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Chapter 431432: Pre-War Preparations and Political Deception

The update is late, sorry, two chapters combined into one chapter uploaded

Zhang Jian's words immediately surprised the civil and military ministers of the Manchu Dynasty, and the wealth of New York is naturally astronomical, if it can be occupied......

Everyone, including Emperor Wang Chenhao, suddenly lit up, and the situation when they robbed the bank in Cape Town suddenly appeared in front of everyone. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info╔╗ (genius can remember in just 3 seconds)

"If the Navy can win, then anything will become possible."

Wang Shizhen's answer was very uplifting, and the ministers who opposed the war against the United States were relieved and no longer raised objections.

The ensuing topic revolved around how to defeat the United States quickly and win the victory at the lowest cost.

According to the habitual methods of warfare of the Chinese Empire, if you do not make a move, you will do it, and a shot will inevitably be a fatal tactic. The United States is different from the previous enemies of the Chinese Empire, and is a country with strong military strength and great war potential. At war with the United States, we absolutely cannot afford to be dragged into the quagmire.

The tactics formulated by the Chinese emperor were still preemptive military strategies, but various preparations were indispensable before starting a war.

The question of international politics must be clear, whether the Chinese Empire will declare war on the United States or against the entire Entente powers, or whether it will join the camp of the Central Powers and participate in the world war.

In the end, the Chinese Empire chose to declare war on the United States alone, not to join the Allied camp, and to avoid war with the entire Allied Powers as much as possible. Of course, this is just wishful thinking on the part of the Chinese Empire, and it remains to be seen whether the Entente will sit idly by and watch China and the United States go to war. The Chinese Empire only tried to avoid the escalation of the war as much as possible and minimize the negative impact.

The export of materials to Europe will be controlled, and priority will be given to the use of the Chinese Imperial Navy, land and air force, so as to ensure the war needs of the Imperial Army against the American army. Although the Chinese Empire did not participate in the world war, but the economy has been driven by the world war, at this time is running at a high speed, the total amount of production and production speed of various military materials and strategic materials are quite fast, so once the Chinese Empire has a war, these materials will be quickly replenished to the imperial army to ensure the supply of materials and supply speed during the war.

The most important thing is the preparation of military forces. Wang Chenhao had already approved the National Assembly to allocate 4 billion dragon coins to the military for war expenses, so the military immediately used the money to start large-scale procurement of weapons, equipment and materials.

On the Army side, the General Staff approved a secret general mobilization for war, and the Army will call up 3 million reservists in the next three months, plus the Empire's original 2 million standing army and 1.8 million National Guard, the total strength will reach 6.8 million, enough to suppress the 5 million troops of the U.S. Army. Of course, it is unlikely that all of these armies will be thrown into the war, and the reserves and National Guard will remain at home, and the 2 million standing armies will be put into the Americas as appropriate. Of the 5 million US Army, there were only 300,000 members of the Standing Army before the war, and these 300,000 had already gone to the European theater, and the 4.7 million newly recruited troops were all inexperienced recruits, and 1.1 million had already gone to the European theater, so the US Army had only 3.6 million recruits with no combat experience. The Imperial Chinese Army, on the other hand, has experienced a hundred battles, has rich combat experience, and has just finished the war against Japan, and has extremely strong combat effectiveness.

Of course, the Chinese Empire still attached great importance to the lives of its soldiers, and although it had to deal with the U.S. Army, which was not strong in combat, it still sent 1.5 million Imperial Allied troops from various vassal countries to participate in the war. At this time, in the Great China Federal System established by the Chinese Empire, the member states included the Republic of Lanfang, the Kingdom of Korea, the Kingdom of the Ryukyus, the Wa Kingdom, Siam, Afghanistan, the Kingdom of Papua, and the Ocean Republic. Among them, North Korea sent the largest number of troops, reaching 320,000. In addition, in various overseas territories directly controlled by the Chinese Empire, such as Puerto Rico, Singapore, the Caroline Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, local people and natives were conscripted into the army as cannon fodder troops of the Chinese Empire. In particular, Southeast Asia's indigenous people from the control of the Republic of Lanfang are the largest, reaching 910,000 people, and they are veritable cannon fodder in terms of weapons and equipment and personnel training.

In the name of engineering troops, all of them were transferred to Puerto Rico, Panama, Bermuda, Wake Island, and Northern Xinjiang for three months of basic training under the pretext of building overseas military bases for the Chinese Empire. They will be used by the General Staff of the Chinese Empire to contain and attract the main firepower of the American army, manage the occupied areas, serve as logistics, and attack places such as Alaska and the Philippines during Armageddon.

In terms of army equipment, the Imperial Chinese Army has 1,400 M10 combat vehicles, 400 M16 combat vehicles, 300 W16 wheeled infantry fighting vehicles, 250 Z16 anti-tank infantry fighting vehicles, 103,000 artillery pieces including 75 infantry guns, 105 cannons, and 155 heavy howitzers, 50,000 M2 heavy machine guns, and 30,000 M16 light machine guns.

In order to prepare for war, the army placed a large number of orders with major domestic military-industrial enterprises. In the next year, 10,000 M16 tanks, 12,000 W16 infantry vehicles, 5,000 Z16 anti-tank tanks, 50,000 more artillery pieces, 20,000 heavy machine guns, and 150,000 light machine guns.

In the next three months, the arms dealers must supply the Imperial Chinese Army with 2,000 M16 tanks, 1,000 Z16 tanks, 3,000 W16 tanks, 10,000 artillery pieces of various calibers, 5,000 heavy machine guns, and 50,000 light machine guns.

In addition, the army has 250 million tons of ammunition in stock, which is required to be expanded to 1 billion tons within three months to ensure that the Chinese Imperial Army's million-strong army needs to consume three months of combat consumption, because the timetable set by the Imperial Army is to defeat the United States within three months and force the United States to sue for peace.

In terms of air force, the Imperial Air Force of China has more than 15,200 pilots of fighters, bombers, and reconnaissance planes, and 240,000 air crews. The Air Department called for an increase in the number of pilots to 100,000 and ground crews to 700,000 within three months. Such a huge expansion of air force personnel cannot be achieved by other European and American countries. This is due to the fact that the Chinese Empire has always been at the forefront of the world's aviation development, the number of aviation schools in the Chinese Empire occupies four-fifths of the world, and it has been leading the world for more than ten years, training 300,000 excellent pilots for the Chinese Empire, distributed in the Air Force, naval aviation, army aviation, major airlines, and civilian aircraft manufacturing enterprises. It has also trained 3,000 outstanding pilots for European and American countries, and 90% of the ace pilots on the European battlefield graduated from the Aviation Academy of the Chinese Empire. The Chinese Empire, which had a huge aviation human resource, immediately demonstrated its strong war potential, mobilizing 110,000 people to participate in just one month, exceeding the quota by 10,000.

There are more than 5,000 combat aircraft in active service in the Air Force, and 121 large aviation industry companies of the Empire will jointly produce 5,000 Thunderbolt fighters, 1,000 Hellfire fighters, and 12,000 Catdemon fighters for the Imperial Air Force within three months. 4000 H1N1 bombers, 1000 H2N1 bombers.

Among them, the Cat Demon fighter is still in the international advanced position, although the Imperial Air Force requires all the Thunderbolt fighters and Hellfire fighters to be replaced, but the production line of the Cat Demon fighter is very large, almost all major airlines have production, and the demand for the Cat Demon fighter in Europe is huge, so the overall cost is the lowest, the production process is the most mature, and the production speed is the fastest. ╔╗Considering that the combat aircraft in the United States are lower than the performance of the Cat Demon fighter, based on these circumstances, the Imperial Air Force restarted the order of the Cat Demon fighter, and it is also the only fighter that can supply 12,000 units in three months, which meets the operational and consumption requirements of the Imperial Air Force.

Similarly, because of the large-scale export of H1N1 bombers to the Allies, their production costs, technological processes and production speeds are in line with the combat consumption of the Imperial Air Force, so the Imperial Air Force decided to continue to use the H1N1 bomber as the main combat weapon for bombing the United States, and it can be equipped with 4,000 aircraft within three months to meet the operational requirements.

However, the H1N1 bomber has a limited range, and it is difficult to attack targets on the continental United States if it takes off from Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Wake Island, and the Kuril Islands. For this reason, the Imperial Air Force still requires major aviation industry companies to produce H2N1 bombers on a large scale as much as possible on the basis of ensuring the production and quality of H1N1 bombers. Because only the H2N1 bomber can achieve a large-scale bombing mission against the continental United States. At this time, the Chinese Imperial Air Force had realized the importance of bombers to the war, and the effect of the bombing of Tokyo was very good, and the strategic deterrence was positive and important.

For the Imperial Chinese Navy, the navy will play a key, even decisive, role in this war against the United States. Some officials of the Admiralty demanded the construction of 19-inch Qing-class battleships in order to completely suppress the Iowa-class battleships of the U.S. Navy with 18-inch guns. Some opposed the construction of Qing-class battleships, because the tonnage of Qing-class battleships would reach 90,000 tons, and they could not be completed and put into service in a short period of time, and the cost was huge. They believed that instead of building Qing-class battleships, it was better to build Ming-class battleships, because the technology of Ming-class battleships was already mature, and speed and practicality were the most important for war. If it is peacetime, the construction of Qing-class battleships is more deterrent, but in wartime, it is necessary to consider the issue of large-scale industrial mass production. After a naval battle, even if the battleship is not sunk, the life of the gun barrel is about the same. The 19-inch cannon to be carried by the Qing-class battleships has not yet reached the point of low-cost large-scale industrial production, while the production technology of the 18-inch cannon of the Ming-class battleships is relatively mature and suitable for the needs of war.

There are also some officials who want to build aircraft carriers, citing the power of the Eastern Ocean Naval Warfare Carrier Battle Group. Although the Chinese Imperial CV Party was defeated by the Navy BB Party in the Rim of the Pacific exercise, Europe and the United States did not have a sense of fleet air defense at all, let alone a super air defense warship such as the Chinese Aegis Air Defense Cruiser of the Chinese Imperial Navy, so it is entirely possible that the carrier-based aircraft of the Imperial Aircraft Carrier Battle Group can completely break through the US Navy's fleet air defense fire network and repeat the result of the naval battle in the Eastern Ocean. At the same time, the CV party demanded the large-scale construction of escort aircraft carriers, which were used to replenish the consumption of combat aircraft of naval aviation in a timely manner. This is because the large-scale air battle over Europe shows that the air war is extremely tragic, the consumption of aircraft is huge, and the mainland of the Chinese Empire is far away from the United States, and if the aircraft replenishment cannot keep up, it will be difficult to seize air supremacy over the United States.

Since the timetable for operations against the United States drawn up by the General Staff has entered the 100-day countdown, the Admiralty has no time to argue. In the end, the emperor Wang Chenhao set a preparation plan for the clapper, the construction cycle of the Qing-class battleship reached 3 years, and the deterrent effect of the Qing-class battleship was no longer needed at this time, and its construction cost was as high as 160 million dragon coins, with the current strong economic strength of the Chinese Empire, it was also a little difficult to raise her. Therefore, Wang Chenhao vetoed the plan to build Qing-class battleships.

However, in consideration of the strategic confusion of the United States, Wang Chenhao asked the Admiralty to come up with the blueprint for the design of the Qing-class battleship and make it public. In order to deter the U.S. Navy, it would not dare to start a war against the Chinese Empire first. In this way, the Chinese Empire would have enough time to prepare covertly and create conditions for a preemptive strike on the US Navy.

As a result, on September 7, 1916, August 5, 16th year of Guanghua, the Imperial Congress of China approved the budget for the construction of four Qing-class super battleships, and the Imperial Press Office later issued a message confirming the matter. ╔╗

The Imperial Chinese Navy disclosed some of the construction parameters of the Qing-class battleship, which had a full load displacement of more than 90,000 tons, was equipped with a 19-inch 45-fold main gun, a triple four-gun turret, symmetrical front and rear, and a knapsack layout. The design speed will be more than 30 knots with armor protection of at least 450 mm. It will carry the most advanced radio system, fire control command instrument and 6 seaplanes of the Chinese Empire.

As soon as this matter was announced, it immediately caused an uproar around the world. Of course, the European countries were only surprised and envious, because they did not have the energy or ability to compete with the Chinese Empire, and since the Chinese Empire built Yuan-class battleships equipped with 17-inch guns, the Western powers have been unable to stop it.

However, for the U.S. Navy, this was a bolt from the blue. The U.S. Navy panicked, they always thought they could deceive the Chinese Empire and secretly built Iowa-class battleships and Olympia-class battlecruisers with 18-inch guns, and by the time the Chinese Empire noticed it, they had already done it. At that time, the U.S. Navy will be more emboldened to say no to the Chinese empire and regain all the benefits that the United States has lost.

But the U.S. Navy never expected that they would still show their feet and be aware of their plans by the Chinese Empire. To this end, the US Congress once again secretly allocated $30 million for the development of a 19-inch 45 times diameter main gun. The U.S. Navy hawks once demanded a preemptive strike and the first to start a war against the Chinese Empire, but in the end it was vetoed by Congress, which believed that unless it really surpassed the Chinese Imperial Navy in naval power, it was not allowed to easily provoke a war. Or maybe the European Entente agreed to go to war against the Chinese Empire together, so that the navies of Britain, France, the United States and Italy would have a chance of defeating the Chinese Imperial Navy. However, the Entente side had an ambiguous attitude, they did not want to force the world's largest military power, economic power, industrial power, and populous country into the camp of the Central Powers, so they opposed provoking the Chinese Empire. As a result, the U.S. Navy could not get support, so it could only continue to keep its head in the dark and devote its energies to a large-scale naval arms race with the Chinese Empire, and at the same time demand that the Navy stop provoking the Chinese Imperial Navy and avoid misfire.

In order to convince the U.S. Navy, the Chinese Empire started construction of four Ming-class battleships, which were claimed to be Qing-class battleships. And deliberately let the agents of various countries in China "discover" various top-secret technical parameters of the four battleships, and deliberately transmitted false signals to the United States to deter the US Navy.

Sure enough, the U.S. Navy was eventually fooled, believing that the Chinese Empire, despite its hostility to the United States, despite indications that the Chinese Empire was very dissatisfied with the expansion of the U.S. Navy and that there was a risk of war. However, the US top brass judged that the Chinese Empire would not go to war against the United States until it completed the Qing-class battleships.

Although the four new Ming-class battleships do not look much different from the previous four Ming-class battleships on the surface, the Imperial Chinese Navy has not started to build super battleships for two and a half years, and has not stopped the improvement of various designs and the development of equipment during this period. The four new Ming-class battleships have matured in various technologies, and various equipment has been built and improved using more advanced technologies.

The four additional Ming-class battleships were named Ming Chenghua Emperor Zhu Qizhen BB-67, Ming Hongzhi Emperor Zhu Youzhang BB-68, Ming Zhengde Emperor Zhu Houzhao BB-69, and Ming Jiajing Emperor Zhu Houxuan BB-70.

Ming-class battleship No. 5 ship Ming Chenghua Emperor Zhu Qizhen started construction in Shanghai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry, the standard displacement of the whole ship is 85,000 tons, which is several thousand tons less than the previous four Ming-class battleships, which is mainly due to the improvement of design and the progress of equipment, the weight and volume of various equipment have been upgraded, so that the total displacement has decreased, but the performance has not decreased but increased, indicating that the naval industry technology of the Chinese Empire has reached a higher level and continues to lead the development direction of the world's naval industry.

In terms of power system, the original Ming-class battleship was equipped with 4 steam turbine units, and the fastest Yongle Emperor sea trial speed reached 31 knots. ╔╗The four new Ming-class battleships are designed to have a speed of 31 knots and a maximum endurance of 10,000 nautical miles / 18 knots.

In terms of ship type, the new Ming-class battleships are somewhat different from the previous four Ming-class battleships in order to reserve a large number of anti-aircraft phalanx artillery systems, with the hull length ratio reduced to 6.8:1, the hull length is 278 meters, and the width has been increased to 41 meters. This improvement is mainly to increase a large number of anti-aircraft phalanx firepower platforms, because when a large number of Vulcan phalanx were installed on the four Ming-class battleships before, it was found that if there were too many installations, many holes would be cut in the hull of the ship, which would affect the battleship's protection capability. Therefore, in order to protect the protection capability of the Ming-class battleships, the first four Ming-class battleships only installed a small number of Vulcan Phalanx systems. Therefore, on the new four Ming-class battleships, the Empire's engineers and weapons experts chose to widen the hull in order to increase the number of anti-aircraft phalanx positions.

Of course, there is another reason. The long-term pool test data of the Ming-class battleship hull of the General Administration of the Chinese Navy shows that the ratio of 6.8 is the best for the 80,000-ton battleship, and the ratio of the previous four Ming-class battleships has reached 7.

The new Ming-class battleship adopts a flying scissor bow and an oval-shaped underwater nose bow, which is further optimized compared with the previous bulbous nose underwater bow with a better effect of breaking waves and reducing drag, and the oval nose bow is more suitable for installing underwater sonar arrays of different lengths, with a longer and more accurate detection range.

The island has not changed, it is still 20 stories high, and on top of it is equipped with a main gun observation post with a built-in 16-type navigation azimuth disk and an 18-meter large rangefinder, and down to the air defense command post, the line-of-sight bridge day battle bridge, the war room, the captain's lounge, the compass bridge night battle bridge, the second chart room, and the command tower. Inside the bridge there is a straight-through elevator.

In terms of the main gun, although the 19-inch cannon could not be installed, the double diameter was increased from the previous 45 times the diameter to 50 times the diameter, and the shell had a longer range and stronger penetrating force. It still adopts the configuration of four triple turrets, which are located on the central axis in the bow and stern, and the front and rear are symmetrically arranged according to the ship island, with a piggyback layout and a compact structure.

The main gun model is M36, and the inner wall of the barrel is increased with nickel-cadmium-copper alloy to prevent the friction of the shells, and the service life is increased to 200 rounds. It has doubled the life of the main gun of the previous Ming-class battleship.

The weight of the M36 main gun has been significantly reduced, more than 300 tons less than the weight of the previous M30 main gun system. Thanks to the increased strength of the armor, the thickness has been reduced to only 620 mm on the front of the turret, but the protection is equivalent to the previous 650 mm.

The powerful firepower of the first four Ming-class battleships, 12 18-inch main guns if pointed at one side of the salvo, its recoil reached 4,000 tons, and the shock wave was also very strong when launched, for which the designers of the Imperial Ship Administration took great pains, after two years of exploration, and the live fire test of the four Ming-class battleships, and finally improved the anti-recoil hydraulic system, reducing the recoil to 3,000 tons.

The new Ming-class battleships still use heavy armor-piercing warheads with low muzzle velocity and high storage capacity, with a muzzle velocity of 785 m/s, a maximum range of 65 kilometers and an elevation angle of 45 degrees, and the shells need to fly for 100 seconds. The improvement and upgrading of the equipment of the central fire control system made it possible to reach an effective command distance of 30 kilometers, which was 5 kilometers higher than the effective firing range of the first four Ming-class battleships. The 50 times diameter main gun allowed the Ming-class battleship to penetrate the main armor belt of any battleship in the world at a distance of 20,000-30,000 meters. On the other hand, whether it is the North Carolina-class of the United States, the Iowa-class battleships under construction, or the Nelson-class of the United Kingdom, their main guns are difficult to do this, and unless they are close to the enemy at a distance of 10,000 meters, they cannot penetrate the armor of the Ming-class battleships. ╔╗

In terms of secondary guns, the secondary guns of the new Ming-class battleships still use 152 mm 60 times the diameter of the naval guns 18 guns and 6 seats in a triple set, which has not changed.

Anti-aircraft fire was the biggest improvement. Equipped with 24 8-seat triple-mounted anti-aircraft guns of the 16-year type 60 times diameter 127 mm caliber, all with anti-shields, and the 47 mm rapid-fire guns were all replaced with 16 Vulcan MK16 air defense arrays, and the anti-aircraft firepower of a single ship can already match the Chinese Aegis air defense cruisers, so the new four Ming-class battleships have the cover of breaking away from the air defense of the fleet and cruising alone.

After three years of development, the new 16-year-old radar system has been slightly reduced in size, but with an improved high-frequency detection mode and an air-to-air search capability that can detect the proximity of aircraft up to 30 kilometers away. The sea search radar has been increased from 40 km to 60 km, but the power consumption has not been controlled, which has virtually increased the load on the warship's motor and fuel consumption. But in comparison, the gains outweigh the losses.

The four Ming-class battleships were required to be completed within 12 months due to the excitement of the war. Since the first four Ming-class battleships were basically completed at this speed, the Imperial Naval Industry was fully capable of completing it within a year. However, the Imperial Navy was not prepared to send these four Xinming-class battleships into battle, because the Admiralty's operational program itself was to defeat the United States in three months.

After Wang Chenhao vetoed the Imperial Navy's plan to build Qing-class battleships and built four additional Ming-class battleships instead, in terms of naval aircraft carrier battle groups, Wang Chenhao approved Zhao Sheng's plan to build a new class of aircraft carriers on the basis of the existing Emeishan-class aircraft carriers, as well as a large-scale conversion of large merchant ships from the German Navy to escort aircraft carriers.

Following the Emeishan-class aircraft carriers, the new first-class aircraft carriers are classified as the Wudangshan class, named after the four famous mountains of the Chinese Empire, namely the Wudangshan CV-32, the Qiyunshan CV-33, the Qingchengshan CV-34 and the Longhushan CV-35.

The Wudangshan-class aircraft carrier is the first large-scale aircraft carrier built by the Imperial Chinese Navy in order to further expand its naval aviation strength and prepare for war against the United States.

According to the division of large, medium and small warships of the Chinese Imperial Navy, more than 60,000 tons are called large warships. With a displacement of 64,000 tons, the Wudangshan-class aircraft carrier became the first large aircraft carrier in the Imperial Chinese Navy's aircraft carrier family, and was also a symbol of the vigorous development of the Imperial Chinese Navy's naval industry.

Due to the large amount of advanced weapons and equipment of the Chinese Empire flowing into Europe, European governments could not tolerate the high price of Chinese weapons, but they had to adopt them. Therefore, it is only natural that the requirements of the governments of various countries for their domestic arms dealers become very high, at least on a par with the military industry of the Chinese Empire.

All this has led to the frenzied upgrading and improvement of weapons by weapons experts in various countries, not only imitating most of China's weapons and equipment, but sometimes the upgraded weapon performance will challenge China's weapons experts. This, in turn, has forced Chinese arms experts to develop more advanced weapons and equipment in order to ensure the absolute superiority of the Chinese empire over Europe and the United States.

The naval industry is the most concentrated embodiment of this aspect, and the scientific and technological content on a warship is enough to show the overall level of the country's industry and the strength of its scientific and technological strength.

Over the years, the Chinese Empire has continuously recruited high-level knowledge and technical personnel such as scientists and experts from various countries. So that the Chinese empire can maintain a leading position in science and technology when cultivating its own talents. Of course, if you want to stay ahead forever, you must develop your own scientific and technological strength. Obviously, the time for the development of science and technology in the Chinese Empire was still too short in comparison. Like the economy, it is an explosive development. Or you can simply understand it, using the perspective of Europeans looking at Chinese, "China is just an upstart!" ”

Obviously, the talent team of the Chinese Empire is not completely connected, and there is a certain distance between the older generation of scientists such as Tesla and the new generation of scientists. This could not be avoided because the starting point of the Chinese Empire was too low. However, through the continuous development of its own people over the years, the popularity of universities has made the Chinese Empire begin to increase the number of talents, and at the same time, it has not stopped plundering foreign talents and advanced technology. In particular, during the four years from 1912 to 1916, the world war led to a very large number of foreign scientists emigrating. The various foreign policies of the Chinese Empire, as well as the immigration permits for high-ranking intellectuals, as well as high incentives and subsidies for inventions and subsidies such as the Baoxing Prize, became the best choice for scientists from all over the world. A large number of outstanding foreign talents have immigrated to China, which in turn has stimulated the improvement of the strength of the domestic talent team.

In this way, starting with the Wudangshan-class aircraft carrier, the Chinese for the first time occupied a dominant position in the main design team, began to play a major role in numbers and capabilities, and no longer let foreign experts dominate the world. Thus it is also creatively embodied in the world's largest aircraft carrier.

Since the Chinese Empire has successively had the design and construction experience of dozens of self-built and modified aircraft carriers, through continuous design and upgrading of equipment, the Wudangshan-class aircraft carriers have undergone a more reasonable and systematic upgrade, and are closer to the design concept of modern advanced aircraft carriers.

After further optimization, when arranging the hangar, the Wudang Mountain class is more reasonable, and the capacity has been expanded a lot. At the same time, the design of the ship island is more compact, and the position has also been moved back a bit, closer to the starboard side of the stern, leaving more space for the forward take-off area.

After the optimization, the number of aircraft carried by the Wudangshan-class aircraft carrier has also increased to 200, and it is calculated based on Thunderbolt fighters and Hellfire fighters. Of course, this is also thanks to the fact that the Naval Aviation Committee has reduced the size of the carrier-based versions of the Thunderbolt and Hellfire fighters by a large part, and the performance remains the same but more refined.

The improvement of the defense capability of the aircraft carrier is the most critical. Some Admiralty officials were ridiculed by the BB Party, claiming that aircraft carriers were vulnerable. To this end, the CV parties decided to increase the defense capability of the aircraft carrier.

In terms of anti-sinking performance, the Chinese Empire has always been the world's leader, and the watertight cabin layout of Chinese ships has always been recognized by Europe and the United States. In order to enhance the anti-sinking ability of aircraft carriers, the Naval Commission further expanded the number and closure of the watertight compartments of the Ming-class battleships on the basis of the structure of the watertight compartments. Finally, the anti-sinking ability of the Wudangshan-class aircraft carrier has been greatly improved, which can resist the attack of five 21-inch torpedoes, and can be hit by two torpedoes at the same time, and can also keep the battleship balanced and sailing, without sinking in non-critical situations.

The main reason why this anti-sinking ability can be achieved is that the tonnage of the aircraft carrier is too large, the 64,000-ton aircraft carrier makes the weight of its armor distribution more than easy, the waterline belt armor reaches 320 mm, and its armor protection reaches the level of armor protection of the early Western super-god bow battleships.

Of course, although the armor of the Wudangshan-class aircraft carrier is very strong, it cannot go head-to-head with the enemy's capital ships. The two sides attacked differently, with battleships attacking at close range with their main guns, while aircraft carriers attacking from a distance by carrier-based fighters. The Wudangshan-class aircraft carrier is only the CV party of the Imperial Navy, which is worried that the BB party's capital ship has a radar and can find the location of the aircraft carrier, so just in case, the hull is built into the armor protection capability of the early capital ships. In the event that the back of the point is touched by the enemy's capital ship, its armor protection can buy it time to recover fighters and escape.

Of course, if an aircraft carrier attacks someone from the air, it must also prevent others from hitting itself from the air. To this end, the Imperial weapons engineers developed an improved Vulcan Phalanx with a wider strike on the basis of the MK16A1 Vulcan Phalanx.

The M16A1 Vulcan Phalanx has modified the firing layout to adopt a 7-barreled 30 mm Gatling gun layout, which was developed to deal with high-speed fighters with metal shells such as the Thunderbolt and Hellfire fighters of the Imperial Chinese Air Force. Shelling armor-piercing shells are fired, the rate of fire is roughly 3000-4500 rounds / min, and the rate of fire can be adjusted, the reserve ammunition of each machine gun is increased to 2000 rounds, the firing range is increased to about 2000 meters, and the weight of the whole system is also increased by 16 tons compared with the MK2.

After continuous testing of the Vulcan Phalanx, it was found that the powerful rate of fire could not be controlled by manpower. The M16A1 Vulcan Phalanx was then fully electrically controlled, on which a small directional detection radar was mounted. This radar was invented by the British Navy in 1915 and was originally used to determine the direction of German radio signals, but it was improved by naval experts in the Chinese Empire to become a directional fire control radar, which could measure the radar reflection position of fighters in the air and determine the direction of aircraft. And the data was passed to the central fire control radar room for analysis.

The central fire control radar room, which was also originally installed on the battleship, controlled the firing of the main guns. Now it has also been moved to the Wudangshan-class aircraft carrier, so that the central command room of the aircraft carrier can directly control the Vulcan Phalanx system.

The improved M16A1 Vulcan Phalanx system, with the launch area of its prototype, can guarantee a larger attack area, form a dense anti-aircraft fire point, and enhance the air defense capability of the aircraft carrier. At the same time, the original design of the 16 Vulcan phalanx systems has also been changed to 32, which are arranged along the perimeter of the island, and the distribution of the island is relatively reasonable, forming a three-dimensional air defense network and strengthening the aircraft carrier's air defense firepower.

It is also a ten-seat twin 103-mm high-level rapid-fire gun, which is used to combat small surface ships close to the aircraft carrier. At the same time, because the threat of submarines is taken into account, a number of sonar systems have been added, as well as an underwater towed sonar, which can strictly guard against the blind spot of the aircraft carrier's anti-submarine defense. Two catapults for the release of depth charges are arranged behind the aircraft carrier, and if necessary, the aircraft carrier can also participate in anti-submarine warfare.

The power system has also been greatly improved, reducing the number of boilers to 20, but the speed has been increased a bit. 8 steam turbine units, 4-shaft propulsion, 208,600 indicated horsepower, speed 30 knots. The range is 8,000 nautical miles at 20 knots and 4,000 nautical miles at 29 knots.

The improved Thunderbolt and Hellfire folding carrier-based fighters, which can park 200 aircraft carriers and H2N1 bombers 50, form a terrifying naval aviation strike force.

The overall layout of the ship is similar to that of the Huangshan-class aircraft carrier, following the characteristic layout of the Chinese Imperial aircraft carrier, and is an upgraded and enlarged version of the Emeishan-class.

The right-angled hypotenuse flight deck, in order to carry more combat aircraft, the hull was lengthened to 270 meters, the width was 41 meters, and the draft exceeded 10 meters. The flight deck was lengthened to 260 meters and 77 meters wide in order to allow simultaneous take-off and landing of the new H2N1 bomber, and two take-off runways could take off at the same time. The entire deck is the size of three football fields, and the hangar can store 170 fighters, but the bombers still can't be stored.

However, even if the Chinese Empire built the main aircraft carriers at the speed of war, it would not be able to complete these four powerful aircraft carriers in three months. To this end, the Imperial Navy decided to massively refit aircraft carriers.

Escort aircraft carriers are very important, Wang Chenhao thought that during World War II, the United States relied on a large number of escort aircraft carriers, which was able to replenish the aircraft consumption of the aircraft carrier battle group in a short period of time, and made full use of the strong advantages of the American industry to finally defeat Japan.

Therefore, Wang Chenhao also made plans in this regard. As a result of Germany's broken engagement in the Atlantic, which looted thousands of Allied ships, the small ships were largely sunk. The large merchant ship was reluctant to be sunk by the German navy, and after being captured, it was sold to the Chinese Empire.

In this way, the Chinese Empire bought thousands of large merchant ships at extremely low prices. Among them, there are 110 large merchant ships with a speed of more than 25 knots and a tonnage of more than 20,000 tons, of which there are more than 70 merchant ships whose hull length and width are suitable for conversion into straight-through aviation platforms.

To this end, the Imperial Navy requisitioned fifty of the fastest and largest merchant ships and converted them into straight-through decks.

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