"The American fleet didn't go north?"

Tan Renhao was also anxiously concerned about the situation in the south, waiting for the fighter plane.

"No, when the reconnaissance planes appeared in the American fleet, they seemed to be still training."

Hao Dongjue took out a few photos, "This was taken by the reconnaissance plane at the opportunity, and it was only sent over at the beginning." ”

Tan Renhao glanced at the photos, he wasn't very interested in this.

"Take a good look at it."

Hao Dongjue motioned to Tan Renhao to take a closer look at the photos, "Can you see what is wrong?" ”

Tan Renhao glanced at his partner who was a little puzzled, and then picked up the photo and looked at it carefully.

"What's not there now?"

Tan Renhao shook his head, and then put down the photo. "Aren't they just those ships? More than a dozen years ago, we had pictures of these battleships. ”

"No, you can take a good look at it."

Hao Dongjue took out a cigarette as he spoke.

"Say what you want, I don't want to play dumb riddles with you."

Tan Renhao took the cigarette, he knew that Hao Dongjue must have seen something very important, otherwise it would not be so mysterious.

"Pay attention to the masts of these two battleships."

Hao Dongjue picked out two photos, "Have you seen the previous photos of these two battleships?" ”

Tan Renhao glanced at the gunwales on the battleship, and then nodded. The two warships were the USS Pennsylvania and the USS Maryland. After the United States entered the war, Tan Renhao and the others got a copy of the "Atlas of U.S. Navy Warships," which was assigned to various units for target identification (the basic tool of the reconnaissance unit), and in addition, there were photos of all the main warships of the United States (aircraft carriers, battleships, heavy cruisers and other large warships). This includes photos of the battleships "Pennsylvania" and "Maryland" after mid-term refit (these photos can definitely be regarded as one of the most valuable information at the time) Although Tan Renhao has never been very interested in battleships, he has also seen these photos a long time ago, and has memorized the appearance of these battleships in his mind (a habit developed by doing staff work) "Haven't seen it yet?" ”

"Radar?"

With Hao Dongjue's reminder, Tan Renhao could see it at a glance, he just didn't rush to say it.

"Yes. Radar! ”

Hao Dongjue immediately nodded, "Now, look at the photos of these warships." ”

Tan Renhao frowned, and then carefully looked at the other dozen or so photos one by one. Now, he has a problem.

"Of all the large battleships in the U.S. fleet, only these two battleships have radar!"

Hao Dongjue then said his current situation, "I have already compared the photos taken by the escort fighters with their camera guns during the last battle with the 17th Task Force. The radars equipped on these two battleships are very similar to those on the escort warships in Task Force 17, and they should be the same model, both of which belong to the early type, and the performance of the first-generation radar we are equipped with should be relatively close. ”

Tan Renhao nodded, and the intelligence department also provided this information. Before the outbreak of the war, the United States immediately accelerated its investment in the development of radar after learning that the Tang Empire had installed radar on warships and that radar played an extremely important role in naval warfare. By the time the United States entered the war, more than a dozen warships had already installed the first radars. Because the first thing the United States saw was the precious 10-minute warning time provided by radar for the fleet in air defense operations, these warships were given priority to the large escort warships (mainly heavy cruisers) in the aircraft carrier formation. The cruiser designed and built by the United States with reference to the large air defense cruiser of the Tang Empire has not yet been put on the slipway) and finally assigned. Only two radars were installed on the battleship.

Then. The warring parties' understanding of the role of radar in naval warfare is more often the importance of radar in air defense operations. In the "Battle of Ryukyu Island" and the "Battle of Iwo Jima", the naval fleet of the Tang Empire had already demonstrated the role of radar in night naval battles. In particular, the "Iwo Jima Naval Battle", the artillery formation of the Imperial Navy, which was in absolute weakness, relied on radar to hold out for so long. At that time, the U.S. Navy also recognized the importance of radar in night battles, which could be limited by the number of radars, so the first batch of radars were given priority to the escort warships of the aircraft carrier.

"Does that make any sense?"

Tan Renhao asked knowingly, he first saw what tricks Hao Dongjue was going to play.

"You haven't figured it out yet?"

Hao Dongjue became anxious, "Most of the battles are fought at night, if you can knock out these two battleships with radar, then the third task force will have a great chance of victory!" ”

"These pictures were also sent to Task Force 3, right?"

Hao Dongjue nodded. "Such important information will definitely be sent."

"So what are we worried about? Although Yan Shiqi is not the same as us, his ability to command artillery battles is above us. Wouldn't he have valued such important information? ”

Hao Dongjue was stunned for a moment, and immediately laughed, he was worrying about nothing.

"Sir, the Navy Command is in an emergency!"

Tan Renhao and Hao Dongjue turned around at the same time, Hao Dongjue took the telegram, read it quickly, and then handed it to Tan Renhao. "The U.S. fleet has gone north, and reconnaissance planes have spotted them in the waters northwest of Saipan."

"And that's not all!"

Tan Renhao turned to the second page, and then glanced at Hao Dongjue. At first, Hao Dongjue only read the content of the first page. "It seems that Luo Yunchong is going to make meritorious service this time!"

Hao Dongjue laughed awkwardly, he was too excited and careless at first. After taking the telegram and reading it carefully, he said: "This kid is lucky, if he really lets him get it, I'm afraid there will be nothing for us to do!" ”

"It's not that easy!"

Tan Renhao sighed secretly, in fact, Luo Yunchong was their shield.

In the past few days, Tan Renhao has also been paying close attention to the changes on the battlefield, and the various orders from the Navy Command have attracted Tan Renhao's attention, although these orders do not directly reflect the deployment of the Navy Command (the First Task Force can only get its own combat mission book and the coordination plan of the relevant troops, but it is impossible to get the entire battle plan), but Tan Renhao saw the key points from these changed orders. The point is that the decisive battle must be postponed until after the 22nd, at least until the 22nd. And now it is only the 21st, if the American fleet goes north now, then it is very likely to lead to a fiasco of the Tang Emperor's ** team and finally lose the battle, of course, this is only possible!

Just for this possibility. None of them allowed the American fleet to go north on the 21st. When the reconnaissance plane spotted the whereabouts of the US fleet and confirmed that it was heading north, the intelligence was transmitted back by airwaves, and within 10 minutes, Admiral Gan Yongxing, chief of staff of the Navy, saw the telegram and immediately issued an order that the strategic strike force stationed on Iwo Jima and Ogasawara Islands should be dispatched immediately to bomb the US fleet back!

When the telegram was delivered to Gan Yongxing. It was also sent to Luo Yunchong's hands. Luo Yunchong is not a stupid person, this is actually an order. Just when Luo Yunchong ordered all battalion-level officers to assemble, Gan Yongxing's order arrived. The bombers on the island were ready to take off at any moment, and ammunition was nearby. The orderly is already preparing to reload. Half an hour later, the first bomber roared out of the South Airfield of Iwo Jima (there are three airfields on the island, of which bombers are stationed at the South and North airfields, and fighters are stationed at the East Airfield) This time the leader of the team was Brigadier General Jiang Shikuan, who reached a verbal agreement with Luo Yunchong when he was the commander of the First Division, and the chief of staff of the division was responsible for the work of the division headquarters. He still led the bombing mission. After Tan Renhao left Iwo Jima. He has already carried out 82 bombing missions by plane, and he has long passed the rated 5o bombing missions, and he can choose to transfer to the training unit. Leave the dangerous front line. But he didn't make this choice, the Strategic Strike Force needed him, the comrades-in-arms of the 1st Division needed him, and he also held two records for the highest bombing (one was the number of sorties, the other was the tonnage of bombs) He wanted to keep this record!

Behind the "Touyan II" piloted by Chiang Shikuan were bombers of two regiments of the 1st Division (two more regiments were withdrawn to Ryukyu Island to recuperate. There were too many fighters on the island, and there were too many supplies to be stockpiled, so it was impossible to deploy the entire First Army's bombers. The pilots also needed to rest, and the bombers needed to be overhauled regularly, so the four regiments of each division were in rotation. and will not be sent to the front line together) followed by two regiments of the Second Division led by Brigadier General Mao Tingtun, and finally two regiments of the Third Division under Brigadier General Liu Xiangzhi.

Six regiments of bombers with more than 1ooo planes took off from the four islands, and finally converged 5o nautical miles north of Asunción Island, formed three large aircraft groups (in fact, they were still formed in divisional units, but the distance between the aircraft groups was much shorter) and then flew southward.

By the time of passing through the island of Asunción, the fighters of the five squadrons escorting the bomber group had already risen into the air. At the same time, HNA received an order that the fighters would escort the bomber group to the airspace south of Phagan Island. Then they had to go back, they could not provide full escort for the bombers.

As they flew near Pagan Island, as Brigadier General Chiang Shikuan had expected, the U.S. fighter planes on Pagan Island appeared on time and killed the bomber group.

"Keep up, don't fall behind, let those 'eagles' go and kill the 'sparrows'!"

Jiang Shikuan flew in the front, he watched the American fighter swoop over, but he was not afraid at all. "Eagle" is the affectionate name given by bomber pilots to escort fighters, while "Sparrow" is a joking name for American fighters.

There were almost no novices left in the First Army (in the later stage of the strategic bombing against Japan, the losses of bombers were negligible, and the bombers lost in the Battle of the Mariana Islands had not yet been replenished), and the pilots who followed Chiang Shikuan's ass were all experienced in a hundred battles. Those escort fighters were no exception, and in the fierce battles of more than 10 days, HNA gave birth to more than 30 ace fighter pilots. Almost all of the F4Fs deployed on Pagan Island are F4Fs that have seriously lagged behind in performance, and a limited number of F4U in the US Air Force are all deployed on Saipan and Guam to carry out air defense missions to defend important areas.

The F4F is not an opponent of the "Falbusa" at all, and the performance gap in all aspects is too great. Perhaps, the F4U (an early model) still has the ability to compete with the "Falcon", but now there is no such best fighter of the US Navy that comes to intercept it.

Soon, a "pointy-nosed" American 6 Air 6 fighter appeared in the sky.

"Division commander, it seems to be the enemy's 6th Air Fighter!"

"See, son of a bitch, it looks like we're going to poke a hornet's nest today! Everybody's sitting tight! ”

Jiang Shikuan roared while operating the plane to start climbing, "'Big geese', all climb with me, take them to the sky, and let the fighters follow!" ”

The performance of the US fighter jet will drop sharply at an altitude of more than 5ooo meters (in fact, this was a common problem of all fighters at that time, and this problem will not be substantially solved until the turbocharger, and more advanced motives appear). The performance of the "Sparrowhawk" with a turbocharger engine at a height of more than 6ooo meters was not backward until the later stage of the war) and the performance of the Tang Imperial fighter at an altitude of more than 55ooo meters will decline sharply. The "Wolf Dove" has a performance advantage when flying at high altitudes.

The fighters of the US Navy and the 6th Air Force were quickly driven away by the "Falcon", and the air battle did not have a great impact on the bomber group, with only a few bombers shot down and more than a dozen wounded and out of formation. But trouble is far from coming.

Shortly after the first wave of American anti-aircraft fighters retreated, the bomber group had already flown over the island of Aramagan and soon flew over the island in the direction of the American fleet. The escort fighters separated from the bomber group about 12o nautical miles south of Alamagan and then turned back. In the beginning of the air battle, the fighters consumed a lot of fuel, which was already the limit flight radius of these "falcons", and if they did not return, they could only make a forced landing at sea, and the pilots could only wait to be salvaged.

Jiang Shikuan glanced at the fighters who were waving their wings and greeting them, and then sighed secretly. Bombers without fighter cover are vulnerable, and this has been proven by brutal battles over the Japanese mainland, over Guam, and without fighters, bombers are brittle" weak!

"Division, there's still about 15o nautical miles, do you need to get closer?"

"Get the fleet closer."

Jiang Shikuan let out a long sigh, "Ten minutes later, we will return to flying at an altitude of 35oo meters, and the captains will be ready to search, we still have to hold on for another hour, I hope that the next batch of fighters from the Yankees will come a little later!" ”

The group of aircraft immediately approached and flew in dense formation. All pilots knew that the American fighters would not miss this half hour, the purpose of the bomber group had been revealed, and there would be a lot of enemy fighters waiting for them on the road ahead.