Zhang Meng was not satisfied.

That's right!

In order to deal with the Japanese joint fleet, Zhang Meng believed that only 12 light cruisers were not enough, and even the escort formation of the most basic aircraft carrier battle group was not enough.

Therefore, Zhang Meng secretly entrusts Central and South American countries such as Ecuador, Chile, and Venezuela as third-party intermediaries to order 24 UFO-class destroyers from the French Navy.

France's utopia-class destroyer, also known as the fleet lightning strike ship, became one of the most famous destroyers in the world throughout World War II with its powerful speed and firepower.

No warship can escape the checks and balances between the three factors of firepower and armor, and can achieve two advanced performance, it must be obtained by sacrificing the third factor.

The Umog-class destroyer sacrificed armor protection to obtain a powerful test speed of up to 45 knots, and was equipped with extremely strong sea, air and anti-submarine firepower equipment, and had low silhouettes, undoubtedly ranked among the world's strongest destroyers. This is exactly the most ideal fleet destroyer for the aircraft carrier battle group that Zhang Meng needs.

However, according to Zhang Meng's requirements, small changes were made to the UFO class destroyer, mainly to strengthen air combat weapons, change the main gun to Gaoping dual-purpose rapid-fire gun, and add a set of 37mm air-to-air anti-aircraft guns, which correspondingly increases the total tonnage in exchange for a certain fuel reserve to increase the range to cooperate with the fleet's operations.

In the end, the standard displacement of the 24 Fusion-class destroyers built by the French Toulon Shipyard for Zhang Meng increased by 500 tons, reaching 3069 tons, and the full load displacement reached 5000 tons, becoming a veritable large destroyer. The total length is 135 meters, 12.45 meters wide, 5 meters draft, 38 knots, and the actual speed is between 42 knots and 45 knots. It is equipped with 130 mm 50 times the caliber single-pipe high-level dual-purpose rapid-fire guns, two 37 mm anti-aircraft guns, 4 13.2mm machine guns, and two sets of 533 mm triple torpedo tubes. A set of torpedo tubes was cancelled to increase the anti-submarine deep-water bomb launch system, making it reach four deep-water anti-submarine systems, and 40 deep-water bombs, which greatly improved the air defense and anti-submarine capabilities.

In the 1930s, the naval industry, which represented the country's comprehensive strength, flourished. At this time, advanced shipbuilding technology was no longer the patent of the British. Although the French Navy became the fourth in the world, it does not mean that its naval industry is worse than that of the United Kingdom. Instead, the French naval industry has innovations in many fields. This is actually beyond the reach of the increasingly declining British naval industry.

Zhang Meng took a fancy to France's advanced turbine technology, especially the gas turbine turbine engine technology applied to fuzzy-class destroyers, which represents the development direction of the mainstream engines of ships in the future.

The development of the naval industry of the Tang Empire is inseparable from these core technologies. In the future, if you want to build more advanced warships on your own, gas turbine turbine engine technology is an indispensable key technology.

When negotiating with the British Naval Shipyard to build a Linxian-class light cruiser, Zhang Meng also proposed to introduce some technologies needed to introduce some naval manufacturing industries. The reason why they were not introduced all of them, but partially introduced them was that Zhang Meng already had a complete shipyard machinery and equipment and engineers, and had basic naval industrial technology. Remove the dregs and take the essence of it, and use the advanced British naval industrial technology to fill some technical gaps in the Datang Heavy Industry Naval Shipyard. At the same time, he was also worried about the British's concerns about the development of the Datang Empire's naval industry.

This time, the same was true. Through the Central and South America as an intermediary, we negotiated with the French Toulon Cup shipyard to build 24 Vampire-class destroyers, and also obtained France's advanced gas turbine turbine engine technology.

Although France did not have any strict restrictions on technology exports in the 1930s, it was quite difficult to obtain this advanced technology in the core naval shipbuilding industry. For this reason, Zhang Meng spent more than 20 million US dollars to obtain this core technology transfer, two-thirds of the cost was used to open up the high-level relations of the French Navy, and eventually the French released and cleared the technology transfer transaction.

Whether it is the Linxian-class light cruiser or the Kong Fantasy-class destroyer, they are all serving the future aircraft carriers of the Tang Dynasty Navy.

Zhang Meng neither wants to build a third-generation aircraft carrier in a foreign shipyard, and the domestic shipyards cannot build a third-generation aircraft carrier. For the sake of the national defense and security of the empire, Zhang Meng still believes that it is enough to deploy the aircraft carrier combat group as soon as possible.

Therefore, Zhang Meng had to temporarily give up the third-generation aircraft carrier and instead deploy the second-generation aircraft carrier first.

The so-called second-generation aircraft carrier refers to the straight-through ski jump take-off and landing aircraft carrier on the side of the aircraft carrier's flight deck. Although this type of aircraft carrier is relatively new, it is no secret, because the Japanese Navy has built a second-generation aircraft carrier, and the United States, Britain and other countries are actively imitating it.

In terms of aircraft carrier construction, Zhang Meng turned his attention to the United States.

Because he knew that during the entire World War II, most of the main aircraft carriers built by the United States did not sink. In Zhang Meng's words, the American aircraft carriers were as tenacious as Xiaoqiang. Even if they were injured and injured by Japanese aircraft, severely injured, they would return to the base for overhaul and repair it soon appeared on the battlefield like a lively one.

If we could describe the mood of the Japanese at that time, we would definitely be so angry that we vomited blood, and we would even scold Americans for losing their luck! Lucky!

These words cannot be said from Zhang Meng. In his opinion, it is definitely not a lucky luck or luck for the US aircraft carrier. You can think that one after another, but it cannot be called luck. It is a matter of strength and technology.

At this time, the US Navy had built three large aircraft carriers, and the largest aircraft carriers, Lexington and Saratoga, were modified from battle cruisers under the provisions of the Washington Navy Treaty.

With the arrival of the London Naval Treaty, the US Navy has begun to build the USS Assault aircraft carrier, which is also the first multi-purpose aircraft carrier designed and built by the US Navy itself.

What interests Zhang Meng is not its external structure, but its advanced horizontal and vertical watertight tanks, watertight door structures, and advanced underwater and overwater armor protection designs. This advanced design concept is the fundamental reason why US aircraft carriers and other ships are often injured by Japanese aircraft.

In order to avoid attracting the attention of the US Navy and even foreign navies as much as possible, Zhang Meng once again took advantage of the US economic crisis to target the United Steel Shipyard in San Francisco.

San Francisco United Steel Shipyard is a subsidiary of San Francisco Steel Company and is also the largest large-scale civilian ship machinery manufacturing plant on the West Coast of the United States. It has complete construction technology and equipment for 30,000 tons of ships.

With the outbreak of the US economic crisis, San Francisco United Steel Shipyard orders have dropped rapidly, especially large ocean-going ships have lost their competitiveness due to trade shrinkage.

Zhang Meng re-used his old tricks and spent money to hire local community gang members in San Francisco to commit violence against shareholders and customers of San Francisco shipyards, forcing their shareholders to transfer their shares to Zhang Meng's shadow company at a low price, driving away domestic and foreign customers who came to negotiate to purchase order ships, leaving the shipyard with no business to do.
Chapter completed!