How many shells does a Japanese battleship have? The number of main artillery shells of Nagamon-class battleships is about 1o5o. The Fuso-class battleships are about 11oo to 12oo, which means that each artillery is about 12o. Considering the diversity of sea combat targets, you must prepare armor-piercing bombs, semi-piercing bombs and high-explosive bombs. Armor-piercing bombs are naturally used to deal with capital ships, semi-piercing bombs to cruisers and these main battleships, while high-explosive bombs are used to attack unprotected battleships and can also be used to deal with destroyers and merchant ships.

Considering the characteristics of the ammunition, it is not necessarily easy to use armor-piercing shells and semi-piercing shells to deal with merchant ships, because the fuse contacts of these two types of shells have a limit value, such as how thick the armored fuse is to be opened, or how long it takes to detonate after the shell hits the target. Merchant ships are very unfriendly to this setting. First, the merchant ship not only has no armor, but even the thickness of the hull plate is not thick, so that even the contact standard of the semi-piercing shell cannot be reached. If it cannot be reached, the shell fuze will not be activated and will not explode, which will eventually lead to the shell directly passing through the hull and then falling into the seawater from the other side... And the delay of too long relative to the high-explosive bomb will also lead to "harmless passage" even if the fuze is activated.

Therefore, the best shell to attack merchant ships is high-explosive bombs. In fact, considering that the Japanese fleet lacks enough destroyers, once a large-scale artillery battle occurs, the high-explosive bombs of the main ship still need to be considered against the destroyers, so this is a bit troublesome... For the Japanese Navy, if hunting a transport ship with a distance may cause too many high-explosive bombs to be used up, the Japanese fleet will hesitate. This is a very troublesome thing.

As for whether the fuses of armor-piercing and semi-piercing shells can be adjusted to suit the defense level of merchant ships? Of course, it is OK. You can adjust the fuze with a higher sensitivity and shorter delay. But such shells will definitely not work if they have battleships! Because the British shells in the early days of the war were like this, the fuze was too sensitive and the delay was too low...

Therefore, it seems that breaking the junction is a simple problem, but simply how to solve as many merchant ships as possible with as little ammunition as possible is a problem that makes all artillery officers trouble. After all, cigarette cans are too popular... The cost is very low and the use requirements are not high.

"If it doesn't work, we can consider using aviation lightning strikes or bombs to solve the target. The degree of the aircraft is much faster than that of a warship, and when the aircraft strikes lightning, it will hardly be disturbed by the cigarette cans of a single warship." Betty thought for a while and said.

The amount of smoke released by a ship is limited after all, and can cover the view within a certain range. It is incomparable to the full-coverage smoke released by a large group of American destroyers surrounding the main battleship in the Sulawesi Sea. Therefore, torpedo aircraft can naturally launch attacks, and the merchant ship's navigation and agility are very poor, and the defense firepower is also very limited. After all, the hit rate of anti-aircraft guns in this era was not high, and the number of anti-aircraft guns on merchant ships would not be large. Therefore, chasing targets with faster and far-distance distances is a good way to chase them with aviation torpedoes or bombers. Of course, this method may expose the aviation strength of the Japanese fleet.

"Use seaplanes on the main ships to equip bombs to attack merchant ships. According to our experiments, 1oo kilograms of bombs can cause great damage to merchant ships. As for regular carrier-based aircraft? I think it is okay to invest some when necessary. After all, we have dispatched 6 battleships. If we don't have aircraft carriers, I guess the Americans won't believe it, right? At this time, it's better for us to expose some of them on our own." Stedy expressed support for Betty's opinion.

"Two ships, at most, expose the strength of two aircraft carriers. If three ships are exposed, the US fleet is likely to mobilize more than four aircraft carriers to participate in the battle, so that our aviation power will not have an advantage." Shigetaro Yoshimatsu thought for a while and said. "Theoretically, we can use one aircraft carrier. If we want to use two, we must obtain my approval."

So, most of the ambush problem has been solved now. With the support of at least dozens of bombers and torpedo aircraft on the aircraft carrier, and with the seaplanes on the main battleship, the Japanese fleet's strike capability and military abundance are guaranteed, so the rest is to see the on-site swing.

Therefore, after discussion, the Japanese fleet formulated a dispersed fleet deployment, surrounded it in multiple directions and then launched centripetal assaults. Battleships and carrier-based aircraft attacked the main targets, while destroyers were responsible for surrounding and blocking and attacking defenseless targets. This sounds very simple, but the specific implementation is definitely a very troublesome thing, so before leaving, the Japanese fleet would conduct special tactical exercises.

However, in the subsequent exercises, it was still difficult for the Japanese to effectively annihilate a large fleet of 70 transport ships and about 10 escort ships in the following fewer than 20 main ships and destroyers, because according to the Japanese standards, they needed to completely destroy 80% of transport ships to be considered annihilated, which means that, including destroyers, an average of 2.5 transport ships per ship, including destroyers! And if the opponent's auxiliary cruiser has seaplanes, it is also a troublesome. It is very difficult to attack.

Therefore, in the subsequent plan, the UK and Japan modified the plan, adding plans to track the submarines or camouflaged cruisers in semi-submarine states at long distances. Of course, this kind of tracking is definitely unlikely to be visual distance, and it is more about determining the general direction of the US fleet by observing the smoke column.

When the attack is officially launched, these submarines and camouflage cruisers will also participate in the war directly, and attacking American transport ships with naval guns or torpedoes generally makes up for the shortage of warships. After the war, Japanese camouflage cruisers also undertake the mission of escorting prisoners of war.

In the end, this complete plan for attacking large American transport fleets was called Plan A. In addition to Plan A, the Japanese Navy also formulated a Plan B, and this Plan B was a troop transport ship improved by the US high cruise ship! This ship sailed very fast, with an average flight of more than 22 knots. In terms of long-distance running ability, it does not belong to a brand new fuel battleship. Moreover, the action is very hidden, and the scale of the cover fleet is very small, just like a ghost on the ocean. If such a troop transport ship can be sunk, it will naturally be a very big record. After all, a large ocean cruise ship can carry more than 7 ooo officers and soldiers. Killing this ship is equivalent to a one-month record of the 6th Army!
Chapter completed!