It is not enough to know the commander of the opposing side. After reading Cunningham's information, Tan Renhao also needed time to digest and absorb it, and even more so to learn to imitate his opponent's way of thinking to judge the situation in front of him.

But more importantly, he had to figure out how powerful Cunningham really was, what was going on with the French general he was working with, what was going on with the British and French fleets, and how much combat power was still there. These are all critical information, and these information are also delivered one after another during the day.

Prior to this, Tan Renhao had already received information on the size of the British and French expeditionary fleets, and the information sent this time was more specific, specific to the name of each battleship, the port number. These were not important, but the most important thing was that the Anglo-French expeditionary fleet did not suffer without losses when storming the port of Capton, but suffered significant losses.

The British Expeditionary Fleet was besieging Cape Town Harbor, while the French Expeditionary Fleet was tasked with intercepting the Fifth Task Force. In the battle to intercept Task Force 5, the French expeditionary fleet did not suffer much losses, four capital ships were only slightly damaged, two cruisers were seriously damaged and returned to the Gold Coast ahead of schedule, and one destroyer sank on the way back. Relatively speaking, it was the British expeditionary fleet that suffered the greatest losses. At least, the six Imperial battleships under Weng Yiming were not good-looking in Cape Town, and the dozens of giant cannons on those six battleships were definitely not used for fireworks!

Cunningham's sneak attack was largely successful, but the Imperial South Atlantic Fleet was not the French fleet, and it was not a day or two before the Anglo-French expeditionary fleet reached the South Atlantic.

At the time of the surprise attack by the British Expeditionary Fleet, the six battleships were in combat readiness in Cape Town's harbor. The officers and men were all on the battleship, and the boilers of the battleship were not completely turned off, and the guns were well maintained. The British only took advantage of the first ten minutes. Then you will have to face a fierce counterattack from six battleships!

Judging from the battle report submitted by Weng Yiming, the battle was fierce at that time. Six battleships of the British Navy (another battlecruiser did not take part in the fleet artillery battle, its task was to suppress shore defense artillery) against six battleships of the South Atlantic Fleet. The number of warships and the number of main guns on both sides are relatively close, but the difference in strength is quite huge.

The six British battleships participating in the battlefield were all the latest type of battleships, especially the two "Lion" class battleships, which were the most advanced battleships in service in the British Navy. And four ships "King George V"

Class battleships were also new types of battleships that were built before the war and were put into service during the war. Comparatively speaking, the six battleships of the South Atlantic Fleet of the Imperial Navy were all in service during the last war, all of them were more than 25 years old, and they had not undergone normal maintenance for more than two years, and the performance of the battleships was very different.

The biggest gap was still the firepower of the battleships of both sides. The main guns of British battleships were 14-inch and 15-inch calibers, while the main guns of Imperial Navy battleships were only 330 mm, which is about 12 inches! What's more, the elevation angle of the main guns of these six "old ships" was only 30 degrees, which limited the range of the guns. Other than that. The armor-piercing shells of the main gun are also much less powerful than the opponent.

If you count the armor defense, then the gap is even greater!

And at that time, the biggest trouble was. Six battleships of the South Atlantic Fleet were inside the harbor, on the contrary, six British battleships were in the wide sea outside the harbor. This comparison is even more obvious. The British fleet could maneuver to evade. It can also maintain a high speed to dodge incoming shells. On the contrary, the Imperial warships in the harbor must be careful even when sailing, not to mention evading, otherwise it will be easy to collide with nearby warships. Moreover, when the battleship leaves the berth, it is impossible to anchor at the same time, and can only start one by one, and the time wasted in the middle can be said to be quite deadly!

During the engagement, two battleships collided while evading, and the other battleship was destroyed by shells before it could leave its berth behind the breakwater. To make matters worse, the first battleship to anchor was knocked out at the exit of the port, blocking the entire port. It can be said that in the circumstances of the time, it was already quite good to be able to counterattack the enemy.

Throughout the battle, the South Atlantic Fleet was in an extremely unfavorable situation. Especially in the decisive battle at night, the radar on the battleships of the South Atlantic Fleet simply could not be used, and the shells of the British battleships were like long eyes. And with the supplies in the port on fire, the situation is even more one-sided. It can be said that the South Atlantic Fleet, even with wings, could not escape a sudden, violent blow from the enemy.

Like other Imperial naval fleets, the South Atlantic Fleet did not give up resistance in the face of adversity, a centuries-old tradition of the Imperial Navy. In the daytime battle, at least several armor-piercing shells were hit by the opponent, but the 330 millimeter armor-piercing shells could not penetrate the main armor of the British battleship at all. In the artillery battle at night, several shells were also hit by the opponent, but there was no way to determine the result. Therefore, in the battle report submitted by Weng Yiming, only the injury to the opponent was mentioned, but the specific situation was not mentioned.

Tan Renhao's current information is more detailed. During the battle, two battleships in the British fleet were shelled, one was the "Howe" and the other was the "Brave". The damage of the "Howe" was relatively serious, a shell hit the bow of the battleship, and the armor here was very weak, the shell opened a huge hole here, and the anchor compartment in the bow was completely destroyed. In addition, the "Howe" was hit by three shells, but all of them hit the main armor belt and did not cause any major damage. The damage to the "Brave" was even less significant, as the three shells were all on the main armor belt of the battleship, and one of them hit below the waterline, only damaging a few pipes inside the ship.

Probably the greatest losses of the British expeditionary fleet were the two destroyers that had gone to clear the mines at the exit of the port. In the melee, the two destroyers were hit into a hornet's nest by the shore defense guns and the shells on the battleships, and both sank quickly after barely leaving the main waterway, and at least more than 100 officers and men were not able to escape. In addition, it was a cruiser behind the battleship formation that was confused by a 330-mm armor-piercing shell. It was almost smashed and sunk, and later, after the British Expeditionary Force occupied Cape Town, it barely managed to reach the docks. After emergency repairs, he returned to the Gold Coast alone.

Comparatively, the losses of the British expeditionary fleet were also not very large. Other than that. The South Atlantic Fleet was not completely annihilated. Before the night artillery battle began, a group of destroyers who had escaped the day's attack quickly left the harbor under the cover of night, and three destroyers were sunk when they broke through the interception of the British expeditionary fleet, but the others all escaped and returned to Colombo after refueling via Moroni. And these six destroyers are all the warships of the South Atlantic Fleet that escaped.

In addition to the situation with the losses of the Anglo-French expeditionary fleet. Tan Renhao also received two other pieces of information, one was the specific information of the commander of the French expeditionary fleet, and the other was the specific information on the activities of the expeditionary fleets of the two countries after the capture of the port of Cape Town.

The commander of the French expeditionary fleet was Godfoy, and the naval command also sent personal information about the French admiral. Compared to Cunningham, Goldford was not so good, but he was also an excellent commander of the fleet, one of the more capable admirals in the French navy. The only thing worth noting is that unlike the French admiral who did not immediately surrender to the British, but was shelled by the British navy, he was a more national sentiment. And the French admirals who were more inclined to the British.

Tan Renhao also noticed this, and at the same time, he also noticed that Cunningham was the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet. He had worked with Godford a few times, and the two should have had a good personal relationship. If all these are counted, then Tan Renhao has to worry.

It is quite possible that Goldford will accept the terms offered by the British, and may even respond to the call of the French government-in-exile. Other words. He would not have led his fleet back to France to surrender his arms to Germany, let alone the Tang Empire or the Persian Empire navy. Even if he didn't immediately side with the British and continue to fight alongside the British expeditionary fleet, he was unlikely to cause problems for Cunningham. Of course, Tan Renhao preferred that Godford would continue to work with Cunningham, while the French expeditionary fleet would still continue to carry out expeditionary missions!

It can be said that this piece of information is quite important. Before, Tan Renhao had been suspecting that if the enemy had indeed set a trap, then the French expeditionary fleet would not have become enemies with the British expeditionary fleet. Now, he was even more convinced that if Godford had handed over command of the fleet to Cunningham, or had continued to cooperate with Cunningham, then Cunningham would have no worries and could deal with the threat of the Imperial fleet with all his might, and he would even have Godfoy's full support!

And another piece of information illustrates this point. After capturing the port of Cape Town, the French expeditionary fleet did not go north, only the British expeditionary fleet set out from Cape Town, bypassed the Cape of Good Hope, and went to attack Moroni, while the French expeditionary fleet remained in Cape Town, responsible for assisting the ground forces to eliminate those Tang Empire marines who had not surrendered and had not retreated, and covering the arrival of the supply fleet into the port of Cape Town.

On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that.

After the defeat of the South Atlantic Fleet and the Fifth Task Force, the British Expeditionary Fleet was able to take on all the tasks. If you dig a little deeper, you can see that Cunningham did not fear that the French would take control of the port of Cape Town, nor that Goldford would respond to the call of the French government. In other words, when Cunningham led the fleet north, he had already reached an agreement with Godfoy that even if the French government announced its surrender and ordered the army to surrender to Germany, Goldford would not carry out this order!

This completely explains Tan Renhao's previous suspicions. Cape Town Harbor was the most important fortress of the Imperial Navy in the Atlantic, garrisoned by nearly 10,000 marines and men, and the defense facilities were relatively complete. If the British and French expeditionary fleets were all headed north, it would not have been possible to quickly capture the port of Cape Town with the expeditionary force alone. Even if the British and French expeditionary forces had taken control of the port area first, it would have taken a lot of time to conquer the whole of Cape Town. The French Expeditionary Fleet stayed in Cape Town, and perhaps the three British aircraft carriers also stayed here, so the British and French Expeditionary Force captured Cape Town in a few days, and let its supply fleet enter the port of Cape Town, sending a large number of important war materials to the expeditionary force.

It also explains why the Anglo-French expeditionary fleet did not appear immediately on the Persian Sea after Moroni was captured. At that time, the 1st Task Force and the 3rd Task Force had already reached the Indian Ocean, and Cunningham was not stupid, if he left three aircraft carriers in the South Atlantic, let alone dealing with two task forces at the same time, even against the 3rd Task Force would be difficult. Thus, Cunningham stopped at this time, and then the French government demanded that the army surrender to Germany, and the British fleet shelled the French fleet in Oran Harbor, and Cunningham immediately led the fleet south and left the dangerous sea.

These questions have been explained, but there is still one problem. That is, there was a conflict between the information sent back by the spies in Cape Town and the current information. One of these two pieces of information must be fake! If the information sent back by the spy is fake, is there something wrong with the other related information? In other words, the Anglo-French expeditionary fleet was not in the port of Cape Town, there was a problem with the spies, or this was simply false information deliberately released by the enemy!

Taking into account all factors, Tan Renhao was more convinced that the British and French expeditionary fleet was no longer in Cape Town, and had already left Cape Town several days ago. These few days are enough time for the fleet to sail thousands of nautical miles, or even more than two thousand nautical miles, at a cruising speed of 14 knots, that is, the Anglo-French expeditionary fleet may appear anywhere near the island of Madagascar at this time!

As more and more information was sent, Tan Renhao also found that his eyes were getting brighter and brighter. Although there are still many uncertainties, his grasp of the battle situation has gradually become clear. This is also the importance of intelligence, but now, Tan Renhao still needs more intelligence, before he clarifies his thoughts and determines specific tactics, he needs more intelligence to confirm his judgment, and this is also the basis for the fleet commander to make decisions!