As for the ships that serve as attack ships, the first ones to be excluded are aircraft carriers and capital ships. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info aircraft carriers are the core of naval warfare in this era, and the navy will never send them out to be used as attack ships under any circumstances. Although the capital ship is very suitable, its target is too large, and once it encounters the attack of the Allied air force and causes it to be injured and needs to be rescued, to save it or not? The Ming Navy has not yet reached the point of using capital ships as attack ships.

Another reason why the capital ship was not dispatched as an attack ship is that although the Ming Navy is now the world of the aircraft carrier faction, the scale of the Ming Navy is so huge, and the people of the big ship and artillery faction have all died. They still have a lot of strength in the Ming navy, and it is impossible for these navies, who have dedicated their time to big ships and huge guns, to allow the battleships that they consider to be vital to be sent out as attack ships.

In this case, light cruisers and destroyers, with small tonnage, weak firepower and insufficient endurance, were likewise not abandoned. In the end, only heavy cruisers were left that were very suitable in all respects and would not be too distressed by the loss.

The Heavy Cruiser is a battleship that is somewhere between a capital ship and a light cruiser. The positioning of such a battleship is actually somewhat awkward. In terms of firepower and armor, the heavy cruiser is far inferior to the capital ship, and it cannot join the real battle line duel. And although its combat effectiveness far exceeds that of light patrols, it can do what heavy can do.

Whether it's patrolling the colonies or wartime ocean scoutings, whether it's flexing your muscles for ocean patrols or simply going head-to-head with the opposing side's heavy patrols. In fact, the relatively expensive heavy patrol itself is very awkwardly positioned.

The main reason why the Ming Navy wants to equip heavy cruisers is to save face. That's right, it's face. As the strongest maritime power in the world, what other countries have can not be without the Ming Navy, which has been pursuing high and tall all year round? Even if the Ming Navy actually doesn't need it very much, he must appear in the catalog of the Ming Navy.

For the top brass of the Navy, why not spend so much of the military budget every year in their hands? Not only will the money saved be taken back, but it will also be hated by the shipyard owners. This is something that no one would do in peacetime.

The Ming Navy was armed with a large number of heavy cruisers. However, due to its awkward positioning, most of it was used as the flagship of the local fleet, wandering around the colonial waters to flex its muscles to intimidate the local natives. As for the other heavy cruisers, they basically serve as the lead ship or reconnaissance ship of the cruiser sub-fleet in the various fleets.

It's just that light cruisers and even destroyers are enough to do things like cruising and escorting in the indigenous colonies of Africa that still use cold weapons to fight and flex their muscles. There is no need to dispatch heavy patrols with relatively large scale in terms of maintenance, fuel consumption, or even staffing. You must know that a heavy patrol generally needs to be equipped with thousands of naval officers and men, and these people are required to train and provide various salaries and benefits. The use of heavy patrols is too cost-effective in peacetime.

The lead ship of the cruiser detachment is only a name, and in the Ming Navy, the light cruiser itself is the lead ship of the destroyer fleet, where is the need for heavy cruises?

As for the reconnaissance fleet in the fleet, in the Ming Navy, which has deep pockets and many warships, the reconnaissance troops of the main fleet are all carried out by battle patrols with more powerful combat effectiveness. It wasn't until with the advancement of science and technology that the rapid increase in the speed of capital ships caused the battle patrol to gradually fade out of the battlefield.

It wasn't until the Ming army launched a sabotage war that Chongxun found a job that suited him.

Because of the awkward positioning of the heavy patrol fleet of the Ming Navy, the status of the battle patrol was constantly reduced when the battle patrol gradually faded out of the battlefield. Even in the more than a decade before the outbreak of the war, a new type of heavy patrol was not introduced. It was not until before the outbreak of the war that the then Prime Minister Zhang Yue increased the allocation of funds for the navy, and the navy, which was hiding with the wounded money, had a plan to build a new type of heavy cruise.

The design of the new Heavy Patrol began in a hurry after the outbreak of war, and it was not until a few years later that the new Heavy Patrol officially entered service.

The new heavy cruisers were named the Luzon Bay class, and each ship was named after the bays of the colonies of the Ming Dynasty. And with the continuous deepening of the war, with the rapid rise of aircraft carriers to become the main force in naval warfare. What the Ming Navy needed was a large air defense cruiser with strong air defense. The heavy cruiser, which was expensive to compete with the large air defense cruisers, but its role was greatly weakened, was officially designed by the new class and the construction plan of the Luzon Bay class successor ships.

There are only eight Luzon-class heavy cruisers in the entire city. This may be the last eight heavy cruisers built by the Ming Navy. They are about to retire from the stage of history after the war.

All eight of the new heavy cruisers, which have been in service for less than a year, have been sent to the Atlantic Fleet as assault ships. These are equipped with five twin 55-fold diameter 200-mm main guns, eight twin 105-mm secondary guns, two torpedo launchers, a maximum speed of 34 knots, a cruising range of nearly 9,500 nautical miles, two catapults and four seaplanes, a standard displacement of 16,000 tons, and a full load displacement of nearly 19,000 tons.

As soon as these new heavy cruisers joined the ranks of the raiders, the loss rate of the Allied maritime transportation lines began to rise rapidly. Last month, in February 1943, the Allied fleets from the United States to Europe lost more than 700,000 tons of registered displacement. This is a brilliant result.

The Americans began to send large-scale reinforcements to the European theater at the end of February, with countless ships coming and going to and from the North Atlantic route. The raiding ships of the Ming Navy began their own feast, and their offensive was more fierce and the results achieved were more impressive.

Of course, the Allied navies could not watch the Ming army continue to destroy their own transport fleets, and they mobilized heavy forces to provide protection for the sea routes, and also achieved good results. Since the Ming army officially began the naval assault war, ten attack ships of various types and thirty-five submarines were sunk by the Allied escort fleet. Among them are two cutting-edge Luzon Bay-class heavy cruisers.

The Ming raiders were mostly in groups, and late last month, two Luzon-class heavy cruisers attacked a convoy of WS58 transport ships at night, about 650 nautical miles southwest of Iceland.

According to intelligence, the fleet departing from the port of Halifax, Canada, was loaded with a large amount of supplies, including 300 aircraft and a large number of spare parts. Moreover, intelligence said that the convoy was not very strong when it departed from Halifax.

In order not to be caught by long-range planes sailing from Iceland after dawn, the two Ming heavy cruisers took the initiative to raid the convoy without waiting for their own reinforcements. But what they didn't expect was that the escort force of this transport fleet was extremely strong. The fleet had as many as three heavy cruisers and a large number of light cruisers and destroyers.

After more than half an hour of fierce bombardment, the heavy patrol of the two Ming troops was defeated and quickly left the battlefield with not light injuries. Originally, this was nothing, just return to the base to repair the battleship after leaving the battlefield. But what the Ming army didn't expect was that there was actually an escort aircraft carrier in this escort formation. Then things were reversed.

A few hours later, more than 30 Allied planes flew over the heads of the two unsuspecting heavy cruisers after dawn, and after taking turns to launch bombs and torpedoes, they sank one and damaged the other. After the triumphant departure of the Allied fighters, the Ming army had to order the ship, which had been severely damaged in the power system, to scuttle and flee after boarding the lifeboat.

It was later learned that an escort aircraft carrier group ordered to go to the Baltic Sea had joined the convoy halfway through, resulting in the final lore. As a result, the two cutting-edge heavy cruisers of the Ming Navy were wrecked and sunk thousands of nautical miles away from their naval bases.

Because of the loss of two new heavy cruisers, the Ming Atlantic Fleet did not send these new heavy cruisers again for the next week, and these heavy cruisers did not attack again until the naval headquarters sent an order. And when Fang Renxu was preparing to launch an attack on the WS79 fleet, it was two Luzon-class heavy cruisers that provided him with surface support.

At 12:20 p.m., after seeing through the periscope that the Allied fleet had entered his ambush circle, Fang Renxu immediately gave the order to attack.

The Allied convoy that had been sailing in this treacherous sea could not have been so careless, after all, countless colleagues and ships had already proved the danger here. But it was the time when the wind and rain were raging on the sea, and the visibility on the sea was so low that it was impossible for lookouts to see a small periscope on the rough sea.

Coupled with the effects of bad weather, the Allied sonar equipment, which was not very technically reliable, frequently malfunctioned, and they knew they were in danger but could not detect it. Until the lookouts, who were wearing raincoats and watching the sea in the heavy rain with their eyes wide open, sounded the alarm.

"Torpedo !!"

Six Ming submarines launched an attack on the Allied convoy struggling in the wind and rain, and the torpedoes that left a white bubble trail on the surface of the sea were like hungry wolves that broke into the flock, blowing out one Allied ship after another through holes. Immediately, the icy sea water rushed into the cabin, engulfing everything.

Seeing the loss of the fleet, the angry Allied convoy chased the torpedo trail like a red-eyed sheepdog to chase down the Ming submarine force.

Fang Renxu's subordinates are all veterans of the battlefield, so they will not choose to turn the submarine around at this time and use the torpedo launcher in the tail to attack again to expand the results of the battle. These veterans knew very well that if they did, although they might achieve better results, they would also have a much higher chance of exposing themselves to danger.

Veterans who have been on the battlefield for a long time know that only if they can survive will they have a good chance of achieving more results. There is no need to rush for a moment, there is no president of the United States on the opposite ship! (To be continued.) )