Chapter 1095 1944: Speed and Lightning (45)
Now the Japanese Army is equipped with standard weapons made by all countries. The German Fw-190, Bf-109, Ta-152, and Do-412 are equipped with a lot of equipment. Only the Bf-319 is regarded by the Army as a naval aircraft and has little interest in it. There is no equipment; there are also some Italian G.55 and MC.205; British Spitfires and even American P-39\P-40\P-51 are available (many of which were transferred from the United Kingdom). In comparison, our country's three Style warfare, four-style warfare, and five-style warfare have all become non-mainstream. Japan originally had high hopes for the Type 5 fighter, but with the arrival of the Ta-152, the Type 5 fighter had no chance of mass production and was directly forced to discontinue it.
Under Germany's "instruction", Japan also obtained a lot of Mosquito, Wellington, and Handsome Warrior bombers from the United Kingdom. The results of use were really good, so these became standard equipment, and then a large number of domestic bombers were discontinued.
Faced with questions from Kawasaki, Mitsubishi, Nakajima and other companies, the army and navy now have the same tone - your aircraft are not good! The performance is poor, the price is expensive, and maintenance is troublesome. The army has to fight. Is it possible that there are good and cheap weapons that do not need to be replaced by poor and expensive ones? Where do you place the Imperial Army? You hurry up and produce new aircraft. If you can't produce them, imitate them. If you imitate them, you must pay attention to the quality, especially the engines. It's troublesome to imitate them better! This is really killing the chaebols!
You must know that not only aircraft, but also tanks, artillery, and armored vehicles are being imported on a large scale. Even machine guns and assault rifles are being imported. The heads of several major consortiums are sighing. Finally, the Navy has also placed a large number of shipbuilding orders, and everyone is grabbing them. We must do business, otherwise even expanding production will be a problem.
Of course, there are smart people who have seen the opportunity. Now the military has put out a large number of physical objects and drawings for various manufacturers to study, some of which are even free of charge. This provides convenience for small and medium-sized enterprises to overtake in corners. If the whole machine cannot be produced, I can produce parts. That's okay, right? Many companies now specialize in manufacturing accessories - in the past, several large companies made equipment in-house and all parts were not universal. They wished that others could not make a penny and they had no chance to intervene. Now they are impacted by imported products. The openness of spare parts standards gives small and medium-sized enterprises an opportunity to get involved, which in turn fosters a division of labor and a common system.
In fact, the senior leaders of the base camp are also very annoyed with the current situation. Relying on Europe for equipment means that Japan will not be strong-willed in the future, and will alienate its relationship with the chaebols. It will also be difficult to maintain economically, but Horikichi has his own understanding. ——Because the equipment is not good, it is even less tenacious to lose. Besides, after seeing the majesty of the Tiger tank, are you going to let the troops go back to using the bean tank? The people below will rebel! What if "Tianchu****" comes again?
Regarding the relationship between the army's rebellion and the plutocrats, the top management wisely chose to appease the army. If the plutocrats disobey, they can still use the army to deal with it. If the army disobeys, how can they suppress it? I just hope that the plutocrats will have a clear mind and get production done as soon as possible. It is the last word to do well for everyone!
Specific to the Spitfire model, Japan was actually very interested before the Pacific War and had applied to purchase it. It was just that the UK was focused on fighting Germany at the time and was wary of Japan and refused to export it.
During the Indian War, the Royal Air Force's use of the Spitfire and battlefield performance also deeply admired the Japanese. Coupled with the descriptions of the pilots, the Army was obsessed with getting the Spitfire. As for Britain's other main fighter model, the Hurricane, Japan is not very fond of it. This is even more so after witnessing its actual performance in the Indian war. It believes that it is about the same level as the Type 1 fighter that it is preparing to eliminate, let alone a rival. The Fw-190 and Bf-109 cannot defeat them, but even Japan's own Type III fighter jets can easily crush them.
Therefore, when negotiating with Britain, Japan insisted that it would not want even a single Hurricane. In the end, the British had no choice but to take out the Spitfire. Finally, they still had some sympathy for the American imperialism and did not hand over the latest Spitfire 14 and 21. To Japan, but Germany can't hide it. Not only the Griffin engine and the drawings were moved back to Germany, but Germany also accepted the Spitfire 21 drawings and planned to learn from them and try to improve the Ta-152.
What Japan got was the Spitfire 9 equipped with Merlin engines and some Seafires - the aircraft carriers were handed over anyway, so it would be useless to keep the Seafires. As for the Merlin engines, a complete set of technical data had been negotiated to be handed over to Japan, so there was no need to hand them over together. Feeling distressed.
It's just that now the Japanese navy has a higher vision and looks down on the short-legged and average-strength sea fire. It has given it all to the army - don't you want to spit fire? Give it all to you! As a result, the Japanese Army became the largest overseas user of the Spitfire, with a number comparable to that of the Bf-109, and more than Canada, Australia and New Zealand and other autonomous territories combined.
The Spitfire 9 is considered an early model, but it is not weak in Japan. It has its own advantages and disadvantages with the Bf-109. In many cases, it is stronger than the Bf-109 (because many subsequent modifications in the latter's history have not appeared at all), and even more What matters to Japan is that although both the Spitfire and the Bf-109 have short legs, the Spitfire is large and has a redundant fuselage. This problem can be cured, but the Bf-109 cannot be cured. So they randomly used the name of localization to prepare copycats, and of course Ta-152 was also among them.
The Army also carefully tested the machine guns and believed that the German rotary gun MG213 undoubtedly ranked first, but Japan could not imitate this thing at all. The MG151 and Hispano each have their own merits, but the thin-shell bullets used by the MG151 are also It’s not easy to imitate, but the ammunition used by Hispano is even more difficult for Japan. So he decided to imitate it, and even Hispano was ready to imitate it. As for the US military’s 12.7mm heirloom, Japan actually likes it quite a lot and thinks it is better than its own products. It is much stronger and better than similar German products, but the cash-strapped Army cannot afford such an expensive product - the gun is not expensive, but the ammunition consumption is really terrible.
The wealthy Navy doesn't mind this. It equips its Marine brigades with a batch of Browning heavy machine guns, and places many of them on armored vehicles and even on jeeps - the Army likes to mount machine guns on three-wheeled motorcycles, and the Navy likes to mount them on three-wheeled motorcycles. The jeep is equipped with a machine gun, and it can be used when there is enough ammunition. At worst, it will go to the United States to "source local materials". However, judging from the seizures of the joint fleet in the past two years, there is no need to worry about supplying a few marine brigades for a while.
Of course, if the UK is willing to sell it cheaply, Japan would not mind buying some Hurricanes. Some of them can be used as advanced training aircraft, and some can be resold to China to make a profit. Now the Kuomintang and the Communist Party are in urgent need of technical equipment, and Japan has replaced them. The second-rate equipment was basically sold to both parties (a small amount was given to Siam). In the end, the British side kept some of it for the Pakistan Defense Forces, and decided to use all the rest for external processing in exchange for agricultural products and other means of living that were urgently needed in Great Britain.
The idea is good, but it turns out that few countries want it, not to mention the European countries. Seeing the British Empire being beaten to pieces, they would rather buy German products than British products. Besides, as long as you know a little bit about it, you will know Bf -109 is much stronger than a hurricane. The wealthy countries in South America and the Middle East also look down on outdated products like hurricanes. No matter how cheap they are, they have no choice but to sell them to Japan at a low price. The two sides have agreed to deal with 800 aircraft first, and Japan will use food and Other agricultural products (such as rubber) are offset.
As soon as the first batch of 200 aircraft was received, Japan sold 100 of them to Chongqing, 40 to Yan'an, and kept 60 of them as training aircraft. In addition, it disposed of more than 100 outdated Type 1 fighter jets. Bose's Indian National Government and the Siamese authorities.
Naturally, when you sell equipment to China, you also have to sell some oil, otherwise none of these things will be able to run. Considering the long-term interests, in order to better revitalize the export industry, the China Expeditionary Forces authorities, who are flexible and smart in business methods, are not satisfied with being a second-hand weapons dealer, and have begun to engage in large-scale industrial business:
They collected a bunch of small and medium-sized oil refining units from China and the Soviet Union, opened a refinery in Shanghai, and started production using crude oil imported from the Middle East (mainly Iran). Although the technology level was poor and the output was low, the gasoline and diesel produced were all of different grades. Low, but no matter how low it is, it is genuine gasoline and diesel. Part of it is used to meet the needs of the dispatched troops, and part of it is sold to the Kuomintang. The scale is not large, that is, the sales volume is 30,000 to 50,000 tons, which solves the urgent needs of the Chongqing authorities. As for Yan'an, there are The Yumen Oilfield and the refinery help provided by the Soviet Union did not have much demand in this regard.
Originally, the dispatched troops were very dissatisfied with "selling" Wuhan and other places to Chongqing, but now they think it is a good idea. Isn't the war just to make money from China? Nowadays, when China builds industry, it does not require tariffs or local taxes. It is up to itself however much money it makes. Products are in short supply and there are not even any decent competitors. It is simply a matter of getting rich while lying down. Since you can make money by doing business, why do you have to fight to the death with the Chinese? Are you out of your mind?
Although the Kwantung Army was dissatisfied with the Chinese dispatched troops' export of oil, they could not withstand the Chinese dispatched troops' sarcasm - you lived a comfortable life with the Soviet Union's oil and Beihuatai's oil, and you also controlled the Sino-Russian trade channel. We will continue to follow Can you make some money by reprocessing imported crude oil from the Middle East? Even if you don’t let me export it, just give me a share of the oil you got from Beihuatai! The Kwantung Army could only be speechless.
Refineries can be run, but can chemical plants, steel plants, and machinery factories be run? Of course it is possible, so the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas, especially several cities along the rivers and coasts, have begun the process of industrialization export, and have carried out the planning of coastal industrial zones with Japan's unique seriousness and meticulousness, including "three connections and one leveling" and "investment attraction". Special industrial and trade zones were built to achieve militarized management. It happened that Germany, Italy and France also had surplus and obsolete industries that they wanted to export, so they negotiated a package agreement. The three European countries cooperated with Japan to export industries to China. Europe used industrial equipment, technology Contribute capital, but accept unified management by Japan - otherwise Japan will not let European countries in.
In order to better coordinate these relations, Germany and Italy set up offices in Shanghai. In order to effectively safeguard their own interests, the Gestapo was even sent to Shanghai. As a result, the atmosphere in Shanghai's Shili Foreign Market began to recover again.