69novels Chapter 258
Chapter 258
Mainz frowned when he heard the words of the director of the Vulcan Shipyard.
“Do we have to wait until next year to complete the outfitting?”
In Mainz’s expectation, within a year, the Bismarck and Tirpitz must be launched and completed with outfitting, and then immediately join the military service to circumvent the upcoming naval treaty!
As for sea trials and subsequent modifications, these can be done slowly after joining the navy. Anyway, they don’t have an imminent war to fight now, so they can wait patiently for a while!
However, the prerequisite for waiting is that the two battleships have joined the navy in active service, rather than on the slipway of the shipyard!
“Uh, our triple-mounted 381mm gun has a little problem, mainly because the internal space of the front deck is not enough to install two triple-mounted gun turrets, which will squeeze the space of the original armor belt and bring hidden dangers to the protective performance of the battleship!”
The director of the Vulcan Shipyard hesitated for a moment, but finally gritted his teeth and told Mainz the difficulties he faced!
The director knew that since General Mainz had come up with such a genius idea of building in sections before, it proved that he had done research in shipbuilding.
Moreover, the Bismarck-class battleships were provided by General Mainz himself, from design drawings to construction technology. This class of battleships can be said to be created by General Mainz himself. I am afraid that his understanding of this battleship exceeds that of anyone in the world!
Sure enough, after hearing about the difficulties faced by the director of the shipyard, Mainz frowned.
The 381mm naval gun is the largest caliber naval gun that the Hans Navy has been able to develop. The reason why Mainz asked Krupp to develop the 500mm Gustav cannon is to improve the performance of this cannon, develop its naval version, and then use the 500mm naval gun as the main gun of the next generation of naval battleships.
However, according to the current progress, the Bismarck-class battleships cannot catch up with the development of the Gustav cannon. The discussion of the six countries’ representatives in the Fog City on the naval treaty has reached a critical moment. The professional audit and investigation team sent by Fitch has entered Berlin and is about to start the investigation. Hans’s comprehensive national strength survey!
At the same time, the same survey team also entered the British Empire, Eagle Sauce, Gaul, Italy and Foot Basin to investigate the national strength of these five powers.
As long as Fitch completes the investigation and summarizes it according to the situation of each country, they will soon be able to give a score for the comprehensive strength of each country.
And as long as this score comes out, the problems that have restricted the naval treaty negotiations in Fog City during this period will be completely resolved, and the naval treaty negotiations in Fog City will enter the fast lane!
According to Ribbentrop’s estimate, the draft of the naval treaty should be able to be drawn up around December, even if countries continue to fight for some chickens at that time It would only take a few weeks to argue over trivial matters. By January 1924 at the latest, the six-power treaty on naval arms control would be born!
Once the treaty came into effect, the German army could no longer build new Bismarck-class battleships, because according to the provisions of the treaty, warships with a tonnage of more than 35,000 tons were considered oversized warships, which were not allowed to be built, so they had to be demolished!
It was for this reason that Mainz only ordered two Bismarck-class battleships. The reason for only two was that these two battleships could be built in sections at six large shipyards across the country, and then transported to Vulcan Shipyard. Shipyard for assembly!
In the process of segmented construction, because the complete hull cannot be seen, and European countries have never had such construction experience before, even if they are seen by foreign spies, they may not be able to figure out what these things are!
By the time they figured it out, the two Bismarck-class battleships have been built!
Hans’s shipbuilding industry is actually very developed, but it is still very difficult to build two 40,000-ton battleships within 1 year. The larger the warship, the longer it takes to build. Even during World War II, when the Eagle Sauce started to make dumplings, their battleship construction speed took 2 years!
Moreover, that was the Eagle Sauce during World War II. The construction technology of that era was much more advanced than it is now!
So it is a miracle that two 40,000-ton battleships can be built within a year!
However, it seems that this miracle has encountered some troubles!
According to the director of the Vulcan Shipyard, the outfitting of these two battleships may not be completed until next year!
Next year, a new naval treaty will also come out, and judging from the current situation, it is very likely that the naval treaty will come out before the two battleships are launched!
In this case, the two battleships will be classified as illegally built battleships, and will definitely be required to be demolished by various countries!
These two battleships embody a lot of Mainz’s hard work and consume the energy and huge financial and material resources of hundreds of thousands of people in Hans. If they are demolished, Mainz is really unacceptable, and the people of Hans cannot accept it either!
Therefore, he must turn these two warships that have been launched into complete forms before next year!
With Hans’s current technical strength, I’m afraid this problem can no longer be solved!
The only thing that can help him solve the problem is the system!
“System, help me see if there are any better main battleship main guns that can be used!”
Mainz has given up relying on Hans’ own technical reserves to solve this problem. After all, Hans really has nothing to show for his naval guns!
The old-fashioned naval guns of the First World War were already outdated, so Mainz had never considered it at all. After World War II, countries had not developed battleships, so there was no option at all. The only choice is probably the stage of rapid development of battleships in various countries before and after World War II!
During World War II, there were only three countries with relatively outstanding battleship technology, namely, Foot Basin, British Empire and Eagle Sauce.
Among them, Foot Basin had the largest battleship, and built the 70,000-ton Yamato-class battleship. This battleship was the pinnacle of battleships in human history in terms of tonnage and main gun caliber.
However, Mainz was not interested in Foot Basin’s battleship technology. With just a riveting technology, Foot Basin’s battleships could be sentenced to death!
Eagle Sauce has built the largest number of battleships with the most mature technology, so Mainz mainly wanted to know Eagle Sauce’s achievements in battleships.
【Please confirm the main gun caliber and main gun tonnage range! 】
An interface popped up in front of Mainz, with many detailed parameters such as main gun caliber, caliber, weight, design speed, etc.
He can circle a rough range based on these parameters, and then the system will select the product he is satisfied with within this rough range!
Mainz thought about it.
The naval gun of the Bismarck class was 381 mm at the beginning of its design.
To be honest, the caliber of this naval gun is a bit small.
Although Hans’s naval gun is powerful, the caliber disadvantage is actually very obvious.
Don’t look at the 406 mm naval gun, which is only 6% larger than the 381 mm naval gun, but this 6% increase has at least increased the power by more than 35%!
The shells of the 406 mm naval gun weigh 1.2 tons, while the shells of the 381 mm naval gun are only 900 kilograms. The gap is very obvious!
The weight of the shells has a huge impact on the improvement of the charge and armor-piercing performance, so the larger the caliber of the artillery, the greater the power. This is why countries are desperately trying to equip their battleships with larger and better main guns!
Mainz thought about it and circled a range of 381 mm-460 mm, at least not smaller than the current 381 mm. The 356 mm naval gun can no longer pose a threat to the armor of future battleships, so he has never considered naval guns below 381 mm!
As for naval guns above 460 mm, it seems that no country has developed this thing, so there is no choice!
Moreover, even if there is such a naval gun, Bismarck’s small body will definitely not be able to fit it. To fit a 460 mm naval gun, at least 50,000 tons of displacement is required!
【According to the host’s request, I recommend the host the 406mm 50-caliber main gun developed by Eagle Sauce in 1939 – MK7! 】
The system’s feedback speed is as fast as ever. According to Mainz’s request, it immediately gave a specific model.
MK7!
Seeing this name, Mainz thought of a famous battleship in the history of battleships – the Iowa-class battleship!