The next day, reconnaissance planes brought Li Mei aerial photographs of Brest after their bombing. According to the interpretation, the bombs they dropped did cover the target area, but the effect was far from satisfactory. The photographs show that the most important target, the submarine cave, is not something that ordinary bombs can gnaw on. I'm afraid that only a giant bomb can shake it, a bomb of this level, an ordinary magazine can't hold it, and the B-17 can't afford it, and before the B-29 comes out, only the British Lancaster bomber can be used. In addition, there is no precision guidance technology yet, and if you want to make a giant bomb hit accurately, you must let the bomber enter at a low altitude, so that the threat of anti-aircraft artillery to the bomber will greatly increase. To let the bulky but not sturdy Lancaster into low altitude in broad daylight was to kill him.

It seems that there is no hope of containing the combat effectiveness of German submarines by striking at cave depots. To contain them, it may be necessary to attack some of the supporting factories in Germany. But with the current strength of the Eighth Air Force, it is difficult to accomplish such a task. And to strengthen the forces of the Eighth Air Force, it is necessary to have sufficient logistics, and to have enough logistics, it is necessary to be able to break the blockade of German submarines. In this way, the strategic bombing of submarines has entered a strange circle. Therefore, at least for the time being, it is definitely useless to rely on strategic bombing to solve the problem of submarines.

Because of this, although yesterday's battle proved that Li Mei's new tactics were extremely successful, today when she saw the aerial photos after the bombing, Li Mei could hardly even eat. To solve the problem of ~one~this~read~small~say~ybdu can't be submarined, large-scale strategic bombing is impossible, and the various tactics that Li Mei has devoted all her efforts to studying will become useless dragon slaying techniques. It was just too much of a blow to him. In fact, the focus on German submarine bases came from Li May's suggestion.

But Li Mei is not so easy to hit. Born into a family of ordinary workers, who did not attend any military academy or have any military background, but who was able to eventually become the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Strategic Air Force, this guy who has always prided himself on his coldness and indifference is not so vulnerable. In fact, Li Mei almost got rid of the negative emotions in just a few minutes, pulled Ron who had not had time to finish his meal, and rushed headlong into the combat research room.

"Since you can't destroy them in their nests, you can only go to the sea to find trouble for them."

"You mean we go to sea to bomb submarines?" Even Li Mei, who has always been known for her boldness and whimsy, was stunned, "Attacking moving targets is not the strong point of a 4-round bomber. ”

"It's not about how many submarines are really sunk, it's about making it impossible for them to attack targets at will." "I was on a submarine for a while, and I heard a captain talk about submarine warfare, and I had a good relationship with some guys in the Navy, and they talked to me about the use of ......submarines by the Germans during small talk," Ron said.

According to Ron, the time and speed at which a submarine can dive underwater is very limited. A submarine sails underwater at a maximum speed (usually only a dozen knots, the same as a merchant ship) on a battery, and it will run out of power in a maximum of one or two hours. Therefore, the large-scale maneuver of submarines mainly depends on sailing on the sea surface. Moreover, a lone submarine has no way to deal with a merchant fleet with escort ships, and they must rely on wolves to fight. That is, after a submarine discovers a merchant fleet, it uses radio to report its composition, course and other relevant information. And the Admiralty of the Germans directed the submarines in front of the merchant fleet to concentrate and wait at a certain point through which the merchant fleet was going to pass. When a merchant fleet passes through this point, it is often at night. Under the cover of night, the wolves surfaced to launch a torpedo attack on the convoy. (In this way, sonars designed to detect underwater targets are useless, and because submarines are relatively low, the dark blue painted submarines will blend in completely into the dark ocean background when viewed from tall escort ships and merchant ships, and finding them is like looking for a pitch-black cat in an unlit coal bunker on a dark night with no fingers out of sight.) On the contrary, when viewed from a low-level submarine, tall warships and merchant ships will be undoubtedly visible against the background of a relatively bright sky. What, turn on the searchlight? Isn't this exposing one's own position? In the dark sea, take the initiative to expose yourself to the eyes of the enemy ship and look for death! By the way, when the protagonist of this book crossed the Surigao Strait on the night of the third quarter, many readers regretted that they did not encounter enemy ships here. In fact, there was nothing wrong with it, no one dared to swing around on the submarine-infested sea with searchlights, and they could not see them when they met the Japanese. ）

"Well, listen to you, I think if we can send a large number of long-range patrol aircraft, we can force the German submarines to dive over a large area. so that they could not maneuver quickly. They also have no way to concentrate wolves in critical areas in a timely manner. Li Mei's face was happy, but he immediately frowned again:

"But if you look at the charts, there's a large area from here where shore-based aviation can't fly, but it's a must for merchant fleets, and the Germans can still give us a fatal blow here. It might be a good idea to send an aircraft carrier escort. ”

"The cost of escorting with aircraft carriers is too high, right?" Ron said, "Now, there are only two aircraft carriers in the entire Pacific, so let the aircraft carriers do this?" It's too extravagant, isn't it, those guys in the Pacific can't go crazy? "Actually, it's not that he doesn't know the final solution, but if everything comes out of him, he shouldn't be treated as a monster. Anyway, Li Mei is a very smart person, and if he is inspired, he will definitely be able to figure out a way by himself.

"So, what about a seaplane carrier?"

"I've heard that the sea conditions in the Atlantic Ocean are very bad, most of the time the wind and waves are very strong, and many times the seaplanes can't take off at all."

"What about the small carrier?"

"Small aircraft carriers are actually not cheap, the number of aircraft carriers is small, and the ability to resist strikes is poor, and General Spruance said that it is better to build such a thing than to build a large fleet aircraft carrier. Just like those small aircraft carriers converted from small Japanese auxiliary ships, which played a decent role in naval battles. Ron looked disappreciative, but when he spoke, he deliberately said "a small aircraft carrier made out of small Japanese auxiliary ships" very seriously.

"Oh, that's it," Li Mei was disappointed, he shook his head, grabbed the coffee cup in front of him, and drank it violently, this grassroots officer didn't know what elegance was. Suddenly, his eyes widened, his big eyes almost jumped out of their sockets, his Adam's apple vibrated violently, and with a violent cough, a mouthful of coffee gushed out like a volcanic eruption, spraying Ron who was sitting across from him all over his face.

"Ahem, ahem...... You just ...... cough, cough ......" Li Mei coughed violently, while holding her clothes tightly with her left hand, her eyes staring at him directly, "cough, cough...... You just said...... cough, cough...... Japanese ......"

Ron hurriedly held him on, reaching out to pat him on the back.

"Are you alright?" Ron said with concern.

"It's okay, it's okay." Li Mei, who had been choking on coffee and coughing for a long time, finally recovered, and he squeezed Ron's shoulders tightly with both hands, so hard that Ron felt pain. He stared at Ron with blazing eyes, "Ron, just now you said that the Japanese used auxiliary ships to convert into small aircraft carriers?" The Japanese are so cute! Completely ignoring Ron's reaction, he said in one breath:

"What the Japanese can do, we can do! We can also use auxiliary ships to change out of light aircraft carriers, anyway, we only need to use it for anti-submarine, it doesn't need to participate in fierce battles at all, what defense, armor, all can be abandoned! We still have so many merchant ships, we can also change them into such specialized anti-submarine carriers. That's okay, Ron? ”

"Speed can be an issue, the speed of merchant ships is too low, and the wind on the deck is not strong enough, which can affect the take-off and landing of aircraft. But we, unlike the Japanese, have catapults and don't rely entirely on deck wind. I think this plan should work. ”

"Haha!" Li Mei let go of the hands that were holding Ron's shoulders, he clenched his hands into fists, raised them to the sky, and raised his head and shouted, "Hooray!" ”

Then, he lowered his head again and said to Ron, "I just thought that we could also build a type of anti-submarine escort aircraft carrier according to the standards of merchant ships. We want to produce dozens or hundreds of these things like jeeps, like flowing water...... The end of the wolves has come! ”

Ron stood to the side, looking at the cheering Li Mei, and couldn't help but be surprised. Li May's plans are indeed the tricks used by the Americans to defeat the wolves in history. Of course, these tricks are known to me from later generations. But now he just gave him a hint that he could come up with so many tricks at once in such a short period of time. It seems that there is really no shortage of cattle in this world. Even as a traverser, there is not necessarily capital to laugh at the rivers and lakes.

Li Mei has always done what she says, and immediately began to draft the report, and directly put Ron aside. Fortunately, Ron already knew about this guy's reputation as a "madman", so he didn't care.

Now, it is time for Ron's expedition in England to come to an end, to see everything that should have been seen, and to experience what he should have experienced. Now, he should go back too.

Maybe it's a fate with a "madman" or something, but as soon as he returns home, he meets another madman.

This madman is called Greg?? Boeington. A rather offbeat ace pilot who once worked in Chennault's Flying Tigers.