Chapter 773 Ah! Navy (4)
In addition to infantry weapons, domestically produced combat vehicle equipment, which was originally regarded as a treasure, has also been dumped. The Japanese Army, which has used T-34\No. 4\Sherman tanks, now simply does not care about the 89 medium-sized battle tanks and 95 medium-sized tanks in its hands. The Dou tank and the 97 medium tank (worse than the No. 3 tank) were sold out. Except for a few vehicles in the best condition that were kept as souvenirs, the rest were sold completely. Even the Type 1 medium tank (Qihei, 17.2 tons) that had just been successfully developed and was originally complacent and wanted to be put into production was stopped after field performance comparison. In the words of Ishihara Wanji - "Why produce this kind of garbage?"
Ishihara Kanji's attitude also affected the subsequent development of Type III (Chinu) and Type IV (Chito) tanks: the former was less than 20 tons and had no significant improvement in performance, so its development was directly terminated; the latter's tonnage exceeded the German Panzer IV tank , the design concept began to get closer, but the strength was still one level lower than that of the Type 4 tank. After getting the physical objects and drawings of the T-34, he asked Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to modify the design and use the T-34 to benchmark the Type 4 tank. . Therefore, by the end of 1943, a very strange phenomenon occurred in the Japanese Army. Although it had more than 6 tank divisions (brigades were also converted into divisions), they were all tanks from Britain, France, the Soviet Union, Germany, and the United States. A hodgepodge, almost no Japanese-made tanks exist, and they are considered unique among the major participating countries.
This is just a minor improvement. Ishihara Kanji's most important contribution is to theoretically solve the problem of land and sea coordination.
The Japanese army and navy have been scolding each other for a long time, and occasionally officers have come to engage in full-scale military exercises. Of course, this is a historical conflict caused by years of grievances, as well as a real conflict involving mutual competition for resources. But after Ishihara and Shun Tada came to power, this voice was gradually suppressed. At first, it was just a suppression of general internal communication. The real change lies in Ishihara's strategic adjustment. He asked a thought-provoking question at an internal meeting of the General Staff Headquarters: "European and American powers all have armies and navies. Of course they also quarrel, but they don't quarrel as much as we do. May I ask why and how can this be changed?"
Most of the senior army generals, especially the middle and senior generals, are people who have gone abroad and broadened their horizons. Everyone discussed and discussed, and finally concluded calmly that it is ultimately a struggle for interests: one fights for political control; Resource allocation, and the essence of fighting for political power is to gain an advantage in resource allocation.
Therefore, Ishihara concluded that land-sea cooperation is possible as long as the imbalance in the distribution of resources between each other can be improved. This unbalanced change cannot be achieved by reducing the current stock of the navy or army to the other side, but must be achieved through large increments. He gave a very convincing example: "Oil is the lifeblood of modern warfare. The German army and navy are racking their brains to compete for oil. No matter how the head of state distributes it, it is impossible to satisfy everyone, but now the problem has been solved better - Germany first strengthened its navy and air force to gain regional advantages, then introduced the Imperial Navy with other benefits, and finally conquered the Middle East in one fell swoop to gain access to rolling oil. Secondly, after controlling the Indian Ocean, Germany established trade routes with the Far East. After being opened, the supply of some materials and resources that were originally very tight suddenly became extremely abundant. Germany originally used petroleum-based synthetic rubber, which was high-cost and low-quality. Now it uses equipment to import natural rubber from Southeast Asia, which is low-cost, better-quality, and saves money. Everyone is very satisfied with this part of the oil... How can the increase be achieved only by winning battles through land and sea cooperation? The Army must take a longer-term view. We have the big territory of India and the trade routes of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. , the development space will be very broad!”
So when the Combined Fleet was advancing in the Indian Ocean, the base camp asked the Army to defend the islands in Nanyang to support it. The troops were shattered one after another. Many people expressed protest and dissatisfaction, but Ishihara Wanji gritted his teeth and withstood the pressure and waited until the Combined Fleet returned with a victory. , the situation immediately changed. The Navy recognized the Army's sacrifice, and not only delivered the equipment as agreed, but even secretly gave more in private - this is how Lieutenant General Sending Arms came to be.
Over the past year, Japan has used gold, silver, mercury, rubber, tin, lead, tungsten, copper and other minerals to purchase a large amount of equipment from Germany in the form of barter trade, and introduced many new technologies by exchanging technology for technology. The incremental plate suddenly expanded a lot, and many things that I couldn't even think of before were acquired.
In the same way, due to the introduction of German armaments, the internal consumption of equipment by the Army and Navy has also been reduced. The Army is now happily equipping the land-based versions of Bf-219 and He-218. After the Ar-352 (Caiyun modification) was successfully developed, the Army stated that it would also Some even plan to jointly develop a new generation of fighter jets. Since the Zidian Kai and Gale were delayed in launching, and the Zero War Kai was getting older, the Navy, which was eager to upgrade, took a fancy to the Army's Type 4 fighter Hayate, thinking that regardless of whether it could be put on a ship, it would at least be good for use as a land-based fighter. Yes, I hope to get 500 first. This also brings glory to the face of the Army - the Army has always used Navy aircraft, and now the Navy has begun to seriously consider Army aircraft.
The heads and engineers of aircraft manufacturing companies such as Mitsubishi and Nakajima finally breathed a long sigh of relief: they no longer need to set up a workshop for the army and another workshop for the navy - in fact, they produce similar things, even for deliberate differentiation. The practice of using two types of screws has also been eradicated.
The adjustment and reform by Ishihara and Shimomura improved the satisfaction of the chaebols: only by producing more general-purpose equipment for land and sea can costs be saved, production be increased, and waste be reduced, which largely made up for Ishihara's dissatisfaction with the forced killing of domestically made tanks. In the past, neither the army nor the navy had 40mm medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns. The Combined Fleet returned from Europe equipped with thousands of European-version Bofors anti-aircraft guns, which worked very well. After communicating with the fleet, Ishihara decided to take a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, the army bought the 37mm hand-pulled machine guns that the German navy did not want, because they were really cheap and in large quantities. On the other hand, the navy tried to get domestic manufacturers to authorize the production of 40mm Bofors. Before confirming that they could be mass-produced, they bought 3,000 original guns and distributed 500 to the army - the navy had money.
The main purpose of the army's 37mm hand-pulled machine guns was not air defense, but to be installed on armored vehicles and inland gunboats as firepower output while taking into account air defense, and the effect was surprisingly good. In addition to anti-aircraft guns, the navy and the army also had mutual needs for 20mm aircraft cannons, radars, and aircraft engines. After a few rounds of negotiations, the army and navy happily sat together for joint procurement. At least they could get a discount if they bought more. The joke of the same engine being introduced once by the navy and again by the army as before never happened again.
The army and navy were more consistent in their operational thinking: the army was supposed to go north to take the mainland territory, and the navy was supposed to go south to take the island territory. The two sides had been arguing over their respective dominance, and even continued to argue after they had already gone south. Finally, after joint consultation, Ishihara, Tada Shun, Yamamoto, Hori Teikichi and others decided to concentrate their forces and go south to take the Indian mainland territory - the army had a place to use its skills, and the navy did the same. The cooperation between the four giants of the army and navy even created the authority of the headquarters, completely undermining the nominal supreme leader, Prime Minister Ugaki.
When the cooperation between the army and the navy was about to reach its climax and bear fruit, the navy suddenly made such a fuss. Ishihara Kanji was very annoyed and scolded the navy for being stupid more than once. This is why Prince Higashikuni Toshihiko repeatedly came forward to greet Yamamoto Isoroku, asking him to find a way to stabilize the situation and not to destroy the hard-won good situation. As for why he didn't go to Prince Fushimi Hiroyoshi, who was also a member of the royal family, because he knew that the other party's various actions were actually supported by the palace, and it was useless to say anything.
The first thing that angered Hirohito was the reform plan, which was simply to make the navy start from scratch, offending too many vested interests, and making Hirohito lose face; the second thing was that he should never reach a tacit understanding and agreement with the Kwantung Army, which was simply unbearable in the eyes of the palace-the Combined Fleet accounted for one-third of Japan's armed strength, and the Kwantung Army was the strongest armed group of the Japanese Army, known as the flower of the imperial army. If these two were combined, could Hirohito still sleep? The third thing was that the fleet always disobeyed the military command. It was okay to pinch your nose once or twice when it was needed for combat, but if you slapped your face every time, would you still want the royal military order? But would Prince Higashikuni Toshihiko dare to reveal this?
He also didn't dare to go to Hori Teikichi, who was a more powerful figure than Ishiwara Kanji and Tada Shun combined, because the former two did not directly lead troops, but Hori Teikichi held the world's number one naval fleet in his hands (now the ranking has changed, Japan is first, the United States is second, Germany is third, and the United Kingdom has been squeezed to fifth by Italy). On the first day of returning to Japan, he publicly made trouble for Prince Fushimi Hiroyoshi, and dared to command the fleet to rob the Soviet fleet in a big way, and killed 6 destroyers of the other side without a word, and even turned the tables and recorded a movie, making the Soviet ambassador speechless.
If we push it back 20 years, Prince Higashikuni Toshihiko, who was still a young man, might cheer for the navy - good fight! Just do it! There is nothing to fear from the Soviet Union! After 20 years, he had become more experienced and older, and he was no longer as brave as he was. He was almost scared when he first received the news. After Ishihara Kanji's calm analysis, he realized that Hori Teikichi had found a good opportunity. How could he persuade such a man with a network of wisdom and a heart as hard as iron? Besides, there is a difference between the navy and the army. If the Army Chief of Staff interferes in the affairs of the navy, it will cause dissatisfaction on the other side at the least, and the relationship will break down at the worst. Wouldn't it be a waste of all previous efforts?
So Prince Higashikuni Norihiko knew where the problem was, but he could only say a few words without any pain, and he didn't even dare to go to Ishihara Kanji to discuss solutions. What if he was given a strategy of the army and navy going it alone and undermining the emperor, would he listen or not? ——Based on Ishihara's personality, it is entirely possible for him to do so. Isn't Prime Minister Ugaki Kazunari now so angry? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance bowed their heads and were as obedient as young wives in front of the headquarters. After all, he was a member of the royal family, and he was here to execute the royal military orders, not to be a puppet of the royal family.
Even if he saw some words and some questions, he could only hide them deeply in his heart.