Warlords: Rising from the Northwest Border and Sweeping Across the Powers

Chapter 466 USS Zeppelin Lexington

Standing under the huge main turret of the Chengfeng battleship, feeling the sea breeze, Su Zhengyang felt a surge of heroic spirit and a myriad of thoughts in his heart.

In later generations, battleships, these giant creatures that roamed the seas, have basically withdrawn from the stage of history and have been completely eliminated.

The construction and maintenance costs of a battleship are huge. The hull, artillery, armor, ammunition, personnel, etc. all require large amounts of capital investment.

However, as most countries have restricted and compressed their defense budgets, battleships have been directly kicked out, and the military has turned to weapons such as aircraft carriers and missiles, significantly increasing its equipment demand.

Before World War II, large ships and large guns were indeed the model followed by the navies of various countries. Battleships could rely on their huge firepower and armor to become a major maritime attack force.

However, with the development of new naval warfare models, modern warfare focuses more on the mobility, flexibility and high technology of weapons, and no longer relies on traditional large ships and cannons. The military development of the scientific and technological route is also an inevitable requirement for the elimination of battleships.

In the modern naval warfare environment, the battleship's clumsy speed and huge hull make it easy for it to become a target of bombing by the enemy's anti-ship missiles and aircraft.

At the same time, with the development of modern missile technology, for example, anti-ship missiles have greater long-range attack power and more precise strikes, which are far more advantageous than the battleships' cannons, and battleships are naturally more vulnerable to devastating blows.

But in general, in today's era, the level of military technology has not yet fully entered the modern high-tech era, and huge battleships are still the undisputed overlord of the sea.

For cannons and big ships, quantity is king, caliber is justice, range is truth, and speed is victory.

This is the golden rule that cannot be violated in naval warfare of this era.

After finishing his day's trip, Su Zhengyang fell asleep in the suite specially prepared for him by the South China Sea Fleet Command. The next morning, Su Zhengyang, with great anticipation, went to visit the two aircraft carriers of the South China Sea Fleet, the Zeppelin and the Lexington, led by Mountbatten.

Graf Zeppelin was an aircraft carrier built by the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during World War II. It was the only aircraft carrier ever launched by Germany in history, with a displacement of approximately 33,000 tons.

Since the German Navy had no experience in building aircraft carriers and did not have a dedicated marine flight squadron, coupled with the power struggle between the powerful German Air Force and the Navy, the entire aircraft carrier construction plan did not proceed smoothly. The Graf Zeppelin was launched on December 1938, 12. The launching ceremony was not presided over by Raeder, but by Air Marshal Hermann Goering. Hitler himself also participated in the launching ceremony.

However, when it was launched, the ship was only about 85% completed. It could neither sail at full speed (33.8 knots) on the sea nor carry the originally planned 42 carrier-based aircraft.

After the launch of the Graf Zeppelin, it would take another year to complete the construction, and time would be needed for relevant sea trials and personnel training. However, Germany lacked sufficient raw materials and manpower at the time, which led to repeated delays in the construction. In June 1940, the Graf Zeppelin was towed to the Port of Gdynia in the Bay of Gdansk (then called the "Bay of Danzig") and disguised as the timber storage ship Zugvogel. It was not until 6 that it received an order to return to the Port of Kiel for continued construction.

The design of the "Graf Zeppelin" focused more on weapons and armor protection, with armor thickness reaching 60 mm; the island superstructure was up to 150 mm thick. In order to deal with possible approaching enemy ships, the "Graf Zeppelin" was equipped with 8 twin 150 mm main guns, which shows that the German design also took into account the combat possibility of a single boat.

防空武器:6座双联105毫米防空炮，11座双联37毫米防空炮，28门20毫米机关炮，可以看出火力之强大。航速也非常快，主要考虑用以躲避空袭，12台锅炉共输出200,000匹马力，航速34节。载机方面采用空军改装 后的陆上飞机，其中包括ME-109T型战斗机12架、JU87C俯冲轰炸机30架合计42架。

In fact, the Zeppelin was an aircraft carrier that sank before it was actually put into the battlefield. It was also the aircraft carrier with the most tragic fate during World War II.

However, the Zeppelin aircraft carrier that Su Zhengyang purchased from the system was a truly complete one, and had already met the expectations of the German army during World War II.

Standing on the deck of the Zeppelin and looking at the 42 aircraft docked on it, Su Zhengyang knew in his heart that in future naval battles, it would inevitably demonstrate combat effectiveness beyond his expectations, and would also bring an extremely heavy blow to the Fuso Navy.

The Lexington class aircraft carrier (English: Lexington class aircraft carrier) is a type of aircraft carrier under the United States Navy. It is a large aircraft carrier built by the United States before World War II and the second batch of aircraft carriers built after the Langley aircraft carrier.

The Lexington-class aircraft carrier was converted from the Lexington-class battlecruiser. At the time of its birth, it became the largest aircraft carrier in the world's navies with a full load displacement of more than 1945 tons. This record was maintained in the US Navy until the Midway-class aircraft carrier was commissioned in .

It provided the US Navy with a lot of valuable experience in the use of aircraft carriers and led to the emergence of tactics in which the US Navy used aircraft carriers as the core of the fleet.

列克星敦级航空母舰共两艘，分别是首舰CV-2“列克星敦”号和次舰CV-3“萨拉托加”号。“列克星敦”号1927年12月14日服役，在二战珊瑚海海战中被日本帝国海军第五航空战队舰载鱼雷机攻击而爆沉。

The Lexington class had armor protection comparable to that of a cruiser, with a main armor belt of 79-127 mm, a hangar deck of 50 mm, and an upper portion of the engine room of 76-114 mm.

列克星敦级航空母舰装备有8门Mark9型203毫米口径L/55火炮（四座双联），12门Mark10型127毫米口径L/25高平两用炮（改装前），8座单装位于原Mark10型127毫米口径L/25高平两用炮炮位（改装后），16门MK12型127毫米L/38高炮（双联四座位于舰桥前后）

列克星敦级于太平洋战争期间加装96门40毫米博福斯高射炮（四联23座，双联2座），16门厄利孔20毫米机炮，萨拉托加号拆除了8英寸口径火炮。

Unlike the Zeppelin, the Lexington can carry 91 aircraft. The general configuration is 73 aircraft + 9 spare aircraft, including 4 F32F fighters + 3 spare aircraft, 26 SBD dive bombers + 3 spare aircraft, and 15 TBD attack aircraft + 3 spare aircraft. However, since the aircraft in Su Zhengyang's hands are basically from German World War II aircraft, there are a total of 35 BF109 fighters, 29 Stuka bombers, and 28 FW-190 "Shrike" fighters on the Lexington today.

The Zeppelin and Lexington aircraft carriers of the South China Sea Fleet were renamed the Hanhai and Bahai aircraft carriers respectively. Compared with the Fengxiang aircraft carrier of the Fuso Asian Sea First Fleet, which is less than 10,000 tons and has a total of 18 carrier-based aircraft, the difference is like that between an adult and a three-year-old child.

Lexington