Most military fans know the old Japanese Navy's "66th Fleet" plan and "88th Fleet" plan, of which the "66th Fleet" plan is also related to China, because the "66th Fleet" plan mainly comes from China's reparations after the First Sino-Japanese War! However, this article will not talk about the First Sino-Japanese War, and today I will talk to you about the problems of the two fleet expansion plans of the old Japanese Navy, whether it is the "66th Fleet" plan or the "88th Fleet" plan, in fact, they have gone astray and fallen into the pit.
First of all, let's talk about the "66th Fleet" plan and the "88th Fleet" plan. Due to the "great humiliation" of the intervention of the three countries to return Liao, Japan aimed at the naval expansion of Russia, France, and Germany in the Far East, and the specific plan was the "66 Fleet" program. The core of the "66 Fleet" plan is 6 battleships + 6 armored cruisers, and the Japanese Navy has calculated that once the plan is completed, the strength of 6 battleships + 6 armored cruisers can crush the naval forces of Russia, France, and Germany in the Far East. At the same time, because of the containment of its ally Britain, Russia, France, and Germany have only a limited number of support fleets that can be dispatched from their homeland to the Far East, and even if a few capital ships are dispatched, the "66th Fleet" will be able to deal with it.
After its victory in the Russo-Japanese War, Japan made a readjustment of the order of its imaginary enemies in the Far East. The 1907 National Defense Policy stipulated that Japan's number one imaginary enemy would still be the United States, which maintained a strong army in the Far East, followed by the rising United States, which was constantly in friction with Japan. Therefore, Japan decided to expand the size of its navy again, and the specific plan is the "88 Fleet" program, the core of the "88 Fleet" program is 8 battleships + 8 armored cruisers, and stipulates that all warships are less than 8 years old, and old warships are not counted. It should be added that with the advent of a new type of ship, the battlecruiser, the core of this naval expansion plan was changed to 8 battleships + 8 battlecruisers.
And then let's talk about the problem of these two schemes, the problem is the same, that is, the role of armored cruisers is overestimated. The 203-mm guns of the armored cruisers were much less powerful than the 305-mm guns of the battleships, the number of quick-fire guns on the side was not stronger than that of the battleships, and the armor protection was far inferior to the battleships, and the fleet could not confront the battleships at all in a decisive battle. Although the armored cruiser had some advantages in speed and was a few knots faster, it was not too big, because the speed of the new battleships also came up, not the slow speed of the early ironclads.
From the point of view of cost, the latest 10,000-ton armored cruiser at that time was not cheap, and the difference in cost with the battleship was not too big. The cost of almost 3 armored cruisers can build 2 battleships, but in a fleet duel, 3 armored cruisers can't beat 2 battleships at all.
So why did the shrewd Japanese develop such a plan for naval expansion? This is the misdirection of the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War. In the First Sino-Japanese War, the dome-armored cruiser formation of the Japanese Combined Fleet took advantage of its high speed to concentrate 152 mm and 120 mm rapid-fire guns to "wash the deck" and inflict heavy damage on the Beiyang Naval Division. However, the Beiyang Naval Division suffered a big loss because the overall speed of the fleet was too slow, and there was a serious shortage of rapid-fire guns and ammunition. Another point, the luck of the Japanese wing fleet was also off the charts, and none of the shells that hit the ammunition depot **. However, after the war, the Japanese regarded specific situations as general conditions and came to the conclusion that fast cruisers with a large number of rapid-fire guns could deal with ironclad ships, so the "66 Fleet" plan had a plan to build 6 armored cruisers.
The Russo-Japanese War 10 years later was actually a special case, although the fleet put together by the Tsar ** had many battleships, but many of them were old-fashioned **, second-class battleships, and their comprehensive performance was not much stronger than the most form-based armored cruisers at that time, and the displacement of second-class battleships was only about 10,000 tons, with 254 mm caliber guns or old-fashioned 305 mm low-caliber main guns. In addition, the lack of training and command problems of the ** fleet, and at the same time the difficulty of supply, and the labor expedition, which eventually led to the defeat of the ** fleet in the Battle of Tsushima. In the Battle of Tsushima, the combined Japanese fleet once again used the power of its broadside rapid-fire guns, and at that time the armored cruisers had about the same number of 152 mm rapid-fire guns on the side as the battleships, so the armored cruisers were able to show their might. Since the armored cruiser is so cost-effective, the Japanese Navy, of course, favors it.
Therefore, the "66th Fleet" plan formulated after the First Sino-Japanese War and the "88th Fleet" plan formulated after the Russo-Japanese War both had a large number of armored cruiser construction plans. It's a pity that when encountering a real opponent, this scheme of using armored cruisers as capital ships for a fleet decisive battle will not work. After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan confidently formulated the "88th Fleet" plan and planned to start a war against the United States after the plan was completed. But when the battleships of the Great White Fleet of the United States (16 ships in total) came to visit, Japan instantly extinguished the idea of doing something, this is not a level at all!