If you want the horses to run, you must give the horses grass, people have no foreign wealth and no wealth, and horses do not eat night grass and do not fat. Since Roosevelt asked the Navy to implement a series of plans in South Asia, it is necessary to give the Navy benefits, not to mention that military spending, warship construction, and welfare should be increased, and the United States, which has come out of the financial crisis, should indeed expand its armaments and war.

During the treaty, the U.S. Navy built a total of five aircraft carriers, two of which were Yorktown-class aircraft carriers, and the two battleships with a standard displacement of 35,000 tons were built from the hulls of two abandoned Lexington-class battlecruisers. The third aircraft carrier is a Wasp-class aircraft carrier, and a total of 2 aircraft carriers have been built, namely the Wasp and the Hornet. These two aircraft carriers are basically a reinforced and expanded version of the historic Yorktown-class aircraft carriers. With the addition of armor protection and decks, the tonnage of the two aircraft carriers reached about 24,000 tons. The total tonnage of these four fleet aircraft carriers has already reached 120,000 tons. The remaining 30,000 tons of tonnage in the treaty were dismantled into two medium-sized fleet aircraft carriers, which were claimed to have a standard displacement of 15,000 tons, but in fact only the Americans themselves knew how many tons. The two aircraft carriers were named USS Raider and USS Langley, which was named in honor of the first U.S. test carrier.

The inertia of history is huge, even if this plane has now made Xu Jie, a little butterfly who travels through time and space, unrecognizable, but the Americans still name their aircraft carriers after the names of ships in history. And what made Xu Jie even more speechless was that the lead ship of the Americans' new first-class aircraft carrier was actually Essex! Historically, 33 Essex-class aircraft carriers have been ordered and 27 have been completed, and they are known as the world's most productive fleet carriers. I don't know how many Essex-class aircraft carriers the Americans can build in this plane!

Although they are all called Essex. But the Essex of this plane is not the same as the historical Essex. After many deductions and tests, the Americans also finally realized the value of armored aircraft carriers. So it was decided to place a layer of horizontal armor on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier. But in terms of the thickness of the armor. Americans have always struggled. According to the ideas of the Huaxia and the British, the deck armor of the armored aircraft carrier should be able to withstand at least 500KG of armor-piercing shells from a dive attack. According to this criterion. THE THICKNESS OF THE ARMORED DECK SHOULD HAVE REACHED ABOUT 100MM. But the Americans did not use this idea directly, and the specific reasons are as follows.

First of all, the US imperialists are determined to hold on to their large hangars, and at the same tonnage, the area of the Americans' single-story hangars is much larger than that of the double-storey hangars. For example, in history, the length of the hangar of the Enterprise with a tonnage of only 20,000 tons was about 168 meters (about this length), while the Gale was nearly half of the weight of the Enterprise, and the length of the hangar was only 150 meters. In terms of volume alone, the single-storey hangar of the US imperialism is no smaller than the double-storey hangar of Japan. Therefore, the Americans would rather use the ticket to solve the problem of carrying capacity than set up another hangar.

However, the double-decker hangar not only brings the problem of ease of maintenance, but also reduces the area of armored defense, for example, if the historical Enterprise wants to be made into an armored aircraft carrier. Then the length of the armored deck must be about 168 meters. And Dafeng only needs 150 meters to be enough. Because of the problem of stability, under the same tonnage, the thickness of the armored deck cannot be increased arbitrarily, and the area cannot be changed arbitrarily. Only one defense area and defense strength can be selected. Since the Americans have opted for large hangars, then it will only be possible to cut the thickness of the armored deck. ACCORDING TO THE IDEA OF THE AMERICAN IMPERIALISTS, SINCE THE 100MM ARMOR IS NOT GOOD, THEN THE 75MM IS ALWAYS OKAY, BUT AFTER THE ACTUAL INSPECTION, IT WAS FOUND THAT THIS WEIGHT IS NOT GOOD. The reason for this is simple: the weight loss from the thickness cut by Essex is just as much as the increase in area. If you want to make a hangar with a closed front and an open back like Huaxia, or a large reinforced box structure, then you can also get it. However, in order to ensure the speed of ventilation, the Americans made the hangar completely open, not to mention, and the strength was not very strong. As a result, the armor needs to be weakened a little more. IN THE END, THE THICKNESS OF THE ARMORED DECK OF THE AMERICAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER WAS ONLY 60MM. But it's big enough.

Secondly. The Americans are not worried about insufficient defenses. BECAUSE UNDER THIS ARMORED DECK THERE IS ALSO AN ARMORED DECK WITH A THICKNESS OF ABOUT 50 TO 80MM. It is used to protect critical areas such as power compartments and ammunition depots. AND ACCORDING TO AMERICAN RESEARCH, HIGH-EXPLOSIVE SHELLS FROM 250KG TO 500KG CANNOT DESTROY HORIZONTAL ARMOR OF 60MM, AND ARMOR-PIERCING SHELLS WILL BE BLOCKED BY THE ARMOR BELOW EVEN IF THEY PENETRATE THE UPPER DECK. Not to mention the fact that the charge of the armor-piercing projectile was small, even if the hangar exploded. The energy generated will also shredder the thin steel plates on the side of the hangar, allowing the energy to vent into the air. As for causing damage? Just tinkering. There was no more than a small hole in the deck, and the engineers of the US Navy said that the hole could be filled in ten minutes.

As in history. The Americans also adopted broadside lifts on the USS Essex, and more extreme than historically, all three lifts on the USS Essex were broadside lifts. This makes the Essex's hangar much larger. In addition to this, adhering to the tradition of large decks of American aircraft carriers, the deck length of the Essex-class aircraft carrier reached 270 meters! The width is more than 32 meters, and if you count the fold-out lifts that open, the widest point is more than 45 meters! And the length of the hull also reached 265 meters. In terms of the ability to fly, this aircraft carrier is no worse than the Fury-class aircraft carrier. And in order to improve the release ability, Essex also equipped the bow with two hydraulic catapults, becoming the world's first aircraft carrier equipped with hydraulic catapults, these two catapults can eject aircraft weighing about 6 tons. The charging time is about half a minute.

The underwater protection is based on the Yorktown-class aircraft carrier, using a five-layer defense system, of which the middle three layers are liquid tanks, with a total thickness of 1.5 meters, and the interior is filled with heavy oil. And in order to ensure the attendance of hundreds of aircraft on the entire aircraft carrier, the aircraft carrier Essex has a storage capacity of up to 1,000 tons of aviation gasoline! (Historically, more than 700 tons.) And ammunition stockpiles are also larger than historically. No less than the historical loading and size, coupled with heavy armor, the aircraft carrier Essex on this plane directly reached a displacement of 32,000 tons!

In addition to aviation equipment, the Americans equipped the USS Essex with anti-air and sea-to-sea alert radars. And the anti-aircraft guns on the sides of the hull were equipped with fire control radars. It became the first American aircraft carrier to be equipped with radar. And also equipped with completely new radio navigation and sideways equipment, according to the Americans. As long as the pilot can solve the problem of landing at night, then this aircraft carrier has the ability to fight at night. Of course, such a statement is an exaggeration, but it is undeniable that the accuracy and anti-interference of the Essex's electronic navigation equipment are quite good. Its electronic equipment is the first in the world, and not only the Germans are not only backward in electronic equipment. It is not far behind the fury of the British after the overhaul.

"The Essex-class aircraft carriers will be the main force of the future U.S. Navy fleet, and they will take on the important task of maintaining stability in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. He is the most advanced and most powerful fleet carrier in the world, and we believe that any enemy will be wiped out in the face of the formidable Essex-class carriers. "At the groundbreaking ceremony of the Essex-class aircraft carrier, Admiral Simms, Commander-in-Chief of the US Indian Ocean Fleet and Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Garrison, delivered an enthusiastic and confident speech. And together with the director of the shipyard, he witnessed the cutting of the first steel plate of the entire battleship. And so. A new legend for the U.S. Navy begins. Of course, this legend is not full of legends and glories as Americans imagine, and there are legends, glories, failures and bitterness.

The Americans are worthy of being local tyrants, and in a year and a half, they started construction of four Essex-class aircraft carriers at the same time, although the construction period is long, and the speed certainly does not reach the level of one aircraft carrier in the next ten months after the transition to the war period, but the time from the start of construction to the final service will not exceed three years. That is, at most by 1920+16, the US Navy will have at least 10 fleet aircraft carriers. However, the Americans still feel that this force is not enough! At the same time as the construction of the tall Essex-class aircraft carriers, the Americans are also considering medium-sized aircraft carriers.

As in history. The Americans decisively chose to use the hull of a heavy cruiser to build an aircraft carrier. According to the terms of the treaty, the Huaxia and the United States had the same tonnage of heavy cruisers and aviation cruisers. However, with the advent of the economic crisis, the speed of US armament expansion has been greatly affected, and many heavy cruisers that have started construction can only stop construction on slipways. As a result, when the financial crisis ended, there were still quite a few heavy cruisers whose hulls were not completed. Now the wind has changed, and naval engagements no longer rely on naval guns and torpedoes. Rather, by those buzzing planes. The realistic train of thought of the Americans ultimately determined the fate of these unfinished battleships.

"Why don't you turn these warships into aircraft carriers!" One of the Admiralty someone's constructions brought the historic Independence-class aircraft carriers back into the picture. Of course, the Independence-class aircraft carriers of this plane are much stronger than the aircraft carriers that have been converted from light cruisers in history. After all, it was improved with a 15,000-ton heavy cruiser hull. And the Americans in order to increase underwater protection. Therefore, the hull is wider, and the speed is reduced a lot, but at least the TDS depth width of 4 meters is guaranteed. And now after being converted to an aircraft carrier, the larger width also makes the flight deck of this aircraft carrier larger. Therefore, it can accommodate more aircraft than in history, and the capacity of the Independence-class light aircraft carrier in this plane has reached about 50 aircraft. It is much stronger than the Independence, which can only hold 35 aircraft in history.

As a result, under the strong historical inertia that Xu Jie had to sigh, the Independence-class light aircraft carrier also began to be built, and the first ship, the Independence, officially began the transformation project less than 5 months after it was launched in Essex. The first two warships were involved in the renovation, but unlike the idea of preparing them as an auxiliary force for the fleet, the Americans built these two light aircraft carriers with the aim of directly targeting the German aviation cruisers! Unlike Huaxia, in addition to facing the fleets of the Allied countries in the Atlantic theater, the United States also needs to face the aviation cruisers running around, and it is obviously not cost-effective to use regular aircraft carriers to deal with these things, so it can only use secondary aircraft carriers, which is very similar to Xu Jie's idea. And the Independence-class aircraft carrier's performance in the anti-sabotage operation in the open sea is indeed good.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976, hukaikaka for the tip~~~, and the book friend Walterzhou for the monthly pass support ~~. (To be continued......)