Zhang Meng was not satisfied.

That's right!

In order to deal with the Japanese Combined Fleet, Zhang Meng believed that 12 light cruisers were simply not enough, and even the most basic escort formation of an aircraft carrier battle group was not enough.

Therefore, Zhang Meng secretly entrusted Ecuador, Chile, Venezuela and other Central and South American countries as third-party intermediaries to order 24 utopian-class destroyers from the French Navy.

France's Fantasy-class destroyer, also known as the Fleet Minestorm, became one of Shijie's most famous destroyers throughout World War II with its formidable speed and firepower.

No warship can escape the mutual balance of the three factors of speed, firepower and armor, and it is necessary to sacrifice the third factor to achieve the two advanced performance factors.

The Utopian-class destroyer sacrificed armor protection to obtain a powerful test speed of up to 45 knots, and was equipped with extremely strong anti-sea, anti-air and anti-submarine fire equipment, and had a low silhouette, which undoubtedly ranked among the strongest destroyers in Shijie, and this is exactly the most ideal fleet destroyer for the aircraft carrier battle group that Zhang Meng needed.

However, in accordance with Zhang Meng's request, minor changes were made to the Utopian-class destroyers, mainly to strengthen the anti-aircraft combat weapons, change the main gun to a high-level dual-purpose rapid-fire gun, and add a set of 37-mm anti-aircraft guns, which correspondingly increased the total tonnage, in exchange for a certain amount of fuel reserves to increase the range and cooperate with the fleet's operations.

In the end, the standard displacement of the 24 utopian-class destroyers built for Zhang Meng at the Toulon shipyard in France increased by 500 tons to 3069 tons, and the full load displacement reached 5000 tons, turning them into veritable large destroyers. The total length is 135 meters, the width is 12.45 meters, the draft is 5 meters, the design speed is 38 knots, the actual speed is between 42 knots and 45 knots, equipped with 130 mm 50 times the caliber single-barreled high-level dual-purpose rapid-fire gun, two 37 mm anti-aircraft guns, four 13.2mm machine guns, two sets of 533 mm triple torpedo tubes, and the cancelled set of torpedo tubes is used to increase the anti-submarine depth charge launch system, so that it reaches four sets of deep-water anti-submarine systems, and 40 depth charges are prepared, which greatly improves the air defense and anti-submarine capabilities.

In the thirties of the twentieth century, the naval industry, which represents the comprehensive strength of the country, flourished, at this time the advanced shipbuilding jishu is no longer the patent of the British, although the French Navy has been reduced to the fourth, but it does not mean that its naval industry is worse than the British, but in many areas the French naval industry has innovation, which is more and more declining British naval industry is beyond the reach.

Zhang Meng took a fancy to France's advanced turbine jishu, especially the gas turbine turbine engine jishu applied to the utopian-class destroyer, which represents the development direction of the mainstream engine of the future ship.

The development of the naval industry of the Tang Empire is inseparable from these core jishu, and if you want to build more advanced warships on your own in the future, the gas turbine turbine engine jishu is an indispensable key jishu.

When negotiating with the British Navy Shipyard to build the Lin Xian-class light cruiser, Zhang Meng also proposed to introduce some of the jishu needed by the naval manufacturing industry, the reason why it was not all introduced, but part of the introduction, except that Zhang Meng already had a complete shipyard mechanical equipment and engineers, and the basic naval industry jishu was available. To extract its essence from its dross, the British advanced naval industry Jishu to fill some of the gaps in the Datang Heavy Industry Naval Shipyard, but also to worry about the British about the development of the Datang Empire's naval industry.

This time, too, through Central and South American countries as intermediaries, we negotiated with the Toulon Cup shipyard in France to build 24 Utopian-class destroyers, and also acquired France's advanced gas turbine turbine engine jishu.

Although France in the thirties of the twentieth century did not have any harsh restrictions on the export of jishu, it was also quite difficult to obtain the advanced jishu that was the core of the naval shipbuilding industry, so Zhang Meng spent more than 20 million US dollars to get this core jishu transfer, two-thirds of which was used to open up the high-level relations of the French navy, and finally made the French release and customs clearance of this jishu transfer transaction.

Whether it is a Lin Xian-class light cruiser or an utopian-class destroyer, they are all serving the future aircraft carriers of the Datang Navy.

Zhang Meng did not want to leak secrets about building third-generation aircraft carriers in foreign shipyards, and domestic shipyards could not build third-generation aircraft carriers before they were completed.

Therefore, Zhang Meng had no choice but to temporarily abandon the third-generation aircraft carrier and deploy the second-generation aircraft carrier first.

The so-called second-generation aircraft carrier refers to the straight-through glide take-off and landing aircraft carrier located on the side of the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, although this kind of aircraft carrier is still relatively new, but it is no secret, because the Japanese Navy has built a second-generation aircraft carrier, and the United States and Britain and other countries are also actively following suit.

In the construction of aircraft carriers, Zhang Meng shifted his attention to the United States.

Because he knew that throughout World War II, most of the capital aircraft carriers built by the United States did not sink. In Zhang Meng's words, the American aircraft carrier is as tenacious as Xiaoqiang, even if it is damaged and damaged again by Japanese planes, and if it is damaged and damaged again, it will stagger back to the base for major repairs, and it will not be long before it appears on the battlefield like a dragon and a tiger.

If you can describe the mood of the Japanese at that time, they must be so angry that they vomit blood, and they will even scold the Americans for taking shit luck! By the skin of one's teeth!

These words could not have come out of Zhang Meng's mouth. In his opinion, it is definitely not a shit luck and luck of the American aircraft carrier, once or twice can be considered that, one after another can not be called a fluke, it is a matter of strength and jishu.

By this time, the U.S. Navy had built three large aircraft carriers, and the two largest aircraft carriers, Lexington and Saratoga, were converted from battlecruisers under the Washington Naval Treaty.

With the arrival of the London Naval Treaty, the US Navy has begun construction of the USS Assault, which is also the first multi-purpose aircraft carrier designed and built by the US Navy on its own.

What interests Zhang Meng of the US Navy's aircraft carrier is not its exterior structure, but its advanced horizontal and longitudinal watertight compartment and watertight door structure, as well as its advanced underwater and water armor protection design, which is the fundamental reason why US aircraft carriers and other ships are often damaged by Japanese planes and do not sink.

In order not to attract the attention of the US Navy or even foreign navies as much as possible, Zhang Meng once again took advantage of the US economic crisis to target the United Steel shipyard in San Francisco.

San Francisco United Steel Shipyard is a subsidiary of San Francisco Iron and Steel Company, and is also the largest large-scale civil ship machinery manufacturing plant on the West Coast of the United States, with a complete construction of 30,000-ton ships and equipment.

With the outbreak of the U.S. economic crisis, the orders of the San Francisco Union Steel shipyard have rapidly decreased, especially the large ocean-going carriers have lost their competitiveness due to the shrinkage of trade.

Zhang Meng repeated his old tricks, paid for the local community gang members in San Francisco, and violently attacked the shareholders and customers of the San Francisco shipyard, forcing their shareholders to transfer their shares to Zhang Meng's shadow company at a low price, and driving out domestic and foreign customers who came to negotiate the purchase of shipyards, leaving the shipyard with no business to do.

Soon, Zhang Meng's shadow company acquired a 33 percent stake in the San Francisco shipyard and became the largest shareholder, and he sent his agent George Bush as the shipyard's CEO, quickly bringing down the San Francisco United Steel Shipyard as he did with Boliheng Iron and Steel Company, and then Zhang Meng's Datang Heavy Industries wholly acquired the largest shipyard on the West Coast of the United States.

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