Seven Seas Beacon Fire

However, the 9.2-inch naval gun can easily stack the projectile weight to 380 pounds (172 kilograms), and the two sides are not in the same league in terms of aftereffects or armor-piercing capabilities.

For treaty heavy cruisers, which struggled even with low-end 8-inch shells, the difference between 9.2-inch and 10-inch guns wasn't significant. The latter might have better single-shot destructive power, but the former was just as good, and its power was sufficient to penetrate the armor of all treaty cruisers for the foreseeable future.

"But Commander, while this would solve the problem of firepower density, what about the flight deck..."

“There’s a way to design a flight deck too. We just need to sacrifice a little bit of the rearward firing arc…” As he spoke, Incourt began to scribble furiously on a drawing paper with a pencil in hand. Within just a few minutes, a completely new layout for an aircraft carrier appeared on the drawing paper.

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"This is the latest modification plan we have put forward for the Furious-class aircraft carrier." (Image at the end of the article)

The following day, Incourt presented the more complete design sketches, which he and his assistants had worked on overnight, directly in Whitehall.

"As you can see, in the new design, we have simultaneously met the requirements of equipping it with eight 9.2-inch guns, setting up a 160-meter-long flight deck, and designing a hangar with an area of ​​1750 square meters." Incourt enthusiastically presented his work to the Royal Navy. At this moment, although he had not slept all night, he was exceptionally energetic and excited because he felt that he had broken through his own limitations with this ship. He felt that his understanding and art of warship design had reached a whole new level.

The Royal Navy admirals looking at the design sketches wore expressions of amazement and complexity.

How should we describe this aircraft carrier?

The first thing that catches the eye is the unique flight deck and hangar layout of this aircraft carrier. However, before that, we must first mention the root cause of this unique flight deck and hangar layout – the two quadruple 9.2-inch main guns.

From the perspective of artillery warfare, the use of 9.2-inch naval guns was indeed a stroke of genius. Compared to 10-inch naval guns, there were very few targets that the Royal Navy could not handle with 9.2-inch guns, while 10-inch guns were just enough.

The quadruple turret design was probably inspired by the Gauls, which did indeed allow for a higher firepower density within a limited length of space. In any case, an eight-gun warship would certainly be more efficient in terms of gunnery than a six-gun warship.

These two quadruple 9.2-inch turrets were naturally placed on the same rings where the two 15-inch turrets of the original Hush-class large light cruisers were.

However, the problem is that the space between the two turrets is at most 100 meters. How can a hangar, elevators, and a flight deck that meets the treaty requirement of being 60% of the ship's length be arranged in such a confined space?

The Furious-class aircraft carrier is 240 meters long. Even by the minimum standard, 50% of the flight deck would be at least 120 meters long, which exceeds the distance limit between two turrets.

Some might argue that mounting the flight deck on top of the turret won't affect the turret below.

However, the impact of the muzzle blast cannot be ignored.

This seemingly intractable problem was solved by Incourt's inspiration from the Division-class battlecruisers.

As is well known, the gun layout of the Lion-class battlecruisers was groundbreaking in the Royal Navy. They were the first battlecruisers in the Royal Navy to arrange all their main guns on the centerline. However, the No. 3 and No. 4 turrets of the Lion-class battlecruisers were not close together. Instead, they were similar to the Kongo-class and Tiger-class battlecruisers, with a large space between the two turrets. Unlike the Kongo or Tiger, the Lion-class had a sizable aft superstructure between the No. 3 and No. 4 turrets.

Incourt therefore placed a similar hexagonal superstructure behind the main gun turret—that is, occupying the original entire stern deck. This was actually a special stern tower that directly supported a flight deck.

To put it simply, there is a flight deck of just over 100 meters above the hangar in the midship section between the two main gun turrets, and the special superstructure at the stern also supports a flight deck of less than 40 meters. The two flight decks are not interrupted, but connected by a narrow flight deck of about 20 meters.

In other words, the flight deck, which is over 160 meters long, was divided into three parts. The narrowest part was the section of the flight deck that was located at the top of the No. 2 turret. Since the muzzle blast could damage the flight deck, the part of the flight deck that might be damaged by the muzzle blast was simply cut off.

The normal flight deck is about 26 or 27 meters wide, the tail flight deck is slightly narrower but still about 22 or 23 meters wide, and the narrowest section in the middle, the connecting deck between the front and rear main flight decks, is only 13 or 14 meters wide.

Although the width has been significantly reduced, a width of thirteen or fourteen meters is still sufficient for the aircraft to maneuver between the two main decks, and is also sufficient to support the aircraft for takeoff and landing. Although the takeoff efficiency of aircraft parked on the aft deck is definitely lower than that of aircraft parked on the front deck, this is the result of comprehensive optimization.

"A very... very innovative design." Just as Incourt had predicted, the Royal Navy's frontline generals didn't question why the original 10-inch guns had been changed to 9.2-inch guns without their consent. Instead, they were full of praise for the aircraft carrier's creative preservation of a sufficiently long flight deck.

"This is fantastic! A large aircraft carrier like this could carry more than 20 aircraft in the future, and it also has a terrifying eight 9.2-inch naval guns. I think no cruiser in the world could defeat our aircraft carrier, not even the Colombian Navy's Lexington-class or the Tang Dynasty Navy's Dragon Phoenix-class... well, those two really can't compete."

However, for the vast majority of targets in the world, the design of the Furious-class aircraft carrier is already almost perfect. It can definitely be said to be the result of inspiration drawn from many years of experience in the Royal Victoria Navy's warship design department.

Even on the seemingly minor issue of the layout of the hangar elevators, the Furious-class aircraft carrier inadvertently pulled out a "golden touch"—this aircraft carrier has two elevators in total, one located at the stern of the hangar, and the other located behind the island superstructure—that's right, it's a side-mounted elevator.

There are actually no insurmountable technical bottlenecks in the elevator used for this type of test.

The Royal Navy of Victoria was very satisfied with this version of the design for Furious and immediately placed an order for such modifications—not just for HMS Furious, but for all three large light cruisers.

In fact, if we disregard the impact of the narrower flight deck on aircraft launch efficiency, the flight deck length of the current Furious-class aircraft carrier and the Furious-class aircraft carrier in another world that does not carry heavy guns are not much different.

As for why the 240-meter-long Fury only has such a small flight deck in the other world... well, that's the amazing wisdom of the Royal Navy in that other world.

While Royal Navy designers were racking their brains over designing an aircraft carrier that met all the requirements of the 240-meter-long hull, the design of the brand-new Constellation-class aircraft carriers was progressing smoothly in Columbia.

After all, the Lexington-class battlecruiser has a hull that is over 270 meters long, something that no other country can envy.

Chapter 311 The Battle of the Giants (4) The Lie Family Sisters

"What a beautiful boat! If she could cook, I would definitely marry her!"

Colonel Ernest rested his hands on the bridge porthole of the battlecruiser USS Lexington and made a heartfelt exclamation.

He was currently positioned facing the two superfiring turrets and the clipper bow directly ahead. The sea conditions weren't particularly good today, but that didn't stop this behemoth, weighing over 45,000 tons, from cutting through the waves at 33 knots.

As a ship, the Lexington possessed almost impeccable speed and seaworthiness for its time. Even under conditions like today's not-so-calm seas, it did not prevent this giant ship from achieving speeds unmatched by any other capital ship of its era and possessing almost unparalleled seaworthiness.

Yes, this is no exaggeration. The Lexington's various sailing performance indicators are almost the best of the current era. The destroyers accompanying the Lexington are almost unable to keep up with this battleship. These destroyers, whose theoretical top speed can reach 35.2 knots, actually have a very low top speed. This is because the high speed of 35 knots is achieved on calm seas. If the waves are even slightly high, the speed of these destroyers will drop visibly.

In contrast, the speed of large surface ships is more "valuable". The Battle of Midway is a good example of this. When the aircraft carrier Hiryu charged towards the position of the Yorktown formation, the surrounding escorting destroyers could hardly catch up with the Hiryu, which was traveling at maximum speed.

However, the superiority of the Lexington's seafaring performance was not only due to its speed. Although the electric propulsion system of the entire battlecruiser was somewhat cumbersome, its output of 18 horsepower was truly astonishing. Combined with its 270-meter length and the superior Admiralty coefficient brought about by its hull shape, such speed was to be expected. However, there are still many fast ships in the world whose high speed cannot be fully utilized in actual combat.

For example, at the beginning of this century, the Royal Navy's two Agile-class battleships possessed surprisingly high speeds for a pre-dreadnought battleship, with a maximum speed of over 19.5 knots, and even reaching 20 knots under light load and high-pressure ventilation.

However, because many of the ship's secondary main guns were mounted in rather low positions, even when the ship was sailing at full speed in calm waters, the waves caused by the waves would affect the firing of the guns. In severe conditions, more than half of the ship's secondary main guns would be unable to fire, so the ship's top speed could not be utilized in actual combat.

A more typical example is the Scharnhorst-class battleships. In terms of speed alone, the speed of the Scharnhorst-class battleships was quite impressive in World War II. However, the freeboard of these two sister ships was too low. Even after the Atlantic bow was replaced, the problem of being hit by waves remained serious.

In the famous "29-knot Nelson" encounter, the Shanes did indeed initially mistake the Renown for the Nelson. However, during the subsequent pursuit, they did not assume, as depicted in many anecdotes, that the 29-knot Nelson was catching up. Once they realized that the pursuers behind them were traveling at 29 knots, the Shanes knew that the ship behind them was the Renown, not the Nelson.

So why didn't the Scharnhorst sisters dare to turn back and destroy Renown when they were outnumbered 2 to 1? Besides the fine tradition of a certain country's navy "fleeing at the sight of a Royal Navy capital ship", another very important reason was that during the high-speed retreat, the two front turrets of the Scharnhorst sisters had been flooded with a large amount of seawater by the severe backwash. In the harsh North Atlantic sea conditions, the two Scharnhorst sisters together could only put up the two stern turrets with a total of 6 11-inch main guns.

What's the point of firing when facing six 15-inch cannons?

The Lexington, on the other hand, was completely different. The freeboard height of the forward section of the Lexington was over 27 feet (8.23 meters), and even the average height of the midship section was over 7 meters.

In contrast, let's take a look at the lovely Scharnhorst-class battleships. On paper, their freeboard seems quite high, but those seemingly good figures are basically achieved by the upward curve of the Atlantic bow. Once the hype is removed, the actual freeboard of the Scharnhorst-class battleships is only a mere 4.5 meters.

(So ​​the destroyer-battleships should be the Scharnhorst sisters, not the Viagra-oaksbix@shwnw)

"You'd better wake up a little. You can't treat a warship as a wife." The vice-captain came to his side and couldn't help but criticize his behavior of randomly assuming wives: "Besides, aren't you already married?"

"My wife is nowhere near as beautiful as the Lexington?" Captain Ernest asked excitedly, watching the bow of the ship cleave through another wave. "What's our speed now?"

"33.1 knots." The first officer announced the speed almost immediately: "I came here to tell you that we are now the fastest battlecruiser on this planet. Our main engine output exceeds 18 horsepower. Even the Admiral-class and Renown-class battlecruisers in the Royal Navy of Victoria are not as fast as us!"

"It is said that Lex almost adopted the seven-furnace design," Colonel Ernest said. "During the World War, I spoke with an officer of the Royal Victorian Navy, who told me that in some parts of Africa, certain primitive tribes judged the strength of a warship by the number of its funnels. When they destroyed the cruiser HMS Königsberg, the local natives were astonished that a shallow-draft heavy gunboat with only one funnel could defeat the light cruiser HMS Königsberg, which had four funnels."

"If our Lexington had adopted the seven-furnace design and sailed to Africa, it would definitely have been the most powerful warship in the world in the eyes of the natives."

The vice-captain's joke made Colonel Ernest wave his hands repeatedly: "Thank God we finally chose the current plan with only two smokestacks. I can't even imagine how strange it would be if our ship had seven smokestacks."

"Considering Lady Leigh's proportions, I think even with seven smokestacks, it wouldn't look bad. It's a warship that looks beautiful from any angle."

"Mrs. Leigh?" Colonel Ernest keenly caught the word the first officer uttered: "Who was it that just told me you can't treat a warship like a wife?"

"It's not that I treat the warship like a wife; it's that the sailors on our ship call our ship 'Lady Leigh.'" The first mate spread his hands: "We have too many young sailors who vent their hormones on the steel warship."

Upon hearing this, Colonel Ernest threw his head back and laughed loudly, "I like this name. It shows that our sailors love this warship as much as they love their wives. Only with such a warship and such sailors can we unleash our full combat power in future wars."

The vice-captain simply shrugged: "If only our Lady Leigh's armor were a little thicker. We may be the fastest battlecruiser in the world, but we'll probably also be the most vulnerable battlecruiser in the world in the future."

Colonel Ernest's smile faded somewhat; he was already intimately familiar with the performance data of his beloved ship, which he commanded.

In terms of speed and seaworthiness, the Lexington-class battlecruisers were undoubtedly the best in the world, without exception. No adversary could catch up with these two ships, and no cruiser could escape their pursuit.

In terms of firepower, the eight 16-inch guns with a 50-caliber barrel are not significantly inferior to the 420mm L45 guns of the Longyuan-class battleships from the perspective of the Colombian Navy. If we disregard the two battleships equipped with 18-inch main guns that will be commissioned by the Royal Navy of Victoria in the future, this is already the world's top-class firepower.

However, when it comes to armor protection, the Lexington-class battlecruisers do not inspire much confidence.

The thickest part of the ship's armor is the front of the main gun turret, which is 12 inches thick. However, this level of armor was only the standard level for a dreadnought during the World War II era.

Secondly, only the 11-inch armor of the conning tower is passable. Whether it is the nine-inch gun mount armor or the seven-inch sloped 15.5-degree side armor, if it were before the outbreak of the World War, it would probably only be able to withstand the shells from the problematic 12-inch naval guns in the hands of the Royal Navy Victoria at the beginning of the war.

The artillery shells of various countries have now undergone a round of upgrades. Even the Midwell armor-piercing shells currently equipped by the Victoria Navy can pose a serious threat to the Lexington-class battlecruisers, let alone 14-inch, 15-inch, or 16-inch naval guns. Even 12-inch or 280mm naval guns from across the ocean could pose a serious threat.

"The Lexington-class battlecruisers cost more to build than the South Dakota-class battlecruisers, but two Lexington-class battlecruisers will likely only be used against cruisers in the future. They will be in a dangerous situation in battles against any other capital ships. Our guns can certainly penetrate most of our opponents, but we can't withstand the shells from most of our opponents' capital ships either." The first mate sighed deeply at this point: "My brother was on the Pensacola battlecruiser."

Upon hearing this, Colonel Ernest's smile faded. The humiliating defeat suffered by the Colombian Navy in the early stages of the war was a shadow that would never be forgotten by all Colombian naval officers and men.

In a naval battle, the entire Colombian Navy fast squadron was annihilated by the vanguard fleet led by General Deng Zhengqing of the Ming Dynasty Royal Navy. The two surviving battlecruisers, following the Victoria Royal Navy's task force in a second battle against General Deng Zhengqing, recklessly pursued the enemy despite having a significant advantage, and were counterattacked by the Ming Dynasty Royal Navy's battle fleet.

During the battles of the Sulu and Java Seas, the vulnerable armor of the Colombian Navy's strategic cruisers was glaringly exposed. If the Royal Victorian Navy's battlecruisers built during the dreadnought era with six-inch armor and the 13.5-inch super-dreadnought battlecruisers built during the super-dreadnought era with nine-inch armor were built to meet the lower limit of naval gunnery protection at the time, then the Colombian Navy's maintenance of six-inch armor from the dreadnought era to the super-dreadnought era simply indicates a complete lack of commitment to armor protection.

Therefore, the initial 16 design proposals for the Lexington-class battlecruisers referenced the Royal Victorian Renown-class battlecruisers, which significantly increased armor and protection during construction, ultimately creating a heavily armored battlecruiser. The aim was to create a battlecruiser with 12 inches of armor, equipped with 15-inch guns, and a speed of just 27 knots.

However, rather than providing better protection for battlecruisers, the Colombian Navy, having lost all its fast capital ships, needed a reconnaissance vanguard for its fleet.

Moreover, having been forced to reduce its stockpile of fast battleships to zero, the Colombian Navy's only option, whether compared to the Royal Victoria Navy or to compete with its old rivals across the ocean, was to build faster battlecruisers. However, limited by the power capabilities of the time, the elongated engine room naturally dragged down the protection to an unacceptable degree.

The ultimate result was that the Lexington-class battlecruisers were indeed the best gunboats in the world for hunting cruisers, but they were like someone who had practiced the Seven Injury Fist and was fighting against other martial arts masters, facing excessively high risks in battles with capital ships.

“We are different from before. Lexington only needs to play its role. With the powerful South Dakota-class battleships and the two refitted Maryland-class battleships, we will no longer fear any opponent.”

"If only the Lexington-class battlecruisers could all be completed."

"Don't be discouraged. The Constellation-class aircraft carriers are, in a sense, the Lexington's sister. Once the two Constellations and the aircraft carriers are completed, they will form a rapid reconnaissance fleet with us, which will greatly enhance our military strength."

With aircraft scouting overhead, we can easily bypass the enemy's slow, old battlecruisers, then leisurely hunt down their cruisers and scout their main fleet. You should have more faith in our warships; Lexington and her sisters will become the United States' most elite naval cavalry in the future!

Chapter 312 lost because of looks

While the battlecruiser USS Lexington was speeding across the Atlantic for testing, personnel at the United States Navy Ordnance Department were organizing tests of 10-inch naval guns.

Artillery is a remarkably resilient weapon. The MK7 16-inch naval gun, which is often talked about by military enthusiasts during World War II, was actually largely derived from the MK2 after World War I. The two naval guns were almost 20 years apart in age.

Therefore, it is quite reasonable for the Colombian Navy to attempt to develop a 10-inch naval gun that meets future needs, based on a 10-inch gun that has been in use for less than 20 years.

The last time the Colombian Navy used 10-inch guns on its own large surface ships was during the late pre-dreadnought era, when it built four Tennessee-class armored cruisers, one of the Big 10 members of the Colombian Navy.

That's right, the Colombian Navy already had the Tennessee (Memphis) class armored cruisers before the Tennessee-class battleships entered service.

The Tennessee-class armored cruisers had a standard displacement of 14500 tons and a full load displacement of 15712 tons. They were 153.75 meters long, 22.21 meters wide, and had a draft of 7.6 meters. Their propulsion system consisted of 16 Babcock & Wilcox boilers and 2 vertical triple-expansion steam engines, providing twin-shaft propulsion and a speed of 22 knots.

主要武装2座双联装Mark3型254毫米/40主炮，16座单联装Mark 8型152毫米/50舰炮，22座单联装76毫米/50速射炮，以及4具533毫米水下鱼雷发射管。其装甲防护十分坚固，主炮塔和司令塔装甲厚达229毫米，水线主装甲带平均127毫米，甲板装甲厚度在38-102毫米之间。

In the pre-dreadnought era, this was clearly a powerful armored cruiser that was in no way inferior to a first-class battleship in terms of firepower, protection, and tonnage. In fact, the naming of the ten 10-ton armored cruisers known as the "Big 10" of the Colombian Navy shows that these ten 10-ton armored cruisers were originally regarded by the Colombian Navy as the main ships equivalent to battleships, because these armored cruisers were all named after states.

However, after the advent of the dreadnought era, these armored cruisers were renamed to free up tonnage, and most of them were sunk in the World Wars.

Nevertheless, the Colombian Navy is relatively satisfied with these armored cruisers, since the losses of these armored cruisers were mainly in the war against opponents one or two generations more advanced than themselves. The current Tennessee-class armored cruisers have been renamed Memphis-class armored cruisers, and the remaining two will be scrapped in the near future in accordance with treaty provisions.

However, while these two armored cruisers were still in service, the Naval Ordnance Bureau organized personnel to use the guns on these two armored cruisers to test the newly produced 10-inch shells.

The chosen target was the armored cruiser USS Brooklyn, which was also facing demolition. This older armored cruiser had a displacement of around 10,000 tons. Although the quality of the first-generation hardened steel armor on this ship was quite different from that of the newly produced armor steel, this old-fashioned armored cruiser was indeed sufficient to simulate future treaty cruisers.

Of course, some friends may ask, shouldn't the target that the Colombian Navy is required to retain according to the treaty not be this ship?

Of course not. However, the target ships that the treaty allows to be retained must undergo anti-sinking modifications before being used in the future. Using ships that are about to be dismantled now for emergency target practice is, to some extent, exploiting a loophole in the treaty. After all, the treaty only stipulates which ships to be dismantled, not how they should be dismantled. If you fire a few shots at them before dismantling them, other countries won't come to your door to criticize you for this.

"The test results were very good. Within the tonnage limit of 10,000 tons, the armor of the treaty heavy cruiser, no matter how it is configured, cannot withstand our 10-inch naval gun. We only need to extend the barrel length of the MK3 10-inch naval gun to a certain extent, and its performance will be more than sufficient to meet future needs."

Watching the armored cruiser USS Brooklyn being pierced through like a hot knife through butter, the staff of the Columbia Naval Ordnance Department were clearly very satisfied with the result. On the one hand, developing weapons in this way was naturally more cost-effective, and on the other hand, even the old 10-inch guns combined with the new armor-piercing shells had exceeded their original expectations in terms of power.

Saving money while achieving your goal is double the joy.

Compared to the Royal Navy's aircraft carrier project, Colombia came up with a whopping 24 aircraft carrier proposals in a short period of time, and these proposals can be described as bizarre and varied.

For example, one proposal is to install eight single-mounted 10-inch gun turrets on the warship—and then place all eight of these single-mounted 10-inch gun turrets on the starboard side of the aircraft carrier, with the flight deck on the port side. In this way, in addition to having eight 10-inch main guns, the more important thing is that it can have a flight deck of more than 270 meters.

However, this plan was the first to be rejected because placing all eight turrets, along with the bridge and funnel, on the starboard side was considered impossible to balance the weight of the warship. Although it could theoretically be adjusted by adding water and ballast, in actual combat, if the starboard side was hit by a torpedo, the entire ship would be more likely to lose stability and capsize.

Therefore, some optimizations have been made based on this, namely, cutting off the "useless" bridge, placing the navigation bridge at the very front of the hull, below the front of the flight deck, and then pulling the funnel out from the left side to balance the weight.

However, this solution is only a temporary fix. How heavy is a smokestack made of sheet metal? Can it compare to eight gun turrets? Moreover, although under normal circumstances, countries do not have a clear understanding of the role that the bridge of an aircraft carrier can play, in this era of "heavy gun aircraft carriers" deliberately promoted by Li Che, countries have attached great importance to the role of the island superstructure of an aircraft carrier. In fact, most aircraft carrier designs from various countries have a not-so-small island superstructure.

The reason is very simple—large-caliber heavy guns need to be equipped with rangefinders! If you want to attack distant surface targets, you can't put the rangefinder on the deck, right? Therefore, most aircraft carriers of various countries have a strong triangular mast, on which a large optical rangefinder of the capital ship level is mounted, and a capital ship level fire control center and fire command system are located in the island superstructure.

This could be considered a lucky accident that allowed some countries to avoid the somewhat extreme path of using flat-deck aircraft carriers.

Aside from these, there are many other seemingly acceptable options for the Constellation-class aircraft carrier, which can be broadly categorized into 6-gun, 8-gun, and 9-gun designs.

Several six-gun designs naturally followed the original positions of turrets 1 and 4 on the Lexington-class battlecruiser, directly placing two triple 10-inch main guns, and then building a hangar and flight deck between the two turrets. In terms of concept, it was the same as the Royal Navy's Furious-class aircraft carriers.

The difference between the two is that the Furious-class aircraft carriers had to sacrifice the stern firing arc of their main guns to have a sufficiently long flight deck, while the 270-meter-long Lexington-class battlecruisers, with their enormous engine room amidships, meant that the Constellation-class aircraft carriers did not need to take the unconventional approach of "borrowing another 50 meters aft" like the Royal Navy of the Victoria. This design was the most direct and simplest, but obviously, it resulted in a slight weakness in firepower.

This is precisely what the Colombian Navy finds somewhat unacceptable, since the aircraft carrier across the ocean is to be "equipped with a powerful 280mm naval gun," while their own side not only has a smaller caliber but also fewer guns?

The corresponding eight-gun scheme is divided into two types. The first type is naturally a variant of the six-gun scheme, with two quadruple turrets arranged one in front and one behind. This scheme has entered the selection stage. The other scheme... is almost identical to the layout of the Lexington and aircraft carrier in another world. The island is still located on the right side, and the four twin 10-inch turrets are arranged in a rear-mounted manner fore and aft of the island.

This design could also have a 270-meter-long flight deck, but the problem is that the 10-inch turret size is far larger than the historical 8-inch turrets. The gun mount and ammunition conveyor structure below would seriously affect the layout of the hangar, and the center of gravity problem would be almost the same as the design that was initially rejected.

In addition, since the artillery was positioned at the same height as the flight deck, when it fired, the muzzle blast would naturally ravage the entire deck. Again, the same muzzle blast is different for a 10-inch gun and an 8-inch gun. An 8-inch gun is tolerable, while a 10-inch gun is to the point where "it will really break down".

Apart from these, the remaining options are basically only slightly different, such as the arrangement of secondary guns or the island superstructure. As for the arrangement of the main gun group, there are only two options left - all forward and fore-and-aft.

Both of these layout schemes adopted a nine-gun configuration. Theoretically, using two quadruple turrets could save more length, but as mentioned before, the Constellation-class aircraft carrier's 270-meter length provided Colombian Navy designers with ample space to spare. Therefore, Colombian designers mostly disliked choosing the more technically risky quadruple turrets.

After all, during World War II, the Colombian Navy's triple-mounted gun turrets already had a large dispersion, causing the guns to fire off course quite poorly. Imagine if you put together a quadruple-mounted one...

This is like trying to fool someone who is already lame.