readx; With the frantic construction of the Napoleon-class catamaran super-battleship by the next-door neighbor Gallic chicken, Hans Meow, after the mustachioed Führer came to power, looked anxious in his eyes and heart. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Info So Hansmeow, who was also stimulated and went crazy, got the later unbuilt super battleship out in advance in one breath, and changed it to a two-body structure.

This Hindenburg-class (Schlachtschiff "H" project) battleship was originally part of the German Navy's plan "Z". Belonged to the large battleship program.

It is planned to build six ships, codenamed H, J, K, L, M, N. Among them, the H and M ships were built by the Blom & Foss shipyard in Hamburg. The J and N ships were built by the Wiesel company in Bremen. The K-ship was built by the German factory in Kiel. The L ship was built by the Wilhelmshaven shipyard. Among them, four have been named: Hidenburg (H39), Ludendorf (H40), Moltke (H41), and Frederick the Great (H42).

For battleship fans of the Cult of Multi-Turret, the most memorable battleships of the Nazi German Navy are the absolutely first-class Bismarck-class (the main guns of the 380 cannot withstand the main guns of the 406). But a few people know that compared with the unfinished battleships of the "Hindenburg" class, the "Bismarck" class is pediatric.

After the end of the First World War, due to the strict constraints of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was not qualified to build 10,000-ton surface warships. When Adolf Hitler, the war lord came to power, the Germans began to secretly build large-tonnage warships, starting with the new battle cruisers "Scharnhorst" and "Gnessenau", which were designed to violate the 10,000-ton limit from the beginning.

After Hitler announced the destruction of the "Treaty of Versailles", Germany signed the "Anglo-German Naval Agreement" with Britain, and the tonnage of German warships could reach 35% of that of the British army. In September 1938, the German Navy drew up a "six-year shipbuilding plan" with its old enemy Britain as its imaginary enemy, which was approved by Hitler. This is the extremely mysterious "Plan Z". At that time, Hitler was very optimistic that there should be no war with Britain before 1946. During this period of "peace", Germany will use all its industrial forces to carry out large-scale work on the construction of new ships. As long as "Plan Z" is completed, it will be able to crush the aging British fleet, and then land on LinkedIn and extend its power to the Atlantic. The size of its scheduled fleet is as follows.

1. 6 56,000-ton warships ("Hindenburg" class)

2. 2 42,000-ton warships ("Bismarck" class)

3. 2 32,000-ton cruiser battleships ("Scharnhorst" class modified 15-inch main gun)

4. 3 new P-class pocket warships to replace the original 3 "German" class pocket warships.

5. 2 aircraft carriers ("Zeppelin" class)

6. 5 heavy cruisers ("Hipper" class)!

7. 44 light cruisers

8. 68 destroyers!

9. 90 torpedo boats

10. 249 U-boats

In the entire "Plan Z", the "Hindenburg" class large battleships were the top priority, and the German navy, especially the surface ship forces, pinned high hopes on defeating the British huge battlefleet in one fell swoop with the "Hindenburg" class, and realizing the long-cherished wish of the German navy for hundreds of years. And it is surprising that many of these projects were implemented as early as the early 30s, and the so-called Treaty of Versailles was not binding at all.

However, the Hindenburg class can be described as a twist and turn in the design and construction process, especially the naval guns in charge of the Krupp Arsenal (Krupp cannon conscience goods) directly made the Krupp family vomit blood, why? It's not that the Führer occasionally thinks of what is on a whim.

For such a first-class project as the Hindenburg class, the German Naval Construction Agency was holding back. The reason is very simple, because nearly 20 years after the end of World War I, the German Navy did not design a new battleship, and the design team has been lost, so the German Construction Bureau did not even dare to design a 30,000-ton surface ship at the beginning. However, under great pressure from the top of the Navy, the German Naval Construction Bureau began to conduct theoretical research on the construction of 50,000-ton battleships as early as 1932, and conducted feasibility studies on their weapons, armor and speed.

So in 1935, the "Hindenburg" class began to be formally designed, and it was originally planned to build four ships, codenamed H, J, K, L, and later Hitler followed the "strong advice" of the generals of the navy's surface ships and added two, namely M and N. Initially, the standard displacement of these two ships was set at 80,000 tons with 480 mm guns, but the following year, Hitler ordered it to be increased to 100,000 tons with 800 mm guns! This is a bit of a sea "rat" tank.

At the beginning of the design, the German Navy made the following design requirements for the "Hindenburg" class. The displacement is 50,000 tons, the waterline is 260 meters long, 36 meters wide, the draft is 10.7 meters at full load, the maximum speed is 27 knots, and the endurance is 13,000 nautical miles / 19 knots + 20% combat reserve. In terms of protection, it can resist 403 mm shells at a distance of 20,000 ~ 30,000 meters, and the ship's side can withstand the blow of a 250 kg charge torpedo. It is equipped with 4 twin 403-mm main guns, 150 mm secondary guns, 105 mm long-range anti-aircraft guns, and 37 mm short-range anti-aircraft guns. No carrier-based aircraft.

However, in the specific design, some performance indicators were encountered. For example, since the main guns are twin instead of triple or quadruple configurations, it is necessary to increase the length of the ship and increase the armor protection of the ammunition compartment and engine room. The Germans placed special emphasis on the stability and armor protection of warships, because they knew that Britain would always have the upper hand in the number of warships. Thus, the weight of the armor of the "Hindenburg" class is about 42% of the total weight of the warship. Another important issue was endurance, at that time Germany had no overseas bases, and the long journey from German ports to the Atlantic showed that German capital ships had to have a greater endurance than the battleships of other countries, that is, they had to carry more fuel. In addition, the battleships of the new designs of the great powers had a speed of 30 knots, so the speed of the "Hindenburg" also had to reach 30 knots.

To sum up, even if the number of main guns, caliber, armor protection, speed and endurance are all taken as the lowest indicators, according to the accurate calculations of the designers in April 1936, the displacement of the "Hindenburg" class (excluding fuel and spare feed water) will reach 54,000 tons, if you count the fuel and spare feed water, it will reach more than 60,000 tons, and the average draft will be close to 11 meters. So the original design was overturned and restarted. The German Naval Construction Agency made a proposal to the then Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, Admiral Raeder, regarding the displacement of the two ships. After demonstration, it was finally determined that the standard displacement of the first four ships of the "Hindenburg" class was 60,500 tons, the full load displacement was 69,000 tons, and the caliber of the main guns was set at 420 mm. As for the additional M and N ships, the last design mission indicated that the design displacement was 109246 tons, and the maximum displacement was 118104 tons!

In a hurry, the designers made extensive reference to the "Bismarck" class in the design, which was designed at the same time. At present, many battleship experts believe that at that time Germany was no longer capable of carrying out the design of battleships of two classes at the same time, and the "Hindenburg" was only an enlarged version of the "Bismarck" class. This also makes some sense, because the "Hindenburg" class and the "Bismarck" class on the design drawings are similar. And it is worth mentioning that throughout the design process, the German Naval Construction Agency kept track of the situation with the battleships of the world's naval powers. Battleships under construction or under development abroad have always influenced the construction of the "Hindenburg" class, and Hitler is also self-righteous and interferes in the construction of the "Hindenburg" class everywhere. (Alas, the Imperial Navy is very sad when it meets the Führer, who loves to have nerves)

Let's take this artillery as an example.

In 1932, the French Navy prepared to equip its 35,000-ton battleship Dunkirk with 381-mm guns, and the two 35,000-ton Venerio Veneto-class battleships built by Italy since 1934 also used 381-mm guns. Therefore, German naval designers believed that the main gun of the "Hindenburg" class should be at least 403 mm (i.e. 15.9 inches) in order to win future naval battles. It must also be taken into account that other naval powers will further equip battleships with guns of more than 400 mm. So in 1935, the German Navy ordered the design, construction and testing of a 403 mm main gun. As a result, when preparing to install the S-K-C 15.9-inch gun for the Hindenburg class, Hitler asked for a replacement with a 16.53-inch (420 mm) gun to counter the new battleships of the US Navy. So the artillery manufacturers had to start all over again. However, when the development was successfully developed and ready to be installed on the ship, it was notified that the construction of the "Hindenburg" class was suspended. In 1943, Hitler suddenly asked the Navy to design an 18.9-inch (480 mm) battleship with a 18.9-inch (480 mm) gun based on the Hindenburg-class hull. However, a few months after the manufacturer began to work on the development of a 480-mm gun, Hitler actually ordered the installation of an 800-mm gun on the "Hindenburg". Exhausted, Krupp was indignant, but continued to work hard. Unfortunately, the technical difficulty was too great, and until the Allied "Sherman" tank stormed the Krupp factory, the 800-mm main gun was not even visible.

The defense system aspect was always the most important thing for the Germans. At that time, Hitler did not intervene much in the defense system of the "Hindenburg" class, but due to the influence of the new battleships of the great powers, the design also changed again and again. Initially, the German Navy demanded that only a 250-kilogram** charge torpedo be prevented. However, due to the requirements of the new generation of battleships of other countries to protect against torpedoes with a 300-kilogram charge (such as the French "Dunkirk" class), the "Hindenburg" was also required to be designed to be able to withstand a 300-kilogram charge. This requirement was quickly overturned, and the final requirement was to protect against a torpedo with a 450 kg ** charge.

The thickness of the protective armor above the waterline is also changed frequently, but this is the least change in this class of ships, basically around the change of the caliber of the main gun, and in the end the most important part is required to prevent the attack of 420 mm shells. The construction of the "Hindenburg" class is planned to build six ships, codenamed H, J, K, L, M, N. Among them, the H and M ships were built by the Blom + Foss shipyard in Hamburg, the J and N ships were built by the Wiesel company in Bremen, the K ships were built by the Deutsche factory in Kiel, and the L ships were built by the Wilhelmshaven shipyard. Names have been given to the Hidenburg (H39), Ludendorf (H40), Moltke (H41) and Frederick the Great (H42).

The first two ships of the "Hindenburg" class, the H39 and H40, began on July 15 and August 15, 1939, and the construction process was very stable for a while. But the ups and downs of the tide of battle affected the battleships in the dockyard. When Bismarck was launched in 1940, the war situation in Europe was no longer what it was when it was launched. With its powerful army and air power, the German army seized control of most of the European continent in a very short period of time, and the only thing that could stand in the way of Germany was Britain, which was alone at sea. But what made Hitler laugh and cry was that the giant battleship group that the German Navy could compete with Britain was still in dockyard

The victory came so quickly and so suddenly that the German navy could not cope with it. The German Navy reluctantly participated in the invasion of Norway in a state of ill-preparedness. Although it was also victorious, it was compared to the outstanding combat exploits of the army and air force. Even the U-boat showed its might, and the surface fleet of the Navy looked disgraced. With the outbreak of the Soviet-German war (the German Army was short of steel due to the huge consumption of the Soviet-German war) and the sinking of the "Bismarck", Hitler was greatly stimulated and disappointed with the large German surface ship forces. He cancelled all six planned construction of the Hindenburg-class warships (along with three P-class warships, which were also cancelled). Since then, the German Navy has been producing submarines and a small number of destroyers (for escort use).

The four Hindenburg-class ships ceased work at the same time on August 29, 1941. At that time, the hull construction of the four ships was almost completed, and preparations were being made for the construction of the upper stage. The naval guns that had been produced were converted to shore defense guns and fortress guns. By the end of 1941, the construction of four Hindenburg-class ships had resumed, as German intelligence had received information that the United States had built a new battleship with 406 mm guns, and that Germany had no comparable battleship. A few months later, however, the work was halted because Hitler had ordered the steel needed for the Hindenburg class to be handed over to the Army, and the U.S. Navy was being defeated by the Japanese Navy, which Hitler believed was about to be wiped out by the Japanese Navy and that Germany did not need new battleships to deal with the battleships being built by the United States. After two years of lull, in 1943 Hitler suddenly demanded that the Navy install a 480-mm gun on the basis of the unfinished Hindenburg-class hull (the dismantling of the Hindenburg-class hull had already begun in preparation for the use of the dismantled steel for submarine construction), and then ordered the installation of a 31.5-inch (800-mm) gun. That's the H42 plan.