experts.

This warship design was also submitted to Carlo’s office, accompanied by detailed parameters and design concepts.

Just seeing the design parameters of this warship, Carlo was basically satisfied.

Although the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard had not fully achieved the world’s most advanced ironclad ship with faster speed, stronger firepower, and stronger armor protection capability as Carlo had described, this did not mean the design lagged behind other countries.

The Royal Gualnizo Shipyard had been dormant for over 20 years, but some experts there were still well-versed in warship designs of countries around the world.

After Carlo issued the order, the shipyard’s design experts used all their lifelong knowledge to design an ironclad ship that would satisfy Carlo, striving for more opportunities for the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard.

This ironclad ship design could be said to incorporate the strengths of various countries. At first glance, it somewhat resembled a patchwork monster, with an overall appearance similar to British ironclads, but it was also filled with new concepts in Spanish warship design.

First was the warship’s power, which Carlo cared about most. This warship was expected to adopt the currently advanced reciprocating expansion steam engine as power, loading two steam engines that could output over 6,000 horsepower at maximum.

Such power output capability was not the absolute top, but it was definitely excellent among ironclad ship designs of countries worldwide.

In terms of the warship’s firepower, this brand-new ironclad ship would fully adopt breech-loading 12-inch 305 mm steel cannons, making it one of the first warships to use breech-loading cannons.

Currently, countries’ pursuit of warship firepower clearly favored cannon caliber even more. British ironclads’ main gun muzzle even reached 318 mm, representing much greater power than the 305 mm steel cannons on this new Spanish warship.

But because British warships used muzzle-loaders, they were far inferior in firing rate and range to breech-loading cannons.

Although 318 mm cannons had far greater power than 305 mm ones, both could penetrate the steel armor of existing ironclad ships.

In this situation, breech-loading cannons with faster rate of fire and longer range were clearly more advantageous. The design information also detailed that while this warship was only first-class in power, it had indeed reached world-top level in firepower.

Britain, France, and Germany could also achieve such cannon levels, but they could not surpass it in the short term. Just with the 4 305 mm breech-loading guns on the warship, the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard’s design placed this warship’s overall combat effectiveness at first-class among ironclad ships.

The Royal Gualnizo Shipyard’s assessment of the 305 mm main guns was a firing range over 7 kilometers.

Such range was still quite excellent and would possess considerable advantage in naval battles.

Due to Spain’s continuously increasing steel output, this ironclad ship would adopt an all-steel structure and extensively install steel armor for protection.

The turret frontal armor thickness reached 16 inches, and the side armor thickness also reached 14 inches, making the entire warship appear somewhat bloated.

Although it attended to the warship’s armor protection capability, this also made the ironclad ship’s standard displacement reach a staggering 8,600 tons（estimate）.

Under full load, the warship’s displacement would even approach 10,000 tons, absolutely first-tier among all current ironclad ships.

However, such design clearly had not yet broken from the inherent thinking of existing ironclad ships. With two turrets on either side of the hull, compared to later pre-dreadnought designs, this did not fully utilize the main guns’ firepower.

However, Carlo did not know much about this aspect either, so he could not offer suggestions to the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard.

But as long as this warship’s design ensured it was above first-class among current world ironclad ship levels, it already met the Spanish Navy’s development needs.

Moreover, for current Spain, whether this warship was to be built for equipping the navy or for export remained uncertain.

Considering the warship’s massive tonnage, the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard’s designers assessed the warship’s speed at around 5 to 5 knots.

Simply put, this warship’s maximum speed was about 25 kilometers per hour.

However, maximum speed was only maximum speed; during normal warship sailing, it would basically not maintain maximum speed.

Doing so would cause inestimable damage to the steam engine, as equipment of this era did not have such high stability.

Stated as a top speed of around 5 knots, the actual speed achievable during daily cruising was only below 10 knots, commonly maintained at around 7-8 knots.

This was unavoidable. Before related power technology saw significant improvements, such large-tonnage warships’ speeds at sea were just this slow.

Those small steamships’ speeds were much faster than warships. After all, these ships did not need to balance armor protection capability and firepower output; they only needed to ensure stable sailing at sea.

Looking at this warship design blueprint before him that involuntarily relaxed his mood, Carlo pondered for a moment and finally decided to personally solicit orders for the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard worldwide.

For Spain, there were still many things to do amid the economic crisis, and it was not suitable to build ironclad ships on a grand scale.

Moreover, the cost of such an ironclad ship was not low. Because it adopted relatively advanced equipment and technology in various aspects, the entire ironclad ship’s cost price was already close to 500,000 pounds sterling.

Even if building for the Spanish Navy, the shipyard certainly could not earn nothing. In the Royal Shipyard’s proposal, if the Spanish Navy was willing to procure this warship, it could provide an internal price of 550,000 pounds sterling to the Spanish Navy.

But for export, the selling price would need to be raised to at least 600,000 pounds sterling.

This also meant that for every ironclad ship sold by the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard, it could obtain at least 100,000 pounds sterling in net profit.

As long as it could secure orders for one or two ironclad ships, not only could the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard obtain sufficient research and development funds to fully revitalize the entire shipyard, but it could also gain extensive experience in building the most advanced ironclad ships, preparing for when the Spanish Navy built its own.

The bad news was that Europe and America were both affected by the economic crisis, making it very difficult to find customers with sufficient financial strength to purchase ironclad ships.

But the good news was that Asia was not greatly affected by the economic crisis, so perhaps some country there could serve as a new customer for Spain’s ironclad ships.

In fact, this Spanish ironclad ship with powerful overall combat effectiveness was still quite cost-effective, and Carlo did not plan to overprice it.

If there was a truly suitable customer, lowering the selling price to around 550,000 pounds sterling was acceptable, roughly the same level as the internal price for the Spanish Navy.

After all, the current Royal Gualnizo Shipyard needed experience in building the latest ironclad ships; that bit of income in tens of thousands of pounds sterling was not that important to it.

To secure sufficient orders for the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard, Carlo specifically contacted Spain’s diplomatic department, having the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cooperate with the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard’s actions to find partners in all of Asia willing to purchase warships.

As the economic crisis fermented, bankrupt enterprises and factories in various countries increased.

After waiting a period, Carlo also believed it was a suitable time to buy the dip. Now, factories and enterprises in European countries were at cabbage prices; among these bankrupt factories, many were ones Carlo wanted to purchase.

For example, a British civilian shipyard whose all information had been thoroughly scouted by the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau.

Before this economic crisis, this civilian shipyard was one of the larger ones locally in Britain and was quite famous.

It even had the capability to build ironclad ships and possessed related equipment and skilled workers.

Precisely because of this, before the economic crisis, this shipyard’s total value exceeded 5 million pounds sterling, or 39 million pesetas.

Such a large sum was also no small expense for the royal family before the economic crisis, so the acquisition had not proceeded, and Carlo could only drool over this shipyard.

But now it was different. The economic crisis affected not only railway companies and banks but also various industries in European countries.

As a military industry enterprise, the shipyard’s impact was not as exaggerated as imagined, but it was still quite severe.

This shipyard, originally valued at up to 5 million pounds sterling, had recently been publicly put up for sale at only 700,000 pounds sterling.

Logically, at less than half the original value, it should have been hotly contested.

But in reality, many British capitalists were overwhelmed themselves, let alone coming up with a full 700,000 pounds sterling to buy this shipyard.

This led to the shipyard’s sale attracting no interest, with its asking price dropping lower day by day.

Although he knew selling the shipyard would mean taking a loss, the shipyard owner had no other choice. If he did not sell promptly now, keeping it would only lead to greater losses.

As long as the economic crisis did not end, the shipyard’s price would continue to fall.

Selling early now could still recoup hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling; waiting until the value dropped to an extremely low figure would be too late.

After confirming this shipyard had no takers, Carlo was no longer in a hurry.

The current situation was that the later the acquisition of this shipyard, the less funds Carlo needed to pay.

Butler Loren’s advice was to wait at least another half month. Based on the current depreciation of this shipyard’s value, it could be purchased for around 500,000 pounds sterling in half a month.

500,000 pounds sterling was still a huge sum for capitalists, but for Carlo, it was no big deal.

Converted to pesetas, this amount was only 13 million, roughly the Royal United Bank’s annual net profit.

Spending 13 million pesetas to buy such a medium-large shipyard with experience and technology in building ironclad ships was certainly a profit for Carlo.

After purchasing this shipyard, it could be merged with the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard to create a truly large shipyard to compete with other European countries for warship export business.

At the same time, this British shipyard’s rich shipbuilding experience could also provide considerable improvement to the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard.

British shipbuilding levels in this era were still quite excellent. Although the ironclad ship era was pioneered by the French, the subsequent pre-dreadnought and dreadnought eras were led far ahead by the British.

Even aircraft carriers were gradually evolved by the British from battleships and cruisers.

British shipbuilding experience would remain world-top for the next 80 years, which for Carlo was more valuable than the shipyard itself.

Due to Gibraltar, relations between Spain and the British were destined not to be too good.

This also made it difficult for previous Spain to obtain relatively advanced British shipbuilding technology; either the price was unaffordable, or the British actively blockaded Spain.

The current economic crisis was the best opportunity, and Carlo had Butler Loren focus mainly on Britain.

Of course, the royal family was not the only one planning to acquire factories from other European countries; the Spanish Government clearly had ideas too.

While Carlo and Butler Loren discussed the acquisition scope, Spain’s industry department also detailed a list of enterprises Spain needed to acquire and equipment to procure.

“Prime Minister, this is the latest confirmed procurement list from the industry department; please review it.” The Minister of Industry handed a detailed procurement order to Prime Minister Primó, asking for his opinion.

Prime Minister Primó took it and glanced, immediately startled by the industry department’s huge appetite.

The industry department’s procurement list nearly encompassed the entire industrial system, with the main directions being metallurgy, petroleum, chemical industry, shipbuilding, machinery, engines, and military industry.

“162 enterprises, a total of 520 million pesetas in acquisition funds?” As he read, Prime Minister Primó’s face suddenly darkened, glaring at the Minister of Industry with a man-eating look, coldly asking: “Are you planning to smash the government’s entire year’s fiscal revenue into buying enterprises?”

Five thousand word two-in-one chapter seeking support!