Before the second attack wave of the American army took off, the second attack wave of the German army took the lead. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoThis batch includes 64 Ju-198\Ju-98 and 36 Bf-219Cs, exactly 100 aircraft. After counting the strength of the second attack wave, the balance of forces of the attack groups on both sides changed from 190 vs. 168 to 240 vs. 268, and the Germans began to gain the upper hand not only in numbers, but also in attack speed.

As if the capital of the side was not enough, at 13:38, the commander of the naval aviation of the Newfoundland campaign and the promotion of Vice Admiral Hai Koch (currently the deputy chief of staff of the fleet and chief of aviation staff) informed everyone in the bridge of two news:

"Sir, Sedritz has sent a telegram that an attack on the enemy is imminent; At the same time, it was discovered that the second attack wave of the US military had been grouped and had not been intercepted because of its low-altitude attack. ”

"The second batch of reinforcements of the Azores Army Aviation with a total of 54 Do-412 (land-based versions) arrived."

In Ito's view, the German fleet formation was closer to the intention of air warfare with aircraft carrier formations as the core, and the fleet commander and the fleet chief of staff were both on the fleet flagship Zeppelin, and under the chief of staff, there were two deputy chiefs of staff - one concurrently served as chief of aviation staff and the other was concurrently chief of fire staff (on the Tirpitz, the flagship of the shelling fleet), and although the aviation force of the combined fleet had become the core force, the traditional first and second fleets were still battleship forces. Tsukahara 243 finally became the second person in the Combined Fleet in terms of seniority and military rank -- and he finally understood the mystery of personnel adjustments.

He looked at Ozawa, and suddenly it occurred to him that with Ozawa's current power and status, I am afraid that one commander of the mobile fleet is no longer enough, and at that time, it may be that Horiyoshi and Tsukahara will all withdraw from the front-line troops, and the position of commander of the combined fleet will be worthy of Ozawa -- only Hoffman knows that in history, Ozawa finally became the last commander of the combined fleet by May 1945, but he did not hold the rank of general.

Ozawa nodded, turned around and smiled at Koch: "Good luck today, since the reinforcements of the air force are coming again, we can test the new tactics of out-of-sight interception, please give Koch-kun an order." ”

Koch immediately executed.

Machar also smiled silently.

Ito Junichi and the advisory team didn't know why, and hurriedly asked what "out-of-sight interception" meant.

Out-of-sight interception is a new tactic that Ozawa has studied again after the ultra-long-range cross-platform tactics, which refers to relying on the superiority of his own air defense fighters in numbers, firepower, and maneuverability, relying on radar superiority to first discover enemy attack aircraft groups and intercept them at ultra-long distances; compared with the previous interception means that take into account both firepower and regional air defense capabilities, it can better erect a barrier for the fleet -- on the one hand, to prevent accidental damage to the enemy's air defense firepower, and on the other hand, to avoid the inevitable attack on the enemy's fleet after a sudden advance.

"This tactic can only be used when you have absolute superiority -- not depending on the ship, but on the aircraft and the pilot." Ozawa smiled, "This is the luckiest time I went to Germany, Americans never dreamed that there were so many planes on the island of the Azores, right?" ”

The number of planes on the Azores is of course extremely terrifying, in fact, Ozawa's estimate of 800 is still too small - there are nearly 1,000 planes on it, and even nearly 200 Me-262 and Ta-152, the latter two of which have little effect on the fleet's warfare.

Ito watched as Koch skillfully directed the group (48 Fw-190 + 54 Do-412s) to move further forward to a distance of 250 kilometers from the fleet, and now only 56 Do-412s (carrier-based versions) sent by the HNA were left in the air, but the third batch of Luftwaffe reinforcements, 64 Bf-219s (land-based version), appeared in the rear view.

Ito understood Ozawa's thoughts at first, and like everyone else, he listened intently to the radio and waited for the news from ahead - and now he couldn't see anything.

On April 26, 1944, at 13:41, Major General Seydritz, commander of the German Navy, led a large formation of more than 160 aircraft to attack the TF46 formation.

Seeing the 3 Essex-class ships guarded in the center, and the US military formation with 4 world-class battleships scattered around, Seydlitz did not dare to act rashly, and while detaching nearly 60 Do-412s to attack the opponent's fighters, he carefully looked for an opportunity. He felt that there were two tricky points today: First, the anti-aircraft artillery fire of the US troops was very fierce, almost bursting in pieces and rows, blocking the offensive passage tightly; Second, the US air defense fighters seem to have performed well, and instead of stupidly rushing up to send them to their deaths, they have been waiting in the middle of the air, waiting for their own planes to pounce and fight.

Nimitz and Cunningham watched nervously as they ordered the warships to release smoke - which would increase the likelihood of accidental injury, but now they were too much to care about.

"Torpedo planes, attacking from the right flank, disrupting the enemy's order first......"

36 Ju-198s immediately pounced and fired torpedoes, and when they saw the enemy attack aircraft group coming from a high altitude, the Allied pilots, who had been fighting fiercely with the Do-412 just now, immediately abandoned their opponents and turned to intercept the attack aircraft group. Seydlitz guessed correctly, the US aircraft carrier group Nimitz was reorganized after taking office, including 100 outstanding pilots transferred from the Royal Air Force, 60 (group) of excellent crews drawn from the Pacific Fleet, and also used a few months to train dozens of elite crews from LV.5 pilots, known as "5 + 2, white and black" (the American version of the moon, water, fire, wood, gold, gold, and gold). The overall level is still better than during the Cape Verdean period.

This part of the combat force was allocated to about one-third of the TF44 formation, and the remaining two-thirds were all retained in the TF46, which was where Nimitz and Cunningham had the confidence to fight the Germans. Now all the attack planes were sent out by Nimitz to attack, and the fighter pilots transferred from the Royal Air Force accounted for more than 70% of the remaining 66 air defense fighters. Therefore, the German army did not fight 1:4 and 1:5 as before, and in the case of similar numbers, the battle losses of both sides were less than 1:2.5 - before the attack began, the American army lost 27 F6Fs, the Germans lost 7 Do-412s, 5 Ju-198s, plus 4 Ju-198s and 2 Do-412s shot down by anti-aircraft fire, and the ratio of losses between the two sides in the first round was 27:18.

32 torpedoes showed a larger and larger fan-shaped face towards the US formation, and the TF46 formation was forced to turn to evade in turn, and the 7 capital ships were lucky enough to basically avoid the torpedoes, only the veteran Memphis (Omaha-class light cruiser ate a torpedo, and in less than 2 minutes, the 7000-ton light cruiser was forced to sink.

Due to the great losses of the British and American Navy cruisers in the past two years, although the slipway did its best to replenish it, because there were still 24 Essex class/year missions, it was still necessary to find another way. Similar to the Omaha class, a 20-year-old ship, was originally only in service in the escort force, but because of the lack of available cruisers in the front-line troops, the Omaha class can still run at a speed of more than 30 knots and has a displacement of more than 7,000 tons, so they were also pulled to the front line after installing a number of new anti-aircraft guns and radar facilities.

Originally, in order to fully guarantee the construction of aircraft carriers, the Naval Commission also intended to change the Oakland-class light cruisers (starting from the CL96 Reno) and Cleveland-class light cruisers (the remaining 11) to light aircraft carriers following the Independence class, but from the actual situation on the front line, the survivability of the Independence was too poor, and it was basically finished as an aircraft carrier to eat 2-3 500-kilogram bombs, and the time spent was not short, coupled with the cruel reality of the shortage of cruisers, it finally gave up the construction of light aircraft carriers and specialized in the Essex class.

In addition, Nimitz's statement at the Joint Chiefs of Staff also supported this viewpoint: "An aircraft carrier with a capacity of only 30 aircraft also needs to be equipped with an experienced aircraft carrier captain and a group of aviation staff officers, and an Essex-class aircraft carrier with a capacity of up to 100 aircraft also needs only one captain and a group of staff officers. ”

This conclusion is shocking, but it is indeed true: since the war has been fought so far, Britain and the United States have not only had a gap in the supply of ships, but also began to have a shortage of naval command personnel and skilled sailors, and they had to mobilize former naval personnel again and again to return to service, not to mention the "uncle" soldiers in their 30s, and even the "father" soldiers in their 40s are not uncommon.

Taking the US military as an example, now not only the destroyers of the First World War era have been reused, but also those who have not fought but served in the navy are also very popular with those 30-year-old and 40-year-old sergeant majors, and many people are only doing ordinary jobs in factories after leaving the army, and now the army has suddenly re-recruited them, and they can't help but say that they will be smashed on their heads with the ranks of second lieutenant, lieutenant and even captain that they never dared to think of before, and many people have germinated a second spring and always maintained high morale. This kind of sentiment infected the officers and men at the grassroots level, so that the navy did not fall into a predicament.

The first batch of torpedoes did not work well in Seydritz's expectations, but as long as there was confusion in the formation of the American army, there was a chance, "left flank torpedo attack!" ”

Another 24 Ju-198s dropped torpedoes, and although three were shot down during the attack, the second and third results of the day had already appeared, and the USS Concord and USS Terndon (both Ohama-class light cruisers) were torpedoed and sunk one after another.

"Now is your chance!" Taking advantage of the disarray of the American formations and the sharp reduction of anti-aircraft fire on the left flank, he immediately led 16 Ju-198s carrying 400-kilogram bombs to pounce on the Ticongadro......