On July 14, 1944, in the waters of Recife in northeastern Brazil, a huge steel dragon was moving forward in an orderly manner on the sea. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The entire Atlantic Fleet was divided into two echelons: in front was the operational echelon led by Nimitz himself, codenamed TF48; Behind it is a huge transport echelon, in which there are not only army equipment transport ships, but also the supply ships of the naval formations themselves.

On the TF48 fleet formation, Nimitz again innovated:

The first is that the aircraft carrier group and the shelling group will no longer be grouped separately, but will be completely integrated. Tactics and equipment are always changing, and he has three powerful Iowa-class battleships under his command - the New Jersey, the Wisconsin, and the Missouri, each of which can run at a speed of more than 30 knots, and can move at the same speed as the Essex-class aircraft carriers to achieve accompanying operations.

The formidable industrial power of the United States can be seen in the progress of the construction of the USS Missouri, which only started construction in January '41 and was completed in less than three and a half years. In contrast, the British Lion battleship, which is not as good as the Iowa class in terms of tonnage and combat effectiveness, started construction in 1939 and has not been completed so far, and it is said that it will be until August at the earliest, but judging from the current situation, let alone August, it would be good to be completed before October.

Hoffman was troubled by these British battleships, and now there were three British battleships lying on the slipway, namely the Lion, the Savage (all of which belonged to the Lion class) and the Avant-garde (avant-garde class), according to the British own estimate of the construction schedule, the Lion was completed in August 1944, the Avant-garde in March 1945, and the Savage was completed before December 1945.

At present, the installation of the main structure and equipment of the Lion has been basically completed, and Hoffman believes that the ship is not a big problem, and at most a group of engineers can be sent to accept it, but the avant-garde and the Savage still need to be built in the hands of the British, and there will be all kinds of forks in the way, and the passive sabotage is relatively light, and if the quality is not up to standard, the boiler is problematic, and the artillery fire deviation is large, he is afraid that he will directly cause big trouble in the naval battle.

At first, the Ministry of Armaments suggested that the latter two battleships be modified into oblique aircraft carriers in accordance with the methods used for the first few warships, but the problem was that after they completed the revision, the Yunlong-class class that had started construction in early 1943 would be put into service in large quantities, and there was no urgency to rebuild the aircraft carriers. Moreover, the Anglo-German contract has not yet been signed, and the British side has not handed over the technical drawings and parameters of these warships, so it is even more difficult to design a complete reconstruction plan.

After listening to the experts, Speer believed that if the British side could guarantee the quality and progress, it was recommended to continue construction in Britain, and if not, simply tow it back to the German shipyard for outfitting. The main gun can continue to use the British-designed three triple 406mm (16 inch) 45 times the diameter of the main gun, and other facilities (such as radar, anti-aircraft guns) and other facilities are equipped with German standards in order to form a unity.

Even if the battleship will not become the mainstream of naval warfare in the foreseeable future, Germany and Italy are still very envious of the 406mm naval guns in the hands of the British, the 380mm guns on the Bismarck class are not powerful enough, and the Veneto class considered using 406mm naval guns at the beginning of construction, but the technical content is too high to be adopted, and the power of the 381mm naval guns finally adopted is enough, but the dispersion accuracy and corrosion resistance of the gun barrel are very poor. Now that Britain has joined, none of these technical difficulties exist, and if there is an idea, all naval guns can be replaced with 406mm at the appropriate time.

After argumentation, experts believe that the overall strength of the Bismarck-class and Veneto-class after replacing the 406mm naval guns can reach the level of 90% of the Iowa class, which is slightly inferior to the Lion class. Italy has expressed its interest and is ready to replace the main guns at the right time.

But the Americans don't have so much trouble, they just need to hurry up and build, and now there are still the Iliano and the Kentucky lying on the slipway, because the U.S. Navy has suffered much greater losses than history, so these two warships started construction earlier than in history, the USS Illinois is expected to be commissioned in June 1946, and the USS Kentucky is expected to be commissioned by the end of the same year. In 1947, the more powerful Montana-class ships would enter service, and in September 1947, the Montana-class lead ship would enter service (the construction period was 48-54 months, with an average of 51 months).

In order to counter Japan's super battleships and Axis battleship groups, the United States spent a lot of money to launch the huge 88 fleet construction plan, that is, to build 8 new Montana class, complete 6 Iowa class and add 2 more ships, and by 1950 to achieve 8 Montana class + 8 Iowa class luxury configuration. However, the 88th Fleet was destined to be a failure, because the lead ship of the Iowa-class was sunk on the seabed about 2,000 kilometers away in Western Australia. Two days ago, the Navy submitted an urgent request to supplement the budget of the two Iowa-class ships, but at present, the large slipway has been fully used, and it is simply not free to build, even if the cost is willing to bear, it cannot afford it.

At first, because the super-battleship brought by the appearance of the Yamato was too strong, the United States could not wait to restart the Montana-class construction program, but as time went on, doubts about the construction plan began to grow stronger. One voice argues that the Montana class is too long for the Navy to survive a short-term period of underpower; Another voice believes that the Montana class is very expensive, and this part of the cost should be transferred to more aviation and armored combat readiness.

Some experts believe that the large oblique aircraft carrier built by Germany has certain merits, and they also plan to extract one Iowa-class hull for modification, and some people even think that the Iowa hull is not enjoyable, and it is recommended to use the Montana-class hull to build a supercarrier.

There was no overwhelming agreement on this mixed argument, although there was a difference in the reasoning, and the construction of the Iowa and Montana classes continued to progress steadily. Nimitz also believed that the advent and rapid growth of airplanes had brought about the destruction of the era of giant ships and cannons, but after Horikichi creatively used the Yamato to charge, he was shocked to discover the important value of battleships, especially super battleships—powerful defensive capabilities.

A simple battleship force and an enemy aircraft carrier formation obviously have no chance of winning against the enemy. However, if the battleship is mixed with its own aircraft carrier, and the battleship acts as a regional defense center for unified defense, its ability to be rough and thick can be brought into full play. That is, in the wheel-shaped defensive formation, 1 battleship acts as a bodyguard for 1-2 aircraft carriers, with 2 air defense cruisers and 4 destroyers to form an aircraft carrier battle team. The carrier fleet after the innovative formation is much more survivable than the previous aircraft carrier fleet with heavy cruisers as protection.

After studying Spruance's battle example, Nimitz found that although the fleet was eventually wiped out, it experienced the impact of three rounds of attack waves of the main aircraft carrier formation of the Combined Fleet before the destruction, and the Iowa, which served as the backbone of the defense, performed remarkably. This further strengthened his belief that battleships, especially super-battleships, still have value, but it is debatable whether they need to build so much.

Even Nimitz had a more radical point of view: to build a super air defense battleship with the Montana hull, that is, only install 203mm naval guns of the cruiser class, and the number can be reduced to 3 triple installations (9 guns), and all the empty tonnage and space can be installed with defensive firepower, so as to strengthen the anti-aircraft fire network for the fleet.

There is currently only one supporter of this view at the top: Turner!

The latter even went further, arguing that even the 203mm naval guns did not need to be installed, but could be cut down and deployed only anti-aircraft firepower, including the 127mm high-level dual-purpose gun (the newly developed 54-caliber 127mm twin), the 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun, and the 20mm Erikon machine gun. According to Turner's idea, the 70,000-ton hull can deploy at least 48 127mm, 64-80 40mm anti-aircraft guns, and more than 100 20mm close-fire resistance if there is no main turret.

Then the tonnage saved was provided to the turbine, so that the engine horsepower was increased to the same level as that of the Iowa class - the eight boilers and turbines of the Montana class all used independent adjoining compartments, and the ability to resist flooding was greatly improved, and in order to reduce the weight of the power plant, the power of the Montana class main engine was only 172,000 horsepower, which was 40,000 horsepower less than that of Iowa, so that the speed dropped to 28 knots. Turner thought that by lifting it up, the super air defense battleship could reach more than 30 knots (Iowa could reach 33 knots at full speed), which would be more valuable for accompanying operations.

Turner's madness Nimitz had been taught, but it was clearly more crazy than he had imagined, and the Navy Commission had not even accepted Nimitz's compromise proposal, let alone Turner's idea. And Ingram and Halsey of the Pacific Fleet did not share this idea either.

But even Turner himself didn't know that he actually had a bosom friend in his mind.

At the recent seminar on the development of naval equipment in Germany, Hoffmann put forward the idea of "mobile air defense tower": he believed that since the quality and progress of the construction of the Barbarian could not be guaranteed, and it was impossible to rebuild it into an oblique aircraft carrier, he simply transferred the 406mm naval gun crew originally scheduled to be used with it to the Tirpitz to improve the latter's firepower, and the Hull of the Barbarian was used as an innovative platform to build a new warship, not naval guns!

The idea of "no naval guns" frightened everyone, but Hoffman was revital: "Our electric twin 128mm high-level dual-purpose guns have proven their worth on anti-aircraft towers, why can't they be installed on warships?" In addition, the phalanx has also been recognized by actual combat, and it is recommended to put it in. The anti-aircraft rockets at the Penemünde base are getting closer to being put into practical use, leaving an area for the installation of the rockets, giving them a chance to show them. ”

"The rocket occupies too much space, and it is difficult to get on the ship."

"Change your thinking, launch vertically, and bury it under the main deck." Hoffman smiled slightly, "Aren't those large, well-defended arsenals of naval guns available for rockets?" ”

The US Naval Commission still had to discuss and discuss, and in Germany, Hoffman decided the fate of the remaining three British battleships with a single sentence: the Brute was destined to appear as a mobile air defense tower, and the name Brute was really worthy of Hoffman's willfulness......