March 17, 1943, 9:45 p.m. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Eastern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Ecuador, 180 nautical miles. The light of several dazzling searchlights pierced the dark night, like several lightsabers, straight into the sky.

A large Japanese fleet aircraft carrier with a full load displacement of more than 40,000 tons turned on its searchlight in a sea area close to the Panama Canal, full of American reconnaissance planes and submarines, which was almost dying!

However, at this time, the little Hersman who was on this aircraft carrier knew that the commander of the First Mobile Fleet, Jizaburo Ozawa, was really a last resort.

The losses of the 1st Mobile Fleet in this Panamanian naval battle were simply too great...... In addition to the two Soryu-class aircraft carriers, it may take some time for medium-sized aircraft carriers such as the Soryu-class and the Yunryu-class (an evolution of the Soryu) to be built by a Japanese shipyard, but if it is built by a shipyard in the European Community, it will take 18 months from the laying of the keel to completion.

Now that Britain itself has become a member of the European Community, the European Community's shipbuilding capacity is very rich, and it is not a problem to start 10 or 20 ships at a time. The question is simply whether the Japanese are willing to give up money -- after all, Germany is not an American tyrant and cannot afford to play the "Lend-Lease Act" and can only engage in "barter trade," so Japan must come up with something valuable in exchange......

Of course, in the face of the survival of the country, money is not a problem. So what Japan lacks now is not aircraft carriers, but pilots who fly carrier-based aircraft! And Japan's biggest loss in this Panamanian naval battle was not 2 medium aircraft carriers, and the pilots on the aircraft carriers.

What about other aircraft carriers, Little Hesman doesn't know, but the situation on the Akagi, Little Hesman is clear. This morning, there were 72 regular aircraft and 18 reserve aircraft on board the Akagi, but now there are only 35 planes left on this aircraft carrier! Of these, there are only 10 carrier-based fighters, 19 carrier-based dive bombers, 6 carrier-based torpedo attack aircraft with no crews, and 2 pilots of the Zero fighters without aircraft (there are still some pilots with parachutes).

In other words, there are still 41 crew members who have not returned, including Hirschman's good friend Shigeru Itaya, who has now been confirmed as a god by the Akagi Air Force, but Hesman Jr. believes that Shigeru Itaya will most likely eat in an American prisoner of war camp.

However, this is irrelevant to Jizaburo Ozawa, for Ozawa, the crew of the Zero ship battle and the comet ship explosion that have not returned now have been lost...... The Japanese Navy will not let seaplanes risk searching for and rescuing pilots who have fallen overboard. If you count only the captain with the greatest value, the losses so far have been as high as 182 people!

If all the unreturned Tien Shan torpedo bombers are abandoned, then the losses will be as high as 290 people, which is almost two-thirds of the number of commanders of carrier-based aircraft (aircraft carriers) of the 1st Mobile Fleet.

That's two-thirds of the most elite naval pilots in Japan! If you want to evaluate Little Hersman, the value of these 290 people is definitely more than 4 Canglong-class aircraft carriers.

Moreover, Germany and the European Community can build aircraft carriers for Japan, but it is impossible to replenish Japan with 290 elite pilots. Because Germany's own elite pilots were also limited in number, they had to deal with the operations in the Atlantic theater and the Soviet-German theater, and they were not much rich.

Therefore, when the Akagi ventured to open the searchlight and wait, all the hull decks on the sea were full of people waiting for the return of the fighters, and there were many Japanese devils who were chanting words as if praying to Amaterasu.

"Your Excellency, Commander! The radar detected the group, which was flying from the southeast, numbering more than 50 and at a distance of 100 kilometers......"

Someone suddenly shouted on the bridge of the Akagi aircraft carrier, and Jizaburo Ozawa, who was looking out of the bridge with his neck tilted, immediately turned his head and asked, "Is it our plane?" ”

"Recognizing."

At this time, the aircraft had friend or foe identification devices, which were actually a set of radio question and answer machines, with interrogators installed on the ground/ships and answering machines installed on their own planes. After the radar finds the target, the interrogator on the ground/ship sends a coded signal, and the transponder on the aircraft can decrypt the signal and then answer. Such a set of systems is also available on Japanese aircraft and surface ships at present.

"It's our plane!" After a short while, the radar officer on the Akagi shouted again, "Commander, it's our plane...... They're finally back! ”

It's back, it's back, but not 108, it's 56.

Although the 108 attack planes on the Tien Shan warships dispatched by Ozawa were very careful to fly at an ultra-low altitude and evade the radar of the Americans, they also happened to encounter the US military's own planes returning home. So the Americans were taken by surprise and successfully blew up several airfields.

However, the American anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns arranged on the banks of the canal sluices played a role in the surprise attack of the Japanese planes, causing heavy losses to the Tianshan attack planes that flew at low altitude to drop torpedoes!

It is no exaggeration to say that the 4 destroyed canal sluice gates were all bought for the lives of Japanese pilots!

Naturally, the 52 Tianshan attack planes and the 156 crew members on board were all gods. Therefore, March 17 is really the day when the Japanese naval aviation becomes a god.

"233 captains...... What a loss! ”

Seeing the last attack plane on the Tianshan ship safely landing on the deck of the Akagi, Jizaburo Ozawa turned his head and smiled bitterly at the chief of staff Furumura Keizo beside him. And he said, "Now, the officer is a sinner of the United Fleet and the Empire...... With 2 aircraft carriers plus 233 crews, the vitality of the combined fleet is greatly damaged! ”

"No, Your Excellency Commander, you are a hero of the Empire!" Furumura gritted his teeth and said, "No one will see you as a sinner, because the battle of Panama is already very difficult. At the beginning of the war, Chief Yamamoto predicted that even if the surprise attack was successful, our initiative in the Pacific would be maintained for a maximum of 12 months, which was caused by the gap in national strength and could not be completely compensated by fighting hard...... Now that our initiative has been maintained for more than 15 months, His Excellency the Commander has now commanded the fleet to destroy the locks of the Panama Canal, which has allowed us to extend our initiative for another 6-10 months. With these 6-10 months, the defense of the Hawaiian Islands should be impregnable.

Therefore, the heroes and martyrs who have become gods today have no regrets! ”

Jizaburo Ozawa sighed softly, in fact, he did not make any mistakes in today's command, and he also successfully completed the task of blowing up the locks...... If those pilots of the Tianshan naval attack did not lie.

And the loss of the 1st Mobile Fleet, although there is an element of bad luck, but the main reason is the strength of the enemy!

"The United States is as powerful as we imagined!" Jizaburo Ozawa smiled bitterly, "It seems that the bitter battle between the Combined Fleet and the Japanese Empire is about to begin." ”

"Immediately?" Furumura Keizang was stunned, "The Panama Canal has been destroyed......"

"But the United States still has two large aircraft carriers in the Pacific, at least four light aircraft carriers, and a large number of escort aircraft carriers." Ozawa sighed, "According to intelligence, most of the U.S. escort aircraft carriers were built in Seattle and Portland on the West Coast. ”

"But those are just escort carriers." Keizo Furumura said.

Ozawa Jizaburo's "grandma face" wrinkled and said, "Furumura-kun, don't you understand?" In the eyes of the Americans, aircraft carriers are just consumables, and now the Americans and we are fighting for consumption.

In today's air battles, the exchange ratio between our aircraft and the United States is likely to be less than 1:1, and the United States can equip and train aviation units that are 10 times larger than ours! If you are the commander of the US Navy, will you give up the opportunity to fight with us because the aircraft carrier is too small and thin? ”

……

"233 crews, 2 aircraft carriers......"

On March 18, the Chief of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht Hersmann watched his son Hersmann Jr. take advantage of the report sent by the radio on the Emperor Frederick III, and only exhaled lightly, smiled at Halder, Wivell and Raeder in his office, and said: "Fortunately, we took the British mainland in time, otherwise these American planes would have used the British mainland as a base against us sooner or later." ”

The outbreak of the Americans was actually expected by Hesman, and if the atomic bomb was not considered in World War II, to put it bluntly, it would be oil! Both the Axis and Allied camps actually have enough mechanized equipment production capacity, the question is whether there is enough oil to start them?

At present, the United States has the largest oil production, about 260 million tons a year, the Soviet Union has more than 40 million tons, Germany controls more than 40 million tons, and Japan controls about 8 million tons.

That is to say, the Axis powers have 50 million tons of oil on their side, and the Allies now have 300 million tons on the side!

The United States and the Soviet Union also have a 6-fold advantage!

If Britain had not knelt down in January, as long as the United States could have beaten the fighter plane exchange ratio with Germany to 1.5:1 or even 2:1, the United States would still have to fight this war in Europe.

Even now, the United States cannot say that there is no chance at all. As long as the Soviet Union can consume Germany enough, the United States will still have a chance to counterattack the European continent. It's just that the losses will be greater, the time will be longer, and most of the time there will be no victory - after all, Germany will definitely have an atomic bomb by then!

So the question now is whether Stalin fell first, or whether Emperor Hirohito of Japan became MacArthur's gray grandson first.

If the USSR kneeled, the United States would not have been able to fight the war even if it had several times as much oil. Because at that time, the United States was almost at war with the whole world. At that time, summing will be the only option for the United States.

If Emperor Hirohito had knelt first, then Hersmann's European community would have had a good headache in the future...... (To be continued.) )