Explanation of battleships
Hello everyone, the issues about destroyers and battleships in the previous chapters caused misunderstanding among many readers, perhaps because I did not explain them clearly.
First, let me quote a historical fact:
When the decision was made to start building the battleship Yamato, the most radical aviation advocate, Colonel Takijiro Ohnishi, deputy commander of the Yokosuka Air Force, rushed into the Naval General Staff to fight to the death. He said to the Vice Chief of the Naval General Staff, Mineichi Koga: "Building the Yamato is a mistake of the times. The money used to build one Yamato can build 3,000 planes. If you give me 3,000 planes, I can sink all the fleets."
Koga Mineichi did not reprimand Onishi Takijiro, but struggled to find words to persuade him: "Onishi, I am not against aviation, but you have to know that the emperor must ride in a carriage pulled by eight horses when he goes on tour, and the same is true for a country, which must have battleships. If others have them, we must have them too. This is called the face of the country, the face of the navy, you know?"
Onishi Takijiro was still struggling desperately: "Then how about a few less horses? We don't need eight horses, just four. A carriage pulled by four horses is also quite impressive."
"No, Ohnishi, this is not something I, Vice Minister Koga, can decide."
…
The above conversation took place in 1937, when aircraft carriers had not yet achieved any combat success. Koga Mineichi was then the Vice Chief of the Naval General Staff of the Combined Fleet and a vice admiral. He was the one who later succeeded Yamamoto Isoroku as commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet after his death.
This shows that before the outbreak of World War II, the Japanese had already realized the importance of aircraft carriers and knew that aircraft carriers would replace battleships.
But for various reasons or inertia, battleships continued to be built.
The subsequent events of World War II proved that this theory was correct.
The reason is that almost all battleships are designed for ship-to-ship naval battles. The "big guns" are used to destroy enemy warships, and the "armor" is used to defend against enemy attacks. This is the "big guns and big ships" theory.
But throughout World War II, there were almost no large-scale "ship-to-ship" naval battles. Aircraft carriers increased the distance between enemy and friendly fleets, and it was normal for battles to decide the outcome hundreds of kilometers away.
As for the battleship, the "cannon" is completely ineffective because it cannot even see the shadow of the enemy ship. The "armor" is also ineffective. The aircraft attacks from top to bottom, and the torpedo attacks below the waterline.
Throughout World War II, battleships were mostly a burden to the fleet. Carrying large cannons and heavy armor, their speed inevitably became a shortcoming. Moreover, their large targets made them easy targets for siege by aircraft. As a result, destroyers desperately covered the escape of these useless battleships.
The only large-scale ship-to-ship "close combat" should be the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which was also caused by the US military being deceived.
I am describing it from memory and can't quite remember the names of the people involved. Book lovers who are interested can search for "Battle of Leyte Gulf" on the Internet.
The general situation was this: although the Japanese Combined Fleet had its aircraft carriers at the time, their carrier-based aircraft had almost been destroyed, so they decided to take a risk and use the aircraft carriers as bait to lure away the main US aircraft carriers and escape from the pursuit of the landing fleet.
Then, the fleet mainly composed of battleships hidden in the rear suddenly attacked the US landing fleet.
The Japanese succeeded, and this resulted in a close combat between the fleets, but in the end the Japanese fleet fled in panic under the powerful firepower of the US military and did not achieve much result.
Therefore, there is no doubt that it was the aircraft carrier that eliminated the battleship. It changed the mode of naval warfare and made the battleship useless.
The period of elimination was World War II. Before World War II started, many countries, including the Japanese, had realized that battleships were becoming obsolete. After the end of World War II, basically no battleships were built. I have the impression that all the unfinished ones were completed. The Russians seemed to have built one, and the French one was the last to be completed, which was also a sequel to the unfinished ones during the war.
Some book lovers believe that missiles eliminated battleships. This should be due to the misleading information from self-media. When I searched online, I found that there are indeed self-media that have given this conclusion.
Anti-ship missiles were not taken seriously until the Falklands War, which was already in 1982.
The last battleship was the French "Jean Bart", which was completed in 1955 and served for only 6 years. In addition to bombing Egypt, it was used as a training ship. It was dismantled in 1970. It was basically on two levels with the development of anti-ship missiles.
Simply put, battleships had already been eliminated when anti-ship missiles appeared before the world. Of course, it is not possible that missiles eliminated battleships.
…
Finally, the idea of this book is actually to use airplanes to help the French Navy seize sea power.
France has a very special location, being only over 100 kilometers away from the United Kingdom and with Germany right next to it.
Britain and Germany were working hard to develop battleships, but France was already far behind and could not catch up in this regard.
Besides, why should I follow?
It has long been known that battleships are targets of aircraft, and all of Britain and Germany's battleships are within the combat radius of aircraft. Wouldn't it be better to directly develop bombers and put the British and German fleets under bombing?
There is no need to develop aircraft carriers to eliminate British and German battleships.
France is the largest aircraft carrier, and it is an unsinkable aircraft carrier!
That's why the navy has to develop torpedoes. Bomber bombs are easier to develop, so it is enough for the army to develop them!
As for the danger of torpedo attack aircraft, that was during World War II. During World War I, anti-aircraft weapons had not yet been developed and there were not even anti-aircraft guns. All warships were basically in a state of no air defense, so of course there was no danger. Torpedo attack aircraft could safely find angles to attack battleships at close range.
Finally, I would like to add one more thing: torpedo attack aircraft already existed during World War I, but the war ended shortly after they were developed, so they did not have the opportunity to be used.
(End of this chapter)
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