On 30 May, Task Force 17 left Pearl Harbor under the USS Yorktown, along with a number of maintenance workers, who had returned to combat capability but had not yet been fully repaired. But considering that the ship, which was supposed to take several months to repair, is now back on the battlefield in just three days, it cannot but be admitted that the US military logistics department has performed a miracle. Also leaving Pearl Harbor on the same day was the Task Force 16 under the command of Rear Admiral Spruance.

However, Ron is not currently on the USS Yorktown, he is now on the USS Enterprise, and is responsible for teaching the pilots of Task Force 16 some special tactics against the Zero in the shortest possible time. In the two days leading up to the 30th, he had already demonstrated his ability to navigate the F4F in front of naval pilots. With John. Admiral Thatch's statement is that he has never seen such a talented flying guy, and he can't tell that he is flying an F4F for the first time.

Of course, this is not Ron's first time flying the F4F, in a previous game, he had flown the F4F and the Zero-21 in one tough battle after another, completing mission after mission as a U.S. Navy pilot. Ron still remembers how he waited for the day when he was faced with the enemy's more advanced fighter jets and waited for the day when he would switch to the F6F. As a result, one day, the landline evolved from a wildcat to a hellcat. But when he happily lifted her into the air, he found that the sky was full of Japanese ki8 (one) (本) [read] the novel ybdu4. At that time, he was so angry that he almost dropped Logitech's operating lever: It's too tricky, who doesn't know that Japan's ki84 is not only limited in number, but also because of reliability problems, even fewer can fly. But now I can guarantee that this kind of depression will never happen, but if a god suddenly appears in front of him and asks him if he wants to go back and be depressed again, then he will not hesitate to swear: I love depression!

The time he had been in Task Force 16 was limited, so it was impossible for Ron to take his time to convince others as he did on the USS Yorktown. Fortunately, his previous achievements were recognized by the army aviation, and he was awarded a medal and his rank was promoted to captain. In this way, many rookies have to call him a siir. However, the status of the chief alone does not have much effect, and the more effective way is to know whether it is an eagle or a sparrow going up and down in the sky.

So, as soon as he got on the deck of the Enterprise on the 30th, Ron announced in front of many pilots that whoever could defeat him in a heads-up battle would get $50 (which was not a small number at the time), and if he lost, he would only need to pay $10. The pilots were in a state of flux. In both the Navy and the Army, pilots are somewhat pretentious. In the face of such a provocation, everyone was excited, and they were all gearing up, ready to teach this army's dirt bun a lesson.

However, when it really went to heaven, everyone realized that the 100 dollars were not easy to earn. In the first few games, Ron successfully took advantage of the opponent's eagerness to make unnecessary overload moves, resulting in a needless loss of energy, and then relied on his energy advantage to suppress the opponent. forced them to constantly dodge, constantly depleting energy, and finally because they didn't have enough energy to dodge, they could only honestly let Ron ride in the direction of 6 for more than ten seconds and couldn't get rid of it. Everyone knows that in a situation like this, if it was a real air battle, they would definitely have been shot down. As a result, none of the top four challengers made it past 60 seconds.

The challengers who came up later began to learn the lessons of the previous ones, cautiously and tentatively, as if they wanted to make a preemptive attack. This excessive caution has been taken advantage of by someone again. As a result, it didn't take long for them to realize that Ron's plane didn't seem to be the same F4F as them, it climbed higher than them and flew faster than them. As a result, as soon as Ron attacked, none of them could last more than 60 seconds. In just one morning, Ron made a full hundred dollars.

After lunch, all the pilots who did not have a mission came to the conference room to gather and summarize the confrontation in the morning. At this summary meeting, Ron threw out the theory of energy air combat that was regarded as a guide and a bible by later pilots and even aircraft designers. It is precisely because of this theory that some boring guys after the war always use Ron as the first choice when choosing MVP among ace pilots in various countries. Although his record is far from the best, in Germany, there is a large group of guys who shoot down much more than him, and there are even people who can take out 7 enemy planes in one air battle, in Russia, there are people who have almost twice the number of shots shot down divided by the number of combat missions (what is more terrifying, she is a woman), and in Japan there are also perverts who can not only get out of the way with a zero battle against 75 P51Ds, but also shoot down one of them. However, at most, they changed a part of the war, and Ron's energy air battle, which changed the entire air battle.

In the original history, the so-called energy air warfare was a theory summed up by Boyd, the ace pilot of the US military and the godfather of the fighter mafia, only after the Korean War. (The turning maneuver of the fighter in the horizontal plane and the dive and pull up in the vertical plane have the conversion of kinetic energy and potential energy, but the pilots have never discussed the mystery from the perspective of energy conversion.) Boyd ushered in a new era in the theory of air warfare: energy air combat vs. geometric air combat. The striking sign of this is that Boyd successfully used the viewpoint of "energy air combat" to solve the problem of the correct application of "rolling scissors air combat tactics" in his famous book "Research on Air Offensive." In fact, the trump cards of the various armies are already applying these principles, consciously or unconsciously, in air combat, but it is here that they are really clearly presented and used to guide combat and aircraft design.

"I don't know if everyone here has noticed this, that is, I basically rarely do big overload (when the plane changes the way it flies, its acceleration will make people feel like the body suddenly becomes heavier when the elevator suddenly starts, of course, the impact will be much stronger, the acceleration direction towards the head becomes a positive overload, on the contrary, it is a negative overload) action, I will do any action as softly as possible, as much as possible to reduce the overload. If I have to do a big overdrive, then I also try to force my opponent to make a bigger overdrive. Because doing actions will lose energy, and large overload actions will lose energy sharply. If you can't exchange such a move for a fatal blow to the enemy, you will put yourself in a situation where you don't have enough energy to complete the follow-up action. This is very dangerous. It should also be noted that the energy loss of different aircraft when doing the same maneuver is completely different. For example, for Zero, doing a sharp turn with a high angular velocity doesn't consume much energy, whereas with an F2A buffalo, you'll notice that your speed drops like a funnel on top of the speedometer. So when a Zero turns sharply in front of you, don't follow it. That's just a waste of energy. ”

"Then I'm just going to watch him get rid of me so easily?" A young ensign pilot asked.

Ron looked at him, and he recognized the rookie as the first pilot to challenge him. Actually, this guy's skills are not too bad, but rookies are rookies after all. In front of the old bird, there will always be a loss. However, if he can continue to learn from his failures, and God is willing to give him a chance, there will always be a day when a rookie will become an old bird.

"Braun, that's a good question." "You think back, when I was in your back hemisphere, you pulled a big overdrive and really, it took a lot of effort to pull this one, and I didn't want to pull the lever like that, and I would be too tired to lift the fork at lunchtime." Now think about it, how did I keep biting on the back of your ass? ”

Braun scratched his head and smiled embarrassedly: "I'm sorry, I had black vision at the time, it was pitch black in front of me, and I didn't see anything." (Black vision: When the pilot does a positive overload maneuver, the blood will be pressed to the legs, if the overload is large enough, it will cause the blood supply to the head to be insufficient, and the eyes will become dark in a short time, and in more serious cases, it will even lead to coma.) Conversely, a negative overload action will also press all the blood to the head, resulting in a red-red vision in front of the eyes. ）

"So who saw it clearly?" Ron looked at everyone with a smile.

"You pulled the plane up, jumped up, rolled in Braun's direction, and then the lever dived at him." It was pilot Lawrence who spoke. He paused as if to see Ron's reaction, "By doing this, you're turning one action into three, and all three of them have a much smaller overload than Braun, so you're definitely not going to have blackouts." And Braun can't see anything now......" (Ron's move just now is called Gao Yoyo, which is a classic air combat maneuver created by a certain Chinese pilot on the Korean battlefield.) ）

"Yes," Ron nodded in approval, "but you've only noticed one aspect, and you can think again, if Braun is so gifted that he doesn't have black vision, how do you think he can get rid of it?" ”

The pilots below chattered and discussed. Ron was not in a hurry and continued to wait patiently.

"The sharp turn will definitely not work, people will do it again, but they still can't get rid of it. If you turn so many times, you don't have to hit, and you will stall. One red-haired pilot said, "If I had changed, I would have put the flaps in the landing position and put the landing gear out at the same time." Then the plane will have a sharp deceleration, and if you react a little slower, you will rush to the front. ”

"Braun, do you think this is possible?" Ron asked.

"I'm afraid not, just now I put a gear flap in order to turn quickly. After the turn, although I immediately retracted my flaps and maxed out the horsepower, by the time my eyes were restored, I was just 240 miles away, and by this time I had already been judged to have been shot down. I suppose that when you swooped down just now, if I had made this move, you might have rushed to the front, but I'm afraid I'd have stalled right away. ”

"And how about a barrel roll?" (The so-called barrel roll refers to the pilot rolling while pulling the rod, and the flight path of the aircraft is like flying around a wooden barrel, so it is called barrel roll.) ）

"That's a good idea, the barrel roll won't let you lose speed too quickly, and it will also allow the enemy to rush to the front. However, the timing of this action is not easy to grasp, if you do it slowly, you will be bulleted; It's early, I pull the plane up again and watch you roll underneath. Barrel rolling consumes energy, and it won't be long before your speed drops to the point where you can't roll any longer, and then I'll swoop down again. And even if you do it just right, I can do a barrel roll in the opposite direction of you when I'm about to rush in front of you, so that the moment I rush from behind you to the front, it's hard for you to get a chance to shoot, and then I'll jump at a big angle, do you think you can bite my six? ”

"Ah, I see what you mean." Lawrence said, "Braun's plane is now much slower than yours, and jumping with you is completely killing itself." Just now I only noticed that your movements are not overloaded and you don't black-eye, and now I figured it out. You've been avoiding unnecessary energy consumption! At this point, Lawrence became excited, "Like you said earlier, the plane must have energy to make movements. You start by pulling the lever upwards to steer the plane to climb, which also loses speed in exchange for altitude, while lengthening the line of flight and reducing the angular velocity of the turn. As you swoop down, the altitude changes from new to speed. Braun, on the other hand, made a horizontal turn and lost speed for nothing. So in the process you have achieved an energetic advantage all at once! As long as you don't make too low-level mistakes in the future, Braun will definitely have no way at all. ”

"Yes, this time the answer is to the point, the plane has two types of energy: kinetic energy and potential energy, jump is to convert kinetic energy into potential energy, dive is to convert potential energy into kinetic energy. Managing the energy of your aircraft and inducing or forcing the enemy to consume it needlessly is the key to winning in air combat......"

……

The first day on the Enterprise has passed like this, which is a good start. With the assault training plan he had just completed, he reached out and turned off the lamp in front of his desk, and he was finally ready to go to bed. Tomorrow is another day and it will be busy. The lights went out, and I didn't even have time to mumble, "I'm going to fall asleep." Ron hurried to sleep.

Although tired, although the Navy gave Ron preferential treatment, he had a room by himself, with a bed wider than the others, a softer bedding, and even a pillow made of satin fabric. But he still didn't sleep soundly. In the middle of the night, he still wakes up occasionally. At this time, he often has a strange feeling that everything these days, all the air battles, the jungle, the submarines and aircraft carriers, and even the one sleeping in the bed, seems to have become irrelevant to him. He just quietly stayed and watched, as if he were reading a novel or a movie. It wasn't until more than ten seconds later that the wandering soul gradually returned. Then he heard the swift and light footsteps of the night man as he passed by the doorway, and this way of walking was very similar to Xie Na. Xie Na is a nurse, and she always walks like this. She always seems to be particularly sensitive to the sound of walking, and sometimes, there is a ball game on the weekend, but Xie Na is not interested, so she goes to bed early, leaving Gao Tianxiang alone to stay up all night watching the ball. The sound of the TV was turned on so quietly that it was almost nothing. She also slept soundly in the next room. Until the end of the ball game, Gao Tianxiang got up and turned off the TV, and walked forward to unplug it. At that time, Xie Na would always be awakened by the sound of him walking, so her confused voice came from the room: "Finished?" Go to sleep. Then when Gao Tianxiang walked into the bedroom, he found that Xie Na was asleep again.

The boat is rocking? Ah, although it is a big ship like an aircraft carrier, it is still small on the sea, and it will ripple with the wind and waves, just like that time when I traveled to Shandong with Xie Na, and then took a boat to Dalian. That time was also a night boat, the weather was fine when it set off, and Xie Na and Xie Na went up to the platform on the top of the boat, leaning on the railing, watching the lights of Yantai Port gradually go away, and at first the lights could still illuminate half of the sky. So much so that you can't see a few stars in the sky. But as the ship moved away, the lights dimmed, and the sky grew darker and darker, as black as the furry belly of a black swan, and the sea was dark and dull, mingling with the sky. The boat is like floating in a giant eggshell. And the stars in the sky are more and more and brighter. Until Xie Na was dazzled, she sang like a child, and she sang "twinkle and twinkle, and the sky is full of little stars". And then, well, then the wind started, and the wind blew Xie Na's long hair up. In memory, it seemed that Xie Na was the most beautiful. The wind was getting stronger and stronger, not only blowing Xie Na's long hair, but also blowing away the stars in the sky, and the boat began to shake slightly, but Xie Na was still reluctant to go down, like a child who was playing crazy. The wind was getting cooler and colder, and the wind began to mix with raindrops, and in the blink of an eye, the rain began to fall heavier. So he pulled Xie Na, covered his head, and ran down laughing. Then the next day, Xie Na caught a cold.

The boat rocked again, and the gentle shaking made people's eyelids begin to grow heavy again. So for a while, Xie Na's smile became blurred again, and after a while, she sank into the darkness again, like a big rock sinking into water, and then air combat, watching movies, hot dogs, and all kinds of other weird and unrelated things floated like a splash, and quickly disappeared into the darkness.

The training on the second day was mainly formation confrontation and tactical coordination. The main thing is the drill of various cross scissors and the cooperation between each other. Decoys and assaults, mutual protection and so on.

By June 2, the fleet was concentrating on a hopeful place, Cape Lucky, 325 miles northeast of Midway. On the way, the commander selected a group of officers (including Ron) and showed them some very precise documents, which were issued by General Nimitz's aide-de-camp, Edward?? Prepared by Vice Admiral Laiton, he predicted the enemy's plans for an attack on Midway, including the direction of Nagumo's aircraft carriers ("325 degrees from the northwest") and the point they were about to reach ("about 175 miles from Midway").

This accurate information surprised everyone, and at the same time boosted the morale of all those in the know. A more detailed battle plan was drawn up: the Japanese should not have known yet that the US Navy's aircraft carrier group was in the nearby seas. In order to capture Midway, they will first of all certainly use the carrier-based aircraft of the aircraft carrier group to carry out air strikes on Midway. And Midway has the long-range B17 bombers of the US military. This four-engine heavy horizontal bomber did not pose much of a threat to moving targets such as warships, but it was very suitable for reconnaissance of the position of the Japanese fleet. At the same time, fortifications have been laid on the island, a number of anti-aircraft guns have been rushed, as well as a number of fighters and torpedo planes, as well as dive bombers. Although most of these things were a little old and lacked experienced old birds to pilot, they still posed a threat to the Japanese fleet anyway. Without destroying the island's air forces, the Japanese could not complete the occupation of Midway.

"Midway has a total of 15 B17s, and we have two or three crews for each aircraft for rotational reconnaissance. If weather conditions permit, at least 10 aircraft are guaranteed to patrol the air at any one time in the near future, 5 of which are in key directions. Once the Japanese aircraft carrier is spotted, the aircraft carrier immediately goes into alert and waits for the Japanese to strike at Midway. When the Japanese air force is used to strike at Midway, its own defenses will be weakened, and then our carrier-based air force will launch a decisive blow against the Japanese aircraft carriers. And before that, the entire formation had to maintain radio silence to avoid detection by the Japanese. This is our basic plan, is there anything else anyone can add? General Fletcher asked.

"What if the Army fails to spot the Japanese fleet first? Will they be able to spot the Japanese fleet? "Some people have questioned the level of business of the army airline.

"Captain Ron, you're from the Army Airlines, what do you think?" Fletcher turned to Ron.

"General, the army aviation is certainly inferior to the navy in terms of training in searching for sea targets, but I think that a target as large as the fleet cannot be discovered as long as it appears in the field of vision. However, the sea is so big, there will always be clouds in the sky, and no matter how many planes are dispatched, there is no guarantee that nothing will go wrong. Also, to ensure detection, I suggest that the B17 should lower the flight altitude if possible, from the 20,000 feet they are used to to around 13,000 feet, which of course increases the danger of the mission. Make them more vulnerable to interception by Japanese fighters. ”

"If there is an interception of an aircraft, then the approximate location of the Japanese fleet can also be judged. As long as Lu Airlines can send the news back. ”

"If there is anything that the army aviation has an absolute advantage over the navy, it must be the sturdiness of the bombers. The nickname of the Flying Fortress is not for nothing. As long as the antenna is not broken by the first bullet, there is no problem in sending a telegram back before it is shot down. ”

"Well, I think the Army can still be relied upon, but we have to make other contingency plans for other situations, such as failing to detect the Japanese fleet in time, or if there is a situation where the Japanese are preemptively discovered." It was Major General Spruance who spoke. Although he did not receive five stars like General Halsey in history, he is the best front-line commander in the U.S. Navy in the eyes of many military fans of later generations. In the past few days, Ron had seen him more than once, and in Ron's impression, the general, who had come from the commander of a cruiser, had always been a silent, good listener.

"Yes, let's talk about it now......"