The Rise of the Third Reich

"Hmph, do you want to surround Japan and then torture it slowly?"

Tojo saw through Roosevelt's wishful thinking at a glance. The basis of Japan's current hegemony in the Pacific, apart from the combined fleet that is short of fuel and carrier-based aircraft pilots, is the Hawaiian Islands guarding the gateway to the central Pacific and the Malacca Strait guarding the western maritime gateway of Greater East Asia.

As long as Japan controlled the Hawaiian Islands, the United States would be contained on the east coast of the Pacific. Likewise, if the Straits of Malacca were firmly under Japan's control, Europe would be blocked from Greater East Asia. In this way, Japan will have a huge and wealthy living space to develop and grow. In at most one generation, Japan will grow into a country powerful enough to compete with the United States and Europe!

If the Strait of Malacca and the Hawaiian Islands fall into the hands of the United States, the Philippines will also be returned to the United States. Considering the strong industrial scale of the United States and the numerical advantage of the Pacific Fleet, the Pacific Ocean will actually fall under the control of the United States.

Japan's territory in the East Indies is also blocked by the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines controlled by the United States. In addition, transportation between the United States and the East Asian continent will be unimpeded...

In this way, Japan is not only in a dangerous situation surrounded by the United States and other hostile forces, but may also be in danger of being attacked from both sides at any time!

"Your Excellency, Prime Minister," Foreign Minister Aoi Shigemitsu, who reported the progress of the peace talks to Hideki Tojo, looked very worried, "Although the U.S. conditions are harsh, they are not without room for negotiation. If the independence of the Philippines and Malaya can be ensured, As well as neutrality, we can completely withdraw from those areas.

After all... the situation of the war has gradually become serious. "

The situation of the war is not gradually getting serious, but it is very serious!

Due to the retreat of the Japanese navy in the North Pacific, a vast and critical sea area was completely out of control. The U.S. Navy did not miss this opportunity. At least two breakup fleets with two "Independence" class aircraft carriers as the core broke into the Western Pacific!

However, what really caused heavy losses to Japan was not the two break-up aircraft carrier formations, but the scope of activities of the U.S. submarine supply ships. Because the Japanese bases on Amakonak Island and Unalaska Island were suppressed, And in one fell swoop, it advanced 2,000 nautical miles to the west. This expands the range of activities of large American ocean-going submarines based in the United States with an endurance of more than 10,000 nautical miles to the vicinity of the Strait of Malacca.

This substantial expansion of the scope of submarine activities reached a new high in the losses of Japanese merchant ships in November 1943.

Faced with the rising number of merchant ship losses, the Japanese Navy was helpless because it did not have enough destroyers to escort, and there were not enough large reconnaissance aircraft to patrol the Nanyang Islands.

The huge gap in national strength has now been fully reflected in the Pacific battlefield. Although Japan has powerful aircraft carriers and battleships, and its heavy cruiser force is not weak, it cannot build a large light cruiser and destroyer force.

Among them, the total number of destroyers is only more than 200. They are mainly first-class destroyers used to participate in fleet decisive battles. There are only more than 100 second-class and third-class destroyers used for anti-submarine escort (these are mostly old-fashioned reserve ships), and anti-submarine It has very weak capabilities and often falls prey to American submarines.

Hessmann was worried for the Japanese for a while, and also instructed the Naval Armament Bureau to provide Germany's most advanced sonar system to Japan, and gave the Japanese samples and drawings for them to copy.

But until November 1943, Japanese destroyers were still using Type 93 sound detectors and Type 93 audio receivers that were copied from Virtue products in the 1930s. Moreover, many ships used to perform escort missions do not even have Type 93 sounders and Type 93 listening devices, and rely entirely on the eyes of "cat-eye warriors" to search for underwater submarines...

Faced with this dangerous situation of tight transportation lines, the Japanese Navy did not find ways to acquire more destroyers and frigates (escorting destroyers), but instead pinned all its hopes on "Operation Jie-1".

"You can talk to them." Tojo Hideki did not tell Aoi Shigemitsu, the foreign minister, about the contents of the "Operation Czech No. 1" plan. "According to the conditions you just proposed... Shige-kun, you go to Switzerland and the American Ambassador in person. Kennedy met. Set off around December 10th, and don’t end the negotiations before December 30th.”

"Before December 30th..." When Shigemitsu Aoi heard this, she knew that Tojo Hideki had no intention of making peace with the Americans, and sending herself to Switzerland was just a cover-up. However, he still nodded heavily: "Please rest assured, Prime Minister, the peace talks will continue before December 30."

…

At a military airport near the city of Brandenburg, Germany, a small jet aircraft with a slender fuselage, a pair of seemingly very short wings and an even shorter tail slid onto an extra-long concrete runway. on, and finally came to a steady stop at the end of the runway.

Several ground staff drove a small truck to the small plane. They moved two ladders from the truck and put them on both sides of the small plane's cabin. At this time, the drop-shaped cabin cover of the small plane had been opened. There were two pilots sitting in the cabin, one behind the other, Rudolf and Minoru Genda.

Today was the first time in Genda's life that he flew the "Silver Death" man-operated missile produced by Rolls-Royce. Of course, he was flying a training missile with landing gear and a two-person cockpit.

In fact, this is a jet aircraft, but because the aerodynamic shape of this aircraft is very unfavorable for landing, only the best pilots can land it. And Rudolf happens to have such sophisticated skills - his air combat experience may not be top-notch (he has also won Blue Max, which is considered an ace), but his technology is definitely top-notch.

"Genda-kun," Rudolph seemed to be in a good mood after completing a perfect landing, "How do you feel?"

"Very bad!" Minoru Genda looked very unhappy and his face was a little pale. Although he was wearing a special anti-German suit, when Rudolf controlled the missile to dive at a high angle, Minoru Genda still had "black vision". Almost fell into coma.

"Just get used to it." Rudolf helped Genda, who was a little dizzy when walking, "It's not easy for anyone to bear such a heavy overload for the first time, and you are getting older."

"Ageing? Am I an old man?" Genda pushed Rudolph away with some dissatisfaction and staggered towards the small truck, but his heart was shrouded in sadness.

It's not because he's about to reach his fourth grade, but the more than a month of training has made him understand that neither jets nor silver death missiles are that easy to fly!

Without rigorous training, even with jets and Silver Death missiles, it is impossible to display their power.

The fuel consumption of jets and Silver Deaths is so astonishing. Just training for 400 people consumes 80,000 tons of aviation kerosene!

Based on Japan's current fuel supply situation, maintaining a "common scale" of 200 or 300 jet aircraft (actually, Germany's common scale of more than 100 Me262s in history) has come to an end. With this number, it is simply impossible to fight against the Americans' "aircraft sea" and "fleet sea".

And it seems unrealistic to imitate the "Silver Reaper" on a large scale. It's not that it can't be produced, but that the driver of the Silver Reaper is really difficult to train - Genda has discovered that using the "Silver Reaper" for "dive bombing" It is more difficult than using a liquid-cooled Comet dive bomber!

If a rookie pilot with no experience and poor skills were allowed to fly a fake "Silver Death", he might not even have a 10% hit rate, and there would be a greater chance of falling into the sea while flying.

Therefore, Japan now only has 180-200 "Silver Reapers" that are truly usable as combat power...

"Your Excellency, Marshal, the results of our research and the report of Colonel Genda Minoru all point out that the Silver Death is not suitable for us... Although this weapon is powerful, it is also very expensive. And it is impossible to hit without an elite pilot. "

Onishi Takijiro, who came down from the position of commander of the 10th Front Fleet (the fleet was disbanded), now serves as the General Secretary of the newly established Aircraft Directorate, responsible for integrating the aircraft production and research and development resources of the Army and Navy.

Genda Minoru's report on the "Silver Reaper" and Me262, as well as the technical department's report on the Silver Reaper and Me262, were finally sent to Onishi.

Yamamoto Isoroku was also reading the report written by Genda Minoru. The content above was the same as what Onishi said - the Silver Death was difficult to drive, and the Me262 was also difficult to fly. The Me262 was very inflexible and could not fight, and could only play "one-shot". "hit and leave", it is very powerful at mid-to-high altitudes, but not good at mid-to-low altitudes...

"What should we do?" Yamamoto Isoroku closed Genda Minoru's report, looked at Onishi Takijiro and asked, "Can we win the decisive battle in Hawaii with up to 200 Silver Deaths?"

200 missiles is indeed a little less...

"Invest the Zero special attack aircraft!" Onishi thought for a long time and put forward the suggestion of using the Zero aircraft for suicide attacks. "The Zero aircraft is easier to fly and can be flown after dozens of hours of training. And its range is It is also big enough. If it is loaded with explosives to hit a US aircraft carrier, it should be no less powerful than a Silver Reaper missile. I think... 1,000 Zero special attack aircraft and the Army's Falcon special attack aircraft can be assembled in the Hawaiian Islands."

"Okay!" Yamamoto Isoroku said, "That's it!"