"God, they're coming in......"

On the outboard platform of the aircraft carrier Akagi, Hersmann Jr., who served as a liaison officer and observer of German naval aviation, pinched the telescope and opened his mouth wide. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info because he has found that there are only forty or fifty Zero Type 52 fighters left in the air that can still fight, and the rest of the Zero have either been shot down in battle, or have run out of ammunition and landed on the aircraft carrier.

The P51, F6F, and F4U that fought with these dozens of Zero 52s are still more than 100 (American planes have also lost a lot, and some are flying to El Salvador because the fuel will run out). And at this moment, the northeastern sky was once again covered with black spots, just like the mythical dragon knight, making a buzzing and piercing sound, hanging a deadly bomb, suddenly appearing from the intersection of the sea and the sky.

The Zeros, who were engaged in air combat, discovered these new dangers and abandoned their opponents and desperately pounced on the hordes of American planes, not to shoot down the enemy planes, but to force some of the dive bombers and torpedo bombers to drop their bombs and torpedoes.

However, their attack was not a complete success, and not many SBDs and TBFs were targeted by these Zeros, but many Zero fighters were shot down by the oncoming F6F and F4U.

Little Hersman, who knows a lot about the performance of the Japanese version of the Zero, knows that the Zero is a good grappling aircraft, but it is not an excellent interceptor, and he is most afraid of facing the nose of the opponent with heavy firepower.

While Hersmann Jr. was praying for the Japanese pilots on the downed Zero fighters, the four twin 128mm guns on the Emperor Frederick III missile cruiser opened fire first - because of Hersmann's requirements, the German Navy's ships generally focused on anti-aircraft firepower, and the shipboard heavy anti-aircraft artillery system was the Type 40 128mm anti-aircraft gun developed by Rheinmetall in 1937.

However, the development progress of Germany's radio proximity fuze did not meet Hersmann's requirements, so until the surrender of the British mainland, Germany's 128mm heavy anti-aircraft guns did not use radio proximity fuzes (at present, the development of radio proximity fuzes has been completed and production is being organized, but the troops have not yet been equipped). So today, the shells fired by the 128mm anti-aircraft guns of the Emperor Frederick III did not pose much threat to the US aircraft group, and the only effect was to disperse them.

After a violent but inaccurate explosion of artillery shells, the dense group of American attack aircraft in the sky had dispersed. After dispersing, the US planes began to circle around the Japanese fleet on the water, and the SBD dive bombers in it descended to an altitude of 3000-4000 meters, which is the altitude at which the dive bombing was launched, while the TBF torpedo bombers continued to descend to ultra-low altitudes.

At this time, the Japanese ships on the water also erected their 127mm and 100mm caliber heavy anti-aircraft guns and began to fire shells into the air. In Hirschmann's opinion, the 100mm anti-aircraft gun, which is not equipped with a small number of equipment, is probably the best anti-aircraft gun in Japan, with automatic reloading, rotation and pitching systems, and a large multiplier of 65 times, so it has a fairly good shooting height and range. But this anti-aircraft gun with excellent performance was not the main force of Japanese ship-based anti-aircraft guns.

Now there are two types of shipborne anti-aircraft artillery systems that are regarded as the main force, one is the 89-type 40 caliber 127mm gun; The second is the Type 96 25mm machine gun. The Japanese Navy does not have the 40mm, 37mm and 20mm anti-aircraft artillery systems that are most common in the navies of European and American countries.

Among them, the performance of the Type 89 heavy anti-aircraft guns is decent, that is, the rate of fire is relatively low, and the firing range and firing height are not very large, but they can still cope with it. As for the Type 96 25mm machine gun, the performance is not too bad, that is, it is loaded with a magazine, and the rate of fire is relatively slow. However, it is enough to expel the torpedo machine.

However, Hersman Jr. knew that Japan's shipborne air defense system could not withstand the surprise attack of US planes. This is because the anti-aircraft artillery systems of Japanese surface ships include long-range high-altitude anti-aircraft guns and close-range low-altitude machine guns, but they prefer medium-range medium-caliber 40mm or 37mm antiaircraft artillery systems.

And without 40mm or 37mm anti-aircraft guns, Japanese surface ships could not fight dive bombers that broke through the defenses of the Zero and heavy anti-aircraft guns.

This weakness has already been raised by both observers and advisers of the German Navy in the Japanese Navy. The Japanese navy and army actually knew about this problem, and after the outbreak of the Pacific War, they also captured 60 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns from the British and American troops, and immediately began the copycat project. However, until the beginning of 1943, the Japanese did not copy the 40mm anti-aircraft gun, let alone install it on battleships.

The question of the absence of 40mm anti-aircraft guns did not seem to be of much importance to the Japanese naval and land leaders, so no technical assistance was offered to the German side - after all, the so-called assistance was costly.

And this negligence, in the battle of Panama in March 1943, finally caused a big mistake.

At 6:10 p.m. on March 17, 38 SBD dive bombers were the first to launch a surprise attack in the middle of dusk. From a height of about 3,300 meters, they whizzed headlong into the airspace filled with smoke from the explosion of anti-aircraft artillery shells, and most of them passed unscathed, and only 2 aircraft were hit by the fragments of the shells and fell.

The 40mm guns (only German ships), 25mm guns, 20mm guns (only German ships) and anti-aircraft machine guns of various calibers on all the ships on the surface of the water began to rain down bullets, and a rain of metal bullets immediately blew over the sea.

But such a dense rain of bullets only looks more scary, and in fact has almost zero effect. At 6:12, 12 SBD dive bombers split into two teams and began to launch a high-angle dive attack on the flagship aircraft carrier of the 2nd Air Force, the Wyvern!

"Oops!" The hearts of everyone in the bridge of the Akagi trembled, and little Hersman, who was standing on the platform outside the bridge, closed his eyes, because he knew that it was impossible for all the 12 SBDs to be dropped in a row, and the level of American pilots was not like this.

"Boom Boom Boom Boom ......"

Four loud bangs came in succession, and when Little Hesman opened his eyes again, smoke and flames had already risen from the flagship Wyvern, the flagship of Major General Yamaguchi Tawen, the commander of the 2nd Air Battle!

4 1000-pound high-explosive bombs hit this aircraft carrier with a standard displacement of 17,900 tons! One of the bombs that hit the amidship flight deck successfully burrowed into the hangar and detonated, shattering the reserve aircraft stored in the hangar and igniting fuel in the fuel tanks (the planes were scheduled to strike soon), causing a fire.

"Oh my God, they blew up the Wyvern!" Little Hersman was stunned by the sight of a fire in an aircraft carrier that seemed to be close at hand, and couldn't help but shout.

Before his shout fell, bad luck once again befell the Ssangyong's sister ship, the Canglong. There were also 12 SBDs that braved a hail of 25mm machine guns and various anti-aircraft machine guns to launch a charge. As a result, 3 1000-pound bombs hit the flying deck of the aircraft carrier, and one of them landed exactly near the 11 Zero fighters who had just landed and were refueling and refueling, as a result of which a series of explosions and fires were caused.

Less than 2 minutes later, the SBDs of the 2 squadrons once again flew over the aircraft carriers Canglong and Feilong, which were almost overwhelmed by the fire, and launched a second wave of assault!

This time, the Canglong was hit by five 1,000-pound bombs, one of which directly penetrated the boiler room and exploded, and the other one drilled into the hangar and exploded.

The Wyvern was also unlucky, as the four bombs landed on the front, middle and rear of the aircraft carrier's flight deck on average, blowing four large holes, and the violent explosion also affected the power system of the aircraft carrier, causing the Wyvern to lose most of its power, and the fire spread throughout the ship.

Witnessing the destruction of two aircraft carriers by American dive bombers on board the aircraft carrier Akagi, Ozawa, commander of Japan's 1st Mobile Fleet, and his staff officers were all stunned.

Although they all know that it is impossible to seize the initiative in the Pacific Ocean forever with Japan's national strength to confront the United States. But victory after victory made them think that the day when Japan would lose the initiative was still very far away, and it turned out that this day suddenly appeared in front of everyone!

"Torpedo machine!"

I don't know who yelled, and suddenly woke up Ozawa and others like in a dream. It turned out that 12 TBF torpedo bombers had already taken aim at the aircraft carrier Akagi!

It turned out that the American torpedo planes in the air were supposed to mend the Wyvern and Canglong, but the Americans found that the two Canglong-class ships had been burned into flames, and most of them would be abandoned by the Japanese. So the targets of the attack became the nearby Akagi and Kaga, as well as the battleship Kongo that escorted them!

"The Akagi and Kaga must be saved!" Jizaburo Ozawa almost roared and gave orders.

Compared with the Wyvern and Soryu, the value of the two aircraft carriers, Akagi and Kaga, which were converted from battlecruisers and battleship hulls, is much higher. The huge hull with a full load of more than 40,000 tons gives them a lot of room for transformation and upgrading, and the flight deck is also more than 30 meters longer than that of the Canglong class. As long as they are willing to invest money in refitting, Akagi and Kaga can completely become "unsinkable aircraft carriers" like the Taiho class, and will play a huge role in future naval battles.

If the Akagi and Kaga follow in the footsteps of the "Double Dragon", then Jizaburo Ozawa will undoubtedly be the number one sinner of the Japanese Navy! (To be continued.) )