After deciding to intercept the Fifth Fleet, Jiang Hailong quickly calmed down. He was well aware of the danger of the battle, and compared to the dozens of escort warships of the Fifth Fleet, the nine warships under his command were not worth a question at all. The disadvantage in terms of strength cannot be changed, and Jiang Hailong and they only have two advantages, one is the determination to die, and the other is a better radar. If these two advantages can be effectively utilized, it is not without a chance to create miracles.

Jiang Hailong is not a man who likes to be brute, nor is he the kind of officer who only knows brute force. The encounters over the years have made him realize a truth, that is, in the necessary situation, strength does not determine everything, reasonable arrangement, reasonable use of various favorable conditions, is the key to victory. This applies not only outside the battlefield, but also on the battlefield. If you can't take advantage of your own advantages, and insist on your own shortcomings and fight for the enemy's strengths, then defeat is inevitable. After the fleet turned, Jiang Hailong had been thinking about how to make use of the two advantages in his hands.

The problem of morale and will to fight was easily solved, and Jiang Hailong announced the combat operation through the fleet's internal communication channel at half past eight in the evening, when the officers and men began to change the guard. Jiang Hailong did not shout those slogans used to inspire people, nor did he say any big reason, he knew that there was no need for this, and every officer and soldier standing at his post knew very well the meaning of that order. He only asked every officer and soldier to stick to their posts, and recall the oath they had made in front of the Zhenhai flag, and now it was time for them to fulfill their oath.

Relatively speaking, technical problems are more difficult to solve, Jiang Hailong and other captains are from several traditional departments such as aviation, sea, guns, and marine engineering, and they do not know much about electronic technology, only that radar is an effective tool that can detect distant warships at night. It is a tool that allows naval guns and torpedoes to accurately hit distant targets. Of course, Jiang Hailong and the others are well aware of the importance of radar, and in previous battles, they all have combat experience in using radar to guide anti-aircraft guns against bombers, and using radar to bombard targets on the sea and shore. But the question is how to bring out the effectiveness of the radar, which is a tactical problem, not a technical one.

The superiority of the Imperial Navy in radar was quite obvious. At that time, the Imperial Navy had developed a radar specifically designed to search for surface targets, and it was already equipped with naval warships. However, the problem is that the production of this new type of radar is not very high, and the first batch of battleships and heavy cruisers equipped with this radar are the battleships and heavy cruisers of the Third Task Force, as well as the heavy cruisers in the shelling formations of other fleets, while the cruisers in the aircraft carrier battle group do not undertake artillery combat tasks in many cases, so they are not given priority to equipping this new radar, and the three cruisers under Jiang Hailong have only one radar, and they are based on air detection, and their ability to detect sea surface targets is not very prominent.

Relatively. The US Navy is equipped with a radar that is far inferior to that of the Imperial Navy. The U.S. Navy does not yet have a dedicated sea search radar. Moreover, its anti-aircraft detection performance is not comparable to that of the radar of the Imperial Navy. As far as Jiang Hailong knew, the radar ground applause rate of the US Navy at that time had been high, mainly because it wanted to catch up with the Tang Empire in technology. And a lot of immature technology is used, and as a result, the radar often does not work properly. In addition, the U.S. Navy is inferior to the Imperial Navy in terms of experience in using radar, and its radar ground-to-sea detection capability is not strong. Judging by the many previous naval battles, the radar of the US Navy is able to detect a battleship 20 nautical miles away, and a cruiser at a distance of 15 nautical miles is already quite good. And Jiang Hailong's radar on these three battleships can ensure the detection of heavy cruisers 20 nautical miles away.

After much thought, Jiang Hailong was convinced that in order to defeat the enemy, he must seize the opportunity of "sneak attack" and take advantage of the detection advantage of radar. Discover the US fleet at the distance possible, and at the same time figure out the situation of the US fleet, find a suitable breakthrough, and then use the cruiser to attract the US escort warship, as long as the US escort warship is diverted, then let the six destroyers attack the US aircraft carrier, sink the aircraft carrier with torpedoes, if you are lucky, the destroyer should have a chance to attack the second torpedo!

Several other captains thought the same thing. It is necessary to divert the US escort warships and create an opportunity for the destroyers to sneak attack, and if there is a frontal battle, whether it is an artillery battle or a torpedo battle, they are not the opponents of the US escort warships. Then, Jiang Hailong arranged the task, the three heavy cruisers acted together, and the destroyers were faster and were arranged in the rear. After making contact with the US fleet, the cruiser attacked first, shelled the US warship, and then moved westward, while the destroyer took advantage of this opportunity to quickly bypass the defense line of the US escort warship, look for the US aircraft carrier, and complete the torpedo attack!

At this time, another advantage of the Imperial Navy became apparent, that is, the installation of radars on destroyers.

The Imperial Navy was not the first country to install radars on destroyers, the Persian Navy had installed radars on several "City" class destroyers imported from the Empire more than a year earlier, and later the British Navy also installed radars on several destroyers. And it was the Reich Navy that really installed radars on destroyers on a large scale. From the end of 25, the Imperial Navy began to install radars for destroyers, and by this time, almost all destroyers in the main fleet had radars on them. Originally, the "City" class was designed with a place reserved for the installation of radars, since the work on the modification was not complicated.

There are many advantages of installing radar on destroyers: First, it can replace cruisers in carrying out air defense alert tasks without excessively weakening the air defense capability of the fleet, and second, it can make full use of the antiaircraft guns on the destroyers to enhance the air defense of the destroyers. But the most important thing is that for the first time, destroyers have the ability to spot submarines sailing on the surface of the sea from a long distance. Therefore, the radar on the destroyer is not weak in its ability to detect the sea, and it can detect submarines several nautical miles away and rush over to determine its approximate location before the submarine dives, which greatly improves the destroyer's antisubmarine combat efficiency. Of course, these radars have no problem finding targets that are much larger than submarines, such as aircraft carriers.

After the relevant tasks were arranged, Jiang Hailong could only wait, to be honest, he didn't like to wait, he hoped to be able to fight as soon as possible, preferably the Fifth Fleet was in front of him, then. He didn't need to wait any time and immediately went into battle with the Fifth Fleet. But the problem was that he had to wait, and he didn't know if the Fifth Fleet would return directly to Necker Island. If the Fifth Fleet goes south, then he will not be able to intercept the Fifth Fleet in time, and the battle is likely to take place during the day, which is extremely disadvantageous for him, because it is during the day. The significance of the radar is not great, and it is impossible for the destroyer to sneak up on the Fifth Fleet, so he can only have a face-to-face battle with the escort battleships of the Fifth Fleet!

At this time, Jiang Hailong really wanted someone to tell him the specific whereabouts of the Fifth Fleet, but he knew that it was impossible. After dinner, he received a message from the Fourth Task Force that the fleet was now on its way back to Midway, and although Jiang Hailong was very happy with the news that the three aircraft carriers had not sunk, the Fourth Task Force would not come to assist the "Death Fleet", and could only rely on their own strength to find it. And intercepted the Fifth Fleet.

As a last resort. Jiang Hailong had to send out all three cruisers and seaplanes. Originally, the heavy cruisers of the "River" class were designed to carry three seaplanes, one of which had to be fixed to a catapult. The hangar can only accommodate two seaplanes, but in combat, unless there is a special request, the "River" class will only carry two seaplanes, because the seaplane fixed on the catapult will affect the firing range of several nearby antiaircraft guns, and in addition, it is not very safe when encountering high sea conditions. Therefore, at that time, Jiang Hailong only had six seaplanes to mobilize, and one of them was out of order and could not fly at all.

Jiang Hailong sent all four seaplanes to the front of the fleet. That is, the Fifth Fleet went back to Necker Island, and the other was sent to the Fifth Fleet's southbound route. If it was daytime, maybe these seaplanes would have gained a lot, but the problem is that it is night, and the cruiser's seaplanes are not equipped with radar, and the narrow fuselage cannot be equipped with radar, and it is quite difficult to rely on the pilot's eyes to find the battleship in the dark. Jiang Hailong won't hold out much hope.

It can be said that under the circumstances at that time, it was a question whether Jiang Hailong could intercept the Fifth Fleet, especially since Spruance accelerated the progress of the three aircraft carriers, and the speed of the other two aircraft carriers also reached 14 knots, and only the speed of the "Boxer" was 8 knots. If you are unlucky, the "Death Fleet" commanded by Jiang Hailong is very likely to pass in front of the "Boxer" without any discovery. At that time, Jiang Hailong might have judged that the Fifth Fleet did not return to Necke Island, but went south to evade, so he had to pursue south, so that it was impossible to find the Fifth Fleet, and there would be no battle with the Fifth Fleet.

It was at this point that things changed dramatically, Spruance's fears were valid, and it was the submarine that had discovered the two American carriers that changed the course of the "Death Fleet", which eventually led to a fierce artillery battle between the cruisers and destroyers on both sides on the sea.

The first to discover the "Shangri-La" and "Bennington" was a "Ding" submarine, which was the most advanced and largest submarine equipped by the Imperial Navy at that time, and its main technology was imported from Germany. At that time, Liao Hongpeng's group of officers of the Imperial Navy's submarine force went to Germany to obtain these technologies from Germany, and first borrowed the German Navy's submarines to familiarize themselves with how to use the new submarines.

After the Imperial Navy obtained the German submarine technology, it only made some minor modifications, mainly to adapt to the requirements of the Imperial Navy, such as the average height of the Imperial Navy submarines is 5 cm less than that of the German ones, and it does not make sense in some habits, so it is impossible to be exactly the same in terms of specific design. However, the "D" type submarine basically retains the technical characteristics of the new German submarine, and there are still breakthroughs in some key technologies, such as increasing the displacement, optimizing the hull design, and increasing the battery by 2 percent while keeping the main engine power unchanged and the speed not decreasing, so that the submarine's submarine submarine capability has been improved a lot. In addition, the submarine had six first torpedo tubes, no tail torpedo firing sights, and eight more spare torpedoes than the German boat of the same type. For the first time, a freezer with a high thermal insulation rate was used on the submarine, and the continuous combat capability was increased to almost three months, compared to only two months for the German equivalent boat.

It can be said that the "D" type boat is the "ultimate" submarine of the entire World War II, and its performance is slightly higher than that of the German XXS type, and it is the originator of modern submarines. And this was also the most powerful and excellent submarine of the Imperial Navy at that time. By mid-'26, the Imperial Navy had built less than 30 boats of this type, all of which were deployed in the Pacific theater, of which about 10 were active in the Central Pacific. None of these submarines were sent to carry out reconnaissance and alert missions, but were used on the US military transport routes that could give full play to the power of submarines.

It was after the submarine completed its combat mission to break diplomatic relations and left less than half a month of food and fresh water before embarking on its return route. At that time, there were still 8 torpedoes on the submarine that were not used, and in the previous two months of the break-up operation, the submarine with the number 542 attacked two US transport fleets, confirmed to sink at least 4 10,000-ton ships, but consumed more than half of the torpedoes. This was not a very good record, but fortunately, the submarine evaded several attacks from the destroyers and successfully completed the mission, with no casualties except for one crew member who fell ill with appendicitis.

Wen Haomao was very dissatisfied with this achievement, in the past, he had used the "B" boat to kill five transport ships in one battle, but this time he had two chances to attack, but only four 10,000-ton ships were killed, which was indeed too bad. Especially when he thought that his second brother Wen Jiaqian had sent an Italian battleship to the bottom of the sea in the Eastern Mediterranean not long ago, he felt even more uncomfortable, which also made Wen Haomao decide that after returning to the base, he would also apply for transfer to the Mediterranean battlefield, where more prey was waiting for him!

Just when Wen Haomao hesitated whether to write the transfer application before the submarine returned to the Saipan base, a terrible alarm sounded, and then, the second officer in charge of the rotating lookout slipped down from the emergency passage, and the submarine was exposed!

……