Chapter 1046 Hawaii (9,300 Votes Plus Additional Content)
"The commander sent a telegram. The support fleet has sailed to a position half way from Midway Island, and reported new battle determination." Ryunosuke Kusaka handed Horikichi's telegram to Tsukahara Ji43, "Kakuda I also contacted him. He is located more than 2,200 kilometers west of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The fleet's heavy oil reserves are not much. It can last for about 30 days. The enemy fleet and transport fleet have been unwilling to come out. I asked if I could Go play San Francisco or Los Angeles?”
After reading the chart, Tsukahara pondered for a moment: "Let him feint towards Los Angeles and send a reconnaissance plane to check it out as much as possible until the US Army Air Force discovers it, but it should not be less than 800 kilometers in the near future. Once discovered, immediately fly to Turn around south, and then turn west. Don’t worry about the fuel, I’ll take it to him... Can the submarine outside Pearl Harbor still support it?”
"Yes, a total of 6 IX-class submarines have been dispatched. They went to Christmas Island for supplies some time ago. There will be no problem in persisting for more than 60 days."
"Don't risk attacking, just report the situation."
For two consecutive days on the 15th and 16th, the U.S. military did not receive any intelligence from the Japanese side. Whether it was the Japanese break-up fleet outside Pearl Harbor or the Japanese main fleet leaving Lima, they seemed to have disappeared without a trace. Nimitz and MacArthur were very anxious. Now I can't do anything, I can only passively discover the enemy and deal with it.
Spruance reassured the two of them not to worry: the Los Angeles transport fleet has been basically completed, and the repair of the Wasp in Pearl Harbor is about to be completed. After the 20th, once the fleet is dispatched and supplies are delivered, the situation in Hawaii will improve.
The two are still a little lucky: the main crude oil producing areas in the United States are basically in the Gulf of Mexico, but after all, there is a California oil field on the west coast. Without this oil field and the Panama Canal being blocked, all fuel would have to be refined from Texas refineries before being transported to the West Coast, which would be much more troublesome. Therefore, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a death order after the Panama Canal was blocked. All California oil fields were given priority to supply military needs on the West Coast and Pearl Harbor, and all other civilian uses were allocated to Texas production areas.
So far, due to the changes caused by the war, the Transoceanic Railway, which had become sparse due to the impact of cheap shipping, has become prosperous again, with transport trains running back and forth everywhere. This is also reflected in the stock market, with railway stocks soaring and shipping stocks languishing.
Nimitz suddenly discovered that the U.S. Navy had made a mistake and deployed too many submarines on the front line, so that there were not many submarines available for deployment in the rear. If there were now a large number of submarines on the West Coast and Central America, coupled with aircraft, it would be much easier to keep track of the Japanese military's movements.
For the current battlefield, the so-called forward deployment means that most submarines in the Pacific direction are deployed in Australia, New Zealand, and the Nanyang area, preparing to attack the Japanese Nanyang transportation lines, while most submarines in the Atlantic direction are deployed from the periphery of the Strait of Gibraltar to Cape Verde. Prepare to attack the German supplementary line to South America.
In fact, the supply systems of the Japanese, German and US military are completely different. The Ridgway Group of the US military stationed in Recife has higher supply requirements, and coupled with the sluggish main fleet, the US military supply fleet must be transported to Recife in small quantities and multiple times under the protection of destroyers or frigates, so that Turner specially studied and formulated the supply routine of "shipping during the day and stopping at night", while Japan and Germany, especially Germany, used large formations for one-time supply, and the transport fleet transported more than 3 months of military supplies to South America at a time. As for other daily life All supplies were replenished locally by La Plata Group countries and Brazil.
Most of the small fleets encountered by US submarines in the North Atlantic waters were Argentine or Uruguayan ships delivering agricultural products to Portugal in twos and threes. This brings about a very embarrassing problem. Although everyone knows that this batch of agricultural products will eventually fall into the hands of Germany and Italy, no matter the sending country, the shipping country or the destination country, it is currently a neutral country for the United States, and it is still a neutral country for the time being. We can't do anything with them - the United States already has few allies, and forcing a bunch of neutral countries into hostile countries is not worth the gain. Moreover, most of the supplies transported by neutral countries are only agricultural products and mineral resources, which are useful but not urgent. Sinking these merchant ships will not cause much harm to Germany. The United States will not do anything similar to this kind of move that has little military significance but no small political significance.
What the United States really wants to cut off most is the axis of the Indian Ocean route. There are not only crude oil supply lines for Germany and Japan, but also equipment and material trading lines between Germany and Japan. It can be said that as long as it is a Japanese-German ship, almost every ship is meaningless. Small.
But it would be very difficult to cut off this route. In 1943, because he was eager to develop surface ships, Admiral Kim made the decision to suspend the construction of submarines. This opinion was agreed by both the Naval Shipbuilding Committee and Nimitz himself, because the United States already had more than 300 submarines, and the effectiveness of breaking diplomatic relations has been very good. Oops, it's more important to focus on developing the surface fleet.
Later, everyone realized that the main reason for the low efficiency of U.S. submarines in breaking up diplomatic relations was not the submarines, but the torpedoes. It was the inefficient and indestructible torpedoes that caused the submarine force to attack repeatedly but with little effect. After improving torpedoes and trying to use submarines to break diplomatic ties again, another embarrassing situation emerged: with the massive loss of Allied territory, the base for breaking diplomatic ties in the Indian Ocean was gone.
After the ideal base in India was occupied by the Japanese army, US submarines could only attack from bases in South Africa or Australia if they wanted to break diplomatic relations. The former has a single attack distance of nearly 8,000 kilometers, and the latter has a distance of nearly 7,000 kilometers. Even if mid-way maneuvers and evasions are not considered, the endurance is at least Only submarines with a mileage of more than 12,000 nautical miles have relatively ample combat opportunities, otherwise it will be a suicide attack with no return. Unfortunately, most U.S. submarines do not have such a long-range attack capability. The Little Shark-class submarine that best meets the requirements only has an endurance of 11,000 nautical miles (at an economic speed of 10 knots on the surface), which makes submarine operations almost impossible to achieve.
The road to a suitable base is impassable, so the United States is considering replenishing it midway, but this chance is slim. U.S. submarines have not developed XIV-class cow submarines like Germany, and usually use third-country merchant ships for covert supply. But this road was soon blocked, because the entire Indian Ocean was occupied by the Axis or vassal states controlled by the Axis. The unreported and inexplicable appearance of a cargo ship from a third country seemed a bit strange. For the now domineering Japan and Germany, casually sinking ships of a third country is nothing at all. Not to mention that ships from third countries are not looked down upon. Ships that are not reported and do not listen to greetings will still be sunk even if they fly the flags of the Axis Allies or even the flags of Japan and Germany. If you don't accept it, bite me!
After the Spruance fleet attacked the Indian Ocean, Japan and Germany further determined to strengthen their surveillance of the Indian Ocean. Socotra Island, Madagascar, the Maldives and Sumatra formed a detailed surveillance network, and Atlantic Supervisors were flying around everywhere. Check, there is no way to hide.
In the southern Indian Ocean where Nimitz detoured last time, the Axis had weak control because it was beyond its reach, but its control over the central and northern Indian Ocean areas was very strong.
In Southeast Asia, although U.S. submarines are fully capable of being used, as the Japanese anti-submarine capabilities improve, they also encounter difficulties in breaking diplomatic relations. Under the premise that Horikichi repeatedly stressed that the "coward" Kurita Takeo presided over the transportation work, the Japanese army's anti-submarine capabilities have been greatly improved:
First, a large number of cheap D-type destroyers (escort destroyers) were built to protect the merchant fleet. These destroyers can only travel at 25 or 6 knots. Although destroyers made of ordinary steel have poor conventional combat capabilities, their anti-submarine capabilities are not weak;
The second is to introduce advanced hydrophone-sonar from Germany.
The third is to activate the professional anti-submarine aircraft - Donghai. Although the Atlantic Surveillance is good, it is too expensive for Japan. Even the relatively wealthy Japanese Navy cannot afford a large number of 4-engine aircraft, so it paid attention to the East China Sea anti-submarine aircraft developed in the country. Germany is also very interested in this kind of aircraft. The head of Donghai is completely based on the Ju88, and it can even be said that it is almost exactly the same. The huge transparent nose has a good downward view effect.
The Donghai now in use is equipped with a Rong 12 900-horsepower engine (history was a 410-horsepower Hitachi star-type air-cooled 9-cylinder engine). Since the Zero was eliminated early, the main fighter jets of the Japanese army were basically replaced by the Gale or Zidian modifications. Neither of these two aircraft needed the Honor 12, so this engine was used in excess. The Japanese army adhered to the principle of no waste. On the one hand, it converted the eliminated Zero type into a two-seat training aircraft. On the other hand, it used the Wing 12 engine for the construction of other aircraft.
For an aircraft like the East China Sea that requires long airtime, fuel economy, and no requirements for top speed, the Wing 12 is a perfect match. After replacing it with this engine, the overall power is greatly improved, and it not only becomes a 4-member professional anti-submarine patrol aircraft , has four 20mm cannons, and can also carry four 250kg aerial bombs or 24 anti-submarine hedgehog bombs (about 40kg). The most amazing thing is that if the pilot is very good, he can maintain the patrol attitude with only one engine (the other propeller can be feathered at this time), and the entire aircraft can maintain a flight time of more than 14 hours.
Germany is also very interested in installing sea and submarine search radars in the East China Sea, because Japan has also installed a magnetic detector on it (which can detect underwater submarines based on changes in magnetic field lines, but cannot be too far away from the submarine). Previously, Germany's dedicated anti-submarine aircraft were retired Joint Attack aircraft. Their anti-submarine performance was not very strong, but their prices were much more expensive (the Donghai aircraft had two engines, while the Joint Attack aircraft had three engines, and the engine was the much more expensive BWM801. ), and finally simply used Donghai for production, replaced the engine with the BMW701 produced in Germany (an improved German version of the Wing 21), and added new equipment-anti-submarine rockets.
BMW 701 is still used to produce helicopters - an engine with a larger horsepower than the 701 has a larger volume and weight than the 701. An engine with a similar volume and weight is not as powerful as the 701. The 701 is not only fuel-efficient, but also has low fuel requirements, so there is no need for it at all. For C3, B4 can have a good effect, and even tank gasoline can barely deal with it. This quality is very valuable for helicopters that accompany army operations and have no reliable air base.
Italy, France, etc. all fell in love with this engine and copied it one after another. Both countries have better technology than Japan. The imitation products are not only better in quality than the original version, but also lower in price. The Japanese themselves can only shake their heads when they see it.
Nimitz couldn't count on submarines, so he could only count on airplanes. On the 17th, Army Aviation finally found the fleet - the Tsunoda fleet heading for Los Angeles, the distance was less than 1,000 kilometers away...