Iron Sonata of World War II

"Oh? There is such a thing?" Helena who was suddenly asked this question was stunned for a second.She quickly thought about the ships she had previously participated in planning in her mind, and was surprised to find that there really seemed to be such a thing.The ships she has planned over the years either have six main guns or are going to be equipped with six main guns: if you don’t believe me, take a look:

她最早参与策划的“埃姆登”轻巡洋舰装备六门155毫米主炮；此后的“柯尼斯堡”级轻巡洋舰现虽然目前装备的还是九门155毫米主炮，但今后是有换装六门203毫米级主炮的计划的；接下来的“德意志”级袖珍战列舰装备的又是六门283毫米主炮；而今天所确定的新舰方案虽然先期会装备九门283毫米或者330毫米主炮，但最终也是准备换成六门420毫米舰炮的……

However, this question is not difficult for Helena. After a little thought, she said: "I think this is a kind of design that leads to the same goal under the heavy restrictions of the treaty. If the firepower density and single-shot power cannot be taken into account, Then the priority of single-shot power must be higher than firepower density. After all, the era of rapid-fire guns to wash the deck at close range is gone. There was a critical strike in the cabin."

There is a reason why Helena attaches so much importance to the single-shot power of the main gun, and even went so far as to reduce the number of naval guns equipped.Since the end of World War I, the mainstream protection mode of warships has undergone earth-shaking changes.On the newly built battleships of various countries after the war, "key protection" has begun to replace "comprehensive protection" and has become the mainstream form of protection for the new generation of battleships.Next, we must first talk about what is "comprehensive protection" and what is "key protection", because the understanding of the concept this time cannot be completely taken literally.

"Comprehensive protection" is a very popular battleship protection mode in the early 20th century. It is written in English: Incremental, and its English original meaning is "gradual" or "incremental".Therefore, if the "comprehensive protection" that military fans often say is translated into "gradual protection", it may be more in line with its original English meaning.This protection mode refers to: laying armor belts of different thicknesses according to the importance of different areas of the hull.

Generally speaking, since the vicinity of the waterline in the middle of the hull is the most important for the protection of the entire ship, the armor belt in this area is the main armor belt of the entire ship, and its thickness is also the largest.However, in other less important areas of the battleship, armor belts that are slightly thinner than the main armor will also be arranged. There is an upper armor belt, the lower part of the main armor belt may have a lower armor belt, and the secondary gun shell may also be equipped with a gun shell armor belt...

Let us take the last battlecruiser "Hood" in service in the United Kingdom in 1920 as an example to take a peek at the basic armor layout of a typical "full protection" battleship.

The thickness of the main armor near the waterline in the middle of the battlecruiser "Hood" is 305 mm, which is also the thickest part of the ship's side.Below the main armor belt is the lower armor belt with a thickness of 76 mm, and above the main armor belt is the upper armor belt with a thickness weakened to 178 mm, and there is a 127 mm thick forecastle armor belt above the upper armor belt.Located near the waterline of the bow and stern of the warship at the front and rear ends of the main armor belt, a 152 mm to 127 mm bow and stern waterline armor belt is also extended to protect the reserve buoyancy of this area.

It has to be said that under the background of World War I, this protection mode is more useful.Since the armor-piercing bullets used by various countries at that time were basically relatively backward soft-cap armor-piercing bullets, the penetration power was not very satisfactory.

During the Battle of Jutland during World War I, the most powerful 381mm naval gun on the British "Queen Elizabeth" class battleship at the time actually only penetrated the 260mm vertical armor on the German ship. .The 305mm naval gun used by the German ship did not even penetrate the vertical armor above 9 inches (229 mm) in this naval battle.

In addition, the frequent occurrence of problems such as early detonation of the fuze and insufficient projectile strength in this war (the British shells were more obvious in this regard), made the large-caliber shells of both sides hit the opponent repeatedly by 200 mm or even Blocked by thinner medium-thickness armor.From this point of view, in terms of the background at that time, arranging auxiliary armor belts slightly thinner than the main armor for the secondary area of ​​​​the battleship did help to reduce the damage suffered by the battleship.

However, by the 20s, more advanced armor-piercing shells with hard caps had begun to be popularized in the navies of various countries. This technological revolution has greatly improved the penetration of armor-piercing shells.Let’s take the 20-times-diameter 42mm naval gun on the British “Queen Elizabeth” class as an example. After using the hard cap armor-piercing shell, this naval gun can easily shoot at a distance of 381 kilometers. Penetrates 13mm thick surface hardened armor!

Equipped with a quilt cap capable of crushing the hardened layer of the armor, coupled with a stronger projectile body and improved fuze, the strength of the armor-piercing projectile is no longer comparable to that of the Battle of Jutland.The improvement in the performance of armor-piercing bullets is so significant that armor protection, which is the other side of the coin, will naturally not sit idly by. It must face the severe challenges brought by new armor-piercing bullets.

On the one hand, the medium-thick armor belts that were installed in large numbers in the past have now become completely useless; on the other hand, the core cabin, which was completely able to cope with soft-cap armor-piercing shells, has become no longer safe.That is to say, in front of the sharper "spear" of the armor-piercing bullet, the "shield" built by the old-fashioned battleship with "comprehensive protection" as the guiding ideology is facing unprecedented pressure!

If you are poor, you will change;A whole new mode of protection quickly became popular under the pressure of the new armor-piercing projectiles, which is the so-called "focused protection".

"Key protection" is written in English: All or Nothing, translated into Chinese means: have everything or have nothing.The "key protection" mode in the modern sense was first applied on the US "Nevada" class battleships in service in 1916, but at that time, this was still a relatively small protection mode.Battleships using this protection mode cancel all or most of the medium-thick auxiliary armor belts, and the entire battleship is either the core area with heavy armor (mainly the power cabin and ammunition depot), or it is completely naked. armored area.

The thinking logic of "key protection" is: anyway, the medium-thickness armor can't stop the opponent's new armor-piercing projectiles. It's better to put all the treasures in the core area of ​​the battleship. You can still fight and run before it is exhausted, and those areas of average importance can be directly thrown to the opponent's cannon fodder. If you are lucky, you can also shoot through (cannonballs directly pass through the unarmored hull without exploding)!

With the prevalence of the concept of "key protection", the protection strength of the core compartments of warships of various countries has been greatly improved, and the battle for bullet armor has once again reached a relative balance.Of course, this is also the reason why Helena would rather reduce the number of naval guns than increase the power of naval guns. Six guns can already meet the minimum requirements for calibrating firing. The cabin can deal fatal damage to the enemy who uses "key protection"!

In the last plane, the final battle between the "Scharnhorst" and the British battleship "Duke of York" is already very illustrative. Although the "Scharnhorst" hit the opponent repeatedly during the battle, it did not penetrate the opponent's core cabin once, and the "Scharnhorst" itself slowed down because the power cabin was penetrated by the opponent. It was eventually sunk by siege.

Everyone may wish to imagine, if the "Scharnhorst" was equipped with six 380mm naval guns or even six 420mm naval guns, would the British battleship "Duke of York" still be able to pursue it with such a relaxed attitude? ?I'm afraid I have to hesitate for a while on the issue of chasing or not chasing, after all, if I accidentally chase, I will be killed.

Therefore, in Helena's eyes, in the situation where she can't have both due to various restrictions, instead of attack speed, critical strike is better!

Chapter 141 Wasted Tonnage

Although the framework plan for the new ship was finally finalized at the Naval Conference in December 1933, due to the need for some adjustments in the design plan to adapt to the future installation of dual-mounted 12mm naval guns, the expected start of construction of the new ship The time will still be postponed from the original mid-February to early April next year.

之所以要对原设计方案进行修改，是因为每座双联装50倍径420毫米舰炮旋转部分的重量预计会超过1600吨，比每座三联装330毫米舰炮旋多出了大约500吨。如此一来，日后三座炮塔的换装就会给战舰带来大约1500吨的额外负担。

In order to prevent the nautical performance of the battleship from being affected after the gun is changed, the designer needs to redesign some cabins at the bow and stern of the battleship, and extend the hull by about 7 meters to expand the reserve buoyancy of the battleship.Although the estimated start time of the new ship is a bit later than that of the previous plane, as the saying goes, good products are not afraid of being late. Helena believes that at the cost of delaying the start of construction for more than a month, it is still very important to avoid the many troubles that the warship will face when refitting in the future. It is cost-effective, the main reason why the "Scharnhorst" class gun replacement plan in the previous plane was not implemented was that the reserve buoyancy left during the design was not enough.

Compared with the careful exploration of the caliber of the main gun, Helena can be said to be jumping wildly on the verge of danger when it comes to the formulation of the displacement of the new ship.The displacement figure of the new ship that the German government plans to publicly publicize is 29000 tons. After the original design is modified, the standard displacement of the new ship is expected to be as high as 36500 tons when it is completed. After the gun is changed, the standard displacement will exceed 38000 tons. Very close to the displacement of a typical treaty battleship of this period.

However, Helena is not afraid of the British's strong reaction to this. After all, the Nazi Germany in the previous plane is a small expert with excessive tonnage.For example, the standard displacement of the "Scharnhorst" class battleship in the previous plane was declared to be 26000 tons, but in fact the standard displacement of this ship exceeded 31000 tons.It is a pity that these excess weights have not all been converted into the actual combat effectiveness of warships, and most of them have been wasted by conservative German ship designers...

Speaking of the biggest slot of the German battleships in the last plane, it is probably the low tonnage utilization rate, which is more prominent in the "Scharnhorst" class and the later "Bismarck" class.Take the "Bismarck" class battleship as an example. This giant ship with a standard displacement of up to 41700 tons did not show its due advantages when facing the smaller treaty-type battleships, and its comprehensive combat strength was only higher than that of the treaty-type battleships. The British "George V" class with the lowest performance in the ship is slightly better.The main reason for this result was the unfashionable armor protection pattern of German battleships.

As we mentioned earlier, since the 20s, with the gradual popularization of powerful armor-piercing bullets, the design idea of ​​"comprehensive protection" has become more and more outdated, while "key protection" has gradually become the mainstream form of warship protection. .However, on the "Scharnhorst" class and "Bismarck" class built in Germany in the 30s, we can still see very obvious traces of "comprehensive protection".

The "Bismarck" in the above plane is taken as an example. The protective layout of its core area is as follows: the main armor belt on the side is 4.8 meters high, 320 mm thick, and the bottom end is gradually thinned to 170 mm. This armor belt Covers the core module about 170 meters in length.The lower part of the main armor belt is connected to the dome as the main horizontal armor. The thickness of the inclined part on both sides of the dome is 110 mm (inclination angle is 68 degrees), and the thickness of the central horizontal part is 80 mm.Above the main armor belt is the upper armor box, consisting of a 2.4 mm upper vertical armor belt 145 meters high and 50 mm thick weather deck armor.

The main disadvantage of this armor arrangement mode is that the space utilization rate is low, because the "Bismarck" class uses the dome armor as the main horizontal armor, and the top of the dome armor is only slightly higher than the waterline.As a result, all important equipment in the battleship must be compressed under this low dome, and the height of the core cabin is flattened, resulting in an elongated length. The length of the core compartment of the "Bismarck" class battleship exceeds 170 meters, accounting for about 70% of the total length of the ship, while the length of the core compartment of other treaty-type battleships generally accounts for 50% to 60% of the total length of the ship.An overly long core cabin has a very adverse effect on the protection of the battleship. Under the condition of a certain armor weight, the longer the core cabin is, the less armor weight can be allocated to the core cabin per unit length. The protective strength of the cabin must be based on this.

In fact, because the Germans used a large number of lightweight welding processes when building ships, and let the armor plates directly participate in the load-bearing, the "Scharnhorst" class and the "Bismarck" class did a good job in reducing the weight of the hull. Excellent, and the lightweight of the hull allowed the Germans to save a lot of structure and allocate it to armor.

For example, the armor weight of the "Bismarck" class without the rotating part of the turret is as high as 17256 tons, accounting for more than 41700% of the standard displacement of 40 tons. Compared with the standard displacement of the "Bismarck" class, the Italian "Veneto" class is quite close The armor weight of a battleship (standard displacement is about 41200 tons) is only 13545 tons, accounting for 33% of the standard displacement.However, when the "Bismarck" class battleship has 3711 tons more armor than the "Veneto" class, the protection strength of the core cabin is not as good as that of the opponent. The reason is that the length of the "Bismarck" class core cabin is more than 170 meters. , while the core cabin of the "Veneto" class is more than 120 meters long...

Because from the armor protection system of the "Bismarck" class battleship, we can still see some "comprehensive protection" in the early years. It seemed a bit out of date in the 30s when "key protection" was popular, so that some netizens in later generations ridiculed The protection of the "Scharnhorst" class and the "Bismarck" class is "Designed for World War I".In all fairness, this statement is not entirely correct. The defense layout ideas of the "Scharnhorst" class and the "Bismarck" class are still very different from those typical "full protection" warships built during World War I.

For example, the upper armor box on the "Bismarck" class battleship consists of a 145mm upper armor belt and a 50mm exposed deck armor. Another aspect is to resist or weaken the destruction of aerial bombs.This is essentially different from the secondary armor belts set up by the "full protection" warships in the early years to prevent the opponent's guns from washing the deck.

Therefore, the German warship designers on the previous plane were conservative, but they were not completely lacking in progress. They were actually trying to adapt to the changes of the times, but compared to other countries that were advancing so fast, their steps were too far behind. Too cautious.In fact, it is also understandable. After all, no large-scale warship has been built in more than ten years, and it is a relatively normal choice to strive for safety.

Chapter 142

Because Helena, a little butterfly, has been flapping her wings unremittingly for many years, from the "Emden" class light cruiser to the "Konigsberg" class light cruiser, and then from the "Konigsberg" class light cruiser to the "Deutschland" class pocket cruiser. For battleships, the design style of the German ship designers on this plane is quite different from that of the previous plane.The vertical main armor belt with slanted arrangement and stripped cap system, large-thick horizontal armor, and perfect underwater protection system have become the standard configuration for the protection of the core cabin of German warships on this plane.

It is no exaggeration for Helena to say that the "Deutschland" class pocket battleship built by Germany on this plane has evolved quite well in terms of protection design, and can be regarded as a miniature version of the new treaty battleship protection system.Even if this new class of battleship, which will start construction next year, directly follows the protection model of the "Deutschland" class pocket battleship, that is, it is enlarged and enhanced on the basis of the "Deutschland" class defense system, it can be regarded as quite a good design in the world. .

Although in the process of formulating the protection plan, many designers agreed to directly use the "German" level protection mode, but Helena did not fully agree with this "lazy approach".In Helena's view, the protection mode of the "Deutschland" class may be the optimal solution for a 15200-ton pocket battleship, but if it is simply enlarged and applied to a 38000-ton real battleship, it may not be the most perfect solution of the design.

In fact, Helena does not object to the continuation of the successful design of the "Deutschland" class in most places. After all, the development of technology needs to have a certain continuity, but Helena insists that the "Deutschland" class is based on the vertical main armor. The underwater protection system based on the connected underwater armor belt is not suitable for simple enlargement and use on new ships.

In order to prevent the rare "water bombs" fired by the enemy from bypassing the lower edge of the vertical main armor belt and directly entering the core compartment of the battleship from underwater, the "Deutschland" class pocket battleship has a line extending from the lower end of the vertical main armor to the bottom of the ship. underwater armor belt.This underwater armor belt arranged at an inclination of 20 degrees can actually be regarded as a natural extension of the vertical main armor belt to the bottom of the ship, but its material is not surface carburized hardened steel like the vertical main armor, but has a strong deformation ability. High elastic steel.

It must be said that "on the Deutschland" class pocket battleships.The thickness of the underwater armor belt is not very large, only 90mm to 30mm (the thickness gradually thins from the connection with the lower end of the vertical main armor to the bottom of the ship).Therefore, in addition to the duty of resisting "underwater bombs", the underwater armor belt of the "Deutschland" class also has the function of anti-mine armor, that is, through its own elastic deformation, it absorbs the shock wave when the torpedo explodes, thereby greatly reducing the impact of the torpedo. Destruction of the internal facilities of the battleship.

The underwater armor belt extends from the vertical main armor and connects to the bottom of the battleship, taking into account the defense against "water bombs" and torpedoes. It can be described as a very successful design on the "Deutschland" class with a standard displacement of 1.5 tons.However, if this design is applied to a battleship with a squad displacement of 3.8 tons, it will face a problem of inability to have both anti-water bombs and anti-torpedoes.

The most powerful underwater bombs that the "Deutschland" class pocket battleship needs to defend against are only 203 mm. An underwater armor belt of 90 mm to 30 mm combined with an inclination of 20 degrees is enough to deal with this threat.However, the "water bomb" that a battleship with a standard displacement of 3.8 tons needs to face is likely to come from the heavy artillery on the enemy battleship, the one with a caliber of 14 inches (356 mm).

To block this level of underwater bombs, Helena believes that even with a 20-degree inclination, the maximum thickness of the new ship's underwater armor belt should be at least 150 mm or more.However, if the rigidity of the thick armor belt is too strong, it will inevitably bring about the problem of insufficient elastic deformation ability, which runs counter to our expectation of relying on the deformation of the armor belt itself to solve the torpedo shock wave!This is not Helena's unfounded worry, but based on the actual combat lessons from the previous plane.

In the last plane, the Japanese "Yamato" class super battleship, which used the side armor belt extending to the bottom of the ship, encountered this problem. The thickest part of the underwater armor belt of the "Yamato" class has reached 200 mm, which can be said to be more than rigid but not elastic enough. When facing the shock wave of a torpedo explosion, huge stress can easily be concentrated on the vertical main armor belt and the underwater armor belt. At the joints or supporting structures, this would cause the armor belt to be ripped alive from the joints, causing massive flooding of the battleship.

In fact, this happened to the second ship "Musashi" of the "Yamato" class in the last plane.In the Pacific War, an aviation torpedo launched by a U.S. warplane hit the side of the battleship "Musashi". The connection of the lower armor was torn, and as a result, the main armor was sunken, and a large amount of seawater poured in from the crack, causing damage to the battleship far beyond the design expectations. This fatal blow also caused " The final sinking of the super battleship Musashi with a standard displacement of 64000 tons.

The problem of the "Yamato" class is not an isolated case. In the last plane, the Americans also adopted a similar design on the "South Dakota" class battleship and the "Iowa" class battleship, and it was the same as the Japanese. Due to the rigidity of the heavy underwater armor belt, the torpedo protection capability of the warship's mine protection system is lower than expected.

In short, defense against "underwater bombs" requires underwater armor with greater thickness and rigidity, while defense against torpedoes requires underwater armor with moderate thickness and sufficient elasticity.It is precisely because of the existence of this pair of contradictions that if the designer continues to use the design that the main armor belt on the side of the "Deutschland" class pocket battleship is connected to the underwater armor belt and extends to the bottom of the ship, it will inevitably bring about the "underwater bomb attack". "The protection and torpedo protection cannot be balanced.

In order to solve this dilemma and reduce the weaknesses of the new ship's defense as much as possible, Helena felt that it was necessary to design a new underwater protection system for the new ship.

Chapter 143 Underwater Double Defense

The underwater protection system that Helena is going to equip the new ship is the first time it has the opportunity to be used on a large German warship, but this system is not a product of rushing into battle.In fact, under the guidance of Helena, the German technicians have already carried out a long-term technical exploration on the underwater protection system of the battleship, and now it is the harvest season.

Four years ago, in 1929, on the newly built "Bremen" class large-scale high-speed cruise ship, the Germans put Helena's new torpedo protection system into practice for the first time and achieved great success.The successful application of engineering has given German ship designers and Helena great confidence. This time they are going to use the underwater protection system on the "Bremen" class high-speed cruise ship as the basis, and further strengthen the protection against "underwater bombs". protection, to create a new generation of underwater protection systems for new ships.

The outermost part of the new ship's underwater protection system is the "expansion compartment" wrapped under the 15 mm thick outer hull. This is an empty compartment filled with foam rubber inside, which is the first in the underwater protection system of a warship. line of defense.

When the torpedo hits the hull, the outer hull will deform and be torn apart in the explosion.Then, the high-pressure air waves engulfing the seawater will expand violently in this empty cabin and consume energy.Due to the filling of foam rubber in the empty cabin, the "expansion cabin" of the new ship not only has better energy absorption effect than the simple empty cabin, but also after the "expansion cabin" is destroyed, the water ingress can also be restricted to a relatively limited area. To a certain extent, this "rubber method" was also successfully practiced by the French in the previous plane on the "Dunkirk" class battleships and "Richelieu" class battleships.

Behind the "expansion tank" is a liquid tank called the "absorption tank".This liquid tank loaded with heavy oil has a double-layer structure: the outer wall adjacent to the "expansion tank" is thinner, with a thickness of 10 mm; The front and rear parts; the inner wall is a high-strength waterproof longitudinal wall made of high-elastic steel with a thickness of 60 mm.The upper end of the entire "absorption compartment" module is connected to the vertical main armor belt of the battleship and is consistent with the inclination angle of the main armor, while the lower end extends to the bottom of the hull, which is the second line of defense of the battleship's underwater protection system.

When the impact of the torpedo explosion reaches the outer wall of the "absorption compartment", the power of the shock wave has been initially weakened due to the action of the expansion compartment outside, but at this time the shock wave inevitably carries various dangerous high-speed metals. Fragments, including the explosion fragments of the torpedo warhead itself and the damaged outer hull fragments.At this time, the role of the "absorption tank" is reflected. On the one hand, the viscous heavy oil can absorb the kinetic energy of these high-speed debris, and on the other hand, it can spread the shock wave inward more evenly, and the corrugated sandwich plate in the middle of the tank has the ability to Strong deformation ability.This further weakens the residual energy of the shock wave.

Generally speaking, if the charge of the torpedo is not too large, when the shock wave reaches the inner wall of the 60 mm thick "absorbing cabin", it is already at the end of its strength. The kinetic energy of the high-speed fragments is absorbed by the two-layer liquid tank, and it cannot penetrate this layer of 60 mm thick high-elastic steel plate.But even if the charge of the torpedo is large enough to tear the inner wall of the liquid tank, there is no need to worry, because there are more difficult levels waiting for it.

Behind the "absorption compartment" is the "crush absorption compartment", which is another empty compartment, located between the 60 mm inner wall of the "absorption compartment" and the main underwater armor belt.The underwater main armor belt of the new ship is arranged behind the inner wall of the liquid tank. The inclination angle is the same as that of the main armor belt, which is 20 degrees. The height extends from near the waterline of the battleship to the bottom of the hull. The bottom of the ship is gradually weakened to 180 mm.The underwater main armor belt and the 60 mm thick liquid tank rear wall are connected by a criss-cross elastic support structure, which is the third line of defense of the warship's underwater protection system.

The design of this "collapse energy-absorbing cabin" is actually the life-saving underwear that the United States put on aircraft carriers in order to counter the Soviet Union's abnormal 650mm super-heavy torpedo during the Cold War. Helena borrowed it here.

The first function of the "collapse energy-absorbing chamber" is: when the torpedo's shock wave power exceeds the limit of the 60 mm inner wall of the "absorbing chamber", the elastic support structure inside the "collapse energy-absorbing chamber" will deform and collapse. Shrink to absorb energy, the purpose is to prevent the explosion energy from directly acting on the rigid underwater main armor belt. The second function of the "collapse energy-absorbing cabin" is to leave space for the cap of the "underwater bomb" to fall off, so that the underwater bomb cannot penetrate the underwater armor belt behind.That's right!It is the 60 mm thick "absorption cabin" rear wall, which not only serves as a part of the battleship's lightning protection structure, but also has the function of stripping the quilt cap!

That is to say, even if the enemy is lucky enough to shoot a "water bomb" that is enough to bypass the main armor belt on the broadside and penetrate the outer "expansion compartment" and "absorption compartment", it will still be destroyed by the 60 mm thick "water bomb". The rear wall of the "absorbing cabin" destroys the cap structure, and the space depth of the "collapse energy-absorbing cabin" is just enough to completely separate the cap and the projectile, and the residual projectile without the cap is unlikely to penetrate solid water. Under the main armor belt.

There is still an empty cabin behind the main underwater armor belt. The rear wall of this empty cabin is called a "filter cabin". The rear wall of the empty cabin is a 20 mm thick watertight wall. Further inside is the core cabin of the battleship including the ammunition cabin and the power cabin. up. The "filter cabin" is the fourth and last line of defense of the warship's underwater protection system.

The role of the "filter cabin" is still two: the first role is that if the explosive power of the torpedo is so great that when the underwater main armor belt is deformed and leaks, the last watertight bulkhead can still filter the incoming water Keep out of the core compartment.The second function is that when the "water bomb" hits the underwater main armor belt, causing the back of the underwater main armor belt to collapse under the kinetic energy, the last 20mm bulkhead can also serve as an anti-collapse system to prevent Debris enters the interior of the core compartment.

On the new ship, the combined protection depth of the four defense lines of "expansion compartment", "absorption compartment", "collapse energy absorption compartment" and "filter compartment" reached 6 meters, although it is slightly inferior to the previous one. Compared with the 7-meter mine protection depth of the French "Richelieu" class battleship, it is still at a very good level among new battleships.Moreover, with its more advanced protection design, its actual protection effect against torpedoes is only stronger than the "Richelieu" level of the previous plane.

Don't ask what to do if the torpedo or mine explodes under the keel of the battleship. It is basically impossible for direct torpedoes in World War II to do this.If your face is really too dark and you encounter this kind of thing, it can only be said that your character is so poor that even God is unhappy with you. The designer and Helena should not be responsible for this.After all, even in the 21st century, even a [-]-ton super aircraft carrier still cannot withstand a heavy torpedo exploding under the keel.

What is even more commendable is that this underwater protection system perfectly combines the protection against torpedoes and the protection against underwater bombs.With the three-layer bottom, this underwater protection system can not only protect the safety of the core cabin in front of heavy torpedoes with a charge of up to 500 kg, but also withstand underwater bombs fired by 16-inch heavy guns.

The reason why this can be done is that the last three panels of the underwater protection system of the new ship have two roles: the back panel of the "absorption compartment" with a thickness of 60 mm also serves as the front stripping cap panel; The underwater armor belt of 60 mm to 180 mm is not only the support structure for the 60 mm "absorption cabin" backplane, but also the protective structure for "water bombs"; the "filter cabin" backplane with a thickness of 20 mm is not only the last watertight The plate is also the rear anti-cave plate of the main underwater armor belt.

Chapter 144 Heavy Armor High Speed

Compared with the revolutionary underwater protection system, the protection mode of other parts of the new ship more reflects the inheritance of the successful experience of the "Deutschland" class pocket battleship.Although Helena once imagined the possibility of adopting a double-layer horizontal protection design, but considering that arranging auxiliary armor boxes above the main horizontal armor of the battleship will raise the center of gravity of the battleship and consume more armor weight, Helena finally Still reluctantly gave up this plan.

According to Helena's deduction, the cutting-edge battleship "Veneto" class currently under construction by the Italians should adopt this double-layer horizontal protection design.If the "Veneto" class of this plane is not affected by its own butterfly effect, then its horizontal defense structure should be: on top of the main horizontal armor with a thickness of 100 mm (150 mm for the ammunition depot section), a Auxiliary armor box consisting of 70mm upper vertical armor belt and 36mm weather deck armor.At first glance, this seemingly retro-style design actually contains the ulterior motives of Italian designers.

The upper auxiliary armor box of the "Veneto" class battleship is responsible for three missions at the same time: the first is to protect the main horizontal armor by destroying the caps of incoming large-caliber shells as part of the capping system; the second is to directly Defense against naval gun projectiles with a caliber of less than five inches, so as to prevent the non-core area of ​​the battleship from being poked into a hornet's nest by the opponent's rapid-fire guns in close combat; the third is to reduce the threat of aerial bombs to the core cabin, although there is only a 36 mm thick open deck The armor cannot directly block aerial bombs weighing more than 500 kilograms, but there is still a certain chance that the bomb with a delayed fuze will be detonated before hitting the main horizontal armor, so that all the damage caused by the explosion will be vented in a relatively low-importance In the lower upper deck.

Although the double-layer horizontal protection system of the "Veneto"-class battleship is quite brilliantly designed, it is worthy of Helena's thumbs-up to the Italian designers, but this does not mean that Helena can ignore the negative effects of the auxiliary armor box. The triple bottom of the "Veneto" originally raised the boiler and turbine by one layer, and the auxiliary armor box located high above the main horizontal armor seriously raised the center of gravity of the battleship, which affected the stability of the battleship platform. greatly weakened.

According to the Italians' own tests, under a light load of 38216 tons, the initial metacentric height of the "Veneto" class battleship is only a pitiful 0.679 meters, which is the lowest among the cutting-edge battleships built after World War I.Fortunately, in the previous plane, the main range of activities of the "Veneto" class battleship was the calm Mediterranean Sea, and the problem of low stability was barely acceptable.However, the fact that the Italians can make do with the stability of the warship does not mean that the Germans can do the same.The warships of the German Navy need to frequently navigate the stormy North Atlantic Ocean, and good stability is the most basic guarantee for safe navigation.

In the end, in order to ensure a sufficient metacentric height, the horizontal protection of the new ship still uses a single layer of large-thickness horizontal armor similar to the "Deutschland" class, and the vertical protection also continues to use a stripping cap system similar to the "Deutschland" class.

After all, in Helena's view, whether the freeboard of a battleship is high enough is only related to whether the deck in high sea conditions will be able to surf; but whether the center of gravity is high enough is related to whether the ship will capsize in wind and waves!If this issue is as capricious as the Italians in the big bathtub of the Mediterranean, if the ship capsizes in the stormy waves of the North Sea in the future, then Helena is estimated to be laughed at by military fans of later generations for at least 100 years!

If the innovation of the new ship's protection system design is mainly reflected in the brand new underwater protection system, then the innovation of the new ship's power system design is mainly reflected in higher redundancy and stronger damage resistance .

The layout of the power cabin of the new ship adopts the triple cabin structure that the Germans used in history. Two watertight partition walls divide the power cabin of the entire battleship into three columns, so that even if one side of the core cabin is damaged by a blow, the seawater It will only flood the compartment on that side, while the compartments in the middle and the other side will still be safe.If only one watertight partition wall is used to divide the power cabin into left and right parts, then the redundancy will be much worse.

Unlike the "Scharnhorst" class of the previous plane, which arranged the turbines and boilers separately, the new ship's 12 circular hearth heavy oil pressurized boilers and 4 series/parallel reaction steam turbines adopt complex interlaced The way of arrangement is to avoid arranging multiple turbines in a certain row or row of cabins, and the same turbine can also receive steam from multiple sets of boilers.The advantage of this layout is that even if the engine compartment is penetrated by the opponent, the damage will only be localized, and generally there will be no catastrophic loss in which multiple turbines are destroyed at the same time or the steam supply is lost.

In the last plane, the Germans have always been in the leading position in the paddle-shaped design of the propellers of warships. For example, the "Bavaria" class battleships built during World War I adopted advanced variable-pitch designs, allowing water to flow through the propellers. Leaf time gradually accelerated.

However, the arrangement of the propellers of the German warships in the last plane is extremely cheating. Not only are the distances between the propellers extremely close together, but the distance between the propellers and the hull is also too close. The length of the drive shaft exposed outside the hull was shortened, but it also caused serious disturbance of the water flow between the propellers and between the propellers and the hull. The turbulent water flow made the propeller efficiency of the German battleships unable to reach the design index at all, and the resistance The loss ability has also been weakened, it can be said that the loss outweighs the gain.Helena also corrected these problems one by one.

The total design power of the new ship is as high as 18 horsepower. The four steam turbines each pass through a transmission shaft through the reduction gearbox (the two turbines arranged in the middle compartment drive the inner two shafts respectively, and the turbines arranged in the left and right compartments respectively Drive the outer two shafts) to drive four five-blade propellers to push the battleship forward.The paddle shape of the propeller is still the high-efficiency double-variable-pitch off-knife type, which can make the speed of the warship reach a high level of more than 34 knots under the design power.

For the drive shafts, propellers and rudders exposed outside the core compartment, torpedoes are the most serious threat, but these parts cannot be protected by armor, so basically only redundant design can be used to avoid being attacked by an opponent's attack. The launch of torpedoes caused the loss of power and control capabilities of the entire ship.

The specific method of the new ship in this regard is that the distance between the two outer propellers and the two inner propellers is staggered by more than 20 meters. Each propeller corresponds to a semi-balanced rudder, and the two outer rudders and the inner two rudders are also staggered The distance of more than 20 meters, and the rounded square tail continued from the "Deutschland" class can also reduce the probability of damage to the propeller and rudder to a certain extent.

It is reasonable to say that the above measures are perfect enough for a warship, but Helena has shown an unimaginable dedication to the ability of the warship to maneuver under extreme conditions, so that some designers secretly suspect that Sektor Miss suffers from persecution delusions.However, Helena won the final victory by relying on her own persistence. Therefore, in addition to the above conventional measures, the new ship added two emergency measures at Helena's request, so that even in the most extreme situation, the warship will still survive. A certain degree of manipulation ability can be maintained:

One is to install two sets of diesel engine-driven side thrusters on the bow and stern of each side of the battleship. There are 8 sets of 16 such side thrusters in the whole ship. In addition to entering and leaving the port, it also has a role to provide emergency yaw moments for warships.That is to say, even if all or most of the rudder of the battleship is stuck at a certain angle due to some extreme circumstances, the side thruster device can still correct the navigation of the ship.Of course, the battleship can only sail at a very low speed at this time, after all, the yaw moment that the side thruster can provide is very limited.

The second is to install a number of emergency tractors at the tail of the battleship. If necessary, the wooden emergency rudder can be lowered (the rudder has a counterweight, so it can stand in the water), and the tractor or windlass can be used to pull the steel cable to control the deflection of the rudder surface. Warships continue to maintain certain navigation capabilities.

Helena said: If the German capital ship on this plane has its legs broken, then the designer is also innocent.

Chapter 145 Secondary Artillery Configuration

After determining the protection style and power layout of the new ship, the next thing is relatively simple.

The underwater line shape of the new battleship still adopts the drag reduction design that has been used since the "Emden" class light cruisers, that is, the combination of the SV bulbous bow and the rounded square stern.However, the designer gave up the tail wedge/stern plate combination design that had been used in the past on the new ship, and only retained a relatively simple tail wedge drag reduction structure under the bottom of the new ship’s stern.

The reason for canceling the stern plate is because for this new ship with a design length of more than 240 meters, the drag reduction effect of the stern pressure wave plate on the ship at high speed is not as obvious as it is on small and medium-sized warships. A tailgate can save some structural weight.Moreover, the drag reduction effect of the stern corrugation board is mainly aimed at the high-speed section of the warship. At low speeds, the stern corrugation board will increase some cruising resistance, which is detrimental to the endurance of the battleship.

Another thing worth mentioning is the secondary weapon configuration of the new ship.

Previously, on the "Emden" class light cruisers, "Konigsberg" class light cruisers and "Deutschland" class pocket battleships, due to the relatively cramped weight allocated to the weapons, the dual-mounted 60-fold diameter 105 mm high flat Dual-purpose naval guns, each of these three-tier warships is equipped with 5, 5, and 10 such dual-mounted turrets.At the same time, this naval gun is also the main gun of the 1932-type destroyer that is still under construction. Each destroyer is equipped with 4 such dual-mounted turrets.

Although the performance of the dual-mounted 105mm naval gun is quite good, the 16 kg shell weight, the muzzle velocity of 900 meters per second and the high rate of fire of 25 to 30 rounds per minute put it even in the 40s of the last plane. The above is a top-level high-level dual-purpose naval gun.But Helena is not going to continue this naval gun.In Helena's eyes, the dual-mounted 105mm naval gun is just a product of compromise, and the high-end and atmospheric epee, such as the dual-mounted 60mm naval gun with a diameter of 130 times, will be the standard equipment for large German warships in the future!

Compared with the "short and poor" 105mm naval gun, the projectile weight of the 130mm naval gun is nearly 70% higher, and the range is farther than the 105mm naval gun, reaching more than 20 kilometers.This means that in air defense operations, the 130mm naval gun can push the outer interception line further outward, and it also means that each shell has a larger killing range when it explodes.

In addition to air defense operations, the 130mm naval gun also has an undoubted and huge advantage in sea operations.Although the higher rate of fire can make up for the lack of single-shot power to a certain extent, the 105mm naval gun will still feel powerless when dealing with the destroyer fleet approaching the attack.As for the power of the 5-inch shells, the Japanese in the last plane have experienced it. With the 5-inch secondary artillery group, the probability of successfully launching torpedoes close to the face is extremely slim.

Although the dual 130mm naval gun was developed almost at the same time as the dual 105mm naval gun, Helena put forward higher requirements for the automation level of the dual 130mm naval gun, which led to the time spent on the development of this naval gun. It is much longer than the dual 105mm naval guns that have been in service for a long time. It has not passed the national acceptance until recently, and finally reached the state of being able to be installed on the ship.

In this plane, the German dual-mounted 130mm naval gun has two forms, one is "turret type" and the other is "turret type". The "turret type" is mainly supplied to the army for air defense of important land areas; the "turret type" is exclusively used by the navy and is mainly used as a dual-purpose naval gun on large ships.

The army's "turret type" double-mounted 130mm anti-aircraft gun uses split-type ammunition, and needs to rely on manual placement of the warhead and propellant into the push tank.The new ship is going to use the "turret type" dual-mounted 130mm high-level dual-purpose naval gun, which uses a self-contained ammunition, and relies on the mechanical swing arm to send the shells lifted by the bomb lifter to the pusher. , which almost completely automates the firing cycle.

In order to prevent the mechanical failure of the pendulum system from causing the turret to lose its combat effectiveness, the "turret type" dual 130mm retains the human pendulum function as a backup.However, the weight of the 130mm full-loaded ammunition is as high as 51 kg. It is by no means an easy job to put these big guys into the pusher one by one by manpower.Helena visually predicted that in the future, the swingers on large German warships would definitely be trained to be the kind of existence with a boyfriend whose strength is beyond the charts, the kind who would not be out of breath while carrying his girlfriend upstairs.

The double-mounted 60-times-diameter 130mm naval gun projectile weighs 27 kilograms, has a muzzle velocity of up to 900 meters per second, and a rate of fire of about 25 rounds per minute.Each new ship plans to install 15 such double-mounted turrets: seven turrets are arranged on each side, the lower four and the upper three are double-layered, and the other turret is located at the rear of the battleship and the rear main turret forms a back.In this way, when shooting air or sea, the new battleship can gather the firepower of 8 16 130mm naval guns on each side, which is also top-notch on the previous plane.