In a general sense, Machar was quite correct in his estimate of the strength of the Anglo-American navy, and the only problem was in underestimating the natural skills of the Americans. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The first natural skill of the United States is the world's first logistics ability, and the second is the world's first production capacity, which brings an implicit talent - the world's first maintenance speed. This implicit talent was activated more than once during the Great War, when the aircraft carrier Yorktown sailed into the shipyard with a lot of injuries, and just when the Japanese Navy thought it would be able to paralyze it for at least a few months, the ship was miraculously repaired and entered the battle in three days; Another example is that most of the warships in Pearl Harbor that Japan thought had been sunk for a long time were salvaged, and not only that, but they were rapidly regaining their combat effectiveness. On February 28, the Royal Navy's aircraft carrier Indomitable, which had been seriously damaged, and the sunken ships Idaho and Tennessee salvaged from Pearl Harbor were all repaired and left the factory. In contrast, the Earl of Cavour, a shipwreck of the Battle of Taranto, which was attacked a year before Pearl Harbor, has been lying in the dock and has not been repaired, although it has long been salvaged.

This implicit talent is actually more powerful than the implicit talent of Germany, universal transformation (meaning that no matter what mechanical equipment is in the hands of the Germans, it can transform something unbelievable). Spruance led the newly repaired warships, together with the battleships Anson and Howe (both of the George V-class) and the aircraft carriers Victory and Dreadnought (both of the Glorious class), to the possible hiding place of the German fleet.

It was also true that the Royal Navy assisted the U.S. forces in besieging Attu Island, but it was a cover-up by the British, and the main force of the attack was the USS Saratoga and the newly commissioned aircraft carrier USS Essex, and the carrier aircraft formation of the USS Tejas was also involved. However, the British participated in the war for a short time, and after the landing force went up, the other two George V-class battleships left in the Far East -- the George V and the Duke of York -- sailed towards the Panama Canal together with the Brilliant, preparing to return to the United States as soon as possible, at this time there were only 14 carrier-based planes left on the Brilliant, and the remaining planes had already been transferred to the Borg, in order to confuse the Japanese defenders, a large number of American carrier-based planes deliberately painted the Royal Navy logo, making people mistakenly believe that the British aircraft carrier was still staying in the Far East.

Admiral Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, personally decided on the policy of attacking Attu Island, and after learning the news that all the British warships were about to return home, he thought everything through and took advantage of the situation to propose to use the strength of these capital ships to delay the return of the ship for another three to four days, and by the way, to conceal the true intentions of the Royal Navy. In Nimitz's view, it was necessary and beneficial to attack Attu Island, which is also US territory - although most of the Americans do not know and do not care about this, if they can win a beautiful battle and bring the long-awaited good news to President Roosevelt, the credit of the Pacific Fleet will not run, and it will be a great political plus.

Admiral Kim was extremely supportive and attached great importance to this, and even proposed that if necessary, the British ships could be retained for 7 to 10 days, but the development of the war was obviously relatively smooth, and even the Sakura missiles, which had always terrified the US troops, were not used, and the landing force completed the landing on the island in three days -- this was, of course, just an illusion, and the well-behaved Japanese troops gave up the battle for the beachhead, and just put the US troops up to fight, and a lot of iron fists were waiting for the Shermans. Nimitz apparently didn't know anything about this, and he was now anxious about the theater and the future of the fleet: the promise was promised to support him after the British fleet was withdrawn, an Iowa, an Essex-class aircraft carrier, and an Independence-class light carrier, but the German fleet rushed into the Atlantic. Although Admiral King promised to allocate these forces after the Battle of the Azores in April, Nimitz thought that it was not so simple, and what if the Battle of the Azores did not succeed? What if the Atlantic Fleet suffered relatively large losses? What if the combined fleet returns home early?

On March 6, Spruance's X Fleet and Rear Admiral Brown's Y Fleet met in designated waters, and the two sides exchanged forces, and then, under Spruance's unified command, the two fleets began a full-scale search at 200 nautical miles apart and in unison.

After the exchange, the main force of the X Fleet includes the battleships Anson, Howe, Victory, and Dreadnought, as well as the heavy cruisers New Orleans and Minneapolis (all of which belong to the New Orleans class), while the main forces of the Y fleet include the battleships Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Tennessee, the Indomitable and Independence aircraft carriers, and also include the Chester and Chicago two heavy cruisers (both of which belong to the Northampton class). The command is entirely in the hands of the US Navy.

The Tejas class armored aircraft carrier only has a single-story hangar and is designed to carry only 36 aircraft, which makes Spruance, who is accustomed to using 7 or 80 aircraft at every turn, very dissatisfied, and before leaving, he kept 6 additional aircraft on the deck, reaching the level of 42 aircraft. The Indomitable aircraft carrier is a follow-up improvement ship of the Radiance class, with a two-story hangar and a carrying capacity of 48 aircraft, and then loaded with 30 aircraft, forming a two-aircraft carrier formation.

Compared with Machar's North Sea Fleet, the ratio of the number of battleships between the United States and Germany is 5:2, the number of aircraft carriers is 4:2, and the total number of carrier-based aircraft is 162:82. Moreover, because the first elevator of the USS Zeppelin has been stuck, the one-time launch of carrier-based aircraft has slowed down a lot, and both the X Fleet and the Y Fleet have the strength to compete with the German fleet alone, but the cautious Spruance does not want to make the mistake of dividing the Royal Navy in the North Sea Campaign and then being defeated by each one, and emphasizes going hand in hand and supporting each other - even if the German fleet discovers one of its fleets first, the other can quickly provide reliable support. In his mind, the Germans should have 3 battleships - he counted the Richelieu, which was repaired in France.

Of course, Machar is not without good cards, the German army has a clear advantage in the performance of carrier-based aircraft and heavy cruisers, and the quality and combat ability of the pilots are not comparable to the US military -- the US carrier-based aircraft pilots are 10% veterans and 90% novices, while the proportion of the German army is exactly the opposite. In addition, the North Sea Fleet has the support of the unsinkable aircraft carrier Azores, and as long as it enters the air defense circle of the island, there are more aircraft waiting for the enemy on it.

"Sir, the raven sent another message, and Washington copied it to you." The confidential staff officer handed the telegram to Spruance, who read it carefully.

"Last night's air raid was extremely ineffective, only 1 bomb fell on the island, and it did not have any destructive effect at all......"

"The Germans brought in a huge turret for installation, the performance is unknown, and 30-40 German planes arrived."

"The air raids caused people's hearts to fluctuate, and a large number of people left Hong Kong, which objectively helped the German army to speed up the evacuation of the population, and maybe I will be forced to leave Hong Kong after a while."

He asked, "Is there any news of the return of the German fleet to port?" ”

"Not yet."

Spruance shook his head and fell into deep thought: it was obvious that night air raids were not a good idea, on the contrary, they would stimulate the Germans to increase their anti-aircraft fire and anti-aircraft fighters, which would increase the trouble for the future seizure of the island, and after the local Portuguese population was forced to leave in large numbers due to the threat of war, the crows were easily exposed, which was very detrimental to the subsequent intelligence - only fish could be touched in troubled waters, and fish could not jump up when the water was drained.

The Royal Air Force was also troubled by this and finally decided to use Lancaster for daytime air strikes, which was quite a risky decision, because Lancaster did not fly as high as the B-17 and could easily be intercepted by FW-190 fighters, and the distance was so long that it was impossible to use escort fighters, and everyone felt that the prospects were not good. But there is one point that the British gritted their teeth and insisted, the airfield and turret must be destroyed, otherwise the damage in the landing will be too great, and it is better to lose some Lancasters now than a large number of dead people later. The only thing they didn't figure out was how the German army built the turret after only three weeks of control of the Azores. According to the normal engineering design, even if it is only a 150mm caliber turret, don't think about it for more than three months.

Of course, the giant turret was not conjured out of thin air, it was all a triple 283mm naval gun dismantled from the Gneisenau, although this caliber was nothing in the field of naval artillery, but it was terrifying in the defense of the island. As the British expected, the Germans did not have much time to build fortifications, so they had to dismantle the naval guns and use them, with two on the island of Angra de Marsísmo and another on the island of San Miguel in the southeast (where the airfield was built). According to Hoffman's instructions, the islands of the Azores were to be fully fortified, and a large number of naval gun turrets were waiting in line to get to the islands, including the two 283mm main gun turrets that were about to be dismantled from the Scharnhorst (originally three, one had been blown up), and the 11 twin 356mm naval guns (originally 12, one has been blown up) that had been removed from the two battleships of Ise and Hyuga were all arranged for another reuse - after the implicit talent for rapid repair in the United States was stimulated, The implicit talent for Germany's universal transformation was then stimulated.

In the early morning of March 7, the German fleet regained its vitality after resupplying the military port of A Coruña in Spain, and after nearly 20,000 tons of heavy oil was poured down. Mashal, Ozawa, and Cranke got together to consider their next move—they didn't yet know that the U.S. fleet encircling them was more than 700 nautical miles behind them.

"The Allied ships in the North Atlantic have either gone into hiding or have been navigating the land-based air defense circles of the United States and Canada, and we will go to the Central and South Atlantic to try to cut off the Brazilian line......" (To be continued. )