"Task Force 4 can provide us with two cruisers and four destroyers." Hao Dongjue was in charge of contacting Huang Xiaotian, "Many of their warships have returned to China for regular maintenance, which is the maximum support that can be provided." ”

"Shaoqing also promised to hand over their artillery formation to our command, with six cruisers and eight destroyers." Tan Renhao quickly calculated, "Now we have thirteen cruisers and fifteen destroyers in our hands, which is even larger than our previous scale!" ”

"However, the warships of Task Force 4 will rendezvous at the south of the Strait of St. Georgia tomorrow afternoon, and Task Force 4 will enter the Bismarck Sea tomorrow evening, and will probably reach the strait east of Lae early the morning after tomorrow."

"They will rendezvous with Task Force 2 in the afternoon of the day after tomorrow, and then maneuver to attack positions during the night." Tan Renhao marked the routes of the two fleets on the chart, "The artillery formation of the Fourth Task Force will also meet us south of the St. Georgia Strait tomorrow afternoon. It looks like we'll have to leave tomorrow morning. What happened to those battleships now? ”

"It's not good." Hao Dongjue sighed, "There are no big problems, small problems continue, I have asked the officers and soldiers to repair the battleship as much as possible, there is no problem in sailing, if you don't encounter the bombers of the United States, there is no problem with the shelling." ”１６Ｋ…

"Let the fleet complete the replenishment in the afternoon, and except for the personnel who repair the battleship in the evening, the other officers and men must seize the time to rest." Tan Renhao also knew the problem of these eight warships that could still fight.

"Also, try to get in touch with the port side and ask them to provide a group of people. Say hello to the guy's room, the meals are a little more generous these days. ”

"I've arranged it, and the port has promised to provide us with maximum support, and probably Yan Guozhong has already said hello."

"So, let's see what kind of miracle HNA can create during the day tomorrow!"

The officers and men of the 1st Task Force were busy that day. Although the damage to these five cruisers and three destroyers was not serious enough for the battleship to return to China for repairs, so many minor problems were likely to cause major problems in the battle. For example, there was a problem with the radar on the "Wei Chigong". At that time, there were no spare parts here, so Tan Renhao had to contact Zhoushan and ask the logistics department to airlift a batch of parts. In addition, six of the nine main guns of the "Duan Zhixuan" have reached the limit of their tube life, and although they can still be used, their accuracy is so low that even the ground shelling is not so accurate, and the new barrels that have been transported will not arrive until three days later. There were also two destroyers with a shot in the boiler compartment, and the boiler was still operational. It's easy to go wrong. Anyway, these eight battleships are all devastated, and even if they can continue to carry out combat missions, no one dares to guarantee that the battleships will not suffer serious breakdowns halfway.

Many of the officers and men were not able to sleep peacefully at night, and even though the fleet commander gave them orders to take turns to rest, most of the officers and men continued to be busy. It is impossible to postpone the battle, and they are the officers and men on the battleship, so they naturally do not want their battleship to suddenly have problems during the battle, which will cause the battleship to withdraw from the battle. The big one led to the destruction of the battleship. This price needs to be compensated with blood and lives, and that is exactly their blood and lives, now sweating. It's better than shedding blood on the battlefield.

Early the next morning, eight battleships of the 1st Task Force left the port of Rabaul. At that time, there was also a group of personnel in the port who continued to carry out repair work on the battleship. These men left the ship as the fleet passed by the Bouin anchorage. One can imagine how bad the situation in the fleet was at that time.

Just as the 1st Task Force left the port of Rabaul, the shore-based forces of naval aviation deployed in Rabaul, Bougainville and Kuah began to bomb the islands of Makila and Rennell. At that time, there were four airfields (all field airfields) on Bougainville Island, and a total of eight squadrons of ground tactical aircraft were deployed, including five squadrons of bombers and three squadrons of fighters. There are four airfields on Kuah Island (three of which are field airfields) with a total of nine squadrons of ground fighters, including five squadrons of bombers. Four squadrons of fighters. In addition, there were six squadrons of fighters on Rabaul's side, but because the distance was too long, these fighters had to go to the airfields on Bougainville or Kuah to refuel, or land at the airfields on the two islands on the way back, and then they could return home.

In order to destroy the US airfields on Makila Island and Rennell Island, Yan Guozhong mobilized a total of 22 squadrons with a total of more than 700 fighters, including about 450 bombers and more than 200 fighters. All fighters can carry bombs and rockets for tactical bombing missions.

In addition, Ngan Guozhong also deployed more than 200 heavy bombers on the Lae side, and these bombers will also participate in combat operations.

As a matter of fact, at that time, the density of HNA fighter planes deployed in the theater of operations had exceeded the capacity of the theater, and it was also a troublesome thing to command so many combat aircraft. Judging from the amount of ammunition and aviation gasoline stored on the front line at that time, at most, these fighters could carry out two days of bombing missions, and then they had to wait for the replenishment fleet. This was sufficient, and according to Tan Renhao's request, it was actually only one day of bombing, and after the fleet went to shell, those over-deployed fighters could be withdrawn to the rear to relieve the pressure on the front line.

The first place to arrive was the heavy bombers of the Strategic Strike Force. At 7 o'clock, 120 "wolf doves" flew over Makila Island and carpet-bombed the three US airfields on the island, dropping about 600 tons of bombs. Ten minutes later, nearly 100 other "wolf doves" bombed two US airfields on Rennell Island, dropping more than 400 tons of bombs. Because these bombers entered at a high altitude (the number of anti-aircraft guns of the US army was frightening), the effect of the bombing was not very ideal, and then the reconnaissance planes in the end confirmed that none of the five US airfields had been completely destroyed, and the US fighter planes were taking off one after another.

At half past seven, the first batch of tactical bombers of the HNA arrived over Makila Island, three squadrons of "Sea Eagles" were responsible for destroying the airfield runway, two squadrons of "Shooting Waterbirds" were responsible for suppressing the US air defense positions, and two squadrons of "Falcons" were escorting them. At that time, three squadrons of F4U (practically comparable in size to two fighter squadrons of the Don Empire) had already risen into the air over the island of Makila. The entire bombing operation was carried out in fierce battles, and the US fighters desperately intercepted them, but the number of Tang Empire fighters arriving was indeed too many.

The first batch of naval tactical bombers to bomb Rennell Island arrived at 7:50 a.m., and there were two squadrons of "Sea Eagles" in this group of bombers. Two squadrons of "Shooting Birds" and two squadrons of "Falcon". Because the bombers took off from Bougainville Island, they arrived a little later. At that time, there were about 50 U.S. fighters patrolling Rennell Island, and although the U.S. fighters made a brave interception, they did not stop so many Tang Empire bombers from dropping bombs in the end.

The first round of bombing by the HNA had just ended, and the bomber group from Rabaul arrived. The fleet was much smaller, and it split into two groups along the way. He did not land on Kuah Island on the way, but prepared to go to Kuah Island to refuel when he returned home.

There was a squadron of "sea eagles" and a squadron of "water birds" in the group of planes that went to attack the island of Makila. As well as two squads of "Falcon". The bombers arrived over Makila Island at 10:00 a.m., and the US ground fighters were catching up with the previous group of bombers in the north, and as a result, there were no US fighters over the island.

In the group that bombed Rennell Island was a squadron of "Sea Eagles", a squadron of "Shooting Birds", and a small pair of "Falcons". The time of arrival of the bombers was 8:15.

At that time, the U.S. fighter planes over Rennell Island had been dispersed by the previous group of escort fighters who had arrived, so there were no fighter planes patrolling over the island.

In fact, it was the bombers that took off from Rabaul that really had a destructive effect. These bombers almost destroyed the US air defense positions on the island, and also completely paralyzed three airfields, and destroyed dozens of US bombers that had not been able to take off at the airfields. The battle isn't over yet, though. HNA's onslaught has only just begun.

Nine. The second group of bombers from Kuah and Bougainville arrived over the islands of Makira and Rennell. As a result, they were not intercepted by US fighters. Even if the U.S. fighter jets that had previously lifted off had not been shot down, there was not much fuel left, and the radar station on the island was the first to be blown up. When the third group of bombers of the Don Empire arrived. Most of the U.S. fighter jets have landed on airfields that have not been destroyed, and some have even landed on flat lawns next to airfields. Therefore, when the bomber suddenly appeared over the airfield and dropped the bomb, the US military did not have time to make any response.

It was only then that the commander of the US air force realized that the most violent blow of the Tang Imperial Air Force had arrived. In just over two hours, more than 500 warplanes of various types have "visited" the two islands, eliminating more than 200 heavy bombers and more than 300 tactical aircraft.

Judging from the information received by the US military before this, the Tang Imperial Naval Air Force deployed only more than 300 fighters on the front line, and it was impossible for the bombers that arrived at 7 o'clock to fly back again at 9 o'clock. The commander of the US army immediately judged that all the fighters of the Tang Empire had already been dispatched.

In fact, this judgment was wrong, and by 10 o'clock, the largest group of bombers had reached the skies over Makila and Rennell Islands, and by this time the American forces on the two islands had completely lost their air defense cover, and could only let the bombers drop bombs on their heads. By this time. The commander of the US air force judged that the Tang Empire had at least 500 tactical fighters, which far exceeded the number of fighters previously invested by the Tang Empire's naval aviation. Then, the US commander sent out a message, asking the rear to provide a batch of fighter jets as soon as possible, and promised that a runway would be cleared at night to receive these fighters.

From noon, the massive bombing by the HNA ended. The heavy bombers of the Strategic Strike Force carried out a second round of covering bombing at noon. Beginning in the afternoon, HNA tactical bombers and rocket-mounted fighters began to carry out free hunting missions over the two islands. In addition, a group of "sea eagles" carrying submunitions began to spread time bombs at the US military airfields on the two islands in order to delay the time for the US military to repair the airfields.

The submunitions were used as a secret weapon in the early stages of the war, and by the middle of '24, the U.S. military had also acquired the technology to make submunitions from a few unexploded submunitions, and sent their own submunitions to the battlefield at the end of '24. In fact, the biggest role of the submunition is not destruction, but deterrence. It is difficult to effectively clear irregular time bombs by any conventional method, but these time bombs are not impossible to understand. The simplest and quickest way is to explode these time bombs directly from a distance. Either use a bulldozer with a shield or a tank with a bulldozer blade to push the time bomb to a safe place and then dispose of it. Anyway, by this time in 25 years, the effect of submunitions destroying airfields is not as significant as before.

In fact, in a war, both sides are aware of the importance of island airfields, but they are also aware that island airfields are vulnerable to destruction. It is impossible to completely eliminate the ability of the other side to destroy the island's airfield, so it is extremely important to ensure the normal use of the airport, adopt better protection methods, and more quickly repair the means. For example, important infrastructure such as ammunition depots and fuel depots are located underground, or they are stored in a decentralized manner. The use of simple runway repair components is an effective way to quickly repair the runway.

At that time, the Tang Imperial Engineer Corps could repair the bombed-out runway within three hours, at least for the landing and take-off of fighter planes. The U.S. Army's engineers repaired the runway at a similar pace.

This determines that if continuous bombing cannot be carried out, then the enemy's airfield can only be completely destroyed, or the enemy's engineers will be killed, and the enemy's equipment for repairing the airfield will be destroyed, making the airfield useless. Daytime bombardment often fails to achieve this goal, so close shelling at night is extremely important.