The Rise of the Third Reich

"boom!"

The sound of artillery sounded in the large playground of the Japanese Army Tank School in Chiba Prefecture. This is a "Weasel" type 2 tank destroyer purchased from Germany firing. The 48-caliber 75mm gun fired a high-speed armor-piercing projectile with a black alloy core. In just an instant, the projectile accurately hit a thick steel plate placed vertically on a cement base 1,000 meters away.

"Effective breakdown!"

An officer responsible for checking the shooting results rushed over, looked at the steel plate penetrated by the projectile, then waved a flag in his hand vigorously and shouted.

"Yao Xi!"

Watching the shooting of the "Weasel" 2 tank destroyer, Japanese Prime Minister and Army Minister Hideki Tojo nodded with satisfaction, and said to the idiot Yuan and Navy Minister Shitaro Shimada next to him: "If you can penetrate the American M4 at 1,000 meters, If the army and the navy can cooperate with each other, the army should be able to expand its territory. "

"Your Excellency, Prime Minister, the Army has no problem." Sugiyama Gen chuckled, "We have discussed it with engineers from Mitsubishi Corporation and Osaka Arsenal. We can definitely make a better vehicle than the Weasel by using the 15-ton Type 97 medium tank. Fighter tank. The specific design work can be completed within the year, and the modification of 300-500 vehicles can be completed by the end of June 2018. Now only a few hundred Kwk40 75mm tank guns need to be imported. "

The Germans can use the 9.5-ton 38t and the 7.2-ton No. 2 to modify the "Weasel". The Japanese will naturally have no difficulty in modifying the 15-ton Type 97. However, Japan currently does not have a suitable 75mm artillery, so it can only import the German Kwk40 type first and then copy it.

"However, the production of the Type 97 fighter tank is always a stopgap measure," Tojo Hideki said. "The research on the Tiger tank needs to be accelerated. It is necessary to thoroughly understand the Tiger's technology as soon as possible, and then develop a new type of tank based on the Tiger." The world’s number one heavy tank!”

"Hai!" Sugiyama Moto responded loudly with a wide smile.

The Japanese have always liked the "world's best" things, and now the navy has the world's best battleships such as the "Yamato" class. How can the Army lag behind? You have to build the world’s best tank after all, right?

In fact, before the introduction of Tiger tanks, the Japanese Army was already developing a 100-ton super-heavy tank. However, this type of heavy tank, codenamed "Hundred Styles", has no practical possibility because of its large strides and imagination. It can only be regarded as a scientific research project. This is also the purpose of the Japanese Army to introduce Tiger tanks. With Tiger as the basis, it will be much easier for Japan to develop the "world's first" tank.

Tojo Hideki smiled again and nodded at Navy Minister Shimada, "Shimada-kun, do you think you are confident that we will launch the final operation to attack Australia in the second half of 2018?"

Australia is now the southern end of the Japanese Empire! It was on the agenda after fighting in Hawaii.

However, at that time, the Japanese Imperial Army had too many places to attack, and the fuel consumption in the Hawaii operation and a series of subsequent southward operations was so great that the oil depot in Wujun Port almost reached the bottom.

In addition, moving south to Australia cannot be accomplished overnight, but is a steady and steady process.

The first is to gain control of the main islands of the Bismarck Islands and Solomon Islands, and then control the Bismarck Sea, Solomon Sea and Coral Sea. Then they pulled out Port Moresby, an important stronghold of the US and Australian troops on the island of New Guinea. After controlling the Solomon Islands and Port Moresby, the gateway to Australia was completely controlled by Japan. Afterwards, it became possible to implement land operations in Australia.

Now, the Japanese army has firmly controlled the Bismarck Islands, and is still constructing large-scale construction projects at Rabaul on New Britain Island, preparing to build it into Japan's major stronghold in the South Pacific. The Japanese Army's 8th Front and the Navy's Southeast Front Fleet are now stationed there.

As for the Solomon Islands, they are now basically controlled by Japan. In this time and space, the United States lost Hawaii and was severely beaten by the German navy in the Atlantic Ocean. It was unable to compete with Japan for Guadalcanal Island. Therefore, important islands in the Solomon Islands such as Tulagi and Guadalcanal were also controlled by the Japanese army.

The forward strongholds of the US military in the South Pacific are on Espiritu Santo Island (belonging to Vanuatu), more than 500 nautical miles southeast of Guadalcanal, and New Caledonia near Espiritu Santo Island. These two large islands, together with Rockhampton, Gladstone, Downsway, and Cairns on the east coast of Australia, as well as Cape York at the northeastern tip of the Australian mainland, and Port Moresby, together form the defense line of the US and Australian troops in eastern Australia. .

If the Japanese navy can break through this line of defense, the war will be fought on the Australian mainland!

However, Navy Minister Shitaro Shimada frowned when Tojo Hideki asked him if he was sure.

"Your Excellency, Prime Minister," Shitaro Shimada said, "If we want to launch operations in Australia in the second half of 2018, the Navy will indeed have some difficulties. If we can advance the time to go south to Australia within the year, the Navy will be more confident."

"Oh? Why is that?"

Shimada shook his head and said: "Because the Zero fighter that the Navy currently relies on is increasingly losing its advanced nature, and the successor model '14 Test Fighter' is not very successful."

"14 Test Fighter" was the later "Thunder" fighter, a successor to the Zero designed by Jiro Horikoshi (the designer of the Zero). However, this aircraft is far less successful than the Zero. In addition to its better dive performance, better defense capabilities, strong firepower, and the ability to install high-power engines, it cannot be compared with the Zero. Moreover, during test flights, it was found that the drive shaft of this aircraft is prone to breakage and its reliability is also problematic.

Hideki Tojo also heard about the failure of "14 Test Fighter". In fact, the Japanese Army's Type II fighter (Zhong Kui) is also unsatisfactory. Now it has to develop new fighters while trying to introduce German technology for improvement.

"Can we consider introducing new aircraft from Germany?" Tojo Hideki made a suggestion.

Shimada shook his head repeatedly and sighed: "Your Excellency Prime Minister, in fact, Germany's own new carrier-based fighter Fw-190T is not very successful. If it were not for the 2,000-horsepower BMW801S engine, this aircraft must have failed. But even the Fw-190T, which was barely successful, was far inferior to the Zero in terms of its hovering performance and low-altitude performance.”

The Fw-190T is a carrier-based aircraft developed by Fokker based on the Fw-190A-4. Although it still uses the name Fw-190, it is actually very different from the Fw-190A-4. The aerodynamic shape has been greatly modified so that it can take off and land on aircraft carriers. It also increased the capacity of the internal fuel tank and designed foldable wings.

However, after many improvements, the Fokker Company and the German Naval Air Force still regretfully found that the aircraft's combat capabilities at mid- and low-altitudes were not as good as the Fokker Zero, its range was not comparable to the latter, and its climb was comparable. Only high-altitude performance, dive performance and bomb load exceed the Fokker Zero. Therefore, it is impossible for this aircraft to replace the Fokker Zero and can only exist as a supplement to the Fokker Zero.

In the end, this aircraft was used as a medium-altitude escort aircraft and was accepted by the German Naval Aviation. It is said that its greatest role is to cooperate with the Ju288, allowing the latter to drop Fritz-X remote-controlled glide bombs at an altitude of 7,000 meters - this tactic It was very effective in the Atlantic Ocean. Anyway, the British and American fleets avoided the Ju288's combat radius throughout the spring and summer.

However, the method of using ultra-long-range land bombers to drop remote-controlled gliding bombs cannot be used in the Pacific. Because the Pacific Ocean is much larger than the Atlantic Ocean, a combat radius of more than 2,000 kilometers is very powerful in the Atlantic Ocean, but it is still not enough in the Pacific Ocean.

Moreover... the Germans have no spare Ju288 to sell to Japan. This ultra-long-range, high-altitude, high-speed bomber will never be enough for the German Air Force and Naval Aviation!

As for Japan's own imitation, it is impossible. They can't do it with just one engine. The Japanese have not even fully understood the 12-cylinder DB601 liquid-cooled engine. Is it impossible to imitate the 24-cylinder Jumo222 series engine?

Shitaro Shimada was very worried and said: "The progress of the successor aircraft of the Zero is slow. At the same time, the Americans have many excellent models in service. Their P51 is enough to fight against the Zero at medium and low altitudes, and this P51 fighter It has a large bomb load and a sturdy fuselage and can be used as a fighter-bomber.

In addition, according to German intelligence, a carrier-based fighter code-named F4U, which may have superior performance than the Fw-190T, is likely to have entered service. This kind of aircraft may not be as good as the Zero in low-altitude combat, but it is also difficult for the Zero to destroy it.

If the Navy seeks a decisive battle with the US Navy in the second half of 2018, the situation will be quite unfavorable. "

Since the Fokker Zero has been arrogant in Europe from 1939 to the present, its performance has long been understood by its opponents. In low- and medium-altitude combat, except for the P51, which can compete (that is, fight against it), no other aircraft can. But as long as you raise the altitude, avoid the Fokker Zero or adopt a dive attack, you can still deal with the Fokker Zero.

"Then the navy means..." Tojo Hideki looked at Shitaro Shimada.

"The decisive battle should be provoked as soon as possible, the sooner the better!" Shimada said, "The repairs of the Yamato have now been completed, the Musashi has been commissioned, and the advanced nature of the Zero fighter has not been completely lost. Therefore, the combined fleet is now in a state of The strongest state!”