The advent of aircraft carriers changed the way naval warfare was conducted, and at the same time replaced battleships.

There is nothing wrong with this statement in itself, but in the technical conditions of that time, not everywhere, aircraft carriers could replace battleships. In order for an aircraft carrier to become a real hegemon, it is not the battleship that needs to be defeated, but the weather.

Comparatively speaking, the weather conditions in the Pacific Ocean are among the best of several major ocean theaters, and the Pacific Ocean is vast enough to allow aircraft carriers to move. These conditions are all favorable to aircraft carriers, which is why the war has been fought so far, and the decisive battles between aircraft carriers are almost all concentrated in the Pacific Ocean, and the place where aircraft carriers really decide the victory or defeat is also the fundamental reason for the Pacific Ocean. On the contrary, on the other side, the aircraft carrier is not necessarily a "panacea".

Britain was the first in Europe, and the first in the world, to recognize the importance of aircraft carriers.

As early as the time of the First Global War, several seaplanes from the British Navy bombed German ports, which can be regarded as the first example of naval aviation. After the end of the First Global War, Britain was one of the first four countries to start building aircraft carriers, and was the first in Europe to begin studying the tactics of naval aviation. But soon, Britain was left behind by Japan and the United States, and the Tang Empire, which was catching up, soon surpassed Britain. Relatively speaking, among the four naval powers ranked at that time, Britain paid the least attention to aircraft carriers, and this was closely related to the scope of the British Navy's mission and the harsh climatic conditions in the North Atlantic.

In the early days of the emergence of aircraft carriers, naval aviation tactics were almost blank, and even the entire aviation tactics were blank, and many people simply could not understand why the Navy needed bombers.

And how much power the aircraft carrier can exert on the battlefield. This problem exists in all countries, and almost all countries are groping their way forward, taking many detours. And aviation tactics themselves matured during the Great War, summed up on the brutal battlefield. But before the outbreak of war. All countries have no relevant experience, so they can only develop aircraft carriers according to their own realities. And for the British Navy, the first thing they have to consider is the impact of the weather on the aircraft carrier, as well as the aircraft carrier in the North Atlantic. How much of a role did the Mediterranean Sea and other areas of British naval activity really have?

Compared to the Pacific Ocean, the weather conditions in the North Atlantic are not "bad" enough.

Especially in the North Sea region, there are not many days of the year when the weather is good. And at that time, aircraft carriers were more susceptible to weather factors than any other warship, even destroyers. At that time, the British already recognized that in harsh climatic conditions, aircraft carriers were not even inferior to destroyers, which also directly affected the attitude of the British to the development of aircraft carriers, as well as the use of British aircraft carriers during the war.

As a matter of fact. All aircraft carriers built before the outbreak of the war, including the Japanese and American aircraft carriers converted from battle cruisers, were very poor in their resistance to wind and waves, and in the early days of aircraft carriers. The aircraft carrier's own technology, aircraft performance, and related tactics are not mature, so it is understandable that the aircraft carrier's combat effectiveness is low. And any country develops its navy according to its own actual situation. It's also the right choice.

The British made the right choice. In terms of the development of aircraft carriers, Britain was in a completely different direction from the Tang Empire, the United States, Japan. The British did not completely abandon aircraft carriers, and during the war, the aircraft carriers of the British Navy did play a huge role, but at the same time, Britain did not copy the experience of other countries in developing aircraft carriers, so the aircraft carriers of the British Navy could be said to be an outlier at that time.

The Tang Empire, the United States, and the Japanese Navy, with the Pacific Ocean as the main battlefield, put aviation combat capability in the first place when designing their aircraft carriers, and the concrete embodiment is the number of combat aircraft carried and the speed of sorties. Therefore, the aircraft carriers of these three countries have a common feature, that is, to fit as many aircraft as possible in the limited space of the aircraft carrier. For example, at that time, the number of aircraft carried by the "Emperor" class of the Tang Empire exceeded 100, the number of aircraft of the "Soryu" class of the Japanese Navy reached 84, and the number of aircraft of the "Yorktown" class of the US Navy reached 108. Later aircraft carriers carried more fighters, the Tang Empire's "Yangtze River" class standard carrier aircraft number was 108, but it could generally carry 120 aircraft in combat, and the number of standard carrier aircraft of the "Lake" class reached 120, and in actual combat it also set a record of carrying 135 aircraft. The number of "Essex" class in the United States reached 120, and even the Japanese "Shozuru" class exceeded 90 aircraft.

To put it bluntly, the Tang Empire, the United States, and Japan ranked first in terms of their requirements for aircraft carriers, and after first ensuring the strike capability of aircraft carriers, they tried to improve other performance. And this also creates an objective problem, that is, these aircraft carriers are very "fragile", especially the aircraft carriers designed and built before the war are very fragile, the sinking rate is quite high, and the ability to resist wind and waves is very bad, the aircraft carriers of the Tang Empire and the United States have been blown off the bow by the storm! It was only during the war that the Tang Empire and the United States realized the importance of aircraft carrier survivability, but the method adopted by the two countries was not to improve defense capability by weakening strike capability, but to improve defense capability and seaworthiness by increasing displacement.

From the very beginning, the British Navy put the survivability of aircraft carriers, especially the ability to resist wind and waves, in the most important position. The British aircraft carrier was the first to adopt a fully enclosed bow, and it was only later that the Tang Empire and the U.S. Navy successively adopted this design. In addition, the aircraft carrier of the British Navy was the first to use a fully enclosed hangar, and until the end of the war, neither the Tang Empire nor the U.S. Navy used a fully enclosed hangar, only a semi-enclosed hangar.

In addition, the British aircraft carrier was the first to use a fully armored flight deck, while the Tang Empire and the United States only adopted this technology during the war. In addition, the structure of British aircraft carriers accounts for a much higher proportion than the aircraft carriers of the Tang Empire and the US Navy, which is also a major feature!

The British increased the seaworthiness of the aircraft carrier, as well as the survivability, not by increasing the displacement of the aircraft carrier, but by reducing the strike capacity, that is, by the number of aircraft carriers. It was only later in the war that Britain began to build aircraft carriers with a displacement of more than 40000 tons. This is much behind the Tang Empire and the US Navy. And before the outbreak of the war, and in the early days of the war, a common problem of the British Navy's aircraft carriers was: The number of aircraft carriers on the ground is much smaller than that of other countries of the same size!

Prior to the Hawk class, all British aircraft carriers had less than 60 ground-based aircraft. And only the "Ark Royal" reached 60, the others were all under 45, and the least was only 27. If you measure it by the standards of the Tang Imperial Navy, this is not a fleet aircraft carrier at all, and it is not even a small aircraft carrier. To know. The Imperial Navy's small aircraft carriers of the "Mountain" class have 60 aircraft, while the newly built escort aircraft carriers have 24 aircraft, and all fleet aircraft carriers have more than 100 aircraft!

This is also the characteristic of British aircraft carriers, that is, they have strong seaworthiness and better ability to resist wind and waves than aircraft carriers of other countries, but their aviation strike capabilities are the worst. This is reflected not only in the number of aircraft carriers on the ground, but also in the quality of the aircraft! At the time of the outbreak of the war, the British aircraft carriers were still biplanes, and at that time, the performance of the carrier-based combat aircraft of the Tang Imperial Navy was bad enough. But the British Navy was even worse. By 24 years, the British Navy had planned to replace its aircraft carriers with better fighters, but at that time "sea fire"

The development of the work has not yet been completed. The British had to introduce the F4U from the United States and use it on their own aircraft carriers (it was the British who concluded that the F4U was an excellent fighter in use, and finally prompted the US Navy to replace the F4F with the F4U).

If we talk about the aviation strike capabilities of aircraft carriers alone, then the British aircraft carriers are definitely the worst. But the problem is that the British designed the aircraft carrier to maintain combat capability in harsh climatic conditions, not for combat operations in the good weather conditions of the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, in a special environment, the combat effectiveness of British aircraft carriers was even better than that of the aircraft carriers of the Tang Empire. Of course, in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, British aircraft carriers are not everywhere. In 22 years, the "Brave" class "Glorious" was killed by the German Navy's "Kill Enhorst" and "Gnausenno" in the waters near Norway, which was also the only fleet aircraft carrier to be killed by artillery in a formal engagement. In addition, the "Brave" was sent to Haiti by the German submarine U-29 in the waters near Ireland, and the "Ark Royal" was also torpedoed by the German submarine U-81 in the Mediterranean, and sank before returning to Gibraltar.

These extreme combat examples are all produced under special circumstances, which also directly reflects that the North Atlantic and Mediterranean theaters are different from the Pacific theater, and even the imperial aircraft carriers with stronger aviation strike capabilities, or the US aircraft carriers, may not be able to play better. It can be said that during the Great War, both the Tang Empire and the United States changed the tactical thinking of the navy, especially after both sides lost a large number of battleships, and both aircraft carriers were used as the main battleships for development, and aviation tactics also made rapid progress. The aviation combat doctrine of the navies of both countries is quite mature, and the status of aircraft carriers has been confirmed. But at that time, the British Navy still did not abandon battleships, and even to a large extent still used battleships as the main battleships, and aircraft carriers were just battleships.

From this point of view, in fact, it is completely understandable why the British are not so enthusiastic about aircraft carriers, the special natural environment, geographical factors, coupled with the German Navy, which is an indisputable opponent, Britain will naturally continue to stubbornly believe that battleships are the main combat weapons of naval warfare. And in real combat, the battleships of the British Navy played a significant role in the North Sea, in the Mediterranean. It can be said that the performance of those giant ships of the British Navy was far better than that of the battleships of other countries.

It can also be seen from the development direction of the British Navy that natural factors and geographical environment have a significant impact on a country's navy, and in addition, the actual combat results are also affecting the decision-making level of the navy. The British are not stubborn, but are building their own navy in the way that best suits their own survival. In fact, it can be seen from the performance of the battleships built by the British that Britain is a country with a very independent thinking ability, and it will never easily follow the trend, and the direction of development chosen by Britain is the most beneficial to itself.

At that time, when the British Navy was building the "King George V" class, some people proposed that its 14-inch main gun was too small and could not compete with the Tang Empire and the new American battleships, but the British still insisted on using the 14-inch main gun, and it was proved in actual combat that this kind of artillery was enough to deal with the German "Bismarck" class battleships. One of the main reasons is that in the North Sea, the harsh climatic conditions often make the two sides fight only a few nautical miles, and at this distance, 14-inch armor-piercing shells and 16-inch armor-piercing shells can penetrate the opponent's armor.

In addition, the British Navy has not developed heavy cruisers, but has a greater emphasis on light cruisers, especially light cruisers equipped with a large number of medium-caliber guns with a fast rate of fire. Because in the opinion of the British, the power of 200-mm guns was already excessive, and shells of 155 or 133,127 mm caliber were able to penetrate the armor of cruisers, so it was completely unnecessary to need such a large caliber, and the density of fire was more important than power.

In terms of destroyers, submarines, and even combat aircraft, the British have embodied their own characteristics, which are reflected in the special environment of their own region. What is more interesting is that at that time, the combat planes of the Tang Empire and the US Navy insisted on using air-cooled engines, and there was a special requirement for combat aircraft, that is, they should not be too light, and it was inconvenient to take off and land on aircraft carriers. The British's "Sea Fire" uses water-cooled engines, and it is developed directly from the Air Force's "Spitfire" fighter, which can be regarded as a British feature!

The more he learned about his opponent, the more surprised Tan Renhao became. The main opponent this time is Britain, not France. For Tan Renhao, Britain is a very mysterious, but at the same time very admirable. Perhaps, it is precisely because he does not know much about Britain that he feels this way. And the more he knows his opponent, the more likely he is to defeat him!