The morning after the Admiralty meeting, Phillip dragged every relevant document into his room: ledgers from Shropshire Foundry, and the private notes wrote from memory—reconstructing 21st-century engineering knowledge in 19th-century ink.

He began with materials.

Because a warship meant to revolutionize naval combat could not rely on good intentions. It needed steel. And lots of it.

He spread three papers side by side:

Wrought Iron – widely available, ductile, but too soft.

Cast Iron – harder, but brittle; cracks easily under impact.

Steel – strong, resilient, ideal… but expensive and rare.

Phillip tapped the steel sheet with his quill.

"Not anymore," he murmured.

His foundry was the first in Europe with an operational Bessemer converter, capable of mass-producing steel at a fraction of traditional cost.

Most nations couldn't. Most engineers wouldn't. But Phillip was not from this era.

He wrote in bold strokes:

Primary Material: Bessemer Steel (High-Carbon, Rolled Plates)

Thickness Range: 3–6 inches depending on hull location.

He scribbled again.

Internal Framing: Steel bulkheads every 12–15 meters; watertight sections.

Those compartments were critical. Too many ships, especially wooden ones, sank after taking just one or two well-placed shots. With steel bulkheads and sealed sections, even catastrophic damage wouldn't doom the ship. And since the cannons that the Navy used in this world as of now are just cannon balls, the best it could do is dent it.

By midday, he had drafted the rough blueprint for a steel battleship hull—something not meant to survive an era, but define one.

Phillip poured over engine calculations next.

Twin propeller shafts meant twin engines.

Triple-expansion steam engines didn't exist yet—but the physics did. Expansion in three stages meant more power from the same amount of steam. Higher efficiency. Longer range.

He sketched the engine layout:

Boilers → High-Pressure Cylinder → Intermediate Cylinder → Low-Pressure Cylinder → Crankshaft → Propellers.

Beside each step, he wrote simplified notes:

High-pressure cylinder gives initial force—most power.

Intermediate cylinder uses leftover steam—saves fuel.

Low-pressure cylinder extracts final energy before exhaust.

He wrote:

Projected Power Output: 2,000–2,500 horsepower (HP).

A British frigate under full sail barely produced the equivalent of 800 HP from wind assistance.

This was triple.

He leaned back, rubbing his eyes.

"Coal supply will be an issue," he muttered.

A battleship drinking coal like a madman wouldn't last a week at sea.

He wrote another margin note:

Coal Bunker Capacity: Minimum 800 tons.

Range Goal: 2,000 nautical miles at 12 knots.

Ambitious, maybe impossible by contemporary standards.

But Phillip didn't plan for this world's standards.

He planned for his.

The next day.

Weight distribution.

Phillip hated this part.

A ship wasn't a railway carriage—it floated, shifted, rolled. Every extra plate of armor changed its center of gravity. Too high, and it would capsize in a storm. Too low, and it dragged like an anchor.

He stood over his diagram, marking weight zones with colored chalk:

Red = heavy armor

Blue = engine weight

Green = coal storage

Yellow = crew and supply areas

He muttered aloud like a professor lecturing an invisible classroom.

"Armor at waterline. Thicker plating around boiler rooms. Taper towards bow for hydrodynamics. Stern needs reinforcement for propeller shafts… No. Too heavy on aft. Shift internal framing forward…"

He erased entire sections.

Re-drew them.

Erased them again.

By noon, he had a rough hull weight balance:

Total Armor Weight: ≈ 1,200 tons

Engine and Machinery: ≈ 700 tons

Coal: up to 800 tons

Hull Structure: ≈ 900 tons

Total displacement: somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 tons.

That evening.

Phillip sat with his chin resting on one hand, staring at the line he'd written:

Manpower Requirements: ?

Steam engines didn't run on patriotism or noble bloodlines. They ran on sweat, skill, and competence.

He needed:

Engineers who understood gauges, valves, pistons.

Blacksmiths trained in steelwork.

Machinists who could handle precision components.

Naval architects willing to abandon outdated traditions.

And none of these existed in large supply.

He inhaled sharply.

"I'll have to train them," he muttered. "All of them."

He began drafting an outline:

Imperial Dynamics Maritime Engineering Program

200 machinists from Manchester 100 foundry workers trained in Bessemer steel 50 naval apprentices 30 boiler specialists 20 blacksmiths / armor platers 10 high-level engineers (personally trained)

"Okay, this should be enough."

Phillip woke early and immediately returned to his desk.

Turrets.

Broadside cannons were dead. Rotating turrets were the future.

But they needed:

hydraulic rotation systems

reinforced bearings

recoil absorption mechanisms

armored casings thick enough to shrug off shots

He drew the first turret:

Primary Turret (Fore):

Two 12-inch rifled cannons 270-degree firing arc 8-inch steel armor

Secondary Turret (Aft):

Same specifications, slightly lighter armor

Firepower that could punch through any hull in the world.

He paused, staring at the turrets.

"…Even a single prototype could change everything."

He placed his quill down.

For the first time in days, silence filled the room. Heavy, dense, but… strangely satisfying. Phillip leaned back in his chair and exhaled slowly, flexing the fingers that had been gripping the quill like a lifeline.

He glanced at the chaos of parchment spread before him—calculations layered over sketches, notes scribbled so tightly they bordered on madness, diagrams of machines England wouldn't invent for another fifty years.

It was overwhelming.

It was exhilarating.

And it was possible.

He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the enormity of the task settle in his chest. Not with dread—but with anticipation.

A knock sounded.

He almost didn't hear it.

"Phillip?" his father's voice called from the hall.

Phillip blinked, sat up straighter. "Come in."

His father entered the room, and stopped just inside the doorway, eyes sweeping over the mountain of papers that now buried half the room.

"…Good God."

Phillip lifted a brow. "Working on the design."

His father stepped closer, picking up one of the sketches with careful fingers. It was the blueprint for the forward turret—angled armor, hydraulic rotation, twin 12-inch cannons drawn with precision. The Duke stared at it for a long moment before setting it down.

"Could you really build this thing?"

"Of course, I am doing it now. I'm going to meet my workers later this afternoon to discuss this new project."

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