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Chapter 1073: America's Sugar-Coated Bullets (First Update, Please Subscribe)
Nanyang has aircraft carriers, destroyers, landing ships... and a sizable navy. In terms of strength, it is ranked among the best in the world.

But there is a joke that Nanyang has never built a warship. Even if it is a submarine, it is just an assembly of German Type 21 submarine parts.

Is it possible that Nanyang has built 20-ton merchant ships but has never built a single warship?

Of course not - because the nuclear-powered submarine on the slipway of Chang'an Shipyard is also a warship.

It's just not finished yet.

Therefore, Nanyang has never built warships. The reason is that there is too much aid from the United States and Britain. When the United States is still using World War II warships as its main force, Nanyang naturally has no motivation to build new warships.

Of course, the most important thing is that I have no money!
According to the current cost of warships, the cost of a destroyer is more than $4000 per ton, and a 6000-ton destroyer leader requires at least $2400 million. Even the Fletcher class, which is the most numerous among the US-aided destroyers, with a standard displacement of 2100 tons and a full load of only 3050 tons, still costs $1000 million.

Don't think it's expensive. A few years ago, Tangshan signed the June 68th Agreement and purchased a large number of warships from the Soviet Union. Among them, four Soviet 4-type destroyers that were about to be retired were purchased at a high price equivalent to 07 tons of gold. Their standard displacement was only 1660 tons and their full load displacement was 2040 tons. That is, each ship was equivalent to 17 tons of gold at the time. These old ships that had been in service for more than ten years were worth about 1900 million US dollars each. According to the secret telegram sent by the then deputy commander of the navy to China, "the Soviet Union not only sold scrap copper and iron, but also asked for an extremely high price."

It can be seen that in the international arms market, the price of warships has always been high.

Therefore, judging from the warships and auxiliary ships alone, Nanyang has indeed made a lot of money from the United States in recent years. Let alone the 27 destroyers, they are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Add to that the USS Franklin aircraft carrier given by an old friend, and the money made is really good.

Although Nanyang built the world's fifth largest navy after the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and France with the help of warships aided by the Americans, the aid from the United States restricted the development of Nanyang's navy.

"American aid is like a poison that penetrates the intestines!"

Once again, in the Navy Ship Administration Department, Sato Ichi, a ship engineer, loudly stated his theory that American aid was harmful.

"It is precisely because of the US aid that we still have no experience in shipbuilding!"

As a naturalized citizen, Satoichi, like many of his colleagues in the department, is of Japanese descent. This is normal in the shipbuilding industry. Changan Shipyard was originally supported by hundreds of engineers and skilled technicians brought back from Japan. Later, a wave of technicians were brought back from Germany, but in comparison, there are more Japanese engineers and technicians. This has nothing to do with anything else, just because... they want to empty Japan's shipbuilding force.

In fact, in the past ten years, Nanyang has almost swept away all the talents in Japan's industrial sector by introducing talents. Not only did people like Jiro Horikoshi, who designed the Zero fighter, go to Nanyang, but even people like Shizuo Kikuhara, the designer of the little-known Type 2 large boat, also went to Nanyang.

These aviation engineers have already made great achievements in Nanyang, and the achievements of Nanyang's aviation industry in recent years have more or less been influenced by them. In contrast, these ship engineers have a feeling of "underestimating their talents".

Because there are no ships to build - although in the past few years, they have completed the construction of super merchant ships such as 5-ton tankers and 10-ton tankers, and even have drawn up the drawings of a 20-ton super tanker at the Chang'an Shipyard.

But all they had built in the past were civilian ships. Warships... they wanted to build warships.

"Have you heard? The Navy seems to be preparing to apply for US aid again, including destroyers..."

As soon as Zuo Toichi finished speaking, someone spoke over there.

"There's nothing I can do about it. It's always cheaper to get a cheap second-hand one than to make a new one."

“It’s not cheap, it’s basically free!”

"American aid is cheap, but they have ulterior motives. When we were about to build an aircraft carrier, they sent us the Franklin. We haven't even thought about building destroyers yet, but they sent us a few more. What's this? They clearly have ulterior motives!"

"Indeed, the Americans have bad intentions!"

"They are offering us warships. It's simply to attack our warship manufacturing capabilities."

"That's right, it's like a weasel visiting a chicken with ulterior motives." For a moment, the office was filled with complaints, but the complaints only lasted for a while, and soon they continued their previous work - designing warships. Although the navy did not build new warships, new requirements were put forward every year, and all they needed to do was to complete the drawing work, draw blueprints, and test new ship models.

Although the Navy has not built new ships, it has never stopped testing and designing, and is leading the world in the design and use of many subsystems.

But what they didn't know was that while they were complaining about the "ulterior motives of American aid", inside the Naval Headquarters, Karl Otto Sadler, chief designer of the Naval Engineering Department, looked at the sketch in front of him and asked.

"This is……"

"This is the sketch of a new type of destroyer that you have drawn. You can refer to it."

Lin Zhiyuan then continued to introduce.

"According to your Excellency, the tonnage of the new destroyer is about 7000-8000 tons. It will be used as the main force of the aircraft carrier battle group. The hull design needs to be further improved to meet the high-speed requirements of the aircraft carrier formation. At the same time, your Excellency particularly emphasized that although the weapon configuration focuses on various types of missiles, the mission requirements under low-intensity combat missions must also be considered, so it needs to be equipped with at least one 127mm main gun."

The reason why Li Yian emphasized this was because a few years later, the "missile omnipotence theory" became popular, and many aircraft and warships became its victims. Warships equipped only with missiles did not have any naval combat capabilities and could not provide fire support for landing troops, and could not even complete low-intensity combat tasks such as ship surveillance. Before the advent of naval guns, their only way of attacking the sea seemed to be that my ships were ordered to ram you!

So we can’t go down the wrong path. The missile omnipotence theory has turned a batch of warships of the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain into waste, greatly reduced the combat effectiveness of the fighter jets of the United States and the Soviet Union, and directly destroyed the aviation industry of Great Britain. Everyone is playing with missiles, so who still wants to play with airplanes?

The same mistake naturally could not be made again, so while giving some guiding opinions, Li Yian also drew a new ship shape, which looked somewhat similar to the later Modern-class, with two single-mounted naval guns in the front and rear and two sets of twin missile launchers.

The biggest difference is the loss of the two iconic quadruple "Sunburn" anti-ship missile launchers.

According to Li Yian's idea, Nanyang's anti-ship missiles should be similar to Harpoon and Exocet, and it is best to integrate them directly into the twin-arm missile launcher. This will not only ensure the cleanliness of the deck space, but also effectively reduce the radar reflection area, and lay the foundation for future integration into the vertical launch system.

"So what is this location?"

Carl pointed to the platform behind the chimney and asked,
"Helicopter hangar, this is the helicopter landing platform."

"Will the destroyer be equipped with helicopters?"

Carl was surprised.

"Yes, the core of future surface ship anti-submarine warfare is anti-submarine helicopters. The new destroyer will be equipped with two general-purpose helicopters for personnel transportation and anti-submarine warfare."

No one knows modern warships better than himself. Li Yian can brag about this. After all, he has witnessed the development path of warships in the United States, the Soviet Union and European countries after the war. He even pointed out that the crooked path of aluminum alloy weight reduction should not be adopted. This is the design of post-war warships. In order to ensure the stability of ships during ocean voyages, the superstructures of warships in various countries have adopted lighter magnesium-aluminum alloys, which can reduce weight by more than 30% compared with steel under the same conditions. However, the combustion resistance of aluminum alloy is much lower than that of steel. If hit by a missile, aluminum alloy will melt or catch fire more easily.

During the Falklands War, the superstructure of the British Navy's "Sheffield" sank due to a fire caused by a bullet. This trial and error lasted for 30 years! After the Falklands War, the superstructures of warships of various countries began to be built with high-strength steel again.

In fact, the sketches drawn by Li Yian, like the others, are just guiding opinions. Ultimately, it depends on the engineers of the Karl Naval Engineering Department and various enterprises in Nanyang to realize it. Of course, it also has some subsystems that need to be imported. For example, the MK42 naval gun not only has a firing rate of up to 40 rounds per minute, but more importantly, it has a very fast rotation speed. Equipped with an advanced radar fire control system and a highly efficient radio proximity fuze, it can be called the leading work of target anti-aircraft naval guns.

As for anti-submarine weapons, the US military MK4 torpedo was chosen, and in the future, the Asroc anti-submarine missile will be chosen. They are the best anti-submarine equipment of this era. The introduction of sub-equipment will help reduce military expenditures. This is also the advantage of the Western world. Each country has several high-performance weapons and equipment. They do not need to invest in research and development like the Soviet Union, even if it is just a pistol, and then provide the blueprints to their allies. Such greed for more is essentially a waste of resources. While wasting limited resources on subsystems, it also stifles the industrial creativity of allies and damages the economy of allies.

The United States has done a good job in this regard. It focuses on the big and lets go of the small. The main body of the equipment is American, and the subsystems can be purchased from the entire Western world. While reducing military costs, it also helps to enhance relations with allies, balance trade, and promote technological development among allies.

As for Nanyang, which is located in the Western world, it will naturally not give up this advantage. It will even continue to use this advantage to introduce more advanced technologies.

After all, Nanyang’s technology has achieved its current development through continuous introduction and absorption.

(End of this chapter)