Chapter 631 Hercules Class and Hurricane Class

The reforms of Sumatra and Java and the independence of Kalimantan were carried out almost simultaneously, which also allowed these three islands, originally belonging to the Dutch East Indies, to remain on the world news hot list for a full month.

Sumatra and Java retained their original names and temporarily implemented military management.

The island of Kalimantan became directly independent and became the United Sultanate of Kalimantan, with its capital located in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan.

For at least the next three years, the relocation of the indigenous population will become the biggest topic among the three islands and the only action of Australasia in Sumatra and Java.

The development of Sumatra and Java will not proceed until all the indigenous populations have been relocated. These two islands will also be fully localized and become Arthur's key to controlling the Strait of Malacca.

While Australasia was annexing the Dutch East Indies, the British were not idle. They led a group of European brothers to start a debate in the World League about whether Germany should join the World League, and finally won the support of most countries. Agree and believe that Germany has the qualifications to join the World Alliance.

This move directly angered the French. After all, in the eyes of the French, the so-called World Alliance was an institution for the Allied Powers to divide the fruits of victory among the victorious parties in World War I. It was naturally impossible to tolerate the participation of a defeated country like Germany and the culprit of World War I.

What's more terrible is that no matter what the relationship between Britain and Germany is, the relationship between France and Germany is definitely hatred.

It is impossible for the French to get together with the Germans. This also means that Germany's joining the World Alliance is a completely bad thing for France and has hindered the development of French power in Europe.

The French used a veto power to refuse the Germans to join the World Alliance. However, this was also criticized by other countries, who believed that the French had affected the development of Europe for their own selfish interests.

I have to admit that the veto power is really a good thing. Even if the British power in the World Alliance is too large, France can use its veto power at any time to veto the British diplomatic efforts for this purpose.

But the question is, in the face of the current trend, can the French really prevent Germany from joining the World Alliance?

In order for Germany to have more strength to balance France, the British have not failed to work hard.

In fact, as early as five years ago, many countries had mentioned the topic of Germany joining the World Alliance.

However, the war had just ended not long ago, and the French still had a deep hatred for the Germans, so they naturally rejected Germany's proposal to join the World Alliance very firmly.

But now five years have passed, and the French's hatred of Germany has faded slightly. In addition, the current situation in Germany is indeed terrible, and some factions sympathetic to Germany have even spawned in France, proposing that Germany join the World Alliance.

One of the more controversial points at present is that the French believe that Germany's joining the World Alliance will become a permanent member of the Security Council, which will greatly harm the interests of the French.

At the same time, joining the World Alliance will allow countries to relax restrictions on Germany, which will lead to a rapid increase in Germany's strength and an increasing threat from Germany.

These two concerns about the French were resolved in a secret negotiation between Britain and France.

The British guaranteed that Germany would not become a permanent member of the World League, and that restrictions on Germany would not be relaxed until Germany showed good performance.

After Britain and France reached a compromise, Germany naturally joined the World Alliance and became one of the ordinary members.

Although the German government is very dissatisfied with the status of ordinary member states, after all, it has achieved its goal and entered the World Alliance, and there will not be much opposition for the time being.

This is what the British want to see. The Germans are dissatisfied with their own identity, and their dissatisfaction will be passed on to the French.

After all, it was the French who refused to allow Germany to become a permanent member, and this was a direct conflict between France and Germany.

As a result, the World Alliance will naturally be divided into those supporting France and those supporting Germany.

The British can also play the neutral role they are good at and watch the competition between Germany and France in the World League.

The current competition between Germany and France is very advantageous for France, which is why the British prefer Germany.

No matter what the relationship between Britain and Germany was before, for the British, whoever threatens them is their enemy.

The French are isolated and helpless in the World League, so they will naturally turn their attention to Russia, another permanent member of the Security Council.

Russia is obviously a bottomless pit. If France wants Russia to firmly support itself, it must support the Russians to win the civil war and achieve unification.

But Russia's civil war was not easy to win. Soviet Russia had obviously gained more people's support. The civil war was huge in consumption for Russia.

If France turns around and supports Russia's civil war, I am afraid that the consumption of the war alone will be enough to bring down France.

Eliminating a rival without much effort was the best news for the British and was the reason why they invited Germany to join the World League.

After the French threat was resolved, a Germany that suffered too many restrictions and a Russia that suffered too many losses due to the civil war were obviously no match for Britain.

Australasia is far away in Oceania and will not have much influence on Europe, and the World Alliance will become a one-spoken forum for the British.

The development of the situation in Europe is not important to Arthur. Anyway, as long as a large-scale war does not break out, no matter how hard Britain, France, Germany and Russia compete for hegemony, it will not affect Australasia's international status and influence.

Arthur's eyes are on the current military development in Australasia, to be precise, the development of the already very important aircraft carrier.

Australasia's existing aircraft carrier design is called the Giant-class aircraft carrier. It was designed in 1 more than nine years ago.

More importantly, Australasia has also ushered in the development of jet aircraft in these nine years. The existing aircraft carriers are no longer suitable for jet aircraft. The Navy is in urgent need of a new aircraft carrier design to equip a large number of jet aircraft. .

We have to admit that jet aircraft have greatly improved aircraft performance. But the problem lies in this. Compared with ordinary aircraft, jet aircraft are too fast, and they are too fast to stay safely on the deck of the aircraft carrier.

Even if the Giant-class aircraft carrier is equipped with arresting devices, the landing of a jet aircraft will cause more than 30% damage, which is obviously not qualified for an aircraft carrier used in actual combat.

How to allow jets to land safely and effectively on aircraft carriers has become the most important goal of the navy's current research and development.

In addition, the number of aircraft carried by the aircraft carrier, armor and air defense capabilities, the speed of the aircraft carrier, etc. are also the improvement goals of the new aircraft carrier.

However, after nine years of development, the Royal Dockyard still has a certain direction for the research and development of aircraft carriers, and has even achieved certain research results.

After Arthur asked about the development progress of the aircraft carrier, the design drawings of the two aircraft carriers were quickly sent to Arthur's office, and they were named the Hercules-class aircraft carrier and the Hurricane-class aircraft carrier respectively.

The previous Giant-class aircraft carrier had an obvious shortcoming. The total tonnage of the aircraft carrier was only a little over 10,000 tons, and its navigation was not stable.

Fuel consumption and the takeoff and landing of aircraft will cause the aircraft carrier to shake, which will make the landing of the aircraft more difficult and increase the probability of aircraft damage.

In order to solve this problem, the tonnage and volume of the Hercules-class aircraft carrier are much larger, they are fully lengthened and widened, and stronger and tougher special steel plates are used as the deck material.

Of course, the larger size has caused the aircraft carrier's weight to exceed 20,000 tons, which is almost twice as much as the previous Giant-class aircraft carrier.

But if you only look at the improvement in armor protection capabilities, the increase in tonnage is completely worth it.

At the same time, the number of aircraft the Hercules-class aircraft carrier can carry has also been increased to 3, strengthening the aircraft carrier's combat capabilities.

In addition to changes in volume and weight, the Hercules-class aircraft carrier will also have a laser signal light installed on the deck to provide the best landing angle for the pilot of the aircraft through reflection.

The laser signal light is also equipped with a gyroscope bracket to ensure that the landing angle of the light reflection is the most correct under any circumstances.

Where there are advantages there will be disadvantages. Precisely because of the huge size and weight of the Hercules-class aircraft carrier, the speed of this aircraft carrier has not been greatly improved.

Although loaded with more boilers, the Hercules-class aircraft carrier's speed is still only 2, which can only be said to be good.

However, in terms of firepower, in addition to the Gundam 3 aircraft, the Hercules-class aircraft carrier is also equipped with many CA-2-27mm anti-aircraft guns.

This artillery is an improved version of the CA-1-37mm cannon. Although it has a smaller caliber, it is an anti-aircraft weapon specially used for anti-air combat.

With the improvements of the Royal Ordnance Factory, the CA-2-27mm anti-aircraft gun's rate of fire reached a terrifying 88 rounds per minute. The dense firepower network became a deadly weapon for enemy aircraft.

In addition, there is also a specially modified MA-107 Maxim heavy machine gun. This kind of machine gun has been modified and specially used to shoot into the air. The multiple barrels have increased the firepower of this heavy machine gun several times, and also made the Hercules-class aircraft carrier's anti-aircraft firepower the strongest.

It is no exaggeration to say that with the data on paper and the most advanced jet aircraft in Australasia, the Hercules-class aircraft carrier will definitely be the most advanced aircraft carrier in the next ten years, and it will also make Australasia's The naval strength has been greatly improved.

If the previous Giant-class aircraft carrier was only the first generation of aircraft carriers, then the current Hercules-class aircraft carrier is the real one that can easily handle the powerful weapons of the battleship.

Of course, no matter how powerful the Hercules-class aircraft carrier is, it cannot overshadow the glory of the Hurricane-class aircraft carrier.

The difference between these two aircraft carrier designs can be seen from their names. The Hercules-class aircraft carrier favors size and weight, also known as armor protection and firepower.

The Hurricane-class aircraft carrier is more biased towards the power and deterrence of an aircraft carrier. Compared with the Giant-class aircraft carrier, its size has not increased much, but the improvement in power is extremely obvious.

The Hurricane-class aircraft carrier is 2 meters long, 5 meters wide, and has a draft that can accommodate combat aircraft.

Compared with the giant aircraft carrier, this level of aircraft carrier does not have much improvement in armor protection capabilities. It only strengthens some anti-aircraft firepower to ensure the aircraft carrier's self-defense and counterattack capabilities.

The biggest improvement is the power system. After improving the previous steam turbine, several new steam turbines were installed, allowing the hurricane-class aircraft carrier to reach a terrifying speed of 5 knots, which is infinitely close to 28 knots.

The speed of 28 knots is relatively fast compared to the most advanced battleships at present. This also gives the Hurricane-class aircraft carrier a guarantee of escape when facing any battleship.

The slightly increased length of the aircraft carrier also allows jets to take off and land more freely on the Hurricane-class aircraft carrier.

It is also equipped with interception devices and auxiliary landing devices (laser beacons), which also makes the design of Hercules-class aircraft carriers and Hurricane-class aircraft carriers more reasonable, and the deterrence of the aircraft carriers is also greatly improved.

The two equally excellent battleship designs gave Arthur some difficulties. One tends to be larger and the other tends to be faster. It is difficult to tell which design is more suitable for the current naval development.

However, both aircraft carrier designs have certain advantages. No matter which aircraft carrier is chosen, Arthur can guarantee that this will be one of the most advanced aircraft carriers currently.

The problem of choosing an aircraft carrier continued until the next day, and William was not reminded of it until breakfast.

"Why do you have to choose one of them? Why don't you just build them all?" William's simple words made Arthur feel like he was receiving a pot of enlightenment, and also strengthened Arthur's determination to quickly start building an aircraft carrier.

The designs of these two aircraft carriers will be first-rate in the next 10 years, and they will never fall behind even in 20 years.

This also means that if World War II happens as scheduled, the aircraft carriers being built now will definitely be able to provide a lot of help to Australasia.

Anyway, the government's finances are completely sufficient. It is not afraid of building two types of aircraft carriers at the same time, and it has no worries about funding issues.

In mid-November, Arthur held a cabinet meeting and unanimously approved the issue of building two new aircraft carriers. He also decided on the shipbuilding plan for Australasia in the next five years.

We understand that the decline of battleships has become inevitable. Even if battleships are still powerful now, it will not change the fact that battleships will decline more than ten or twenty years later.

Instead of building battleships now, it would be better to spend all the energy and funds building aircraft carriers.

It is this idea that Australasia's shipbuilding plan for the next five years is almost entirely battleships and submarines, plus a small number of other small and medium-sized warships. Battleships will not be built in the future. The existing few battleships are enough. .

By the end of January, Australasia had built a total of 4 aircraft carriers, 32 submarines, 11 frigates, 25 small destroyers, 15 patrol boats and 8 coastal defense gunboats.

In order to deceive others, there are still four battleships in the shipbuilding plan, but they will not be actually built.

At the same time, four aircraft carriers will also be constructed confidentially, allowing countries to focus on the construction of battleships as the most important thing.

After all countries have come up with the most advanced battleships, and when they are arrogant, they will understand who is the future direction of development, aircraft carriers or battleships.

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