Torpedoes were always a greater threat to battleships with strong armor than shells and bombs, so the underwater armor belt became the only armor of the Hindenburg-class battleships that had not been drastically reduced in thickness, and even the originally neglected bottom of the ship was added with armor that was not inferior to the waterline, in case a torpedo with a large fixed depth of magnetic fuse or a mine with the same fuse attacked the bottom of the ship. You must know that if it explodes at the bottom of the ship, as long as the power is enough, the shock wave generated will directly destroy the keel, and if there is no armor protection or the armor thickness is not enough, it will even break the warship in two at once, and no matter how large the displacement is, it will make no difference

In addition, the shape of the rear of the hull of the Hindenburg-class battleship Hu Weidong refers to the historical Iowa-class battleships (in fact, the Yamato-class is also like this), which is much more "swollen" than the traditional European battleships, so that more watertight compartments can be installed, so that the originally weak rudder tail also has a fairly strong lightning protection ability.

It can even be said that even the most powerful Type 93 type 3 oxygen torpedo in history may not be able to break through the underwater armor of the Hindenburg-class battleships unless two torpedoes hit very close to each other in a row. And even if this happens by chance, the Hindenburg-class battleship's many watertight compartments can still ensure that it is safe and sound, and as long as the crew does not make low-level mistakes when mishandling, this super battleship is simply impossible to sink

Of course, if the enemy attacks too often, the performance of the armor will inevitably deteriorate rapidly, and no matter how strong the protection ability is, there will be a time when it will not be able to withstand it. However, due to the incomparable dominance of the Hindenburg-class battleships on the sea, only underwater submarines and airplanes can really threaten it, so the anti-submarine and air defense capabilities of the Hindenburg-class have also received great attention

Among them, the former has to be designed with a very simple job, adding the most advanced sonar and multi-level anti-submarine deep bomb launchers (hedgehog guns [hedgehog bullet launchers] to deal with closer, rocket deep bomb launchers to deal with long-range ones. That's it. But strictly speaking, for large warships, if there are anti-submarine ships with them. It is difficult for a submarine to attack it directly, and if a submarine is encountered when it is alone, then the first thing to do is not anti-submarine. Instead, they retreated immediately, the cost difference was too much, and one for ten ships was lost, so the idiot took the risk of engaging the submarine.

Even if you are really accidentally attacked by a submarine. It is also difficult to pose a lethal threat to the Hindenburg-class battleships, which are extremely powerful in terms of protection, because a submarine now has a maximum of 6 torpedo tubes, and it is difficult to sink them even if they all hit in one round (unless it is a Type 93 Type 3 oxygen torpedo). But with the tragic reliability of the oxygen torpedo, let alone hit, thank God for being able to get half of it without problems), not to mention that even one shot in actual combat is considered lucky. More importantly, the speed of submarines in this era was far inferior to that of battleships, and the underwater speed was even slower than that of a snail. The submarine will certainly not be given another chance to fire a second round of torpedoes

Compared to the disgusting but hardly lethal sneak attack of the submarines, the aircraft were undoubtedly a greater threat to the battleships, because the concentrated use of aircraft was much more convenient than both surface ships and submarines, and for the German Navy, which had largely abandoned aircraft carriers. Once out of the protected range of land-based aircraft, it can only rely solely on the air defense capabilities of the warship itself. Under his repeated persuasion, the Hindenburg-class battleships were equipped with a large number of anti-aircraft weapons that even the Iowa-class battleships, which the United States called "air defense battleships," boasted of inferiority, and with radar, proximity fuses, advanced close-in defense systems, and "artifact" gyroscopic sights, the air defense capability of this super battleship can only be described as terrifying

However, battleships are offensive weapons after all, and if the attack power is not enough, no matter how strong the defense is, it is just a pile of scrap metal. However, Hu Weidong opposed blindly increasing the caliber of the main gun, even though the German Krupp Arsenal had successfully trial-produced a 420mm naval gun that met the requirements at this time. This is because Hu Weidong believed that the caliber of the battleship's main gun could ensure that the armor-piercing projectile could penetrate the armor of any part of the enemy ship at the maximum effective range. And without him saying it, everyone can understand that for the huge guns on battleships, the smaller the caliber, the more money is saved, both in terms of cost and maintenance.

At the same time, due to the application of new armor-piercing shells, even if the armor of the new battleship under development by various countries is further thickened, it only needs a caliber of 406mm at most to penetrate the armor of any part of it at a distance of 20,000 meters. As a result, the design of the main guns of the Hindenburg-class battleships was finally determined to be three triple 406mm main gun turrets, thus further freeing up the load of the warship

Compared with the main gun, the secondary gun of the Hindenburg class is worthless in the eyes of Hu Weidong, and the caliber of 150mm makes it not much lethal for warships of the heavy patrol class and above, and for smaller warships, it is better to switch to the 128mm high-level dual-purpose gun developed by Germany. This not only has a wider range of applications, but also because the load of one 150mm naval gun can almost be replaced by two 128mm high-level dual-purpose guns, the firepower has been increased, and the same is true when attacking the shore. With Germany's strong industrial base, it will not take long to develop an artillery, and because of the appearance of proximity fuses, the value of large-caliber anti-aircraft guns has increased greatly, so the research and development progress of this anti-aircraft gun will only be faster.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that after the return of the warships purchased by China from the United States, the German designers were allowed to conduct in-depth research on them, and at the same time, they were influenced by some extremely forward-looking views of Hu Weidong, which made them make great progress in the design of the external layout of the warships, especially the rationality of the selection of air defense weapons, which affected not only the design of the Hindenburg-class battleships, but also the air defense capabilities of all new German large and medium-sized warships have been improved to varying degrees.

Firepower and armor are important, but speed is also critical, otherwise if you encounter an enemy ship that wins the battle and can't catch up, it's not the same as a waste? At the same time, since Germany has no overseas bases, the two Hindenburg-class battleships have to stay in Asia to fight against Britain and even the United States, so the endurance is also very demanding (to be continued). )