Chang Jiexin didn't want to be the first bird, he didn't even have the qualifications to be the first bird, three big patrols, five heavy cruisers, more than a dozen destroyers, and he didn't even have the qualifications to stuff the teeth between the teeth of the "Z fleet". His task was to reconnoitre, hold the left flank of the Third Task Force, and take out the "Washington Express" who took advantage of the chaos to go north, and Chang Zhixin did not want to be in the limelight, and the Second Task Force had not yet recovered from the last defeat. There are a lot of things that make Chang Jianxin worried, not to mention the investigations, with the protection of the principal, the investigative officers sent by the cabinet have not been able to harass them, but the second task force has already had hundreds of people (most of them staff officers, captains of battleships) have been investigated individually. This incident lasted for more than 20 days, causing panic and restlessness in the people of the Second Task Force, and even many officers were questioning what they were trying to do on the battlefield for killing the enemy in blood.

In addition to the investigation, the troubles at home and the troubles in the army all gave Chang Jianxin, the chief of staff of the fleet, a headache. If it weren't for Lei Shaoqing's going to supervise the maintenance of the aircraft carrier, and he had to lead these escort warships out to carry out the mission, Chang Jianxin really wanted to hand over a fake note to the principal and go back to rest for a few months. During the war years, soldiers were machines, and when the country was in need, they had to be immediately armed and go to the front line as soon as they were called. This is the purpose of soldiers, to raise soldiers for a thousand days, and to use soldiers for a while. Chang Jianxin did not evade, and he will not evade either.

At 11:15 a.m., several bright "flashpoints" appeared on the radar of the "Da Han" running at the forefront of the fleet (the larger the target, the stronger the reflected electromagnetic wave signal, and the brighter the light spots on the radar screen) and then more and more "flashing points", and a minute later, the news was sent to the flagship "Gao Shilian" (the acting flagship, the flagship of the second task force is the "Yellow River" aircraft carrier). And not to the south of Task Force 3!

The battle alarm was immediately raised, the fleet quickly turned, and the heavy cruiser "Dahan" was changed from a ship to a tail ship, and the radar on it was still monitoring the movements of the enemy fleet. Fortunately, the fleet turned in a timely manner, and the radar on the American battleships was indeed inferior to the ground radar on the Tang Empire battleships, and the detection range was much closer, and the American fleet did not have the small fleet of the Tang Empire in the north!

It is often recommended that the new side let the fleet form a column as soon as possible. I got the news out. Dealing with the "Z Fleet" is the errand of the third task force, and the second task force can only take advantage of the fire to rob at most, now is not the time to be brave, and saving your life is the most important! However, in order not to "lose" the American fleet, Chang Zhixin could only keep the fleet at 22 knots and try to control the distance between 2o and 25 nautical miles. According to the information provided by the intelligence department, the detection range of the ground radar of the American warship on the cruiser is about 2o nautical miles (it can reach 25 nautical miles for large targets such as battleships), and as long as it remains out of the sight of the enemy fleet, then the safety of the fleet can be ensured.

Chang Jianxin ignored the fact that the three large air defense cruisers in the Second Task Force were not much smaller than the battleships, and all three of them were improved models in the "Li Jing" class. The hull was lengthened by several meters. For radar. The distance of the current target depends on the geometry of the target, not on the displacement! That is, those three large air defense cruisers reflected about the same radar signal as the battleships. It's easy to judge as a battleship!

Like Chang Zhixin, Kimmel is also distressed. To his anger, shortly after his departure, he received an order: wait for a fleet of raiders from Saipan three hours late, and then kill Anatahan Island together. This assault fleet was what the Tang Army called the "Washington Express", led by a light cruiser and followed by eight destroyers. In addition to attacking the 6th battle, this fleet was also responsible for sending a batch of urgently needed supplies (especially artillery spare parts) to the American troops on the island. That's why the "Z-Fleet" was not able to appear on time. And the reason why I accidentally stumbled into the "arms" of the second task force. Kimmel didn't want to do this either, those "fast cars" didn't have much combat power, he believed in the powerful artillery fire of the "Z Fleet", but Nimitz's orders could not be disobeyed, he could only do what he was told.

At 11:30 a.m., several faint flashes of light suddenly appeared on the radar screen of the "Maryland". The radar operator thought it was the radar that had gone wrong again. Since the last bombing, the radar has not been completely repaired, and there are often such problems, and it took more than ten days to debug it. None of them have been debugged. Instead of immediately reporting the situation, the radar operator called in a couple of assistants and began to check the radar. It wasn't until about 11:40 a.m., when it was determined that there was no fault in the radar, and that those flashes were getting brighter and brighter, that the radar operator appeared, it was not a malfunction, it was the enemy's warship!

Upon receiving the news, Kimmel immediately ordered the fleet to move forward and catch up with the enemy fleet 23 nautical miles ahead, and his enthusiasm was immediately aroused, and he became as strong as an adrenaline-pumping bull. That's three "capital ships", three huge capital ships!

At this time, Kimmel did not think carefully about the fact that the Tang Empire had at least six battleships operating in this sea area, why only three, and not six? Perhaps, he thought about it, and thought about it carefully. It is very likely that the other three capital ships are not far to the north, but the radar has not yet appeared. Kimmmel's speculation was not wrong, at that time the US military was equipped with the first generation of radar, and the same as the first generation radar of the Tang Empire Navy, not to mention the backward performance, but also extremely unreliable (the average failure time of the first generation radar of the Tang Empire was 2 hours, which was simply a pile of scrap metal, and there was no practical value at all) Kimmel could not fully believe that the "now" enemy of the radar had only three battleships, eight to three, and it was a sure victory!

In addition to those cruisers and destroyers in the "Z Fleet", the "Washington Express", which had already caught up at this time, was also following, and faster. These ships did not need to follow the "Z Fleet", and therefore did not need to move according to the degree of the eight old ships (the fastest 24 knots). And the big problem is that the communication channels used by the two fleets turned out to be different! The "Z Fleet" is directly under the command of the Pacific Theater of Operations, while the "Washington Express" is actually an adaptation of the Mariana Islands Local Fleet. The two fleets use completely different communication channels. When the "Z Fleet" began to be added, the commander of the "Washington Express" still thought that Kimmel was going to rush back in time and arrive at Deng6 as planned, and he didn't know that there was still a fleet of the Tang Empire in front of him. The "Washington Express" also immediately advanced at maximum speed, and the "Z Fleet" passed in less than 2o minutes, and by the time the communicator on the "Pennsylvania" got the code frequency of the "Washington Express", it was already 50 minutes later, and at this time the "Washington Express" had already passed the second task force of the "Z Fleet" and was only 17 nautical miles! Sadly, none of the warships in the "Washington Express" have radars, and the human eye can only see at night a few nautical miles at most!

Seeing the sudden increase in the US fleet (at this time, the radar on the "Gao Shilian" had also begun to track the US fleet) Chang Jianxin was also taken aback. The radar operator has also judged that these battleships are destroyers by the strength of the ground signal reflection (the displacement of the American light cruisers in the early stage of World War II is very close to the destroyers of the Tang Empire, which is why the Tang Empire does not develop light cruisers) Standing in the new position, he can make the judgment that the American fleet has already shown them, because its battleships are not enough, so it sends faster destroyers up to carry out torpedo attacks, forcing the second task force to reduce, Then the capital ship came up (the maximum range of the main guns of the American battleships was 17 nautical miles), and it only took a few nautical miles to catch up. The ships will open fire. The second task force is doomed!

Fight, or run? Chang Jiexin only hesitated for half a minute, and then gave the order. "The fleet turned to 85. Prepare for an artillery battle and take out the enemy's destroyers! ”

Within five minutes, with three large patrols as the core, five heavy cruisers in front of the two in the front and three in the rear, and sixteen destroyers (there were not so many of them originally, and on the way, Chang recommended a new fleet of escort destroyers) for the second column (north), and the second task force quickly expanded into a battle queue. Although most of the previous tasks of these battleships were anti-aircraft operations, the artillery battles were not bad, at least the gunners of those main guns were useful.

Twelve fifty-three o'clock. The fleet fired the first salvo, 27 24o mm guns, 45 2oo mm guns opened fire almost simultaneously, and at this time, the commander of the light cruiser in the "Washington Express" had just received the news from the "Pennsylvania": the main fleet of the Don Army was in the north!

The shells fell with a whistling fall, but unfortunately the first salvo was all missed. The "Washington Express" also immediately turned at this time, trying to escape to the rear of the "Z Fleet", but it was too late, and it would take at least a few minutes for the fleet to turn 18o degrees. The distance between the two sides is already less than 12 nautical miles, and the maximum range of 2oo mm guns reaches 14 nautical miles (in fact, at this distance, the accuracy is extremely poor, and it can only deal with small warships such as destroyers), while the maximum range of 24o mm guns reaches 16 nautical miles. To open the distance, the "Washington Express" will take at least 2o minutes, and within these 2o minutes, the 2oo mm gun can make 8o shots, and the 24o mm gun can make 4o shots, and this means that in the second task force can shoot thousands of deadly shells, and a 2oo mm shell can solve a destroyer, and the American cruiser can carry a few at most!

The blow to the "Washington Express" under heavy artillery fire was catastrophic. In the end, these warships could only flee separately, and they didn't care about fighting in formation. But the problem was also exposed at the same time, although the radar can show the battleships at a long distance, but the accuracy of using the radar to command the artillery bombardment is really not high, the hit rate is less than 5%, and after the US warships are dispersed, the hit rate is reduced to an unacceptable level, and the nearly 100 shells fired in a salvo are only two or three, or even one or two!

At 1:15, the fleet sounded the alarm. The "Z Fleet" has already been killed, and the Second Task Force is about to enter the bombardment range of the American battleship guns! Chang Jiexin did not dare to fight at all, the enemy's assault formation had been dispersed, and those destroyers definitely did not have time to release torpedoes (the United States did not have the perverted torpedoes of the "spear") Seeing that the enemy's main fleet was killed, Chang Jiexin immediately ordered to withdraw from the battle, and the fleet sailed in a northeast direction to open the distance as soon as possible!

On the "Pennsylvania", Kimmel was already jumping to his feet in anger. The "Z Fleet" is too slow, and the degree of the cutting-edge battleships of the Tang Empire is about 3o knots (in fact, the maximum degree of the "Dignity" class is less than 3o knots), and they can't catch up at all. Now it is already clear that the fleet of the Tang Empire is ready to use degrees to drag them down. The first round of shelling was quite exciting, and in less than twenty minutes, the heavy shelling of the Don Army almost completely wiped out the "Washington Express" (which is not what the US military is called) and there was still time to evacuate.

Now, there is a big problem in front of Kimmel, and it is impossible to catch up, so how to let the Tang fleet take the initiative to come up and "send it to death" quickly, Kimmel thought of a good way: assault the Tang army to land 6 battles! The task of the Tang fleet must be to protect the 6th field of Deng, as long as it advances to the 6th field of Deng, the Tang fleet will inevitably come to the decisive battle, and will no longer avoid the battle! Kimmel did not hesitate to give the order: "Z Fleet" is all going north, and there are 6 surprise landings!

After making sure that he had distanced himself from the enemy fleet, Chang Zhixin wiped the sweat from his forehead. It was too dangerous at first, and if it was a nautical mile closer, the huge bullets on the American warship would be smashed down. And during the "Battle of Iwo Jima", it was proved that the armor of the Grand Patrol and the Heavy Patrol was not much different from the decoration in front of the huge projectiles fired by the battleship, and a single shell could kill a battleship!

"Chief of Staff, the enemy is not chasing, and he is going to Jeonbuk, it seems that he has gone to the 6th field!"

Chang Jianxin was taken aback, and immediately shouted: "Quickly give the news to General Yan Shiqi, the fleet is ready to turn around, and cooperate with the third task force to intercept the American fleet!" ”