The Rise Of Australasia

Arthur was extremely satisfied with the design of this battleship and personally named it the Doomsday Battleship.

The name represents not only the end of the era for large battleships like the Doomsday Battleship but also the end of the madness of constructing such large battleships.

Since only two Doomsday Battleships were to be built, Arthur, after agreeing to the construction plan, handed their supervision over to Thomas, the Minister of Defence.

What Arthur truly cared about, however, were the other warship designs on his desk, such as the Empire-class and Destruction-class aircraft carriers.

That being said, it's uncertain when World War II will break out, but it is definitely nearing.

The fleet modernization pace in Australasia is slow, which means that the current designs will remain mainstream in the early to middle stages of World War II.

Moreover, the lengthy construction time of warships is one of the important factors limiting fleet modernization.

Even though designs for battleships and aircraft carriers are now available, it will be at least a year and a half before the actual products are launched and tested.

Considering at least a year of sea trials and the time it takes for soldiers to become proficient with the new warship, the minimum time span needed would be at least two and a half years.

If they are to be produced in large quantities, the construction time for a first-class warship would be at least five years.

This is also why the pace of fleet modernization is slow. It's not feasible to phase out all the warships that were just started five years ago, right?

New warship designs also require long periods of construction and testing, which inevitably means that any given warship's lifespan often starts at ten or even twenty years.

Although not guaranteed, if the completed warships from the current designs do not sink in World War II, they will likely undergo several refits and retire after two or three decades.

Arthur's gaze returned to the two Australasian aircraft carrier designs.

The Empire-class and Destruction-class aircraft carriers continue to follow the functional differentiation model of the Hercules class and Hurricane class.

One can tell from the blueprints of the Empire-class aircraft carrier that it is an extraordinarily large and impressive vessel.

And the Destruction-class aircraft carrier looks more compact and delicate, prioritizing speed over size.

Let's start with the Empire-class aircraft carrier.

From its name alone, one can see the extraordinary effort the ship designers have invested in it.

Indeed this is the case. Holding to the principle of "bigger and stronger," the Empire-class aircraft carrier measures 271 meters in length and 33 meters in width, with a draft of 7.4 meters under standard load and 8.7 meters when fully loaded.

Compared to the Hercules-class aircraft carrier, which can only carry 36 fighter aircraft, the Empire-class can terrifyingly accommodate up to 93, nearly triple that of the former.

From this alone, we can judge that the role the Empire-class aircraft carrier plays will absolutely be several times that of previous carriers.

The more aircraft there are, the more combat power an aircraft carrier has. This also means that the aircraft carrier can choose a wider variety of aircraft combinations, and have more methods to deal with different enemies.

In terms of power, the Empire-class aircraft carrier uses the same design as the Doomsday Battleship. But due to its smaller size and weight, its speed actually surpasses that of the Doomsday Battleship.

However, this seems logical. After all, the Doomsday Battleship is essentially a target meant to be struck, and in terms of importance, it truly isn't as high as the current aircraft carriers.

According to the designers' estimates, the Empire-class aircraft carrier's maximum speed can reach 31.3 knots. Cruising at an average speed of 20 knots, it can achieve a cruising range of 9000 nautical miles (approximately 16668 kilometers).

In terms of firepower, the Empire-class aircraft carrier is equipped with eight CA-1 37mm anti-aircraft autocannons, and twelve CA-2 27mm anti-aircraft guns.

Both of these firearms are well-known for their rapid rate of fire. After several improvements, the former can achieve a firing rate of over 90 rounds per minute.

The latter is even more formidable, with a rate of fire approaching 110 rounds per minute.

The role of these two types of firearms is to achieve superior anti-air firepower through an extremely intense barrage.

In addition to this, the Empire-class aircraft carrier has four missile launchers, equipped with a reserve of more than 32 missiles, which is also the most powerful source of firepower.

These 32 missiles are all ship-borne Dove missiles, with each missile weighing over 10 tons. It's no exaggeration to say that if hit by any one of these missiles, the enemy's warship can only face sinking.

However, even with the clever design of the Dove missiles, the current hit rate can only be guaranteed to be close to fifty percent in good weather, without any atmospheric interference.

In adverse weather conditions, the effectiveness of the Dove missiles is not as potent, reducing them to more of a deterrent weapon.

From the firepower equipment of the Empire-class aircraft carrier, one can see the current design philosophy for aircraft carriers is to engage battleships at long range and outlast them.

The Empire-class aircraft carrier was not fitted with any large-caliber firearms except for its missiles; the rest were all weapons designed for air defense.

Simply put, Australasia's aircraft carriers had never intended to directly confront battleships head-on.

What aircraft carriers should do was to use the large number of reconnaissance aircraft they carried to detect the movements of enemy warships in advance and then use bombers to sink the enemy's warships directly.

At the same time, the fighter aircraft equipped on the aircraft carriers could also defend against enemy planes. Such design philosophy of an aircraft carrier could be understood as the role of an archer in group combat, whose function was long-range damage output.

In order to better accommodate 93 airplanes, the Empire-class aircraft carrier was equipped with three airplane elevators and two airplane catapults, enhancing the storage of aircraft.

Also, due to the increase in the number of planes, the tonnage of the aircraft carrier increased from just over 20,000 tons to slightly over 30,000 tons.

The standard displacement of the Empire-class aircraft carrier reached 31.3 thousand tons, with a full-load displacement of 36.8 thousand tons, making it quite the behemoth among current warships.

Regarding the design of the Empire-class aircraft carrier, Arthur was most satisfied with the number of airplanes it carried and the cruising speed of the aircraft carrier.

The increase in the number of planes represented the enhancement of the aircraft carrier's combat effectiveness, and the increase in cruising speed indicated the safety system of the aircraft carrier in naval warfare.

With a maximum speed of 31.3 knots, I dare not say that it's the fastest among military vessels, but it should definitely be at a first-class level.

Moreover, with nearly 100 planes on board, the Empire-class aircraft carrier could ensure that it always had the hope of escape if it could not outfight an enemy.

However, when Arthur's gaze shifted to the adjacent Doomsday-class aircraft carrier, he truly felt what speed was.

Putting aside other data for now, just the maximum speed of the Doomsday-class aircraft carrier was enough to fill Arthur with hope for this vessel.

The Doomsday-class aircraft carrier had a designed power of 150,000 shaft horsepower, with a projected maximum speed of 34.7 knots.

Although this was only a 3.4-knot improvement over the Empire-class aircraft carrier, speed advantage in naval warfare was crucial.

A 3.4-knot increase in speed meant an additional 6.3 kilometers could be covered every hour, and a speed of 34.7 knots was also roughly the highest level for current warships.

If the Empire-class aircraft carrier could compete for being the largest aircraft carrier with the most airplanes, then the Doomsday-class aircraft carrier could compete for being the fastest aircraft carrier.

However, it was certain that due to the pursuit of higher speed, the Doomsday-class aircraft carrier had to make certain sacrifices in other areas.

The first being the size of the aircraft carrier, which was significantly smaller than the Empire-class aircraft carrier.

According to the data, the Doomsday-class aircraft carrier is only 231 meters long, with a width of 27 meters and a draft of approximately 7.2 meters.

Because of such a "petite" size, the standard displacement of the Doomsday-class aircraft carrier was only 22.5 thousand tons, and the full-load displacement was only 30.7 thousand tons, barely qualifying as a 30 thousand-ton giant.

Owing to the full ten thousand tons less in displacement, the Doomsday-class aircraft carrier not only had no improvement in armor protection but even deliberately weakened the armor in areas that were less likely to be hit.

Additionally, the number of airplanes the Doomsday-class aircraft carrier could carry dropped from the 93 of the Empire-class to just 52.

However, the Empire-class's air defense firepower and missile count were preserved, with even an upgrade in the number of missiles.

The Doomsday-class aircraft carrier placed more emphasis on firepower. While retaining the same scale of air defense firepower as the Empire-class, the Doomsday-class's missile count increased to 42, and the number of missile launchers rose to five.

Due to its high speed and larger missile reserves, once nuclear weapons research is complete, the Doomsday-class aircraft carrier will truly live up to the real meaning of its name and be considered a force of destruction.

Indeed, the Doomsday-class aircraft carrier had its unique role, as Australasia's nuclear strike force.

According to the nuclear weapons research team, the progress on nuclear weapons was already more than halfway done, with less than a year left until the final tests of nuclear weapons.

If testing could be successfully completed, Australasia would soon have its first atomic bomb.

And the main airplane carried by the Doomsday-class aircraft carrier was the jet bomber capable of delivering atomic bombs.

Because it was intended to carry jet bombers, the number of airplanes that the Doomsday-class could accommodate was roughly only half of that of the Empire-class.

However, with nuclear weapons, the deterrent power the Doomsday-class aircraft carrier posed to enemies would far exceed that of the Empire-class aircraft carrier.

Moreover, once nuclear weapons research was complete, the corresponding development of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines should also enter the list of research and development.

Compared to conventional-powered warships, these vessels, capable of using virtually infinite nuclear energy, would have strategic significance many, many times greater.

But all of this ultimately hinged on the successful completion of Australasia's first nuclear test.