readx; At that time, China had 60 standing infantry divisions, and in order to deal with the Chinese threat, it was said that "Ben also set up 30 standing divisions." It is worth mentioning that the standing division is not a combat division, the standing division is only said to be established all year round and always maintained, but in peacetime only the backbone is maintained, and after the outbreak www.biquge.info of war, new recruits are quickly mobilized to participate in the battle, while the combat readiness division is to maintain combat readiness all year round, fully equipped, and can be put into battle without mobilization and replenishment.

Later, the army wanted to continue to reinforce the Ryukyus, but it was intercepted by the second mobile fleet, and not only was it unable to reach the Ryukyus, but it was also sunk more than 20 transport ships, thousands of officers and soldiers, and a large amount of supplies were sunk into the sea, and this was the Amami Naval Battle.

After the Battle of Amami, the generals of the Honkai refused to take the initiative to go to the waters around Ryukyu and Amami, which were heavily ambushed, and without the escort of the navy, large-scale reinforcements would be in vain.

Therefore, by the beginning of the war, the Ryukyu Islands had a total of three divisions and two reading brigades. In addition to the regular army units, there are also base forces and paramilitary forces, which were originally civilian signs, but have become a base brigade and several militia brigades, and of course these auxiliary forces are extremely limited in combat effectiveness and do not play an important role in the war.

These units were all under the command of the 37th Army, and the commander of the 37th Army, Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, served as the commander-in-chief of the defense of the Ryukyus.

Lieutenant General Ushijima Man, after referring to many landing and anti-landing operations on the Pacific islands, especially the Battle of Ryukyu Island in the Second Sino-Japanese War, proposed that since the air and sea superiority in the field had been lost, and the ground forces could only be passively relied on for defense, the main defense line should be abandoned, and the main defense line should be deployed in the inland area, especially the southern area of Ryukyu Island, which is centered on Shuri, the main city of the Ryukyus, which is full of rocks and has complex terrain.

In fact, it was also the strategy of Ushijima that made the landing operation of the Chinese Ryukyu Front so smooth, otherwise I don't know how many people would have been killed or wounded.

However, although the casualties in the landing phase were not large, there were a large number of casualties in the subsequent offensive phase!

Faced with this situation, Zhao Zhike immediately ordered the troops to suspend the attack, and then called on naval artillery and aircraft to carry out large-scale bombing, and then asked the Fifth Mobile Fleet to cooperate with the front army to completely blockade the Ryukyu Islands.

Zhao Zhike's idea is very simple, anyway, he is not in a hurry, slowly consumed, anyway, he can afford it, and he must not be able to afford it, it won't take long, wait for the last month and say, "My ammunition is estimated to be about the same, and it is estimated that there will be no food in two or three months, and if it is surrounded for half a year, it is estimated that the person on the island will starve to death."

Zhao Zhike was not in a hurry, and the Ryukyu Front naturally would not continue to launch large-scale attacks, but the large-scale attacks were gone, and the small-scale battles were going on.

Although the ground fighting on the Ryukyu Islands was not fierce, the bombing campaign over the mainland was in full swing.

The reason why the Ryukyu Front was able to operate so smoothly when it landed in the Ryukyus was inseparable from the strong support of the air force and naval aviation, which was not only about air cover and bombing operations over the Ryukyu Islands, but also about the various bombing operations of the air force against the mainland.

Since the Ryukyus are only a few hundred nautical miles away from the mainland, if China decides to launch a landing operation against the Ryukyus, it has already taken into account that it will be intercepted by its own air forces, so it is proposed that it must ensure the destruction of the air forces in the southern part of the mainland before landing.

This kind of demand overlaps with the strategic bombing mission carried out by the Air Force, and from the very beginning of the war, when the Navy and the Army have not yet participated in the war, the strategic bombers of the Air Force have already begun to carry out strategic bombing operations against the Air Force. At the same time, in order to ensure the safety of the bomber group's follow-up bombing, the air force at that time bombed airfields, air defense facilities, radar facilities, and other targets in the first few days of the bombing campaign, so as to ensure that a sudden sortie would wipe out the air force in the southern part of the bomber group on the ground. It was only after the suppressive bombing of air defense forces in the current period that the Air Force's strategic bombers switched their bombing targets to various aircraft factories, tank factories, and shipyards, and the bombs used for bombing also changed from traditional aerial bombs to incendiary bombs

The reason for the large number of incendiary bombs was mainly the change of bombing targets, and the bombing targets at the beginning of the war were mainly the air defense bases in the homeland, mainly at airfields, and the purpose was to strangle the local air defense forces. Now, in the case of follow-up bombing, the target of the bombing has been changed to the industrial force called "Ben", or even to launch indiscriminate bombing of cities. Anyone who knows a little about the historical Pacific War should know that the Americans dropped tens of thousands of tons of incendiary bombs on the Japanese bombs, causing more damage than nuclear bombs. Originally, this incendiary bomb could not have achieved very good results in other countries, but the structure of the houses in Ben was mostly made of wood, and this incendiary bomb could burn down an entire block of Ben.

With these factors in place, the pair said that they would not use incendiary bombs to carry out strategic bombing!

On 6 July, after carrying out an experimental incendiary bombardment of Nagasaki and other cities in the southwestern part of the country, Chen Jingyun personally issued instructions to Air Marshal Wu Shizhong: He asked the Air Force to carry out a large-scale bombing campaign capable of threatening domestic and foreign enemies and demonstrating China's great military might.

Although he didn't say it explicitly, Wu Shizhong knew that Chen Jingyun was going to let the Air Force bomb Tokyo!

Although the Air Force's strategic bombing of the Origin has lasted for a month, the bombing has mainly hit the southwestern region of the Confessional Territory, and has also bombed some important industrial areas in the central part of the Metropolitan Territory.

On July 11, at an air base in Vladivostok, rows of huge B16 bombers lined up at the airfield, which were already loaded with ammunition and fuel, waiting for the order to take off.

Dozens of minutes later, when the 27th Wing received the formal combat order, it took off one after another, and one after another B11 bombers took off, and then after forming over the airport, the B16 bombers of more than 90 planes formed a formation and flew to the sea in the southeast direction.

At the same time, a large number of B16 bombers took off from several airfields in northern North Korea, and then, together with other B16 bombers taking off from Vladivostok Air Base, gathered two waves of bombing strategic bombers in the front and back, totaling more than 400 planes.

Since Tokyo is far away from China's Xindong Province and North Korea, the direct air force distance from Vladivostok Air Base is more than 1,000 kilometers, and the air distance from north-central Korea is about 1,000 kilometers. Because the distance was too far, the Air Force did not send B11 bombers to participate in this operation.

Although the maximum range of the B11 bomber is as high as 3,500 kilometers, and although it can also bomb Tokyo with its range, its bomb load is not much at the maximum range, and the time it has to stay in the air is relatively short. In addition, when drawing up an air route to bomb Tokyo, the Air Force was preparing to enter directly from the north-central part of the island in order to avoid the southwestern region where the air defense fire was intensive, and it was necessary to fly in a circle in order to avoid the interception of the air defense fire.

In addition, the Chinese Air Force's strategic bombing is not only in the north-central part of Honshu Island, such as Tokyo, but also in the southwestern part of Kyushu Island and Honshu Island, and considering the range factor, the Air Force is to deploy a large number of B11 bombers in the Korean region, and then carry out bombing missions against Kyushu Island and the southwestern part of Honshu Island, while the central and northern areas of Honshu Island, which are far away, are undertaken by B16 bombers.

After all, compared to the B11 bomber, the B16 bomber has a longer range, with a maximum range of up to 5,500 kilometers, and bombing a Tokyo is not a problem for the B16 bomber at all, and it can also have a rich take-off weight to carry more bombs.

For example, the B16 bomber claims to have a maximum range of 5,500 kilometers and a maximum bomb load of eight tons. However, this does not mean that it can fly 5,500 kilometers with an eight-ton bomb, these two data are inversely proportional, the longer the range, the lower the bomb load, and the larger the bomb load, the lower the range, because this involves the maximum take-off weight of the aircraft and the load fuel consumption. The maximum take-off weight of the B16 bomber is 57 tons, and its own empty weight is 31 tons.

In the case of the bombing of Tokyo, for example, the bomb load set by the Air Force was far less than the maximum bomb load, but was limited to carrying six tons of bombs, and if it carried another six tons of bombs, the B16 bomber could achieve a range of 4,000 kilometers.

Comparatively, the Chinese B16 bomber is inferior to the American B29 in terms of surname, and is roughly located between the B24 and B29.

But then again, the American B29 is nothing compared to the Chinese B19 bomber that is still in top secret, well, the biggest difference is the cost, the latest B19 purchase price in 1944 is four million Chinese dollars. The Chinese B16 bomber of the same era is about 800,000 yuan, while the American B29, which is of the same grade as the B16 but has a slightly higher surname, is 600,000 US dollars.

During the war, the exchange rate conversion is more troublesome, but if you compare it with the real thing, it is that one B19 can be exchanged for five B16, and B16 and B29 are of the same grade, and China and the United States spend the same resources to manufacture these two bombers, so it can be said that one B19 can be exchanged for five B29.

And this is only the logical unit price of the purchase, in fact, the B19 is expensive not only because the purchase unit price is expensive, its maintenance cost is also extremely high, the Chinese Air Force in order to maintain the existing more than 50 B19 strategic bombers cost about the same as the cost of maintaining two B16 bomber wings.