Is the Liangxia fleet really on the north side of the expeditionary fleet?

Not necessarily!

After the Battle of the Northwest and Guia Naval Battles, Spu repeatedly deduced, and finally came to the conclusion that the commander of the Liangxia fleet could be said to be very flexible in choosing aviation tactics, and did not stick to the rules, and paid special attention to protecting his own concealment.

It should be said that in naval warfare with aircraft carriers as the core, concealment is the best means of protection.

No matter how powerful the fleet is, when it is exposed and attacked, it is often inevitable to die, and it has to do everything in its power to stay hidden.

It is precisely for this reason that it is necessary to control the routes of attack aircraft groups.

As long as it is close enough, it is not a problem for the carrier-based aircraft to go around some distance after liftoff.

The key is the time between the discovery of the expeditionary fleet and the attack.

In total, it's only one hour!

Even if the carrier-based aircraft of the Liang Xia fleet flew in a straight line after the sortie, and killed the expeditionary fleet at the fastest speed, an hour was very short.

To say anything, the Liangxia fleet will not be more than 200 kilometers away from the expeditionary fleet.

The reason is: the Liangxia fleet will not let the carrier-based aircraft carrying out the attack mission take off in advance, and at most let the carrier-based aircraft stand by on the flight deck; After receiving the reconnaissance report of the seaplane, it takes about 20 minutes for the carrier-based aircraft to rise into the air, and then it takes about 10 minutes to form a formation; Even if the carrier-based aircraft are sent out in batches and formed during the flight, there will only be 40 minutes of flight time.

For a heavily loaded torpedo aircraft, it can fly up to 200 kilometers in 40 minutes.

It was so close, but the Liang Xia fleet was not discovered.

How can it be!

Did Cunningham not send a reconnaissance plane before dawn, or rather, did not send a reconnaissance plane to the north?

Crucially, the expeditionary fleet has several large warships carrying more than 10 seaplanes, and the Royal Navy has a tradition of using seaplanes for reconnaissance missions.

All in all, it doesn't make sense to be so close and not noticed.

While Spu pondered this question, Tian Shi did another thing.

"According to the telegrams received one after another, I made statistics, and this is the result of statistics." Tian Shi said as he handed the note to Sp.

After taking a look, Sp immediately frowned.

Cunningham exaggerated the results!

According to the intercepted telegrams, the expeditionary fleet had achieved only seven victories in previous battles, or the most enemy planes shot down by air defense warships were seven.

Crucially, the bombers and torpedo planes of four squadrons attacked the two "Brilliant" class aircraft carriers.

If calculated in this way, the total size of the Liang Xia attack aircraft group is probably only more than 40 aircraft.

With more than 40 carrier-based aircraft, he crossed the expeditionary fleet and severely damaged two fleet aircraft carriers, which is a frighteningly high combat efficiency.

The remaining carrier-based aircraft of the Liangxia fleet, in addition to satisfying the air defense of the fleet, are also enough to form an attack aircraft group.

In addition, after the return of the attack aircraft group, that is, after 10 a.m., the Liangxia fleet will be restored to full combat strength and will be able to launch two waves of attacks in a row. 、

Of course, there are enough carrier-based aircraft to do anything.

"What do you think?" Spu had a headache.

At this point, it is too late to say retreat.

Now, even if you don't want to fight, you have to fight!

If the reconnaissance plane can detect the Liang Xia fleet and launch an attack in time, it may be able to win back one percent.

"We're turning now, it's not too late."

Spu was slightly stunned, obviously he didn't expect Tian Shi to say this.

Although Cunningham did not mention it in the telegram, there is reason to believe that he must have sent reconnaissance planes before dawn, and that several of them must have flown north. If the Liangxia fleet was to the north of the expeditionary fleet, and the seaplanes were dispatched before dawn, the carrier-based aircraft carrying out the attack mission were ready to take off in advance. Then before that, there was a high probability that it would be detected by the reconnaissance aircraft of the expeditionary fleet. ”

"Why?"

"The Liangxia aircraft carriers are all open hangars, which can only be refueled and reloaded on the flight deck, and must be illuminated at night."

Spu nodded, agreeing with Tian Shi's inference.

In a combat state, not only aircraft carriers, but also any warship must control the lights at night, that is, it is not allowed to use lighting equipment on the deck at will.

"From my personal point of view, I'm afraid we were wrong from the beginning, the Liangxia fleet was not on the north side of the expeditionary fleet."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I can't explain it, it's just my gut feeling."

After speaking, Tian Shi sighed. If he could explain his intuition clearly, he would have told Sp a long time ago.

"You think we should turn and retreat?"

"At the very least, it is necessary to get fighter jets into the air as soon as possible and expand the range of air defense patrols. Surely, we're also exposed, and the fleet of planes attacking us is about to arrive. ”

Sp was stunned again, but then stood up.

Tian Shi was right, he had been thinking about how to find the Liangxia fleet and why the expeditionary fleet was suddenly attacked, but he didn't think about air defense.

If you want to say anything, there is only one key.

The monitoring stations carried by warships generally work in the long-wave band, and cannot intercept all radio signals, so there is no guarantee that the telegrams sent by enemy planes in the vicinity can be detected in time.

If this is the case, then even if it is discovered by enemy planes, and the enemy planes have already sent telegrams, they are completely ignorant.

The key point is that the radio equipment used by reconnaissance planes and seaplanes is much more advanced than the radio stations used at the outbreak of the war.

In addition, there is intelligence that the Liangxia Navy has already obtained shortwave voice stations with a working distance of more than 100 kilometers.

Who can guarantee that the Liangxia Navy does not have shortwave stations with working distances of up to hundreds of kilometers?

Sipu doesn't understand technology, and Tian Shi is the same, but neither of them ruled out this possibility.

Although the Liangxia Empire was not in the lead in all conveniences, the Liangxia Empire was indeed leading the way in terms of the technical equipment of the navy.

The most representative is radar and other electronic equipment.

He wouldn't be surprised if someone told Spu now that the Liang Xia Navy had a device capable of spotting enemy ships hundreds of kilometers away.

Perhaps, the expeditionary fleet was discovered before half past five, so the Liang Xia fleet was able to send carrier-based aircraft out earlier.

It was precisely in this way that the expeditionary fleet was attacked by Liang Xia's carrier-based aircraft an hour after discovering the seaplane of the Liang Xia Navy.

Without much delay, Sp immediately gave the order for the fighter to rise into the air.

Moreover, it is to bring the fleet into air defense operations.

As for whether it needs to switch to evasion, Spu has not yet made a decision.

In any case, it was just Tian Shi's guess, and the SBD, which was on a reconnaissance mission, returned at around 7:30, and it was already 7:15 a.m.

Wait another ten minutes, what's more?

Obviously, more than ten minutes is enough to fight a battle and decide the life and death of a fleet.

Actually, it's only a few minutes.

When the air defense sirens sounded and the communications reported that the radar of the escort warship had detected enemy aircraft flying from the south, Spark was stunned.

However, he reacted immediately.

He and Tian Shi all misjudged the situation, or underestimated Bai Zhizhan's courage and made a very serious low-level mistake.

Knowing that the Nuland fleet had also entered the Fanyan Ocean, Bai Zhizhan dared to come to a decisive battle, and if he was not absolutely sure, he would rashly attack?

Since the attack was launched, it shows that the white stop war is absolutely certain!