Volume 24 The Dominance of the Sea Section 28 The Rolling Iron Stream

When Tan Renhao was planning to deal with the Atlantic Fleet, the landing in Cuba was already in full swing. Moreover, the emphasis on the battlefield at that time was not the actions of the fleet, but the high-intensity confrontation between the aviation of both sides. It can be said that this is also the first time that the air forces of the two sides have engaged in such a large-scale battle on the battlefield since the war in the southwest Pacific. From the 27th to the 30th, in four days, aviation became the real protagonist on the battlefield.

During these four days of air battles, the Imperial Navy and Army Aviation made a total of 21,364 bombing missions, dropping 48,721 tons of bombing, and the loss rate of combat aircraft was less than 1%. It was also a battle in which the Imperial Air Corps had a relatively low rate of loss during the war.

In the past four days, the US air force has also exerted its strength to feed milk. According to the US military data obtained after the war, within four days, the US air force flew a total of 16,329 sorties, of which only 4,183 were bombing missions, 6,500 tons of bombs were dropped, and 143 fighters were lost. Air combat. In the entire air defense operation, the US military lost 386 combat aircraft. Its total losses exceeded 3%, 4%, .682 combat aircraft. That is, during these four days of fighting, the US military lost a total of aircraft. At that time, the U.S. military lost one-third of its combat aircraft in Cuba and Florida in just four days. Although then the US military deployed combat aircraft from the rear to airfields in the southern Florida region. However, it is still difficult to recover in a short period of time, especially since the large number of pilots lost in battle is difficult to replenish quickly.

From these figures, you can see how fierce the fighting was during these four days. If nothing else, the two sides flew an average of tens of thousands of combat aircraft a day, which exceeded many fierce battles. Not to mention. The battle was fought on a relatively small battlefield, and the density of aviation forces committed by both sides was greater than in any previous air battle. At that time, in addition to the southeastern part of Cuba, which was heavily bombed, Luo Yunchong even organized two large-scale bombing operations against airports in the United States.

For the first time on the night of the 28th, the bomber group in the first half of the night from China and the United States; The field was moved to Jamaica Island, and then it refueled and took off again, bombing two US military airports near Miami in the second half of the night, destroying 100 planes parked on the ground and also blowing up the airport's dormitory area. The bombing killed a lot of pilots and ground crew.

The next day, the US military carried out a retaliatory bombing on an inscale scale, and Luo Yunchong immediately seized this opportunity, transferred the bombers to Jamaica Island again on the night of the 29th, and bombed the US airfield near Fort Myers on the morning of 50 July, again destroying dozens of fighters.

These two long-range assaults can be said to be a typical tactic of Luo Yunchong, which is quite representative. Then. U.S. commanders were reluctant to take precautions because they believed that strategic bombers deployed in Central America could not threaten their homeland. When they were bombed in the early morning of the 29th, the US troops on those two airfields had little defensive preparation at all, and the losses were quite heavy. However, the US counterattack did not destroy the airfields on Jamaica Island that could support strategic bombers, but made the US military think that the opponent would not concentrate on attacking its own airfields again, and as a result, Luo Yunchong repeated his old trick, and chose to bomb in the morning, but when the bombers dropped the bombs, the US air forces on the airport were preparing for departure, and it was too late to intercept and evacuate!

This is also since the bombing of the barrage dam in New Orleans. For the first time, Luo Yunchong dispatched strategic bombers to deal with targets on the US mainland. Although the bombing was only a military target of the US military, many people believed that this was the real beginning of Luo Yunchong's strategic bombing of the United States, and by the end of the war, the strategic bombers of the Imperial Air Force had become the biggest threat to the US mainland targets, and also became the most hated enemy of the Americans! Of course, compared with the large-scale strategic bombing of American industrial and civilian targets later, these two bombings did not pose a great threat to American civilians, and the US government did not publicize them, so not many Americans knew about these two bombings.

While the bombing campaign was in full swing. Han Shaofeng is also seizing the time to make preparations for landing in Cuba. If you look at it from the point of view of this campaign, the preparation of the Marine Corps is much more important. Then. The task of the air force is only to complete the early strike, and at the same time try to attract the attention of the US military, so that Han Shaofeng can calmly complete the preparations for the landing and lay the foundation for the final landing in Cuba. These four days were also the four days when Han Shaofeng dispatched troops and dispatched troops most frequently, and they were the most important four days before the landing operation. At that time, Han Shaofeng set the landing time as 1 August, and although the landing time was later delayed, according to Han Shaofeng's style, before the landing time was delayed, he would inevitably use all means to complete the landing preparations, and would not first consider delaying the landing time, but let him have more time to prepare.

By the evening of the 30th, the troops participating in the landing operation were basically all ready.

The first four Marine Divisions arrived in Kingston on the 28th, along with a landing fleet to transport the Marines and transport ships carrying heavy equipment and combat supplies. Over the next three days, four convoys carrying large quantities of war materiel, heavy equipment, and engineering equipment arrived in Kingston. Because the port of Kingston was not strong enough to accommodate so many ships, on the morning of the 30th, the landing fleet and the accompanying ones had to leave the port of Kingston early.

Because of the need to transport war materiel to the front line as soon as possible, none of the four transport fleets at the port of Kingston at that time unloaded the cargo, but the other three transport flotillas were responsible for transporting more war materiel from Panama to Kingston. At the same time, the engineers responsible for taking over the port after the Marines captured the port and repairing the port infrastructure would arrive in Kingston, but no one knew when San Diego would be taken, so the engineers were not immediately brought over.

The support fleet arrived at the theater of operations as early as 28 and participated in the fight against and became after the combined fleet weakened the strike force

One of the main forces of Ba. The two support fleets were basically in turn, and the main sorties were fighter-bombers on escort carriers. In order to ensure that the pilots received adequate rest, the support fleet participated in bombing operations only during the day, and each pilot flew a maximum of two times a day. This allows the two support fleets to rotate at night while replenishing ammunition supplies during the night, and also allows pilots to get plenty of rest during the night to ensure maximum support for the Marines once the landing operation begins.

These transfers and arrangements were basically carried out according to the plan, and Han Shaofeng did not worry much, and his main task was to arrange the tasks of each unit and organize the landing fleet at the same time. Sending four Marine Divisions ashore on four sections of the beach at the same time was definitely a large-scale landing campaign, and the problems were no less serious. For example, how to allocate troops, how to ensure that each unit can accurately reach the landing site and not go to someone else's landing site, and how to send heavy equipment to the beach as soon as possible, so that the Marines can advance to the depth as soon as possible and avoid engaging the US counterattack force on the beach. There is also how to allocate support forces during this period and how to coordinate with the support forces.

If every battle is a project, then there is no doubt that the landing operation is the largest systematic project, and many people have been studying the ways and means of landing operations since the war, and have summed up a lot of experience. At that time, the Imperial Marines had accumulated a lot of experience in landing operations, and Han Shaofeng was the most experienced front-line commander. He has participated in dozens of landing operations, large and small, and commanded several large-scale landing campaigns. Relative to the combat units that are put in, the most important thing is the coordination between the various units, especially after the first batch of beach-grabbing troops have come ashore, and the various support forces. Whether or not the logistical support forces can arrive on time will directly determine the success or failure of the landing operation.

Perhaps, at that time, only Han Shaofeng had the ability to organize hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers to participate in the landing operation. Although there were only tens of thousands of troops in the landing operation, and the scale of the other support forces far exceeded the scale of the landing force, this did not mean that Han Shaofeng only needed to be responsible for the tens of thousands of people. It can be said that this is also a major feature of landing operations, using as many support forces as possible to support the most elite troops to launch an attack, so as to obtain overwhelming firepower superiority and defeat the enemy. It is by no means relying on the superiority of the forces of the combat units in the field to defeat the enemy.

By the evening of the 30th, all preparations were in place, and that night his headquarters was transferred to a large landing ship, which was probably a special tradition of the Imperial Marines. While the Marine Corps generals of many other countries would have their headquarters located at the rear shore bases, the Imperial Marine Corps generals preferred to go to the landing ships to direct the battle, so that they could land on the beach after the beach-grabbing force had completed its mission. The same. For this reason, the Imperial Navy had to rebuild several landing ships to serve as flagships for these generals. Postwar. The Imperial Navy also built several command ships specially, only two of which were intended for fleet commanders, while several others were supplied to the commanders of the Marine Corps.

In the evening of the same day, the landing fleet also left the waters of the island of Jamaica. By this time, Han Shaofeng had not received an order to delay the landing operation, that is, the landing fleet was required to reach the waters south of the Canareos Islands on the morning of 1 August, and to sail quickly southeast the next morning to reach the vicinity of the landing site in Santiago by the early morning of 2 August. Then, at half past eight in the morning of August 2, a landing operation was launched.

That is, at about 11 o'clock in the evening of that day, when the landing fleet was advancing to the northwest to the predetermined assembly area, Han Shaofeng received a telegram from Luo Yunchong that the landing operation time was delayed by two days, and the fleet returned to Kingston to wait for further news.

One can imagine how surprised and angry Han Shaofeng was at that time, but he had to immediately order the fleet to return. And it was Tan Renhao who asked Luo Yunchong to send the telegram. At that time, Tan needed more time to determine whether to keep the U.S. Atlantic Fleet out of the battlefield or to defeat it.

Tan Renhao thought about this question on the evening of the 30th, that is, the landing began on the first day of the month. Then Spruance would not have enough time to reach the Florida Strait, and the Combined Fleet would not be able to defeat the Atlantic Fleet in advance. Therefore. Tan Renhao sent a telegram to Luo Yunchong at about 8 o'clock that night, asking Luo Yunchong to delay the landing time by two days, and the fleet would strive to defeat the US troops within these two days, so as to ensure that the US Atlantic Fleet would not be threatened during the landing operation.

At that time, Luo Yunchong also needed more time to complete the early bombing operation. Moreover, the small-scale bombing of Cienfuegos and reconnaissance activities only began on the 29th, and if a landing operation were launched, it would not be enough to achieve the purpose of campaign deception. Therefore, after receiving the telegram from Tan Renhao, Luo Yunchong adjusted the battle plan, and immediately sent a telegram to Han Shaofeng, asking Han Shaofeng not to rush to set off and wait patiently for two more days.

Han Shaofeng, who returned to Kingston, was very angry, but he couldn't help it. Similarly, Tan Renhao, who had already put the fleet into a combat state at this time, was also very annoyed, Spruance chose the time to leave the port too coincidentally, if he had set off two days earlier, maybe the naval battle would have ended, and if he had left two days late, it would have been too late to stop the landing operation. Perhaps, this is why Spruance will lead the fleet to set off as soon as the two last repaired aircraft carriers return.

In fact, by this time, Tan Renhao's grasp of the battle situation was still quite limited, and the lack of intelligence caused him serious trouble. When he couldn't know the specific whereabouts of the Atlantic Fleet, Tan Renhao could only judge Spruance's whereabouts through analysis and guessing, which was not enough to serve as the basis for fleet operations, and what Spruance was doing and what he wanted to do was uncertain, so how could he guess his whereabouts?

Perhaps, at this time, what Tan Renhao wants to know most is what Spruance wants to do, not what he is doing. Even after fighting Spruance so many times, Tan Renhao still had difficulty accurately judging the intentions of the opponent who gave him the most headaches. Sea Soul Volume 24 Sea Overlord Section 28 Rolling Iron Flow