"In the Spanish-American War, we became enemies of the world, and we lost Cuba and the Philippines. In the decade since, our country has been growing, our strength has increased, but we are not as ambitious as we were a decade ago. Our strength and our position are not at all commensurate with our position. The United States of America endured for 10 years. We are confined to the Americas. And now, at last, there is an opportunity before us, and an earth-shattering war is about to break out in ancient Europe, and no matter who wins or loses, the ultimate result is that Europe will fall from the peak of the world's power. There are two countries that can succeed them in ruling the world, one is the United States and the other is China. Whether it will remain in the Americas or become a powerful country comparable to the British Empire will be known in a few years. Theodore Roosevelt wrote in a letter to Woodrow Wilson.

Because of Xu Jie's relationship, Mr. Roosevelt, who will ascend to the presidential throne of the United States in history, not only missed the presidential throne in the end, but also lost his reputation. However, as a politician, he remains sensitive and concerned about the international situation. At a time when tensions were growing in Europe, Roosevelt once again saw an opportunity. Therefore, despite his Republican status, he privately contacted Wilson, the leader of the Democratic Party, through various connections in order to gain support.

According to Roosevelt, it is time for the two parties to put aside their differences and unite in the outside world, and whether the United States can rise in this great power game depends entirely on the decisiveness and courage of politicians. Wilson apparently agreed with Roosevelt that a new power could only rise when the original political structure was broken. For this. For the sake of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the United States needs to make some preparations. The United States has the production capacity and manpower, but it wants to turn it into military power. But it still has to pass the people and Congress.

It's not that other politicians don't see this opportunity, it's because they have all sorts of concerns. The old pattern is indeed going to be broken, but will the winning side be the United States? No one can guarantee it. The Americans did not think it was possible for them to side with Germany, for the simple reason that the Germans seemed to have always been 100% hostile to the United States, except for the fact that various economic and financial ties brought the United States closer to Britain and France! There were two direct factors in the history of America's decision to participate in World War I, and both of these things had something to do with Germany! Even in the eyes of posterity. Germany is somewhat dead.

The first thing that everyone may know is that Kaiser Wilhelm II launched an unrestricted submarine war to attack the ships of any country on the high seas. And the United States demands to guarantee the safety of its own routes. And you can do business safely. The actions of both sides directly constitute a serious antagonism. It is okay to knock down a US merchant ship once, but there are many incidents, and the United States cannot bear it even in order to calm public opinion. The war is a sooner or later division.

And the second thing, how to say it. It's really a chat. That is, Wilhelm II actually instructed the German ambassador to Mexico to instigate Mexico to wage war against the United States in order to regain the land lost that year. Let's not talk about whether Mexico will start a war with the behemoth in the north, even if it does, it will be able to beat the United States! Don't look at the U.S. Army, which has always been unpopular, but the Americans say it's okay to get rid of Mexico. As a result, the United States was informed of this matter, and then the United States declared war.

And if it sides with Britain and France, what can the United States do for Britain and France? And what do you get? In addition to providing large quantities of supplies and loans, the United States must confront Britain and France with their military might. to warn the world. The United States is not just a businessman, but a warrior with a sharp blade in his hand! And now it is obviously impossible to expand the army. On the one hand, the Americans want to avoid as much as possible the large number of personnel losses in land warfare, but on the other hand, there is really not much need to develop the army in the stable environment of the Americas. Come to think of it, it seems that the only thing the United States can choose at the moment is the navy!

Historically, since 1907, the U.S. Navy has expanded its fleet at a rate of 2 to 3 capital ships per year. And in this plane, the Americans really built a lot of warships, and if they were not enough, they were all made for others, and now the vast majority of warships are sinking to the bottom of the Far East. The battleships built by the Americans for Russia were almost all destroyed. And this has led to the distrust of the US Navy in its own warships. However, no matter how bad things are, they can also make their own, and it is impossible for a big country to rely on other countries to arm its own army, so the Americans decided to continue to adhere to the policy of independence and self-determination!

The Americans firmly chose to develop by leaps and bounds, and in their opinion, when everyone began to prepare 14-inch naval guns, they were still entangled in the 12-inch L50 as a matter of no future. So in the design of future battleships, the Americans also increased their firepower to 14 inches. AND IN TERMS OF PROTECTION, THE SIDE CHORD ARMOR OF THE AMERICANS WAS ALSO RAISED TO 343MM. Moreover, the Americans are also optimistic about the key protection of the Chinese Navy, and the United States also thinks that it is better not to have the armor of the main gun, but this time the Americans have done a little too much, and it is okay if there is no armor belt, and the head and tail armor belts used to defend against secondary artillery attacks are also in the province! At the same time, the protection of the propeller shaft is also shortened, in short, it can be said that the key protection is carried out to the end.......

After the completion of the Florida-class battleship, the United States conducted a full range of tests on the ship, and the results were relatively satisfactory, and this also led to the explosion of confidence in the US Navy, in the next stage of the construction plan, the Americans directly launched a displacement of more than 27,000 tons, equipped with 10 14-inch L45 main guns, the main armor belt is up to 13.5 inches thick, and the turret armor is up to 16 inches thick super battleship! After comprehensively strengthening the protection and firepower, the speed of this battleship is quite tragic, with a maximum speed of only 21 knots, giving people the feeling of a group of slow-moving iron turtles!

However, it's the Iron Turtle. The Iron Tortoise strategy that the Americans have historically adhered to has been perfectly replicated in this plane, and the Americans still adhere to and develop their standardized battleship scheme, and after designing 5 twin gun-carrying ships, the Americans will consider designing a battleship equipped with 12 12-inch 45L heavy guns. A powerful presence with 4 3-pack turrets. At the same time, the protection will remain basically unchanged, and the tonnage will be increased to about 32,000 tons! However, unlike in history, the scheduled start of construction of this class of 12-gun battleships will be around 1911, a little earlier than in history.

"Our plan is that after the completion of the two Florida-class battleships, the new first class battleships will be built two with five twin turrets, and the third class battleships will be three quadruple turrets, and by about 1914, the United States of America will have at least six or so dreadnoughts, so that we can have a certain say in the warships of Europe." Roosevelt wrote this in his letter to Mahan.

However, Mahan seemed to be very uninterested in this plan of the Admiralty, and in his opinion, the direct jump in the tonnage of warships from 27,000 tons to 32,000 tons was a bit too much. Because this is not a simple amplification of the previous first-class battleship, Mahan means that he hopes that Roosevelt can have a transition in the middle through his friends in the navy, such as building 3 3-pack battleships to accumulate skills, and Mahan thinks that after completing the two-stage battleship, it is a good choice to build a first-class fast battleship. After all, the current strength of the US fast fleet is very weak. The cruisers were still the cargo of the pre-dreadnought period. If you want speed, you don't have speed, you want firepower without firepower. Defense is not yet good. There is simply no merit.

Now, however, it is obviously difficult for the US Navy, which is relatively short of funds, to build high-speed warships while maintaining vitality and defense. Moreover, the top echelons of the US Navy Department privately believe that whether it is fighting in the Mediterranean Sea or in the North Sea, it is a relatively small sea area, and the significance of deploying fast warships is limited. Especially in the Mediterranean bath, the distance between France and Italy is too close, even if there is an advantage in speed, the other side can go home under artillery shelling in an unfavorable situation, and speed actually has no effect, as for the fast battleships that intercepted the Turkish and German Far Eastern fleets in the Indian Ocean? The Americans believed that was the task of the British.

Fast battleships and battle cruisers are not to be considered, but some senior US Navy officials also believe that as a complete fleet, the absence of fast battleships is indeed a relatively large accumulation. If you cooperate with the British fleet, the avant-garde problem can naturally be solved by the British battlecruisers, but once you need to go into battle alone, or when you fight with another great power, (such as Huaxia?) The absence of a reliable reconnaissance fleet is indeed a more troublesome thing. But in the case of a serious shortage of funds, the American man-made battlecruiser will definitely not work, but it is still possible to consider building a shrunken version of the battle cruiser, well, at least from the actual combat point of view, the German Scharnhorst-type pocket battlecruiser is still very good.

However, soon, the United States found that it was more embarrassing to design this kind of warship, you said that it had strong firepower, but if it fought with a real capital ship, it was estimated that it would be a matter of minutes to be knocked down. The seven-provincial beating of Scharnhorst is one such example. And if you change to a 12-inch gun and maintain a high speed, it is not a pocket battle cruiser, it is a real battle cruise, and the cost is definitely not good. And from the point of view of confronting the opponent's light cruisers or mounted cruisers, the 11-inch class artillery is too much, and it feels a little big and inappropriate, and more importantly, the United States is not engaged in 11-inch artillery now, and if you want to equip such a battleship, you have to redevelop the artillery. It's a waste of time and dollars.

If they retreated to the next thing, the Americans felt the need to update their old patrol formations. After weighing the cost performance of the battleship and the dollars in their pockets, the Americans believed that in fact, the Rurik-type armored cruiser built by the Russians was a good choice, as long as the turret was replaced with a triple installation, and the 10-inch 45L main gun readily available in the United States was used, plus a strong power system, to ensure a speed of more than 25 knots, there was no problem in dealing with the opponent's light cruisers. In addition, the Americans believed that it would be necessary for the United States to update its own armored cruiser groups before the dreadnoughts became large, in order to gain an early advantage in the engagement of sub-capital ships.

Thanks to the little pig running away from the book friend, the reward of zhouyu1976, and the monthly pass support of the Tears of the Republic and athlon 9527~~. (To be continued......)