"Jonas, the actual tonnage of the Bismarck and the caliber of its main guns will not be seen by foreign observers, right?"

In the midst of Hitler's surging speeches like a tsunami of cheers, the commander of the Panzer Fleet, Machar, suddenly felt a little weak in his heart, and he turned slightly sideways and whispered to Fang Yan, who was standing behind him.

Fang Yan's gaze was a little resentful, but he still responded very objectively: "The main dimensions of this battleship of 230 meters × 34 meters are not exaggerated, and they belong to the normal category of a new type of fast battleship; Even if other countries have doubts about our claim of 35,000 tons of standard discharge, they can only stay at the level of skepticism without a specific draft and square factor. As for the caliber of the main gun, all one can see now is three large seats with a diameter of 14 meters; Based on this alone, no one would have thought that she would be armed with a 450 mm cannon. ”

Hearing Fang Yan's reply, Machar's heart suddenly settled, and a joyful smile like a chrysanthemum appeared on his face again, and there was nothing else in his eyes except the battleship that was about to be launched. The corners of Fang Yan's mouth twitched slightly, and in the end he could only turn into a sigh full of helplessness, he took a deep breath and stopped talking.

Since Germany did not sign any treaty to limit the tonnage of capital ships, the design and shipbuilding capabilities of this plane were greatly improved because of Fang Yan's involvement; Under these circumstances, the German navy's top brass rebelled in anger at the weakness and humiliation of the previous decade or so, as well as the humiliation of such a dilemma. The top brass of the Navy, led by Raeder, needed a powerful weapon that the whole German Navy had no equipment in the world to make it more confident to survive. Hitler, who always preached the theory of the optimism of the Germanic peoples in the world, also gave full support to the will of the navy. A monumental masterpiece that reached the pinnacle of battleships was born.

The biggest surprise of the Bismarck class is that it is equipped with three triple L45 main guns with a caliber of up to 450 mm. The caliber of this gun is two levels larger than the seven capital ships that are currently famous in the world, and its power is naturally different from the latter. In this plane, Italy's Ansal military industry has launched technical cooperation with its German counterparts early on, and Krupp in the historical plane originally had the inherent ability to develop 800 mm Dora cannons. This 450 mm caliber naval gun was also born under the whip of the navy.

The gun fires a 725kg projectile at a speed of 1500m / s, with a maximum range of 30 meters at an elevation angle of 32700 degrees. The shells penetrated a staggering 516 mm vertically at a distance of 20,000 meters, and 118 mm even horizontally. This meant that with the exception of the Japanese Yamato-class battleships, which were about to start construction at the end of 1937, no warship in the world could have an immunity zone in front of the Bismarck-class. Due to the amazing ability of the shell storage rate, this naval gun has replaced the Japanese Type 94 460mm gun, and has become the most powerful Extreme Divine Weapon at present and in the future!

In addition to firepower, the speed of the Bismarck-class was impeccable. Also due to Italy's technological import, Germany not only got light and powerful ship power, but also greatly optimized the underwater line type of warships; When all the cutting-edge achievements, including the tail plate and the bulbous bow, are used above the Bismarck class. Its speed has thus reached an eye-popping height.

With a design power of 140,000 horsepower and a top speed of more than 31 knots, this class of ships is even superior to the German-class pocket battle cruisers, and only inferior to the French-built Richelieu class, which is more powerful than the Italian. And her 15,000 nautical miles/16 knots range as the Zeppelin class allows her to stay by the latter's side forever and hold up a safe sea.

And in armor, the German designers, who had already completed a number of classic cases, did not disappoint the Navy. The Bismarck-class had the same defensive idea as the Italian Caracciolo class, except that the armor was thicker in various parts: its high-altitude quilt cap with a 20-degree inward inclination was strengthened to 350 mm, and the main horizontal deck was thickened by 190 mm; The two TDS partitions are increased to 270~90 mm. The front of the main turret and the main gun mount have also been strengthened with a 400 mm and 380 mm stripper cap system, respectively. Aside from the slight weakness of the armor of the main weapon, the Bismarck-class defense was already large and not far behind; And the latter's defensive deficiencies in propeller shafts, reserve buoyancy, and high-explosive bombs have been perfectly compensated for by the Bismarck-class!

Since 1934, the German Navy has built the most powerful aircraft carrier group in Europe; Hence the Bismarck class at the beginning of its design. Because of the butterfly effect set off by Fang Yan, air defense was put in an area of great concern. The ship is armed with nine twin 128 mm L42 high-level guns, one of which is carried behind the C turret, and the other eight are evenly distributed on the left and right sides. A single port can concentrate the fire of 10 secondary guns. In addition, the ship is also equipped with more than 50 small-caliber anti-aircraft guns, while the maximum number in Fang Yan's estimate is more than 90.

Thanks to the optimized placement of armor. The tonnage of the Bismarck-class is 18,000 tons lighter than that of the offensive and defensive peers, while the speed is still at the level of high-speed battleships. This fantastic performance immediately fascinated the top brass of the Navy and Hitler, and implemented it as the number one project to outperform the aircraft carrier. Although Fang Yan also admitted that this battleship was indeed a good work of design, it was undoubtedly extremely wasteful to rebuild such a large ship at this time; However, when their project was filed, his uncle had not yet been able to reach the core high position of the power center, and Fang Yan could only cry out in vain.

"Forget it, let's build it." When the crisp sound of champagne breaking came from the bow of the boat, Fang Yan, who came back to his senses, secretly comforted himself in his heart. Although the cost performance of this class of battleships is far less than that of building aircraft carriers, it can still cut a street in the face of Britain, an enemy who lacks a strong navy.

In addition, with the completion of the final main turret hoisting work, it was difficult for Germany, which was in the core of the European continent, to keep the secret of the caliber of the Yamato-class main gun like Japan, which was alone in the Far East; The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union, which learned the relevant information, will inevitably launch-for-tat countermeasures in extreme shock, so that these adversaries can devote more resources to battleships that are already out of time. Perhaps the last 2 ships of the Iowa class will not be canceled, and the 6 Montana will be fully executed.

The cicadas chirp sharply, the summer sun is like fire, and the hot winds of July sweep across the world in the northern hemisphere, bringing a bit of impetuous and poisonous atmosphere. Fang Yan left his wife, who was pregnant with Liujia, and once again went to Spain with the ship to carry out a blockade mission; By this time, the Republican Army had become in decline, and the German Navy's operations had shifted from blockade to more ocean-going training. Compared with the last time he went to sea, there are already two new carrier-based aircraft in the fleet this time, and Fang Yan is not only excited, but also has compiled a more rigorous and detailed training plan so that the pilots can be familiar with this new model.

At the same time, the gunfire at the Lugou Bridge in the Far East did not deviate from the historical itinerary as scheduled. For a time, the eyes of the whole world were drawn to the land that had nurtured an ancient civilization, where a large-scale war was taking place on a scale far larger than that of the Italian operation in Ethiopia. In the face of the Nanking government's repeated appeals to the League of Nations, Britain and France, unwilling to stay in the war, continued to adopt a strategy of appeasement and appeasement of the aggressors: they only verbally condemned Japan, and were unwilling to carry out even economic sanctions.

In the United States, with their isolationism at an all-time high, they are even more reluctant to care about the war on the west coast of the Pacific. In addition to the tragic experience of being killed by Britain and France after the fact, and paying a lot of lives and wealth but not reaping anything, the current US economy has not completely come out of the trough of the Great Depression, which is also a very important factor in determining their reluctance to directly get involved in the East Asian war. After all, there is only one Schacht in this world: even Roosevelt's New Deal, which has far more gold reserves, bonds, foreign exchange, and mineral resources than Germany, and has his own gold in his family, has only achieved small successes.

Under these circumstances, the Americans preferred to maintain, rather than destroy, trade between Japan and the United States, and they even hoped to use Japan's war money to completely extricate themselves from the shadow of the Great Depression. With this background, how could the United States really have a bad relationship with Japan because of this?

As for the Soviet Union, it was even more eager to see Japan's elite Kwantung Army move south, not north, to attack itself. At this time, the "loving father" Stalin had extended the claws of the Great Purge to the army, and he needed a stable external environment more than ever before to allow him to complete this all-round "blood exchange". With regard to the war provoked by Japan, the Soviet Union undoubtedly treated it leisurely out of the mentality of sitting on the mountain and watching the tiger fight, and there was no way to talk about interference and mediation.

The attitudes of the major powers made the Nanking government very sad and disappointed. The peace that was paid for at the cost of losing large swaths of Manchuria lasted less than six years; The war not only interrupted their ongoing industrialization process, but also ruined their plans for a nationwide reorganization. However, to Nanjing's hopelessness, Germany, which had signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan, showed great concern for its own fate. Not only did it actively mediate the war politically, but even the weapons and equipment that it had promised to issue to it did not tend to refuse to pay or seize because it had become a warring country. However, Japan will certainly not turn a blind eye to this situation. How long will Germany's green light be on for its own arms sales? (To be continued.) )