This time, Zhang Meng did not rush to demolish and relocate, but filled all the docks of the San Francisco Union Steel Shipyard to the brim.

The four 30,000-ton large docks were arranged by Zhang Meng for the construction of large aircraft carriers, while the other docks were used for the construction of gunboats and submarines for coastal defense, as well as auxiliary ships such as fleet transport ships, supply ships, oil tankers, and tugboats.

The first-class aircraft carrier of the Tang Imperial Navy was designed by Holmesfeld, the chief ship designer of the San Francisco United Steel Shipyard, and was modified according to Zhang Meng's requirements.

Since Holmesfeld had only designed battleships and had no experience in designing aircraft carriers, Zhang Meng not only made a request for him, but also spent a lot of money to buy a full set of design drawings for the USS Lexington modified aircraft carrier and the USS Saratoga from the archivist of the Newport News shipyard.

With the design drawings, everything is easy to do, Holmesfeld combined the drawings to design the aircraft carrier for the Tang Imperial Navy, and according to the requirements put forward by Zhang Meng, strengthen the horizontal armor protection and underwater armor protection of the aircraft carrier, widen and lengthen the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, ensure that heavy bombers can take off (landing is not possible for the time being), cancel the original Saratoga's sea attack artillery, and change all to anti-aircraft rapid-fire guns.

When the final design drawings were completed, Zhang Meng was quite satisfied after reading them.

As the first class aircraft carrier of the Tang Empire, four ships of the same class were built and named after the four heavenly kings of ancient Chinese Buddhist mythology, namely the Eastern Zhiguo Tianwang (CV-1), the Southern Growth Tianwang (CV-2), the Western Guangmu Tianwang (CV-3) and the Northern Duowen Tianwang (CV-4).

The first ship holds the national Tianwang aircraft carrier design standard displacement of 28,560 tons, full load displacement of 37,746 tons, flight deck length of 270 meters, width of 33 meters, draft of 7.1 meters, standard all-access flight deck, with P6E carrier-based aircraft as the target model can carry 130 normally, 12 standby. It adopts a mature power system in the United States, 16 Wilcox-type oil-fired boilers, 4 GE-type steam turbines, a standard speed of 27.5 knots for four-shaft propulsion, a maximum speed of 30 knots, a standard crew of 2,120 people, 2 elevators, and 1 set of steam catapults.

The tonnage, size, and speed of the other three aircraft carriers are about the same as those of the Tenno.

The reason why the speed of the four Tianwang-class aircraft carriers is 3 knots less than that of the US military's Lexington-class is mainly to enhance the aircraft carrier's defense capability, anti-sinking ability and air defense capability, so a certain speed is sacrificed.

Fortunately, the biggest threat to aircraft carriers in this era -- submarines generally have a speed of no more than 18 knots, so a speed of 27 knots is more than enough to evade submarines.

The defense capability of the aircraft carrier in exchange for sacrificing speed has been greatly improved, of which the protection ability of the horizontal deck (80 + 40 + 20 three-layer Krupp steel armor) can resist the direct attack of 500 kg of aerial bombs without any problems, the waterline with the main armor of 127 mm, plus a large number of redesigned watertight cabins, watertight doors, and the use of the most advanced sealing jishu in the United States, so that the anti-sinking ability of the aircraft carrier has been greatly improved, and theoretically it can directly withstand the non-lethal attack of 7 533 mm conventional torpedoes and remain unsinkable.

In terms of firepower, the Saratoga's four double-barreled 8-inch/55 guns were replaced by four double-barreled 120 mm anti-aircraft rapid-fire guns, and 24 12.7 mm parallel anti-aircraft machine guns were added, which could also fire torpedo boats from the sea.

In addition, the most dangerous hangars of aircraft carriers are semi-enclosed. Fighters with conventional ammunition are stored in closed hangars, and bombers and torpedo planes carrying high-explosive bombs work in open hangars, and once attacked, all bombs can be pushed into the sea to prevent explosions in the hangar, which greatly reduces the possibility of secondary detonation of aircraft carriers.

The problems that Zhang Meng thought of for the time being asked Holmesfeld to improve the design, and many problems were not even considered by Holmesfeld, so he had to give Zhang Meng a thumbs up and express his admiration.

After repeated arguments, Holmsfil finalized the design drawings of the aircraft carrier and handed them over to the shipyard engineering department to start construction.

After half a month of preparation, on February 7, 1930, the keels were laid at the four large docks of the San Francisco United Steel Shipyard at the same time, and the construction of the four Tianwang-class aircraft carriers officially began.

Zhang Meng thought that at this time, the price of steel in the United States plummeted, and a large amount of cheap steel reduced the construction cost of the four king-class aircraft carriers by more than half, and after preliminary calculations, the USS Saratoga aircraft carrier built by the US Navy was about 16 million US dollars. This was the price before the economic crisis, during which steel and other major shipbuilding materials plummeted by an average of 60%, so the cost of each Tianwang-class aircraft carrier could basically be controlled within $10 million.

However, Zhang Meng knew very well that after 1933, the United States would abolish the gold standard and devalue the dollar on a large scale to restore the price level, so in order to control the cost of building ships, Zhang Meng had to complete all the warship construction work of his aircraft carrier battle group before then.

Therefore, Zhang Meng asked the shipyard to enter a wartime construction state, start work in shifts 24 hours a day, and use the huge industrial manufacturing capacity and cheap steel and other raw materials of the United States to complete the four Tianwang-class aircraft carriers before the depreciation of the dollar, and free up the dock to build as many warships as possible.

Zhang Meng calculated that it would take about $290 million to complete the construction of all the ships of the main fleet of the Tang Empire Navy before 33 years, and if it was delayed until 33 years later, when the dollar depreciated wildly and pushed up prices, it would add up to $2.1 billion in additional costs.

Obviously, this account is very clear.

So, he would rather spend more money to keep the workers on work 24 hours a day.

In this way, in addition to leaving Zhang Meng with a large amount of expenses, the construction period of the four Tianwang-class aircraft carriers has also been shortened to 15 months, which can be said to be more than one stone.

At the same time as the construction of the Tianwang-class aircraft carrier began, Zhang Meng was also considering the underwater combat liliang submarine, which was indispensable for the future aircraft carrier battle group of the Imperial Navy.

For the current Tang Empire, the maritime threat from Japan is huge. In a short period of time, the Tang Imperial Navy could not compete with the Japanese Navy, so it was necessary to build a large-scale asymmetric combat liliang.

The so-called asymmetric warfare is to take advantage of the natural advantages of the geographical environment of the Tang Empire to build submarines on a large scale and form a submarine wolf pack in the Pacific Ocean.

In the event of a war or even war with Japan, the submarine wolves of the Tang Imperial Navy will attack from all sides, attacking the Japanese naval fleet and supplies, and cutting off Japan's sea supply lines.

Since Japan is also an island country, and its resources are scarce and all rely on imports, once the Tang Imperial Navy adopts wolf pack attack tactics, just like the German wolf pack besieged the British mainland during World War I and forced Britain to almost surrender, Japan could not stand such attack tactics.

This is the means of asymmetric warfare, and it is also one of the key tactics of the Tang Imperial Navy, which is currently at sea weak. Before the aircraft carrier battle group has formed combat effectiveness, it is the best policy to use wolf pack tactics to ensure the national defense and security of the Tang Empire.

Therefore, in addition to rapidly producing submarines in other docks at the United Steel Shipyard in San Francisco, Zhang Meng also ordered various types of submarines from other American shipyards.

At this time, the mainstream submarine of the US Navy was the V-1 class submarine. It was included in the construction of the U.S. Navy during the First Shijie War, but it was not implemented due to the complicated situation during the war. After the end of the First Shijie War, the U.S. Navy decided to start construction of V-1 class submarines in accordance with the 1921 year, and three were built between 1924 and 1925.

The V-1 class submarine has a half-hull structure, and the main engine equipped on the boat has been greatly increased in power in order to reach a maximum speed of 21 knots on the surface. According to the original plan of the US Navy, it was intended to deploy the completed V-1 class submarines in the Pacific waters to engage in independent combat activities at sea.

However, after it was completed and put into service, the US Navy found that the V-1 class submarine had its bow tilted too much during surface navigation, and the bow was often buried, which had a very adverse impact on the surface navigation of the submarine. In addition, due to a number of factors in the design process, the maximum surface speed of the V-1 class submarine actually did not reach the design index of 21 knots originally envisaged.

In 1930, the U.S. Navy renamed the V-1-class submarine the "Barracuda"-class submarine.

At the same time, the V-4 submarine stood out in the competition for the design of submarines. The U.S. Navy has always been stingy with submarines, so it tried to order one submarine of this type from the Philadelphia shipyard.

Zhang Meng took a fancy to this new type of submarine, which just met the operational needs of the future fleet-type submarines of the Tang Imperial Navy, so he immediately placed an order for six V-4 submarines at the Philadelphia Shipyard, and at the same time purchased the design drawings of the boat, and the San Francisco Union Steel Shipyard was responsible for the construction of 20 submarines, and several other American shipyards on the Pacific coast were responsible for building 10 ships each.

The V-4 submarine was a large ocean-going submarine after the V-1 class submarine, which was built by the US Navy according to the 1925 year jihua, and only one was built. In the process of designing the V-4 submarine, the Philadelphia shipyard fully absorbed the characteristics of the German submarine engaged in the sea-breaking engagement during the First Shijie War, and decided that the V-4 submarine would have a double-hull structure, so the reserve buoyancy of the boat was doubled compared to the V-1 class submarine. The main feature of the V-4 submarine is that it is equipped with large-caliber naval guns, has strong surface combat performance, is loaded with a large number of spare torpedoes, and has a great endurance.

Zhang Meng officially took a fancy to the strong endurance of the V-4 submarine, because having the ability to fight in the ocean is equivalent to meeting the standards of the fleet submarine, and it can also fight alone, and directly approach the coastal waters of Japan to break the diplomatic relationship, which meets the temporary maritime combat standards of the Tang Imperial Navy.

These 40 V-4 submarines are combined with 12 Linxian-class light cruisers ordered in the United Kingdom, 24 Utopian-class destroyers ordered in France, and four Tianwang-class aircraft carriers under construction at the United Steel Shipyard in San Francisco.

However, aircraft carriers alone are not enough, and then Zhang Meng set his sights on aircraft carriers.

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The basic data of the V-4 submarine (here is the data translated from the extranet by the cruiser, for reference only): standard displacement (surface/underwater): 2710t/4164 tons, the main scale is 116.1 meters× 10.3 meters × 5.0 meters, the main engine is 3 MAN 6-cylinder 4-stroke diesel engines (for surface navigation), 2 RDY motors (for underwater navigation), and dual propulsion shafts. The power (surface / underwater) is 3175 horsepower / 2200 horsepower, the speed (surface / underwater) is 15 knots / 8 knots, the fuel loading capacity is 696 tons of diesel, the endurance is 10 knots on the surface, the cruising distance is 8000 nautical miles, the cruising time is 16 hours when the speed is 5 knots underwater, the armament is 4 533 mm torpedo tubes (4 in the bow), 16 torpedoes are loaded, 1 152 mm naval gun, the safe diving depth is 91 meters, and the crew is 85 people.

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