If you want the horses to run, you must give the horses grass, people have no foreign wealth and no wealth, and horses do not eat night grass and do not fat. Since Roosevelt asked the Navy to implement a series of plans in South Asia, it is necessary to give the Navy benefits, not to mention that military spending, warship construction, and welfare should be increased, and the United States, which has come out of the financial crisis, should indeed expand its armaments and war.

During the treaty, the U.S. Navy built a total of five aircraft carriers, two of which were Yorktown-class aircraft carriers, and the two battleships with a standard displacement of 35,000 tons were built from the hulls of two abandoned Lexington-class battlecruisers. The third aircraft carrier is a Wasp-class aircraft carrier, and a total of 2 aircraft carriers have been built, namely the Wasp and the Hornet. These two aircraft carriers are basically a reinforced and expanded version of the historic Yorktown-class aircraft carriers. With the addition of armor protection and decks, the tonnage of the two aircraft carriers reached about 24,000 tons. The total tonnage of these four fleet aircraft carriers has already reached 120,000 tons. The remaining 30,000 tons of tonnage in the treaty were dismantled into two medium-sized fleet aircraft carriers, which were claimed to have a standard displacement of 15,000 tons, but in fact only the Americans themselves knew how many tons. The two aircraft carriers were named USS Raider and USS Langley, which was named in honor of the first U.S. test carrier.

The inertia of history is huge, even if this plane has now made Xu Jie, a little butterfly who travels through time and space, unrecognizable, but the Americans still name their aircraft carriers after the names of ships in history. And what made Xu Jie even more speechless was that the lead ship of the Americans' new first-class aircraft carrier was actually Essex! Historically, 33 Essex-class aircraft carriers have been ordered and 27 have been completed, and they are known as the world's most productive fleet carriers. I don't know how many Essex-class aircraft carriers the Americans can build in this plane!

Although they are both called Essex, the Essex of this plane is not the same as the historical Essex. After many deductions and tests, the Americans also finally realized the value of armored aircraft carriers. So it was decided to place a layer of horizontal armor on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier. But in terms of the thickness of the armor, the Americans have always been more entangled. According to the train of thought of the Chinese and British. The deck armor of an armored aircraft carrier should be able to withstand at least a dive attack of 500kg armor-piercing shells. According to this standard, the thickness of the armored deck should have reached about the left. But the Americans did not use this idea directly, and the specific reasons are as follows.

First of all, the US imperialists will not relax in holding on to their large hangars. At the same tonnage, the area of a single-storey hangar in the Americans is much larger than that of a double-storey hangar. For example, the length of the hangar with a tonnage of only 20,000 tons in history was about 168 meters (about this length). The Gale is nearly half as heavy as the Enterprise, and the hangar length is only 150 meters. In terms of volume alone, the single-storey hangar of the US imperialism is no smaller than the double-storey hangar of Japan. Therefore, the Americans would rather use the ticket to solve the problem of carrying capacity than set up another hangar.

However, the double-decker hangar not only brings the problem of ease of maintenance, but also reduces the armored defense area, for example, if the historical Enterprise wants to be made into an armored aircraft carrier, then the length of the armored deck must be about 168 meters. And Dafeng only needs 150 meters to be enough. Because of stability problems, the thickness of the armored deck cannot be increased arbitrarily at the same tonnage. The area can't be changed casually. Only one defense area and defense strength can be selected. Since the Americans have opted for large hangars, then it will only be possible to cut the thickness of the armored deck. According to the idea of the US imperialists, since the armor is not good, then 75mm is always okay, but after the actual inspection, it is found that this weight is not good. The reason is simple, the weight reduction caused by the reduction of Essex thickness is just the same as the increase in area, and it is also possible to build a closed front and open hangar like Huaxia, or to get a large reinforced box structure. However, in order to ensure the speed of ventilation, the Americans made the hangar completely open, not to mention, and the strength was not very strong. As a result, the armor needs to be weakened a little more. In the end, the thickness of the armored deck of the American aircraft carrier was only 60mm. But it's big enough. …

Secondly. The Americans are not worried about insufficient defenses. Because under this layer of armor deck there is also an armor deck with a thickness of about 50 to 80 mm. It is used to protect critical areas such as power compartments and ammunition depots. And according to American research, 250kg to 500kg high-explosive shells do not destroy 60mm horizontal armor, and armor-piercing shells will be blocked by the armor below, even if they penetrate the upper deck. Not to mention the fact that the charge of the armor-piercing projectile is small, and even if the hangar explodes, the energy generated will easily shred the thin steel plates on the sides of the hangar and let the energy vent into the air. As for causing damage? Just tinkering. There was no more than a small hole in the deck, and the engineers of the US Navy said that the hole could be filled in ten minutes.

As in history, the Americans also adopted broadside lifts on the USS Essex, and more extreme than historically, all three lifts on the USS Essex were broadside lifts. This makes the Essex's hangar much larger. In addition to this, adhering to the tradition of large decks of American aircraft carriers, the deck length of the Essex-class aircraft carrier reached 270 meters! The width is more than 32 meters. If you include the fold-out lifts that open, the widest point is more than 45 meters! And the length of the hull also reached 265 meters. Simply talk about the ability to fly. This aircraft carrier is no worse than the Fury-class aircraft carrier. And in order to improve the release ability, Essex also equipped the bow with two hydraulic catapults. It became the world's first aircraft carrier to be equipped with hydraulic catapults, which can catapult aircraft weighing about 6 tons. The charging time is about half a minute.

The underwater protection is based on the Yorktown-class aircraft carrier, using a five-layer defense system, of which the middle three layers are liquid tanks, with a total thickness of 1.5 meters, and the interior is filled with heavy oil. And in order to ensure the attendance of hundreds of aircraft on the entire aircraft carrier, the aircraft carrier Essex has a storage capacity of up to 1,000 tons of aviation gasoline! (Historically, more than 700 tons.) And ammunition stockpiles are also larger than historically. No less than the historical loading and size, coupled with heavy armor, the aircraft carrier Essex on this plane directly reached a displacement of 32,000 tons!

In addition to aviation equipment, the Americans equipped the Essex with anti-air and sea-to-sea alert radars, as well as fire control radars for the anti-aircraft guns on both sides of the hull. It became the first American aircraft carrier to be equipped with radar. And it was also equipped with completely new radio navigation and sideways equipment, which, according to the Americans, provided that the pilot could solve the problem of landing at night. Then the aircraft carrier will have the ability to fight at night, of course, such a statement is somewhat exaggerated. But it is undeniable that the accuracy and anti-interference of the electronic navigation equipment of the Essex are quite good. Its electronic equipment is highly advanced and is considered first-class in the world. Not only could the Germans, who were more backward in electronic equipment, be incomparable. It is not far behind the fury of the British after the overhaul.

"The Essex-class aircraft carriers will be the mainstay of the future U.S. Navy fleet, and they will take on the responsibility of maintaining stability in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. He is the most advanced and most powerful fleet carrier in the world, and we believe that any enemy will be wiped out in the face of the formidable Essex-class carriers. "At the groundbreaking ceremony of the Essex-class aircraft carrier, Admiral Simms, Commander-in-Chief of the US Indian Ocean Fleet and Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Garrison, delivered an enthusiastic and confident speech. And together with the director of the shipyard, he witnessed the cutting of the first steel plate of the entire battleship. Thus, a new legend of the U.S. Navy began. Of course, this legend is not full of legends and glories as Americans imagine, and there are legends, glories, failures and bitterness.

Americans deserve to be called local tyrants. In a year and a half, the construction of four Essex-class aircraft carriers was started at the same time, although the construction period is long, and the speed will certainly not reach the level of one in the next ten months after the transition to the war period, but the time from the start of construction to the final service will not exceed three years. That is, at most by 1920+16, the US Navy will have at least 10 fleet aircraft carriers. However, the Americans still feel that this force is not enough! At the same time as the construction of the tall Essex-class aircraft carriers, the Americans are also considering medium-sized aircraft carriers. …

As in history, the Americans decisively chose to use heavy cruiser hulls to build aircraft carriers. According to the terms of the treaty, the Huaxia and the United States had the same tonnage of heavy cruisers and aviation cruisers. However, with the advent of the economic crisis, the speed of US armament expansion has been greatly affected, and many heavy cruisers that have started construction can only stop construction on slipways. As a result, when the financial crisis ended, there were still quite a few heavy cruisers whose hulls were not completed. Now the wind has changed, and naval engagements no longer rely on naval guns and torpedoes. Rather, by those buzzing planes. The realistic train of thought of the Americans ultimately determined the fate of these unfinished battleships.

"Why don't you turn these warships into aircraft carriers!" A suggestion from someone in the Admiralty to bring back the historic Independence-class aircraft carriers, of course, the Independence-class aircraft carriers in this plane are much stronger than the aircraft carriers that have been converted from light cruisers in history. After all, it was improved with a 15,000-ton heavy cruiser hull. Moreover, in order to increase underwater protection, the Americans made the hull wider and the speed was reduced a lot, but at least the TDS depth width of 4 meters was ensured. And now after being converted to an aircraft carrier, the larger width also makes the flight deck of this aircraft carrier larger. Therefore, it can accommodate more aircraft than in history, and the capacity of the Independence-class light aircraft carrier in this plane has reached about 50 aircraft. It is much stronger than the Independence, which can only hold 35 aircraft in history.

So under the strong historical inertia that Xu Jie had to sigh. Construction of the Independence-class light aircraft carrier also began, and the renovation work of the first ship, the Independence, began less than five months after its launch in Essex. The first two warships were involved in the transformation. However, contrary to the idea of preparing as an auxiliary force of the fleet, the Americans built these two light aircraft carriers with the aim of directly targeting the German aviation cruisers! It's different from Huaxia. In addition to facing the fleets of the Allied countries in the Atlantic theater, the United States also needs to face the aviation cruisers scurrying around, and it is obviously not cost-effective to use regular aircraft carriers to deal with these things, so it can only use secondary aircraft carriers, which is very similar to Xu Jie's idea. And the performance of the Independence-class aircraft carrier in the anti-sabotage operation in the open sea is indeed good.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976, hukaikaka for the tip~~~, and the book friend rzhou for the monthly pass support ~~. (To be continued)