Iron Cross

Just when Stalin was worried about the possibility of a fierce German attack on the Soviet Union's soft lower belly, Marshal Raeder, the commander-in-chief of the German Navy, was in a good mood and full of passion. Recently, there has been a lot of good news for the navy:

In mid-December, the Seydlitz (Admiral Hipper-class) built to the standards of a heavy cruiser was put into trial. All aspects were in good condition. The new main engine adopted after learning from the lessons did not suffer from the problems that often occurred with the Prinz Eugen. (The latter was only completely repaired at the end of October). During the trial, the top speed successfully reached 32.9 knots.

On January 13, the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, which had been under construction for six years and had suffered many setbacks, was completed and delivered ahead of schedule. This warship, regarded by Speer as the navy's top project, attracted everyone's attention. Not only did the shipyard workers consciously work overtime, In order to ensure safety, the Air Force specially allocated two fighter groups for protection (unthinkable in Goering's era). Hoffmann and Speer personally attended the delivery ceremony. The old marshal was so excited that he burst into tears during the delivery ceremony. Man Mian, and stayed on the ship until the day before the meeting before disembarking.

The new aircraft carrier has eliminated the obstructive 150mm naval gun and improved the center of gravity of the entire ship. The aviation deck covered with 60mm thick armor can fully resist the attack of 250kg aerial bombs. After optimizing the cabin structure and canceling the naval gun ammunition depot, the carrier-based aircraft The number of aircraft has increased from 42 at the time of design to 58 commonly used aircraft + 6 aircraft in reserve. After the new carrier-based aircraft is successfully developed, the Zeppelin will build a new carrier-based aircraft fleet. The original Bf-109T and Ju-87C will all be relegated to the second line. a training machine.

In addition to the early delivery of the Zeppelin, the outfitting project of the Skyhawk aircraft carrier transferred from Italy to the German Navy is also in full swing. It is expected to be officially completed and delivered at the end of March. In addition, Hoffmann passed the hands of the French, Italians and Japanese. Warships obtained through various means, the tonnage and strength of German surface ships have doubled in a short period of time. The Navy Ministry is adjusting its organizational structure and preparing to form two main fleets in the Atlantic and Mediterranean and a Baltic Sea squadron.

Two days later, the aide-de-camp to the president told Redel that he was preparing to convene a naval armament meeting and revealed rumors that the president might restart Plan Z. This made him overjoyed and he was so excited that he couldn't sleep for several nights.

In fact, the old marshal should be more grateful that he escaped: according to the original historical process, the battle in the Barents Sea that broke out on December 31 would have been a disaster for the German navy. Not only did Germany fail to intercept the transport ship taking the Arctic route from the UK, The fleet was beaten to a loss. Hitler was furious and stopped the construction of all surface ships. Even Raeder himself was beaten to the end and bid farewell to the German Navy completely. Now that the wars in North Africa and the Middle East are advancing smoothly, the British troops have been defeated. Churchill is reluctant to send very precious tanks and aircraft to the Soviet Union. In addition, the Indian Ocean route is blocked, and the British have begun to experience shortages of their own supplies. Many of the supplies were misappropriated by Fatty Qiu and replaced with unused or outdated supplies or equipment. Then, in order to fill the gap, the British once again reached out to the United States, and the fleet has not left the port.

Not many people attended the naval armament meeting. Apart from Hoffman, Keitel, Speer, Redl, and Dönitz, only a few people from the Naval Armaments Department were present, and the Commander of the Naval Aviation, Admiral Richthofen, also Although he was a participant in the meeting, he was leading HNA's main force to fight in Africa. He said that he would return to China and board the Zeppelin as soon as the war in Kenya was completed.

After the meeting started, before Redl could elaborate on the ideas about H-class and O-class battleships in the original Z plan, Speer smiled and spoke first: "The Japanese side told us that in addition to the Yamato-class battleships that are currently under construction, Except for the third ship (Shinano), the Japanese Navy is no longer planning to start building new battleships, and it is not even planning to build heavy cruisers with long construction cycles. The current core of shipbuilding is aircraft carriers, light cruisers, destroyers and other small ships, and submarines are another Theory. Therefore, the restarted Plan Z will also follow this idea.”

Redel's face suddenly froze, and he didn't know how to answer the question for a long time. He thought for a while before tactfully reminding: "Judging from Japan's practice and the Battle of the South Solomon Sea, super battleships can't even compete in battles where aircraft carriers are the main force." The best effect can also be achieved in naval battle mode. Our officers boarded the Musashi this time and deeply felt..."

Hoffman waved his hand: "We currently have the Tirpitz, plus the Imperial which has been transferred to us by the Italians and will be completed in July. We can also count on the assistance of Italy's existing battleships. It should be said that there is no shortage." Battleships. Battleships, especially super battleships, take too long to build, basically more than 4 years. Do you think the war will last this long?”

"This..." Redel was speechless.

Admiral and Minister of Naval Armaments Karl Weiser smiled awkwardly at the Navy Commander-in-Chief. He knew a little bit about the inside story earlier than Raeder, but he was unwilling to directly expose this layer of paper, so he said: "According to the instructions of the head of state, The focus of the restarted Plan Z is determined to be aircraft carriers, light cruisers, destroyers and submarines.”

In the real historical time and space, because Hitler stopped the construction of large German surface ships, Weiser was appointed as the director of nuclear weapons research together with another admiral, William Wren, but now the "Super Bomb" project is directly under the supervision of Speer was in charge, and both men remained responsible for the development and production of naval equipment. Now the Navy has more things to develop, including not only technical data on ships, torpedoes, and super large submarines from Japan, but also a large number of internal improvement plans. In addition, Plan Z is about to be restarted. The two of them have a full schedule and are full of enthusiasm. devoted himself to the cause of naval rearmament.

"This is a Dunkirk-class battlecruiser obtained from France. It has been completely repaired and remodeled in the Italian shipyard. So far, the repair work is nearly completed, and the rear deck is being dismantled. It is expected that All dismantling work will be completed by the end of this month, and the ship's reconstruction design is..."

"What is this?" Reidel saw a design on the slide that was difficult to understand with his many years of naval knowledge, and immediately exclaimed, "Didn't it say that it was converted into an aviation battleship? How did it become like this? The Japanese came up with it. ?”

It was also the first time for Keitel, Speer, Dönitz and others to see such a strange-looking warship, and they all looked suspicious.

"Your Excellency, Marshal, due to the unique shape of the Dunkirk class - the two 4-gun cannons are on the front deck, it has the inherent advantage of being converted into an aviation battleship. We initially planned to dismantle the rear facilities and use them all to lay the deck. However, after accurate calculations and on-site inspections, the length of the renovated deck is only 120 meters. Even if a certain degree of external drift is taken into account, it can only barely reach 127 meters." Armaments Bureau designer and Navy Rear Admiral Karl Schubert said through the slideshow. It shows the initial reconstruction ideas - the front half is a decent naval gun fire and bridge, and the rear is the aviation deck.

"Theoretically, due to the existence of catapults and multiple hydraulic arresting cables, a deck of more than 120 meters is sufficient for the take-off and landing of carrier-based aircraft, but in actual use, the risks are very high. Judging from the experience of using Japanese aircraft carriers, the landing of aircraft The ship has a certain chance of failure because it cannot hook up to the arresting cable. In the era of slow, light-weight biplanes, arresting nets were used to recover failed landings. Now using this recovery method will cause irreparable damage to the aircraft body, so now Landing failure is usually solved by a go-around. Our original design was unable to do a go-around. We asked the Japanese and they didn’t have a good solution - their suggestion was that the aviation battleship should just take off and not land, or simply stay on the water. Recovery after emergency landing." Schubert shrugged, "Unfortunately, the conditions in the Atlantic Ocean are too poor. Unlike Japan, which has many islands for landing in the Pacific, the aircraft must land on a ship."

In order to solve the problems of landing failure and go-around, the designers of the Naval Design Bureau tried several imaginative solutions, including connecting multiple light arresting nets layer by layer, opening an emergency exit under the bridge to facilitate go-around, etc. The effect is very poor, and landing seems to be the Achilles' heel of the aviation battleship and difficult to overcome.

Facing everyone's confusion, Schubert smiled slightly: "The Führer has been paying close attention to the aviation battleship improvement plan. After learning about the dilemma, he gave us enough inspiration with a hand drawing - since a semi-enclosed deck is not enough, Then there was another unobstructed deck, so we made large-scale adjustments to the design plan and began to use this angled deck..."

The angled deck in the design is at an 11-degree angle with the main deck. According to the idea, the aircraft will land from the angled deck part, land all the way to the stern of the ship, and then enter the hangar through the elevator and be recovered. At the same time, consider In order to ensure the balance of the ship body and the reasonable deck length, it is planned to dismantle the second set of four gun groups of the ship and move the bridge to the right of the dismantled turret. Since there is only one turret left, the observation and command requirements are Significantly lowered, the bridge can be miniaturized and changed from a tower shape to a strip shape close to the Zeppelin aircraft carrier. The original No. 2 turret ammunition magazine and turret seat ring space were expanded and turned into aviation ammunition storage. Since there is no boiler position adjustment involved and only partial flue adjustment is required, the overall reconstruction time pressure is very small.

"The length of the main deck after reconstruction can reach 166 meters, the angled part is about 176 meters, the deck width is 46 meters at the widest point and 27 meters at the narrowest point. There is an elevator (load capacity 8 tons) at each end. From the current naval battleship From the aircraft perspective, there are no problems with takeoff and landing. The thickness of the main deck armor is 90mm, and the core coverage area is about 135 meters long. It can withstand attacks from 1,000-pound aerial bombs (454 kilograms) commonly used by Britain and the United States. Due to the reduced weight of the turret and bridge, the entire The overall center of gravity of the ship has even been slightly improved, and the vertical stability is better. The only regret is that the number of carrier aircraft is relatively small, and takeoff and landing cannot be performed at the same time..."