At this moment, the flagship of the 51st Task Force "Nyx".

As the saying goes, if you often walk by the river, how can you not get your feet wet.

Catching the message from the communications staff officer, Stark glanced at it and threw it to Major Smith, who was standing next to him, and couldn't help but smile wryly and shake his head.

Forwarded by the command of the Navy, intelligence provided by the CIA.

According to the radio communication signals intercepted twice before and after, it has been roughly determined that the 41st Task Force of the Liangxia Navy is north of Honu Island. Judging from the sea area where the two reports were made, Task Force 41 was heading west, and it must have been sailing at more than 20 knots.

Previously, Stark and Smith had made similar judgments.

Unfortunately, it is only a judgment.

Until definite information is received, even if it is believed that Task Force 41 has made a detour from the east, it cannot be used as a basis for decision-making. What's more, there is already enough intelligence to prove that there must be a task force of the Liangxia Navy to the west of the transit island.

That's why Stark decided to stay.

Obviously, as long as you can take out the task force in the west, then you can say anything.

On the contrary, if you miss the opportunity to destroy another task force in order to fight a decisive battle with the 41st Task Force, you will inevitably suffer a crushing defeat.

Here, the most important thing is to protect yourself.

To put it more bluntly, it is how to take out the sixty-first task force without suffering losses, or with little or no losses.

Stark took Smith's advice and withdrew the landing fleet first, leaving the requisitioned civilian ships at the landing site.

If the civilian ship is gone, it can still be requisitioned, and if the landing ship is gone, then there is really no more. With the current situation, even if there are enough slipways, shipbuilding capacity is not a problem, and it may not be possible to get new landing ships in the near future, because there are too many warships to build.

There is no need to protect the landing fleet, and the task force will be able to free its hands.

As a result, on the night of the 12th, the landing fleet left the landing site and, accompanied by several frigates, went to the northern standby sea.

As for the civilian ships that remained, they also left the landing site on the night of the 12th, but sailed eastward.

Prior to this, the civilian ships had already unloaded their weapons and ammunition and were supposed to leave the landing site and return to the west coast of their homeland, so they did not arouse the suspicion of the landing force when they were withdrawn. In fact, the commander of the Marine Corps did not ask about the whereabouts of the landing fleet at all.

It's just that Stark didn't take Task Force 52 away, to be precise, he didn't follow his previous idea and let Task Force 52 stay behind.

In terms of deployment, the two task forces simply swapped places.

Task Force 51 was behind, northeast of the transit island, providing cover for the landing fleet and attacking the Liangxia fleet. Task Force 52 was positioned further back, southeast of Task Force 51, mainly on guard against threats from the east.

However, the distance between the two task forces is not very far, around 700 kilometers.

This distance can effectively play the combat effectiveness of the F-14B.

In other words, even the 52nd Task Force is more than 2,000 kilometers away from the sea area where the 41st Task Force is located as mentioned in the telegram, and the 51st Task Force is even closer to 3,000 kilometers from the sea area, so even if the information is very reliable, you can only sigh secretly.

However, this is also equivalent to saying that there is a greater certainty of annihilating the 61st Task Force.

In fact, the purpose of this battle was to annihilate the 61st Task Force.

Prior to this, Stark had been pursuing the annihilation of the Guia Fleet, the 41st and 61st task forces of the Liang Xia Navy, and decided that only after this goal was achieved could it be possible to achieve the strategic goal of retaking the Khowaii Islands by capturing the transit islands.

Otherwise, the battle will inevitably end in defeat.

Fortunately, Major Smith convinced him.

Strictly speaking, it was Stark who compromised with reality.

The point is that the Marine Corps will definitely not be able to follow the plan, that is, to lay down the transit island within a maximum of five days, and naturally need to make adjustments to the combat deployment.

According to Major Smith's analysis, if Task Force 41 planned to bypass the Howai Islands and outflank the Nuland fleet, it would have to take out Task Force 61 operating in the west before it could hope to defeat Task Force 41 in the next battle.

The reason is simple.

If the 41st Task Force was to be dealt with first, it would not only be difficult to achieve a decisive victory, but it would also be flanked by the Liang Xia fleet.

Obviously, Task Force 61 is easier to deal with than Task Force 41.

Not because Task Force 61 has only two aircraft carriers, but also because of its tactical mission.

According to Smith's analysis, the main task of Task Force 61 is actually to cooperate with shore-based air forces and air force, or rather, to provide support to the defenders of the transit island, and to attract the attention of the Newland fleet in the decisive battle of the fleet.

As a result, Task Force 61 will inevitably be more tactically conservative and will not be too aggressive.

The key is that the sea area in which it operates will be affected by other combat units, and it needs to fully take into account the deployment at the entire campaign level, and there will not be much flexibility. As long as the battlefield information can be accurately grasped, it will be relatively easy to guess the location of the 61st Task Force.

There is no doubt that this is too important.

In fact, it was this analysis that convinced Stark.

To put it simply, when the Liang Xia Navy launched a counterattack, the 41st Task Force would definitely act as the main force and assume the main combat mission, or it would force the Nuland fleet to turn its focus to the east, thus ignoring the threat from the west. The main strike mission will be carried out by the patrol planes of the shore-based aviation units, and even the bombers of the air force, and the main duty of the carrier-based aviation units is to provide escort cover.

For this reason, Task Force 61 had to move out to the vicinity of the transit island.

Only when they are close enough can the fighters on board play their due value in escort operations.

In addition, based on the previous three days of engagement, Smith roughly calculated that the carrier-based fighters carried by the 61st Task Force exceeded normal standards.

In other words, the 61st Task Force has made the necessary adjustments to its carrier-based aviation for escort operations.

It's just that there is a very prominent problem here.

How can we seize the initiative on the battlefield?

In other words, how can we get the 61st Task Force forward, that is, let the Liang Xia Navy feel that there is a chance to annihilate the Nuland fleet in one fell swoop?

Obviously, if you really want to say it, without being completely sure, the Liang Xia Navy will probably not let the 61st Task Force risk going forward. If Task Force 61 had remained in the rear, far from the Transit Island, it would certainly not have had a chance to annihilate it.

Worse still, the opportunity to evacuate will be missed.

When the 41st Task Force is outflanked, even if it has a chance to take out the 61st Task Force, it will have to bear huge risks.

According to Stark's speculation, this time window is only 1 day, and at most 2 days.

In this regard, Smith proposed to make tactical arrangements and expand the air defense circle to the east as much as possible, so as to convince the Liangxia Navy that the Nuland fleet was retreating.

In Smith's words, as long as Task Force 41 was to the east, the Liangxia Navy would send a large number of reconnaissance planes to search the waters north of the Howaii Islands before launching an attack. Because the shore-based air forces in the Khowaii Islands have been heavily damaged, and the search area is too far away from the North Malaysia Islands, the main force in carrying out reconnaissance missions must be patrol planes with long ranges and slow speeds, which are relatively easy to intercept.

Then, by intercepting the patrol plane, the Liang Xia Navy can miscalculate.

As long as arrangements are made, it is not impossible to extend the air defense interception circle by 1,000 kilometers, let alone intercept a slow patrol aircraft.

All in all, it's a proven approach.

According to Smith's analysis, after "concluding" that the Newland fleet had begun to retreat, the Liang Xia Navy would let the 61st Task Force accelerate its advance.

If nothing else, it will enter the strike range of the 51st Task Force around dawn on the 13th.

Because there was no other way, Stark had no choice but to give it a try and took Smith's suggestion.

As for the effect, it will soon be known.

Before entering the early morning of the 13th, that is, on the night of the 12th, the 51st Task Force dispatched carrier-based planes to carry out the first round of reconnaissance missions, with a total of 24 F/A-18Ds and eight aircraft carriers from each of the three aircraft carriers, all carrying five large auxiliary fuel tanks and two reconnaissance pods.

Although it is a medium-sized combat attack aircraft, that is, a multi-role fighter, it has a range of 3,250 kilometers with five large auxiliary fuel tanks, and even if the necessary surplus fuel is retained, the combat radius when carrying out reconnaissance missions is 1,500 kilometers, which is not bad.

All of these carrier-based aircraft flew to the northwest of the transit island.

According to the battle plan personally arranged by Stark, a group of reconnaissance planes will be dispatched before 2 a.m. on the 13th to intensify the search in the waters northwest of the transit island.

If anything, the main mission of the dozens of F/A-18s carried by Task Force 51 is to replace the A-6D on reconnaissance missions.

It's just that, in Stark's plan, leaving the A-6D is not used to carry out the attack mission, or this is not the number one mission.

There are only 72 A-6Ds in total, that is, 3 brigades. Even if all of them are dispatched, they may not be able to take out the 61st Task Force.

If you want to annihilate Task Force 61, you must rely on the air force!

Actually, this in itself was Stark's plan.

After the discovery of the Liangxia fleet, the carrier-based aviation was only responsible for providing escort cover, and the attack operations were carried out by bombers provided by the Air Force.

For this reason, in the middle of the night of the 12th, that is, after the decision was made to stay, Stark sent a telegram asking 40 bombers of the two groups remaining on the mainland to immediately take off and go to the airspace specified in the battle plan to stand by, and the air force would provide corresponding support.

That is, to dispatch large tankers to extend the patrol time of the bomber group.

All of these B-52Gs carry 24 long-range anti-ship missiles on underwing pylons and, once on the battlefield, are directly under the command of the fleet commander.

If anything, it's a little farther away.

Even if the bombers flew at the fastest speed along the shortest route after takeoff, they would not be able to arrive until after dawn on the 13th.

Obviously, it may not be in time.

Even if it could be reached, it would definitely require Task Force 51 to arrange fighter jets to provide cover.

Well, air refueling must be considered.

Although the Air Force arranged large tankers, they could only stay in the rear due to range restrictions, and they mainly served bombers. Because the combat radius is too far, it is necessary to carry out in-flight refueling in the sortie phase and the return phase, and a total of more than 40 KC-10s need to be used.

The large tanker aircraft deployed in the West Coast region, in total, is just that.

In this way, the only people who can carry out air search and refueling for escort fighters are carrier-based attack aircraft.

It's just that no one dares to guarantee that the decisive battle will be delayed until after dawn on the 13th.

If the Liang Xia navy behaves positively, then it is possible that the battle will start before dawn.

In fact, this is also the key to Stark's arrangement of two rounds of reconnaissance during the night.

It was in this way that Stark left behind three groups of heavy attack aircraft, ensuring that if necessary, he could rely on carrier-based aviation to launch a preemptive attack.

Now it seems that this has a good chance of becoming a reality.

Late at night on the 12th, about 2 hours ago, the convoy was bombed, and it was attacked by bombers from the Liangxia Air Force.

Although the bombing of the convoy did not surprise Stark, or rather it had been expected, it would not have caused the landing fleet to part ways with the consignment convoy. As for the attack by the bombers of the Liangxia Air Force, it is not surprising, after all, the Liangxia Air Force has thousands of bombers, and it is normal to send dozens of them to support the navy. But Stark was still very shocked because the attack came too early.

Prior to this, including Smith, it was felt that the battle would start as soon as the early morning of the 13th.

The reason is also very simple, the Liangxia Navy also needs time to adjust its deployment, especially to let the 61st Task Force maneuver to the combat area.

According to the previous engagement, the 61st Task Force could not reach the sea area where it could launch an attack until the early morning of the 13th at the earliest.

Where did it come to mind that the battle began on the night of the 12th.

Crucially, the decision to launch the attack must have been made a few hours in advance.

At the time of the decision to attack, Task Force 61 certainly had not yet entered the operational zone.

In such a hurry to attack, there must be something else.

So, what exactly is the picture?

According to Smith's judgment, it must be related to the 41st Task Force, for example, it has been killed, and it is necessary to let the Nuland fleet show up through an attack operation.

That's just Smith's speculation, though.

Although he had received the information provided by the CIA from the Navy Command, and knew that Task Force 41 was likely to be 3,000 kilometers away, until the information was confirmed, not to mention Stark, even Smith did not dare to draw conclusions easily.

It was precisely because of this that Stark was indifferent when the convoy was attacked.

Of course, it can also be said that he is waiting for the investigation report.

It's just a few dozen requisitioned civilian ships, and even if there are 8 escort warships, compared with the 51st Task Force, it's not worth mentioning.

To this end, after receiving the message, Stark also ordered to double the number of air defense fighters.

If something happens, such as being attacked, at least you can withstand it.

Only now, after the intelligence has been confirmed, or at least more reliable, Stark has to consider whether to launch an attack first.

However, the key is whether the target can be found in time, that is, the 61st Task Force.