Battle of the Third Reich Chapter 230: Sona, torpedo (middle)

The Ninety-Five Type Torpedo, the official designation within the Japanese Navy is "Nine-Five Type Acidic Torpedo" ("acid element" in Japanese means oxygen). This torpedo was born out of "the powerful ninety-three type acidic torpedo". It is an improved version based on the latter and specifically provided to Japanese submarines.

In order to adapt to the size of Japanese submarine torpedo tubes, Japanese designers reduced the length and diameter of the 93-type oxygen torpedo. The 93-type sour torpedo has a total length of 9 meters and a diameter of 610 mm. The warhead is filled with 490 kg of "type 97 explosive" (actually, the hexanite explosive invented by Germany before World War I). The Japanese submarine uses a British standard 21-inch torpedo tube, so the diameter of the 95-type torpedo can only be reduced to 533 mm, and the length is also reduced to 750 cm. In the warhead The charge of the torpedo has also been reduced to 400 kilograms accordingly, and the fuel carried by the torpedo has been reduced compared to the Type 93, resulting in the maximum range of this torpedo, which is only about two-thirds of the original "Lance".

"Lance" is the nickname given by the U.S. Navy to "the mighty 93-type sour torpedo" in history. At that time, the powerful United States Navy really suffered a lot from this torpedo. Because the Japanese Navy has done a good job of keeping secrets abroad, until half a year after the outbreak of the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. Navy still didn't know that there were torpedoes with super long range.

The 93-type oxygen torpedo is said to have been developed to deal with the US Pacific Fleet. The Japanese Navy has placed great expectations on this weapon, and even regarded it as a "secret decisive weapon." The combined fleet is the killer for winning the decisive battle in the Pacific Ocean.

After the Washington Treaty, in order to make up for the gap in the number of main ships, the Japanese Navy began to frantically arm her small and medium ships. Torpedoes were regarded by the Japanese navy as the most effective weapon for small and medium ships to deal with large warships. A torpedo with world-leading technical performance was developed and placed on the desktop of Japanese naval ordnance researchers.

At that time, countries all over the world were developing thermodynamic torpedoes. This has been confirmed as the mainstream torpedo power in the next few decades. In fact, this is true. Until the 21st century, thermodynamic torpedoes still occupy the world’s torpedoes. Most of the country. The most attractive category of thermodynamic torpedoes is the thermodynamic torpedo that uses oxygen as a combustion aid.

Japan actually proposed a plan to develop oxygen torpedoes as early as World War I was still underway. However, due to successive explosions in the laboratory, this plan was shelved by superiors. Although the plan was restarted several times, the result was After the explosion accident, the technical staff suffered heavy casualties, but the project did not make any progress.

It wasn't until the 1930s that there was news from the United States that the gun range of the new American cruiser had been increased to 20,000 meters. Under this pressure, the situation of the Japanese Navy's oxygen torpedo program really changed. .

In the early twentieth century, with the development of large-caliber artillery technology, the range of the navy’s main guns began to grow rapidly, from about 10,000 meters before World War I to 40,000 to 50,000 meters in the 1920s and 1930s. It only took a short time. Less than twenty years. Not to mention the battleship’s range of forty-five thousand meters, even the cruiser’s main guns have reached 20,000 meters. At that time, the maximum range of the torpedoes equipped by the Japanese navy was only about 10,000 meters. So the veteran Japanese mine team was I think it is no longer suitable for the decisive battle on the front of the fleet, because it is difficult for these small and medium-sized warships to safely break through the fire circle of the cruiser’s main gun, approach the effective range of the torpedo, and attack the enemy battleship.

At this moment, the Japanese Empire and her navy are facing the threat of an imaginary enemy, that is, America’s solid Pacific Fleet, and in order to deal with this powerful enemy, the Japanese navy staff deliberately made a secret plan A "nine-stage combat plan."

Speaking of this plan, we must first start with President Theodore Roosevelt (Franklin Roosevelt’s distant cousin) after he took office. Old Roosevelt, who served as Secretary of the Navy in the Spanish-American War, had a profound understanding of modern warfare. He felt that in order to stop the endless wrangling and internal friction between the U.S. Army and Navy, he created the "Army-Navy Connection Conference" system. This organization developed into the famous "United States Joint Chiefs of Staff" during World War II.

Participating in this "joint meeting of the Army and the Navy" in addition to the chiefs of staff of the two armies (the U.S. Air Force and the Marine Corps were not independent services at the time), as well as the entire Army Staff Corps and the Naval General Committee. Their responsibilities are When the United States encounters external threats, it formulates a corresponding U.S. Army and Navy joint combat plan, and conducts coordination and coordination between the services in daily training to eliminate the differences between the two major services as much as possible.

The previous ones may be done with one effort, but the last one was an impossible task at the time. The contradiction between the U.S. Army and Navy even exceeded their ability to face foreign enemies and seize every opportunity to demolish each other. Taiwan, in fact, started from the first day when American recruits entered the camp.

Returning the topic, in order to deal with the possible threats to the United States of America, the "Army and Navy Joint Conference" began in 1919 and worked with various military command organizations and even various military academies to develop a series of combat plans. Each battle plan was formulated for a certain region or an independent country in the world at that time. Because the code names of the plans were named after colors, these plans were collectively referred to as "color war plans."

In addition to the "Black Project" against Germany, there are also the "Red Series" projects for the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries (UK and Canada-Red, Australia-Scarlet, British India-Ruby, New Zealand- Garnet Red.), there is also a golden plan for France, a silver plan for Italy, an olive green plan for Spain, and plans for Portugal, Brazil, Cuba, Iceland, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines, the Republic of China, etc. There is even a plan This is a white war plan that is now being suppressed after the civil war in the United States.

Among them, the plans for Asian countries are named after the yellow series, and Japan is assigned orange, which is the famous "Orange War Plan." The envisioned background of this plan was that the United States and Japan had major diplomatic differences that could not be bridged, and the Japanese Empire immediately launched an attack on US bases and troops stationed in the Western Pacific.

The plan anticipates that the US troops stationed in Guam and the Philippines will not be strong enough to resist the Japanese Empire’s offensive. These US armed forces are ordered to defend themselves on the spot and try to buy as much time as possible for the mobilization of American troops.

At the same time, the U.S. Pacific Fleet shrinks to the mainland, fully protecting the smooth flow of the Panama Canal, and ensuring that the main force of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet passes through the canal and meets with the Pacific Fleet. When the U.S. domestic military mobilization begins, the U.S. Army and Navy will assemble an overwhelming force to launch a counterattack against the Japanese Empire across the Pacific Ocean, retake occupied outposts and colonies, and seize control of the seas surrounding Japan, and block the entire Japanese archipelago. , And finally forced Japan to surrender to the United States.

The core of this plan is that somewhere in the Pacific Ocean close to the Japanese islands, the U.S. naval fleet and the Japanese joint fleet will engage in a Jutland-style frontal decisive battle, and defeat the main force of the Japanese joint fleet in one fell swoop and seize the western Pacific. Dominance.

Regarding the final decisive battle in the plan, the U.S. Navy’s thinking at the time was that the decisive battle would be launched between the battleships of Japan and the United States, and the U.S. battleships had a clear advantage in number, armor, and firepower. The final winner must be the mighty American.

U.S. Navy generals would never expect that on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, a group of Japanese naval staff members, in order to counter their "Orange Plan", are formulating a larger and more detailed "Nine-stage Operation Plan."

The "Orange Project" of the United States is not practical. To put it bluntly, it is a paper war game played by a group of guys suffering from persecutory delusions behind closed doors. The fundamental purpose of these plans is mainly for the US military. The troops' training and future tactical development provide a guiding direction. The sources of personnel participating in the formulation of the plan are complex. In addition to military personnel, there are experts in various fields, and they have been repeatedly formulated and revised several times. It is inevitable that some of the details will leak out. So the Japanese Navy quickly relied on the collected scale feathers. Inferred the outline of the orange plan.

The first three stages of the Japanese 9th dan combat plan are based on the submarine fleet of the Japanese Navy~IndoMTL.com~ Japanese submarines will set up three interception lines near Japan to intercept the main U.S. fleet advancing towards Japan. The Japanese submarine group is preparing to launch a concentrated attack by means of torpedo salvos, trying to sink and injure a part of the U.S. warships during the interception, so as to achieve the goal of gradually weakening the main U.S. fleet.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth interceptions will be carried out by the Navy's carrier-based aircraft, submarines, and Navy land-based bombers. The goal is to further weaken the defense of the US fleet and destroy the small and medium-sized ships in the US fleet as much as possible.

The next three paragraphs are the highlight of the decisive battle. The first to be played is the huge lightning strike force composed of 64 destroyers and 28 cruisers belonging to the Japanese Navy’s combined fleet. They will use a total of up to 800. The torpedoes and 168 large-caliber guns launched an assault on the main U.S. fleet at night.

The Japanese Navy calculated that after this night of melee, the US fleet will be severely damaged. Even if the remaining ships are intact, their soldiers and physical strength and morale will be severely reduced. After dawn, a powerful aviation team composed of eight aircraft carriers made their debut.

If any American battleship is tough enough to carry thousands of airstrikes from Japanese carrier-based aircraft, then she will see the forest-like towers of Japanese battleships on the sea horizon in the distance. The final blow of the enemy will be accomplished by the proud and invincible sea steel castles of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

It can be said that throughout the early days of the Showa era, the Japanese Imperial Navy, whether it was equipment, technology, personnel training, and tactical development, all revolved around this "nine-stage combat plan." And the "93-type sour torpedo with great power in our army" is the most important part of realizing this plan.

ps: Thank you for your support. The author will continue to work hard. I am sorry that there is only one chapter today. I have to go out to work tomorrow. The update may be later.