Chapter six hundred and ninety-first Japanese army eager to shame
The Japanese were full of enthusiasm, but ended up getting a cold reception. Although they were full of reluctance, in the face of reality, they had no choice but to accept Germany's kindness. Who let their aircraft company fail? The new fighter jets developed for the Army have not been put into production for a long time. As a result, the Army has to bow its head to its old rival, the Navy. It wants to borrow the Zero fighter jets that the Navy has just finalized and has shone in the battlefield in Guannei to recharge.
As a result, the Navy was reluctant and looked down upon the Army. No matter how humiliating the Army was, it only lent twenty-six initial mass production models. After all, the Navy also had a large number of aircraft in urgent need of replacement, and the factories that manufactured aircraft for the Navy also had The production capacity is insufficient. The navy has completely completed the replacement and it is not yet known whether there will be any surplus in the year of the monkey.
The Army, which also suffered a humiliation from the Navy and its German allies, and even suffered humiliation from the Navy, had no choice but to be picky. In addition to the 120 ME109 C-type fighter jets sold by the Germans, In addition to accepting all the one hundred and ten legal fighter jets that came with it, he also set his sights on Italy, where he had already suffered a big loss.
Fortunately, the Italian Prime Minister was much happier than the German head of state. Faced with the so-called ally, the Japanese, who came to the door, the Prime Minister said nothing and immediately agreed to sell Italy's latest model to the Japanese. One hundred and ten RE 2,000 fighter jets are guaranteed to be delivered within two months.
After receiving this batch of aircraft, the Japanese discovered that in addition to the Germans selling used second-hand goods, the Italians once again regarded themselves as being taken advantage of. If the Japanese aircraft were congenitally lacking high-power engines, In order to ensure mobility, it can only be weakened, or even bulletproof armor and self-sealing fuel tanks are not installed, which makes the survivability poor.
However, these Italian aircraft equipped with wing-integrated auxiliary fuel tanks simply do not have self-sealing fuel tanks. Once shot, the fate will be little better than those of their own fighter jets. The most important thing is that the engines are extremely unreliable and leak oil. It leaked like a mess,
Although the combat performance has met the requirements of the Japanese army, which always attaches great importance to the combat capability of fighter jets, the battlefield survivability is still far inferior to that of the Type 97 fighter. Not to mention the fuselage, even if the wing is hit by a bullet with a slightly larger caliber, it will will turn into a ball of flame,
Not only is the protective performance extremely poor, but the two 12.7mm Breda machine guns it is equipped with seem to have a large caliber, but their rate of fire is slow, their penetration is poor, and the key is that they keep jamming. , the lack of weapons and ammunition replenishment of the same caliber was also something that troubled the Japanese army.
You can't open a new caliber bullet production line just for these more than a hundred aircraft. Although this situation is not uncommon among the Japanese army, the seven- and seven-millimeter machine gun bullets also used by the army and navy aircraft are not universal, but it's a good thing. The quantity is placed wherever it is. Although it is not universal, it is enough for the demand.
As for this kind of 12.7mm bullet, once more than a hundred aircraft are used up, the entire bullet production line will be useless. This result is not only unacceptable to the stingy Japanese, but also unacceptable to the army. Of course, in addition to the current domestic weapon calibers that are so complex that they are enough to open a world gun museum,
This batch of aircraft was not only of low quality and high price, but also offended two countries without the Japanese knowing it. The reason is very simple. This batch of aircraft was exported to Sweden by the Italians, who were also extremely hungry for new fighter jets. The thirsty Hungarians pried him over in the name of taking care of their allies.
The Swedes are indifferent to the Japanese behavior of snatching food from a tiger's mouth. Although the war has spread throughout Europe, they already have some kind of private guarantee from the Germans that the eighty fighter jets they ordered will arrive as soon as possible. , there is no hard requirement for late arrival.
The key is that the Hungarians have given up on the Japanese behavior of taking food from their own mouths. The Hungarians are inherently incompatible with their current neighbors, allies and opponents, the Romanians, and believe that territorial disputes , these two neighbors are basically enemies. This batch of fighter jets was specially ordered by the Hungarians from Italy in order to deal with the threat of new fighter jets produced by the Romanians.
Unexpectedly, just when these so-called new fighter jets were about to be obtained, Cheng Yaojin came out and intercepted him. The Hungarians, who were extremely dissatisfied with the Japanese's prying behavior, even protested to Japan. As for the Emperor, fortunately the Germans came forward to suppress the Hungarian dissatisfaction, otherwise there might have been some kind of joke.
It doesn't matter if you offend the Hungarians or not. The two countries are thousands of miles apart and have little to no friendship. But offending the Swedes is unacceptable to the Japanese. You must know that Swedish production, even if the German industry is far more developed than Japan, Precision bearings are needed by everyone, but they are strategic materials that the Japanese urgently need. If the Swedes pursue it and cut off the supply of precision bearings to the Japanese, the Japanese industry will be completely paralyzed.
Not only did it inexplicably offend two countries, but it also acquired a batch of aircraft with questionable quality, which naturally made some arrogant army personnel dissatisfied. Although the senior figures in the Japanese army regarded the ordinary officers and soldiers below as nothing more than consumption. It's just a product. It doesn't matter whether it has bulletproof armor or a self-sealing fuel tank.
However, the poor maintainability of this kind of aircraft and the amount of trouble it caused caused some criticism from many people in the top brass of the Japanese Army. However, although these people strongly demanded the return of the aircraft, there was still a long way to go before the new fighter jets were put into production, and they were ridiculed for borrowing naval fighter jets. Said that the Navy, which has always been stingy, actually strictly limited the number of
This batch of Italian-made fighter jets and the ME-109 fighter jets sold by Germany were immediately replenished by the frantic Japanese Army to the Kwantung Army, which suffered heavy losses in air battles last year. After all, something is better than nothing, and these Italian aircraft Although there are many shortcomings, after all, the air combat capability is still good.
However, due to the time constraints of aircraft transportation and the extremely slow conversion training of pilots, these two batches of fighter jets, known as the largest military purchase in the history of the development of the Japanese aviation force, have only been in combat effectiveness for a few days. Today's dispatch is still the same. The aircraft's real first combat operation in the hands of the Kwantung Army,
As for the reason for the slow progress of flight conversion training, it is not that the conversion training of Japanese pilots is not hard. It is just that the Japanese pilots who are accustomed to flying air-cooled engines are really not used to German-made fighter jets using liquid-cooled engines. These German-made aircraft have formed a combat effectiveness The time is not as fast as those Italian fighter jets that also use air-cooled engines.
It's just that although the time for these RE 2,000 fighter jets to form combat effectiveness is very short, the engine failure rate of these Italian products is too high. No matter how hard the Kwantung Army's ground crew works, the attendance rate has never been able to increase. Most of the time, I spend time at the airport doing renovations.
In desperation, these Italian-made fighter jets can only be used by the Kwantung Army as air defense in important areas. Each airport in important areas is equipped with more than twenty or more than a dozen of them, specifically to protect the airport from opponents. Air strike, this can return to the base as soon as possible to save the aircraft once the engine fails.
Today, if it were not for the new aircraft borrowed from the navy deployed in Taonan and the insufficient number of German-made fighter jets, especially the German-made fighter jets, which have congenital short legs and short air combat time, they would be affected by the high engine failure of this aircraft. And the commander who was frightened every time he flew because of the oil leakage would not send these Italian aircraft out to carry out such combat missions far away from the base.
In any case, although this kind of aircraft has many problems, in addition to its excellent combat performance, its biggest advantage is that its range is longer than that of German-made fighter jets, at least when the German-made aircraft runs out of fuel and cannot survive. , can be used to cover behind the break,
As for the one hundred and ten French fighter jets that the Germans gave away for free, due to the lack of spare parts and the fact that most of them had some battle damage, they basically could not be used without thorough renovation. From the perspective of the Japanese army, they no longer had any The use value was directly thrown into a strategic warehouse of the Army north of Xinjing. Anyway, it was given away for free. There was no cost. It would not hurt if it was thrown away.
On the contrary, if these fighter jets are put into the sky again, the cost will be much higher than that of newly manufactured fighter jets. After carefully calculating the cost of putting these fighter jets into the sky, the Japanese, who have always been stingy, simply did not even bring them back to the country, and just threw them away. Manchuria is in trouble,
But what all the Japanese didn't expect was that half a year later, these aircraft, which they thought had a long lifespan but would never be able to fly again due to a lack of engine parts, fell into the hands of Yang Zhen. After being taken into the hands of the army, it was all repaired in just three months.
Except for a few that are still usable, all the French-made engines on these aircraft that have been scrapped and cannot be used have been replaced by Soviet-made engines used by the Anti-Japanese Alliance, and the armor has been strengthened, and Sanqi cannon pods and rocket launch rails have been installed. Later, it was switched to ground attack aircraft.
It was this batch of French fighter jets that the Japanese believed had no value for improvement. After being modified by Yang Zhen's troops, they destroyed more than 60 Japanese tanks at once during the autumn battle of the next year and the winter offensive launched by Yang Zhen. and several large-caliber artillery positions. Of course, this is a story for another day.
Since the Japanese air force at the Prince's Temple Airport and Taonan Airport were previously equipped with Type 97 fighter jets, they never knew what it meant to have the upper hand in many battles with their opponents. This time, after receiving an important commander's request, they rushed to At Hailar, the plane he was traveling on encountered enemy forces in the air and received a telegram of urgent need for reinforcements.
With the reinforcements of the navy's new aircraft and German-made fighter jets, they seemed to be much more confident. During this period, due to the performance gap of the fighter jets, they suffered heavy losses. They were eager to use the newly supplemented new fighter jets. The commander of the Japanese army stationed at Taonan Airport avenged his shame. The officer immediately dispatched all the fighter jets on hand, in order to not only rescue the important commander, but also to cleanse the opponent of the shame of repeated defeats.