A Chinese naval delegation led by Admiral Chen Shaokuan arrived in Fum from Italy. ※%

In his past understanding, the Austro-Hungarian Navy should be slightly worse than first-class naval powers like Germany, the United States and Britain. Although they are now overlords of the Mediterranean and defeated the British navy during the European War, it was only achieved without the British doing their best. After all, during the European War, the German Navy restrained most of the British Royal Navy's energy.

In fact, Chen Shaokuan stayed in the UK during the European War, and his view was exactly what most people in the British Navy thought. But after understanding the current situation of the Austro-Hungarian shipbuilding industry, he found that the entire Austro-Hungarian shipbuilding industry capacity is no less than that of Britain. He is sure that the Austro-Hungarian navy has entered the ranks of world-class naval forces, and its hidden strength is enough to compete with the three naval powers of the United States, Britain and Germany.

The navy's dependence on equipment far exceeds that of the army. The army can reduce the equipment gap by expanding the number of troops, but the navy's equipment gap cannot be compensated on the battlefield. After the European War, the Beiyang government maintained a huge army with the joining of the "Chinese Workers' Corps". Although this suppressed the military rebellion of local powerful factions, it has been severely restricted because almost all military expenditure is used to maintain the CSKA with a total strength of nearly 900,000 people.

With the development of domestic industry and economy, the financial situation of the Beiyang government has improved year by year. It was not until after the "Northeast Incident" that it realized the shortcomings of its naval development. The amount of funds allocated to the navy increased year by year, which enabled the Chinese Navy to purchase and build six light cruisers with a displacement of 6,000 tons and ten ocean-type destroyers with a displacement of nearly 3,000 tons. At the same time, construction of two aircraft carriers was started.

The construction process of aircraft carriers is not particularly complicated, which is different from battleships with relatively high technical content. China currently does not have the ability to manufacture naval guns above 150 mm caliber. However, the gap between aircraft manufacturing technology and world powers is not particularly large.

But in the field of shipbuilding with huge investments, the gap between China and the world's powerful countries is simply a world of difference.

There are 18 shipyards in the entire Austro-Hungary that can build military ships, including six shipyards that can build large warships of more than 10,000 tons, and all of these six shipyards have the capacity to build 50,000 tons of super warships. The largest of them is the Isleya Shipyard in Trieste, with a plant area of ​​more than 20,000 acres and a shipyard employee number close to 40,000 people. It has four large docks that can undertake 50,000 tons of ships. The second is the Royal Shipyard in Trieste, which has two large docks of 50,000 tons. If during the war period, the Austro-Hungary Navy can start construction of ten super warships at the same time.

This is the huge gap in industrial capacity. A powerful navy cannot buy it. It requires the huge industrial capacity of the entire country to support it. The Austro-Hungarian Emperor once famously commented on the end of the maritime war: "Warships are used to sink the enemy at sea or be sunk by the enemy. The result of the naval battle is actually determined on the ship platform. If they can only sink ten of our main battleships a year and we can build twelve, we will be able to win this war."

"The result of naval warfare is determined on the ship platform!" Indeed, the decisive factor of modern maritime war is industrial and steel production capacity. If Japan is not defeated at sea, the Chinese will not be able to achieve a comprehensive victory in the Sino-Japanese War. For example, the Japanese Navy has begun to secretly build "Yamato"-class battleships with displacement of more than 60,000 tons, with its main gun caliber reaching a record 460 mm, and its armor thickness exceeds that of any other country's naval naval service and the battleships under development. This also triggered a new round of battleship construction competition for the world's naval powers. But the Chinese Navy can only sigh at this, even if there is no Sino-Japanese War. If the Chinese Navy wants to build such a super warship, it will take at least fifteen years of peaceful development.

The Navy is a money-burning service. The construction cost of a "United Force" class battleship alone exceeded 200 million kroner. After increasing the budget, the Chinese Navy's annual funding was only more than 100 million yuan. Even so, it has been criticized by the people of the Army Department because the money is enough to equip more than a dozen military divisions with Austria, but it has no effect when investing it to the Navy.

At the beginning of the war, the Chinese Navy, which had four battleships. It felt pretty good, was defeated by the Japanese army in a sneak attack. The battleships could not withstand the aircraft's bombing. Fortunately, the Chinese Navy built two aircraft carriers according to the suggestions of the Austro-Hungarian Military Advisory Group when building the ship.

The Chinese Navy was almost wiped out at the beginning of the war. The main ships of the First Fleet of the Northern Territory were forced to flee to Qingdao. Relying on the protection of the Germans, the Second Fleet of the Southern Territory of the Southern Territory did not work, but instead suffered heavy damage. At present, the main ships are remodeled in Italy, and only a cruiser fleet is preserved in the Beibu Gulf waters.

The two blocking wars of the Yangtze River Fleet in Jiangyin and Zhenjiang still reflected the value and role of the navy. The firepower of a destroyer was enough to suppress a heavy artillery regiment of the Japanese army, which won time for the army's adjustment. Especially after the Japanese army's failure in the attack on Dangtu, the two sides of the Yangtze River temporarily stopped the attack. The Japanese attack along the Yangtze River needed to wait for the navy to clear the two underwater blockade lines of Jiangyin and Zhenjiang, and the warships entered the Nanjing front line before launching an attack, while the Chinese side actively built defensive fortresses and forts on Dangtu and Jiujiang front line.

With Chen Shaokuan's efforts, the Beiyang government finally agreed to use part of the nearly 2.5 billion mark of mark raised in Europe to increase the purchase of ships. After consultation with all parties, it finally determined the ship purchase plan: spend 400 million marks to order 6 aircraft carriers, the remaining expenses are to purchase submarines, and the escort warships are built independently in China. The Navy Department has raised funds to build a large naval base and shipyard in Qishawan, west of Qinzhou Bay.

In terms of choosing aviation warships, the Austro-Hungarian Navy proposed a plan with a standard displacement of 41,000 tons and a construction cost of 120 million kroner, which is obviously beyond the current scope that the Chinese Navy can bear. In the end, China chose the construction plan for the "Graf Zeppelin" class aircraft carrier being built by the German Navy.

In this era, since Germany's industrial and military capabilities did not suffer serious damage after the war, and the German Navy also had the experience of modifying four York class aircraft carriers, the performance of the "Graf Zeppelin" class aircraft carriers was much better than that of another time and space. Although this class of aircraft carriers is a first-class aircraft carrier specially built by Germany, it has absorbed some technical advantages during the construction of aircraft carriers in various countries: the standard displacement is 27,500 tons, the extended flight deck and double-layer hangar are used, and the British-style closed bow hangar was used. In order to increase the area of ​​the hangar, the original 150mm naval gun was cancelled, and four dual-mounted 105mm high-level dual-purpose guns were replaced. At the same time, the close-range anti-aircraft firepower was strengthened. It was equipped with 8 four-barrel 37mm anti-aircraft guns and 12 double-barrel 20mm machine guns, and 26 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine guns.

This type of aircraft carrier inherits the excellent warship defense design that Germany has always been used to, and its armor protection is much higher than that of aircraft carriers of the same displacement in this era. The number of carrier-based aircraft is 32 fighters, 28 dive bombers and 12 torpedo bombers, and there are 6 spare combat reconnaissance aircraft, with a total of 78.

When Chen Shaokuan and his party visited the German shipyard, the hull construction of the USS Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier had been basically completed and the power system was installed. Four steam turbines of 14 naval special boilers could output a total power of 200,000 horsepower, making this aircraft carrier with a displacement of more than 30,000 tons reach a designed speed of 33 knots. Under cruise conditions, the cruising capacity of this class of aircraft carrier reached 9,200 nautical miles. Although the range was slightly smaller than that of the Austro-Hungarian aircraft carrier, its armor protection level was higher than that of the Austro-Hungarian Navy's "King of the Huns".
Chapter completed!