Chapter 392: Naval Innovations

With the experimentation of new grenades and smokeless powder underway, the introduction of the 1422 Service Revolver, and the use of the 1422 7.5 cm Field Gun, Berengar had found that his arms development was sufficient in accordance with his five-year plan if you consider the equipment that would be fielded to his Army.

However, another matter needed to be attended to; while his Army was rushing headfirst into the Industrial Age, his Navy was still operating with Frigates powered by Sails. Berengar had invested a substantial cost into these mighty vessels, but already their time was coming to an end, at least in service to his Royal Navy.

The Berengar-Class Frigates still had many years left of service before they needed retrofitting. Austria could quite easily sell the ones they had manufactured to their allies after replacing them with something more modern.

Berengar gazed at the documents piled on his desk with a bitter smile. He honestly had no idea that by the time he had managed to gain the capacity to make large Ships of the Line, he would already have the ability to manufacture something superior for his use.

As such, the blueprint of the Linde-Class Ship of the Line he had designed years ago was now utterly useless. Perhaps he would rename the vessel and sell it to his allies in Granada and Byzantium at a future date.

For the time being, Berengar needed to invent new ships, designs that were far more worthy of being named after his wives. With the current rate of steel production and the industrialization of his major cities underway, it was only a matter of time before he could produce all-steel steam-powered vessels.

With this in mind, Berengar thought of developing ships that could be improved upon through retrofits later when new technology was invented. At the moment, the best power source he could design within the next five years would be a vertical triple-expansion steam engine that utilized water-tube boilers.

A triple-expansion steam engine was a compound steam engine where the steam was divided into three separate stages. In essence, the steam would build up in a high-pressure cylinder before losing pressure and exhausting directly into two more large-volume low-pressure cylinders where it extracted more energy from the steam.

As for the high-pressure water tube boiler, it functioned by circulating water in tubes heated externally by the fire, fuel such as coal burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas and boiling water in the steam-generating lines.

With this in mind, a bunch of ship designs he had read about during his brief time in the libraries of the US Naval Academy came to mind. Everything from ironclads to light cruisers and even early battleships. The fundamental question that came to Berengar's mind revolved entirely around the nature of how he would utilize his vessels and the enemies he might face.

Though giant battleships such as dreadnoughts were beautiful weapons of war, ultimately, he was in an era where at most, his Navy would be facing wooden sailing ships with a few muzzle-loading cannons. To build a dreadnought in this medieval era would be utterly ridiculous to even think about. The number of resources required to construct such a massive beast was no small sum.

His current frigates were already more than enough to decimate any naval power in the world. They could even be used for decades to guarantee Naval Dominance. However, there were some drawbacks to such designs.

A wooden sailing vessel was far more likely to sink than a steam-powered steel warship on the high seas. It was also entirely reliant on the wind and was much slower than several of the designs he could think of.

Berengar's purpose for building a powerful Navy was not to dominate the Mediterranean like he was currently doing but to secure a vast global Empire that he would one day establish. To fulfill this, his vessels needed to be swift and sturdy.

With this in mind, Berengar finally realized the exact classification of the vessels he would need to achieve his goals in the most efficient manner. The Light Cruiser was wholly armored while being relatively compact. This meant that the ship required a much smaller crew complement to operate while having speeds well over 20 knots.

Berengar searched through his memory to find the perfect ship to create to fulfill this role. Ultimately he stumbled upon a design that utilized the technology he had in mind, with relatively decent armor, armament, and most importantly, speed.

The Königsberg class Cruiser of 1905 from Berengar's past life was essentially the pinnacle of Light Cruisers that utilized the Triple Expansion Steam Engine and Water tube boilers. It had two engines, two screw propellers, and 11 boilers. It was capable of a speed of 23 knots and had a decent size crew complement of 14 officers and 308 Enlisted men.

It utilized ten 10.5 cm guns and two 45 cm Torpedo Tubes. At the moment, Berengar did not have reliable torpedo technology, so he would construct the vessels with the tubes, but he would not outfit them with such weapons until a time where they could be built.

As for the armor on the vessel has 80mm thick steel across its deck and 100mm of steel protecting its conning tower. The ship had a length of 115.3m, a beam of 13.2m, and a draft of 5.29m. The vessel itself was capable of a range of 5,750 nautical miles before it had to resupply on coal.

Berengar intended to call this vessel the Adela Class Cruiser and did not intend for it to go into production immediately; after all, it would be years before his port cities could update their facilities with enough advanced manufacturing equipment to create such a steel behemoth. Yet by the time he defeated the Crusaders in five years and began his wars of unification, he believed that he would be able to begin construction of such monstrous ships.

Berengar hoped that he would be able to set sail to the new world and begin his colonization efforts by his early thirties. He could only imagine the looks on the native's faces when the German Army showed up in Light Cruisers, armed with bolt action rifles and heavy machine guns. The very idea made him chuckle, such a thing would truly be utterly unfair, but then again, nothing about life was fair.

Reflecting upon this notion, he began to take a sip from his cup of coffee; one thing was certain, he would be the first white man to step foot on the new world in this timeline. That was something he greatly desired to achieve. As he thought of such things, something dawned upon him, he would need new cargo ships and troop-carrying vessels, and he had the perfect design in mind.

During the Second World War of Berengar's past life, the United States had built thousands of Cargo ships known simply as "Liberty Ships." These ships brought an unprecedented amount of supplies across the Atlantic to aid the allied powers. At one point, several hundred of the boats were even modified for use as emergency troop transports.

Berengar decided to name the ship classification as Dominion, as its purpose was to secure Germany's dominion over its future Global Empire. The ship was, of course, made entirely out of steel, thus making it impervious to all weapons used by foreign naval powers within the current era. It was powered by a single triple-expansion steam engine and a single propulsion screw. The original utilized two oil-fired boilers, but Berengar could very easily swap those out for water-tube boilers.

It had a displacement of 14,474 tons and a cargo capacity of 10,856 t. The ship was capable of a range of 20,000 nautical miles making it easily capable of traversing throughout the globe with a single refueling session. It had a length of 134.57m, a beam of 17.3m, and a draft of 8.5m.

As for armament, the original had a 4-inch gun on the stern and aft, which Berengar could replace with a 10.5 cm naval gun of his design. Thus making this cargo ship more than capable of annihilating any hostile vessel foolish enough to attempt to wrestle control over it.

Having designed the first two vessels responsible for his future expansion as a global Empire, Berengar was incredibly pleased with himself. After putting the blueprints aside for later use, he began to get back to work. As a monarch, he had much work to fulfill, and thus he was as busy as ever.

With a heavy sigh, Berengar relaxed in his leather recliner before taking off the cap of his fountain pen. He began to write his signature on the approval of several documents pertaining to the spending required to outfit the factories in the various cities across his Kingdom. Luckily for him, he had acquired the Medici fortune during his war of independence and could easily fund the industrialization process of his realm.