The "Daihai" aircraft carrier was also about to evade the last few US bombers, and at the same time, the antiaircraft guns on the aircraft carrier were also roaring. The four sBds that dive-dropped bombs were all hit by the small-caliber anti-aircraft guns on the aircraft carrier before and after the bombs were dropped, and all three bombs that fell also missed. The 3 TBds advancing on the surface of the sea were also quickly enveloped in artillery fire, and only one dropped a torpedo, but this torpedo was easily avoided by the aircraft carrier.

Seeing that the "Daihai" aircraft carrier had dodged all the bombs and torpedoes, the officers in the command cabin screamed with excitement. Those evasive maneuvers of the aircraft carrier are so beautiful that they almost make a big circle on the surface of the sea.

Tan Renhao was not so excited, he, like Lei Shaoqing before, quickly noticed that the number of this batch of US bombers was a little smaller, at most only half of the bombers sent by Spruance, where was the rest? And when he thought that this was just a bomber group sent by a US task force, he immediately reacted, and the bomber group sent by another task force must have been nearby, and it was approaching at a high level.

The shrill sound of battle sirens immediately calmed down the staff officers who were still excited at first, and Tan Renhao glanced at those people and immediately looked towards the staff officer in charge of the air defense of the fleet. The alarm was from the cruiser "Baoding River", the second group of the American army arrived, 2o nautical miles from the fleet, and directly north of the fleet!

This is the batch of bombers that took off from Task Force 52, there were 36 sBd in it, and two TBd in Task Force 2 failed to come out, which was later repaired and placed in this group of bombers), and there were 12 F4u.

This time, the bomber group of the 51st Task Force came out together. The two fleets are one south and one north, to be precise, one in the southwest and the other in the northeast, and the flight degree is about the same. At the time of the 1st Task Force. The 1st Task Force was about 65 nautical miles to the north, and this was already outside the radar detection range of the cruiser "Baoding River".

The bomber group that received the news immediately lowered its altitude, and the US commander commanding the bomber group still had a bit of a brain, he knew that the radar detection distance of low-flying bombers was much closer, and now the bomber group of the 51st task force was already engaged with the air defense fighters, and took this opportunity to approach at a low altitude and pull it up at the end, so the air defense fighters of the fleet would not be able to react quickly.

The tactics adopted by the US pilot were the same as those adopted by Zhang Zhitao when attacking the 52nd Task Force. At that time, the detection range of the radar could reach more than 7o nautical miles. But only when the weather is good, and it refers to high-altitude cluster targets, not low-altitude targets. Affected by the curvature of the earth's surface, the radar's ability to detect low-altitude targets is still very limited, which is why the radar's detection distance for warships on the sea surface is only more than 10 nautical miles. The detection range of the radar for a group of aircraft flying at an altitude of about 5oo meters above the sea surface could not exceed 2o nautical miles at all, at least at that time, no radar could increase the detection range to more than 2o nautical miles.

In the previous ground air defense operations, the pressure on the heavy cruiser "Baoding River" was not very great, and the power of its 12o-mm anti-aircraft guns was not unwielded, and not even a single enemy plane was shot down. It was just a symbolic firing of dozens of shells at enemy planes several nautical miles away. The ship's mission is to guard the northern gate of the fleet. Prevent the entry of enemy aircraft from this direction. And this cruiser also fulfilled this task, and when the radar showed the American fighter plane at a distance of 2o nautical miles, the alarm was immediately raised. At this time, the bomber group of the 51st Task Force had just been repulsed, and the aircraft carrier "Daihai" had just dodged bombs and torpedoes.

Here's the problem, Tan Renhao's rearrangement of the air defense formation has a lot of fluidity. In the time of the fleet's air defense, the destroyers responsible for filling the loopholes in the fleet's air defense network sailed as fast as possible, and in the previous ten minutes, most of the destroyers were concentrated in the northwest direction of the fleet, otherwise they would not have been able to shoot down nearly 3 The second batch of bombers came from the north, in the north of the fleet. In fact, there were only the heavy cruiser "Baoding River" and the large air defense cruiser "Duan Zhixuan", and further south, the aircraft carrier "Daihai". And to the east of the "Daihai" aircraft carrier battle group, there is only "Dahan"

heavy cruisers, as well as a destroyer, and two destroyers between the two carrier battle groups. In other words, the air defense forces of the "Daihai" aircraft carrier battle group to the north and east are very weak, especially in the east.

Even more serious, after the beginning of the air defense operation. There are only 22 air defense fighters left in the fleet, and all of them are in the north-western direction of the fleet, and the height of these fighters is about 1ooo meters, instead of the previous 4ooo meters. It will take at least 1o minutes for them to climb to 4ooo meters and move to the north of the fleet, and 1o minutes is enough for the bombers of the US army to do a lot of things.

TBd flying above the sea only needs a maximum of 8 minutes to fly over these 2o nautical miles and reach the sky above the "Baoding River", and at this time they are only 8 nautical miles away from the "Daihai", and only one cruiser "Duan Zhixuan" is in front of them, and the nearest cruiser is still 3 nautical miles away, and can only use large-caliber anti-aircraft guns to help the "Duan Zhixuan" intercept these bombers.

It only takes 1o minutes at most to fly the 2o nautical miles at the sBd at the climbing altitude (the degree of sBd is faster than that of TBd, but the degree of the bomber will be much lower when climbing). Judging from the air defense capability of the north of the fleet at that time, no matter how good the VT bombs were, it was impossible to intercept all these US bombers.

When he climbed to an altitude of 17oo meters (the cloud height was 1ooo meters) and flew to a distance of about 1o nautical miles from the fleet, there were very few escort warships to the east of the aircraft carrier fleet of the Tang Empire, and he immediately ordered half of the bombers to go around to the east of the "Daihai" battle group, and the other half of the bombers continued to attack in a straight line.

The US bombers were suddenly divided into two groups, which disrupted the air defense operations of the two cruisers, but the "Baoding River" and "Duan Zhixuan" immediately concentrated their artillery fire on the bombers that attacked them head-on, and their task was to hold the north side of the aircraft carrier, and the bombers flying around had their own warships to deal with.

Two 12o-mm anti-aircraft guns (four) on the starboard side of the "Baoding River" had already taken out 4 bombers in three minutes. It's a little scary. As a result, two sBd abandoned the bombing of the aircraft carrier and dived down from mid-air. The gunners on the "Baoding River" did not notice these two bombers at all, because in previous battles, the bombers first guaranteed to blow up the aircraft carrier and had excess ammunition before dealing with the escort warships, and no commander would waste ammunition on the escort warships first. The cruiser could not dodge and avoided only one bomb. Another 1oooo-pound aviation armor-piercing shell exploded directly in the middle of the cruiser, disabling the cruiser's power system, in addition to blowing up four large-caliber anti-aircraft guns located nearby. These bombs were specially prepared to deal with aircraft carriers of tens of thousands of tons, and more than enough for heavy cruisers of more than 10,000 tons.

The anti-aircraft guns of the "Duan Zhixuan" opened fire two minutes late, and after the "Baoding River" was bombed, the gunners on the battleship also realized the danger. And four 12o-mm anti-aircraft guns on the starboard side of the cruiser shot down at least 7 American bombers in three minutes, which was not inefficient.

This time, the US bombers did not waste ammunition on this cruiser, because the huge aircraft carrier was behind the "Duan Zhixuan", and the significance of bombing an aircraft carrier was far greater than bombing a cruiser. And that's exactly what happened. "Duan Zhixuan" avoided disaster. Moreover, when the US bombers were attacking the aircraft carrier, they used anti-aircraft guns on the port side to shoot down two O3A 18 sBd and 12 TBd that were ready to dive into the aircraft carrier, and finally only 8 sBd and 4 TBd penetrated the fire network of the fleet's small-caliber antiaircraft guns and dropped bombs and torpedoes on the "Daihai" aircraft carrier. Not to mention how many of the 12 bombers escaped. At this time, the "Daihai" had just resumed its course, and when the US bombers arrived, it was making a turn and striving to aim its bow in the direction of the enemy's attack.

In fact, it was almost impossible for the aircraft carrier to avoid a concentrated attack of 8 bombs and 4 torpedoes. Although there were many aircraft carriers that managed to avoid dozens of bombs and torpedoes in a row, that was in the early days of the war, and with the improvement of pilots, carriers would not be so lucky.

Tan Renhao saw with his own eyes that at least three bombs hit the "Daihai," and at least one of the eight torpedoes that followed hit the aircraft carrier. The "Daihai" has done its best to avoid bombs and torpedoes, and bad luck cannot be avoided. Tan Renhao's attention immediately shifted to the other group of US bombers that were coming around.

The commanders of these US bombers saw that the "Daihai" had been damaged. Immediately dispatched 8 sBd and 6 TBd to continue bombing the "Daihai", while he led another 1o sBd and 6 TBd towards the "Xingkaihu" aircraft carrier to the south of the "Daihai".

At this time, the aircraft carrier "Xingkaihu" was also sailing southward, and on its left was "Wei Chigong"

large air defense cruiser. In addition, there was a heavy cruiser "Winter Solstice" in the rear left, and a destroyer in the front left. The anti-aircraft firepower of these three warships was not weak, especially the anti-aircraft firepower on the "Wei Chigong" and the "Winter Solstice" were extremely strong. But the problem is that the US bombers did not come directly from the east, but from the northeast diagonally. As a result, only the anti-aircraft guns on the left aft deck of the cruiser "Winter Solstice" were able to be aimed in the direction of the incoming American attack. And there was only one 12o mm anti-aircraft gun in this part. The cruiser "Wei Chigong" could also only use anti-aircraft guns on the left aft deck, and here there were only two 12o-mm anti-aircraft guns.

Both cruisers were turning to the left, trying to aim all the anti-aircraft guns on the port side at the incoming American bombers. But this again widened the distance from the aircraft carriers, and after the American bombers passed the interception of the two cruisers, they could only intercept with anti-aircraft guns in the tail.

The "Xingkaihu" aircraft carrier was also turning, but not as fast as the cruiser, and only when the US torpedo bombers entered a straight course would the aircraft carrier make a full turn to avoid torpedo attacks.

Tan Renhao grabbed the handrail, he didn't take into account that the battle would be fought to this extent, and the last thing he expected was that the quality of the US pilots would improve so quickly. You know, not long ago, the Second Task Force easily took out the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier battle group commanded by Fletcher, and in that battle, the US military didn't even have the strength to fight back. Of course, there were many things that he didn't expect, for example, the bomber group sent by Spruance was also divided into two batches, and the routes were not the same.

6 out of 1o sBd broke through the air defense network, reached the sky over the "Xingkai Lake", and then began to dive and drop bombs at intervals of about 1 mite. 6 TBd 4 broke through the anti-aircraft fire net on the cruiser and entered a straight line attack channel. In fact, the air defense interception efficiency of the two cruisers at that time was already very high, and with less than one-third of the ship's anti-aircraft artillery, six US bombers were shot down in two minutes.

The "Xingkai Lake" made a sharp left turn, and Tan Renhao was almost thrown onto the deck. Then, the sound of the bomb breaking through the air was heard, and the lights in the command cabin turned red and flickered, which was a signal to prepare for the bomb (in fact, the red signal was a warning to the officers and men to protect themselves from unnecessary sacrifices). Tan Renhao didn't hesitate, he had already been injured twice, and he didn't want to be sent to the hospital for the third time, and then really let his wife take care of him. By the time the red light flickered, he had crawled to the floor with his head in his hands. Anyway, there was no need for him, the fleet commander, to direct the aircraft carrier to avoid bombing, which was the captain's task in the navigation bridge on the upper floor.

The aircraft carrier shook slightly, then more violently, and a dull explosion followed. Tan Renhao was bounced off the floor by a huge force, and he fainted when he heard the explosion. I don't know how long it took, but he woke up and felt a lot of pain in his head, probably hit by something, and the red light in the cabin was still flickering. He groped his way up from the floor, and the first thing he saw was Hao Dongjue, who was smirking at him.