Chapter 1,148 The Establishment of the Air Fleet 1
Chapter 1148 Establishment of Air Fleet 1
According to the current situation, it is far from the time to distribute benefits. Neither the capitalists nor the Kaiser will choose to take action at this time. There are only two possibilities for them to take action. In one case, the empire cannot survive and there are internal worries. Foreign invasion has forced changes. The other situation is when the situation is relatively good, and the Eastern Front issue has almost been resolved, when the empire begins to discuss how to distribute benefits. The current situation is far from these.
"Just wait and see what happens, and go with the flow!" The prince wrote these words on the paper. Thinking of this, the prince pushed aside the messy domestic information. Now the prince has a more important thing, which is to build the world's first aircraft carrier fleet! The first thing that needs to be done for such a challenging and epoch-making task is to find the remaining three ships suitable for conversion to aircraft carriers...
In fact, when the prince asked the Kaiser to modify two ships, he already had alternatives. One of the ships was also owned by the Bavarian Shipping Company. It was a passenger and cargo ship. To be precise, it was a A container ship that incorporates some of the characteristics of later container ships. It can also carry some people. However, the habitability and comfort are relatively poor, and the space is relatively small.
The speed of this fast ocean ship named Constellation is about 23 knots. If you remove some unnecessary equipment and perform thorough maintenance, it will not be a big problem to run 24 knots. This is also a reserve aircraft carrier. Although there is no side-string armor belt installed, the underwater defense system is pretty good, consisting of an empty tank-liquid tank-empty tank with a thickness of more than 4 meters and a final high-elastic steel plate with a thickness of about 45mm. If you don't consider resisting underwater bombs, then this ship's defense against torpedoes is no less than that of regular German warships. After all, the TDS is thick enough.
What is the biggest benefit of this ship search? In terms of size, this ship has a displacement of only 18,000 tons and a length of 195 meters. The ship with a maximum width of 27 meters is slightly smaller than the Wittelsbach. Even if it is converted into an aircraft carrier, the deck length will be 205 meters and the maximum deck width of 30 meters will be the limit. It is certain that the flight capability will be worse than the former.
But because it was originally a container ship, there was a huge space in the middle of the hull that could be used as a hangar, and the height was large enough! The floor height is about 6 meters, and it runs through more than 2 decks! What concept do you have? The hangar height of the Japanese aircraft carrier station 2 is only about 4.5 meters, and the maximum height of the American large hangar is only 5.3 meters. And this thing creates a hangar height of 6 meters...
And if you want to consider that there is still a certain gap between the 6 meters above and the deck, then the height is even greater. The floor height of some places in the hangar is up to 7.5 meters, which is not a big problem! The size of such a huge space is 135 meters * 20 meters! If multiplied by the floor height and the hangar can be expanded from the beginning to the end, the volume is really not much smaller than the Wittelsbach! (That’s for sure. The aircraft carrier’s anti-aircraft gun deck in World War II was at the top of the hangar and in the area visible from the deck.)
Logically speaking,
This height is actually enough to try to build a two-story hangar. (The lower hangar is a closed hangar, and the upper hangar is an open hangar.) But in fact, the Prince does not intend to do this. In line with the principle of spending as little money as possible in the shortest possible time to form combat effectiveness, this ship The modified aircraft carrier named Constellation still uses a single-story hangar, but in order to ensure the aircraft capacity, the prince decided to equip this aircraft carrier with a hangar!
Why did the U.S. aircraft carriers carry so many aircraft in World War II? In addition to the fact that the aircraft has good folding wings, there are enough aircraft, and the deck is used to place the aircraft, another important reason is that many aircraft are hung from the ceiling of the hangar in parts. The F6F Hellcat, which has an empty weight of more than 4 tons, has its two wings removed and then hung up, like a dried sausage. When used, it is done by removing the wings and pressing them on! Although the double-layer hangar cannot be used, in order to carry more aircraft, the prince still decided to put two layers of aircraft in the first-floor hangar. In this way, the aircraft carrier of the Constellation will not be much less than the Wittelsbach. (Of course, the aircraft carrier cannot be registered everywhere. It depends on the situation.)
Naturally, the prince would not forget such a promising modified aircraft carrier embryo. Therefore, this merchant ship named Constellation was put on the first page of the list of refitted ships.
But after all, there are still too few civilian ships designed as aircraft carrier embryos from the beginning. Therefore, the third improved aircraft carrier can only be selected from existing cruise ships. There is actually a problem. The structure of the cruise ship is relatively complex, and it will be very troublesome to dismantle it. This resulted in a relatively long construction period, but the advantage was that at least the speed was up to standard, and because it was used to transport people, the underwater sealed cabins were divided fairly well.
As for using ordinary transport ships to modify them, it is not impossible, but generally speaking, transport ships are not large enough. In this era, a ship of more than 5,000 tons is actually considered a big ship. Moreover, the transport ship's structural strength and underwater sealed cabin were too fragile in the prince's opinion. Battleships are not airplanes. If you create an aircraft carrier that can be sunk by a thunderstorm, it may be bad at some point. And the biggest problem is that the speed is generally not enough. Let alone running at a high speed of more than 24 knots with the main force of the High Seas Fleet, in fact it is very rare for a transport ship to run at a speed of 20 knots!
Therefore, in a period of confusion, the prince could only focus on the large cruise ships that had been built and half-completed. But not to mention, after some searching, the prince was actually on the slipway of the Royal William Dockyard. Find a suitable target!
This is a cruise ship that was expected to be completed in 1913. Due to the outbreak of war, the large cruise ship named Hercules was forced to stop work. Originally, its old owner, the Hamburg Shipping Company, could only transfer it to the German Navy. After completion, this merchant ship was expected to have a displacement of 22,000 tons, a length of 180 meters, a width of 26 meters, and a draft of 9 meters. It was originally planned to be converted into a It was an auxiliary cruiser, but was later abandoned because there were more ready-made ships. Originally, this ship was planned to be dismantled in January next year, but now, the prince has taken a liking to it!
This is a fast cruise ship with an estimated maximum horsepower of 50,000 horsepower. It is driven by 4 axles and can reach a speed of more than 25 knots. Moreover, the ship's hull has been completed, part of the power system has been installed, and pipe laying has reached the final stage. Basically, the superstructure is just missing. If the prince wanted to save trouble, he would not even use the island in the second battle aircraft carrier, and just use a flat deck. What? Will this hangar be time consuming? Definitely not, an open hangar is easy. Get some shelves to support the flight deck above, and then get some partitions and rolling shutter doors on the sides. Put it down at ordinary times and open it for ventilation when you need to warm it up.
As for the residence of soldiers? Anyway, I am currently wandering around the North Sea, and I can only go out for more than 3 days for visual inspection. Just make do with it. Therefore, this unfinished cruise ship named Hercules became the third aircraft carrier of the German Empire's High Seas Fleet!
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