Is air defense cruisers necessary? Of course, there is a need. After all, a real naval power in history, both the United Kingdom and the United States, have built a batch of full-time air defense cruisers, such as the American Atlanta-class air defense cruisers, as well as the British Dido-class air defense cruisers and the later Jason Goddess-class air defense cruisers are the solutions that the navy faces huge air defense pressure under the conditions of World War II. Overall, the defense of air defense cruisers is still useful, and as the core air defense pillar of the fleet is still trustworthy.

As for whether it is possible to replace air defense cruisers with destroyers? How to say it, if calculated based on tonnage, the most common destroyer in the Americans in the second battle was the Fleche-class destroyer, with a standard displacement of about 2,300 tons, and its main air defense firepower is 5 5-inch guns. What about comparison with the American Atlanta-class air defense cruisers? The standard displacement of this class of air defense cruisers is 6,700 tons, and the main long-range air defense firepower is 16 5-inch guns, of which 14 5-inch guns can be concentrated on one side.

This is about the same in terms of tonnage, but in fact, whether in terms of cost or actual combat performance, air defense light cruisers will be better. Not to mention, at least the turret on the air defense cruiser will not be penetrated by 20mm machine guns, while the 5-inch anti-aircraft guns on the destroyer are really not defensive at all! They will be easily penetrated in the face of suppression of fighter jets. From the perspective of hull defense, when facing small bombs of less than 100kg, light cruisers have strong defensiveness, but it is hard to say that destroyers are.

For critical strikes beyond the general specifications, light cruisers may also survive. For example, in history, the British Light Cruiser Dido was hit by a 500kg armor-piercing bomb on May 29. By the way, even the Q turret next to it was severely damaged. Then this guy ran back. For example, on August 27 of the same year, the ship Goddess of Light was hit by an air-fired torpedo, blowing out a large hole of 8.5 meters * 5.5 meters, and the guy also successfully ran back. Similar encounters have occurred in the history of the Dido class. In history, the British air defense cruiser was attacked by the German and Italian navy and air force in his previous operations in the Mediterranean. Although the war was a little sank, his survivability was still tested by many wars.

If we look at the future naval battle situation, as the world's first-class navy, it is necessary to build air defense cruisers. If we wait until the aircraft is blown up, it will be too late. In fact, the British air defense cruisers appeared very early, and there was a setting as early as the 1930s when the British Royal Navy reorganized its military equipment. The Dido-class air defense cruiser is the product of this situation.

Of course, this class of air defense cruiser is not successful simply from the perspective of design. First of all, the Dido-class air defense cruiser uses a dual 133mm cannon. Although this cannon has a higher initial speed, as an air defense gun, it has a great lack of some of the most basic elements.

Take the American's double-equipped 5-inch gun as an example. The British's theoretical fire rate of 133mm gun is 10 rounds per minute, which is actually around 7.5 rounds. The American's double-equipped 5-inch gun single-inlet fire rate is 20 rounds per minute! If it is a single-equipped 5-inch gun on a destroyer, the fire rate can reach 2.7 seconds!

Because the anti-aircraft gun needs to track and tell the moving target, the rotation speed of the turret is very important. The horizontal rotation speed of the American double 5-inch gun is 25 degrees per second, while the British are 15 degrees per second, and there is also a gap in pitch speed in the UK. Therefore, the 133mm gun is not very good as an anti-aircraft gun. So the third batch of Dido-class air defense cruisers have switched to 4-inch guns...

And what is even more tragic is that the number of artillery in Dido-class air defense cruisers is rare. The main guns of Dido-class air defense cruisers are up to 10, while the American Atlanta-class air defense cruisers have as many as 16 5-inch guns. This, even if the fire controls of both sides are close, the air defense firepower of the Dido-class air defense cruisers is far less than that of American goods! At this moment, the Dido-class once again inherited the tradition of integrating the British...

"The air defense cruiser is to be done. Even if it is a test ship, it will have to try two." The crown prince thought for a while and said. "I think the standard displacement of the new air defense cruiser should be controlled at around 6,000 tons, and the firepower of a one-sided air discharge should not be less than 12 medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns. The speed can accompany the aircraft carrier."

"Then how many ships are you going to build?" Marshal Schell saw that the crown prince had spoken, so it was impossible for him to say nothing. General Rodhack's request was reasonable, and with various factors, Marshal Schell was naturally not able to directly reject it.

"At least two. After all, there are two main types of anti-aircraft guns in the future of the Navy, one is the 105mm anti-aircraft gun and the other is the 128mm anti-aircraft gun. We need to set up at least two platforms to compare the performance of these two anti-aircraft guns." The crown prince thought for a while and said.

"Two ships are not enough," said Admiral Rodhack.

"General, 6,000-ton warships are not difficult to build. Even if they are temporarily started before the war begins, we only need to build a small number of warships to practice tactics. There is no need to build these specialized and narrowly applicable warships in peacetime." Marshal Hippel said.

"Your Highness, we can actually consider the problem from a different perspective." At this moment, Earl Spee suddenly spoke: "Since we are signing a treaty, in order to avoid our advantage in cruiser tonnage reduction, we can design a tonnage limit specifically for warships of this level and remove them from cruiser tonnage. What do you think?"

"What does it mean?" asked Marshal Schell.

"It's like that. We have communicated with the French Navy before. The French are very satisfied with our 2,000-ton destroyer, especially with the 6-inch guns above. They believe that the French Navy is unlikely to build too many cruisers in the future. After all, the French have limited money bags and limited demand. Most of their colonies are already in northern Africa and do not need to have too long range. So the French plan to use an intermediate warship that is weaker than ordinary light cruisers but far exceeds ordinary destroyers to replace the tasks and functions of some light cruisers. The French call them super destroyers, also known as large lightning strike ships that are anti-destroyers." Schell said.

Are you shocked? Are you surprised? A few months ago, Germany and France were fighting bloodily. Earl Speech repeatedly damaged the French fleet. Now the navies of the two sides have begun technical exchanges. This is the terrible thing about politics! As a pleading for the French, the Germans even rented two 2,000-ton destroyers to the French. After the French studied, they felt that the ship was really good!
Chapter completed!