The design requirements put forward by the Chinese side are that the range should be no less than 3,000 nautical miles, the tonnage should be between 1,000 and 1,500, and it should be mainly used for anti-submarine purposes, but it would also have good air defense capabilities and certain sea-to-shore attack capabilities. I don't know if it's the inertia of history, but after listening to the request of the Chinese side, the Americans in this time and space still named it an escort destroyer

The design of this first frigate of this time and space was mainly carried out by American specialists, and the Chinese Jishu personnel were mainly studied. There is no way, the domestic foundation in this area is too weak. It is said that as early as the Beiyang warlord period, China had the equipment conditions to build 10,000-ton giant ships, but only the Jiangnan Shipyard accepted orders from the United States from 1918 to 1919 and built four 10,000-ton freighters, and then it was not until nearly 50 years later that China built them again, and during this period, China's shipbuilding industry at least continued to make progress in hardware, which seems puzzling at first glance

The reason for this is mainly due to China's long-term lack of qualified ship designers (Note 1), and the reason why the four 10,000-ton ships were able to be built before the liberation was because the United States provided a full set of design drawings, and although Hu Weidong remembered the structural drawings of many classic warships, the degree of detail did not reach the professional level, not to mention, they were all drawings of battleships, aircraft carriers and other capital ships, and they were not used at all. How many small and medium-sized ships are interested in small and medium-sized ships other than submarines and spend a lot of time collecting information?

Because the speed of submarines during World War II was very slow, the speed of anti-submarine ships only needed to be able to keep up with the cruising speed of the fleet, so the more economical diesel engine became the first choice for this "escort destroyer", and due to the poor performance of marine diesel engines produced in the United States (historically, the maximum speed of ships with diesel engines as the main power in the United States was generally in the early 20 knots, which could not be compared with the maximum speed of German diesel engine powered ships at 278 knots). Later, after the Chinese Red Party secretly began to cooperate fully with Germany, it was replaced by German goods. As a result, the speed and endurance of the ship have been significantly improved. The warship designers sent by Germany to China fully demonstrated the level of structural science ahead of Shijie, and redesigned the internal structure of this frigate, so that its seaworthiness and sinking resistance have been greatly improved. The improved model, which integrates the essence of the design ideas of the warships of the United States and Germany, is simply a rebirth compared with the four ships ordered by Zhongfu International in the United States (the unit price is 8 million US dollars). So much so that later generations of military fans simply regarded it as two different warships, and the basic parameters of this frigate named "Jiangnan class" are as follows:

Full load displacement: 1520 tons;

Main scale: total length 93.27 meters, total width 11.13 meters, draft 2.67 meters;

Speed: 21 knots (28 knots for the improved version);

Crew: 186 people;

Main guns: 2 single-barreled 127mm high-level dual-purpose guns;

Secondary guns: 4 single-mounted 88mm anti-aircraft guns;

Torpedo: 1 triple 21-inch torpedo tube;

Air defense weapons: 4 single-mounted 57mm anti-aircraft guns. 2 twin 37mm anti-aircraft guns, 2 twin 25mm anti-aircraft guns;

Anti-submarine weapons: 2 depth charge throwing slots and 8 depth charge droppers. 2 rocket depth bomb launchers.

In addition to combat ships, Zhongfu International also purchased landing ships and other large tonnage auxiliary ships to bring back to China to imitate and even improve, although some of these types of ships can not be regarded as "non-offensive weapons", but because of the long-term contempt of Westerners for China, most Americans believe that as long as the blockade of Jishu, China will not be able to design and build its own large warships, and "there is no strong ocean-going navy." These ships are toys. Therefore, the procurement of these auxiliary ships did not meet with the huge resistance expected by Hu Weidong

In fact, if Hu Weidong himself wanted, he did not want to buy a single finished warship, but the construction of some warships Jishu Americans refused to transfer. You can only buy the finished product back to the cottage. More importantly, if you only buy jishu and equipment, then only the upstream shipbuilding machinery manufacturers will benefit greatly, while the US Navy and shipyards will not get much benefit, and it is inevitable that they will not stumble in secret, which can be regarded as a kind of disguised buying, and the reason is the same as the purchase of a large number of US Treasury bonds by the Chinese government in later generations, in the final analysis, China's current national strength is too weak, although it is much better than when people drove warships directly to rob them

Counting the cost of introducing jishu and equipment, the expenditure of Zhongfu International in terms of naval equipment is nearly 200 million US dollars, which is not much smaller than the largest expenditure of the army, and if you add the introduction of civilian ship construction jishu and equipment, the total amount is more than 500 million US dollars, far above the army. Of course, this is because the foundation of the navy is weak, and it is a money-burning business, so the investment is naturally not small, but also because Hu Weidong knows that the opportunity to import naval equipment and related jishu equipment from the United States is very rare, and there will be no store in this village after that, so the procurement is very resolute. Moreover, at this time, Hu Weidong was not sure that Germany would agree to fully cooperate with the Red Party, and even if he agreed, there was a question mark over how much jishu and equipment could be transferred

Similar to the motive for buying U.S. warships, in order to "buy" the U.S. government and the big capitalists behind it, Zhongfu International had to spend a large amount of dollars to purchase civilian industrial equipment and talents, of which more than 700 million U.S. dollars were used for shipbuilding, steel and other industrial sectors that are closely related to the military industry or have strategic significance, which is still of some value, but the huge expenditure of almost the same amount has been smashed into relatively unnecessary industrial sectors such as textiles or other purposes of smaller value. However, it made the Red Party feel distressed in general. However, Hu Weidong was relatively more open-minded, and after knowing it, he was only a little bitter, so he quickly smiled and said, "It's okay, the pain of the post-war military transfer to civilian labor is too great, and the current deformed distribution of the economic center of gravity of 'heavy-light-agriculture' will be corrected as soon as possible, and it will become a reasonable state of "agriculture-light-heavy" that took nearly 30 years to complete in New China in the future, which may be a good thing, anyway, even without this introduction, the devil will not be able to jump for a few days, and it is time to take precautions and prepare for the post-war recovery in advance."

Note 1: The weakness of China's industrial base is also a reason, at that time many parts and even steel needed to be imported from abroad, so for industrial construction has always been focused on profitability of the old Jiang Ning to build more economically more cost-effective boats, while the new China was blocked by the West for a long time, until the industrial system was basically established with the aid of the Soviet Union, the first 10,000-ton giant ship could be built. (To be continued.) )