The Dunkirk was originally a typical battle cruiser, with a broadside armor belt of 250mm (283mm for Strasbourg), a main deck of 125mm, three layers of armor with a total thickness of 200mm in the upper part of the engine room, and three layers of armor with a total of 250mm thick armor in the upper part of the ammunition bay (275mm in Strasbourg). These www.biquge.info were not moved during the renovation, which saved a lot of time, otherwise the 10-month construction period would not have been completed in any way.

The big change in the transformation is to dismantle the naval guns, and at the same time rebuild the bridge, turning the tall tower-shaped battleship command bridge into a strip-shaped and relatively low aircraft carrier command bridge and placing it on the starboard side.

The storage function of the ammunition compartment and the functional design of the area where the guns and the original bridge are located have been changed (changed to an armored covered aviation fuel tank and part of the hangar), and the whole warship directly uses the main deck as the flight deck, and at the same time carries out the port and port deck floats (the thickness of the float part is 50mm), and the port side is a 154-meter-long beveled deck, compared to the original design, the weight of the reduced weight after removing the turret and the tall bridge is offset by the deck weight of the float part, but the center of gravity is slightly lowered, and the seaworthiness is better.

Compared to the aircraft carriers such as Akagi and Kaga, which were remodeled with battleship hulls, the Dunkirk did not rebuild the hangar on the main deck, so it looked shorter, and the side side was raised to take care of the rough weather, and the bow was further strengthened in the Atlantic bow.

Generally speaking, the tonnage of the warship has not changed significantly after the transformation, the standard displacement is about 27,000 tons, the speed has basically remained unchanged after maintenance and repair, and the ship's center of gravity and seaworthiness are good. The fuel and ammunition compartments in the front half of the ship have heavy armor protection, the core position of the entire flight deck has become 125mm thick, and there is no elevator deployed (all use side lifts), the integrated thick deck greatly enhances the defensive performance, and the elevator, the Achilles heel of the aircraft carrier deck defense, is also completely eliminated.

The German Navy, worried about the quality of French armor steel, carried out repeated tests. Tests have shown that British and American 500-pound high-explosive, armor-piercing, and semi-armor-piercing shells cannot penetrate the core belt of the main deck at all, even 1,000-pound high-explosive bombs can resist it, plus the heavy defense on the power compartment and fuel tank, 1-2 bombs can't help this warship at all.

While having a heavy defense, the outstanding disadvantage of the ship is that the hangar area is not only small and only single-layered, and the displacement of 27,000 tons is only 2,000 tons less than that of the Dafeng-class armored aircraft carrier, but the hangar carrier-based aircraft is less than half of the opponent (the Dafeng hangar can accommodate more than 60 aircraft), and the Essex-class hangar, which is smaller than the ship, has a capacity of more than 3 times that of the Dunkirk. However, thanks to the battlecruiser's slender hull, the Dunkirk's main deck is up to 219 meters long, slightly shorter than most fleet carriers, but much longer than all escort carriers, and considering its speed of 27 knots and the structure of the catapult, it is not a problem to take off a fully loaded heavy attack aircraft.

Based on the above articles, from the day it was decided to build the Dunkirk, its purpose and significance was not to fight for the main force of the aircraft carrier formation, but to break diplomatic relations, especially to deal with the British and American escort formations with escort aircraft carriers as the core, for the following reasons:

One: it's fast. The maximum speed can reach 27 knots, which is completely easy to deal with a slow escort fleet;

Second, the defense is strong. It is basically immune to the damage of 6-inch guns and less than 8-inch guns, and it also has a strong defense against 8-inch guns, and the artillery fire strength of the escort warship can be ignored;

Third, the attack is effective. After the introduction of the beveled deck, the fighter has two flight runways for take-off in an emergency, which is twice as fast, and the landing and take-off can be carried out without interfering with each other, and the efficiency is rapidly improved - this is the biggest advantage of the beveled deck.

Fourth, we are not afraid of air raids. The ship is equipped with a large number of 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns to improve anti-aircraft firepower and introduces 8 phalanx close defense systems, except for the lack of long-range anti-aircraft firepower, the medium and short-range anti-aircraft firepower is outrageously powerful. This is not enough, and the starting point of the design is to be able to resist the attack of attack planes released by escort aircraft carriers -- due to the restrictions on deck length and aircraft carrier speed, British and American escort aircraft of all classes can only take off fighters or lightly loaded attack planes, and planes with torpedoes or 1,000-pound bombs cannot fly at all. Unless the Dunkirk is hit by two bombs in a row to the same position on the deck, the core will remain intact at all times.

In Hoffman's consideration, no matter in artillery battles or air raids, the British and American escort formations could not pose a threat to the Dunkirk, and if they were equipped with a bodyguard -- such as the Strasbourg, a ship of the same class, plus a few destroyers with anti-submarine and protection operations, such a small and capable destroyer could brutalize the escort formation in the North Atlantic. Even if you occasionally encounter one or two old battleships, you are not afraid -- the Dunkirk has six ultra-long-range AR-352 reconnaissance planes, and also has 22 of the latest Ju-198 attack aircraft, which combine dive bombing and torpedo attacks, and does not have to worry about being able to deal with some old battleships.

After the Caiyun reform, the Meteor reform was also put into experimental service, because the performance is not stable enough, the main fleet does not dare to equip it for the time being, but it can be used to test the performance of the broken aircraft carrier -- in the Navy's schedule, if everything goes well, a large number of JU-198 will replace the position of the main carrier-based aircraft HE-218 and JU-98 in the fleet next spring, so that after the AR-352 is officially put on board, the aircraft carrier aircraft formation will still maintain three models of reconnaissance aircraft, fighters and attack aircraft, It will not cause command or maintenance difficulties due to too many models.

During the sea trials of the Dunkirk, Hoffman also specially asked the Navy to try to take off the ME-262 jet from the deck, the test showed that there was no difficulty in taking off, but there were big problems with landing, the probability of failure was more than 70%, and it took 30% success to obtain a 30% success rate after many tests on the calm Mediterranean Sea and the advantage of the oblique deck can be repeated through the field, if it is in the Atlantic Ocean during wartime, I am afraid that the success rate is less than 10%, Hoffman can only sigh at this, and temporarily give up the idea of equipping carrier-based jets, everything will take time.

After the Dunkirk, there are also Ise, Hyuga, and Jean Bar to complete the aircraft carrier in the next few months, and Hoffman has also selected the "bodyguards" equipped with them, the Ise-class 2 ships are protected by the Scharnhorst-class 2 ships, and the Barr is protected by the Richelieu, and with the Hedgehog-class destroyers that are gradually becoming an army, each broken fleet will be a deadly rope around the neck of Great Britain.

He decided to wrestle with Britain and the United States to see how long the Anglo-Canadian and South American routes that the United States insisted on could last. During this time, the main fleet was not in the North Atlantic, and Luo Cripple ignored the threat of German submarines, and frantically sent supplies to Qiu Fatzi with a battle loss rate of 40-50%, and the ships were gradually replaced by victory ships that can run 16 knots at the fastest and have a carrying capacity of more than 15,000 tons, and they didn't even care about the Z-shaped anti-submarine route, just cover their heads and go straight ahead, the faster the better. Field Marshal Dönitz was dumbfounded by the invincible merchant fleet, the posture of the Americans depends on whether you have more submarines or more merchant ships, every German submarine is fully loaded, and only hates that there are too few torpedoes and too slow reloading.

Wouldn't it be a pity not to eat such a big fish?

On the morning of 19 October, Admiral Ingersoll commanded the fleet to officially arrive in Bermuda, not only regaining control of the situation on the island, but also sending the wounded, including Ridgway himself, with the fastest destroyer, and at the same time urgently transferring troops and supplies from the mainland to repair the island.

The reporters who accompanied the fleet took a large number of photographs of the battlefield: the entire Bermuda archipelago was littered with traces of firefights, there were hardly any intact buildings on Bermuda Island under the indiscriminate bombardment of the army and aviation, the remains of German and American soldiers were scattered all over the main island, and paratroopers shot down or drowned by anti-aircraft fire could be seen on the beaches...... Everything is a sign that there was a bloody battle here

Two days later, Marshall personally greeted the arrival of Li Qiwei and the wounded at the dock, and the major media and public representatives stayed at the dock early, and when Li Qiwei and the wounded of the airborne troops appeared, the scene was thunderous with applause and cheers, and the magnesium lights were lit up, which was more dazzling than the posture of all Hollywood stars.

The top brass of the army blocked the media reporters who wanted to interview, saying that the soldiers were physically and mentally exhausted after returning from the bloody battle, and that a press conference would be held in a few days.

"General Ridgway, General Ridgway, could you please sum up this battle in one sentence, just one sentence......

"Yes, yes, in a word...... One word! Just one word! "The sound of the scene converges into the same content.

"Matthew, say it." Marshall looked at the latter with a smile.

"I think this battle tells us that as long as we work hard and persevere, there is no enemy and difficulty that cannot be defeated!" Li Qi pondered slightly, and the dialogue microphone said this.

"Great, that's great!" The audience cheered, and under the attention of tens of thousands of people, Ridgway got into Marshall's car and left.

"Matthew, you fought this battle very well, it's amazing, and the president is very satisfied." Marshall used three very words to describe it, and he was very interested.

"However, our losses are very large, several times more than the other side, too many brothers of the 82nd Airborne Division have been sleeping on it for a long time and cannot come back, the middle and low-level officers have almost been swept away, the two regiment commanders have been killed and seriously wounded, only me and the chief of staff are still intact, and the Germans have not been completely annihilated by us, and the remnants were taken away by German warships." Li Qi's slightly tired face was full of wry smiles, "Sir, I don't dare to say that this is a victory, even two defeats are reluctant, let alone great." ”

Marshall groaned and said a bunch of things that Ridgway hadn't even expected...... (To be continued.) )