Empire Rising: Spain

Actually, when upgrading rifles and machine guns, the generals of the Ministry of Defense’s Navy also expressed to Carlo a request to build more ironclads.

However, such a request was quickly rejected by Carlo with no room for negotiation.

A few days later, Carlo gathered these senior naval generals together and stated his requirements for Spain’s next-generation main battleship.

Faster, bigger, stronger—Carlo repeatedly put forward these three terms, and clearly demanded that only warship designs meeting these three requirements could become Spain’s next-generation main warships.

Before the birth of Spain’s next-generation main warships, the Navy will not build main warships in the coming years, only a certain number of auxiliary warships to expand the fleet size.

Carlo’s request immediately troubled the high-ranking generals of the Navy.

Although it seems like only three requirements, they actually permeate the design philosophy of naval warships.

Faster is easy to understand; it refers to the maximum speed of the new generation of main warships.

Spain’s previous two main warship designs, the Rejuvenation-class Ironclad has a maximum speed of 13 knots, and the Bullfighter-class Ironclad reached a maximum speed of 15 knots.

Currently, the speed of the Bullfighter-class Ironclad is considered top-notch globally, and theoretically, it is already completely sufficient.

But Carlo was not satisfied with the speed requirements for Spain’s new generation of main ships, raising it to the level of 18 knots.

Now, 15 knots is already considered first-class in Europe, so you can imagine how exaggerated a speed of 18 knots is. It’s not even an exaggeration to say that currently, in terms of warship power, even the most outstanding British are unlikely to reach a speed of 18 knots.

This also means that the design of the next-generation main battleship required by Carlo cannot be realized in the coming years; Spain will have to wait at least a few more years to build main warships.

The following "bigger" and "stronger" are reflected in the armor thickness and the caliber of the artillery carried by the main warships.

To become Spain’s new main battleship, it must, without significantly increasing tonnage, thicken the armor protection of vulnerable areas of the warship as much as possible, allowing the warship to withstand enemy shells head-on.

At the same time, the ship’s guns must have enough firepower to penetrate the enemy’s armor.

In summary, under Carlo’s requirements, Spain’s main warship will comprehensively surpass the current most powerful ironclad in terms of speed, armor protection capacity, and firepower.

This is also the reason for the naval generals’ distress. Although the envisioned warship seems powerful, given Spain’s current shipbuilding technology, Spain probably will not be able to build a main warship in the next five years.

According to the Navy warship technology rule of one small improvement a year and one major improvement every five years, perhaps such a warship will have a chance to appear five years from now.

Just thinking that the Spanish Navy will have no major movements in the next five years, the generals of the Navy couldn’t help but shed tears, envying the Army’s large-scale re-equipment actions.

Although knowing clearly that the requirements for such a main battleship are somewhat demanding for current shipbuilding technology, the Ministry of Defense still issued a tender announcement to several major Spanish shipyards regarding the main battleships.

What if a shipyard can design a warship that meets the requirements? Even if the possibility is not great, it’s better than directly giving up.

Moreover, the order regarding the requirements for main ships was issued by Carlo; in the current Spain, no one can refuse Carlo’s command.

The naval generals can only hope that Spanish shipyards will perform well, and design a main warship meeting Carlo’s requirements as soon as possible, so that they can see the Spanish Navy expand again.

The major shipyards receiving the Navy’s requirements were all quite surprised by such harsh conditions.

They inquired repeatedly with the Navy department and eventually got the answer that such requirements were real, and the Navy department would not change its demands.

There’s no choice; Spanish shipyards can only curse while trying to design warships that meet Navy requirements.

The difficulty of exporting warships for shipyards is much greater than exporting weapons and ammunition for military factories, which also causes Spanish military factories to rely heavily on orders from the Navy.

If unable to design a warship that meets naval requirements, it not only means that the Spanish Navy will not build main battleships in the coming years but also that these shipyards will not receive large-scale orders in the coming years.

Although they won’t go bankrupt due to reduced orders, these shipyards will definitely be affected to some degree.

To have these shipyards build warships meeting his requirements as soon as possible, Carlo even ordered the rewards and treatment for successful bidding shipyards to be improved.

As long as they participate in the Navy’s main ship bidding plan, they can receive at least 500,000 Pesseta in support funds. This money is used to help shipyards research and design warships, and as long as it’s within the scope of warship research, shipyards receiving the funds can use the money however they wish.

Of course, it’s not just any random person that can receive the support funds. All participating shipyards need to be reviewed by the Navy department, must have the ability to design ironclads, and the shipyard must have at least a dock capable of building ships over 5,000 tons.