In the North Atlantic, a series of steel giants are heading northeast at a speed of 24 knots, and if one looks closely, one will see something unusual—the flagship of this fleet is not the one that seems to be the largest, but another smaller, flat-deck ship. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

That's right, this is a warship with aircraft carriers as the core formation, judging from the flag and fleet, it belongs to the aircraft carrier formation in the British and American joint Atlantic fleet, the flagship logo is the British Royal Navy aircraft carrier Unicorn, the larger but not the flagship is the US Navy aircraft carrier Bunker Hill, and the other two smaller aircraft carriers are two newly commissioned Independence-class light aircraft carriers. Surrounded by escort cruisers and destroyers, the only aircraft carrier formations currently available to the two navies in the North Atlantic.

U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Spruance Commander Tary Tary of the Unicorn is respectfully reporting to a general in a wheelchair: "Sir, there are two days left to reach the designated sea...... However, there was no news of the enemy for several days, and the reconnaissance planes continued to reconnoiter without finding anything. ”

In the wheelchair is Admiral Andrew Brown Cunningham, who broke a leg in the Indian Ocean campaign, he served as the commander of the aircraft carrier formation of the Atlantic Fleet, and Spruance was his chief of staff.

Cunningham frowned and asked, "When was the last enemy briefing?" ”

"Four days ago, at 17 p.m. local time on June 30, we had one submarine that observed the German fleet moving southeast, but the enemy was relatively fast, and the next day it lost its tracks, and there was no news for the next few days."

"Did you find anything along the route of the long-range patrol aircraft?"

"Again, no, but there is no information on the fight with enemy aircraft."

"If the crows don't have any information to come, then they're probably going back." Cunningham thought for a moment and came to a conclusion.

Spruance raised an eyebrow: "They know we're coming?" ”

"Not necessarily." Cunningham explained, "You see, they have been on the Anglo-Canadian route for more than half a month, and we have had to stop the entire transportation line for this, and the enemy can't get ships to break the relationship, and they don't dare to operate within the control of our land-based aircraft, so they can only go back." ”

"It's a pity to run in vain." Spruance was a little annoyed, but after thinking about it, he felt relieved, "At least the UK-Canada route can be restored, isn't it?" ”

Cunningham nodded, then smiled, "Maybe we can think more positively, at least the lads have been trained, and they have grown a lot compared to the hustle and baffle they had in the South African seas." ”

Speaking of this, Spruance nodded involuntarily. When he had just taken over the newly formed aircraft carrier formation, he was full of hope, as if a gambler who had lost a gamble suddenly got a large sum of money, and some of them immediately rushed over to turn over the book, but after really pulling the troops out, the idea of turning over the book came to an abrupt end, because the fleet's performance was unbearable.

After repeated naval defeats, especially after losing all aircraft carriers twice in a row, the British and American navies suffered heavy casualties. Taking the two US aircraft carriers as an example, the proportion of experienced aircraft carrier officers and men deployed on the new warships has dropped sharply, to less than 60 percent. This is not because the navy will not be able to draw up the skilled officers and men who can meet the needs of the two warships, but that new aircraft carriers will be put into service one after another, and experienced officers and men must make unified arrangements for them, otherwise they will only give the veterans to the front-line troops, and the allocation of officers and men on the newly commissioned aircraft carriers or escort aircraft carriers will be even more miserable.

The British side performed relatively better, with about 80% of the experienced officers and men retained, but Spruance was also privately embarrassed - not because the British were better at escaping for their lives, but because the British aircraft carrier was greatly reduced. At its peak, the Royal Navy had as many as 8 fleet aircraft carriers, but now only the poor 1 Unicorn is supporting the scene - this one was originally designed to repair aircraft carriers, but when it comes to service, the objects responsible for maintenance are all lying on the bottom of the icy ocean.

Spruance understood why Cunningham chose the smaller Unicorn over the larger Bunker Hill as his flagship, apparently to preserve the last vestige of dignity of the Royal Navy.

Even more desperate than the sailors is the performance of carrier-based pilots, not to mention the US Navy's boast that it can train thousands of pilots who have obtained aircraft carrier take-off and landing certificates every year, but he knows how much water there is.

The so-called take-off and landing certificate refers to the qualification certificate that can be awarded after successfully completing six takeoffs and landings on the training aircraft carrier Sable or Wolver, but the problem is that the two training aircraft carriers are all paddle ships converted from freighters, and the training location is in the calm Great Lakes region. In his own words: "Hell, there is no wind or waves in that place, it is as flat as a piece of land." "The tragedy began when these rookies who had obtained the aircraft carrier take-off and landing certificate excitedly wanted to occupy a pilot position on the aircraft carrier formation.

First of all, without the old bird leading the team and the tower constantly calling, they simply couldn't find their way home. Of course, it is okay to do this in training, but if the tower keeps calling during actual combat, it is simply tantamount to telling the enemy plane that I am here.

Secondly, when there is a slight wind and waves, and the deck has some ups and downs, the take-off and landing operations will be frightened, either panicked and unable to fly up and fall into the water, or rush down and crash into other aircraft. Novice pilots have an accident failure rate of more than 11% – one accident for every nine takeoffs and landings.

Speaking in good conscience, Spruance also felt that the F6F cockpit was too far back, and the nose was too thick, which was not conducive to mastering the landing skills, but the problem was that this was already the best fighter with the best combination of power and maneuverability. So obviously there is a more powerful F4U to choose from, but it still can't become a carrier-based aircraft.

Finally, the impossibility of maintaining stable formations. In the internal confrontation training, fighter pilots always rushed over when they encountered interception targets, and often only shot down a few planes before letting a large group of enemy planes roar over the aircraft carrier formation, and every time Spruance was so angry that he was angry, and the performance of the attack aircraft pilots was not much better; once the dense attack formation of 40 to 60 planes continued to fly for a distance of more than 200 kilometers, the formation would be scattered, and only a handful could be thrown into the battlefield, and then easily torn apart by the planes simulating air defense.

As for aerobatics, Spruance simply doesn't dare to expect anything right now.

Naval aviation experts have analyzed the enemy fleet's night attack on New York countless times, and can almost simulate and replay the actual scene at the beginning, but the more this happens, the more shocking the conclusion becomes: experts believe that the success of the attack was due to the superposition of long-range navigation, night raids, and ultra-low-altitude flights. Whatever one of these is considered a stunt in the U.S. Navy, but the enemy has done it all. The Navy itself tried to carry out a 300-kilometer raid at an ultra-low altitude during the day, and as a result, 12 of the first 16 attack planes were dropped, and although all of them were fine, they scared the entire fleet so much that Admiral King strictly forbade such dangerous aviation training, which Spruance guessed he must have been heartbroken when he issued the order.

In contrast, the British side performed much better, and they retained more experienced carrier-based aircraft pilots, so now the US Navy has also learned to behave, and the British aircraft carrier is no longer equipped with American pilots, but requires the American aircraft carrier to be equipped with a few old British pilots as junior officers to lead the team.

However, the United States still has a deep enough foundation and enough capital, and in line with the principle that quality does not make up quantity, it has increased the number of training of reserve carrier-based aircraft pilots, pinning its hopes on the survival of the fittest and allowing the top fighters to emerge on their own. Spruance suggested that the new pilots first serve on the escort aircraft carriers, and after performing well, they should be further absorbed into the fleet aircraft carriers, and select outstanding seedlings from among them through layers of screening, so that the fleet pilots are guaranteed, but the quality of the pilots on the escort aircraft carriers is poorer, and the reason why the German fleet can easily destroy a fleet this time is that the strength of the US pilots on the escort aircraft carriers is not good.

In order to find out the performance of the main carrier-based aircraft of Germany and Japan, the United States racked its brains and spent a lot of money to collect three HE-218 bombers from the Soviet Union (a patchwork of many planes shot down on the Eastern Front, with a number of scattered accessories), and did everything possible to transport them back to the United States through the Far East route, and installed these land-based dive bombers with the United States' own landing equipment. There were no problems at all when it was tested at a land airport, and all of its performance and shortcomings were studied, and everyone agreed that it was a good aircraft.

Even if the U.S. Navy has always disliked liquid-cooled engine planes on ships and thinks that maintenance is too troublesome, they have to admit that compared with the HE-218, the SBD is all scum except for being stronger and with a slightly longer range.

But just had this idea, it was quickly doused by a basin of cold water: the excellent performance of the HE-218 on the aircraft carrier take-off and landing was a complete disaster, the result was directly maddening, more than 10 excellent pilots in the process of test flight one after another in the landing plane fell one after another, once or twice there is a way to repair, the back fell hard can no longer be repaired, only one became a light pole commander quickly pulled back to re-test and study on the land airfield.

No one said that the German and Japanese pilots were pitiful and had to fly such "immature" planes to fight, and everyone only felt that they were afraid -- it showed that the quality and level of the enemy pilots far surpassed their own. Moreover, they also knew that the German side had an equipment basis for directly recruiting dive bomber pilots from the Air Force to serve as carrier-based aircraft pilots, and that the US Navy was now trying to arrest people from the Army, but it could not catch any available dive-bombing pilots, so in the end it could only give up in a huff. (To be continued.) )