When the first wave of Japanese carrier-based aircraft approached the combat formation of the 1st US Task Force in the Pacific, the first wave of attack planes sent by Halsey had already found the main formation of the Japanese Combined Fleet in the vast sea, and a stormy naval and air battle began in two areas several hundred kilometers apart. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

In accordance with Halsey's will to attack the enemy, 106 "Wildcats" and "Hellcats" formed a huge assault arrow, covering the air defense line composed of 47 "Helldives" and 42 "Avengers" to break through the Japanese carrier-based fighters; At the same time, 12 IR-39Ts covered 4 IK-43Ts flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters, with the help of radio-guided bombs to carry out vertical strikes on Japanese aircraft carriers -- as a multi-purpose carrier-based bomber in active service in the Irish Navy, IK-43T can carry out various combat missions such as dive bombing, torpedo bombing, high-altitude bombing, low-altitude strafing, long-range reconnaissance, anti-submarine patrol, etc., and its design is similar to that of the Japanese army's cutting-edge carrier-based aircraft "Meteor", using an inverted gull-shaped main wing. Through the linkage of double flaps and aileron flaps to improve low-speed performance, a 1900 horsepower star-shaped air-cooled engine is installed, the top speed when flying under low load is close to 560 kilometers per hour, and it is equipped with two 20 mm forward cannons and a 13 mm tail protection machine gun, and its air combat performance is even stronger than the main fighters currently installed in many countries.

On the Japanese fleet's side, although the best "Gale" pilots were sent to escort the attack aircraft, those who stayed behind were not ordinary people. It is a pity that there are only five aircraft carriers in the combined fleet's battle formation, one of which is a 20,000-ton light aircraft carrier, and the number of carrier-based aircraft available is less than 70 percent of that of the US fleet, and this greatly restricts their tactical play. In the outer airspace of the Combined Fleet, there were many scenes of two "Gale" being besieged by three, four, or even five or six "Hellcats", and even though the Japanese pilots were able to get out of danger repeatedly with their superb flying skills, they were obviously at a disadvantage on the whole. In the case that the "gale" was entangled by a group of cats, and the zero battle was easily knocked out by the cats, the Japanese air defense line was full of holes. However, no matter whether it was a "gale" or a zero battle, as long as they got rid of the blocking entanglement of US fighters and approached the US bombers, they did not hide their killer nature -- before the Japanese surface ships suffered losses, nearly half of the US carrier-based bombers were successfully intercepted by the Japanese fighters, and they were either shot down and damaged, or they hurriedly dropped bombs to evade them, and they failed to enter the inner air defense circle of the Japanese fleet.

Compared with European and American ships of the same period, the Japanese Navy's shipborne radar equipment rate in 1946 was not low, but their loss was due to the backwardness of fire control radar and anti-aircraft ammunition technology. With the same effect of anti-aircraft weapons with American-made fire control radar and proximity fuse, the hit rate in actual combat is more than 10 times higher than that of Japanese-style electronic detection and time-delay fuzes! This is not to mention, since the launch of the war of aggression against China, Japan has been sanctioned by the League of Nations for a long time, and most of its material losses can be made up by plundering resources from the colonies, and the army lacks the opportunity to communicate and learn from foreign counterparts, especially first-class powers, and has been in a state of being closed and complacent for a long time, and when it comes to the battlefield of a showdown with strong opponents, it will inevitably pay a bloody price for this......

In the face of the repeated attacks of US dive bombers and torpedo bombers, the Japanese aircraft carriers had to twist left and right, and did everything possible to avoid bombs and torpedoes. In less than a quarter of an hour, the four main aircraft carriers under Kogamine's command were already scattered everywhere, and the light ships that provided protection for these aircraft carriers were also scattered, and it was difficult to echo each other. At this moment, the 3rd Squadron of the 31st Dive Bomber Squadron, which was subordinate to the US aircraft carrier "Oliska," seized the opportunity and launched a strong attack from the rear of the Japanese aircraft carrier "Iwate." Although the Japanese Navy's Izumo-class aircraft carriers are equipped with a large number of large-caliber anti-aircraft guns and small-caliber machine guns, they have the weakness of a shortage of defensive firepower at medium distances -- six twin-mounted 127-mm high-level guns can be used as naval guns to attack enemy ships with flat fire, and can also be used as anti-aircraft guns, with a range of more than 10,000 meters for both flat and anti-aircraft fire, a rate of fire of more than 15 rounds per minute, a maximum elevation angle of +90 degrees to -10 degrees, and semi-automatic loading, which is mainly used to deal with enemy aircraft at medium and high altitudes, and is more powerful, but the effect in actual combat is average; The 28 triple 25mm anti-aircraft guns are mainly used to deal with medium and low-altitude targets, the rate of fire is very fast, and the accuracy is also good, but the disadvantage is that the power is small, and the enemy aircraft at a distance can often only be injured and cannot shoot it down, and because of the use of 15 fixed ammunition racks to feed ammunition, it must stop firing every time the ammunition is changed, which greatly reduces the air defense efficiency; Twenty 13mm antiaircraft machine guns were deployed in various parts of the ship, and their power was weak and their lethality was obviously insufficient, and it was difficult to shoot down US carrier-based aircraft with strong defensive capabilities......

Braving the intensive anti-aircraft fire of the "Pante" and its escort ships, four "Hell Divers" roared down from more than 4,000 meters at a 75-degree angle one after another, hitting the Japanese aircraft carrier that had been in service for less than 20 months at an interval of less than a minute and a half, but the 1,000-pound American-made aviation armor-piercing bombs only penetrated the flight deck of the Japanese ship, and were blocked by the special steel plate between the flight deck and the upper hangar, and the two armor-piercing bombs each blew up a hole with an area of more than 10 square meters, making it impossible for the "Pante" to be recovered by carrier-based aircraft for the time being. Seven carrier-based aircraft parked in the upper hangar were damaged by the explosion, two of which were nearly completely destroyed.

Seeing that their own dive bombers had successfully broken through the close defense of the "Iwate" and damaged it, seven "Avenger" torpedo bombers lost no time in launching an attack from the port side of the Japanese aircraft carrier. At that time, most of the anti-aircraft fire of the Japanese ships was put into the stern direction, especially the 127-mm guns with a long range and great power were all held high, and the "Avengers" carried aviation torpedoes smoothly entered the effective range of fire, and the two Japanese destroyers escorting the port side of the "Iwate" hurriedly adjusted their firepower and tried their best to intercept those American torpedo planes. In the face of the sudden rise of the barrage, the three "Avengers" in the pilot ventured to a distance of 1,500-2,000 meters from the target to drop torpedoes, followed by the four "Avengers" to project a second wave of torpedoes at a distance of about 2,500 meters. The "Iwate" hurriedly turned, and seeing that its huge hull had reached the point where it could not be avoided, an escort Japanese drive resolutely sacrificed itself and carried down a speeding American torpedo for it......

The U.S. pilots engaged the Japanese in low- and medium-altitude airspace, and the Irish "longbowmen" who carried out high-altitude bombing still used their best methods to suddenly fire cold arrows. Four IK-43T successively dropped four radio-guided bombs, two of which hit the flight decks of the "Asama" and "Yakumo" respectively, and two of which landed near the side of the Japanese ship and exploded. The luck of the "Asama" was much better than that of its sister ship "Aso" and the "Yakumo" that was put into battle at the same time, and the aviation armor-piercing shell that pierced the flight deck and the roof of the two-story hangar was actually a dud bomb, and it did not cause any substantial damage except for causing great fright to the crew, while the "Yakumo" was hit by a seedling, and the armor-piercing shell penetrated through the aft flight deck, penetrated the double-decker hangar and exploded above the power compartment, and detonated two fully fueled bombs ready to be thrown into the second wave of attacks." Meteor", immediately made the Japanese main aircraft carrier a big fish with a broken tail, paralyzed on the sea and slaughtered by others......

At the other end of the battlefield, when the first wave of Japanese carrier-based aircraft groups had withdrawn from the attack, the Irish Navy aircraft carrier "St. Patrick", located in the middle and rear of the 1st US Pacific Task Force combat formation, seemed to have become the most complete combat aircraft carrier among the US aircraft carriers participating in the war. I don't know if it was due to luck, or if the Japanese pilots deliberately left this tough opponent last, it didn't get a single bomb during the battle, but very smoothly dodged all the attacks that came at it, including the three torpedoes dropped by the Japanese fighters at medium range!

After withstanding the attack of the Japanese carrier-based aircraft group, Halsey immediately ordered the organization and implementation of a second wave of air raids, and each aircraft carrier should dispatch as many carrier-based aircraft as possible within the specified time limit. The "St. Patrick" had previously dispatched 16 fighters to participate in the first wave of air strikes, sent 18 fighters to defense, and had 2 radar early warning planes and 4 escort fighters on duty in the air, and the attendance rate of carrier-based aircraft was nearly 60 percent. In the process of resisting the attack of Japanese carrier-based aircraft, the fighters that did not take off were stored in the hangar and stood by. The order to attack from the flagship was like a starting gun, and all the crew immediately went into action, refueling the standby fighters and loading bombs, while sending the prepared fighters to the flight deck through the elevator.

Compared with the Japanese and US aircraft carriers in service, the second-generation standard aircraft carriers used by the Western Allies have a very big technical advantage, that is, they use the steam catapult system codenamed "Angel Flying Wing" developed and produced by Ireland. In terms of the trajectory of historical development, before the birth of more advanced electromagnetic catapult technology, steam catapult technology was the most practical among various marine catapult technologies. The Irishman's "Angel Flying Wing" can make the IA-40 early warning aircraft with an empty weight of 6,400 kg and a maximum take-off weight of 9,000 kg carrier-based, and correspondingly shorten the take-off distance of carrier-based fighters such as IR-39T and IK-43T, and improve the overall sortie efficiency of carrier-based aircraft.

It is worth mentioning that on the Winner-class aircraft carriers built before 1942, steam catapults were not standard, and the German and Irish navies ordered two sets of steam catapults for each Winner-class, while the Spanish Navy ordered only one for each of them, and those sold to the Japanese Navy not only did not install steam catapults, but even the usual room for improvement should be used for other purposes. In 1942, the Japanese army launched the second war of aggression against China, and the Western Allies tightened the sanctions against Japan again, and the only Winner-class aircraft carrier introduced by Japan soon fell into a situation of lack of maintenance parts......

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