Chapter 104: Italy Declares War
Lelouch’s trip to Berlin was primarily to take up the position of Director of the Foreign Propaganda Section of the Imperial Ministry of War. Additionally, to have an audience with the Emperor and convey Duke Rupprecht’s diplomatic advice.
As for getting acquainted with Burns, Kautsky, and Naval Minister Marshal Tirpitz, and incidentally facilitating some battleship new naval gun business, these were all incidental.
However, considering he had nothing else to do recently. The electric furnace steel mill on the Dunkirk side was still in preparation and construction, just about to move from the laboratory stage to large-scale industrialized mass production.
The reinforcements from the 6th Army Group transferred to the Eastern Front didn’t require his specific attention either; naturally, the relevant responsible persons would handle their respective duties—for example, the “Parachute Regiment” under Lelouch’s jurisdiction was currently fully handed over to Lieutenant Colonel Rommel, the deputy regimental commander, to help with training.
So after Lelouch sorted out his itinerary, he found he could stay in Berlin all the way until mid-April. Since there was this time, he might as well see it through to the end, helping Krupp and the Naval Ministry with some final checks and supplements.
He himself could also mediate for more resources from this, gathering his original team for tank research and development.
One day in early April, he took advantage of the recent big favor he had just sold to Krupp Company by creating the opportunity for a large batch of new naval guns to switch to electric furnace steel. He smoothly suggested to Gustav Krupp that he hoped Krupp Company would allocate him a mechanical design team to develop an armored off-road vehicle.
Krupp had just received a big order through the other party, so naturally he couldn’t directly refuse, and first countered by asking for confirmation: “This project will require quite a few resources, right? Relying solely on our Krupp support, can the whole setup even come together? Director Lelouch, your capital isn’t thick enough yet; don’t waste effort on futile trials.”
Lelouch immediately flexed his muscles and gave the other party a reassurance: “Don’t worry, I don’t expect to build this setup relying on just you Krupp alone. When I went back to Austria to visit family earlier, I already found an opportunity to negotiate a deal with the Skoda people:
For the entire project, our ‘Volkswagen’ company will only handle the final vehicle integration and installation;
Baria Faction’s BMW company will provide the diesel engine;
Skoda will handle propulsion system integration, including drive shaft, gearbox, driving controls, wheels and tracks;
You Krupp will only handle the overall vehicle body design, as well as armored supply and weapon supply.
Now BMW’s diesel engine has already been delivered to Skoda, and Skoda has started designing the propulsion system. You send a team to handle the remaining parts. Then I can put the whole setup together.
Moreover, once this is done well, the project shareholding portion for you Krupp won’t be shortchanged either. In the future, once you have successful cooperation experience with Skoda, I can also recommend that Skoda jointly share more technical data with you, providing more optimized designs for the Empire’s armament.”
Hearing this, Gustav became further interested; previously he had only agreed to help for the sake of returning a favor, but now it was sincerely for the common interests of both sides.
“Oh? What technical optimization potential is there for us and Skoda to further deepen cooperation in the naval gun field?” Gustav couldn’t help but ask curiously.
Lelouch: “For example, the Empire still hasn’t mastered efficient triple main turret technology, but Skoda figured out the earliest prototype triple main turret structure as early as 1910. Their muzzle blast decompression deflector structure, their ‘cradle-style’ gun mount that allows the three barrels to elevate independently—these aren’t worth you studying and striving to master thoroughly?”
Hearing this, Gustav couldn’t help but breathe a bit heavier; Krupp of course had always wanted this valuable information, but he also knew that even though Skoda was from an allied country, they wouldn’t share it so easily.
Gustav couldn’t help but sigh with both suspicion and regret: “These things are of course great, but why would Skoda give them to us?”
Lelouch: “Because I produced this exclusive gun steel of superior quality—three-phase electric arc furnace steel! And it cuts costs by an extra 60% compared to the low-quality electric furnace steel currently on the market! And I’m also willing to sell some three-phase electric arc furnace steel to Skoda, letting them use good steel to make stronger-performing big cannons!
With just this, isn’t it enough for Skoda to share technology with us? Once we have deep cooperation with Skoda, we can further explore transformations for naval warships.
The current ‘Baria-class’ battleships definitely can’t be modified; those ships are almost fully built, and previous minor adjustments to the chamber and slight barrel lengthening for balance weighting were already the limit.
But our ‘Mackensen-class’ battlecruisers are just about to start building, so there’s still time for radical improvements. Originally, after our new 380 gun came out, we also asked the William Shipyard design bureau if the ‘Mackensen-class’ could push for a new design to try fitting the 380 large barrels.
But that would require a significant increase in tonnage and lengthening the overall hull length, which isn’t very realistic—Mackensen’s aft deck 3rd and 4th main turrets aren’t staggered thoroughly enough; if the barrels are lengthened further, the 3rd turret’s barrels would hit the back of the 4th turret when rotating. So for Mackensen’s main guns to use new technology and become stronger, they can only be widened, not lengthened.
Since that’s the case, why not try sticking with the original 350 caliber design on ‘Mackensen’ but strive to make it triple? I think triple main turret technology will definitely mature gradually in the future and become mainstream. We also need to accumulate practical experience as soon as possible.
We can avoid increasing the new gun’s power, just aiming for the turret to be lighter after using three-phase electric furnace steel, able to withstand the original gun’s chamber pressure with thinner barrel walls. This way, even if the turret tonnage increases somewhat, it won’t exceed the load too much.
As for the shell hoist and structures below the turret becoming larger and more complex, we’d rather remove two rows of boilers from the aft power compartment, merge the corresponding funnels, and slightly reduce power; we can definitely find a way to balance it.
As long as we adopt the new triple main gun technology, the Empire can catch up to the Ugly Country across the ocean in this field. Currently, the Ugly Country has already built 14-inch triple main turrets, which convert to 356 mm; we’re using 350, just 6 mm finer than the Ugly Country, basically the same class with no extra technical difficulty.
The Ugly Country’s turret weight savings are done very well; with their finished product data and photographs, combined with Skoda’s technical experience, we can definitely solve it through collective wisdom.
Think about it: the Ugly Country’s triple turrets are made by Bethlehem Steel, and the main turrets on those two shallow-water heavy gun ships we captured at Dunkirk were also Bethlehem Steel’s 14-inch guns, just twin-mounted, but many structural design advantages can be borrowed and applied.
Drawing from the best of all, with Krupp’s strength, and borrowing the latest technology from Skoda and Bethlehem, we can definitely get the triple turret done!”
After hearing so much analysis, Gustav Krupp finally gained confidence.
Triple turrets are indeed the trend of the future; the reason they’re not used now is just some technical bottlenecks unsolved, but as long as we draw from the best and previous peers have paved the way, imitating to catch up and taking strengths to supplement weaknesses will definitely work.
Of course, Gustav wouldn’t blindly believe; he still raised a few technical flaws of triple main turrets: “Although we Krupp haven’t successfully built triple main turrets, we’ve experimented many times, and there are some technical flaws with triples that can’t be avoided.
For example, in our experiments, we found that triple main guns at engagement distances over 10 km would have excessive shell dispersion during full salvos, probably because the storms and airflows stirred up by the shells in flight interfere with each other.
When two shells fly parallel, the shockwaves they generate can still spread outward; with three together, the storm from the middle shell has nowhere to vent and blows the trajectories of the side shells off course. So even though the Imperial Navy knew Skoda solved the independent elevation for three guns, they still disdained to use it; the Empire pursues long-range accuracy the most.”
Hearing the other party raise this issue, Lelouch couldn’t help but give an admiring look of “you really know your stuff.”
The triple turret technical flaw Gustav mentioned was indeed repeatedly brought up in later generations; fortunately, Lelouch in his previous life also liked studying big ships and giant cannons, knowing this issue was historically solved during the 1920s “naval holiday.”
It wasn’t complicated, really.
Lelouch casually reminded: “Since the three shells fly side by side and their winds interfere with each other, then don’t fly side by side. Can we have two of the three guns fire first in salvo, and the last one delayed by 0.1 seconds, or even 0.01 seconds?
No need for too long an interval; too long and the recoil from the first two will definitely amplify the ship’s roll, shaking harder, and the third shot would be wasted, not on the original aiming elevation line.
But not too short either; too short and first, you don’t have the precision control capability, second, the first two shells haven’t flown far, and the third might not escape the wake turbulence zone of the first two.
Current shells have initial velocities of generally 700-800 m/s; a 0.01-second firing interval is enough to space the shells 7-8 meters apart in the air, with the wake turbulence mostly dissipated. Use technical means to implement it specifically; I don’t need to say more—you can do it with a relay delay circuit, or if there’s a more convenient tech option, even better.”
Lelouch didn’t dare give the direct answer because he didn’t know how far primitive vacuum tube tech had developed by 1915. But it didn’t matter; even without usable vacuum tubes, old-style relays would work the same, just with slightly larger control components and faster wear. For battleship main guns that big, that tiny difference didn’t matter.
In short, as long as Lelouch pointed out the core directional idea of “spacing the shells a few meters apart in flight to avoid the preceding shell’s turbulence zone,” the rest could be left to the professionals.
Gustav was indeed greatly inspired; often, technical breakthroughs are just missing that last layer of window paper, one new idea at the key point can equal engineers’ prolonged research.
……
After receiving Lelouch’s guidance, Gustav spent the rest of early April doing three things.
First was to further cooperate with Skoda and start reverse-engineering the captured Bethlehem Steel 14-inch twin turret, combining Lelouch’s ideas to draw from the best and develop a 350 mm triple main turret.
This could be considered the Empire’s first triple main turret, breaking the zero.
The second thing was a big stroke of the pen, allocating Lelouch a mechanical design team and corresponding process manufacturing technical team, the kind where even the personnel employment relations were transferred under Lelouch’s personally majority-held “Volkswagen” company.
Effective immediately, helping Lelouch plan the original tank/armored fighting vehicle research and development project. The Skoda faction technical personnel Lelouch had gotten from Porsche also joined, one side focusing on body and weapon armor, the other on power structure, entering the full vehicle research and development technical reserve phase.
Just waiting for Porsche’s Skoda half-track diesel tractor to complete, to also borrow and integrate that successful experience, then go all-out on tanks.
The third thing was Gustav further conceding to Lelouch, deciding to set up a new subsidiary company specializing in researching and producing the previously mentioned 140 mm dual-purpose turret.
（Note: After final testing, actually decided to directly adopt the French 138.6 mm, because after Krupp experiments, they felt 140 mm round shells were still a bit heavy, total loaded weight with propellant at 55 kg; reducing to 138.6 shrinks it to armor-piercing shell loaded at 53 kg, high-explosive/anti-aircraft shells at 45 kg/46 kg.
Germanian physiques are generally tall and large, with many over 1.8 m big guys and muscular men. So very suitable for selecting strongmen as loaders for sustained rapid manual loading of this gun.）
Gustav was willing to do this naturally because Lelouch had recently provided Krupp with too many valuable ideas and also helped optimize battleship main gun design thinking.
Gustav knew giant cannons were Krupp’s foundation, something that must be fully gripped in their own hands; in this area the other party had helped so much, yet he couldn’t share interests with him.
For long-term cooperation, he had no choice but to bring the other party into the dual-purpose secondary gun field; this business could be profitable for everyone.
In this way, in the future Krupp would still focus on heavy cannons for land and sea attack, while the new subsidiary cooperating with Lelouch would become the world’s first cannon company specializing in anti-aircraft guns（anti-aircraft guns including dual-purpose guns）
With Krupp being so cooperative, Lelouch didn’t hesitate to give the other party more ideas in return.
So during Krupp’s new main gun research and development, Lelouch also reminded them to pay more attention to shell aerodynamics shape and do more experiments. Current shells are all flat-base, with severe turbulence and shockwaves in flight.
Lelouch reminded them to try slightly recessing the base diameter a bit for smoother airflow in flight. Or consider “base-cavity shells”; in any case, let experiments guide, let facts speak, see which shell shape best maintains projectile velocity in flight, increases range and final kinetic energy.
Lelouch estimated that as long as Krupp did the experiments well and opened the door to this new world, boosting shell flight speed retention by 10%~15% would be easy; after all, this field had been a blank slate before.
In the 1910s cannon and shipbuilding fields, fluid dynamics research was still at a very primitive stage.
For warship hull design, thorough tank model tests were rarely done; shell flight couldn’t do wind tunnel tests either. Just a few pointers and reminders would create huge improvement space.
For example, what Lelouch had chatted with Krupp about before: to fit triple turrets on the “Mackensen-class” battlecruiser, might need to remove two steam boilers to make space for larger turret rings and shell hoists.
Reducing boilers would cause warship hull power drop, speed drop, perhaps not reaching the original 28 knots target.
But the Mackensen-class keel wasn’t laid yet; could completely try a primitive “bulbous bow” below the waterline to reduce wave-making resistance and bow wave.
As for the first 2 “Baria-class” battleships, they were completely unmodifiable. But the latter 3, though unable to change the “bulbous bow” below waterline, could still adjust the freeboard design above waterline, changing the “straight bow” to the Ugly Country battleship-style “clipper bow.”
As for specific dimensions and curves for “bulbous bow” and “clipper bow,” Lelouch didn’t know, but as long as he provided these ideas to Krupp and William Shipyard design bureau, inspiring their direction of effort.
On an originally blank sheet of paper, achieving a little progress was really too easy.
Just casually modifying the bow shape to reduce wave-making resistance and bow wave was enough to compensate for the speed drop from slightly fewer boilers.
Earth’s historical “Yamato-class” battleships, with such heavy tonnage and small power, could still run 27 knots, all thanks to repeated tank tests optimizing waterline shaping.
Under Lelouch’s guidance and interference, the first 2 future “Baria-class” battleships might still only sail at 21~22 knots.
But the latter 3 should reach 23 knots, and reduce pitching in wind and waves, improving firing accuracy in high sea states.
As for the most thoroughly bow-modified “Mackensen-class,” perhaps even with main guns changed to triple and two rows of boilers reduced, it could still maintain 28 knots high speed, even slightly increase instead of decrease.
……
Lelouch busied himself in Berlin until mid-April; the guidance he could provide for the Navy and Krupp was basically all done. Armored fighting vehicle early research and development work had also smoothly started.
From building to combat effectiveness for warships takes far too long a cycle, so some layouts inevitably have to be worried about far in advance.
The first 2 “Baria-class” entering combat would be about a year later. Under Lelouch’s operations, these ships could participate in the Battle of Jutland—if this world had a Battle of Jutland.
The latter 3 might enter service in batches within 1.5 to 2 years.
As for the “Mackensen-class” battlecruiser, the fastest would enter combat 2.5 years later, subsequent slower-built ones maybe 3 years.
These ships would mainly be important chips in the future to force Britannians back to the negotiating table. If lucky, could also get chances to flex muscles in the late war.
And during Lelouch’s stay in Berlin, some major international events finally occurred.
The Italians formally declared war on Austria!
However, as Lelouch had foreseen, the Italians were still foolish; after declaring war, they didn’t attack immediately, just sat in place shouting. Like a “war of sitting still.”
Since the Italians had declared war, Lelouch also had to return to his troops, ending his rest vacation period.
He had to refocus his energy on front-line military matters.
——
PS: If there’s a second update today, it’ll be very late. Training ends tomorrow, but weekend busy with kid starting school; aiming to resume normal by next Tuesday.
