Another important part of the Marine Corps is the amphibious fleet, which uses the warships of the landing troops.

Although countries in this era have formed special landing combat troops in the navy, of course they have different names. Britain is called Naval Infantry Regiment, the United States is called Marine Corps, and France is called Marine Corps, but they are essentially affiliated with the Marine Corps. However, countries have not designed special landing ships for these naval marine forces. Instead, they use warships or ordinary transport ships to transport landing troops to about 5,000 meters away from the shore, and then put down lifeboats or landing crafts on the ships and rowed to land. This is mainly because there was no systematic amphibious landing tactics in this era, and it simply agreed that landing combat is to send infantry from warships to land.

In this regard, the People's Army Navy is undoubtedly far ahead of all countries, because veteran officers were Marine soldiers in the old time and space, and had a very deep understanding of amphibious warfare and landing warfare. Of course, they knew the importance of professional landing ships to the Marine Corps.

Before the Far East War, East China ** built four dedicated landing warships, and during the war, four more were built. This type of warship had a displacement of 1,000-1,200 tons, a speed of 15 knots, and could carry 400-500 soldiers. It used the beach-striking method to land, and one battalion of troops could be transported directly to the ashore. In this Far East War, the Marines won three large-scale landing battles, and these eight landing warships did play a major role.

However, this is the first type of landing warship designed by East China **, and it has some emergency intentions. Therefore, during the use, some problems were also discovered. First of all, the tonnage of these landing ships is too small and not used for ocean-going operations. Moreover, the soldiers only have seats on the warships and have no rest space. Of course, the landing wars of this Far East War took place in offshore areas, which is the farthest Vladivostok, which is also along the coastline. The weakness of the small tonnage of the landing ship is not obvious.

But another weakness of small tonnage is insufficient capacity, which was more obvious in this war. Although a landing warship can carry 400-500 soldiers and transport a battalion of troops to the shore, this does not include fire support troops. Although the Marine Corps does not have many artillery equipment, the support firepower of mortars, machine guns, etc. is not less than that of the army. Without these support power, ordinary soldiers who come ashore with rifles, that is,

Before landing, the warships had destroyed most of the firepower on the shore, but they were also quite dangerous. If the firepower support troops were to be included, a total of 4 landing ships were needed to transport the troops of a regiment to the shore. If a 75mm field gun configured by a regiment was to be transported to the shore, another ship would need to be added. However, since the enemy's shore defense forces were not strong during this landing operation, the weakness of insufficient transport capacity of the landing ship did not affect the operation.

In addition, logging in by rushing to the beach requires a high requirement for the landing location. It must be a coast with flat terrain and few reefs. There are not many such landing locations. This war was because the People's Army conducted detailed surveys of the landing location before the war, so it was selected to choose a suitable landing location.

Overall, although the first type of Marine Corps landing warship has so many shortcomings, it is a professional type of landing warship after all. Compared with the landing methods of other countries in this era, it is undoubtedly a leading position, so it has still achieved great success. However, after the Far East War, the power of East China has expanded to Southeast Asia, and the Marine Corps also has room to use force. However, the seas in Southeast Asia are wider and more complex. Therefore, the existing type of landing warship can no longer adapt to such a combat environment and need to be equipped with new landing warships.

Although Luo Yue is not a professional in warship design or manufacturing, he has some knowledge and has practical experience, knowing what kind of landing warships are needed in actual landing operations, so he also put forward some requirements and design ideas for new warships.

According to Luo Yue's requirements, the tonnage of the new landing warship should be around 5,000 tons. Only in this way can we adapt to the requirements of ocean-going operations and ensure that soldiers have sufficient rest space on the warship. The landing method is no longer direct landing, but a docking method similar to Changbai Mountain should be used to land on the beach 10-15 nautical miles away from the coast. It is also required that a fully equipped Marine Corps battalion can be sent to the shore at one time, including an artillery company equipped with 6 75mm field guns. Therefore, it is not only a type of landing warship, but also a type 1-2 charge landing craft.

As for escort and fire support warships, Luo Yue believed that there was no need to build them separately. It was enough to use the navy's surface combat ships. However, for fire support warships, Luo Yue believed that the 200mm caliber artillery of the armored cruiser was enough, and there was no need to use the 305mm caliber artillery of the battleship. The difference in range between the two caliber artillery of the two caliber artillery was not big, but the 200mm cannon was nearly twice that of the 305mm cannon, and its power was enough. It was just a separate design of a 200mm caliber artillery to deal with the strong targets on the shore.

After receiving the report submitted by Luo Yue, the Military Commission quickly approved Luo Yue's reorganization plan for the Marine Corps and officially established the Marine Corps Command with Luo Yue as commander. Before that, Luo Yue's official position was the commander of the Marine Corps.

The formal establishment of the Marine Corps Command also means that the level of the Marine Corps is equal to the surface combat fleet, and it also shows the importance of the Marine Corps in the order of the People's Army.

However, the new landing warship proposed by Luo Yue needs to be determined by the navy's technical department and shipyard.

In fact, the Navy's Technical Department had already had a similar plan, because when the landing warship was initially designed, Huang Zhe, the director of the major's technical department, also believed that this type of landing warship had great flaws, but the ability of the East China ** was limited at that time. In order to deal with the upcoming Far East warship, it was necessary to solve the existence or not, so the most stable design plan was adopted. However, after the landing warship started construction, Huang Zhe presided over the design of several landing warship types as solution technical storage.

After receiving Luo Yue's request for a new landing ship, Huang Zhe immediately selected the closest one from the stored plan, made some modifications, and handed over the preliminary design plan to Luo Yue.

The preliminary design of the Technical Department is that the ship is 110 meters long, 16 meters wide, 6 meters draft, full load displacement of 5400-5700 tons, power of 8,000 horsepower, speed of 18 knots, and relay capacity of 12 knots 5,000 nautical miles.

The landing method is required by Luo Yue. The docking cabin is loaded with a landing craft to charge and land. However, unlike the Changbaishan ship, the docking cabin adopts a dry docking cabin, which means that the docking cabin does not enter water, but the opening of the docking cabin is basically close to the water surface, while the landing cabin slides into the sea from the docking cabin. This is because the technology of the Changbaishan ship-style water inlet docking cabin is too complex, so the docking technology has been improved, which simplifies the docking technology and achieves the basically the same goal as the docking cabin.

In addition to the landing method, the military equipment of this type of landing warship is also very considerable. The main gun is 4 double 155mm guns, with three fronts and one rear and one arranged. The three main gun turrets on the front deck are arranged in the shape of "Pin"; the other firepower is 4 double 105mm guns and 6 double 75mm guns, which are arranged on both sides of the warship; in this way, the strike firepower of the six main guns can be concentrated in both the bow and the side of the ship to provide firepower support to the landing troops. In addition, they also have certain self-protection capabilities at sea. When encountering small and medium-sized protective cruisers, they also have the power to fight.

At the same time, the Technical Department has also designed a landing craft supporting landing warships, which is 14.5 meters long, 2.6 meters wide, and 0.7 meters draft. It is driven by diesel engines, with a speed of 18 knots, a range of 50 nautical miles, 3 drivers, and a load of about 10 tons. It can carry up to 55 soldiers at one time, or 2 75mm field guns and supporting soldiers.

The dock width of this type of landing warship is 14.5 meters, 45 meters long, and 2% inclination, that is, the height difference is 0.9 meters. The dock outlet is between 0.5-0.8 meters from the water surface. 15 landing crafts can be loaded, with 5 ships as a group, and a reorganized company can be carried, of which 3 landing craft each carry a platoon of soldiers, one landing craft carries fire support troops, one landing craft carries two 75mm field guns, and 15 supporting soldiers.

In this way, this type of landing warship can send a reorganized battalion's troops to the shore at one time or transport more than 100 tons of materials, because this type of landing warship can also carry about 600 tons of materials, which can ensure the continuous combat capability of the troops.

After reading this preliminary design, Luo Yue was also very satisfied. Because all the requirements he put forward were met, he quickly agreed with the plan and asked the technical department to deepen the design. At the same time, he required a total of 12 warships of this type to be built, constructed in two batches, each batch of 6 ships. In this way, a batch can deliver a combined synthetic brigade's troops, which is quite considerable in terms of the number of people landing or firepower. Once this type of warship is in service, it can greatly strengthen the landing capabilities of the Marine Corps.

In the five-year shipbuilding plan submitted by the Navy, the Marine Corps has reserved a share of about 5,000 tons for the Marine Corps. Although it exceeds 2, the impact is not great. Therefore, it can also ensure that the plan for 12 new landing warships will be completed within this five-year cycle.
Chapter completed!