Chapter 916: Still Defeat 8

In the original history of World War II, Vice Admiral Onishi Takijiro of the Japanese Navy first proposed the "one plane for one ship" Kamikaze special attack in October 1944. He attempted to use crazy suicide tactics to save the inevitable defeat of Japanese militarism.

In this time and space, although the old friend of Japanese militarism, Marshal Hessman, repeatedly advocated Japan to launch a Kamikaze attack, it was also responded to for a time. However, this suicide tactic was soon abandoned because of Japan's successive victories in the Pacific battlefield.

But in September 1943, another form of "Kamikaze tactics" appeared in the combat operations of the US Navy-the Americans did not exchange planes for warships, but did the opposite, using warships for planes!

Of course, it is not possible to exchange a ship for a plane, and the local tyrants cannot be so wasteful, but Nimitz and Spruance are very satisfied that a non-main ship can be exchanged for ten or eight planes.

Before the Christmas Island Campaign, when Nimitz and Spruance formulated the "Hunter" plan, they set a target for warships to exchange for aircraft - an escort aircraft carrier (excluding the carrier-based aircraft on it) for 10 Japanese aircraft is not a loss, a light-loaded 1,500-ton anti-aircraft landing ship (modified from a tank landing ship) for 3 Japanese aircraft is considered a loss, and a Fletcher-class destroyer with a standard displacement of 2,100 tons needs to be exchanged for 6 Japanese aircraft...

As for the exchange ratio of 1,365 F4Us and F6Fs to Japanese aircraft (all kinds of aircraft are counted), Nimitz and Spruance hope to achieve a 1:1 ratio.

As for the fuel consumption ratio of both sides, the American tycoons are willing to suffer a big loss, and are willing to exchange 3 tons of oil consumption for 1 ton of oil consumption by the Japanese.

In the afternoon of September 26, 1943, Hawaii time, the most magnificent war scene was being staged on the Pacific battlefield east of Christmas Island. Hundreds of fighter planes flew up and down in the sky, chasing each other. From time to time, some planes were hit and fell to the sea with long blue-black smoke columns. Sometimes a parachute flower bloomed in the sky near the falling plane, and sometimes both the man and the plane died!

If you observe carefully, you will find that the aerial fight is clearly divided into two airspaces, high and low.

At an altitude of 6,000-8,000 meters, the American F4U and the Japanese Gale started a fight. The speed of the F4U is obviously higher than that of the Gale. The F4U can fly 668 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 6,000 meters, while the Gale can only fly 600 kilometers per hour at the same altitude.

This speed is slower than the historical Gale fighter. This is because the use of the heat dissipation technology provided by Germany has increased the weight of the Ha-45 (Yu 21) engine a lot, and at the same time, Japan's request to obtain high-temperature alloy technology was rejected by Britain and Germany.

Germany is willing to export technologies that can be copied to Japan, but it cannot easily provide technologies that cannot be copied. Therefore, Japan's Nakajima Company actually solved the problem of reliability of the 18-cylinder air-cooled engine (it was prone to fire before, and Amaterasu was seen while flying) by increasing weight and sacrificing performance.

In addition to the unsatisfactory maximum level flight speed, the high-altitude performance of the Hayate fighter is also disappointing. This is also due to the poor performance of the Ha-45 (Yu) engine. The output power of the Ha-45 (Yu) engine at an altitude of 6,000 meters is only 1,300 horsepower. If it climbs higher, the engine power will drop rapidly.

This is actually the result of the Japanese pursuit of "all-round fighters". Japan's fighter design ideas are different from Germany. Germany pursues "airspace advantage" and focuses on high altitude.

Japan pursues an all-round fighter, requiring good performance in all airspaces, while focusing on medium and low altitude combat performance. Therefore, they did not install a high-power supercharger on the Ha-45 (Yu) engine (a high-power multi-stage supercharger is very heavy and useless at medium and low altitudes), resulting in insufficient power for the Ha-45 at high altitudes.

Therefore, at an altitude of 6,000-8,000 meters, it is difficult for it to fight against the F4U fighter using the "hit and go" tactic. And if this fighter goes down to medium and low altitudes, its performance is not even as good as the Zero 52.

So in today's air battles, the Hayate is responsible for the opponent F4U at medium and high altitudes, and the Zero 52 fights the F6F at medium and low altitudes.

However, the Japanese Navy's Zero 52 also made the same mistake as the Army's Hayate - pursuing full airspace advantage, instead of going all out to improve low-altitude performance like the German Fokker Zero D.

After using the "independent thrust exhaust pipe" and improving the supercharger, the Zero 52 can fly at a speed of 565 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 6,000 meters, and at the same time, it has achieved a maximum dive speed of 660 kilometers per hour by strengthening the fuselage structure.

However, improvements aimed at improving medium and high altitude capabilities must be at the expense of some medium and low altitude performance or improvement potential. Therefore, although the Zero-52 gained the ability to deal with the F4U at medium and high altitudes, it lost the possibility of crushing the F6F at medium and low altitudes.

The result of the wrong design idea on the battlefield of the Christmas Island Battle was that Japan's Hayate and Zero 52 were in a tough battle. They faced F4U and F6F, which were no less powerful than themselves and more numerous. Because some aircraft were assigned to chase Japan's torpedo bombers (because it was the first wave of attack, all torpedo planes were equipped with bombs) and dive bombers, and some fighters were assigned to cover aircraft carriers, so in the confrontation between fighters, the ratio of the number of US and Japanese fighters was about 2:1, and they soon fell into a comprehensive tough battle. Among the planes shot down, Japan's Zero 52 and Hayate accounted for most!

While the Zero 52 and Hayate were in a tough battle, Japan's torpedo bombers and dive bombers began to make achievements.

"Boom! Boom!" The loud noises rang out one after another, and then high water droplets or fireballs shot up into the sky. The ones hit were landing ships and transport ships. In a short period of time, more than 30 ships caught fire or sank into the sea.

However, the victory of Japanese aircraft was not without cost. The first to cause losses to them were the F6F and F4U chasing behind them. Although the escorting Gale and Zero tried their best to block them, there were too many American aircraft, and there were still hundreds of fighters chasing Japanese torpedo planes and bombers in the sky. Soon, dozens of "Comets", "Tianshan" and "Meteors" were torn apart by the powerful firepower of American fighters.

After paying a certain price, the remaining more than 100 Japanese torpedo planes and bombers finally rushed into the air defense firepower circle of the US fleet-according to the regulations of the US Naval Aviation, American fighters cannot rush into their own air defense firepower circle during combat. They can only hover outside the air defense firepower circle and wait for the Japanese fighters to escape before chasing them.

However, temporarily avoiding the pursuit of American fighters does not mean that they can wantonly slaughter American surface ships, even if they are only escort aircraft carriers, landing ships and transport ships, but they are also protected by the "Dumpling King" Fletcher-class destroyers with powerful air defense firepower and other destroyers with enhanced air defense firepower.

Moreover, all American transport ships are equipped with anti-aircraft guns, and the American landing ships that appeared on the battlefield today are all "anti-aircraft type". There are no infantry and tanks on them, but 8 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns (4 twin-mounted) and 10 20mm Oerlikon machine guns are installed, and the anti-aircraft firepower is almost comparable to that of old destroyers. The American escort aircraft carriers are also equipped with 2 127mm single-barreled guns, 10 twin-mounted 40mm guns, and several 20mm guns. The anti-aircraft firepower is also not to be underestimated.

So the more than 100 Japanese torpedo planes and bombers suddenly seemed to rush into the sea of ​​fire. Lieutenant Colonel Takahashi Heyi, who was driving a "Meteor" dive bomber, only saw countless orange-red lights passing by on both sides of the engine cover at a very fast speed. This is really a scene that makes people's scalp tingle!

However, Takahashi still mustered up the courage to drive his plane to dive towards a 10,000-ton escort aircraft carrier, and was very lucky to drop two 250-kilogram bombs - if he had attacked with torpedoes today, he might not be so lucky. Because although the current US surface ships have greatly strengthened their air defense, the number of 40mm anti-aircraft guns is still insufficient, and the 20mm machine guns cannot pose a huge threat to dive bombers. So in the Battle of Christmas Island, the loss of Japanese dive bombers was still bearable.

After a loud "boom", a huge fireball rose in the midship of the Borg-class aircraft carrier with a standard displacement of more than 11,000 tons.

"Onboard!" Seeing the aircraft carrier on fire, bombardier Koizumi shouted excitedly, but Takahashi frowned tightly. Because he had discovered that the anti-aircraft firepower of US surface ships was extremely powerful!

The sky was full of fast-flying lights and suddenly exploding black smoke, as well as Japanese planes falling to the sea with black smoke.

Although Takahashi wisely chose the landing ships and transport ship formations with weaker anti-aircraft firepower to attack. But the losses were still beyond his imagination! The most miserable fate was that the hurricane fighters and zero fighters that tried their best to block the eye were frantically chased by the F4U and F6F that far outnumbered them, and lost nearly half of them in a very short time! The fate of the dive bombers and torpedo bombers was not much better. Under the attack of American fighters and surface ship anti-aircraft artillery, they suffered heavy losses!

"Heavy losses!"

When the first wave of Japanese aircraft retreated, the trembling voice of Major General Miles Browning sounded in Spruance's ears. Looking out of the telescope of the chief of staff of the 58th Task Force, at least 30 huge smoke columns appeared on the sea, which meant that at least 30 American ships were hit by bombs!