After repeated setbacks, the Japanese base camp command finally made up its mind that no matter how great the losses were, the matter must be put to an end as soon as possible. But the outcome of the battle was unbelievable to the entire Shijie. After entering 1938, the North China Air Corps gained the upper hand in the battles with the Japanese air forces, and it was not surprising that two or three hundred fighters defeated less than 700 Japanese planes (including more than 400 fighters) with the support of anti-aircraft fire, but to the side of the great powers, the only torpedo plane among the bombers that could pose a major threat to the battleship, performed in this battle simply miserable

Of the more than 120 torpedo planes of the Japanese army in this campaign, only 4 successfully dropped aviation torpedoes (Note 1), and the rest were all shot down early. First of all, since three of the four large ships were repaired at the shipyard, Hu Weidong naturally attached great importance to the air defense work of the shipyard, and not only concentrated all the warships near the dock to protect them, but also transferred all the large-caliber anti-aircraft guns of the army, adding up to no less than 150 pieces, and with the help of gun-sighting radar and proximity fuse, the combat effectiveness was equivalent to two or three thousand anti-aircraft guns of the same caliber in the early stage of World War II in history, and the speed of the Japanese torpedo bombers was extremely slow (the maximum speed of the latest model was 350 km/n/hh. hours), if it weren't for the cover of other aircraft, I was afraid that they would all be shot down before they even entered the attack distance

On the one hand, because there is no cover of other aircraft at low altitudes, but also because torpedo bombers need to maintain a fixed altitude, course and speed at low altitude (within 100 meters from the sea surface) before dropping torpedoes, and they have to fly within 2,000 meters from the warship to have a certain hit rate. Torpedo bombers are almost the same as fixed targets, especially the small-caliber anti-aircraft guns that Hu Weidong modified for various ships not only have high accuracy and a high rate of fire (the maximum rate of fire of many small-caliber anti-aircraft guns in World War II in history is not slow, but because of the design defects such as the way of feeding ammunition, dozens or even a dozen rounds have to be stopped for a while to reload, and the actual rate of fire is far from that of modern small-caliber anti-aircraft guns. The speed is far beyond this era, and the gunner feels as if he is training to shoot a target, as long as he does not slip his hand, the hit rate is almost 100 percent

Moreover, the "Phalanx" multi-barrel anti-aircraft machine guns in this battle failed to shoot down even a single torpedo bomber because of their insufficient range, and the close-range anti-aircraft fire was actually much weaker than under normal circumstances.

This battle also made Hu Weidong realize the serious defect that the range of anti-aircraft machine guns was too close, so the new "phalanx" system equipped with all ships was modified from 25 anti-aircraft machine guns, which not only greatly increased the effective range and firing height of close-range air defense, but also far from being comparable to anti-aircraft machine guns

Unwilling to be defeated, the devils launched a number of air raids in the following days, but all of them were lost, and the Qingdao air defense force achieved even more brilliant results, shooting down nearly 700 Japanese planes (not counting the results of the air force). Even though Japan's aircraft production capacity was increasing at a rate of almost doubling every year, it was still a bit unbearable to face such heavy losses, because although the aircraft were easy to build, so many pilots were killed or captured in battle (Note 2), which was an unhealable wound for the Japanese air force, which greatly admired the strategy of elite soldiers. What's more, the devils only sank 3 destroyers in these air raids, and the two battleships they valued the most were not substantially damaged at all, and the deal was a big deal

In these days of fighting, the Japanese torpedo bombers achieved nothing but the accidental sinking of a destroyer, and almost all of them were destroyed under the enemy's unprecedentedly powerful anti-aircraft fire. The horizontal bombers, which were second only to torpedo planes in the threat to battleships, were attacked by the fighter group of the North China Air Corps because their targets were too large, and in the end less than one-fifth of the total number of bombs were able to be dropped, and only three enemy ships were hit, which was not enough to destroy the basic structure of the two battleships. Although the hit rate of those dive bombers is much higher, because they can only carry 400 kg of bombs, it is more difficult to cause substantial damage to the battleship, and unlike the damage caused by torpedoes, the bombs mainly blow up the deck and superstructure, as long as the injuries are not too serious, even if there is no large enough dock, Qingdao shipyard has the same way to repair it

Originally, after the Chinese air force bombed and sank many of Japan's capital ships, the senior officials of the navies of most of the great powers began to realize the huge potential value of aircraft carriers, but the poor performance of Japanese torpedo planes in these air raids caused the decision-making level of the navies of various countries to quickly turn back to the "giant ship cannon doctrine"

Note 1: Two of the four missed, and one hit the battleship Kirishima that had just been captured, but this aviation torpedo was not an oxygen torpedo, although it avoided the risk of early explosion, but the probability of dumb fire was much higher, and as a result, one torpedo hit no movement, and the other one was blocked by a destroyer, which was also the only result of the Japanese bombing. However, although the power of the aviation torpedo is on the small side, it is already very terrible for a destroyer with a displacement of only about 2,000 tons, and the entire warship was immediately blown into two pieces and sunk to the bottom of the sea, and almost all the officers and men on board died heroically

Note 2: Due to the influence of those devil pilots who were put back before, and the Japanese army base camp was also worried about the loss of old pilots, and began to ask pilots to cherish their lives, and now after the Japanese plane was shot down, the proportion of devil pilots choosing to parachute to escape instead of dying together is getting higher and higher, and after being discovered by the Chinese people, they are not as stubborn as before, so in the battles of the past few days, an unprecedented number of Japanese pilots have been caught in the first theater, with a total of no less than 800 (to be continued.)

!