Like Spruance, Tan Renhao is actually a commander who trusts in intuitive judgment. When he sorted out the intricate situation on the battlefield in his thoughts and depicted the actions of various units on the charts, Tan Renhao immediately realized the huge loopholes in these arrangements, and at the same time, a strong sense of danger rose in his heart.

Intuition is an inexplicable thing, and at the same time a commander's gift. During World War II, many commanders trusted their instincts, partly because poor command and intelligence forced commanders to seek a quicker basis for making decisions outside of these realistic methods, and partly because of the quality of the command clip. The intuition of most commanders is actually a direct reflection of their rich combat experience, and they may not directly draw on past combat examples when they rely on their perception to make judgments, but in the process of their thinking, they will always be influenced by experience, and the combined effect of various experiences is to produce an intuitive judgment that cannot be explained by reason.

Tan Renhao is the commander with the most experience in commanding aircraft carrier operations in the Imperial Navy, and when he makes a judgment, he will never take into account the battles he has commanded before, but unconsciously use these experiences in his thinking, and then produce an intuitive judgment. In many cases, this kind of judgment is not supported by evidence, or even a little speculation, but it is always correct. This is also the basic reason why experience is the most important quality for a battlefield commander.

"Now our position must have been exposed!" Hao Dongjue went to arrange for the bomber to take off and then ran back, "The American radio listening station must have received our signal, and will quickly calculate our approximate location, and then tell Spruance the news." If our previous judgment is correct, Spruance still has at least half of his bombers in his hands undispatched, and I am afraid that their bombers will be out before our bomber fleet finds them. ”

"Let the fleet turn!" Tan Renhao didn't think about it so much, "In addition, let the radars on all cruisers be activated as soon as possible." The fleet went into dense formation, leaving only eight destroyers on the periphery to carry out anti-submarine alert missions. ”

Hao Dongjue nodded and asked the navigation staff officer to take charge of this work.

"Also, let the first fighters take off return to the aircraft carrier as soon as possible, replenish the fuel, the pilots also take a breath, and within an hour all the air defense fighters will be concentrated 2o nautical miles northwest of the fleet. Get ready for air defense battles! Tan Renhao glanced at his partner, "As you said, we can only wait to be beaten now, but whether we have sent bombers or not depends on whether Qiu Gengbo, Yang Qinkai and Zhang Zhitao can accurately throw bombs and torpedoes on the warships of the American fleet." ”

Hao Dongjue smiled bitterly, he had already arranged all these tasks. Spruance is not an easy opponent to deal with, and the last time they met, Spruance relied on direct judgment to attack, and finally took out Task Force 2. And he attacked the 1st Task Force and sent bombers after knowing the approximate location of the 1st Task Force. This. The distance between the two sides was still within 2oo nautical miles, and Spruance would send bombers as soon as he had roughly determined the location of Task Force 1.

When the bomber 6 continued to take off, Tan Renhao lay on the chart table. He only judged the approximate range. His judgment was actually completely correct. The U.S. task force commanded by Spruance quickly moved south under the cover of *night* (**please delete) and approached within 2o nautical miles, so that Tan Renhao and the ground reconnaissance planes they sent would fly over the U.S. fleet at night without any gain, and in addition, the bombers sent by the second task force may have missed Spruance, so the sea area where the U.S. task force commanded by Spruance is located can only be southeast of Wake Island, about 1oo to 25o nautical miles away from Wake Island. The distance from north to south is about the blind spot between the reconnaissance planes of the 1st Task Force and the 2nd Task Force.

In fact, the area of this sea area is not small, and when Tan Renhao asked Hao Dongjue to send a telegram and let the reconnaissance planes fly back, all the ground reconnaissance planes were in the north or east of this sea area, and it would take about half an hour for the fastest reconnaissance plane to fly back, and it would take at least an hour and a half to complete the search for this sea area. Because it is not possible to arrange the search range of each reconnaissance plane, it can only choose the mode of staggered flight of the reconnaissance plane to carry out the reconnaissance mission. This actually reduces the efficiency of reconnaissance, but this is also something that cannot be helped.

It is very tight in terms of the timing of the attack. Hao Dongjue only provided the most basic information to the bomber pilots, and the most important piece of information about the specific location of the US task force was to be given to the bomber units by the fleet after the reconnaissance planes returned the information. However, the problem is that the US fleet is about 1oo nautical miles closest to the 1st Task Force and about 2oo nautical miles at the farthest, and if you count the time when the bomber group takes off, it only takes one hour to an hour and 20 minutes for the plane group to fly over the US fleet. The biggest trouble is that the bomber group will disperse its operations at that time, and as a result, it will reach the airspace over the US fleet in batches, making it difficult to form an effective strike force.

In response to this situation, Tan Renhao had to increase the time between the sorties of the two groups of bombers by ten minutes (at that time, it was impossible for the aircraft carrier to release all the bombers in one batch, and this was very likely to delay the fighters). Originally, the two groups of bombers were supposed to take off consecutively, but the formation was different, so the time to leave the fleet was different. This 10-minute interval may not be a bad thing, especially under the circumstances, if the first batch of bombers misses the US fleet and is delayed for more time on the way, then the second batch of bombers will first reach the US fleet, attack, and tear open the US air defense network, and then the first batch of bombers will arrive, even if they disperse the attack, they will be able to effectively break through the US fleet's air defense network.

This had to be done, but it also brought a new problem, if two squads of frigate fighters were placed in the first group of bombers, and the American fleet was missed. If they arrive later, then won't the fighters of those two squads be wasted? If the second group of bombers is strengthened to escort fighters, it will either weaken the number of escort fighters of the first group of bombers, or the number of air defense fighters of the fleet. Neither of these is advisable, and after weighing it, Tan Renhao can only arrange 18 aircraft in each of the two groups of bombers, that is, one and a half squadrons of escort fighters. Knowing that he was going to be beaten, Tan Renhao did not dare to easily weaken the air defense of the fleet. A squad of 12 fighters is significant for the air defense of the fleet. But he overlooked the fact that a squad of 12 escort fighters was still significant to a bomber group. It can be said that in this arrangement, it is completely different from Tan Renhao's previous habits, if it was placed in previous battles, Tan Renhao would not hesitate to transfer a team from the fleet's air defense fighters to strengthen the escort group, but this time he made the opposite choice.

The first wave of bombers commanded by Qiu Gengbo and Zhang Zhitao began to take off at 6:50 a.m., and 10 minutes after Tan Renhao received the second telegram from the Second Task Force, the group left the skies over the fleet at 7:10 a.m. In this wave of bombers there was a squadron of "water birds" and a squadron of "sea eagles". and a half squadron of "Falcon" for which it was escorted.

The second wave of bombers, commanded by Yang Qinkai alone, began to take off at 7:20 a.m. By 7:40 a.m., it was the same size as the first wave of bombers. At this time, it had been 55 minutes since the 1st Task Force issued a new order to the reconnaissance planes. According to the estimates of the communications staff officers in the fleet, if the US military ground radio listening station received the signal. Twenty minutes at the earliest, half an hour at the slowest can calculate the approximate location of the First Task Force, and at the same time send the news to Spruance.

Tan Renhao knew this very well, Spruance must have received the news before 7:15, and he would immediately let a few reconnaissance planes fly towards this side, or send a telegram to those reconnaissance planes operating in the nearby waters to immediately approach this side, and at the same time arrange for the bomber group to take off, and by about 7:40, the bombers in the US fleet had completed their takeoff and probably left the fleet.

It's flying this way!

After seeing the second group of bombers leave the sky over the fleet, Tan Renhao sighed, now he really has nothing but a squadron of air defense fighters. And now the fighters of the last squad are taking off, and the fighters of the two squads that were previously lifted are returning to prepare to land on the carrier for refueling, and these fighters need to be delayed for at least 2o minutes before they are lifted off again (the refueling work is carried out entirely on the flight deck, and each aircraft carrier only accepts 12 fighters, which can be accommodated on the flight deck, so there is no need to send these fighters into the hangar). Other words. These fighters were to take off at eight o'clock and five o'clock. And if the US aircraft group leaves the sky over the fleet at 7:40 a.m., it will only take half an hour at the earliest, and an hour at the slowest to kill, and these fighters will only have at least five minutes to climb after taking off, and at most only 35 minutes to prepare!

Tan Renhao glanced back at the navigation clock hanging on the bulkhead in front of the command cabin. If Spruance had arranged for nearby reconnaissance planes to search for Task Force 1, then a radio signal would have been issued, and the radio listening stations on the many nearby islands must have received the signal and calculated the approximate location of the American fleet, which would probably come soon. There is no such thing as no surprise, maybe there are no US reconnaissance aircraft in the vicinity, so Spruance will follow the new reconnaissance aircraft, which will only delay the dispatch of the bomber group, which is a good thing, and by no means a bad thing.

Thinking about it, Tan Renhao suddenly laughed, he felt that he was starting to be a little too nervous, the battle situation has gradually become clear from the initial chaotic state, and now it is gradually clear, in fact, he has been walking on the easiest route to victory, and he has not made any mistakes (he didn't think of making mistakes, and he did make mistakes, but he can't blame him), if he can win, then it is naturally the best, even if he fails, he has done his best, in self-comforting words, that is, although defeated, he is still glorious.

"What are you laughing at?" Hao Dongjue glanced at Tan Renhao next to him, at this time the remaining fighters had all risen into the air, and the fighter squad that was about to land on the "Xingkai Lake" aircraft carrier was approaching and reducing the flight altitude.

"Let the landed fighter jets fly as fast as possible, and the aviation service personnel can breathe a sigh of relief after they are busy with this wave!"

Hao Dongjue nodded and said, "Everyone knows what time it is, there is no need to worry about the orderlies, they are all the best." ”

"That's for the best." Tan Renhao walked towards the outside of the commander's cabin, "Then let the escort warships follow, perhaps, the Yankees' bombers have flown towards us." ”

After completing the operation of releasing bombers, the fleet turned to the southeast and withdrew from the battlefield to widen the distance between it and the American fleet. And when it comes to releasing fighters, the aircraft carrier only needs to go up in full sail, and does not need to sail against the wind. This is another major technical advantage of the "Lake" class aircraft carrier, because the hull has been enlarged a lot, and a larger and more powerful catapult can be installed, so when releasing fighters that do not carry bombs and rockets, there is no need to sail against the wind at all, and the power of the catapult is enough to allow the fighter to rise smoothly even in the crosswind (wind is limited) when the aircraft carrier is sailing, and the catapult power on the previous two-stage aircraft carrier is too small to do so.

When the fighter 6 continued to land, the surrounding escort warships approached and entered their positions according to the air defense formation newly arranged by Tan Renhao. To put it bluntly, the main reason is that the air defense warships are too evacuated, which reduces the density of anti-aircraft fire, especially the density of the inner layer of anti-aircraft fire, and as for whether this new formation can withstand the enemy's bombardment, there will be an answer soon.