Tan Renhao has no doubts about the strength of the empire, a country that has fought in the flames of war for thousands of years, and has not been defeated by any enemy in hundreds of years, will never be far behind. In addition to the strength of the country, there is another important factor that supports the fighting of the imperial army and people, that is, the sense of honor in the hearts of the imperial army and the people, as well as the kind of tenacious will to work hard, never give up, indomitable, and the tenacious character tempered in the history of thousands of years, perhaps, this is the key factor for the empire to always stand at the top of the world.

Whether it is the army or the navy, the heroic deeds of the imperial soldiers who are not afraid of sacrifice on the battlefield can be seen as the outward manifestation of the imperial spirit, and the direct expression of the will of a country and a nation. From the emperor to the prime minister, to the ordinary soldiers, the farmers in the fields, the factory workers, the school teachers, the imperial soldiers and civilians in every post are all striving for a common goal, this is the spirit of the empire, the spirit of never giving up.

When he looked at the heroic deeds that emerged in this war from an objective point of view, and looked at the huge war potential that the empire had erupted in the past four years, he suddenly understood that no enemy in this world could defeat this powerful country and nation with more than 400 million soldiers and civilians, which was why no enemy had defeated the empire for thousands of years.

When it comes to exploring this issue in depth, Tan Renhao does not need confidence, he already has enough confidence. What he needs is time. It can be said that this was the feeling of everyone at that time. It was only a matter of time before the empire was victorious, and before it reached victory.

There will definitely be a lot of setbacks and grinds. Time is both friend and foe. For both sides, time is everything, and it is a factor that cannot be changed.

Tan Renhao spent a lot of time figuring out the current strength of the Imperial Navy, and even he couldn't believe it, the war had been fought for four years. After four years, the losses of the Imperial Navy can be described as miserable. By now, the Imperial Navy had lost eight fleet carriers, eighteen battleships (three newer battleships), four small aircraft carriers, twenty-eight heavy cruisers (including large air defense cruisers), more than eighty destroyers, and hundreds of other warships with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons. However, the strength of the Imperial Navy did not decrease, but increased many times more than when the war broke out. It can be said that the Imperial Navy is getting stronger and stronger. Other than that. The quality of the officers and men of the Imperial Navy has also improved considerably, especially the carrier-based aviation. At the time of the outbreak of the war, the quality of carrier-based aviation in the Imperial Navy was even inferior to that of Japan. In those naval battles in the year before the war, the Imperial Navy did not take much advantage. But by 23 years, the quality of the Imperial Naval Aviation had already surpassed that of Japan in an all-round way, and after the United States entered the war. The quality of officers and men has always been higher than that of the US military. This is also a huge wealth accumulated by the Imperial Navy in more than four years of war.

At the current rate of development, the Imperial Navy will not only be stronger, but will certainly become the most powerful navy in the world. When Tan Renhao went to explore the true strength of the Imperial Navy, he also received a report on the development of the US Navy, which was the latest intelligence obtained by the Imperial Intelligence Service.

As previously predicted, the U.S. Navy will also gain new combat strength at the beginning of 26, including six Essex-class fleet carriers, twelve heavy cruisers, and more than 30 new destroyers. These warships are enough to form two aircraft carrier task forces, and even three aircraft carrier task forces. But this is still far behind the Imperial Navy, because at the beginning of 26 years, the Imperial Navy will have at least thirteen fleet carriers, eight small aircraft carriers, fifteen battleships (including six old battleships that have been in the South Atlantic theater of operations), more than thirty large air defense cruisers, more than forty heavy cruisers, and more than one hundred and twenty new destroyers. Even if the fleet sent to the South Atlantic theater is excluded, the strength of the Imperial Navy in the Pacific theater still far exceeds that of the United States. In addition, the US Navy does not have a suitable main escort warship, that is, there are no battleships, and there are no powerful air defense cruisers, which is its most fatal vulnerability!

In addition to regular warships, the US Navy has built more than forty escort aircraft carriers. Previously, these escort carriers had been operating in the North Atlantic, and their main mission was to deal with German submarines in the North Atlantic, escort convoys to and from the United States and Britain, and carry out fixed-point anti-submarine patrols in the "hard-hit areas" of submarines. Because the survivability of the escort aircraft carrier itself is extremely low, even much worse than that of a small aircraft carrier, and its speed is also very slow, and it cannot keep up with the fleet at all. Therefore, the United States has not arranged for escort aircraft carriers to fight in the Pacific theater. Now, the United States no longer has enough warships to hold the defense line in the Pacific Ocean, and the submarines of the Tang Empire have been put into large-scale combat operations to break diplomatic relations in the Pacific, so the US Navy has begun to deploy escort aircraft carriers to the Pacific theater, and its initial task is to carry out anti-submarine combat missions on the sea routes from the west coast of the United States to Hawaii and Australia, and undertake the task of transporting combat aircraft to the front line.

In fact, the biggest problem of the US Navy at that time was not the lack of aircraft carriers, but the lack of supporting escort warships, especially air defense warships that provided air defense cover for aircraft carriers. This problem may not be noticed by many people, but the impact is actually very far-reaching.

The biggest opponent of an aircraft carrier is the enemy's aircraft carrier, which has been proven in real combat. Although submarines have also sunk aircraft carriers on the battlefield, and shore-based bombers also pose a certain threat to aircraft carriers, the aircraft carrier itself must be the one that can really deal with it. It's like on the ground, the biggest opponent of a tank is the tank itself. The most effective way to strike at the opponent's aircraft carriers is to have more and better aircraft carriers.

The Americans do not lack the ability to build aircraft carriers. At that time, the Tang Imperial Navy had only six large slipways building aircraft carriers, while the United States had eight large slipways building aircraft carriers at the end of 24 (the U.S. Navy's construction defense was not exactly the same as that of the Tang Empire's naval lands). And the shipbuilding efficiency of these eight slipways is not exactly the same). But the problem was that at that time, the U.S. Navy simply could not provide the fleet with special air defense warships like the "Li Jing" class and the "Rui Beast" class in the Imperial Navy!

The U.S. Navy has expanded the construction of Baltimore-class heavy cruisers, and has made comprehensive improvements to them. The main direction of improvement is to strengthen its air defense combat capability.

The air defense of the improved heavy cruisers of the "Baltimore" class has already exceeded the "Solar Terms"

class heavy cruisers, not much worse than the "River" class. Other than that. The U.S. Navy is also building a large number of cheaper, shorter-built light cruisers, all of which use 127-mm high-level guns as their main guns, and have comprehensively strengthened their anti-aircraft firepower to serve as auxiliary anti-aircraft warships. But the problem is. Fundamentally, it is impossible to replace the main air defense warships with hundreds of antiaircraft guns, such as the "Li Jing" class, or the "Rui Beast" class, or battleships, whether they are heavy or light patrols.

At that time, in the Tang Imperial Navy, the ratio of aircraft carriers to air defense warships was one to two, and if heavy cruisers were also included, it was close to one to six. And in general, there will be at least four air defense warships around an aircraft carrier. In addition, there were several destroyers with not too weak anti-aircraft fire.

The actual combat also proved this point, it was very difficult to assault the aircraft carriers of the Tang Imperial fleet, and the penetration rate of American bombers was less than 20%! Other words. A hundred bombers, capable of breaking through the air defense of the fleet, will not reach more than 20 bombs over aircraft carriers! During the same period, the penetration rate of the bombers of the Tang Empire against the American fleet was as high as 40%. Twice as many as the U.S. military! Don't underestimate the extra double, this means that the survival rate of the American aircraft carrier has been reduced by half, and its battle loss rate is naturally much higher!

In response to this situation, the US Navy is already trying to find a way to solve the problem. In fact, the large cruisers of the "Alaska" class were a good kind of air defense battleship, and the "Iowa" class battleships also had extremely strong anti-aircraft firepower. All these have been confirmed in actual combat. In the "Battle of the Coral Sea" and the "Battle of Necke Island" (the name of the last naval battle), the performance of the large cruisers of the "Alaska" class was very prominent, and they became a great threat to the bombing agencies of the Tang Empire. But the key problem is that these two types of warships were not designed for air defense operations at the beginning, and both have a fatal flaw, that is, the cost is too high, and it is simply impossible to purchase them in large quantities!

The United States gritted its teeth and bought six large cruisers of the "Alaska" class, and the cost of these six cruisers was enough to build four "Iowa" class battleships, or eight "Essex" class aircraft carriers. It is also because of this that the US Navy did not order cruisers of the "Alaska" class again, the cost was too expensive for even the Americans to afford. At that time, the second batch of battleships of the "Iowa" class, newly built by the US Navy, had not yet entered service, and the cost of the battleships was even more expensive. The Baltimore-class heavy cruisers were again difficult to partner with the main force of the fleet's air defense. In desperation, the US Navy could only seek a new air defense warship, a new type of warship that was cheaper, had a strong air defense, and existed entirely for air defense operations.

The initial design work on the new warship began in the middle of 24, when the design work on the "Alaska" class had not yet been completed, and the US Navy recognized the "Alaska" at that time

It is impossible for such a "semi-battleship" to become the main force, so new design requirements are proposed.

By the end of 24, the design of the new warship was largely completed, and by that time the US Navy had recognized the importance of the air defense of the fleet, reoriented the use of the new warship, and instructed the shipyard to redesign. The specific design work was not completed until the middle of 25 years.

This is, in fact, a scaled-down version of the large cruiser of the "Alaska" class. The standard displacement of the new warship was reduced to 16,550 tons, the length was shortened to 195 meters, and a wide hull structure was adopted to improve the stability of the battleship. Some of the ineffective armament used in the "Alaska" class was eliminated, such as the main gun caliber was reduced to 203 mm, a large number of 127 mm secondary guns were used, and a new 76 mm anti-aircraft gun (the latest anti-aircraft gun of the US Navy, the performance of which was close to that of the Imperial Navy's 80 mm anti-aircraft guns). In addition, the expensive fleet command system on the "Alaska" class was abolished, which reduced the cost of battleships.

To put it bluntly, this is a specialized air defense cruiser similar to the "Li Jing" class, and its air defense capabilities are quite close to the "Li Jing" class. In August 25, the construction of the first batch of warships of this class officially began, and it is expected to be commissioned in the middle of 26, or at the end of the year, and it is simply impossible to enter service at the beginning of 26. That is, the US Navy will not have specialized air defense cruisers until after the middle of 26.

This can be regarded as a lesson that the US military has learned with blood on the battlefield, or that the US military is imitating the Tang Imperial Navy, and according to the way of the Tang Imperial Navy, the air defense capability of building a large number of ships is no worse than that of fast battleships, and the speed can fully keep up with the special air defense cruisers of the fleet aircraft carriers, so as to enhance the ability of aircraft carriers to resist air strikes. This is also a bloody lesson in the war, before the war, no one realized that aircraft carriers need special air defense cruisers to protect, most countries think that aircraft carriers should be used to protect battleships, and now, the Tang Empire and the United States are very clear that it is aircraft carriers, not battleships, that should be protected!

It is also clear from this intelligence that the Americans have not given up their efforts and have not given up their efforts to advance to victory. The resilience shown by the Americans in this war is also admirable, and it has a lot to do with their national identity.

The United States does not actually have a dominant nation, and it can even be said that it is not a real nation-state. This is a new country, and it is destined for the United States to be a pioneering, enterprising, innovative, and adventurous country. In the short history of the United States, its land area has expanded by more than 20 times, its population has increased by more than 50 times, and its national strength has increased by more than 100 times. These are the direct embodiment of the pioneering spirit, adventurous spirit, and innovative spirit of the Americans. On the battlefield, this is the fundamental reason why the US military is able to hold out.

Tan Renhao also realized this, and judging from the performance of the United States, it can only prove one point, that is, the war is far from over!