More than two hours before nightfall, the flight decks of the two 30,000-ton heavy aircraft carriers -- the US Navy's "Yorktown" and the British Navy's "Brilliant" -- were full of carrier-based planes ready to fly. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 The info target had already appeared and was within the maximum attack range of the carrier-based aircraft, but these American and British carrier-based aircraft, which were ready to attack, did not rush to attack, but patiently waited for the battle orders of the fleet commander.

The Yorktown's operational command room is equipped with a miniature sand table that has been prepared for a long time, and its eastern and western edges are the coasts of Europe and the Americas, and the center-east position is dotted with nine islands of the Azores, and between these islands and the western coast of Europe, a number of ships are scattered on the open sea. Whenever new information arrived, the staff officers would move the ships accordingly after the calculations. King, Somerville, Jyoson and other senior officers stared at the sand table and talked to each other, and they hadn't left the place since lunch, except for smoking and going to the toilet.

When the staff officer moved the position of the model ship representing the Confederate convoy again, Colonel Jossen raised his eyebrows and said: "Suppose that the enemy now disbands the fleet and orders all the transport ships to return at full speed, and takes the rear cover of the battle ships, how much can we gain this time?" ”

The Englishman Somerville was silent about Colonel Johnson's hypothetical question, and after a series of early defeats, the American officers, who had always been optimistic, lost their former sharpness. Just when Colonel Johnson was embarrassed by the silence of the crowd, King spoke: "If your assumption is true, then we can sink at least seventy percent of the enemy's transport ships, as for the enemy's escort fleet, it depends on the specific situation of the battle, judging from their past performance, it is difficult for us to take a big advantage." Overall, we should have won this important victory at a relatively small cost. ”

After Kim finished speaking, Somerville said in a lukewarm tone: "If the information is true, and the commander of the enemy convoy is Admiral von Dahlwig, then the disbandment of the convoy and the withdrawal of each of them can only occur in the most extreme situation, i.e., we defeat their convoy head-on, and this will require not only good luck, but also a regain of the spirit of courage on all hands." ”

Since its rise, the British Navy has won a number of battles that should be won, but also won a lot of difficult battles, each generation of naval officers and men are proud of their heroic and fearless character, but from Jutland to Flanders, from the Thames estuary to the Faroe Islands, this traditional honor that has lasted for more than 300 years has gradually collapsed because of the destruction of defeat, and during the Battle of the Azores, the US and British navies failed to take advantage of the situation to win, On the contrary, the opponent achieved a shocking reversal, not only the tactical strategy went wrong, but also the lack of fighting spirit and tenacity led to a decline in combat power is also a very important factor.

Somerville's reminder hit the nail on the head, and all the officers present, including King, were more or less helpless and frustrated, but so far the outlook for the operation has not been pessimistic. About 85% of the ships of the Golden Fleet and the Cunningham Fleet, which joined hands and echoed each other from afar, were equipped with radars, and although some of them were emergency types of beat-frequency radars, the detection effect was much inferior to that of the Lorentz or MB series pulsed radars of the Allied camp, at least so that the ships equipped with them had the ability to detect aircraft and ships at night or in foggy days, while after Italy and Austria-Hungary entered the war, the radar equipment rate of combat ships deployed by the Allies in the Atlantic Ocean was only 65%. The technical factors that restricted the play of the US and British navies on the battlefield in the early stage have been largely smoothed out.

During the period when the reinforcement fleet was on its way to the Azores, Kim arranged for the carrier-based aircraft unit to conduct a number of night flights and bombing training, and the intention of carrying out night raids was very clear. In fact, as early as 1922-1923, night combat has become a daily training subject for naval aviation in the United States and Britain, and it has continued for ten years now. Although the night hit rate of aerial bombs and aerial torpedoes was much lower than that of daytime operations, the targets of this attack were, after all, those transport ships that had no protective capability, and even if only one tenth or one twenty percent of the hits were enough, it was enough to achieve greater results.

After a long silence, Kim raised his hand and looked at his watch, turned his head to the adjutant and ordered, "It's almost time to signal Colonel Spruance to attack as planned." ”

Raymond Spruance was the new captain of the "Georgia" and concurrently served as the commander of the assault detachment in this operation, leading the "Georgia" and "Anson" together with six light ships to launch a frontal attack on the enemy's escort fleet, and two aircraft carriers and all the remaining light ships followed behind, using carrier-based aircraft to carry out long-range attacks.

After receiving the order to attack, the Spruance detachment quickly increased to 26 knots, and if the target fleet continued to maintain a westward speed of 10 knots, combat contact would occur within five hours, and if the situation mentioned by Colonel Johnson before occurred, the Spruance detachment would also be able to enter the attack position in the second half of the night, which was the subtlety of the tactical arrangement of this combat operation.

However, before the Spruance detachment could get out of sight, King, who was in command of the battle on the "Yorktown", received bad news: the left wing sentry ship had spotted enemy seaplanes in the northwest sea!

The appearance of a single Allied seaplane did not indicate anything, but after the analysis and calculation of the staff officers, King realized that the situation in this battle was likely to be a hundred times more difficult than he expected. He quickly adjusted his operational deployment and ordered the two aircraft carriers to send four fighters each to conduct long-range reconnaissance at a 90-degree angle to the northwest.

Not long after, the enemy water reconnaissance planes spotted by the sentry ship appeared on the radar screen of the "Yorktown," which was only 90 nautical miles away from the Golden Fleet -- just as the technical officers feared, the so-called new radar that had been rushed into battle was far from reaching the theoretical value.

Even if the direction of the target fleet is clear, after a flight of almost 200 kilometers, the probability of finding the target fleet is relatively low, but it did not take long for the "Yorktown" to detect the second enemy aircraft, and then the third. Judging from their flight paths, they must have been conducting fan-shaped reconnaissance flights, and this fact basically confirmed King's fears that the adversaries had sent combat ships from the Azores, and whether their original intention was to conspire with their own convoys or to have other plans, had now put the US and British fleets intent on attacking the Allied fleets in the position of being exposed to the enemy.

Cancel or continue, Kim is once again at a crossroads.

The eight carrier-based planes sent for reconnaissance soon came into contact with the enemy's seaplanes, and within a quarter of an hour, all three enemy seaplane planes were shot down, but Kim was not at all happy; even if these Allied planes did not have time to report the enemy's situation, the opponent was so cunning that he should soon be able to delineate the general range of the US and British aircraft carriers from the abnormal situation in which many of his own reconnaissance planes had lost contact, and then carry out in-depth reconnaissance or directly dispatch attack aircraft groups.

After thinking about it, Kim decided to take a risk before dark, betting that his fighter would be able to find the target, and he ordered the bombers on standby to take off to unload the high-explosive bombs, replace them with semi-armor-piercing bombs, adjust the fixed speed of the aerial torpedoes from 30 knots to 36 knots, and take off the first wave of attack planes half an hour later.

In order to save time, the crews of the Yorktown and Tejas changed the bombs and adjusted the torpedo settings directly on the flight deck. Although the two main aircraft carriers were wounded in the early combat operations and lost a lot of experienced pilots and technical and logistical personnel, fortunately, the surviving personnel on the sunken ships were replenished in time before the current battle, and the overall operational efficiency was close to the ideal state; it took only 25 minutes for the "Yorktown" and 29 minutes for the "Brilliant" to complete the reloading, and as soon as the 30-minute time limit arrived, the two aircraft carriers took off fighter planes one after another in a windward state, and the 16 fighters and 22 bombers scheduled to be put into the first wave of air strikes quickly completed their formation over the fleet.

At this time, the fighters who went to reconnoiter had not yet discovered the trace of the enemy fleet, and Kim was determined to take the risk, so he simply ordered the group to fly 60 degrees north-west first, and then adjust it on the way, and at the same time ordered the two aircraft carriers to raise the reloaded second wave of attack aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck.

At 5:43 p.m., more than 70 minutes had passed since the eight carrier-based fighters carrying out reconnaissance had taken off, and more than 20 minutes had passed since the first wave of attack planes had been dispatched, Kim finally waited for the first reconnaissance report on the whereabouts of the enemy fleet: An enemy destroyer had been spotted at a position of 43 degrees north-west and about 450 kilometers away from his aircraft carrier.

Destroyers usually do not operate alone in the open ocean, presumably as a sentinel ship on the periphery of the enemy fleet, in which case the pilot will fly in a circle with a certain radius around it, and if you are lucky, you will soon be able to spot the enemy fleet. This time, Kim only had to wait 7 minutes to locate the exact location of the enemy fleet, but then came the bad news: the enemy had at least three aircraft carriers, and a large number of fighters had been dispatched!

Not long ago, the Spruance detachment had the opportunity to trap three aircraft carriers of the Allied Navy on San Miguel Island, but the enemy battle patrol was very brave, Spruance was worried that he would lose a lot of money, so he took the initiative to break away from combat contact, and if the surprise attack was successful, the enemy fleet coming from the Azores would have at most one aircraft carrier, and the aviation of the Golden Fleet would still have an advantage.

He ordered the communications officer to guide the first wave of attack planes to adjust to the correct course, and let the second wave of attack planes set off immediately, and then all carrier-based aircraft were put into the third wave of attacks, except for a few air defense fighters.

In less than a cup of tea, the 39 fighters of the second wave of attack aircraft flew to the distant target area in a bright red sunset, the flight decks of the two aircraft carriers were emptied again, and the service personnel were busy raising the carrier-based aircraft loaded with ammunition in the hangar to the flight deck. At this time, the aircraft carriers of both warring sides are pursuing the tactic of "all-deck attack", that is, after entering the war zone, an attack wave carrier-based aircraft with ammunition is parked on the deck of the aircraft carrier at any time, so that they can take off and attack immediately when they find the enemy aircraft carrier, and at the same time, when they are about to engage, another attack wave carrier-based aircraft is loaded in the hangar, and after the first wave takes off, it is quickly raised to the flight deck and released as appropriate, striving to rely on these two attacks to preemptively and completely defeat the opponent.

(End of chapter)