However, for the Montana-class battleships that died in history, it is a good thing that the Panama Canal was cut off by the Japanese, because one of the main reasons why it was abandoned in history was that the tonnage was too large to cross the Panama Canal, and now that the canal is broken, smaller battleships will not be able to pass anyway, so this defect naturally does not exist

If all these warships under construction are built, the strength of the US Navy will certainly be far greater than before the Pearl Harbor incident, and there is no need to worry at all even if it fights on two fronts, but after all, it takes time for warships to be built and formed into combat effectiveness, and both Japan and Germany know that "while he is sick, he will die." Grasping the weak period of the United States in the past few months, it has launched a stormy offensive

First of all, the combined fleet of the remaining Japanese naval forces and the German Far East Fleet escorted the commanders of the three newly reconstituted army divisions south to attack the puppet country of the United States, the Philippines. However, at this time, unlike the US forces in Hawaii at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US forces in the Philippines had already entered a state of imminent war, and the warning range of the patrol planes had also been greatly expanded, and the scale of the Japanese-German combined fleet was really not small, and after all, it was not able to hide from the sky and the sea as it did during the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and was intercepted by the US land-based air force on the way.

Although the antiaircraft gun's antiaircraft combat efficiency has increased by more than 10 times with the proximity fuse and artillery sighting radar, the US military, which has always advocated attack, still chose to send a group of planes to take the initiative to attack without hesitation, but they also have their own confidence in doing so, and the Philippine US military believes that Germany has just had its own aircraft carrier, and it is impossible for it to form a powerful combat force so quickly. Moreover, the two aircraft carriers only have a few dozen carrier-based fighters, and in any case, they cannot stop the more than 300 land-based aircraft that the Philippines has taken off

However, to the disbelief of the Americans, the German carrier-based aviation units that participated in the war for the first time actually showed outstanding jishu level and tactical execution, and the performance of the FW190A (that is, the copycat version of the F4U) carrier-based fighters they flew was also better than that of the US fighters, and as a result, more than 70 carrier-based fighters shot down nearly 200 US fighters like chopping melons and vegetables, but their own losses were only 11. Marseilleu and other super fighter aces have emerged in the first battle of this time and space, coupled with the results of the fleet's anti-aircraft fire, the US army's land-based aviation in the Philippines has lost most of it.

Because of this, although the anti-aircraft firepower of several important airfields in the Philippines has been greatly strengthened compared with history, the number of Japanese carrier-based bombers is insufficient. It was forced to abandon its plan to bomb an airfield in the Philippines. However, due to the heavy losses of fighters in the air battle, the US military still lost air supremacy in the northern part of the Philippines and its nearby waters, as in history, and this naturally cleared the way for the Japanese army to land in the Philippines on a large scale.

After the successful landing, the 4th Osaka Division, which was able to rebuild under great resistance due to the history of "cowardice and fear of death" in the war of aggression against China, jumped from the original division in Jihua to the main force of the attack by virtue of its outstanding performance. And made the battle situation that originally seemed to be a five-five turn into a one-sided situation.

The Osaka Division had learned before the war the weakness of the American army for fear of being threatened on its flanks. Therefore, he deliberately used frequent interspersed detour tactics to force him to leave his position and retreat. Then take advantage of the huge air supremacy that you have mastered, while calling on friendly bombers to destroy bridges behind enemy lines (this is a successful experience in the Sino-British War, which was learned by the devils. ) to hold back the retreat of the enemy army. On the other hand, they pursued fiercely, thus crushing a large number of American and Philippine troops with relatively few casualties. In addition, the Fourth Division also seized on the unstable morale of the US military after the Pearl Harbor Incident, and selected some officers and men who were more English-speaking than Haode to shout in front of the battle to launch a psychological offensive, and also achieved good results; according to rough statistics after the war, the total number of US and Philippine troops forced to land in the Osaka Division was actually more than the total number of results of the other two divisions combined

At the same time, in the Philippine Campaign, the officers and men of the Fourth Division of the Japanese Army also showed superior tactical qualities compared with the other two divisions, whether it was basic infantry and artillery coordination or more difficult to coordinate three-dimensional operations of land, sea and air, they were the most effective among the divisions and regiments of the Japanese New Army.

After the Philippine Campaign, the Osaka Division, which had always been ridiculed in Japan as a "wasted division," consciously raised their eyebrows and justified themselves, saying, "We Osaka soldiers are not afraid of death, but we are disgusted with meaningless sacrifices, and being good at using our brains is the key to victory. ", which attracted a scolding from other divisions

Those former Japanese army officers outside the Osaka Division generally believed that the reason why the Osaka Division performed so well was actually because they had the least number of casualties during the Sino-Japanese War, and more than one-third of the pre-war veterans were retained, while the other divisions and regiments could have a tenth, which was a huge gap that could not be ignored. The reason why there are so many veterans of the Osaka Division is because during the Sino-Japanese War, the Osaka Division surrendered if it could not be defeated, and the proportion of those killed in battle was very low

Most of the young intellectual-minded officers who were promoted after the war believed that the Osaka Division had the highest average level of education among the newly established divisions and regiments in Japan, and therefore the standard of the Jishu arms was also the most outstanding, which inadvertently coincided with the tactical ideas of "automation" (Note 1), "heavy firepower" and "multi-arms coordinated operations" implemented by Chongren when the new army was established, so that it could give better play to the effectiveness of new weapons than other divisions and regiments, and its cooperation with the navy and air force was also significantly better. This is also the performance of their rebirth. To put it simply, they thought that the Osaka Division did not perform well in the past only because the tactics of the old Japanese Army were not suitable for the characteristics of this division, but now it is performing well because the tactics of the new Japanese Army are conducive to their performance

Note 1: Of course, it is not the concept of "automation" in later generations, but the light infantry is equipped with more automatic weapons, and the old bolt rifle is completely eliminated with semi-automatic rifles, and today's Japanese industrial strength is much stronger than the same period in history, but the human resources are much less, this kind of army building idea is obviously correct, as for resources, as long as the Philippines is taken, the copper mine developed by Zhongfu International is enough to meet the needs of Japan's war (to be continued......