After identifying the key areas to break the diplomatic relationship, Ozawa regrouped the fleet. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info He carefully analyzed the composition of the fleet and the tasks it undertook, and believed that from the perspective of breaking diplomatic relations, it is more advantageous to disperse the fleet, but from the perspective of combat utility, the two aircraft carriers cannot be separated, because Europa is not an aircraft carrier in the full sense of the word, and it must be used with Zeppelin to be valuable, and when the two are combined, they are equivalent to two aircraft carriers, and after separation, Zeppelin can still be regarded as an aircraft carrier alone, but Europa is going to be blinded, plus he has a vague uneasiness in his heart - it is not based on intelligence inference, It was based on logic or inner anxiety, so the choice was made to put the two aircraft carriers together in order to maximize the value.

Ozawa didn't elaborate, Mashal and Cranke didn't figure out the link in between, and the two subconsciously thought that the aircraft carrier should be used together to be valuable, so they didn't question this arrangement. However, Ozawa still made a proper division of troops, after all, there is now a battleship, a battlecruiser, two aircraft carriers, four heavy cruisers, almost all the net worth of the German Navy is present, the scale far exceeds the strength required to break the diplomatic relationship, the harvest of the "Tropical" made Ozawa's eyes shine at first, very yearning, but when he thought of the 20,000 tons of heavy oil poured into Spain, he began to think about the question of whether it is cost-effective - 20,000 tons of heavy oil is not a small amount!

The adjusted formation is very interesting, the whole fleet is divided into three clusters, on the left flank are Tirpitz, Admiral Scheer and Oi and two destroyers, on the right flank are Strasbourg, Lützov and Kitakami and destroyers, in the middle of the main formation are two heavy cruisers Hipper, Sedlitz two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and six destroyers to escort the aircraft carrier, and the distance between the left and right wings and the main formation is more than 100 nautical miles - this is a carefully considered arrangement, this spacing can calmly expand the patrol and search range, In case of an accident, carrier-based aircraft can arrive for support within half an hour, which is very convenient.

According to this arrangement, Lieutenant General Pei sat on the Tirpitz to command the left flank formation, and Admiral Kumetz sat on the Strasbourg to command the right flank formation.

"Sir, have you found them......" On the aircraft carrier Victory, the flagship of the X fleet, the intelligence staff officer handed the telegram to Spruance, "Our Spanish intelligence officer sent a secret telegram that the German fleet stopped at A Coruña last night to refuel, and left early in the morning, and its whereabouts are unknown. ”

"How many warships are there?"

"I can't see the specific model, the telegram says at least a dozen."

Spruance thought about it and felt relieved, such a large fleet really would not go to Angra Sanstinjísmo to refuel, because all the oil on the island needs to be transferred from the outside world, and the island's inventory may be able to support small-scale refueling of merchant ships, but compared to a whole formation composed of aircraft carriers and battleships, the Azores fuel stocks are too small, and the Germans should be reluctant to use them easily.

"Where do you think they're going?" He turned to his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Chris, the British Royal Navy.

"Given that the Strait of Gibraltar has been blocked, they will not go to the Mediterranean, so there will be three options. First, back to the Azores; second, to the north and enter the North Sea again; Third, go south to carry out other tasks to break diplomatic relations. After looking at the charts, Chris commented, "I think it's more likely to go south." First of all, the Germans had just moved south from the north, and we had been following behind, and it was impossible for the reconnaissance planes to turn a blind eye to such a huge target; Secondly, although the possibility of the enemy returning to the Azores cannot be ruled out, I suggest that the fleet go south first, and listen to the information of the crows tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to see if they have gone to Angra Sangra or not. ”

Of course, the German fleet did not return to Angra Sansto, but the intercepted Tropics did. The raven was eager to get more information, but the port had long been blockaded by the Germans, and he couldn't get in without a ticket, and even if he got a ticket, he wouldn't dare to go in - he couldn't get out again. Now that his space was getting smaller and smaller, there were only a handful of people left in the hotel and no new visitors, and the most reliable and traditional sources of information were cut off in an instant. The Portuguese inhabitants, who had refused to leave the country a few days ago before the German radio propaganda, suddenly changed their temper and quickly relented in the face of the bombs dropped by the British bombers, and the docks were full of long queues of people who had left Sanstinto Heroísmo to return home.

Faced with such a thorny situation, he even wondered with hatred who was coming up with the idea of carrying out air raids in China, and this person was probably a German spy -- wasn't this cooperating with Germany to drive people out? If the air raid has been fruitful, it is good, but the results are pitiful, but it is the destruction of a section of the airport runway, 2-3 anti-aircraft gun positions, 1 hangar, and the Germans only lost a total of 6 planes in the air and on the ground, and the casualties of soldiers were only more than 20 people. However, the loss rate of the Lancaster bomber group, which was converted to daytime air raids, skyrocketed, and more than 20 German anti-aircraft guns and fighters were shot down in three days.

General Troll, who was in charge of directing the air raids, was also very difficult, the Azores were too far away, for the sake of safety, the air force command reduced the bomb load of Lancaster to 1.5 tons, leaving enough fuel for the planes to fly 5,500 kilometers, even so, in the past few days, more than a dozen planes were forced to change to Portugal because it was difficult to hold on after being damaged, and then they were undoubtedly detained by the Portuguese authorities, and the Royal Air Force paid more than 40 planes for this kind of air raid with little effect, which was completely worth the loss. Lancaster, who had made a forced landing, entered the Portuguese army system in a blink of an eye, and Salazar first received German fighters and tanks, and now received heavy bombers sent by the British, and his military strength suddenly skyrocketed.

The crow hoped to have the opportunity to meet a few German soldiers on the street to ask about the situation, but the attitude of the Germans was very cold, and the worst thing was that he knew Portuguese, English, Spanish, and a little French, but he did not know German - when he sent the intelligence officer, he never thought that this place would one day be occupied by the Germans, his superiors were already very remarkable, considering the French factor, who knew that it would be Germany?

After deporting from A Coruña, the German fleet turned southwest and galloped in the direction of Brazil, as the U-boat force mentioned that the waters near Brazil were escorted by a large number of cruisers or destroyers. On the afternoon of 9 March, the Tirpitz lookout, halfway through, spotted a column of smoke rising from the eastern water antenna, and Lieutenant General Pei, who had captured the treasure, immediately ordered the left flank formation to prepare for battle, and at the same time increased the speed to 25 knots and hurried towards the target. But after a closer inspection, it is ridiculous, these are all empty ships that transported goods and personnel to the Canary Islands and returned to Spain, serving the German military and flying the Spanish flag, seeing the arrival of the German warship, the sailors on board immediately sounded the whistle to salute, in their eyes Spain is now Germany's quasi-ally, except for not firing directly at Britain and the United States, almost did everything that an Axis member should do, Vice Admiral Pei returned the salute embarrassedly, and then led the fleet back to the left flank position.

This was quickly reported back to the Zeppelin and caused a burst of laughter, but the laughter came to an abrupt end after a few minutes, when the Azores sent an urgent telegram saying that the enemy's main fleet had been spotted with at least four aircraft carriers inside.

In order to pursue the Germans south, the X and Y fleets had to cross the waters between the Azores and Portugal, which was the most commonplace, but the Azores were occupied by the Germans and the Spanish had German reconnaissance planes stationed, and the waterway was no longer as safe as it used to be. Spruance considered it again and again, and finally decided that the X and Y fleets would temporarily cancel the 200-nautical-mile interval and join forces to cross the waterway centerline. In this way, the fleet is more than 800 kilometers from the Azores, and more than 800 kilometers from Spain or Portugal, so that it can skillfully avoid air defense patrol circles in both directions.

Unfortunately, the Anglo-American fleet encountered a third batch of FW-190 fighters and Joint Strike Aircraft that flew from Spain to the Azores for reinforcements. When it was discovered that there was a fleet on the sea, the navigator sent by the German Navy in the air thought it was Machar's fleet, and was thinking about swooping down to say hello, but after lowering the altitude, it suddenly found that there were 4 aircraft carriers on the sea, which was wrong, when did the North Sea Fleet conjure up the other 2 ships? If you look closely, the bow of the ship does not have the most common and huge swastika symbol of its own navy, and it is clearly an enemy ship.

The navigators instinctively wanted to attack, but for the convenience of the transition, the joint attack aircraft group flew empty-loaded, except for the bullets of the self-defense machine guns, not even a bomb or a torpedo were carried, and the FW-190 fighters escorting the escort had only a small amount of fuel, and if the entanglement time was too long, they would have to fall off if they could not fly to the Azores.

"Attention members, attention members...... Below is the enemy fleet, we keep the formation and height to pass quickly, do not entangle, repeat, do not entangle. ”

Spruance also saw a group of German planes passing through the sky, and even saw a plane deliberately lowering its altitude to come to check, at first he thought that this was an enemy plane that came to deal with him, and decisively ordered the fighters to take off immediately to meet the enemy, but before the cover group took off, the German group flew away on its own, and none of them swooped down to attack. He breathed a sigh of relief and immediately ordered the covering group not to climb any further, so as not to provoke the Germans to come down and attack—he had no idea that these enemy planes did not have any ammunition that could deter the warships.

"Sir, the support fleet from Spain has reported the discovery of an enemy fleet with at least 4 aircraft carriers."

"They're being attacked?" The commander of the Azorean Air Force, Major General Warnes, asked in surprise.

"No, the navigator sent by the Navy was very smart, and it flew away pretending not to recognize it."

"Where is the enemy fleet? You're coming at us? ”

"Sailing due south, perhaps to catch up with our fleet."

He groaned: this distance is a bit far, more than 800 kilometers, and the range of the He-218 is obviously not enough. But he laughed at the thought of those joint attack aircraft with a distance of more than 2000 km. (To be continued.) )