Daming 1805

Chapter 68 The Cannon of the Aircraft Carrier

Zhu Jingyuan looked at the dazed audience, and felt a little melancholy for two seconds, and immediately decided not to worry about it.

Whether it can be built or not, Zhu Jingyuan is not particularly worried.

It's nothing more than how much time it takes, how many problems there are in the middle, and how long it takes to form combat effectiveness.

If you can't do it in two years, you will be in three years, if you can't in three years, you will be in five years. If you have your own eyes, you can't go wrong in terms of details and directions.

So Zhu Jingyuan shook his head gently, put these things in the back of his mind, and came up with the design requirements for the next battleship:
"Now let's take a look at today's No. [-] ship, the battleship that everyone should be more interested in.

"The appearance of this ship... may seem strange now, but you should be able to think of what to do when you see her appearance, right?
"Yes, this ship is a direct attempt at the idea of ​​putting planes on board—"

This time, the audience at the scene suddenly came to the spirit, whether it was the kind of ship that had been thought of before, or the one who had never thought of this kind of ship at all.

Seeing the diagram of the hull with a flat surface that looked like a highway, and the diagram of the plane drawn next to it, and listening to Zhu Jingyuan talking, he immediately reacted.

This idea is absolutely unprecedented, because the successful test of the aircraft is inherently unprecedented.

The most spirited among the people at the scene was undoubtedly the old emperor who was sitting at the front.

I finally got to what I care about most, I have to listen carefully to what this kid is doing.

Zhu Jingyuan also glanced at the old emperor, looked at his bright eyes, and immediately continued to talk with a smile:

"Compared to the first and second ships, this is definitely a real new warship, and I'm going to call her an 'aircraft carrier'.

"Like the previous artillery battleships, the design of this aircraft carrier will also be divided into two modes: conservative and aggressive.

"The No. [-] ship is of a conservative design, seeking to be built at the fastest speed, and to start actual aircraft take-off and landing testing and exploration as soon as possible.

"So on the basis of the largest existing armored cruiser, the upper-level design drawings were modified to form the most conservative aircraft carrier design drawings.

"Specifically, it is to delete all the main guns and secondary main gun decks, and build a large warehouse that runs through most of the hull on the deck above the main cabin.

"The big warehouse is of course used to store aircraft.

"Above the aircraft warehouse, a completely straight, rectangular pass-through deck as close as possible is set up as a runway for aircraft take-off and landing.

"The flight deck and the hangar deck are connected by a mechanical lift platform to transfer the aircraft between the warehouse and the deck.

"Finally, in order to avoid the smoke and dust affecting the deck, the boiler flue should converge to the right side of the hull, come out from the side of the hull, and extend upwards slightly outward.

"Of course the bridge should be moved to the right side, which can be combined with the chimney, and a convex platform should be designed before and after the bridge as a flight command platform.

"No secondary guns, no medium-caliber secondary guns, no guns can be installed in the early tests, and space can be reserved for 120mm high-level dual-purpose guns, and subsequent anti-aircraft guns.

"Finally, the speed, the aircraft carrier should have a high speed, at least 27 knots, preferably more than 30 knots.

"So the ship also has steam turbines and oil-fired boilers.

"In general, all the buildings on the upper layer of the hull make way for a straight and regular runway, including anti-aircraft guns, which should be designed on the front and rear of the bridge, or on the platform extending outward from the hangar deck."

"This is the general design direction of the first aircraft carrier. If you have small questions, you can talk about it now. If you have big questions, you can talk about it later."

When Zhu Jingyuan said this, he paused for a while, waiting for all kinds of problems that might arise.

Then the old emperor at the front spoke with great interest:

"The flue and the bridge, if you want to tilt to the right, can you do this, or do you have to do it?"

Zhu Jingyuan thought about it and said:
"It is recommended to do this. According to the experience I have obtained, the driver will subconsciously turn left when he encounters danger.

"This also happens when the plane is landing on the deck. If the chimney and the bridge are on the right, the pilot will turn left and fall into the sea at most.

"If the chimney is on the left and you continue to turn left, it is a deck accident..."

The old emperor nodded lightly, and then immediately continued to ask:
"Why not medium-caliber secondary guns? If an aircraft carrier encounters the enemy's traditional fleet, doesn't it only have the firepower of a destroyer?"

Zhu Jingyuan went on to explain:

"In the combat mode of an aircraft carrier, there should always be aircraft on guard around, and the detection and observation distance of aircraft is much greater than that of artillery warships.

"Under normal circumstances, artillery warships have no chance at all, and without the aircraft carrier's knowledge, it is within a range of dozens of kilometers close to the aircraft carrier.

"The foresighted aircraft carrier has the opportunity to leave the enemy's search range in advance before the enemy finds itself."

The old emperor immediately continued to ask again:
"What if, what if you encounter an enemy? If the plane doesn't have time to take off, or it's a thunderstorm or something, the plane shouldn't be able to be alert, right?
"So, an aircraft carrier should at least have the firepower of a cruiser, otherwise a cruiser of the enemy can sink an aircraft carrier!"

Zhu Jingyuan was especially helpless. The old emperor directly contracted everyone's problems, probably because he thought about it decades before others.

The old emperor's current thinking is a common problem in the design and construction of early aircraft carriers.

Everyone takes it for granted, thinking about the various problems that aircraft carriers will encounter in the way of artillery battleships.

Therefore, the aircraft carrier has also been entangled in the matter of the main gun for a long time.

The Lexington-class aircraft carrier in the early history of the United States was built with eight 8-inch (8 mm) guns installed.

Japan's Akagi and Kaga aircraft carriers also have 10 200mm guns installed.

In theory, these aircraft carriers all have the firepower of heavy cruisers.

However, in the subsequent transformation process, these medium-caliber artillery pieces were gradually removed, because they could not be used in actual combat.

Zhu Jingyuan then tried to convince the old emperor with this idea:
"Grandpa Huang, the aircraft carrier is first and foremost an active offensive long-range strike weapon, not a close-range melee defensive combat weapon.

"After the aircraft carrier finds the enemy, when launching an attack, the first thing to do is to maintain or even keep a distance from the enemy, so as to avoid being discovered by the enemy's fleet at all times.

"Under normal circumstances, the aircraft carrier should not operate in the rain area, if it encounters a shower during the battle with the artillery battleship, it should leave the rain area as soon as possible.

"If you encounter rain during a battle with an aircraft carrier, you can decide whether to enter the area covered by dark clouds to avoid enemy aircraft depending on whether you are in an offensive or defensive state.

"Then, if it is discovered by the enemy's screen fleet, the task of fleet defense can be handed over to the escorting artillery armored warships.

"The aircraft carrier will be the capital ship and should definitely not act alone, at least be accompanied by multiple armored cruisers, preferably high-speed battleships.

"The aircraft carrier provides long-range reconnaissance support to the artillery battleship, and the artillery battleship provides the aircraft carrier with close defense and fire support.

"Finally, on the deck of the aircraft carrier, there are often aircraft taking off and landing. If there are medium and large-caliber artillery fire on the deck, it is easy to damage the nearby aircraft."

The old emperor nodded slowly, but in the end he continued to doubt:

"What the grandson said makes sense, but in my grandfather's opinion, there is still no way to completely avoid the possibility of the aircraft carrier encountering the conventional firepower warship alone.

"If an aircraft carrier has no self-defense firepower at all, it will always be difficult to make people feel at ease. I think this will also be the idea of ​​​​the Navy..."

The old emperor said so, and a large number of designers behind him nodded.

They all felt that the old emperor asked his own questions and expressed his concerns.

Although Zhu Jingyuan's plan sounds perfect, it is still inevitable to worry.

Zhu Jingyuan nodded his head when he heard it, but he also understood a little.

The aircraft carrier is a real new type of warship, which is completely different from the previous artillery warships, and it is very normal for inexperienced people to worry.

After careful consideration for a few seconds, Zhu Jingyuan finally made a decision that went against his own experience:

"Then install eight 160mm guns first, but it must not affect the integrity and smoothness of the flight deck.

"Only under the sides of the flight deck, on the anti-aircraft platforms extending outward from the hangar deck, can traditional single-mounted guns be installed.

"After launching, various simulated combat experiments were conducted to determine whether these artillery pieces were useful in combat.

"If it is determined that these artillery pieces are really unusable, they will be removed and replaced with high-level dual-purpose artillery and anti-aircraft artillery."

The designers behind nodded one after another. This is a safe choice. The old emperor also smiled and nodded:

"Temporarily compromise, and then use the actual situation to verify whether you are correct, which can make other participants more convincing, and can more effectively establish authority..."

Zhu Jingyuan was immediately speechless. It turned out that the old emperor believed in his own judgment and was just using the situation in front of him to preach to himself.

I am a prince who is going to dig black gold in the desert. Do I need to learn such a complex skill?

If I continue to be an official in the imperial court, can my ninth uncle let me go?

Unless you keep wanting me to be emperor.

Ok?
(End of this chapter)