The "Rui Beast" class large air defense cruisers were improved on the basis of the "Li Jing" class large air defense cruisers. It can be said that this was the first type of warship of the Imperial Navy to put air defense operations in the first place from the time of design, and it was also the first warship in the world at that time to almost abandon all other requirements and comprehensively strengthen air defense combat capabilities. It is the first type of warship in the world to put the task of air defense in the most important position from the moment the design indicators are issued, even at the expense of other performance.

The "Rui Beast" class air defense cruisers were much larger than the "Li Jing" class, and their full load displacement reached 22000 tons, which almost caught up with the battleships of the First World War, surpassed the pocket battleships built by the German Navy, and the cruisers of all countries at that time (the American cruisers of the "Alaska" class were not yet in service). What is completely incomparable to this displacement is that the level of armor defense of this class of battleships is only slightly better than that of heavy cruisers, requiring only that the important parts can block 203-mm armor-piercing shells fired from five nautical miles away, and the secondary parts can block 127-mm armor-piercing shells fired from the same distance (the main guns of US Navy light cruisers and destroyers), without much requirement. Almost all the designs on the battleship are considered for air defense operations, and in the words of the designers: the value of the existence of every steel plate on this battleship is for air defense.

In addition to the increased displacement, as well as the length of the hull, width, draft and other dimensional data, the biggest difference between the "Rui Beast" class and the "Li Jing" class is that the role of radar in air defense operations was taken into account from the very beginning. This class of warships was designed to set aside the place to install radar (most of the previous warships installed radars when they were improved), and the design took into account the use of radar to guide large-caliber anti-aircraft gun operations, and there were a total of four anti-aircraft gun aiming radars on the battleship. Four groups of 120-mm anti-aircraft guns, located in front and behind the left and right sides of the battleship, were guided respectively, so that the battleship could simultaneously deal with two long-range targets in one direction. In addition, these radars can also guide 80-mm anti-aircraft guns into combat.

The warship ground air defense command system has been comprehensively improved. The Air Defense Combat Command is located with the radar operations room, which is also the largest command center on the battleship. It was the most heavily protected part of the battleship after the commander's bridge, and the armor plates on both sides reached 150 mm thick, and the armored deck was adopted. The command center is located below the waterline, which protects it from direct shelling. In order to effectively direct air defense operations, the center has a total of more than 40 telephone channels. Not only can it command all the anti-aircraft guns on the battleship, but it can even guide other warships around it to conduct air defense operations. This is also the biggest improvement on the cruiser, which in the entire formation takes on not only the most important air defense combat missions, but also the air defense operations center outside the aircraft carrier.

This will be of great help to improve the fleet's air defense combat capability, and at the same time reduce the burden and pressure on aircraft carriers.

Another major change on the ship was the introduction of a new forging process to create the ground gun barrel. In actual combat, the problem of excessive wear and tear of the gun barrels of naval warships has become very serious. Especially in support of landing operations, as well as in fleet air defense operations, the barrels reach the end of their service life in advance, and the barrels of anti-aircraft guns on battleships are relatively easy to replace (they can be carried out at sea). However, the barrels of the main guns had to be replaced in port, and as a result, many warships had to use their guns in the front, and the resulting reduced accuracy of the shelling was perhaps tolerable. But the safety risks associated with this are intolerable. During the battle, there were countless accidents caused by the explosion of artillery guns, or other accidents caused by the overuse of artillery, and among them. The longevity of the barrel has always been a serious problem for the Imperial Navy.

The main gun barrel of the "Rui Beast" class cruiser adopts a new forging method, and the gun steel used is the crystallization of new smelting technology. In ground tests, the service life of the new 240 barrel exceeded that of the old model by half a percent, which allowed the battleship to hold out in combat for a longer time without the need to rush back to port to replace the barrel. In addition, the barrels of the 120 mm and 80 mm anti-aircraft guns on the battleships were also forged with a new process, and only the barrels of the 40 mm and 20 mm anti-aircraft guns did not need to be used with a new process (the other large air defense cruisers will also be replaced with new barrels during repairs, and the 200 mm main gun barrels on heavy cruisers and the 155 mm main gun barrels on destroyers will also be replaced, and the replaced barrels will be provided to those fire support ships of the Marine Corps). Now only the 400-mm main gun barrels used by battleships have not been replaced, because the production process has not kept up with them, and the demand is not very large).

The "Rui Beast" class still uses a 240 mm main gun. At that time, the Navy had already proposed that such cruisers should be equipped with larger caliber guns, because the caliber of the main guns of the "Alaska"-class cruisers that the US Navy was about to enter service would definitely be more than 300 mm, which was far more than the "Rui Beast"

Class cruiser. In the end, the Navy's armament and technical office rejected this request, and the reason was very simple: the task of the "Rui Beast" class was air defense, not sea operations, and the task of dealing with the large cruisers of the "Alaska" class of the US army was undertaken by the battleships and the bombers on the aircraft carriers. In addition, the defense of the "Alaska" class cruisers is not very strong, and the new armor-piercing shells fired by the 240-mm main gun can completely penetrate the opponent's armor at the engagement distance, so there is no need to make a new main gun.

The analysis of the Technical Office of Naval Armament is more plausible. At that time, there were actually only three main guns of the Imperial Navy with a caliber of 240 mm or more: 400 mm, 360 mm, and 330 mm.

The 330 mm was the main gun of the old battleship, which has now been discontinued, and the few that are left have been handed over to the marines and installed on fire support ships. The 360-mm guns were developed for the "Dignity" class, which had already sunk in its entirety, and the stock of spare guns was handed over to the Marine Corps. As a result, the Imperial Navy was actually able to offer only 400-mm cannons at that time. In addition, the Imperial Navy could import 280 mm (actually 282 mm) main guns from Germany, but this caused more problems, one is that it is difficult to establish a new production line. Rather, there is an extra type of ammunition that brings no small trouble to logistical support. At that time, no factory could produce guns between 240 and 400 mm, and it was even less cost-effective to delay the ship's service time because of the need to install larger caliber naval guns.

Of course. At the time of design, the engineers still took into account the room for future improvement (in fact, increasing the caliber of the main gun was never the focus of the improvement of the warships of the Imperial Navy). There is a certain room for improvement in the design, and if the conditions are ripe and meet the needs of actual combat, then in the future, the "Rui Beast" class can still be installed with a larger caliber of main guns.

Tan Renhao got the performance parameter manual of the "Rui Beast" class large air defense cruiser before he went to Tehran. Before he saw these new ships, he was convinced that they would be the most powerful air defense ships in the world during the entire war. Therefore, he immediately ordered three of them, and planned to provide one for each aircraft carrier battle group to use as an air defense command ship in the battle group, so that the air defense command center on the aircraft carrier would not often make mistakes in the middle of the day.

When Tan Renhao came to the dock and saw the cruiser that had completed its perching and was doing the final inspection, he couldn't believe his eyes. This battleship is more than 10 meters longer than the "Li Jing" and appears to be even taller. Two radars on the ground on the rear mast (one to the sea and one to the air). and those antennas on the foremast, which simply made Tan Renhao feel that this should be a battleship that would not appear until decades later. What is even more impressive is the array of gun barrels on the battleship. Eight 120-mm twin anti-aircraft guns were divided into four groups and were located in the aft and aft sides of the battleship's left and right sides. Every two seats are in a group. And the 80-mm anti-aircraft gun group was located a little higher. Quadruple 40-mm anti-aircraft guns (with a very high failure rate) have been abandoned on the battleship and fully replaced with twin 40-mm anti-aircraft guns.

And the 20-mm machine gun is even denser. Even if the battleship is quietly moored next to the dock now, Tan Renhao can fully imagine when the enemy plane is attacking. How fierce the anti-aircraft fire on this battleship will be.

"Let's go up and have a look!" Hao Dongjue was more interested, "Ren Hao, do you want to consider transferring the flagship to the 'Kirin'?" ”

Tan Renhao smiled and shook his head. "Now I'm quite satisfied with the living facilities on the 'Xingkai Lake', do you think it's more comfortable on this battleship?"

"I don't care." Hao Dongjue shrugged his shoulders, "Who are you going to let command this battleship?" ”

"How is Northeast Wei?" Tan Renhao jumped off the gangway and boarded the battleship, and immediately smelled a pungent smell of banana water, "In addition, Chen Yuji, Geng Weiming and others have a chance, otherwise, you can discuss with them, there are three places this time, see how they are allocated." ”

"Okay, I'll find time to talk to them."

The battleship is still painted, the anti-rust primer has been brushed, and now the third layer of topcoat is brushed. The battleships still use the dark gray base color, which is also the unified base color of the large warships of the Imperial Navy (the base color of the small warships is varied), and all the battleships are this color, except for the good camouflage effect, which makes people always feel lifeless. There were still a lot of shipyard workers on the battleship, and the engineers were busy. The final round of maintenance work is now underway. Tan Renhao learned from the engineer that the battleship had already carried out sailing experiments on the Yangtze River a few days ago, and only painted the superstructure after returning, and this is completely contrary to the operating rules in peacetime, mainly to consider shortening the construction time of the battleship and making the battleship enter service as quickly as possible.

In addition, the inspection of each self-system on the warship will be completed within these two days, and then the technical personnel of the Navy will come to inspect and inspect it, and after passing the inspection, it will be handed over to the Navy.

The two of them circled around the battleship and then came to the dock. At this time, Huang Xiaotian also rushed over. The three of them immediately walked towards the dock where the aircraft carrier was mounted, the two aircraft carriers of the first task force were built at the Jiangnan Shipyard, the progress of the two aircraft carriers is about the same, and now the technical personnel of the Navy are doing the acceptance work, and the last sea trial before leaving the factory has also been completed.

"This is our preliminary acceptance report." On the dock, an officer from the Naval Equipment Technology Office greeted Tan Renhao and them, "All the performance has fully met the requirements, and the improvements made by the shipyard based on the few points we have put forward have also been very successful." Now it's up to the fleet to come and take over. ”

Tan Renhao quickly read through the key parts of the report, and then gave the report to Hao Dongjue, and he walked towards the huge aircraft carrier docked next to the dock.

The difference between the "Hongzehu" aircraft carrier and the "Xingkaihu" is not very large, and the most obvious improvement on the battleship is that the position of the anti-aircraft gun platforms on the two sides of the aircraft carrier has been moved down by about two meters, and in addition, the number of 20-mm machine guns has increased significantly. This improvement was proposed by the Navy on its own initiative, for the simple reason that a large number of anti-aircraft guns on the aircraft carrier will lead to an increase in the center of gravity of the aircraft carrier, which will reduce the stability of the aircraft carrier a lot, and the Navy requires an increase in the number of 20-mm anti-aircraft guns, and other anti-aircraft guns must not be reduced.

Another change on the battleship is that there is an extra radar on the mast at the front end of the chimney of the aircraft carrier island, and the style of the mast has also changed and is much stronger. Like the U.S. Navy's fleet carriers, the "Lake" class aircraft carrier's chimneys are arranged on the island, which makes the island appear large, but it also solves the problem of arranging the chimneys, which can reduce the impact of exhaust smoke on the aircraft when landing.

Tan Renhao did not visit the aircraft carrier this time, he was very familiar with the "Lake" class aircraft carrier, and he felt that there was not much novelty. Now the personnel of the Naval Equipment Technology Office are busy doing the final acceptance work on the aircraft carrier.

"When will our officers and men come and take over this aircraft carrier?"

"After that, we will complete the handover procedures with the shipyard tomorrow." The officer replied quickly.

After Tan Renhao thanked the officer, he called Hao Dongjue and walked towards the outside of the dock. "Let the officers and men who arrive in Songjiang rush over tomorrow, officially board the ship the day after tomorrow, and then prepare for departure as soon as possible, and when the escorted destroyer arrives, immediately go to Zhoushan Port."

"No problem, I'll arrange it now!" Hao Dongjue was very positive, and he probably wanted to return to the fleet for a long time.