Iron Cross

Inoue Narumi's question is also the question of everyone present: Since we are already behind the enemy in quantity, why don't we pursue quality advantage to overwhelm the opponent?

"There are three reasons: First, the construction period. The construction time of the Taiho class is more than 3 years. In the same time, we can roughly build 2 Yunlong classes. Usually, the combat effectiveness of 2 Yunlongs is stronger than that of 1 Taiho; second, the difficulty of construction. The Taiho class is more technically difficult and complex than the Yunlong class, and requires more skilled workers. If the construction of the Yunlong class is fully rolled out, a large number of workers will be involved. It is impossible to concentrate all skilled workers on the Taiho class; the third and most important point is that there can be 1-2 super-thick armored aircraft carriers in the future, but there does not need to be too many, because there is no need at all - aircraft carriers are consumables. It is better to expect that your aircraft carrier will not be sunk by the enemy than to expect to sink more enemy aircraft carriers."

"Consumables?" Everyone was stunned. The aircraft carrier formation built with the whole country's efforts was actually the consumables mentioned by Chiaki Matsuda? Everyone was puzzled and focused their attention on him again.

Facing all kinds of questioning eyes and heavy pressure, Chiaki Matsuda was not afraid and spoke freely: "May I ask you, do you know the difference between the Tiger tank and the Type 4 tank?"

Everyone nodded. Although the navy traditionally does not equip tanks, the Combined Fleet went abroad and brought back a bunch of Tigers and Type 4s, so everyone was of course interested in seeing them. When the navy saw the Tiger, they understood that it was the Yamato of the tank world.

"Of course, the Tiger is stronger than the Type 4, and even one can beat four without any problem. But why do the Germans continue to build the Type 4 on a large scale instead of all Tigers? I asked the German side with this question, and they said that the quality advantage is meaningful only when the difference in quantity is not too large, otherwise it will be trapped in the opponent's equipment sea and unable to extricate itself. In order to ensure the use of mechanized forces, Germany must have a sufficient number of tanks - I immediately thought of the saying that ants can kill elephants. We are already inferior to the US military in quantity. If we reduce the quantity again because of the emphasis on quality, then there may be a situation where 10 Essex-class ships beat 1 Taiho, and the victory or defeat will be known without looking at it. If we only care about quality and not quantity, why did we pursue 70% of the US in the first place? Wouldn't it be invincible to build 2-3 100,000-ton giant battleships?"

Another sentence of "70% of the US" choked Prince Fushimi Hiroyoshi and made him breathless. The whole audience was speechless, but many people were still not convinced, because the Japanese Navy has always pursued quality in building the army, and the ideological bend could not be turned around all of a sudden.

Chiaki Matsuda glanced at the meeting room: "Let me ask you again, what is the most important and core strike force of the current navy?"

Even if they were the most stubborn fleet faction, no one dared to say it was the Yamato in this situation. Some of them were hesitant to speak, or they were very reluctant. But the aviation faction didn't care about that. Onishi Takijiro immediately followed up: "Aircraft carriers."

"Not all of them. In my opinion, the most important and core strike force is carrier-based aircraft. Aircraft carriers are just carriers, and carrier-based aircraft are the deadly means to launch the final blow." Chiaki Matsuda smiled and said, "The biggest experience I gained from this expeditionary operation is that the reason why we can overwhelm the US military in combat is not because our ships are good - in fact, the new US aircraft carriers are the carriers of the carriers. The Essex class is much better than our aircraft carriers, not to mention Yunlong, it is even better than Shuanghe - there are more than 90 aircraft on a single carrier, and it is extremely strong. Our real advantage is firstly aircraft, and secondly people. If we must emphasize the quality of military construction, I think the focus should be on aircraft rather than aircraft carriers.

The mobile fleet is currently equipped with three types of carrier-based aircraft, namely Zero fighter modified, Comet modified, and Tianshan modified. Each one is stronger than the opponent, especially Comet modified and Tianshan modified, which are far stronger than the US military's SBD and TBF. With the same bomb load, we fly faster than them. The performance of these three aircraft is completely different from the original Zero fighter, 99 carrier-based bomber and 97 carrier-based attack aircraft. Apart from anything else, our military aircraft used to have soft bones. They dared not put them on the deck to be exposed to the sun and rain. What did the German planes do? They were all piled on the deck, where they could not be damaged by the sun or the rain, which increased the number of aircraft carriers at once. Now Germany has developed folding-wing aircraft, which further strengthened the aircraft carrier capacity. If an aircraft carrier can carry 20% more aircraft because of this, wouldn’t it be equivalent to 20% more aircraft carriers at once - it is always faster to build aircraft than aircraft carriers, right? "

According to Chiaki Matsuda's point of view, it is not that quality advantages and quality-based military construction are not needed, but relatively speaking, aircraft performance is more important than aircraft carrier performance. To further support his point of view, he used the Battle of Tarawa as an example: "Take the Essex class sunk this time as an example, we at least hit the enemy before destroying it. With 3 torpedoes and 4-5 500 kg bombs, if the 99 carrier-based bombers are used for attack, how many 250 kg bombs should be dropped to kill the enemy? In the Battle of Midway, our 4 main aircraft carriers were destroyed by the US military with a single bomb. Although there was a problem of ammunition explosion, actual combat showed that the enemy's aircraft carriers were much stronger than ours, and their aircraft were also very strong. But why did we win in the end? It was because the carrier-based aircraft were effective - the aircraft trained and modified by Germany were very effective.

This is not an isolated case. You must have seen the intelligence sent by Ambassador Oshima. The British and American thousand-plane bombing formation was beaten by the German jets. This was the use of technology and performance advantages to crush them. If it were our aircraft, they would not be able to fly that high, so how could they beat them?

Aircraft performance currently comes first. On the premise that the performance of the aircraft is equal or superior, the second most important thing is the quality of the pilots. It is recognized that the quality of our carrier-based aircraft pilots is better than that of Germany and the United States. However, Akamatsu Sadaki came back and said that they could not defeat the German Air Force with the same technical equipment. It can't even beat the German carrier-based aircraft pilots. Do you know why? "

Everyone's curiosity was suddenly piqued. Akamatsu Sadaki is now Japan's well-known navy's number one ace pilot. Why did he say he couldn't defeat the Germans? There is some reason why they cannot defeat the Luftwaffe. Even the German carrier-based aircraft pilots cannot defeat them - they have been established for less than a year.

"If it is just a 1vs1 contest, Akamatsu Sadaki will certainly have no problem, but what about 3vs3, 5vs5? If it is expanded, what about 50vs50? You may not know the situation on Socotra. The German ace pilot who accompanied us in training They are everywhere - only those who have shot down more than 50 aircraft are regarded as real aces. Only Akamatsu Sadaki has a record of 50 kills in the Imperial Navy. The Luftwaffe has hundreds of such records. Most of the ones deployed by the German HNA They are outstanding members of the Air Force. There are at least 40 such super aces. Although the German Navy has only one year of history, the total number of pilots has exceeded 1,500, and at least 800 can board the ship. We have worked hard for nearly 20 years and have trained a total of , there are only a little more than 1,000 pilots who can board the ship. Behind the German HNA is a huge air force with a total number of more than 20,000, which is invincible in Europe as a backup. We only have a few shore-based troops as a backup. What do you think? beat?

Everyone must understand that as long as the pilot can fly the aircraft safely from the aircraft carrier, the fate of the aircraft is determined by the performance of the aircraft and aerial technology... In the same way, once the aircraft carrier releases the aircraft, it is not the performance of the aircraft carrier that determines the success or failure of the naval battle, but the performance of the aircraft. Aircraft performance and pilot quality. How was the Caribbean War won? Is it because we have more aircraft carriers than the enemy and are better than the enemy? Obviously not! That's why the commander said that aircraft carriers are consumables. If one ship is sunk ahead of us and only two can be replenished later, are we afraid that we won’t be able to hold on? What's more, the Dafeng-class is not really unsinkable. If it is beaten to death and dragged back for repairs for a year and a half, it will be equivalent to having no use for the ship during this period. However, if one of the two Yunlongs sinks, they can continue to fight. "

Everyone was impressed by this high-level discussion, and even Yamamoto Isoroku was awe-struck: Now it seems that his old classmate has seen the problem more profoundly than himself. He has got rid of the shackles of Japan's original insistence that the quality of ships is better than quantity, and has begun to consider the overall situation. War, total war.

He stood up and nodded slightly at Matsuda Chiaki: "Matsuda-kun is right, I have learned from it. But I still have a question. If we are fighting for consumption, the United States' potential is obviously several times greater than ours. How can we make up for this gap?"

"Let me answer this question." Seeing Yamamoto Isoroku standing up, Horikichi stood up immediately - it would be disrespectful for the Navy Minister to ask questions in person and then ask Matsuda to reply. He had to explain himself.

"I have always been extremely opposed to fighting a war of attrition. For this reason, I am even more opposed to a war between Japan and the United States, because we are not the opponent of the United States at any level, let alone fighting a war of attrition, let alone 1:2, it is 1:3 They may not be able to afford it, but after I went to Europe, the words of the German head of state inspired me a lot..." Horikichi added, "I clearly expressed my concerns about the lack of strength of the relevant countries and the difficulty in continuing to fight. He said the same problem He also thought about it, and finally decided to adopt two strategies. First, unify Europe and make up for the gap in industrial power between Europe and the United States as soon as possible. Even if a war of attrition is fought in the future, the Americans can afford to fight it. The Americans can accompany them for several years. Second, we must actively utilize our advantages - our unique national advantages. He told me mysteriously, "Although the United States has high production efficiency, the production speed of one thing is the same. Not only Germany, but also Japan and the United States." "Can you guess what it is?"

Everyone shook their heads, waiting for the marshal admiral to solve the mystery.

Only Prince Fushimi Miyahiro was very dissatisfied with Horikichi's pretentiousness. Just now, Matsuda Chiaki kept talking about "aircraft performance" and "pilot quality and quantity". Both inside and outside his words were about aviation being the first and winning in aviation, and even He concluded that aircraft are more important than aircraft carriers. In his view, the aviation party was a naked tease and fool of the fleet. In addition, Horikichi emphasized several times that pilots can also be officers and that aviation officers should be selected from professionals. Almost to death - after all, officers who pilot aircraft carriers can be classified as fleet faction if they have the chance, but those who fly airplanes cannot be classified as fleet faction no matter how hard they try.

This is simply digging into the roots of the Fleet Faction! If Horikichi succeeded, wouldn't he retire from the world?