"What do you think?" Jochen, who had stepped off the Stosch, asked suddenly, thoughtlessly.

However, Tirpitz on the side immediately understood what the emperor meant: "I have a lot of ideas, but now I have too many restrictions, and I can't see her value in a short time." ”

"Hmm," Jochen nodded imperceptibly.

Tirpitz, who was a little unsure of the attitude of His Majesty the Emperor's "um", immediately added: "The aircraft carrier is a completely new type of ship, and we built and used it as an auxiliary ship for the navy. Now we have a new idea for how to use it, but it will take time to validate and reposition it. ”

His Majesty was clearly interested in the Colonel's suggestion, and His Majesty later had his attendants write down the idea and involve the Army, which made Tirpitz realize that the project would have His Majesty's full support. As a result, Tirpitz was a little unsure whether His Majesty was really moved by the colonel's words to make the attack capability of aircraft carriers a new focus of naval development.

This is not what Tirpitz wants, and the navy is now stretched thin. The new ships are like gold-swallowing monsters, devouring the golden marks in a steady stream, and the navy is almost unable to maintain the construction plan of five capital ships a year because of the rising construction prices, so it is really not good news to invest too much energy in a completely new type of ship in this situation. Therefore, if His Majesty the Emperor really wants to spend money on aircraft carriers, he must resolutely resist and would rather die than obey.

"Well, you have a point." Jochen nodded, an attitude that made Tirpitz quietly breathe a sigh of relief. Based on the emperor's consistent correctness in the field of naval construction, if he insists on vigorously developing aircraft carriers, he may not be able to technically speak of His Majesty the emperor's mouth. Now this attitude is really reassuring.

But obviously. His Majesty is very concerned about the future of this new type of ship, and Tirpitz has to pay lip service to his support without worries: "Although we will not be able to fully explore her potential in a short period of time, I am very optimistic about her future development, and once we can really tap its potential, it will not be too difficult to develop." After all, there are not many civilian ships suitable for modification in our country now. ”

With the successful refit of the Stosch in the forefront, Tirpitz naturally thought that it would be better to continue to convert aircraft carriers with civilian ships. It's cheap and fast, and there are really quite a few ships suitable for retrofitting in Germany now.

Because Jochen set the tone that Germany does not play cruise races, since the White Star Company and the Canard Company launched the cruise race as in history, the British cruise ships began to build bigger and bigger, and the Aquitania of the Canard Company and the Olympic of the White Star Company have increased the displacement of cruise ships to the standard of more than 45,000 tons, and the cruise ships of the North Deutsche Lloyd and Hamburg-America companies have basically maintained about 20,000 tons.

But not going crazy with the British doesn't mean Germany is doing nothing in the cruise world. The reputation of excellent cruise ships in use can bring extremely high benefits to German shipping, shipbuilding and other aspects, so Germany is not without achievements in the field of cruise ships.

The Germans were not prepared to go crazy with the British in tonnage, so the cards played by the Germans were speed and luxury. Just as White Star focuses on comfort, Canard focuses on speed. The two companies Norddeutsche Lloyd's and Hamburg-Americas are also focused. But both companies have one criterion, that is, their own ships must be faster than the British!

Therefore, as early as 1902, the standard displacement of 20,000 tons Frederick the Great was started by North Deutsche Lloyd's Company, which became the first large civilian ship in German history to use a steam turbine, and its speed of 24 knots was unmatched among cruise ships at that time.

However, at the end of 1906, the Lusitania of the Carnad Company's maiden voyage reached a trial speed of 27 knots, and its sister ship, the Mauritania, increased the average speed of the transatlantic to 26.6 knots, allowing the Germans to hand over the Blue Streamer. The Germans decided to go crazy with speed, Hamburg-America decided to build a cruise ship with a standard displacement of 30,000 tons and a speed of 28 knots, and North Deutsche Lloyds decided to build a high-speed cruise ship with a standard displacement of 25,000 tons and a speed of 30 knots! But under the secret bewitchment of His Majesty the Emperor. Both companies have raised the target to a standard displacement of 30,000 tons and a speed of 30 knots!

Of course, Jochen didn't mean to do this. In World War II, the Japanese were able to rebuild two Flying Eagle-class aircraft carriers with cruise ships, and Italy also rebuilt two Aquila, although Italy surrendered before it was completed. Nazi Germany also tried to rebuild its aircraft carriers with two cruise ships, the Potsdam and the Europa. In this case, of course, I can do the same, anyway, this is the time of the cruise race, and the abundant financial resources and inflated sense of honor make the German government not have to give any subsidies like the Japanese. These Conzen bosses will all shout in support of the construction of the biggest and fastest ship.

Of course, Tirpitz will not fight the idea of these two ships now, the navy now likes two 15,000-ton Wilhelm class cruise ships built as early as 1897, although the use of three-expansion reciprocating steam engines, but in order to pursue high speed and carefully verified linearity is very good, so that this old ship also once had a blue streamer with a speed of 22 knots. In the eyes of the Navy, it was used to replace the power system and give it a makeover. It will perform much better than the Stosch.

However, Jochen's attitude was not as optimistic as Tirpitz thought, and even if the navy requisitioned the two ships after the outbreak of war, it would take a lot of time to refit them. This is not like the British requisitioning the Campania to become an "aircraft carrier" with a 50-metre flight deck in the bow, and the full refit will certainly take longer than the Stosch. And with all resources tilted towards the army after the outbreak of war, it is unknown whether the modification can be completed in the war.

Jochen sighed silently in his heart, as a time-traveler, the preconceived notions that he brought with him in later life always influenced his judgment all the time. When others were still playing with big ships and huge guns, I used air force to completely defeat my opponents, and my "far-sighted" thinking always tempted Jochen.

The ideal is very plump, and the reality is very skinny. The current level of technology simply cannot achieve the beautiful picture of Jochen's imagination of the plane coming down from the sky, which makes Jochen a little helpless. Look at the novels you read before you crossed over, and you can open your mouth and start construction of 10 and 20 capital ships at the same time with a casual development, and you can make aircraft carriers a well-deserved maritime hegemon in a war. Look at yourself again, after the annexation of Austria, the number of capital ships built by the German Navy is actually not as good as that of Germany + Austria-Hungary in history (although the quality is far exceeded). And the aircraft carrier is now an embroidered pillow that can only be viewed from a distance, and it is simply a mess of failure.

But the reality is so cruel, and Jochen can only think rationally. As a traverser, Jochen's understanding of aircraft carriers is naturally much more profound Tirpitz, and he is very clear about its development history and the different routes and problems faced by various countries in their development paths.

First of all, Germany is not the United States and Japan. The bad sea conditions in the North Atlantic made it impossible for the development path of German aircraft carriers to completely copy the bombing routine of the United States.

Many military fans in later generations like to accuse the British Royal Navy of being the first to develop aircraft carriers, but it is the weakest in terms of strength. It is true that the British wasted too much treaty quota tonnage in the groping stage of aircraft carriers, not to mention that there are only 36 Glorious class aircraft with a displacement of 22,000 tons, after all, this is also a high-speed fleet aircraft carrier. The Hundred-Eyed Giant, the Eagle, and the Athletic God alone accounted for nearly 50,000 tons of the treaty limit. Moreover, the Royal Naval Aviation, which was suppressed by the Royal Air Force at that time, was indeed stretched thin in terms of the number of aircraft, but to say that the British Royal Navy aircraft carrier was not enough to carry aircraft in the design is a manifestation of its wrong thinking, but it is obviously not considering the actual situation.

First of all, they ignore a problem. That is, the sea state of the North Atlantic Ocean creates great difficulties for the application of aircraft carriers. The U.S. Navy's Midway-class aircraft carrier nearly failed in the North Atlantic's rough sea conditions, with a 41-degree roll and seawater pouring into the hangar nearly capsizing. After the incident, the US Navy also issued a special medal to express its gratitude that no irreparable tragedy was caused.

On the other hand, in the list of aircraft carriers of the British fleet, except for the three Glorious-class transferred from large light cruisers, the aircraft carriers of the British Royal Navy fleet are quite plump, with the LB ratio (length-to-width ratio) of the Ark Royal being 7.2, the LB ratio of the Tejas class is only 7, and the LB ratio of the Bold class, the final work of the Royal Navy aircraft carriers, is also only 7. The enclosed bow, stern and hangar all reflect the influence of the sea conditions in the North Atlantic on the design of British aircraft carriers. The design of aircraft carriers of the US and Japanese fleets with an LB ratio of more than 9 and an open bow and stern can clearly see the huge difference in application.

The application of the Americans' open hangars and deck mooring allowed the American aircraft carriers to have a huge aircraft capacity, which is also the reason why the American Navy was at a disadvantage compared to the Japanese Navy in the number of aircraft carriers in the early days of World War II, but did not suffer much in the number of carrier-based aircraft. But if you switch to the North Atlantic. If the weather is a little worse, it is estimated that the hull roll will make it impossible for you to carry out normal take-off and landing operations at all. And the rough waves will directly damage the aircraft tethered on your deck, so the path chosen by the British is clearly in line with their own realities. In this case, look at the 60 of the Ark Royal. The 55 aircraft on the Indomitable cannot be blamed for being too little. And Germany will now have to follow a similar path as the UK.

Of course, this does not mean that the Germans are ready to take the path of armored aircraft carriers, although the armored aircraft carriers of the British in World War II did perform well in damage resistance, and as long as the future will enter the jet age, then armored aircraft carriers are an inevitable development trend. However, the British took this step completely blind cats and dead rats, because naval aviation was suppressed by the air force and could not get permission to have more carrier-based aircraft and had to give up its attack power to improve its protection, so the route of the armored aircraft carrier and the jet belt achieved seamless docking. However, armored aircraft carriers have a lot of constraints on hangar space. The two-story hangar of the Indefatigable that was compressed to a height of 4.3 meters was a nightmare in practical use, so as long as you learned the kryptonite damage control of the US imperialism in World War I and World War II, there was no need to learn the evil way of armored aircraft carriers.

Therefore, the German aircraft carrier will still take the number of carrier-based aircraft as the first consideration, but it will inevitably face the embarrassment of insufficient attack power of a single ship. This is not a mistake in the design thinking, but an innate limitation of helplessness. So even in the First World War, black technology broke out in Germany. With more than 1,000 horsepower of aero engines, torpedo planes and dive bombers and other perfect means of attack, the 30-odd carrier-based aircraft of an aircraft carrier like the Stoshi are still not enough to see in a big scene like Jutland.

Then there are only two ways to remedy this problem, either to increase the number of aircraft carriers, or to increase the displacement of aircraft carriers, but neither of these paths is obviously possible. Even if the construction standard of aircraft carriers is lowered, a ship with a speed of more than 10,000 tons and a speed of more than 25 knots will not be cheap. What's more, history has proved that most of the small aircraft carriers with a low number of carrier-based aircraft are useless, and the minimum standard in Jochen's mind is about 20,000 tons, 28 knots, and more than 60 aircraft, and the cost of such a ship will not be much cheaper than a Deutschland-class. Therefore, it is better for the navy to build more capital ships if it has this spare money, and even if it is to build more destroyers, it is much better than building this kind of thing that is only an auxiliary ship now.

Jochen obviously has to admit that this view is clearly correct in the current circumstances. During the exploration phase of the US Naval Aviation, the two Lexington-class aircraft carriers still had no chance of winning against the battleship Grand Fleet in several exercises due to the limitations of aircraft performance. Then the carrier-based aviation units of the German Navy, which would not have an advantage over the Lexington sisters in terms of the number of aircraft carried and the performance, could not become the backbone of the German Navy in the upcoming world war.

Moreover, the fragility of the aircraft carrier itself makes it necessary to have a strong escort fleet to accompany it, not to mention that the capital ships and sub-capital ships of the navy, such as large cruisers and heavy cruisers, escort auxiliary ships are something that should not be thought of at all now, that is, small ships such as light cruisers and destroyers, their main work is also to serve the capital ships, what virtue does the aircraft carrier have, how can it let itself enjoy the same treatment as the capital ship?

So Tirpitz's attitude Jochen can understand and also express support, and now is not the time for aircraft carriers to step into the foreground. (To be continued.) )