Empire Conquest
Chapter 318 - 314: Approaching the Ideal Fleet

Chapter 318: Chapter 314: Approaching the Ideal Fleet

Although it wasn’t time for dinner, Bai Zhizhan had rushed all the way and had only had a cursory meal for breakfast and even the previous night’s dinner.

After some pleasantries, Bai Zhizhan straight up suggested discussing over a meal at the restaurant.

When the Commander made the suggestion, who would dare oppose?

On the way to the restaurant, Li Mingbo gave a brief overview of the fleet’s situation, specifically the two carriers.

It was all old news, really.

Although they had demonstrated remarkable bravery in the initial battle after the war had started, it was just that one time, and afterward, the two "Imperial Capital" class carriers revealed a multitude of problems.

What irritated Bai Zhizhan was that the shipyard actually thought it was the Navy’s responsibility.

The reason was that during the operations in the West East Ocean, the carriers’ power systems had been overloaded and for too long, exceeding design limits, resulting in issues like a large area of the boiler insulation layer peeling off in the boilers and steam turbines.

To fix these issues completely, a major overhaul was necessary.

After learning about this, Bai Zhizhan had even phoned the head of Puzhou Shipyard.

Although the head had said over the phone that it was all a misunderstanding, when it came to the specifics, he made it clear that a major overhaul was indeed necessary.

However, an early major overhaul was simply not possible.

These two carriers had only been delivered before the onset of the war and hadn’t been damaged in combat, so what reason was there to send them back to the shipyard for a major overhaul?

Moreover, an overhaul would mean docking at the shipyard, and they’d have to be completely opened up; such a process couldn’t be done in just a few months!

At this critical juncture, not to mention two carriers, even one could not be spared!

According to the Navy headquarter’s plan, even if everything went smoothly, it would not be until the middle of next year, when the four large carriers were combat-ready, that there might be an opportunity to send the two "Imperial Capital" class carriers back to the shipyard for an overhaul, and the arrangements would still depend on the situation then.

In short, as long as they could still operate, that was enough; don’t worry about the rest.

Fortunately, most minor issues could be fixed by the officers and soldiers themselves, and they had brought enough equipment and parts, so there shouldn’t be major issues in the short-term deployment.

It was indeed very troublesome, but there was no other option.

As Li Mingbo put it, the condition of the two carriers wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t terrible either; they could withstand a bit of a shakeup.

His words gave Bai Zhizhan some reassurance.

The key was that during the design of the "Imperial Capital" class, many aspects included redundancies, such as the power system being able to reach a speed of 33 knots at 95% of the maximum rated power. As long as they were used normally, even when carrying out combat missions, there was no need to overtax the mechanical performance.

Li Mingbo said this as a warning to Bai Zhizhan not to rely on the carriers’ maximum capabilities.

This was also the primary reason for the potential issues.

During the great naval battle in the West East Ocean, Bai Zhizhan had pushed the performance of the two "Imperial Capital" class carriers, especially their sailing capabilities, to the limit.

In the post-war analysis, particularly during the simulation of the engagement process with the third Aviation Mixed Fleet, Bai Zhizhan himself admitted that often it wasn’t necessary to go that fast. For instance, in the battle intercepting the troop transport convoy, if they had reduced the speed a bit on the previous night, they wouldn’t have encountered the Saiyi Navy’s heavy cruisers by the next morning, and could have avoided a hasty retreat and even deployed ship-borne aircraft to bomb those heavy cruisers in the morning.

According to subsequent investigations, the fastest sailing speeds of the two "Imperial Capital" class carriers during the operations in the West East Ocean had both reached 35 knots.

Although it was operating in a light load condition at the time, it also meant that the output power of the propulsion system reached 115% of its rated output.

According to Li Mingbo’s statement, Bai Zhizhan was overly eager for victory, wishing the carrier could take flight.

Indeed, this also proved from one side that the shipyard’s reasoning was not wrong. If one were to pursue responsibility, the first to be held accountable should be Bai Zhizhan.

As for the escort battleships, their conditions were quite ideal.

The four "Wuzhou" class ships of the 41.3 squadron were still commanded by the Wei Jun, who had submitted a request to delay relocation to the Navy headquarter after learning that they would be included in the 41st Special Mixed Fleet. That is, he would transfer to a newly commissioned battleship as a captain after this battle ended.

Additionally, during the maintenance period at Mast Harbor, all four "Wuzhou" class heavy cruisers were equipped with Fire Control Radars and had their Anti-Air search radars upgraded.

Although as more Treaty Type heavy cruisers entered service and joined the 21st Special Mixed Fleet, the "Wuzhou" class was no longer the most advanced heavy cruiser in the Imperial Navy, these four "Wuzhou" class ships remained the most powerful in terms of combined combat capabilities, especially in terms of crew quality.

Moreover, the four light cruisers were not lacking either.

The four "Guangcheng" class light cruisers of the 41.4 squadron were actually the first post-treaty type light cruisers designed and built by the Imperial Navy after the treaty was invalidated.

Actually, this label was not very appropriate.

Rather, it would be more accurate to call them "Long-range Cruisers."

Compared to treaty type light cruisers, Long-range cruisers’ most prominent feature was that while their main gun caliber remained the same, or even was reduced, they increased the displacement to the level of heavy cruisers, and used the extra space, particularly on the deck entirely for deploying High-altitude Guns.

Initially, they were termed "Anti-Air Cruisers."

Due to displacement limits, the anti-air combat capabilities of Long-range Cruisers were far inferior to later Anti-Air Cruisers.

One could say that the Long-range Cruisers were essentially intended to replace the "Anti-Air Heavy Cruiser," by lowering demand on main gun firepower to reduce construction costs.

This was actually a measure of necessity, as in the early stages of the war, under the pressure of numerous carriers and main battleships, the Imperial Navy did not have the capability to construct several ten-thousand-ton Anti-Air Cruisers.

Thanks to their vast deck areas, the four "Guangcheng" class ships indeed had superior anti-air combat capabilities than the four "Wuzhou" class ships.

Key to this was the "Guangcheng" class being the first to be equipped with an 80mm "medium-caliber high-altitude gun" that falls between 130mm and 40mm.

Theoretically, this High-altitude Gun had a range and power close to the 130mm gun, and a firerate not much slower than the 40mm gun, yet it occupied much less deck area than the 130mm gun, roughly only twice that of the 40mm gun, thus on paper, the anti-air combat efficiency was quite formidable, not only filling up the gap in the anti-air net but also becoming the preferred high-altitude weapon for medium and small warships.

As for the actual combat effectiveness, it remained to be seen.

Additionally, the four "Guangcheng" class ships were also equipped with anti-air search radars, but because they did not participate in gun battles, they were not equipped with Gun-Laying radars for artillery control.

In comparison, the eight destroyers were slightly inferior.

Although they were all large destroyers with displacement over 1500 tons, in keeping with the Imperial Navy’s tradition, all eight destroyers had poor anti-air capabilities.

In the fleet, destroyers’ tasks are not focused on anti-air.

One could say, except for lacking fast battleships, which were essentially replaced by four heavy cruisers, the escort battleships were nearly impeccable. Thanks to the addition of four Long-range cruisers, the anti-air combat capabilities of the 41st Special Mixed Fleet didn’t decrease much.

Considering open sea combat where it was impossible to determine the direction of enemy aircraft attacks, having several more cruisers was actually more advantageous.

The protection provided by the four cruisers was certainly more comprehensive than that of one fast battleship.