Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 249 Wild Horses vs. Wild Horses

In fact, ski-jump decks are quite friendly to light aircraft. By raising the height of the end of the deck to form an angle of more than ten degrees, the fighter jet can take off at an upward angle and form a parabola.

This would reduce the aircraft's takeoff distance by about 50% compared to a regular runway.

In other words, the distance that the Zero Mustang fighter originally needed to take off from flat ground was 300 meters, but on a ski-jump runway, it could take off from a distance of only 150 meters.

Therefore, if the aircraft carrier Chokei were given a deck with a raised nose, the Zero Mustang fighter could easily achieve a takeoff weight of over four tons.

After deducting the original two-ton weight of the Zero Mustang fighter from this takeoff weight, its payload was already sufficient to carry the Kaiten torpedo.

Of course, the entire aircraft carrier conversion process was not very smooth. There was no way around it; the first thing was steel. To build a smooth flight deck that was over 150 meters long and 20 meters wide, a large amount of steel or steel plates was required.

To put it simply, if it is 150 meters long and 20 meters wide, then the area is 3,000 square meters.

The deck thickness of an aircraft carrier is generally over 20 millimeters, although the specific thickness depends on the type of aircraft carrier.

For example, future large aircraft carriers, capable of launching and recovering carrier-based aircraft weighing tens of tons, or even hundreds of tons, will have a deck thickness of up to 80 millimeters. There's no other way; if the aircraft carrier deck isn't thick enough, let alone whether it can withstand bombing, the most crucial thing is that launching and recovering carrier-based aircraft will be a serious challenge.

It's important to understand the enormous impact of landing a carrier-based aircraft weighing tens of tons. Without thick steel plates, it would be impossible to withstand the force. Fortunately, the current Congqing-class aircraft carrier only needs to carry the lightweight Zero Mustangs, so using the World War II standard, a 20-millimeter-thick deck is sufficient.

However, even if the thickness is only 20 millimeters, 3,000 square meters would require nearly 500 tons of steel plates. If we also need to consider the steel supports needed to support the steel deck, the steel materials required for the modification of the aircraft carrier would be at least 1,000 tons.

Of course, adding this thousand tons of weight does not mean that the entire Congqing aircraft carrier will become heavier. In fact, the Congqing aircraft carrier has not only not increased in weight, but has actually become more than a hundred tons lighter.

Although the standard displacement of the cruiser Congqing was over 5,200 tons and its full load displacement was around 7,200 tons, after the turrets and some auxiliary equipment related to the turrets were removed, the standard displacement of the cruiser Congqing was reduced to around 4,000 tons.

Therefore, even if a thousand-ton aircraft carrier deck is added to it, turning it from a cruiser into an aircraft carrier, its tonnage will not change.

As for the aircraft carrier also carrying aircraft, there is no need to worry at all. After all, a Zero Mustang fighter only weighs two tons, and even the original Mustang fighter weighs only three and a half tons.

Even if all fifty Mustang fighter planes captured by Wang Gensheng were put on the plane, the weight would only increase by less than two hundred tons.

It's only enough for a fraction of the Qinghao's capacity. The difference of two thousand tons between the standard displacement and the full-load displacement is actually the amount of fuel oil and, crucially, fresh water that it needs to carry.

Of course, another key point about full-load displacement is the weight that the ship can withstand when it reaches a safe draft.

However, for the Qing-class aircraft carrier, let alone fifty Mustangs, it would be quite remarkable if it could carry twenty Mustang fighters. After all, the flight deck, which is 20 meters wide, 150 meters long, and has an area of ​​3,000 square meters, looks very large, but in reality, it can't hold many aircraft.

A Mustang fighter jet is 9.8 meters long and 11.2 meters wide, which would take up 100 square meters of space. So even if the deck were filled with fighter jets, only about 30 could fit. However, the reality is even worse, since the flight deck is for aircraft to fly, not for use as a parking platform.

While the Ryujo's flight deck is about the same size as the Jung-kyung's, its aircraft carrier deck is double-layered. The upper flight deck is used for aircraft take-off and landing, while the lower deck is used for parking aircraft.

In order to enable communication between the upper and lower decks, elevators are used to raise and lower the aircraft on the lower deck, or in other words, the aircraft in the hangar, to the takeoff deck for takeoff.

Of course, the more than 1,000 tons of steel and other technical materials needed for Wang Gensheng to build the flight deck could not have been obtained by Wang Gensheng alone.

Fortunately, when Wang Gensheng submitted his report on the future naval plan, especially the importance of aircraft carriers, and proposed converting the Congqing cruiser into the Congqing aircraft carrier, the General Administration of Sport agreed.

Moreover, they provided strong support, so even though the country's total steel production is only a little over 10,000 tons, they still chose to allocate one-tenth of it to support Wang Gensheng's transformation of the aircraft carrier.

Its steel mills also cooperated extensively in refining and manufacturing the steel plates needed for the aircraft carrier deck.

With the strong support of the General Staff, the aircraft carrier Congqing was largely refitted in October 1949, but the specific details would have to wait until the naval launch.

Meanwhile, the carrier-based aircraft pilots at the flight school have almost completed their training, at least in terms of simulated short takeoff and arresting cable-assisted landing on land.

Furthermore, Wang Gensheng also conducted a simulated combat exercise, in which he used the modified Zero Mustang fighter to fight against the unmodified Mustang fighter. As expected, the result was often a score of ten to zero.

The reason for this is that the Zero Mustang was nearly half the weight of the Mustang, making it far superior in maneuverability and agility.

With its weight reduced by nearly half, the Mustang's top speed was inferior to that of the Zero Mustang, its climb rate was also lower, and its turning maneuverability was even worse. Therefore, when both pilots were of similar skill, the Zero Mustang could easily seize the opportunity to flank and attack the Mustang from behind.

Of course, in order to address the problem of the Zero Mustang's weak cockpit protection, which seriously affected the safety of the pilots, Wang Gensheng adopted the method of having the pilots wear bulletproof vests.

After all, two bulletproof plates weighing tens of kilograms are much lighter than the bulletproof armor that weighs hundreds of kilograms and covers the entire cockpit of a fighter jet.

Even though the Zero Mustang's performance had been greatly improved, Wang Gensheng was still unsure about its air combat capabilities in the Korean War. After all, compared to jet fighters, the Mustang, a piston-powered aircraft, was already outdated.

However, the carrier-based aircraft pilots who were sent to the flight school by Wang Gensheng for training were no longer satisfied with continuing to simulate take-off and landing on an aircraft carrier on land.

They want to conduct real aircraft carrier takeoffs and landings on a real aircraft carrier.

(End of this chapter)