Li Xiao didn't know that the overt and covert fights surrounding him were unfolding in full swing, and he didn't know that Xiao Ming, who had nothing to do, helped him avoid a huge disaster.
He was so busy that he didn't even have time to pay attention to the intrigues among the top officials in St. Petersburg. According to the newspaper, he had already had several rounds of debates with the half-assed chief designer of the Royal Navy, and it must be said that he was really a weirdo.
As the chief designer of the battleship, his level of mathematics and physics was almost unqualified. He relied on many years of experience to design the battleship, and he completely refused all scientific experiments and tests.
Forget it, what is even more worrying is that Sir William Symonds still has the obsessive confidence that his predecessor, Sir Robert Serpins, is a liar, a man who only knows "paper work" and only "science"
The showmanship of "formula" believes that Serpins, who was born in a battleship design school, does not understand shipbuilding at all!
To be honest, there are a lot of articles here. Contrary to the imagination of later generations, the Royal Navy, which roamed the seas at that time, did not think that its own shipbuilding technology was the best in the world. For a long time, the captains of the Royal Navy thought that the French
The shipbuilding technology is better than our own, and the ships built in France are the best.
Based on this understanding, the Royal Navy despised its own ship designers. It always felt that they were a group of worms who only took money but did not work. Therefore, in 18o7, after research and initiative, a company specialized in training ship designers was established.
Vocational schools were established.
This is the battleship design school where Lord Serpins graduated. From its opening in 18o7 until it was forced to close in 1832, this school has cultivated a large number of professional ship design talents during its more than 20 years of existence. It should be said that it is of great significance to the Royal Navy.
Important, but this school has faced great controversy since its inception!
This controversy comes from within the Royal Navy. A group of old-style officers, including Symonds, have no knowledge of science and only superstitiously believe in the so-called "feelings" and "experiences" of themselves and their predecessors. They "feel" that scientifically designed warships are still not as good as
Captured from the French, "feeling" science is useless, "feeling" battleship design school is a waste of money.
Let's put it this way, when it comes to shipbuilding, the Royal Navy is divided into the conservative "experience and feeling" group and the "superstitious science" academic group. Each of these two groups has a large number of fans, and they flirt with each other every day. That's called a
Wonderful.
In the beginning, the "superstitious science" academics had the upper hand, not because their scientific claims were well-founded and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. In the early 19th century, these were all nonsense, and science was far less marketable than metaphysics.
There is only one reason why the academic school has the upper hand, and that is because there are people in the court. The person who supports the academic school is the First Sea Lord (that is, the Lord of the Admiralty) Viscount Barhan, who directly promoted the birth of the Battleship Design School.
With the support of the big boss of the Navy Department, who can do anything to win over the academic faction? Even though many grassroots naval officers did not buy into the academic faction's account at that time, the academic faction was still alive and well.
But as the old saying goes, thirty years east of the river and thirty years west of the river. In 1832, the situation changed. Sir James Graham, the first sea lord of the new government, did not follow the academic style.
As soon as he came to power, he closed the Battleship Design School, and then asked Sir Robert Serpins, the Royal Navy's chief designer who graduated from the school, to retire early and go home, replacing him with Sir Symonds.
Sir Symonds is a die-hard "experience and feeling" person. He has always spared no effort to attack the academic warship design as a piece of shit, attacking the warships designed by the academic school as being far inferior to similar French ships.
All in all, academicism was useless in the eyes of Sir Symonds. The new chief designer was obsessed with his own experience and believed that the battleship he designed was the best.
So is this really the case?
I'm afraid it's hard to describe in one sentence. At first, Symonds's design philosophy was indeed very popular among Royal Navy officers, because the ships he designed had obvious characteristics - a particularly large beam and a particularly pointed bottom.
Let’s not talk about the quality of this design. First, let’s talk about why Royal Navy officers like Symonds’ design. The reason is very simple. The most obvious feature of the ship designed by this designer is that it is wide and large.
Obviously, no officer would not like his ship to be larger. This would make the living area less cramped and more comfortable. Who would like to live in a narrow can?
So Symonds' design was very popular at first, but later... Later, the officers of the Royal Navy were full of tears. The poor officers found that Symonds' ship was indeed wide and large, with luxurious living areas.
Beds, but this boat is as uncomfortable as a roller coaster!
Be shocked!
According to the basic philosophy of battleship design, Symonds's design has a small length-to-width ratio, and the ship should be very wide and stable. Why does it make people feel uncomfortable?
Hehe, sometimes numbers can be deceiving. A small aspect ratio is indeed conducive to stability. Therefore, the rolling angle of the ship designed by Simmonds is not particularly large, at least not much greater than that of the ships designed by academics at the same time.
But its design roll cycle is particularly short!
To put it simply, the frequency of rocking is very high! In the same time, when someone else's boat completes one roll, his boat will rock twice. In addition, the rolling angle is slightly larger than others, and the result is unpredictable.
And you know it.
In the words of a Royal Navy officer: "The roll is sudden and violent! It's uncomfortable!"
As we all know, the most important thing about a battleship is that it must have a stable firepower platform. If it rolls violently and suddenly, the gunners on the ship will have a lot of fun, and it is almost impossible to work normally.
Later, Lord Cockburn, the brains of the Royal Navy, immediately wrote to First Sea Lord Graham after sailing Symonds's classic design "Vernon":
"When the wind is smooth, the Vernon can run faster than anything swimming in the sea. I really believe this. But once it encounters a head-on wave, the ship becomes unimaginable... I don't even know what to do.
How to make an analogy, it can only be compared to a little boy playing with a wooden horse, swinging in place and unable to move forward... It is too easy to bury, it will be damaged when encountering wind and waves, and the hull will leak everywhere..."
Let's put it this way, Symonds's design is too extreme. For a sailboat, increasing the width of the ship and increasing the height of the bilge will help reduce yaw and reduce ballast. But Symonds, who does not understand mathematics, did all this.
Going too far led directly to the fact that his ship seemed stable but was actually a big rocking nest.
What's even more frightening is that Symonds was full of hostility towards steamships, propellers and iron hulls, and always insisted that the so-called traditional ones were the best, which directly led to his growing unpopularity...