The focus of December's reforms was political and military restructuring, but that did not mean that there would be inaction in other areas. On December 8, five days before Hoffman was scheduled to leave for the United Kingdom, the Navy held a shipbuilding seminar to focus on the next generation of heavy aircraft carriers that had been designed.

This future-oriented heavy aircraft carrier, codenamed Beihai class, has a 14-degree angled deck, an overall length of up to 321 meters, and is expected to have a standard displacement of 75,000 tons, which is close to 90,000 tons when fully loaded......

For this technical indicator, Hoffman frowned when he heard it, his original frame displacement was 60,000 tons, and the reason why this figure was set and not set a little higher is completely for a reason: the Bismarck-class is 40,000 tons of displacement, and the H-class battleship that has been repeatedly revised on the design drawing is 55,000 tons.

But the jump from 55,000 tons to 75,000 tons at once is too fast, even if Japan provides the Yamato-class and the Yamato-class drawings, but also expressed its willingness to provide relevant shipbuilding designers, engineers to help Germany build large warships, Hoffman also thinks it is too radical, after all, the Yamato-class itself is 65,000 tons of level, 75,000 tons is also a new topic for Japan, and this is built by Japan with the strength of the whole country, and now let Japan build another Yamato-class or change the Yamato-class, it is estimated that the other party will be unbearable.

After a closer look at the power system, he felt that it was completely whimsical - even the atomic bomb did not explode, and the designers wanted to use nuclear power on it?

He knocked on the table and shook his head slowly: "No, we can't use the new power system, the construction of this super aircraft carrier itself has exceeded our experience, and then carrying a new type of power that has never been verified and I don't know when it will be completed, can only bring two results - either forcibly carry it and repeatedly fail in the port every day, or we have been waiting on the slipway for the new power system to mature, and this aircraft carrier will not be able to go to sea at all in 10-15 years."

Several shipbuilding designers were stunned for a moment, and then subconsciously nodded - they didn't actually want to risk adopting this new type of power that they had never seen before, but some people emphasized the need for innovation, so they moved this one.

"Führer, we also have scheme B of the conventional power layout, with a standard displacement of about 77,500 tons."

Hoffman flipped through the so-called drawing B and was not only dumbfounded when he saw the scale of the 108 standing standard jets.

The new generation of aircraft carriers must have the ability to carry jets is the premise of the design, but the specific number of aircraft carried was not initially said, obviously the Navy has not yet understood the meaning of precision strikes, and is still using the conventional attack capability of the propeller era as a measure, mistakenly thinking that a single aircraft carrier still needs to be equipped with so many aircraft after the war.

"These 108 planes?"

"Considering that jets are larger and faster, they require longer take-off and landing decks, so ......," explained Rear Admiral Ludwig, who was in charge of the overall design.

"I'm not too little, I'm too much......," Hoffman mused, "cut down the index, the standard displacement is recommended to be controlled at 60,000 tons, and it is never allowed to exceed 65,000 tons, and it will not take 108 aircraft to carry it, 70-80 aircraft are enough, I even think 72 is enough." ”

The "72 aircraft is enough" soon blew a gust of wind at the scene, and everyone looked at each other: the Axis class with a displacement of only 25,000 tons can carry 70+ aircraft, and the Führer actually said that the future 60,000-ton aircraft carrier only needs 72 aircraft? However, Hoffman insisted that the future will be the era of precision strikes, and that there will be no need for so many aircraft, and that improving the combat capability of individual aircraft is the king.

"In addition, heavy armor means little for aircraft carriers, and I completely agree with strengthening seaworthiness, but armored aircraft carriers wrapped in heavy armor are outdated." Hoffman inspired, "How heavy the armor can withstand the attack of a Silkworm missile with a warhead weighing up to 750 kilograms?" Can it withstand an 800-kilogram armor-piercing projectile? ”

"After our assessment, we believe that a 750-kilogram missile cannot penetrate the main defense area."

"Then will it okay for me to increase the missile warhead to 1000 kg or even 1500 kg?" Hoffman waved his hand, "Gentlemen, it is obviously much easier to add a few hundred kilograms to a missile than it is to strengthen the defense capability of an aircraft carrier, not to mention the cost-effectiveness ratio. You must pay attention to the construction time, if you achieve the level of defense you designed, I am afraid that you will not be able to build one in 10 years - what is such an aircraft carrier going to do? When it is made, it will be outdated! ”

"You also have to reconsider the runway and catapult, in the future, an aircraft of the JU-288 class will be able to take off with a full load, and the aircraft carrier needs an air command aircraft, which will be very heavy." The AWACS concept is not yet in vogue, and after Hoffman described it as a command aircraft, everyone understood it.

In less than 2 hours, several German and Italian aircraft carrier backbone designers who were waiting outside, waiting for the Führer's call to explain the technical details, got an answer in frustration - redo!

The directives are clear: tonnage reduction, conventional power, aircraft cuts, defense weakening, layout optimization...... It must be able to build one within 5 years!

If it is a democratic country, there must be people who have to rush to complain that laymen lead insiders and leaders meddle indiscriminately, but now that it is the world of national societies, who dares to say a word to the Führer? In addition, there are many things that the Führer considers, in fact, are also the focus and concerns of designers in their daily design, and now someone can naturally calm the argument by speaking out publicly.

Speer is obviously willing to drag the new aircraft carrier a little longer, and at present, the Yunlong and Dafeng-class in the German and Italian shipyards have not yet been put into service, not to mention that the improvement time is very short, and the axial class that has just laid the keel and built in batches will have to complete these tasks at least after June 1947.

He immediately expounded his thoughts to Hoffman: "Führer, can we build a fast-running, medium-sized, low-cost, and generally adopted transitional aircraft carrier based on the Axis class basis?"

Hoffman nodded in approval: "I intend to optimize and strengthen it appropriately on the basis of the Axis class, build an oblique aircraft carrier, and let Britain, France, and Italy participate together, and if Japan is interested in the future, it can also participate together, positioning it as the EU class: appropriately enlarged on the basis of the Axis class hull, equipped with a standard oblique angle, the standard displacement is controlled within 27,000 tons, and there are no less than 48 jet carriers, and a joint meeting of the four European countries on shipbuilding will be held at an appropriate time to determine, and the drawings will be determined no later than June next year."

At this day's meeting, Hoffman cut down the idea of building a ship, in fact, there were quite a few plans, and the second batch of reported plans for building ships were also mercilessly rejected.

After Germany completed the construction of Z-class destroyers, the destroyers currently built are all Hedgehog class, and then due to insufficient tonnage, the naval system proposed to build an air defense light cruiser with a displacement of 6,000 tons - porcupine-class. The construction period of this class is a little longer, and it has not yet been put into service, and even the fast, batch construction of the Hedgehog class is only enough to complete 18 ships - this is already a lot of strength! I didn't think it was so fast when I first built the Z-class.

The porcupine-class was built with a well-understood approach, a continuation of the Hedgehog-class design concept, using tonnage enlargement, which was a common practice in the Third Reich Navy - several battleships looked like heavy cruisers enlarged, so that the British were able to get their targets wrong in the North Sea naval battle and eventually destroy the Hood.

After repeatedly coming into contact with the Cleveland-class and Atlanta-class light cruisers of the United States, the navy took advantage of the situation to propose that the displacement of 6,000 tons was not enough, hoping to build a 10,000-ton professional air defense cruiser. Hoffman decisively rejected the idea.

He was well aware that the mainstream trend of the world's navy after World War II was the process of larger destroyers and the gradual disappearance of cruisers. From the perspective of the navy, the core of the combat force is the aircraft carrier formation, and the destroyer is the key auxiliary force in the aircraft carrier formation.

As the difference between cruisers and destroyers began to narrow, a major East Asian power also introduced a few modern-class ships that looked majestic but actually fought and had little survivability in fleet battles.

However, he did not simply reject the idea of air defense cruisers, but put forward a new concept: the new generation of destroyers must be larger, the tonnage division between traditional destroyers and light cruisers must be abolished, and the new construction indicators include:

1. The tonnage is moderately enlarged to 7,000 tons, which can accompany the aircraft carrier formation to carry out strike missions;

2. Multi-functional integration, integrating air defense, anti-submarine, support and reconnaissance;

3. The means of striking are diversified, and naval guns, torpedoes, depth charges, and missiles can all be used;

4. Must have the ability to carry helicopters.

Considering the high cost of such a large 7,000-ton destroyer, he put forward the idea of "high and low matching" - to build low-cost frigates. The frigate is considered to use a 2,500-ton hull to carry out combat missions in regional waters, and focuses on a single performance: including missile frigates, anti-submarine frigates, air defense frigates, etc., and only inherits 1-2 of the main functional modules of large destroyers.

However, both large destroyers and frigates are auxiliary members of the fleet, and they are not the core of the fleet's strike force, and they cannot undertake front-line combat missions on their own, but must cooperate with aircraft carriers, submarines, and other warships.

The Navy carefully interpreted the completely new ideas expounded by the Führer and found that it was really impossible to completely separate the differences between light cruisers and destroyers, light cruisers and heavy cruisers.

Few countries in the world are building heavy cruisers anymore, and Japan has the most heavy cruisers in the world – more than all other countries combined. Horikichi also did not agree to build a new heavy cruiser that would take a long time, but he expressed a strong interest in the porcupine-class and the American Oakland-class air defense cruisers, and planned to build an air defense cruiser that would be common to the Axis of the three countries after the Axis class, and even hoped that European countries would help Japan build it after the war.