The sun after a drizzle made the Pacific Ocean near noon extremely transparent and beautiful, but at this moment, Commodore Lucius, commander of the US Second Pacific Fleet, who was standing in the commander tower of the battleship Delaware, had a serious expression, but he did not have the slightest appreciation......

After all, since the US fleet entered the Pacific Ocean two years ago, it had begun to accumulate strength with all its might, and Vice Admiral Eber, the commander of the fleet, was quite popular in the navy, and the effect of this sortie greatly boosted the morale of the navy.

Chinese is falling into the trap of the U.S. Navy's Grand Fleet and heavy artillery without any suspense, not to mention, the Royal Navy's Lord Dieters' fast fleet is also coming at this moment, according to expectations, he will enter the battlefield in three hours and complete the fatal blow to the Chinese, and he even has a feeling of impatience, for fear of missing the decisive battle of the main fleet......

However, the cunning of the Chinese Navy still greatly exceeded its expectations, and 10 minutes ago, I just received a telegram from Vice Admiral Abel that the main fleet had unexpectedly temporarily lost the Chinese fleet in the northeast waters of the Kronia Sea Reef! This is definitely terrible news!

The search range of the destroyers on the periphery of the Grand Fleet is more than 40 nautical miles, but even so, the news of the Chinese fleet that he thought he was in control of has been lost, which means that the Chinese fleet has most likely broken away from the main fleet with Vice Admiral Albert, but the problem is that within a few hours, he kept receiving messages from the main fleet, confirming that the Chinese fleet was heading in the direction of the fleet's advance at this moment.

"General, will the Chinese flee to New Guinea?" Staff Officer Luke on the side was lying on the chart, staring at the sea near the Cronian Reef in the middle of the chart, on which two red lines representing the evacuation of the Chinese fleet had been marked, and in the middle of the red line. There is no suspense about the intersection with the British fast fleet.

Brigadier General Lucius frowned, obviously unable to decide, hesitated for a moment, he obviously agreed with the staff officer's opinion, "Inform General Abel that we are still moving in the same direction...... Other than that. Prepare immediately, slow down to 10 knots, put down the water reconnaissance plane and reconnoiter in the southwest direction! ”

The order was immediately and quickly executed, and ten minutes later, a T1 Javelin water reconnaissance plane on the side of the flagship battleship Delaware jumped up on the surface of the sea, which made Brigadier Lucius feel a little reassured, and only the battleship Delaware carried small reconnaissance planes in the detachment, but because this type of British water was originally used for naval artillery observation purposes, and the United States has no production capacity to produce and improve military aircraft at present. Therefore, it has never been of much use.

In fact, Lucius also has a sense of foreboding, the Chinese Navy has never been a character who meets and runs, and the other party has taken the initiative to break away from Admiral Eber's Grand Fleet, although its own military superiority is an important reason, but it is somewhat surprising to say that the Chinese fleet will flee without a fight. However, at this moment, he is only three or four hours away from the Grand Fleet. If the Chinese want to attack themselves, although it is difficult to say that they can defeat their opponents, it is definitely not difficult to support the big fleet.

You know, the flagship battleship Delaware is the proud dreadnought of the U.S. Navy, and the fleet's other two former dreadnoughts, the USS Virginia and the USS Louisiana, were modernized two years ago. Although the Chinese Navy fleet has 4 battleships, only 2 of them are new warships, and the other 2 are old battleships that were already in service before 1900...... It's totally a fight!

At this moment, Staff Officer Luke, who was standing by the lookout window, shouted loudly. "General, come and see, the reconnaissance plane is back!"

This sudden situation immediately woke up Brigadier General Lucius, who was considering strategy, and he rushed to the flat lookout window in front of the command tower, and followed the direction of the staff officer's finger......

"Turn the rudder 30 degrees to the left!"

"Level 1 combat readiness, all gun positions are ready to fire! Order the formation to accelerate immediately, and within 15 minutes it must reach the speed of 19 knots of battle line operations! ”

"Order the destroyer formation of Major Calfit on the left flank to move forward immediately for reconnaissance!"

The red warning lights installed on the cage lookout of the battleship Delaware lit up with the dense alarm bells on the battleship, even in the midday sun, it was enough to let the two battleships following know the situation for the first time, and the five twin 305mm main guns on the battleship had quickly withdrawn their gun jackets, slowly turned the huge turret, and pointed in the direction of the reconnaissance plane flying at this moment.

On the side gun position, a group of American soldiers ran back and forth with nervous expressions, and the rapid orders in the microphone made the faces of those American recruits who were new to the war pale, even the gun position shooting officers were breathing rapidly at the moment due to the pre-war depression, but they could obviously keep calm and lie on the gun position firing commander to observe, because the battleship was turning at high speed. Therefore, the gun emplacements facing the target were raised high, and the angle of view was much wider than before......

"Captain, is it really the Chinese fleet? Didn't you say General Abel was intercepting them! A steering machine operator finally couldn't help but ask the officer next to him.

Captain Thor didn't care about wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, and responded in a hoarse voice, "Jack, don't worry, just follow the operation training to counterattack, the Delaware is an unsinkable battleship, even if part of the armor is penetrated, the 10-inch armored compartment inside the battleship has enough anti-sinking performance, and General Ebbar's grand fleet should be no more than 3 hours away from us!" ”

"Captain, we won't run into the Chinese Grand Fleet, it is said that there are Chinese giant battleships of more than 40,000 tons......"

Hearing the nonsense of his soldiers, Captain Thor couldn't help but laugh, "Your guess is too ****, the Chinese have risen in the Pacific Ocean for nearly 20 years, but the US Navy has never fallen behind, our battleships may be slightly behind in terms of performance, but we will definitely not be worse than the Chinese in terms of armor, artillery, and tonnage, and the strength of our fleet is also in the forefront of the world!" ”

At the forefront of the world, this definition obviously slightly swept away the pressure of the American soldiers, and immediately followed by a loud roar, the T1 Javelin water reconnaissance aircraft slowed down at a low altitude and swept past the twin tower cage lookouts of the battleship logo, and a message bottle with a white parachute was thrown at the battleship, originally, according to the practice of naval seaplane reconnaissance, this thing should have been thrown into the water near the battleship, not as a bomb on the battleship.

Obviously, this time the situation was already very critical, so the US reconnaissance plane completely abandoned this operational practice, and even lowered its flight altitude to only a few tens of meters, which was comparable to passing over the mast of the battleship's high cage observation platform......

The message bottle was shattered after hitting the front of the battleship with a turret mounted on the front of the ship, and the crucial information was held by Commodore Lucius in his hand after more than ten seconds, and the scribbled handwriting suddenly made the attacker-minded American general frown......

"When the Chinese torpedo attack aircraft was discovered, they immediately ordered the Nebraska and Louisiana to open the battle line spacing...... Send a report to General Abel that we have been intercepted by the Chinese fleet, and the other side has at least one aircraft carrier! ”

"37mm guns and 150mm rapid-fire guns on the side are ready to intercept torpedo machines!"

Brigadier Lucius gave a loud order, and the first wave of attacks of the Chinese Navy turned out not to be from battleships, but from naval torpedo planes, which surprised him, but it was also reasonable, however, he had obviously been listed as a target by the other party, but he couldn't even make a final decision who the opponent was, which made him extremely annoyed.

From the direction in which the enemy appeared, he could roughly judge that it should be the Chinese Pacific Second Squadron from Guam that was intercepted by General Eber, but Chinese had obviously succeeded in deceiving Admiral Eber, so it is obviously not difficult to explain the appearance of another Chinese fleet in this area......

"General, the sky is ...... in front of the bow of the ship"

Brigadier General Lucius raised his telescope, and at the beginning of his field of vision, five new planes shining in the sunlight burst out of the clouds, and unexpectedly did not reduce their altitude, but quickly began to climb, which made him inexplicable, and couldn't help but draw a cross on his chest, "God...... Damn Chinese what do you want to do......"-

A few minutes ago, he unexpectedly ran into a US military reconnaissance plane, which surprised Captain Sima Jian of the First Flight Group, although the previous reconnaissance confirmed that the US fleet was nearby, in fact, he and Sun Guoxing's two planes were still in a small circle just now, and Sun Guoxing's team did not know where to fly at this moment, but he got a golden opportunity, and the American plane that turned around and ran left a few black clouds under the clouds, which was almost a road sign.

It's just that despite having the most powerful 550-horsepower air-cooled engine in this era and the take-off weight reaching an astonishing 2,500 kilograms, after hanging two 320-kilogram aerial bombs, the speed of the plane at this moment is only less than 200 km/h......

When he got out of the clouds and followed him, he saw three American battleships on the surging waves and surrounded by 4 destroyers! (To be continued.) )