Although the Japanese Navy lost a fortune in the Pacific War, it is fair to say that if it were not for the progress of the times and the sudden innovation in military technology, the Japanese Navy could still be said to be one of the strongest navies at that time.

Even though it is inferior to the US Navy in terms of numbers, the Japanese Navy is not inferior to the US Navy in terms of training or combat effectiveness in weapons and equipment. The difference between the two sides, this is only in quantity.

Before the start of the war, the Japanese Navy practiced hard in gunnery, and was better than the US Navy in terms of artillery hit rate and firing rate.

So, when the US Navy fleet opened fire, the Japanese fleet was silent. They knew that it was impossible to hit the target at this range, and that blind shooting would only demoralize them prematurely.

"Keep going! We don't have to fight back! Let's wait until the Americans have had enough! The Japanese naval commander sitting on the cruiser Mogami ordered confidently.

His fleet was much larger than the American fleet, and now he had Mogami in his possession, which had been converted into a heavy cruiser, and the battleship Mikuma!

On the American side, it seems that there is only one light cruiser, and the rest are just some destroyers that cannot be put on the table, and both sides have a clear advantage in terms of the caliber of artillery and the number of guns.

"Shelling, they are not opponents! Just hold your breath! If they pin their hopes on torpedoes, they will soon realize that they have the wrong idea! Standing in his command position, the Japanese naval officer said triumphantly.

His adjutant stood beside him, bowed his head and said: "You are right, I have given the order to be ready for battle, and soon they will realize that they have made a serious mistake. ”

In the eyes of these Japanese commanders, whether it was artillery or torpedoes, the cards in his hands were much, much stronger than the other side.

When it comes to torpedoes, it has to be said that the Japanese Navy has its own path of leapfrog development.

The mainstream naval powers are all developing their naval systems step by step, and finally using the stacking of numbers to form their own naval combat effectiveness.

The Japanese Navy is not, it is to build an entire naval fleet around one or two advanced weapons, so that the naval fleet can create an environment for the use of advanced weapons, so as to improve combat capabilities.

In the short term, this method is very suitable, but if you measure it in the long run, it cannot guarantee that advanced weapons will continue to be advanced, and the entire fleet will fall into passivity.

Throughout the history of the Pacific War in World War II, it was the collapse of the Japanese Navy's tactics that led to the collapse of the Navy.

After World War I, Japan, which had not been accepted into the system of great powers, was determined to develop new weapons under the existing technological conditions, and was bent on surprising the United States and Great Britain after the war.

Japan's vigorous development of naval aviation is a microcosm of this tactical development, but naval aviation alone is neither insurance nor sufficient.

Before the launch of World War II, the Japanese Navy had a whole set of theories, and formed its own characteristic tactics around the advanced equipment they developed.

This was an effective and reasonable tactical system for the limited and resourced Japanese Empire.

Before the outbreak of war, they developed an advanced torpedo system, which is known as the spear torpedo.

Around spears and torpedoes, large-caliber naval guns, and naval aviation, the Japanese Navy has painstakingly practiced the invincible three-plate axe tactics in the world!

In the script written by the Japanese Navy, its own naval aviation at a distance can be used as the first axe to consume the enemy's sea power.

Then it entered the stage of artillery battle between the two sides, in which the skilled artillery and sailors were mainly relied on to cause problems for the enemy.

Immediately afterwards, when the two sides were fighting without a victory, the deadly killer weapon painstakingly developed by Japan appeared: advanced torpedoes tore through the opponent's battle line, disrupted the enemy's formation, sank the enemy's capital ship, and established victory in the naval battle in one fell swoop!

In this script, the Japanese Navy's artillery warfare level has been repeatedly strengthened, and it is not weaker than the Royal Navy of the old maritime empire of Britain, and even better than that of the emerging maritime power such as the United States.

The Japanese Navy around 1941 could be said to be invincible in the world in terms of gunnery. At that time, the Japanese Navy had the highest quality and largest number of gunners, which was proud of the others.

According to the Washington Naval Treaty, the tonnage ratio of the capital ships of Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy was 5:5:3:1.75:1.75, and this ratio also included battle cruisers.

That's right, Japan is the 3 in it! That is, the number of capital ships of the Japanese Navy is only three-fifths that of the US Navy! If this system is not broken, then Japan will always be the weak side in the future!

Under the restrictions of this treaty, the Japanese navy was significantly smaller in number than the US navy, so Japan's attempt to dominate the western Pacific and establish a greater East Asian co-prosperity sphere fell through.

After being unable to achieve equal strength in terms of quantity, the Japanese Navy began to take the line of building up its army by quality, striving to improve the actual combat capability of each warship, which is why each of the Japanese Navy's warships had to pile up as many naval guns as possible.

The Japanese Navy played a small abacus, secretly slightly raising the caliber of its own naval guns and concealing the sailing speed of naval warships, which is why the caliber of the main guns on the battleship Nagato was 410 mm in a nondescript manner, instead of 406 mm in the mainstream of the world's navies......

This kind of stealing continued until the Yamato-class battleships were launched, and the Japanese Navy played such a slightly higher level on each battleship, but anyone with a discerning eye knew that all this could not fundamentally improve the combat capability of the Japanese Navy.

Therefore, the solution has to be thought of from other aspects. According to the Washington Naval Treaty, the Japanese battleships could only reach 60% of the tonnage of the United States, and the number was even more vast.

Japan had 6 battleships and 4 battlecruisers with a total tonnage of 301,320 tons; The United States had 18 battleships with a total tonnage of 525,850 tons - almost twice the number of capital ships of the US Navy as the Japanese Navy.

Because of this, Japan's decisive battle at sea is tantamount to hitting a stone with an egg. Finding a way to reduce the number of enemy warships became a top priority for the Japanese Navy.