Battle of the Third Reich

Ninety-five torpedoes, the official stereotype number inside the Japanese Navy is "nine-five acid torpedoes" (the "acid element" in Japanese is oxygen), this torpedo was born out of the "powerful ninety-three acid torpedo", is behind Based on the improved and specially provided for the Japanese submarine version.

In order to adapt to the size of the Japanese submarine torpedo tube, Japanese designers reduced the length and diameter of the Type 93 oxygen torpedo. Ninety-three acid torpedoes have a total length of nine meters and a diameter of 610 millimeters. The warhead is filled with 490 kilograms of "97 explosives" (in fact, the hexanite explosives invented by Germany before World War I). The Japanese submarine uses the British standard 21-inch torpedo tube, so the diameter of the Type 95 torpedo can only be reduced to 533 mm, and the length is also reduced to 750 cm. The charge has been reduced to 400 kilograms, and the fuel carried by the torpedo is reduced compared to the Type 93, resulting in the maximum range of this torpedo, which is only about two-thirds of the original "spear".

"Lance" was the nickname given by the U.S. Navy in the history to be "powerful ninety-three acid torpedo". At that time, the powerful Navy of the United States of America had actually suffered a lot from this torpedo. Because the Japanese navy has done quite a good job in keeping its external secrets secret, until half a year after the Pacific erupted, the US Navy still did not know that such a torpedo with a very long range existed.

The Type 93 oxygen torpedo was opened. It was developed to deal with the US Pacific Fleet. The Japanese Navy placed great expectations on this weapon and even regarded it as a "secret decisive weapon", which was obtained by the joint fleet. The killer of victory in the decisive battle on the Pacific Ocean.

After the Washington Treaty, the Japanese Navy began to madly arm her small and medium-sized ships in order to make up for the gap in the number of main ships. The torpedo was regarded as the most effective weapon for small and medium-sized ships against large warships by the Japanese navy executives at that time. The world's leading torpedo in technical performance was placed on the desktop of the Japanese naval ordnance scientists.

At that time, countries around the world were developing thermal power torpedoes. This has been recognized as the mainstream of torpedo power for decades to come. In fact, it is true. Until the 21st century, thermal power torpedoes still occupy most of the world's torpedoes. The most attractive type of thermal power torpedo is the thermal power torpedo that uses oxygen as a combustion aid.

In fact, Japan had proposed a plan to develop oxygen torpedoes as long as World War I was still in progress. However, due to successive explosions in the laboratory, this plan was put on hold by superiors. Although it was restarted several times afterwards, it exploded. The accident continued and the technical staff suffered heavy casualties, but the project did not make the slightest progress.

It wasn't until the 1930s that news from the United States that the artillery range of the new American cruiser had increased to 20,000 meters. Under this pressure, the situation of the Japanese Navy's oxygen torpedo project really changed.

In the early twentieth century, with the development of large-caliber artillery technology, the range of naval main guns began to grow rapidly, from about 10,000 meters before World War I to about 450,000 meters in the 1920s and 1930s, which only took 20 years. Less time. Not to mention that the battleships have a range of 40,000 to 50,000 meters, and now the main gun of the cruiser has reached 20,000 meters, and the maximum range of the torpedo equipped by the Japanese Navy was only about 10,000 meters, so the old Japanese mines team was It is believed that it is no longer suitable for the decisive battle in the front of the fleet, because these small and medium-sized warships are difficult to safely break through the fire circle of the cruiser's main gun and approach the torpedo's effective range to attack the enemy battleship.

At this very moment, the Japanese empire and her navy are facing the threat of an imaginary enemy, that is, the strong Pacific Fleet of the United States. In response to this strong enemy, the Japanese navy staff worked hard and secretly formulated a "nine paragraph Combat plan".

Speaking of this plan, let’s start with President Theodore Roosevelt (Franklin Roosevelt’s distant cousin) came to power. Old Roosevelt, who served as navy minister in the Spanish-American War, had a deep understanding of modern warfare. Stopping the endless whispering and internal friction between the US Army and Navy, he created the "Army and Navy Contact Conference" system. This institution developed into the famous "United Joint Chiefs of Staff" during World War II.

In addition to the chiefs of staff of the two armies (the U.S. Air Force and Marines were not independent services at the time), they also participated in the "Army and Navy Joint Conference." When threatening, formulate the corresponding US Army and Navy joint operations plan, and coordinate the coordination between the services during daily training to eliminate the differences between the two services as much as possible.

The previous ones may work harder, but the last one was an impossible task at that time. The contradiction between the US Army and the Navy even exceeded their confrontation with foreign enemies and seized every opportunity to demolish the other party’s desk. It started from the first day that American recruits entered the camp.

The topic is pulled back. In order to deal with the threats that the United States of America may encounter, the "Army and Navy Joint Conference" began in 1919 with a variety of military command institutions and even military service schools to develop a series of combat plans, each combat The plans were all made for a certain region or an independent country in the world at that time. Because the code names of the plans were all named after colors, these plans were collectively called "color war plans."

In addition to dealing with Germany's "black plan", there are "red series" plans for the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth countries (UK and Canada-positive red, Australia-fishy red, British India-ruby red, New Zealand-garnet red. ), in addition to the golden plan for France, the silver plan for Italy, the olive green plan for Spain, and Portugal, Brazil, Cuba, Iceland, the Dutch East India and the Philippines, the Republic of China, etc. There is even a U.S. plan After the Civil War, a white war plan is now being suppressed.

Among them, the plans for Asian countries are named after the yellow line, and Japan is assigned to orange, which is the famous "orange war plan". The background envisaged in this plan was a major indisputable diplomatic dilemma between the United States and Japan, and the Japanese empire immediately launched an attack on US bases and garrisons in the Western Pacific.

The plan predicts that the US troops stationed in Guam and the Philippines will not be strong enough to withstand the Japanese empire’s attack. These US armed forces are ordered to stay on the spot and try their best to gain valuable time for the mobilization of US forces.

At the same time, the US Pacific Fleet is shrinking towards the homeland, protecting the smooth flow of the Panama Canal, and ensuring that the main force of the US Atlantic Fleet will merge with the Pacific Fleet through the canal. When the domestic mobilization of the U.S. forces begins, the U.S. Army and Navy will gather overwhelming forces, launch a counterattack against the Japanese Empire across the Pacific Ocean, retake the occupied outposts and colonies, and seize control of the seas around Japan to block off the entire Japanese archipelago. , Eventually forcing Japan to surrender to the United States.

The core of this plan is that in a certain area of ​​the Pacific Ocean close to the Japanese archipelago, the U.S. Navy Fleet and the Japanese Joint Fleet have a frontal decisive battle in the Jutland style, and defeat the main force of the Japanese Joint Fleet in one fell swoop, seizing the dominance of the Western Pacific. .

Regarding the final decisive battle in the plan, the US Navy’s idea at that time was that decisive battles would be launched between the battle fleets of Japan and the United States. The battle fleet of the United States occupies a clear advantage in number, armor, and firepower. The final winner It must be a strong American.

U.S. navy generals will never think that just on the other side of the Pacific, a group of Japanese navy staff members are working on a larger and more detailed "nine-segment combat plan" in order to counter their "orange plan."

The "Orange Plan" of the United States is not practical. This is plainly a group of guys suffering from delusional delusions, playing paper war games behind closed doors. The fundamental purpose of these plans is mainly for the work of the US military. Training and future tactical development to provide a guiding direction. The personnel involved in the plan formulation are diverse. In addition to military personnel, there are experts in various fields, and it has been repeatedly revised and revised several times before and after, inevitably some of the details are leaked out, so the Japanese navy soon relied on the collected scale feathers. Inferred the rough framework of the orange plan.

The first three paragraphs of Japan’s nine-paragraph battle plan were relied on by the Japanese Navy’s diving fleet. The Japanese submarine will set up three interception lines off the coast of Japan to intercept the main US fleet advancing toward Japan. The Japanese submarine group is preparing to launch a concentrated attack by torpedo salvos in an attempt to sink and injure some of the U.S. forces The warships achieved the goal of gradually weakening the main US military fleet.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth interceptions will be carried out by naval carrier aircraft, submarines, and naval land-based bomber units. The goal is to further weaken the defense capabilities of the US fleet and try to destroy small and medium-sized ships in the US fleet.

The next three paragraphs are the highlight of the decisive battle. The first to play is the huge lightning strike force composed of 64 destroyers and 28 cruisers belonging to the Japanese Navy’s combined fleet. They will use a total of 800 torpedoes and One hundred and sixty-eight large-caliber artillery units launched an assault on the US main fleet at night.

The Japanese navy calculated that after this night of battle, the US fleet will be hit hard. Even if the remaining ships are safe and sound, soldiers and physical strength and morale will be seriously reduced. After the turn of the day, the powerful aviation team of eight aircraft carriers debuted.

If any American warship is tough enough to carry thousands of air strikes by Japanese carrier aircraft, then she will see the forest-like towering towers of the Japanese battleship group on the distant sea level, which will eventually be against the powerful enemy. One blow will be completed by the proud and invincible sea steel castle of these Japanese imperial navies.

It can be said that throughout the early period of the Showa era, the Japanese Imperial Navy carried out this "nine-segment combat plan" in terms of equipment, technology, personnel training, and tactical development. And "the ninety-three acid torpedo of our army is huge" is the most important part of the realization of this plan.

ps: Thank you for your support. The author will continue to work hard. I am sorry that there is only one chapter today. I will go out to work tomorrow. The update may be later.