In order to ensure that they have trained valuable naval aircraft carrier pilots, aircraft carrier designers of various navies have put a lot of thought into it.
There are always some striking similarities in history. For example, some countries believed that the chimneys and thick smoke on their aircraft carriers would obscure the pilots' view of taking off and landing, so they made the chimneys retractable.
When the information about this thing first appeared on the desk of Emperor Tang Mo of the Tang Empire, he almost laughed out loud at the photos in front of him.
Next to him, Leo didn't know where Tang Mo was laughing. He could only watch his emperor laughing while holding the photo, but he didn't know why.
Frankly speaking, Tang Mo didn't know if this design of knocking down the chimney was useful, but it was unlucky for him.
What is the difference between designing this kind of chimney and naming one of your destroyers Yukikaze? Aren’t they all just planting flags and causing great injustice?
In addition, some countries deliberately design the bridges of aircraft carriers to the left and right sides of the aircraft carrier deck. According to their thinking, this design can ensure that the aircraft carriers can be easily contacted and dispatched during formation.
This design also came from the combined fleet of a certain country's navy. Tang Mo suddenly felt dumbfounded after seeing it.
Don't tell me, sometimes the weird ideas of people who lived a good life can be really easy to get carried away by.
In addition, various countries have also made many interesting innovations when building aircraft carriers: many countries have installed main guns of about 200 mm on aircraft carriers, giving the aircraft carrier a certain degree of "self-defense capability."
It's just that this ability seems a bit useless. These artillery can't fire at all when taking off and landing carrier-based aircraft.
Some countries have tried double decks on their aircraft carriers. The lower deck is used to take off aircraft, and the upper deck is used to land aircraft...
It later proved that this segmented aircraft carrier deck was not easy to use at all, and it also wasted the hangar area and height. In the end, the aircraft carrier was transformed into a normal aircraft carrier, which was a detour like the Akagi aircraft carrier.
Interestingly, because I have visited the aircraft carriers of the Tang Empire, almost all the first-generation aircraft carriers designed and built by various countries around the world adopted a semi-open side structure.
This structure can reduce the tonnage of the aircraft carrier and lower the center of gravity, which has many benefits. Of course, this design also has disadvantages, that is, poor anti-sink performance and slightly low armor protection level.
Another problem is that using similar structures will affect the use of ships in areas with relatively high winds and waves. However, wind and waves in most areas of the Endless Sea are not particularly severe, so there is no problem with this design.
In addition, because of the backward navigation system of aircraft carriers, countries around the world tend to be conservative in the selection of carrier-based aircraft. Some of them chose to purchase Stukas from the Tang Empire, and some purchased the more backward and slower Swordfish. In short, everyone chose relatively backward and slow carrier-based aircraft.
Even when it comes to the choice of fighter jets, they have all purchased single-seat fighter jets such as the Zero, Sea Spitfire, Sea Hurricane, Corsair, Wildcat, and Hellcat. However, the navies of these countries insist that single-seat aircraft are not suitable for use in combat operations. Conduct separate combat missions at sea.
Tactically, navies of all countries believe that it is safe for escort fighter jets to perform expulsion missions over the fleet, because they have their own fleet at their feet and do not need to worry about navigation issues.
At this time, the performance of the fighter is the key to fighting for air supremacy, so the fighter must be a high-performance, single-seat fast fighter.
During the attack, the single-seat fighter jets escorted the attack aircraft units, which was actually a companion flight status. They also don't need a navigator, they just need to follow the attack aircraft group.
As for attack aircraft, they must have a navigator. On the vast sea, having a co-pilot or even one more bombardier will bring more advantages than disadvantages for search and flight.
I don’t know who first proposed this statement, but it is very popular among the navies of various countries. Therefore, multi-pilot aircraft such as the Stuka, 97 Ship Attack, Dreadnought, and even the outdated and outdated Swordfish have become the first choice for procurement by the air forces of various countries.
The navy with no money uses Zero fighter jets, and the rich navy uses F-6F Hellcats; the navy with no money uses Swordfish, and the navy with money just uses the 97 ship to attack...
In terms of carrier-based aircraft, all countries in the world have naturally been greatly influenced by the pioneer of the Tang Dynasty Imperial Navy. More than half of the countries hope to purchase general attack aircraft such as Stukas, which can use both bombs and torpedoes. It can be said that Convenient and simple.
No one likes special-purpose aircraft very much, and they are unwilling to distinguish torpedo attack aircraft and dive bombers like the lighthouse countries did. But in fact, the Tang Empire was the outlier. In World War II, both the United States and Japan were equipped with more than two types of attack aircraft on the Pacific battlefield.
It's a pity that Tang Mo chose the less standard "German" approach in the selection of carrier-based aircraft, and turned San Dezi's helpless move into a classic: There is no way, who let the competitors be too poor and let the Stuka This kind of carrier-based aircraft can shine...
As a result, countries around the world have become superstitious about general-purpose carrier-based aircraft, and everyone hopes to be equipped with a "good aircraft" like a Stuka that can carry both torpedoes and bombs.
As for the shortcomings such as the extremely slow speed of the Stuka carrier-based aircraft and the unprofessional torpedo attack, they were selectively ignored by the commanders of navies around the world.
In the eyes of these people, flying slowly equals safe take-off and landing, flying slowly equals accurate attacks, and flying slowly equals convenient navigation... In short, flying slowly has its own reasons for flying slowly.
They never believe that the carrier-based aircraft of the Datang Empire were made out of frustration because the technology iteration could not keep up with the selection. They also never believe that the weapons and equipment selected by the Datang Empire were actually inferior.
The weapons and equipment of the Tang Empire have taught them all the way to the eyes of the military leaders of various countries around the world. Whatever the Tang Empire chooses, it must be the right thing!
Due to the length constraints of the aircraft carrier deck and the performance limitations of the carrier-based aircraft, all countries believe that the Tang Empire's jet fighters cannot be used on the ship.
In other words, although there is an absolute gap in performance between land-based aircraft, the Tang Empire's most advanced fighter jets cannot be mounted on ships.
This statement is not groundless. On the one hand, it is because the take-off and landing distances of the commercial jets that airlines around the world have queued up to purchase have indeed increased, and are much longer than the Type 47 civil aviation transport aircraft that everyone used in the past.
This fully shows that as the speed of the aircraft increases, the take-off and landing distance of the aircraft will increase. Therefore, the Tang Empire was unable to take off and land high-performance jet carrier-based aircraft on an airstrip less than 300 meters.
Another reason for the misjudgment by weapons experts from various countries is that someone stole some design information about the 262 jet fighter from the Yangmu Empire.
Although the information is not detailed and many technologies are missing, it somewhat illustrates some problems: while jet fighters emphasize speed, their takeoff and landing performance has indeed declined.
The take-off distance of the new aircraft is significantly longer than that of propeller aircraft. Jet fighters of the 262 level are indeed unable to complete take-off and landing operations on an aircraft carrier.
After confirming this matter, the navies of various countries breathed a sigh of relief. This shows that their fleet is at the same level as the Tang Empire in terms of aircraft performance. They should be able to fight the Tang Empire with their numerical advantage in terms of fleet air supremacy in decisive battles!
Even though the Tang Empire had an absolute advantage in terms of "missiles", various countries also had certain advantages in the number of battleships and cruisers.
As long as everyone unites to prevent the Datang Empire from landing across the sea, then the next war can definitely be won in a dangerous situation and break the myth of the Datang Empire being undefeated!
In any case, except for the Tang Empire, which is preparing to launch three modern aircraft carriers in one go, other countries are building their own aircraft carriers.
And their construction speed is not slow. The country with the most also started construction of three aircraft carriers in an attempt to expand its naval fleet. After all, aircraft carriers in this era all have wooden decks, and the performance of carrier-based aircraft is not that exaggerated, so the technical standards are actually not high.
If the Tang Empire really relaxed its export restrictions on some special steels and was willing to provide some technical support, countries around the world could still play the game of dumplings under aircraft carriers.
Frankly speaking, if the performance gap of carrier-based aircraft is not considered, the aircraft carriers of these countries are actually not weak. After so many years of accumulation and competition with each other, the shipbuilding industries of these countries have basically reached or exceeded the level of the British Empire before and after World War I.
These countries all have some strength in building battleships, cruisers, and World War II-level aircraft carriers.
Except for the Ice Empire and the Poplar Empire, which did not start building aircraft carriers because of the war, the remaining countries can have a large aircraft carrier fleet in the future.
If we also count the additional aircraft carriers that may be built in the future, the Tang Empire may not even maintain an absolute advantage in the number of aircraft carriers.
Didn’t you see that Chu State has already started building their new domestic aircraft carrier under the guidance of engineers from the Tang Empire?
Didn’t you see that the Qin State, which had just annexed the Shu State, had already laid the first keel of their Qin State’s aircraft carrier at the shipyard at the southernmost tip of the Shu State?
Even Qin, a landlocked country in the past, has begun to build its own aircraft carriers. How could other naval powers in the world not build their own aircraft carriers?
In short, a new round of naval arms race started by the Tang Empire quietly kicked off, and the shipyards in the Eastern Continent were very lively for a while.
Only a few countries were lucky enough to escape this money-burning arms race: the Ice Empire and the Poplar Empire, which were really out of money, and the Sussus Empire, which had no navy at all...
