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How could the Great Tang Kingdom possibly be absent from the arms race?
In fact, the Great Tang Kingdom’s arms race had never stopped since the beginning, and Tang Mo had always been finding ways to update the weapons and equipment of the Tang military, never resting for a moment.
The Tang Navy was not intimidated by the crazy expansion plans of other countries’ navies; it even crazily joined the arms race.
According to the plan, the Tang Navy would be equipped with more than 20 submarines before the next war arrived, to cut off the enemy countries’ supply lines and deal heavy blows to their main fleets.
There’s no need to elaborate on the combat power of these submarines, since the enemy would be completely unaware of their existence, thus having no guard against them whatsoever.
Tang Mo even felt that his submarine fleet could definitely sneak into enemy ports and slaughter their warships! Similar to the sneak attack by Prien on the Royal Oak battleship, the Tang Navy could even perform many such actions!
As long as Tang Country did not sell the related technology, those countries would not have any anti-submarine means! They would lack depth charges, and they would not have any anti-submarine tactics or strategies.
Just like in the battle with the Dorne Empire, where the enemy had no means to deal with airplanes, they could only watch helplessly as their ships were sunk by submarines!
Besides submarines, Tang Mo also installed torpedoes on the newly produced standard destroyers, endowing these small warships with the capability to challenge large warships.
The Tang Navy was universally equipping torpedoes as a kind of secret weapon; its power could definitely give their opponents a big surprise.
Only at this stage did Tang Mo finally manage to produce a complete World War II-era destroyer.
The new type of destroyer was equipped with five 127mm caliber naval guns, a lot of anti-aircraft guns for air defense, and the killer feature against the enemy’s large warships was the torpedo tubes installed in the middle of the hull.
This new type of destroyer was actually a Fletcher-class destroyer, except that Tang Mo had changed the central torpedo launcher to the German caliber, and the torpedoes that were brought out were the German version.
In order to accommodate the torpedoes used by U-boats, Tang Mo had to slightly modify the torpedo tubes on the Fletcher-class destroyers—the two were both 533mm in caliber, so the design was kept as quintuple-tube configurations.
However, overall, it was still the design of the Fletcher-class destroyer, with balanced capabilities in air defense, surface combat, and anti-submarine warfare.
This was also a major reason why Tang Mo chose this type of destroyer: he needed a balanced type that could be mass-produced without changing the model!
As a World War II-era destroyer planned for nearly two hundred ships, the Fletcher-class design was actually very reasonable.
It had a laundry and a high-standard kitchen, suitable for long-range navigation, capable of undertaking a variety of tasks.
Additionally, it was fast, adequately armed, without any obvious defects, and could definitely be said to be a very successful destroyer.
What’s more satisfying is that the Fletcher-class destroyer was outfitted with both surface and air search radar, and it also had sonar, allowing it to serve as an escort on patrol missions.
Radar, another of Tang Mo’s secret weapons, was also being equipped on a large scale, especially on navy warships.
For Tang Mo, navy warships were also not cheap, so he hoped to provide the best weapons and equipment for the navy to minimize his losses.
The whole warship had a displacement of 3,000 tons, was 115 meters long, 12 meters wide, and had a draft of 5.5 meters. Its maximum speed could reach an astonishing 68 kilometers per hour, which was already the extreme speed for destroyers.
Even by the twenty-first century, the fastest speed of the main destroyers of various countries was just this speed, without much improvement.
In addition to the five 127mm caliber naval guns on the deck, there were also twin-mounted Bofors 40mm caliber anti-aircraft guns, 20mm caliber Oerlikon autocannons, and a large number of anti-aircraft machine guns.
Furthermore, a plethora of 12.7mm caliber machine guns were installed wherever space was found. This time, Tang Mo gritted his teeth and brought out another ammunition caliber for the navy...
He was also helpless because the MG42 machine gun could no longer be used just to make do; its power was really too small to be placed on warships. So, reluctantly, 12.7mm caliber heavy machine guns had to be used, and the navy’s logistics department could only pinch their noses and accept the addition of a caliber.
At the same time, the Wolf-class cruisers turned completely out-of-date, so Tang Mo brought out a new design for a light cruiser and completely put a stop to the construction of Wolf-class cruisers.
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The brand new warship was the Cleveland-class light cruiser constructed by the United States during World War II; it essentially served as a destroyer flotilla leader while also being a very decent anti-air cruiser.
Tang Mo’s main reason for choosing this intermediately-tiered cruiser design from before World War II was its appropriate tonnage, allowing it to serve as a transitional vessel for the time being.
He had considered rolling out the Des Moines-class cruiser directly, but with a displacement of 20,000 tons, it was equivalent to that of the Tang Country Navy’s Dongwan-class battleships, which seemed an unwarranted waste.
One must realize that at this time, countries generally were constructing battleships as the main force for naval combat, and the 203mm caliber main guns of the Des Moines-class cruisers truly lacked power. This made the automatic loading system of their main guns seem somewhat superfluous.
So Tang Mo decided to give up the path of heavy cruisers, believing that casually building some light cruisers to strengthen fleet anti-air defenses would suffice.
After all, he was aware of the aircraft carrier technology, and his future fleet would most certainly be built around aircraft carriers, so both heavy cruisers and battleships were already excluded from his plans by Tang Mo.
While big guns on huge ships are the romance of men, they seem primitive compared to the aircraft of carriers.
But Tang Mo couldn’t solely produce destroyers as that would make the Navy’s fleet look too thin. Therefore, he still needed some cruisers and battleships for "match-ups," requiring large warships to withstand the close-up attacks of enemy forces.
After all, early carriers lacked fighting capability at night—with darkness falling, they could only rely on battleships and cruisers for protection.
With the Cleveland-class cruiser’s 10,000-ton displacement, a design dedicated to anti-air guns, and a higher cruising speed, it completely met Tang Mo’s requirements for a "cruiser." It wasn’t the best, but it was the most suitable one for Tang Mo to use as a transition.
Additionally, Tang Mo was also building two brand new battleships, choosing not to use the 406mm caliber main guns but instead adopting the 380mm caliber of the German Bismarck-class.
Since the Dorne Navy was funding the research and development, Tang Mo decided to directly adopt it for his own use: the Tang Army’s new battleships would be based on the Bismarck-class!
This was actually an odd choice: theoretically, there were many battleships better than the Bismarck-class used by the German Navy, and the overall protective design philosophy of German battleships was not advanced, with the performance of the Bismarck-class itself not being particularly outstanding.
Yet for the purpose of serving as a shield for aircraft carriers, the Bismarck became a fitting choice: Japan’s Yamato-class battleships were too expensive, the United States’ Iowa were too fragile as battlecruisers, Hood was even less impressive, and the Vittorio Veneto-class had been critically hit before, leaving the Bismarck as a seemingly more robust option.
Since they were to serve as shields, sturdiness was sufficient. Tang Mo didn’t plan for his battleships to operate independently, and minor issues in details were easy to address.
However, the 37mm caliber hand-cranked guns on the Bismarck-class battleships were truly unreliable and had to be completely replaced. Tang Mo retrofitted his new type of battleships with 40mm caliber Bofors anti-aircraft guns and also installed 20mm caliber Oerlikon cannons.
The original dual-purpose guns of 128mm caliber were also changed to 127mm, to be common with Navy destroyers. At the same time, the entire warship underwent some armor design modifications to improve its defensive capabilities, pushing the displacement up to 53,000 tons all at once!
The new warships were also equipped with new radars and a fire-control system, although all of this was still on paper for now.
In order to confuse other countries, the Dongwan-class battleships continued to be built without interruption, but these new Dongwan-class battleships were all intended for sale. Two would be sold to the Dorne Empire, and the existing five would also be gradually sold off in the future.
The real trump card of the Tang Country Navy was the more secretive construction of aircraft carriers on Dragon Island, where keels were being laid down.
Since the Endless Sea is often in good condition, Tang Mo did not choose the Atlantic ship design of British and German carriers when selecting carriers, which is why Ark Royal and Zeppelin were eliminated.
The fully enclosed bows and hangars significantly reduced the number of carrier aircraft, and this was something Tang Mo couldn’t tolerate. Initially short on carriers, if he couldn’t carry more aircraft, he would certainly flip the table.
The chimney design of the shabbily-built carriers from the relatively comfortable Island Nation was unsightly and their performance was also not very good, so Tang Mo was unwilling to adopt them.
Hence, the American Essex-class aircraft carrier, which had the best performance and was aesthetically pleasing, became Tang Mo’s first choice. After all, the technical difficulty in constructing carriers of the World War II era was not high, so a direct copy would suffice.
After all, the Essex-class carriers can be said to be very successful World War II carrier designs, and there was no need to go out of the way to seek other carriers for modifications.
As for carrier-based aircraft, Tang Mo planned to continue using his own FW-190 and Stukas for the time being, given that the early carrier aircraft performance from the "beautiful country" was not that great. When a real performance upgrade for the carrier aircraft was needed, it wouldn’t be too late to pull out designs like the Corsair.
Updat𝓮d from freewēbnoveℓ.com.
For now, the performance of the Stukas and FW-190 Butcher Fighters was definitely sufficient, and maintaining some commonality with the Air Force aircraft would work. Currently, the Stuka Dive Bomber production factory on Dragon Island was hurriedly retrofitting prototypes to equip the Stukas with the capability to carry torpedoes. As for dive bombing, that has always been the Stuka Dive Bomber’s forte, requiring no modifications whatsoever.