The Third Reich in Desperation

"The knowledgeable head of state must also understand the importance of conventional surface ships." Raeder, who has mastered the dialogue skills, then tried to get Reinhardt to build a few more cannon giant ships for the navy.

"Yes, I am so knowledgeable and knowledgeable." Reinhardt replied off topic.

He found himself talking for a long time, but the head of state only listened to a few words of praise for him.Raeder smiled helplessly: "Then... In the eyes of the head of state, is the Plan Z I submitted before..."

"No." Reinhardt changed the subject, and refused without hesitation: "The empire doesn't have that much production capacity, and it's even more impossible for Plan Z to be realized before 1940."

Damn, so many good things to say for nothing.Raeder had a feeling, as if the Führer was just a bastard who only listened to good things and didn't express anything after listening.

"As for the surface fleet you want, I can promise you to add 1940 destroyers, 2 coastal defense ships, 14 lightning strike ships, 40 newly built cruisers and 2 new battleships before 3." Inhardt still expressed some encouragement to Raeder Road.

But after listening to Reinhardt's sudden and bullying rhetoric, Raeder couldn't recover for a long time.If Reinhardt mentioned that there is insufficient production capacity to implement Plan Z, Raeder understands it.The confident promise behind Reinhardt made Raedel quite unbelievable.

Let's not talk about where so much production capacity comes from.Even if there is production capacity, why are so many small ships built instead of giant ships? !

Text Chapter 128 Germany's Aircraft Carrier Dream

Reinhardt, who made a big promise, didn't even care about Raeder's doubts, and continued to ask Raeder on his own: "By the way, how is the construction of the Zeppelin aircraft carrier's construction factory going?"

Although Raeder is a supporter of giant cannon ships, he never dared to neglect the aircraft carrier factory that Reinhardt cared about.Immediately leaning his legs together, he stood at attention and saluted: "Everything is going well! According to your instructions, the head of state, the Zeppelin aircraft carrier after the improved drawings has basically been built, and it can be launched for sea trials by the end of this month."

Hearing Laird's answer, Reinhardt now has a little bit of confidence in the German navy.

You know, the Zeppelin-class aircraft carrier in this life has been greatly improved under his general guidance. With a full-load displacement of 45700 tons, a maximum speed of 31 knots, and a maximum carrying capacity of 110 aircraft on the Atlantic Ocean.

The increase in data brought about a straight-line increase in theoretical combat effectiveness.For such a large aircraft carrier, even Raeder, a warship supporter, has strong sustenance on it.

Taking out a data report of the Zeppelin aircraft carrier, Raeder, like a secretary, reported to the head of state seriously, "The bow of the Zeppelin aircraft carrier that is about to be completed is closed, suitable for Atlantic combat ships with high winds and rough waves." The island is located in the middle of the starboard side and has three side lifts. The deck is 282 meters long, the angled deck is 211 meters long, the largest deck is 65 meters wide, the waterline is 262 meters long, and the width is 32 meters...... "

In Raeder's report, what Reinhardt was most proud of was the angled deck technology he proposed.In the research and development direction of future aircraft carriers, the biggest advantage of the inclined deck is that the carrier-based aircraft can take off and land at the same time during combat, increase the number of single-wave sorties, increase the recovery speed of carrier-based aircraft, and improve combat power and combat efficiency. Increased aircraft carrying capacity and go-around after failed landing also increased the safety factor.

And the most important thing is that it is not difficult to improve this point, all that is needed is an idea.Reinhardt, on the other hand, just "got" the idea.

Today, the Zeppelin aircraft carrier not only has twice as many carrier-based aircraft than the historical design plan, but also expanded the combat radius by more than half.More importantly, under the intervention of Reinhardt using the Führer's power, the Zeppelin aircraft carrier became a professional aircraft carrier instead of a dual-purpose firepower ship.

Today, the Zeppelin aircraft carrier has abandoned the original troublesome cannons in history, abandoned any ship-to-ship or ground-to-ground artillery, and changed them all to anti-aircraft high-level dual-purpose 127 guns and 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns. A large number of 20mm machine guns.As for the anti-aircraft artillery, in the future, Reinhardt also plans to install radio proximity fuzes on all of them.

In fact, in addition to the Zeppelin aircraft carrier, Germany also has 2 escort aircraft carriers.These two escort aircraft carriers were transformed from the "Flying Fish Cruises" that Reinhardt ordered to build ten years ago.

Since this is a creative reform of the navy proposed by Reinhardt, the naval combat power will be increased by directly transforming the cruise ship into an aircraft carrier.Admirals in the Navy, including many senior officials who are Reinhardt's confidants, are worried.So Reinhardt, who is not a professional himself, made a concession, and the first batch of only modified 2 flying fish-class escort aircraft carriers.

The renovation project of the Flying Fish Escort Aircraft Carrier will also be completed immediately following the completion of the Zeppelin.This kind of carrier-based aircraft has only 24 small aircraft carriers of 15000 tons, and will also become a member of the first aircraft carrier fleet of the Third Reich.

The three German aircraft carriers that are about to be completed will have a total of 3 carrier-based aircraft.And the crucial first batch of aircraft carrier-based aircraft was the ME158 successor model that Reinhardt allocated a large amount of funds to develop in advance, the FW109 fighter jet that was kept secret as the secret weapon of the Luftwaffe.

Since Reinhardt's technical requirements were 3 years ahead of schedule, the prototype of the FW190 even had to be equipped with a small gunpowder pack at the beginning to throw off the cockpit cover.Finally, after about 50 improvements, the Fw 190 was approved by the German Ministry of Aviation for deployment to the Luftwaffe.

Although there were many difficulties, Reinhardt's persistence made the FW190 the first carrier-based aircraft of the Third Reich.After all, the FW190 is already the most suitable carrier-based aircraft among the German fighters known to Reinhardt.

The all-metal cantilever upside-down single-wing structure and the 14-cylinder star-shaped air-cooled piston engine make the nose of the FW190 look a bit thick, and the tail is relatively tapered. In addition, the arched part of the back of the fuselage is a transparent slide to open The cockpit canopy, the back of the fuselage at the rear is inclined downwards, so that this fighter has a good view of the rear, which is more suitable for landing on the sea.

Therefore, Reinhardt has also put in a lot of effort towards the Third Reich's dream of an aircraft carrier, so he has quite high expectations.

"With the Flying Fish-class aircraft carrier, our aircraft carrier fleet should be capable of fighting." Reinhardt looked at Raeder with a happy face.

"If the head of state can incorporate the two new cruisers, two Z-class destroyers and some lightning strike ships promised just now into our aircraft carrier fleet. I think this should be able to greatly guarantee the combat effectiveness of the aircraft carrier fleet." Raeder tried his best to use Said in a language that does not disobey Reinhardt and does not violate his own ideas: "But I still think that the empire cannot pin all its hopes on the aircraft carrier. We still have to build giant warships."

"Didn't I promise to give you three new battleships?" Reinhardt waved his hands impatiently, "You don't believe my words. Will I lie to you if you are a man? Credit is a bad habit, but I can't even handle such trivial things."

trifle? !Hearing Reinhardt make this a trivial matter, Raeder had no choice but to bite the bullet and ask with a puzzled face: "My head of state. I am the commander of the navy. For construction, there are only two new cruiser projects. The other ships you promised......"

"The secret must not be leaked." Reinhardt replied to Raeder in an extremely flat tone.In his opinion, his current image in Raeder's eyes should be quite profound, unfathomable, full of wisdom, and strategizing.

In fact, now Raeder just wants to beat up this guy who pretends to be sophisticated.It's a pity that because the other party is the head of state, he just refrained from doing it.

Although he knows that the German navy has lagged behind Britain, France and other countries by a large margin, Raeder does not think that this is a problem that can be solved by using a large number of aircraft carriers alone.

The German navy has been lonely for too long...

自彩虹行动以后，曾经辉煌一时的德国海军就只剩下6艘排水量10，000吨以下的旧式战列舰、6艘落后的巡洋舰、12艘老式驱逐舰以及12艘鱼雷艇。

Although a new type of ship was designed based on the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles—the armored ship, a lightly armored warship with battleship-level firepower and fast speed was added.But it is undeniable that when the German navy encounters any British and French navies, it is impossible to rely on this kind of power to win.

Now, seeing that the German warship replacement plan that was already on the right track has been postponed indefinitely due to the aircraft carrier project, how can Raeder feel at ease.He is not opposed to the development of new weapons such as aircraft carriers, but it would be too risky to bet on the development of new weapons at the expense of a large number of conventional forces!

Text Chapter 129 Accounts owed to the Soviet Union

At the same time that Reinhardt and Raeder were exchanging information about the development of the German navy, in the Krem Palace in Moscow, Stalin happened to bring up an old debt owed by Germany to the Soviet Navy.

Shaking his signature beard, Stalin, who had passed the "3th National Congress" of the Soviet Union to centralize power, smoked a beautiful pipe and said, "Comrade Huarevsky, I suddenly remembered a few days ago that the Germans still owe us 6 A new type of battleship. We delivered a large amount of metal resources for the transaction, and provided enough iron ore to build [-] battleships as the cost in exchange for it.”

As Stalin's newly appointed confidant, Huarevsky accompanied Stalin to participate in the launching ceremony of the "Moscow" and "Kharkov" battleships two days ago.He naturally knew that when Stalin thought of the three battleships at this moment, his memory was probably awakened by the ceremony two days ago.

Even the Soviet Union, which was inexperienced and relied on drawings provided by Germany to build aircraft carriers, had already launched the two battleships originally planned.Germany, which has more experience and technology in this area than the Soviet Union, should not have built the three battleships ordered by the Soviet Union until now.

However, Huarevsky did not dare to speculate on Stalin's current thoughts, how he viewed his German "friends".

Huarevsky pretended to be dull and said: "If you need me to do something, the general secretary can just give orders, and I will definitely get things done." He got to where he is today, relying on this spirit of obedience and disobedience to Stalin. Go smart and guess what you want.

Seeing that Huarevsky failed to respond flexibly, Stalin smiled and said kindly to Huarevsky: "I have to talk about you, Comrade Huarevsky. You need to use your brain more when you do things. Think more. There must be a reason why the Germans did not deliver our battleships. This reason is what I want you to ask clearly."

Although Stalin seemed to be criticizing Walevsky for his lack of thinking, he was actually very happy to see it.In Stalin's view, if the people below are too smart, there will be challengers to his position again.

"Understood, General Secretary." Huarevsky replied pretending to have suddenly realized: "I will set off as soon as possible and go to Germany to find out."

"At that time, pay attention to the words." Stalin reminded this dull but loyal and useful subordinate: "Don't offend our German friends, we cannot terminate our cooperation with them yet."

From Stalin's words, Huarevsky had actually understood many meanings, but now he just pretended not to be clear, and pretended to ask Stalin, the wise and far-sighted general secretary, for detailed guidance.

Huarevsky's modesty and respect won the favor of Stalin, the actual dictator.The general secretary of the Soviet Union, who has recently become more and more addicted to the cult of personality, explained to his confidant in a bragging manner: "Dear Comrade Huarevsky, you need to look at a problem from a comprehensive perspective. Although the Germans have not The battleship was delivered to us, but they have done nothing in other aspects that can be blamed. Maybe, in the matter of the battleship, they did delay the progress for some reason?"

The play must be sufficient, but it cannot be overdone.Stalin had already reached this point, so Huarevsky naturally couldn't continue pretending to be ignorant.In that case, everyone will see that he is pretending to be stupid, let alone escape the eyes of an old politician like Stalin.

"What the general secretary said is true." As Stalin's confidant, Huarevsky actually knew the other things that Stalin said very well. On the one hand, it means that the Germans designed and built the main national road network for us, built a new railway network that meets European advanced standards, and also supports tank technology, are these aspects?"

"That's right." Stalin nodded in satisfaction to this confidant who didn't have a bright mind but had a good memory. The efficiency of material transportation between many regions has improved a lot. The European high-standard railway network that connects all the way to Berlin not only simplifies the transaction distance between us and Germany, but also drives the development of all major regions in the country. transport capacity."

Seeing Stalin's attitude towards Soviet-German cooperation, Huarevsky thoughtfully used his memory advantage and reported to General Secretary Stalin Hui in a timely manner: "General Secretary, the road construction project you just mentioned has been completed so far. 90.00% of the mileage agreed with the German government has been achieved70.00. The progress of the railway is slightly behind, but it has also reached [-]% of the planned progress of [-].

"Very good, these data confirm the key point I want to mention." Stalin was very satisfied and patted Huarevsky on the shoulder as a sign of encouragement.

Under Huarevsky's apprehensive and respectful eyes, Stalin took a sip of his pipe, puffed out smoke rings and said slowly: "It has been so many years. With the help of German experts, we have not been able to complete all the planned projects. If If we fell out with the German government and led to the withdrawal of German experts, then our road construction plan will have to be delayed even longer. If we want to get rich, we must first build roads, and we can’t afford to wait.”

"Okay, we understand what the general secretary means." Huarevsky looked stupid and assured: "I will never offend the German leader."

"That's good." Stalin took another puff of the gas in his pipe, and puffed in a happy mood: "Don't worry too much, judging from the attitude of the German head of state to me, the German government will not make things difficult. represented by the Soviet Union."

After listening to Stalin's reassuring words, Huarevsky showed a nodding expression, but secretly sighed inwardly.