On the deck of the Unicorn aircraft carrier, Cunningham, who was in a wheelchair, silently watched the group assemble and leave, looking a little uneasy. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

"Sir, the Army and Canadian Air Forces have made four sorties in a row, and the Germans have knocked out at least 60 fighters of the opponent using the method of counterparts, and our army has lost more than 250 fighters, and the enemy has given up the idea of competing for a long time when the sixth wave of heavy bombers is dispatched, and only sticks to low altitudes, which means that their fighter strength has been weakened to a very weak level......," Spruance whispered, "You need not worry about this. ”

"Can I not be worried?" Cunningham smiled bitterly, "Washington originally wanted to gather 400 planes to pounce together, but in the end, it turned into a refueling tactic and gradually put it into the battlefield, and finally let the German army break through each ...... Moreover, it almost did not cause substantial damage to the opposing fleet, which shows that the German combat effectiveness is far stronger than ours, and I don't know if the carrier-based aircraft can beat the Germans. ”

Spruance didn't know how to take it: it was difficult to recognize it emotionally, and intellectually it had to admit that it was true. Although a large number of British Navy pilots in this group of carrier-based aircraft pilots are far more elite than the Army Airlines and Canadians, it is uncertain whether they can achieve a good exchange. Fortunately, since Cunningham mobilized more than 240 planes to pounce together, and the entire fleet was fully prepared, Spruance thought that the certainty of victory was still relatively large.

"Even if the enemy still has the strength, it can't stand up to such a big superiority in troops, I heard that their attack planes are still cooperating with the army to carry out ground attack missions, ten minutes ago the Canadians said that the other side had just retreated, and I guess it was the letter reported by the reconnaissance plane." Speaking of the reconnaissance plane, Cunningham was annoyed again, "I don't know when we will be able to provide us with similar excellent reconnaissance planes, fighter pilots generally report that they can't catch up with enemy planes, and let the other side slip away if they are not careful." ”

Spruance shook his head helplessly: "The advanced water reconnaissance is just a little eyebrow-raising, and the advanced shipboard reconnaissance aircraft is estimated to have to wait, and now we are in addition to the fighter and the enemy, the torpedo attack aircraft and dive bombers are not as good as the opponent, especially the newly launched SB2C is actually inferior to the original SBD, which is really unreasonable!" ”

Turner has already had a rush about SB2C, and Admiral King is also furious, and now the Navy has ordered Curtis to improve it immediately, and on the other hand, it has asked Douglas to further optimize and upgrade the SBD, and then there is a voice in the Navy that it hopes to transform the F4U into a fighter-bomber - Spruance is not very optimistic about this, and thinks that it is better to transform the F4U into a fighter that can go on board to replace the F6F. Suffering from the fact that there were no dive bombers with excellent performance available, the naval armament authorities rushed to the hospital, and even asked the Chances-Watt company to clone one a gourd based on the land-based version of the He-218 obtained from the Soviet Union, but the DB601 engine was replaced with a Merlin engine and some fuselage adjustments were made according to the results of wind tunnel tests, and the result was quite good performance, far stronger than SBD or SB2C, but unfortunately it was very difficult to take off and land on the deck, and the difficulty was comparable to that of the F4U.

Moreover, the liquid-cooled engine also made the ground crew of the aircraft carrier force frown, and the copycat plan of the naval authorities had to be abandoned, because the US Army Aviation did not have a tradition of equipping dive bombers, this verification model was forgotten again.

As for Cunningham, there is nothing to say: after a large number of designers and engineers were arranged to the United States, Britain has basically lost the ability to develop a new generation of high-end weapons, and the United States can only rely on the United States for the subsequent design of heavy tanks, new aircraft, and jet engines. The Royal Air Force changed the Spitfire over and over again, and the Army tossed the Firefly tank upside down – the chassis and hull were still Sherman.

He nodded slightly: "The enemy probably also discovered our position, it doesn't matter, they still need to replenish oil bombs to attack, we at least have the advantage of preemptive strike, now let the fleet maneuver west." ”

"To the west?" Spruance said in surprise, "I thought you would turn around and distance yourself from the enemy fleet." ”

"The U-turn will indeed widen the distance, but it also means that our planes will not come back and will have to crash on Newfoundland, which is too ......much loss for us," Cunningham sighed, "I have a hunch that today is not the time to finally decide the winner, and we and the enemy may be forced to fight again tomorrow." ”

"Quick! Fast! "Just when the US attack plane group was already in a murderous state, on the island of Newfoundland and on the deck of the aircraft carrier, there were scenes of ground crews working desperately, and the planes were recovered, the fuel bombs were replenished, the alternate pilots were put on top, and the spare planes were assembled, and so on, and the officers who led the attack gathered together to discuss and draw up an attack plan with the aviation staff officers, and the replacement pilots seized the time to rest, and a few of them were so tired that they hurriedly swallowed their lunch and fell asleep in the hangar. The noise next to them didn't impress them at all.

Looking at the tense and busy work on the deck, Marchar seemed restless, and involuntarily wanted to stand out and take a look, and feared that it would put unnecessary pressure on his subordinates, so he restrained himself as much as possible, and the fleet ran at full speed towards the Newfoundland air defense circle, and at the same time called on Vice Admiral Bey's artillery fleet to come and converge and strive to build a strong air defense circle. As a result of the withdrawal of the superior firepower of planes and naval guns, the German Marines, which had been holding high and fighting high, began to shrink -- they were still quite confident in holding the existing defensive line, and they were very happy to hear that the Führer would send a whole battalion by air to support them.

At 1:58, all the land-based fighters finished refueling, and several Do-412s that were about to take the lead were also hung with auxiliary fuel tanks, ready to meet the coming brutal battle.

At 2:04, the original air defense fighters began to land and replenish.

At 2:09, Newfoundland sent a message that 12 joint attack aircraft were the first to be prepared, all mounted with special mines; Two minutes later, 22 Ju-98s were also rearmament, also carrying aviation torpedoes to attack, and together they formed the first attack wave thunder strike team, ready to go to the southeast of the fleet to rendezvous;

At 2:17, the first batch of 32 He-218 completed preparations, took off one after another, and flew towards the designated assembly point, although they took off late, but because of the speed, they basically arrived with the lightning strike team, in view of the sortie distance of up to 600 kilometers, in order to prevent the He-218 from not having enough range, two 50-liter small fuel tanks can also be added for range extension;

At 2:24, the first attack wave was assembled 70 km southeast of the fleet and, according to a telegram provided by the Ar-352, was ready to attack south under the cover of 28 Bf-219s. Although the four types of aircraft took off one after the other, the speed was very different, and the assembly point was far from the center of the aircraft carrier formation, the first attack wave still completed the assembly accurately, and the excellent quality of the pilots was clearly seen in the process.

At 2:47, 12 of the latest Ju-198 mounted torpedoes were dispatched along with 27 other Ju-98s, and 48 He-218s took off in the next 10 minutes, escorting them with 42 German fighters, who completed the formation at 3:08 and took on the second attack wave mission.

At this point, two waves of 223 German attack planes set off and swooped down on Cunningham's fleet position.

By 3:15, the German attack aircraft group was still 480 kilometers away from the Cunningham fleet, while the American attack aircraft group was less than 200 kilometers from the German fleet.

At 3:19, the perimeter heavy cruisers, which provided long-range alert, sent back a message: a group of enemy aircraft had been detected, the number was about 100 aircraft, the altitude was 5800 meters, the speed was 195 knots, the course was 305 degrees, and the distance was 155 kilometers......

Ten minutes later, the destroyer, which provided alert in the inner circle, sent back a message: the number of enemy aircraft was more than 90, the altitude was 5,300 meters, the speed was 185 knots, the course was 310 degrees, and the distance was 120 kilometers.

"Why are they flying so slow?" Cranke was puzzled, "It took only 10 minutes to walk more than 30 kilometers, what are the Americans waiting for?" ”

"I guess we need to reorganize the team and contain the planes that have fallen behind, the formation should be chaotic now......" Ozawa asked Koch with a smile, "If we take the initiative, how sure are you that we can defeat the opponent in 15 minutes, if the opponent is 90 planes......"

"I'm 70 percent sure if I can get 50 fighters."

"Excellent! Order the fighter team to charge the enemy as fast as possible and crush them in one fell swoop...... I'll give you 60 planes, and the fleet will cover with only 12 planes. ”

Koch gritted his teeth, pointed at the microphone and shouted: "Attention all formations, immediately intercept the enemy plane as fast as possible...... Charge! ”

"Yes! Brothers, come after me! The first to answer was Hartman. Koch was speechless for a while, Hartman, who had already killed 7 planes today, was completely crazy, and it was supposed to be his turn to rest in this round, but he insisted on going into battle to attack, and the reason was eloquent: "It's a big deal that I was shot down and parachuted...... You can't die! Today I'm going to hit Marseilleu's single-day shot down record! ”

Koch couldn't resist him, so he could only agree to the other party, but he had a more heart, considering Hartman's lack of physical strength, he didn't let the other party rush all the way to escort the attack group but let it act as an air defense fighter, and as a result, this kid took the lead and rushed to the front.

Ozawa's judgment reflects the old spicy observation, the old birds that can still maintain a complete formation after a long-distance flight of 600 kilometers are not many in the British and American fleets, the British Navy is more elite than the American HNA Airlines, so 70% of these more than 90 planes are British pilots, the rest are American pilots, and the other nearly 150 planes have been separated for various reasons, and they are still on the way to regroup, the commander Colonel Tony looked around and wisely pressed the speed to prepare to gather some more troops, Prevent the fight from becoming a refueling tactic, but he didn't expect that the opponent was not the master who played cards according to common sense, and he was separated by more than 100 kilometers. (To be continued.) )