The national defense industry and national defense science and technology strength of the main belligerents in World War II.
Generally speaking, the strength of American defense industry should be the strongest among the major belligerents.
The strong military production capacity of the United States can not only meet its own war needs, but also be used to support allied operations in large quantities. In fact, the material support for the allies began long before the United States entered the war. In my Notes on the History of War, I quoted a large number of military equipment and materials that the United States and Britain helped the Soviet Union during the Soviet-German War (the United States alone helped13,000 planes and 400,000 cars). These materials (especially mechanized equipment) played an important role in the victory of the Soviet Union's war against Germany.
In Rommel's view, as long as the powerful industrial power of the United States can play a role in a certain battlefield, for the Axis countries, this battlefield will never have the chance of final victory again. The actual process of the war confirmed Rommel's point of view. America's participation in the war enabled the Allies to establish a truly unshakable and overwhelming material advantage over the Axis countries, which was the decisive factor of World War II, consuming a lot and highlighting the scale effect. It's a pity that at the top decision-making level in Germany, not many people have Rommel's strategic vision, let alone value the military industrial strength of the United States. Therefore, XTL did not show too much concern about Americans landing in North Africa. As we all know, with the elimination of North Africa by the United States and Britain, the collapse of the Axis camp is just around the corner.
/kloc-At the end of 0/9 century, Germany surpassed Britain to become the number one industrial country in Europe and the second industrial power in the world after the United States.
First of all, German industry lacks enough raw materials. When we discuss the war potential later, we will see that Germany's natural resources are very limited, and many raw materials needed for military production are in short supply, which affects the quantity and quality of military products. For example, the tire material of jet aircraft produced in Germany in the late war was synthetic reclaimed rubber (because of the lack of natural rubber source), but this artificial product could not meet the needs of high-speed jet aircraft taking off and landing, and the tires often burst when landing.
Secondly, Germany is seriously short of oil and other fuels to make its military products play their full role. Under the strict scientific organization and the creative leadership of speer, German military production can maintain a fairly high output before the end of 1944. Former NZ German general Feng? In chapter 23 of "Tank War", Melinzin quoted speer, the German Minister of Military Industry, as saying when he testified at the Nuremberg International Tribunal:
"That is to say, if we simply look at the output figures of military production, Germany will not see any signs of failure or collapse before the winter of 1944 comes. However, Germany has not had enough fuel to put these considerable equipment into the battlefield completely. The strategic bombing of the Allies and the loss of foreign fuel sources finally made German military production almost meaningless in the later period of the war. Thousands of planes, tanks and submarines produced by military factories can only be put on the ground or parked in ports like scrap iron because there is no fuel for them to go to the battlefield.
In the discussion of natural resources of major belligerents, Germany's lack of oil and other raw materials will also be mentioned.
Moreover, Germany's wartime industrial production could not be carried out in a completely undisturbed and destructive environment like the United States. As I quoted in the Notes on the History of War, speer pointed out frankly that since May 1944, the German fuel factory has become the target of concentrated attacks by the allied air forces. Since then, Germany has lost 90% of its fuel, which is a real disaster. "The bombing of enemy planes cost us the price of war, and no amount of weapons production will help, because without fuel, new tanks and jets are useless." (See Feng? Tank battle written by Meilinkin (Chapter 23).
If we compare the overall environment of military production between the Axis countries and the Allied countries, we will see great differences. The industrial targets of Germany and Italy have been under the attack of allied strategic air forces in the middle and late period of the war, and they are often bombarded continuously, which has caused great damage to military production and transportation. On the contrary, mainly due to geographical reasons, the United States relies on the barrier of two oceans and is far away from the attack range of the Axis countries. Its industrial facilities and production activities will not be affected at all, and it can be in a state of full-load and safe operation for a long time. Similarly, the vast and deep areas of the Soviet Union (such as the east of the Ural Mountains) are not within the attack radius of the NZ Germans. The industrial production in the British mainland (northwest) fortunately escaped the bombing of German bombers, because the operational radius of German air force fighters is very small, and the bomb load of German bombers themselves is generally insufficient, so it is difficult to cause devastating or substantial damage to British industrial facilities. Britain's military production capacity can basically be guaranteed not to be greatly weakened in wartime, and can even be significantly improved. In addition, the Allies have air superiority, so the main part of the Allied military production is in a very safe state. The different security environment will directly affect the efficiency and cost of military production, which is very important for a long-term all-round war.
By the end of the war, especially after entering 1945, the German military production system finally collapsed under the indiscriminate bombing of the allied air force and the continuous advancement of the army, which could no longer support the German operations. At the same time, the allied military production reached the highest peak in history. In other words, Germany's military production, like the general war situation, is a process of being gradually weakened until it finally collapses, while the allies are getting stronger and stronger.
The industrial system of the Soviet Union also stood the severe test in World War II. As we all know, it didn't take long for the Soviet Union after the October Revolution to transform Russia, a weak country in World War I, into a powerful industrialized country. According to the data provided by zhukov in Memoirs of War, the steel output of the Soviet Union before the outbreak of the Soviet-German War was 6,543,800 tons. This figure was second only to the United States and Germany in the world at that time.
However, many people think that the Soviet Union's industry was concentrated in the western region in World War II, and it was occupied and destroyed by most in the open invasion of Germany in 194 1. In fact, Stalin began the strategic adjustment of the national industrial layout as early as the late 1920s. He has realized the far-reaching significance of building a powerful industrial zone in the east of his own country. After XTL came to power, facing the aggressive new Germany, the necessity of adjusting this industrial center became more prominent.
About the Soviet Union's heavy industry layout in 194 1, Albert, England? Sidon introduced it in the third chapter of the Soviet-German War 194 1- 1945:
In addition to the large industrial zones around Leningrad and Moscow, as well as the large industrial zones in Ukraine and Donetsk sub-basins, there are also some industrial zones in the Urals and Asia. The industrial zone of Ural Mountains is centered on Perm, Sverdlovsk and Togorsk, Magney, with a total length of several hundred miles. There are large joint ventures in omsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Bratzke, Irkutsk and other places near Lake Baikal along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Heavy industries have also been built in Ashgabat, Samarkand, Tashkent and Almaty near the border between Afghanistan and ZG. However, the western world does not know these details in 194 1. The shift of the Soviet Union's heavy industry center of gravity eastward began with 1928.
Although on the surface, the industry in the western part of the Soviet Union still supported the economic foundation of the pre-war countries, the existence of the eastern industrial zone provided the Soviet Union with valuable wartime industrial reserves, and provided follow-up support for the Soviet Union to continue to resist the German army after suffering major setbacks in the early days of the Soviet-German war. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union with lightning speed, the Soviet Union lost more than 6,543.8+0.5 million square kilometers of land in the west within three months (equivalent to twice the total land area of Britain and France), and Stalin greatly accelerated the work of heavy industry moving eastward. The eastward movement of industry is an important measure to mobilize the Soviet Union in wartime. According to the data in the article "Economics of Soviet-German War" published by Sanlian Life Weekly, by the second half of 194 1 year, the Soviet Union had relocated 2,593 industrial enterprises' equipment and a lot of materials from the west. 1942 In May, enterprises in Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic Sea were basically transferred. In the second stage, enterprises in southern areas such as Stalingrad and North Caucasus were evacuated. Many enterprises that have moved in have started to operate in their new locations in less than two months on average, and some even started to work in the middle or in the open air. By the summer of 1942, the Soviet Union had completed the transition of the national economic war. 1200 factories moved eastward and 850 new factories were put into production, and the proportion of industrial output value in the eastern region rose from 28.4% in 1940 to 70%. 1944, the annual output of Soviet aircraft reached 40,300, tanks 28,983 and artillery122,500.
According to statistics, during World War II, the Soviet Union produced 65,438+008,000 tanks and self-propelled artillery (but nearly 70,000 of them were destroyed by the Germans in the war) and more than 825,000 guns and mortars. The powerful production capacity of the Soviet Union and foreign aid from Britain and the United States made up for these losses in time. When analyzing the air forces of major belligerents, we have already introduced the figures of aircraft production, which exceed 654.38+300,000. During the Soviet-German War, the Soviet Union produced an average of 2.7 tanks, nearly 265,438+/kloc-0,000 guns and mortars, and 34,250 aircraft every year, not including a larger number of military vehicles, light equipment, ammunition and other necessary munitions. There is no doubt that this figure reflects the very strong industrial production capacity of the Soviet Union.
The situation in Britain is quite special. It is an established western industrial power with strong industrial manufacturing capability. However, during most of World War II, Britain's main battlefield was confined to sea and air, because only by ensuring the relative advantage of sea and air could it protect itself, so the focus of its industrial production naturally tended to be sea and air equipment. For a long time (1before landing in Italy in July, 943), the land battlefield of Britain's war against Germany was limited to North Africa, while North Africa was only a small war zone for Germany, and Germany invested very limited troops in this battlefield (most of the time there were only four irregular divisions), so the land pressure of the British army was very small, the demand for army equipment was not particularly great, and its production did not account for the equipment production plan of the three armed forces. Generally speaking, Britain has a strong industrial production capacity, but this capacity depends largely on a large number of overseas resources. In this regard, the assistance of the United States and the contributions of many overseas colonies of the British Empire cannot be ignored.
Japan's industrial production capacity in World War II can only be considered as medium level, which needs to be intuitively understood in a comparative way. For example, Japan's aircraft production is only a little more than one tenth of that of the United States. According to the data, in19465,438+0, Japanese automobile production was 479,065,438+0, while in 1943, American automobile production reached 6265,438+0502. 194 1- 1945, Japan only produced 604 field guns with a caliber greater than 105 mm and 65 12 guns with a caliber of 70 to 105 mm, while the United States produced 7803 guns in the same period. 194 1- 1942, Japan only produced 1065 medium-sized tanks (it should be pointed out that the main battle tanks equipped by Japan in World War II were generally light and thin, and the tanks that Japan itself called "medium tanks" were actually only equivalent to the light tanks of other major belligerents. For example, the heaviest tanks produced and put into practical use in Japan during the war were only 60. In the same period, the total weight of medium-sized tanks in Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain has exceeded 30 tons, while the total weight of medium-sized tanks equipped in Germany has even exceeded 40 tons, and light tanks 1024, while the United States has produced 24,997 medium-sized tanks and 4,052 light tanks. The production comparison of naval equipment has been introduced before. Generally speaking, Japan's defense industry is dominated by the navy, and the equipment production capacity of the air force and the army is relatively weak.
The most fatal thing is that Japan still lacks resources compared with Germany, and almost all strategic materials have to be imported. Once Japan loses the right to control the sea, it will become very difficult to import its overseas raw materials (by the end of the war, the import of raw materials was almost completely cut off), which will directly affect whether the military production can be maintained. Compared with the United States, Britain, Germany and the Soviet Union, Japan's overall national defense industrial base has a congenital gap, and its natural resources are not as good as those of the above four countries. Therefore, although Japan devoted itself to production in wartime, it was unable to change the battlefield situation. When the Americans mastered the absolute superiority of sea and air in the Pacific battlefield, Japan's industrial system inevitably collapsed in the harsh blockade and suffocating strategic bombing.
Italy's industry was very fragile during World War II, and the actual process of the war showed that it could not even meet the basic operational needs of its own army. Although Mussolini boasted about Italy, in fact, Italy would have collapsed as early as the end of 1940 when its North African colony was easily destroyed by the British. In the eighth part of My Notes on the History of War, I quoted Tippel's introduction: 1940, the Italian armed forces are very short of weapons and equipment, and they are out of date. At that time, among 59 Italian divisions of two regiments in Apennine Peninsula, Sardinia and Sicily, only 20 divisions reached 70% of the wartime establishment and the other 20 divisions only reached 50% due to insufficient weapons and equipment. If there is a general mobilization, everything is lacking, and the army can't even put on shoes for its reservists.
During the whole war, Italy's industrial production capacity was too small and its financial resources were insufficient, so its armed forces had to rely on German materials and equipment to maintain their operations. So I think Italy's defense industry strength is obviously the weakest among the major belligerents.
Comparison of national defense science and technology strength
The intuitive embodiment of national defense scientific and technological strength is the quality and performance of military equipment, so the comparison of scientific and technological strength of major belligerents can be seen at a glance by observing their military scientific and technological achievements in the war. Germany seems to be ahead in this respect. We only need to list some national defense scientific and technological achievements made by Germany during World War II to illustrate the problem:
(1) In the field of the army's main battle equipment, the Leopard and Tiger tanks produced by Germany successively belonged to the land-based equipment with the leading design concept and the strongest attack power at that time. It is said that after the Battle of Kursk, Soviet Marshal zhukov, who inspected the German Tiger Tank, frankly pointed out: "XTL really has reason to believe that this tank alone can win this battle". The tank zhukov saw was "Tiger 1". It weighs more than 56 tons and is equipped with a powerful 88 mm gun, which makes it a dangerous opponent of all allied tanks. Its heavy armor makes it almost indestructible. In the war, the "Tiger 1" tank destroyed a large number of allied tanks and other equipment, which set up an invincible myth in the hearts of opponents and left a great impression on its power. This kind of tank once set a record of destroying the Soviet T-34 tank at a distance of 3,900 meters, which shows its fierce attack firepower. In addition to "Tiger 1", Germany also produced a more powerful "Tiger 2" tank (also known as "Tiger King") in the later period of the war. The total weight of "Tiger King" tank is close to 70 tons, and it is equipped with the most powerful KwK 43/L7 1 88mm gun in German tank artillery during World War II. It can be used at a distance of 2000 meters.
Leopard tank was originally designed by Germany for Soviet T-34 tank, but its performance has completely surpassed that of T-34 tank. The design of this tank is very advanced, with modern ideas and very fine manufacturing technology. Leopard is the first tank equipped with active infrared night vision equipment, which initiated the era of tank night fighting equipment. Leopard tanks are considered to be superior in performance to similar tanks of the same generation of allies. Even its enemy, the Soviet Union, spoke highly of the Leopard tank and gave it to the best tank crew as a reward. 1944, in order to make better use of the captured "Leopard" tanks, the Soviet army also printed a Russian version of the "Leopard" tank manual and distributed it to tank drivers. The French army used the captured Leopard tanks until the 1950s. In addition, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia also used Leopard tanks after the war. Leopard tank has a far-reaching influence on the design of western tanks after the war in the future, and is considered to be the first modern main battle tank in the history of world weapons. The main battle tank equipped by the German Defence Force today is named "Leopard II" tank, which can be regarded as a full affirmation of the German "Leopard" tank during World War II.
On the basis of the "Leopard" tank, NZ Germany later successfully developed the "Cheetah" tank destroyer, which became "the best tank destroyer in World War II". Compared with "Tiger 2" tank, its firepower and armor protection exceed that of "Tiger 1" tank, and its excellent maneuverability as a "leopard" makes it the most powerful anti-tank weapon in Germany.
German armored weapons generally have the characteristics of excellent manufacturing and fine technology, which shows that Germany is in a leading position in the design and manufacture of armored weapons and equipment in the world. However, these German armored combat vehicles with outstanding performance also have fatal defects such as high production cost, complex structure and technology, and difficult maintenance, which lead to the inability to mass-produce and a serious shortage of them. They entered the battlefield late and could not fundamentally reverse the war situation. Especially for Germany, which lacks resources, the aforementioned defects of these ace equipments are even more fatal.
(2) In the field of naval equipment, although Germany does not have the time and conditions to build a powerful surface fleet, it can still see the first-class manufacturing technology and technical level demonstrated by the German military industry even on the few large surface warships it has built.
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Take Bismarck as an example. This warship built during the war caused great panic in Britain. In my Notes on the History of War, I can read that in order to sink it, Britain mobilized many "Ace" warships (including aircraft carriers) of the Royal Navy at that time to pursue and intercept the Bismarck, and took turns to attack, only after paying a heavy price to achieve its goal. Just for a warship, why did Britain, known as the first power in the sea, go to war at the expense of blood? This just shows the strength of Bismarck. It is said that the commander of Bismarck arrogantly claimed when he left Hong Kong: "No warship in the British Navy can match us, and no large warship can survive under our guns! As long as Bismarck appears in the Atlantic Ocean, the traffic in Britain will be interrupted and the British will be trapped on the island! " Of course, such rhetoric is somewhat exaggerated, but it can be confirmed from actual combat that the battleship Bismarck is indeed worthy of the title of "the best warship during World War II". It has excellent workmanship, scientific structural design, strong firepower and strong survivability, which embodies superb shipbuilding technology. In the famous naval battle to encircle Bismarck, the huge hood that Britain once prided itself on was sent to the bottom of the sea by Bismarck's precise and fierce firepower in a few minutes. Another British battleship, the Prince of Wales, was also seriously injured and had to quit the battle. In the end, it took the Royal Navy nine years, and the two tigers concentrated their absolute superiority in air and sea power to finally win. According to records, Bismarck lost power, was besieged by the British fleet, was hit by more than 700 shells, and has not yet sunk. It is conceivable that if Germany has another Bismarck, the naval strength of the British navy will be in jeopardy.
In addition, in terms of submarine manufacturing, submarines produced in Germany can be regarded as the best submarines during World War II. Its outstanding achievements in the Atlantic Ocean and the fear and anxiety aroused in the allied camp fully illustrate this point. In the later period of the war, the new submarine produced in Germany was more capable of becoming a weapon to reverse the war, but it failed to play much role because of the late time and lack of resources.
(3) In the field of air force equipment, the successful development and use of jet aircraft has made New Zealand and Germany a world leader in the research and development of air combat equipment. On this point, I have already introduced it when I analyzed the air force strength of the major belligerents. It should be added that in addition to the well-known Me-262, Germany also produced a fighter named Raven, whose official number is Ta- 183, and the prototype was completed in 1944, which is the first swept-wing jet fighter in the world. Its airborne weapons are four 30mm guns and 500kg aerial bombs. The maximum range of the aircraft is 990 kilometers, the maximum speed is 950 kilometers, and the maximum ceiling is 14000 meters (these data were not reached by the allied aircraft at that time). Although Raven Fighter has not participated in actual combat and its appearance is not amazing, it became the predecessor of Soviet MIG 15 Bis Fighter, and became famous in the Korean battlefield five years later!
(4) In the field of new weapons, the birth of missile weapons is also deeply branded with Germany, and German scientists have brought human wars into the era of long-range guidance. V- 1 and V-2 missiles became the ancestors of cruise missiles and ballistic missiles that we are now familiar with. After the war, these two kinds of missiles have become the basis for the development of missile and rocket weapons by the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.
Missiles and jet fighters are absolutely revolutionary weapons. Today, more than 60 years later, these two weapons are still the core equipment of national armies. After the war, the development of missile and space undertakings and jet plans of the two superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) was also based on the direct absorption of relevant technologies from New Zealand and Germany.
(5) In the field of nuclear weapons development, Germany has been at the forefront of the world before the war. In a way, the world should really thank XTL. If it weren't for his stupid anti-Semitic policy and contempt for nuclear physics, NZ would have mastered the atomic bomb technology first. 1938, the Germans discovered nuclear fission. At that time, almost everyone thought that Germany would take the lead in making nuclear weapons. However, New Zealand's anti-Semitic policy forced many outstanding German scientific talents to leave Germany and work for other countries (mainly the United States), including the famous "master" Einstein who occupied a prominent position in the history of science, resulting in a shortage of nuclear physics talents in New Zealand. Coupled with the destruction of New Zealand's nuclear program by the allied forces, the evil world represented by XTL is finally not the first country to possess destructive nuclear weapons.
(6) in terms of scientific and technological talents, Germany has a group of the most outstanding top scientists in the world at that time, including Feng? Braun and many other scientific talents have laid a solid intellectual foundation for Germany to become a world-class industrial science and technology power. The achievements of the national defense industry listed above are all the results of the work of German scientific and technological talents. Germany's advantages in cutting-edge science and technology have also been fully noticed by its allies. They decided to try their best to seize Germany's attractive scientific and technological achievements and valuable scientific and technological talents when conditions permit. At the beginning of 1945, an American commando invaded Germany and captured German first-class rocket expert Braun and others 130 senior rocket technicians and a large number of V-2 missiles. These people have been transported to the United States and become the core talents in the high-tech field of national defense in the United States, which has indeed made outstanding contributions to the rapid development of American science and technology. Naturally, the Soviet Union will not be complacent. At the end of the war, it also took away a lot of physical and technical materials from the German missile base.
My personal feeling is that the national defense science and technology strength of the United States has not made particularly outstanding achievements except for the atomic bomb plan of World War II ("Manhattan Plan"). But even the "Manhattan Project" that Americans are proud of has absorbed a large number of scientific and technological talents from other countries (especially European countries), and Einstein from Germany has played an important role in the nuclear development plan of the United States. Generally speaking, before World War II, the center of world scientific and technological research was still in Europe, and Europe was also the region with the most concentrated top scientific and technological talents at that time.
But in any case, a successful "Manhattan Project" is enough to raise the scientific and technological status of the United States to a very high position. After all, the development of nuclear weapons itself represents a country's comprehensive scientific and technological and industrial strength, because nuclear development is not just a simple small-scale engineering project, and its success depends on the strong support of many related industries and technologies.
When it comes to Britain's national defense scientific and technological achievements in World War II, it is easy to think of radar, an early warning and detection device that played a huge role in the British War. Indeed, even the British themselves admit that without the effective use of radar, Britain could not have won the war in Britain. Of course, not only in the air defense field, but also in the sea battlefield and air battlefield, a large number of radar detection equipment are equipped for surface warfare and anti-submarine. Radar is no less important in the history of war and weapons than jets and missiles. This is also a revolution in military equipment. The long-range real-time detection, early warning, target identification and azimuth judgment provided by radar have become the basic conditions for military operations. Radar makes it possible for human beings to get rid of the limitation of physiological vision for the first time to carry out remote monitoring and collect target information, which fundamentally changes the style of war. Until today, radar is undoubtedly still the most basic detection means.
In addition to radar, another underwater target detection device developed by the British is equally critical, that is sonar. Out of the panic of Germany's "unrestricted submarine warfare" in World War I, the Allies set up the "Allied Submarine Exploration Committee" in 19 17 to study and find technical countermeasures against submarines hidden in the water. After the war, Britain continued to invest heavily in research and development, and developed submarine detection equipment by using the physical characteristics of ultrasonic wave propagation in water. Finally, sonar technology reached the practical stage in the early 1930s. By 1935, half of the British ships had been equipped with sonar. This technology made a great contribution to the allied forces' final defeat of the German submarine war.
Of course, the Soviet Union is an industrial power, but we must also see that during World War II, the Soviet Union had a certain gap compared with Germany, the United States and other powerful countries in the field of cutting-edge national defense science and technology, and did not produce weapons and equipment with high technical content and revolutionary significance in the history of weapons. What impressed people most in the war was the Soviet army's huge scale and tenacious fighting capacity. The only striking thing in the main battle and heavy equipment is the T-34 tank. However, this kind of tank is not superior to similar tanks in other countries in comprehensive performance (such as German Leopard tank and American M-4 Sherman tank). T-34 tank is characterized by good maneuverability, reliable performance, simple structure, easy production, much smaller total weight than Leopard, and can be mass-produced and put into use. According to statistics, during the war, the Soviet Union produced more than 50,000 T-34s, which together with the American M T-34 Sherman tank became the largest tank in World War II. On the eastern front, it was T-34 tanks that flooded the mountains and plains, the much more powerful but limited number of Leopard and Tiger tanks, and finally the arrogant * * *. To some extent, the T-34 tank became the image representative of the Soviet army in World War II.
Japan was not a big country in science and technology during World War II. Of course, the ultimate failure was due to its poor national strength, but the weak scientific and technological strength was also one of the important factors. Even Japanese war researchers admit this. Yi Sheng Sugio, an expert in Japanese war history, clearly pointed out at the beginning of his article "Reasons for Japan's defeat in World War II-from the perspective of weapons research and development":
"The reason for the failure of the Great East Asian War is the difference in national strength and military strength between the two countries [referring to Japan and the United States], especially the difference in material strength. In other words, it is the difference in scientific and technological strength. This is obviously a fact presented from the results, no doubt. "
"On September 30th, the radar of USS Lexington, one of the flagships of American mobile fleet, found a large Japanese fighter plane about 200 kilometers ahead and was moving forward. At this time, the aircraft carrier Lexington has been equipped with various radar systems that can detect incoming enemy planes, including SC radar that detects enemy planes horizontally, SM radar that detects enemy planes in flight, MARK II radar that is connected with anti-aircraft guns to shoot down enemy planes, and SG radar that finds enemy ships at sea, ready to attack at any time. According to the accurate information provided by the radar system, 450 Hellcats launched an unexpected attack, and Japanese fighters were shot down one after another. Those bullets that hit Japanese warships are all equipped with' variable timing fuses'.
The' variable timing fuze' is a kind of equipment that can use radar waves to blast targets at close range within 15km. Because of this equipment, the Japanese army lost 244 first fighter planes and 82 second fighter planes. In other words, out of a total of 326 fighters, the Japanese lost 230 planes and 395 pilots. "
The Japanese did not realize that the US military was equipped with such a powerful radar detection system, because the Japanese fleet at that time mainly relied on traditional combat methods for training. This traditional training is still based on human eyes, supplemented by optical telescope equipment to detect long-distance targets. During the Pacific War, the Japanese army was hit hard by radar more than once, but it could not catch up with the American level in this respect.
Italy's national defense science and technology strength rarely showed in World War II.
Based on comprehensive analysis, I rank the defense industry and defense science and technology strength of the main belligerents in World War II from strong to weak as follows:
Grade one: Germany.
The second level: the United States and Britain.
Third grade: Soviet Union and Japan.
Fourth grade: Italy.