The Japanese top brass is very clear: Germany will definitely sell things at a higher price, but even if the price is raised, it will be cheaper and of better quality than self-made, and there is really no room for struggle and bargaining. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

"In order to improve the domestic industrial capacity, the chief has done everything possible to use valuable foreign exchange and credit resources to import a large number of precision machine tools from Germany, France, and Italy, and has also tried every means to transport them back to China as first-class precious materials.......

"Yes, the chief has always been far-sighted and invincible."

"Yes, the commander not only commands the first in the world, but also does business......

Listening to a bunch of people openly praising Horikichi at the meeting, King Fushimi Miyahiro Gong's face turned pale for a while, not to mention how uncomfortable it was - the news of the attack was still ordered by him to be released by others, and now he was actually being counterattacked as a rat?

"Well, now that a resolution on the construction of aircraft carriers has been formed, the meeting will continue to discuss the next topic, the plan for the construction of light cruisers and destroyers." Inoue Narumi ended the discussion that embarrassed Fushimiya in a timely manner and refocused her attention, "The current focus of the debate is, first, should Agano-class have additional plans in the future? Second, should the construction of the Rendian of the same class as the Oyodo? Third, how to reasonably match the four types of destroyers A, B, C, D? ”

The Oyodo class is an improved and enhanced version of the Agano class, designed to serve as the flagship of submarine and aircraft attack groups. The 6-inch gun in the rear of the ship was canceled and replaced with a large hangar to accommodate six reconnaissance aircraft, which was just put into service half a year ago, but there has been no suitable reconnaissance aircraft, and the combined fleet immediately came back with AR-372 (codenamed Ziyun), and a new radar was installed, coupled with superior communication capabilities, the value of the Oyodo suddenly became prominent, and a staff officer thought that it could assume the function of a reconnaissance command ship (historically served as the flagship of the combined fleet), so he asked if it was necessary to build another one.

"The Combined Fleet believes that the Agano class can consider building four more ships in the future, but including the two ships currently under construction, the design idea needs to be significantly modified, and Germany has developed the Phalanx anti-aircraft firepower, and the actual combat effect is extraordinary. The actual combat effect of the Dadian is unknown, coupled with the tension of slipway and labor, it is recommended that the construction of the Rendian should not be considered for the time being; The destroyers of the A and C types were all cut down, and a large number of modified ...... of the B and D types were built."

"What? Type A and Type C are not at all? The audience was dumbfounded again.

The destroyers of the Japanese Navy are divided into the first class and the second class, the first class destroyer is the main destroyer, and the second class is mainly the older ship. The so-called A, B, C, D are all classifications of first-class destroyers: Type A destroyers are fleet-type destroyers, heavily mine-loaded; The Type B destroyer is an air defense destroyer, which is mainly represented as the Autumn Moon Reform; The Type C destroyer is the so-called ideal destroyer, which takes into account both firepower and lightning strike capabilities, but the price is too expensive, and only one of the Island Wind class was built, which was commissioned only 4 months ago; The D-destroyer was a mass-produced escort destroyer that simplified the process and made it easy to build in large quantities, but could not be used in fleet engagements.

"Ladies and gentlemen, do you know what destroyers do the most on this expedition of the Combined Fleet? It is neither cover, reconnaissance, lightning strikes, operations, nor artillery battles and expulsions, but air defense, dragonfly fishing, and anti-submarine. To be honest, except for the so-so dragonfly fishing, the other two were done poorly and repeatedly caused big disasters. For example, Haruna was escorted back to Truk by two warships, Yukifeng and Shiyu, but was targeted by an American submarine halfway through, and what was even more annoying was that he actually let the other party slip away......"

Before the war, Japanese carrier-based pilots often had overboard accidents when they were training desperately, and all the destroyers were trained to catch dragonflies well, and even when there were strong winds and waves, they could spot with the naked eye the people who were floating and sinking in the waves. In the Combined Fleet, it is often not the captains of battleships or aircraft carriers who are best at handling ships, but the captains of destroyers.

But air defense and anti-submarine are really a mess, especially anti-submarine, which is simply scum to the extreme, completely relying on blindness. During joint exercises with the German-Italian navy in the Mediterranean, German submarines often slipped into the inner guard circle of the Japanese mobile fleet to find a good torpedo firing position, and on several occasions they even shot out training torpedoes and crashed them into aircraft carriers, which shocked everyone into a cold sweat, and each time they provoked Tsukahara's 243 people to get angry, and scolded the destroyer captains to the point of blood. Because luck doesn't have to take care of the combined fleet every time. Therefore, when it was in Europe, the focus was on the introduction of sonar, and the commanders of destroyers were desperately trained in anti-submarine training.

There are still ways to make up for one or two of the antisubmarine capability, and there is really no fault in air defense, especially for Type A destroyers, which have artillery battles and lightning strikes as the dominant combat concept, unless all the guns on the warships are replaced. In more than a dozen battles before and after the mobile fleet, the number of enemy planes shot down by destroyer fire was pitifully small (the anti-aircraft fire on aircraft carriers and battleships was relatively good), and only a fraction of the results of carrier-based aircraft were achieved.

So Chiaki Matsuda said in a complaining tone: "Whether it's a decisive battle type or a heavy thunder type, it's all decorations." In the year of the campaign, almost no destroyers fired torpedoes at the enemy, and with the exception of a very few destroyers, most of the destroyers' main guns did not fire a single shot, but the anti-aircraft fire of a few Akizuki-class ships was quite fierce -- although they did not shoot down many enemy planes. ”

At the same time, because Japan does not have a special escort destroyer, to escort the fleet are transferred to the old destroyers to carry out, the tasks are completed bumpily, based on the current situation, in the plan to change the five has mentioned to start the construction of the D-type, as far as possible to strengthen the air defense and anti-submarine capabilities, first launched the pine class, and then on the basis of the pine launched the orange class, in the construction process with ordinary steel, low-grade HT steel to replace the original valuable DS steel, the weight increased, the main engine horsepower reduced grade, the maximum speed can only reach 28 knots, Range drops to 3500 nautical miles / 18 knots, but it's still good to use. However, because the design was finalized more than half a year ago, the number of completions is very small.

"The combined fleet put forward two requirements for improvement: first, the production cycle of D-type destroyers should be completed in 3 months, and the annual completion should be no less than 48 ships; Second, appropriately expand the hull of the autumn moon change, such as reaching 3,500 tons, update the anti-aircraft artillery and dismantle the torpedo facilities at the same time, and start construction of no less than 12 ships per year, and the construction period shall not exceed one year; If there are difficulties in this way, it is better not to build a follow-up ship for the Agano class. ”

At that time, the fleet faction still stubbornly insisted that the destroyer must retain the ability to strike lightning, and as a result, the Akizuki class was forced to add a four-pack torpedo tube and a reloading device, but after two years of fighting, the torpedo tubes could not be used for anything, and they were worried about the torpedo explosion during the bombing.

The reason for the increase in the hull is to learn a lesson from the German Hedgehog class, although the effect of the phalanx is good, but because the tonnage of the German Z series destroyers is not enough, the use of space and the firing range are not enough, which affects the development of the effect, Germany has revised the next-generation design to the level of 3600-3800 tons.

In Horikichi's mind, he would prefer to have equipment similar to the Atlanta, Cleveland-class light cruisers of the United States or the Dedot-class air defense cruisers of the Royal Navy, but unfortunately Japan cannot play this kind of game of deep pockets, and can only hope that air defense direct frigates like Chao Akizuki can compete with the exclusive air defense light cruisers of Britain and the United States.

The meeting was very hotly debated, but there was one thing that could not be avoided -- the era of heavy mine-loading equipment had passed forever, and the tactical concept of a nine-stage operation was also outdated. Japan pays lip service to strategic defense, but in fact it is offensive defense, and now it is a global mobile operation, and there has never been a fleet encounter like the Battle of Savo Island. Even exclusive heavy mine-loaded cruisers like Kitakami and Oi were sold to the Germans, and what did they do with torpedo tubes for the Akizuki class?

No matter how reluctant the fleet faction was, it was impossible to deny the fact that lightning strike tactics were becoming weaker and weaker, and in the end it was agreed that the two warships that Agano had already started would be transformed into exclusive air defense cruisers to serve as the air defense command center of the regional destroyer fleet to cooperate with the mobile fleet, but no new ships of the same class would be built. The B and D destroyers were being built with all their might -- just as the labor and materials that had been used for submarine construction were transferred.

The meeting concluded with a discussion on the construction of escort aircraft carriers. The construction and use of Anglo-American escort aircraft carriers greatly inspired the Japanese side, and the army proposed to build an escort aircraft carrier, and built it first - yes, the Japanese army has aircraft carriers, and there is more than one! Not only aircraft carriers, but also the tonnage of ships owned by the Japanese Army exceeds that of the Navy. But unlike the historical situation in which the army and navy argued until 44 years before it was finalized, the relationship between the army and navy is now much better, the navy stuffed the army with a large number of supplies, tanks and artillery from Germany, and the army reciprocated by handing over a part of the ships and aircraft carriers under its control to the navy, and agreeing that all fleets would be escorted and commanded by the navy.

At the same time, trade and trade between Japan and Germany are now extremely frequent, European industrial products and technical equipment are imported into Japan, and agricultural products, rubber, and minerals from East and Southeast Asia are exported to Europe.

Therefore, the Combined Fleet put forward the requirements for the construction of 48 standard frigate aircraft carriers in one go, and hoped to start construction within two years and complete all of them within three years. (To be continued.) )