The Navy's Ambitions

Mikhail planned to build six Mikhail I class battleships.

The lead ship would be the battleship Mikhail I, followed by the second ship, Alexei I; the third, Feodor III; the fourth, Ivan V; the fifth, Peter I; and the sixth, Princess Sophia.

These were the first six tsars or de facto rulers of the Romanov Dynasty.

However, given the Tsarist Russian Empire's current technological capabilities, building the Mikhail I class battleships would undoubtedly be difficult.

But as long as construction could be completed within the next four years, Mikhail would be very satisfied.

By then, the Tsarist Russian Empire Navy would still have enough time to train, work together, and master the performance of these warships.

Once these six Mikhail I class battleships entered service and became combat-ready,

there would be no possibility of the Tsarist Russian Empire Navy losing a war against the Japanese.

Besides the Mikhail I battleships, the blueprints Mikhail had provided also included an armored cruiser and a destroyer.

As for protected cruisers, construction of the Rostov class would continue. The Black Sea Shipyard had already begun work on the second batch of six, and the Baltic Sea Shipyard would also begin building six.

A total of eighteen Rostov class protected cruisers in three batches would be enough for a long time to come.

Mikhail named the armored cruiser the Moscow class. It had a full-load displacement of 12,000 tons and a maximum speed of 25 knots. It was armed with three triple turrets of 45-caliber 203 mm main guns, eight 45-caliber 152 mm secondary guns, four twin mounts of 50-caliber 122 mm quick-firing guns, eight 76.2 mm quick-firing guns, ten 47 mm quick-firing guns, four 37 mm quick-firing guns, and two triple 457 mm torpedo tube launchers.

As for armor protection, the waterline armor, main turret armor, and conning tower armor were all 203 mm thick and likewise used Mikhail armor steel. Such protection was already formidable among cruisers.

Six Moscow class heavy cruisers would also be built: the lead ship Moscow, the second ship Petersburg, the third Volgograd, the fourth Minsk, the fifth Kiev, and the sixth Warsaw.

The destroyer was a warship Mikhail planned to build on a large scale.

At present, destroyers in service with the Tsarist Russian Navy and other navies displaced only two or three hundred tons, or four or five hundred tons.

The destroyer Mikhail designed displaced 1,200 tons and had a maximum speed of 28 knots. It was armed with three triple turrets of 50-caliber 122 mm main guns, four 76.2 mm quick-firing guns, six 47 mm quick-firing guns, two 37 mm quick-firing guns, and two triple 457 mm torpedo tube launchers.

Mikhail named this destroyer the A class.

It was undoubtedly a warship with formidable firepower and great speed. Its weakness, however, was equally obvious: its armor was so thin that it was practically running naked. Only the main turrets and conning tower had a layer of armor, a mere 45 mm thick. The other sections had no armor at all.

With such defenses, there was no need to speak of large-caliber naval guns. Even a hit from a medium- or small-caliber gun could cause considerable damage or even sink it.

But that was how destroyers were to begin with. One could hardly expect a destroyer to have thick armor, could one?

In this era, destroyers had another name: "torpedo attack ships," warships that attacked with torpedoes to carry out the strategic concept of the small fighting the large and the weak defeating the strong.

For a destroyer to rush close enough to an enemy ship to launch a torpedo attack, it had to be fast enough. Otherwise, the main guns of the enemy's large warships could easily tear it to pieces.

Mikhail planned to build twelve A class destroyers in the first batch alone.

If they proved useful, work on a second or even a third batch could begin at any time.

Admiral Pavel Tyrtov, the navy minister, was brimming with energy at the moment.

Although the warships Mikhail had proposed presented considerable technical difficulties, apart from the Rostov class protected cruiser and the A class destroyer,

those problems were not impossible to solve as long as they were willing to spend the money.

At worst, they could purchase what they needed from abroad until they achieved a breakthrough in their own technology.

As long as these warships were successfully completed and entered service, the strength of the Tsarist Russian Empire Navy would increase enormously.

Even though a huge gap would remain between it and the Royal Navy of the Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets, catching up to or even surpassing it in the future was not impossible.

After Mikhail laid out the Tsarist Russian Navy's development plans for the coming years, he left the specifics to the Navy Ministry.

At the same time, Mikhail summoned Vice Admiral Makarov, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, and Vice Admiral Nikolai Kopytov, commander of the Baltic Sea Fleet.

The Tsarist Russian Empire Navy now had three major fleets: the Baltic Sea Fleet, the Black Sea Fleet, and the Pacific Fleet.

The Baltic Sea Fleet could be considered the Tsarist Russian Navy's strongest fleet at present. The Black Sea Fleet had originally been another fleet the Tsarist Russian Empire could have prioritized for development. But because it was trapped in the Black Sea, and because Nicholas II had suppressed Mikhail, the Black Sea Fleet had developed slowly over the past few years.

The Pacific Fleet, meanwhile, was the fleet the Tsarist Russian Empire had focused on developing after successfully finding an ice-free port.

At present, however, the Pacific Fleet mainly faced the increasingly powerful Japanese Navy.

Mikhail ordered Vice Admiral Makarov and Vice Admiral Nikolai Kopytov to intensify fleet training and train more sailors in preparation for receiving more new warships.

Vice Admiral Makarov and Vice Admiral Nikolai Kopytov already knew about the navy's upcoming shipbuilding plans, and they were both immensely excited.

Mikhail also made another demand: over the next few years, the Baltic Sea Fleet's and Black Sea Fleet's aging warships-ironclads, battleships, armored cruisers, protected cruisers, and most of their old destroyers alike-were to be gradually transferred to the Far East and added to the Pacific Fleet's order of battle.

Mikhail intended to strengthen the Pacific Fleet as much as possible before war broke out. At the same time, this could also deter the Japanese.

Once war broke out, if these aging warships had to cross more than ten thousand kilometers of ocean to reach the Far East, they would have almost no combat strength left.

This was also why, in another timeline, the Japanese had seized an opportunity to meet the weary Tsarist Russian Navy with rested forces and annihilate it.

In this timeline, Mikhail would naturally do everything he could to prevent that.

A Pacific Fleet bringing together eleven ironclads, eight pre-dreadnoughts, six armored cruisers, nine protected cruisers, and a large number of destroyers was enough to scare the Japanese Navy of this period into wetting itself.