"Hmph, do you want to surround Japan and torture it slowly?"
Roosevelt's wishful thinking, Hideki Tojo saw through it at a glance.
The basis of Japan's hegemony in the Pacific Ocean at present, in addition to the combined fleet that does not have enough fuel and carrier-based aircraft pilots, is the Hawaiian Islands, which guards the central gateway of the Pacific Ocean, and the Strait of Malacca, which guards the western maritime gateway of Greater East Asia.
As long as Japan controls the Hawaiian Islands, the United States will be contained on the eastern coast of the Pacific Ocean.
Similarly, if the Strait of Malacca were under Japan's control, Europe would be kept out of Greater East Asia.
In this way, Japan will have a huge and rich living space to grow and develop, and in a generation at most, Japan will grow into a powerful country that can compete with the United States and Europe And if the Strait of Malacca and the Hawaiian Islands fall into the hands of the United States, the Philippines will also be returned to the United States, and considering the powerful industrial scale of the United States and the numerical superiority of the Pacific Fleet, the Pacific Ocean will actually fall under the control of the United States.
Japan's territory in the East Indies was also cut off by the U.S.
-controlled Malay Peninsula and the Philippines, and communication between the U.S. and the East Asian continent would be unimpeded In this way, Japan will not only be in the precarious position of being surrounded by the United States and other hostile forces, but will also be in danger of being attacked at any time "Your Excellency Prime Minister," said Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Aoi, who reported to Hideki Tojo on the progress of the peace talks, looking very worried.
If the independence and neutrality of the Philippines and Malaya can be ensured, we can withdraw from those areas.
After all, the situation of the war has gradually become serious. ” The situation of the war is not gradually becoming severe, but very serious As a result of the retreat of the Japanese Navy in the North Pacific, a large and critical sea area was completely out of control.
And the US Navy did not miss this opportunity, and at least two broken fleets with 2 "Independence" class aircraft carriers as the core broke through into the western Pacific However, it was not the two aircraft carrier formations that really inflicted heavy losses on Japan, but the range of activities of the American submarine supply ships that advanced 2,000 nautical miles westward in one fell swoop because the Japanese bases on Amaknak and Unaralaca were suppressed.
This has extended the range of activities of large American ocean-going submarines with a range of more than 10,000 nautical miles based on the continental United States to the vicinity of the Strait of Malacca.
In November 1943, the scope of this submarine activity was greatly expanded, and in November 1943 it became a new high for Japanese merchant ships.
Faced with the rising number of merchant ship losses, the Japanese Navy was at a loss because it did not have enough destroyers to escort and not enough large reconnaissance aircraft to patrol the Nanyang Islands.
The huge disparity in national strength has now been fully reflected in the Pacific theater.
Although Japan had a strong aircraft carrier and battleship force, and the strength of the heavy cruiser force was not weak, it was unable to build a large light cruiser and destroyer force.
Among them, the total number of destroyers is only more than 200, mainly first-class destroyers used to participate in decisive battles of the fleet, and second- and third-class destroyers used for antisubmarine escort, which are mostly old-fashioned reserve ships, but there are only more than 100 of them, and their antisubmarine capabilities are very weak, and they often become the prey of US submarines.
Hersmann was anxious for the Japanese for a while, and instructed the Naval Armament Bureau to provide the most advanced German sonar system to Japan, and gave the Japanese samples and drawings for them to imitate.
But until November 1943, the Japanese were using Type 93 detectors and Type 93 listening machines on their destroyers, which were copycat virtues of the 30s.
Moreover, many of the ships used to carry out escort missions do not even have Type 93 detectors and Type 93 receivers, and rely entirely on the eyes of "cat-eye warriors" to search for submarines underwater In the face of this sinister situation in which the transportation line was in a hurry, the Japanese Navy did not try to find a way to get more destroyers and frigates to escort the destroyers, but pinned all its hopes on the "Jie-1 operation."
"You can talk to them," Hideki Tojo did not tell the Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Aoi about the contents of the "Jet-1 Operation" plan, "and according to the conditions you just proposed, Shigejun will personally go to Switzerland to meet with US Ambassador Kennedy."
Leave around December 10, and don't end negotiations by December 30 in any case. ” When Shigemitsu Aoi heard this, he knew that Hideki Tojo did not want to make peace with the Americans at all, and that sending him to Switzerland was just a trick.
However, he still nodded heavily: "Please rest assured, Your Excellency the Prime Minister, that the peace talks will continue before December 30." ” At a military airfield near Brandenburg, Germany, a small jet with an elongated fuselage with a pair of seemingly very short wings and an even shorter tail slid down an extra-long concrete runway and finally came to a steady stop at the end of the runway.
Several ground crews drove a pickup truck to the plane, and they removed two ladders from the truck and put them on either side of the plane's cabin.
At this time, the teardrop-shaped cabin cover of the small plane had been pulled open.
In the cabin, there were two pilots, Rudolph and Minoru Genda.
Today is the first time in Minoru Genda's life that he is flying the "Silver Reaper" manned missile produced by Rolls-Royce, and he is of course flying a training bomb, which has landing gear, and the cockpit is also a two-person type.
This is actually a jet, but because the aerodynamic shape of this aircraft is very unfavorable for landing, only the best pilots can maneuver it to land.
And Rudolph happens to have such sophisticated technology, his air combat experience may not be top-notch, and he has also won the blue Max, which is considered an ace, but the technology is definitely first-class.
"Genda-kun," completed a perfect landing, and Rudolph seemed to be in a good mood, "How does it feel?"
"Very bad" Minoru Genda looked very unhappy, his face was a little pale, although he was wearing a special anti-load suit, but when Rudolph manipulated the missile to dive at a large angle just now, it still made Minoru Genda have "black vision" and almost fell into a coma.
"Just get used to it."
Rudolph helped Genda, who was a little dizzy when walking, "It's not good for anyone to bear such a big overload for the first time, and you're old again." ” "Am I an old man, old age" Genda pushed Rudolph away with some dissatisfaction, and staggered towards the pickup truck, but his heart was enveloped by a cloud of sadness.
It's not that he's about to run four, but that this month of training has taught him that jets and silver Reaper missiles are not so easy to pilot Without rigorous training, even with jets and silver Reaper missiles, it is impossible to exert their power.
And the fuel consumption of jets and silver Reaper is so staggering, just 400 people training, 80,000 tons of aviation kerosene was consumed Based on Japan's current fuel supply, maintaining a "common scale" of 200 or 300 jet aircraft is actually more than 100 in Germany, and the usual size of 262 has come to an end.
With this amount of money, it is simply impossible to confront the "sea of aircraft" and "sea of fleets" of the Americans.
Moreover, a large-scale imitation of the "Silver Reaper" also seems unrealistic, not that it cannot be made, but the pilot of the Silver Reaper is really not good at training, Genda has found that the difficulty of using the "Silver Reaper" for "dive bombing" is greater than that of using a liquid-cooled comet dive bomber If you let an inexperienced and very bad rookie pilot fly the imitation "Silver Reaper", I am afraid that it will not even have a hit rate of 10, and it is more likely that it will fall into the sea while flying.
Therefore, Japan now has only 180,200 "Silver Reaper" that is really usable combat power "Your Excellency, the results of our research and Minoru Genda's report have pointed out that the Silver Reaper is not suitable for us, although this weapon is extremely powerful, but the consumption is also extremely great.
And without being piloted by elite pilots, it is simply impossible to hit. ” Takijiro Onishi, who stepped down from the position of commander of the 10th Front Fleet and whose fleet had been disbanded, is now the head of the General Affairs Department of the newly established Aircraft Administration, which is responsible for integrating the aircraft production and research resources of the army and navy.
Minoru Genda's report on the "Silver Reaper" and 262, as well as the report of the technical department on the Silver Death and 262, were finally sent to Onishi.
Yamamoto Fifty-six is also reading the report written by Genda, the content on it is the same as what Onishi said, the silver Reaper is difficult to drive, 262 is also not easy to fly, and 262 is very inflexible, can't fight, can only play "one hit and leave", very powerful at medium and high altitudes, but not at medium and low altitudes "Then what to do" Yamamoto Fifty-six closed Minoru Genda's report, looked at Onishi Takijiro and asked, "Can you win the decisive battle of Hawaii with a maximum of 200 silver Reaper?"
200 missiles is indeed a little less "Let's put in the Zero special attack plane" Onishi thought for a while and put forward a proposal to use the Zero aircraft to carry out a suicide attack, "The Zero is relatively easy to pilot, and you can fly after dozens of hours of training.
And its range is also large enough, if it is loaded with explosives to hit the US aircraft carrier, the power should be no less than the silver Reaper missile.
I think it's possible to assemble 1,000 Zero attack aircraft and the Army's Hayabusa attack aircraft in the Hawaiian Islands. ” "Okay," said Yamamoto Isoroku, "just do it" t1706231537: