For the approach of the Zero fighter, the Americans on the escort aircraft carrier did not care too much. (=Money Man, Money Man,,。 The Zero is only a light fighter, and the weapons it can carry against ships are quite limited, and it can only hang two 60-kilogram bomblets. (The kamikaze version of the Zero can hang a 250-kilogram bomb) Such a small bomb is still a bit of a threat to a destroyer or something like that, but it is not a mortal threat to a 10,000-ton escort carrier. And there was enough anti-aircraft fire on the escort carriers, enough to drive them out.

The Casablanca-class escort aircraft carrier has a 127-mm high-level dual-purpose gun on it, as well as 12 20mm guns. Originally, it was proposed to replace the 12 20mm guns with the 6-barreled 20mm Gatling guns of the Great Viper. However, considering that the Gatling gun is much heavier and more expensive, the Navy feels that on a warship like an escort aircraft carrier that does not need to be on the front line, an ordinary 20mm gun is enough.

The 20mm gun normally had a good lethal effect on the Rì fighter, but it was not enough to deal with suicide aircraft. This is not because the suicide plane is stronger than the normal aircraft, in fact, in terms of the structural strength of the airframe, the "kamikaze" version of the Zero is no different from the ordinary Zero Fight, and for the sake of economy, many of the things originally used to increase the survivability of the aircraft have also been removed. Therefore, as in the general Zero War, as long as one or two 20-mm shells are hit, it is basically guaranteed that the plane will not fly back.

But the Zero Battles of the "kamikaze" category were not intended to fly back in the first place, and as long as they did not explode instantly after being hit, they still had the possibility of colliding directly. Therefore, a small-caliber anti-aircraft gun, which is enough to fight an aircraft of an ordinary model, will appear to have insufficient firepower when fighting an aircraft of the "kamikaze" model. To deal with a kamikaze, you need to be able to make sure that a single hit will make it bloom in the air.

The Zero fighters who were in charge of escorting Guan Xingnan and the others were already in a scuffle with the F4Fs that had taken off from the escort carriers. It's been a long time since Zero Combat had to compete with a fighter that far surpassed its own, but this time, the rare Zero Combat finally encountered a fighter that was inferior to its own fighter, and considering that Zero Combat has also had some improvements over the years, although the effect of the improvements is not particularly significant, unlike those improved models of the Spitfire or the BF-109 that have almost made a radical progress, but compared to the initial version, there is still more or less progress. The American F4F fighter jets have taken a back seat early, and if it weren't for their huge ownership, the Americans would have completely retired them long ago. Now, when they are used on escort carriers, they are being used more as attack aircraft for ground support. In this way, they are of course not willing to spend money to improve it. So the F4Fs encountered by the Zeros now and the F4Fs at the beginning of the war have not changed much, they are just a little older. However, the one-sided victory in the early days of the war did not recur, partly because the U.S. military had an overwhelming numerical superiority in aircraft, which made up for the disparity in capabilities, and partly because the level of the pilots was far from those in the early days of the war.

However, among these low-level pilots, there is still a super master. That is Hiroshi Nishizawa. As one of the most important trump cards of the Navy, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa is said to have shot down hundreds of enemy aircraft. This figure is much higher than the record for the highest shot down by a US pilot. Of course, Rì's own statistics may not be reliable, but in any case, this figure shows what a terrible aerial devil Nishizawa is. If you consider that since the middle and late stages of the war, he has had to constantly contend with fighters who are significantly better than the Zero, and he can continue to get results, which shows that he is terrible even more.

An F4F has been put into the aura of a shè sight by Hiroshi Nishizawa. The plane was too aggressive when it tried to attack Hiroyoshi Nishizawa from the direction of 8 o'clock, and Hiroyoshi Nishizawa dodged his attack with a slight pull of the nose and allowed him to rush to the front. Then Hiroshi Nishizawa just gently kicked the rudder and bit this F4F. And relying on the better acceleration of the Zero Battle 52, he quickly approached the opponent, and then, without even testing the machine gun, he directly hit a point with a 20mm gun. The shell hit the F4F accurately and ignited it, sending the F4F plummeting towards the surface of the sea with a cloud of smoke.

But now Hiroshi Nishizawa can't care about admiring the crash of enemy planes, because several enemy planes are also eyeing him at this moment, and there are even two F4U pirates that came from nowhere.

Nishizawa's escort group was trying to attract the enemy's attention as much as possible, while Seki Yukio approached several US escort aircraft carriers with six zero-combat units of the "kamikaze" special attack team.

"According to the plan, we will split into two teams and attack the two aircraft carriers closest to us." Guan Xingnan gave the order. Then his headphones were immediately filled with a wild shout: "The Emperor is onboard!" "Kudanzakami!" These voices are high-pitched, high-pitched, and very harsh. Guan Xingnan knew that this was the result of the combination of those children's voice changes and the large amount of methamphetamine they had taken.

The American escort aircraft carrier, as well as the 127-mm guns on the destroyer next to it, began to fire at them.

"Spread out!" Guan Xingnan ordered. Pilots who lived through the Battle of the Marianas remember the horror of the VT shells used by the U.S. military's 127-mm high-level dual-purpose guns. This kind of shell, which can automatically explode when approaching enemy aircraft, has brought painful memories to Rì himself, and Guan Xingnan even saw it with his own eyes, a 127 shell exploded in a dense group, knocking out three planes at once. Making the formation a little looser is the only way Rì himself can do anything about this shell right now.

While passing through the barrage of 127-mm anti-aircraft guns, two "kamikaze" Zeros were hit by the artillery fire of the Americans, and they suddenly turned into brilliant fireworks. All along, the effectiveness of large-caliber high-shè guns against small aircraft was quite poor. But the advent of VT shells changed the situation, and many times they attacked small aircraft even more efficiently than small and medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns.

Now there were only 4 planes left in Guan Xingnan's fleet, and they were in groups of two, rushing towards the predetermined target.

The 20-mm high shè guns on the US escort aircraft carrier opened fire. The dense rain of bullets intertwined, forming a large net and heading towards the Guan Xing man. Guan Xingnan tried his best to control the plane, dodging enemy fire as much as possible while slamming into the enemy.

Since all the places where there was space were stuffed with explosives, the whole plane was several hundred kilograms heavier than the ordinary Zero, and with a 250-kilogram bomb hanging under the wings, this made the flight xìng of the "kamikaze" version of the Zero-War drop significantly and became much more clumsy. So, despite Seki's best efforts to dodge, several 20-mm shells hit his plane.

Half of the right wing of his plane was knocked off, and the plane began to roll uncontrollably to the right, when another shell hit the root of the left wing, knocking out the entire left wing. So the plane rolled uncontrollably to the left again. At the same time, flames and smoke also rose from Guan Xingnan's plane, but these could no longer stop his attack, because it was too close. Now the flight deck of the enemy's aircraft carrier was already filled with his field of vision, and the distance between them was no more than a hundred meters. He saw that just as he and the route were on the route, the enemy's high gunners threw down their high guns in a panic and fled in other directions, and he saw ......

The difference is that in the original history, I don't know what the reason was, Guan Xingnan's fighter plane just smashed on the deck, but it didn't explode, until another suicide plane immediately following him crashed into it, causing a huge explosion. And this time, Guan Xingnan's plane exploded normally, blowing up a large hole in the unarmored flight deck of the escort aircraft carrier Clinning Bay. Immediately after that, another kamikaze plane crashed into the hapless aircraft carrier, and a fire began to ignite on the carrier.

On the other side, a kamikaze plane crashed into the sea when it was about to collide with the escort aircraft carrier Saint-Law, and before the Yankees on the escort aircraft carrier of the Saint-Rolle could breathe a sigh of relief, the second kamikaze crashed straight up, so thick smoke also rose from the escort carrier.

Just five suicide planes, one attack heavily damaged two escort carriers. Such combat efficiency was difficult to match even in the early days of the war. In the original history, the escort aircraft carrier Saint Luo sank under the attack of Rì's own kamikaze, while the escort aircraft carrier Clinning Bay was heavily damaged. But in this space, the USS Clinning Bay, which had suffered two rammings, was significantly more damaged. The fire has spread to the jet fuel depot and triggered a series of explosions. So, an hour after being hit by a kamikaze plane, the captain gave the order to abandon the ship. It was also at this time that the air defense jǐng reported again......

……

The skies over Ozawa's fleet were empty, and there were almost no fighters for air defense. In fact, the four aircraft carriers of Ozawa's fleet, which served as bait, only had a total of 108 aircraft on them. With such a small number of planes, coupled with the fact that the pilots are all rookies, the result is that these planes are simply not enough for the 8 fleet aircraft carriers in the main fleet of Halsey. The ones who went to two were cleaned up. Now looking at the empty decks of the four aircraft carriers of Ozawa's fleet, everyone knows that this guy is indeed a bait. But even if it's a bait, you can't let it run. Anyway, now that I don't have any worries, I can eat boldly with confidence.

However, Ron, who had borrowed an F4U pirate from Halsey, saw two super strange warships in Ozawa's fleet - the Ise and the Rì Air Battleships. The so-called air battleship was the idea of refit after Rì himself realized the great power of the aircraft carrier, and because of the lack of shipbuilding capacity, it was difficult to quickly build a new aircraft carrier. As a result, the older battleships Ise and Rì became the object of refit. Due to time constraints, Rì himself did not even have time to convert them into aircraft carriers with an all-access deck, but only removed the turrets at the back and laid out a 70-meter-long flight deck. The flight deck of such a length can only be used for maintenance and take-off operations and cannot provide the taxiing distance required for landing, so once their carrier-based aircraft take off, when it is time to land, they must be transferred to other regular aircraft carriers and then shipped from other ships.

Such a landing process can be described as tragic, and taking off on such an aviation battleship is no easy thing either. Although there are bullet shè devices, the one in front of the most rì bent sè, as tall as the castle tower-like tower-like mast, blocks the deck wind tightly, and in order not to affect the shè of the main gun in front, the shè is also installed diagonally, which makes the deck wind not blowing directly in front of the plane when taking off, but blowing from the side, which greatly increases the difficulty of takeoff.

Ron's fighter jets had no bombs or rockets, and the enemy fighters had long since been cleared, so now he could only walk around in circles with nothing to do outside the enemy's anti-aircraft guns. From time to time, take out your camera and take some pictures in case you can brag about it. But after the battle, when Ron washed out the photos and looked at them, he found that the photos were all taken in a mess. In Scott's words, it was a waste of the Leica camera he lent Ron and the latest color film he had in it.

In just one attack, all four aircraft carriers of Rì himself went up in smoke. The other warships were also injured to some extent.

In line with the principle of eating up and wiping out nothing, Halsey organized several more rounds of air raids until the last ships of Ozawa's fleet were sent to sea, and then the complacent brute bull gave an order, and the main force began to sail back.

"Guys! We're going to hurry! Just Willis?? Li said that they had met the enemy's battleship troops, and we rushed back and went for another big meal! Halsey, who had just eaten the bait, was clearly not full. However, it was not so easy to catch Kurita, and almost as soon as Kurita spotted the enemy's battleship, he immediately said, "Ozawa pits me!" Then he gave the order to talk nonsense. Take the fleet and run away. Willis?? Li wanted to ensure the safety of the landing field, but he didn't dare to chase it. It was just that the carrier-based aircraft on the aircraft carrier launched two rounds of pursuit, and in the end the head of the battleship Kongo was left.

It was at this time that Halsey got another report of a suicide plane.

When he received this report, Halsey, who was busy rushing back to deal with Kurita's fleet, didn't pay much attention to it. It wasn't until after nightfall that Halsey, who had determined that he couldn't catch up with Kurita, took a serious look at the report.

"Go, General Ron called. I have something to look for him. Putting down the report, Halsey said to his adjutant.

……

"General, do you have something to look for me?" Ron walked into Halsey's office and saw Halsey staring at a report and grinding his teeth.

"Oh, Ron, you've had enough of me these days, haven't you?" Halsey said, "Little Rì Ben has come up with a new trick. You come and see. He handed Ron the report in his hand.

Ron took the report and looked at it:

"At about 9 o'clock in the morning, more than 20 planes attacked...... The escort aircraft carrier Clinning Bay sank, and the escort aircraft carrier Saint-Lo was seriously injured and incapacitated. An hour later, the plane struck again, sinking two destroyers and seriously injuring a light cruiser. ”

"Holy! Isn't this a kamikaze? Ron was taken aback, "Didn't this thing come out of the time of the Battle of Okinawa?" Why did it come out of nowhere? ”

This is a mistake on Ron's part. The Battle of Okinawa was the pinnacle of kamikaze activities, and Rì himself invested the most kamikaze planes in this battle, so in the impression of ordinary people, when talking about kamikaze, the first thing that comes to mind is always the Battle of Okinawa. But in fact, in the original history, the special attack began in Leyte Gulf.

"What a bunch of crazy people!" Halsey said, "Do you have any ways to deal with it?" ”

Ron thought for a moment and replied, "General, there is actually a reason why Rì's own attack efficiency can be so high this time. First of all, our air defense, especially carrier-based aviation, is poorly aware of the danger of such targets as enemy fighters. Fighters are never the first target to shoot down. So, we relaxed the first round of interceptions against such targets. Secondly, the F4F on our escort aircraft carriers is too slow and the firepower is too weak, which is no longer suitable for interception missions today. Finally, the small-caliber anti-aircraft guns on our warships were not lethal enough, and even if they hit enemy aircraft, it was difficult to prevent them from colliding with them. So, I think, the best way to carry out the arrangement against xìng is: first increase the proportion of fighters, and expand the range of fighter patrols. In the event of an encounter with an enemy aircraft, priority is given to attacking those aircraft whose movement has deteriorated. If the enemy's suicide plane is modified with fighter jets, then after adding a large number of bombs, the movement will definitely decrease significantly. Any such aircraft could be a suicide aircraft. Secondly, it is better to replace the fighters on the escort aircraft carrier with F4U, and the high-altitude guns with 25-mm Gatling or 40-mm anti-aircraft guns. In this way, the effectiveness of anti-aircraft fire can be guaranteed. ”

"Not bad." Halsey nodded, "Your brain is fast enough!" It's a pity that I went to the army in the first place. This is in this way, it is necessary to increase the number of fighters, which will weaken our attack power. ”

"General, do you think after today, how many boats will you be able to attack?" "Actually, I just thought about it again, there's a better solution." ”

"What's the solution?" Halsey was a little surprised, in such a short period of time, in addition to analyzing the problem clearly and proposing a solution to the problem, Ron actually came up with another set of solutions?

"That is, you grab an airfield for us as soon as possible, and then we will throw a team of P-81s up, I dare to guarantee that whether it is the scope of care or the efficiency of intercepting enemy aircraft, compared with carrier-based aircraft, our heavy fighters will be much better." Ron laughed.

I wish all readers a happy new year, all the best, eternal happiness, and longevity!