The arrival of the "Z Fleet" made the Imperial Navy feel like a great enemy, just like the Japanese First and Second Battleships during the "Battle of Ryukyu Island" in that year. Even if the aircraft carrier has become the main force on the battlefield of naval warfare, no one dares to ignore the battleship wearing strong armor and equipped with huge cannons, which can bombard an aircraft carrier and take out a cruiser with a single shot. In the close-range "dogfight", the battleship is still a well-deserved hegemon at sea, and this time it is still eight battleships that are killed, and these eight battleships can shoot 84 huge bombs in one salvo, which is enough to destroy an aircraft carrier formation!

Although Task Force 3 had six more powerful battleships (the Dignity class and the New Provincial Capital class were both higher than the American battleships in terms of combat effectiveness compared to individual ships), the difference in numbers, especially in the number of main guns, was still quite noticeable. The fight is raging, and it is impossible to determine who will kill the deer. In order to ensure sea supremacy, to ensure the annihilation of the American fleet. The command of the Navy, while deploying two task forces, also issued orders to the Navy, the Strategic Strike Force, and the 6 Combat Squadron.

The 6th Sentai had only one mission, and that was to build an airfield on Agrihan Island as soon as possible so that the first bombers of the HNA could be stationed. If HNA's tactical bombers can be deployed to Agrihan Island, then its coverage will extend to 5o nautical miles south of Alamagan Island, and Task Force 3 can get the full support of HNA shore-based forces, and be strong enough anti-aircraft cover to patrol the waters near Alamagan Island to ensure sea supremacy around the island, and provide support for the 6th Sentai to use it as a springboard to continue southward.

The 6th Sentai planned to build the airfield on the 22nd (originally scheduled for the 2o, but a large number of transport ships were requisitioned to supply the two fleets, and also to support the troops on the 6th Aramagan Island, so the delivery of supplies to Agrihan Island was much slower, and a large number of supplies needed to build the field airfield could not be delivered in time) This is already the fastest progress. Yan Guozhong is also a person who takes the overall situation into account. He would not be unaware of the importance of the field airfield on the island of Agrihan. The Navy Command demanded that the 6th Sentai must complete the construction of the field airfield on the 2oth, but the 6th Sentai did not have this ability at that time. It's not manpower that's missing. It's materiel. There are still a batch of honeycomb steel plates used to lay the runway of the field airfield that have not been loaded on transport ships in Naha Port on Ryukyu Island, so what will the 6th Sentai take to repair the field airfield?

The order to the HNA was also very simple, that is, to make the best use of the two field airfields already built on Asunción Island to provide air support to the 3rd Task Force and, if necessary, to assist the 1st Task Force in annihilating the US Fleet (which required the HNA ground command system to maintain contact with the 1st Task Force at all times). After all, Asunción Island has limited space (otherwise it would not be in a hurry to capture Agrihan Island), the scale of the two field airfields is not large, it is impossible to deploy more than 2oo aircraft, and the island does not have sufficient material reserves (a large number of materials have been sent to the battlefield on Agrihan Island), and the continuous combat capability is not strong.

The only thing that can enhance the combat capability of shore-based air forces in sea is the airfield on Agrihan Island. If the 6th Squadron can be completed on time, then HNA will be able to deploy at least 15o combat aircraft on Agrihan Island, plus 2oo fighters on Asunción Island, and concentrate 35O combat aircraft ground forces, which will be enough to complete the mission of the Navy Command. But the problem is that the 6th Sentai simply can't guarantee that the field airfield will be operational on the 2oth!

Luo Yunchong's task was more difficult. In order to weaken the air cover provided by the US fleet and make it impossible for the US Air Force to deal with the Third Task Force (or at least to reduce the ground air threat to the Third Task Force), when the HNA is unable to pull out its hands, the Strategic Strike Force must concentrate its forces on bombing the US air facilities on the five islands of Pagan, Saipan, Tinian, Rota, and Guam, and paralyze the enemy's air power. The secondary tasks are: Bomb the U.S. fleet when necessary, assist the fleet in annihilating the enemy, or delay the enemy's entry and retreat.

Neither of these tasks is so easy to accomplish. Luo Yunchong also knows that he is suffering. A large number of ships originally responsible for transporting ships for the strategic strike force were transferred to reinforce the 6th Combat Team, and the number of transport ships that could be assigned to Luo Yunchong was reduced by at least half. At present, there are many incendiary bombs stockpiled on Iwo Jima and Ogasawara Islands (and there are still incendiary bombs being delivered), but there are not many high-explosive bombs that can be used to bomb military targets. Luo Yunchong could count on his fingers, and those remaining bombs could still make his bomber dispatch a few times. What's more, most of the crews have been fighting for months in a row, and there is almost no time to rest, and many pilots are holding on by will. No one knows how long they can hold out! The task of bombing the Mariana Islands south was even more difficult, and the loss rate of bombers remained high when they could not be fully protected by fighters. There are already pilots who are disgusted, and if it continues to expand, there will definitely be a big explosion eventually.

It can be said that at that time there were problems in almost every way. On the night of the 19th, Yan Guozhong sent a telegram directly to Marshal Nie Renfeng (bypassing Gan Yongxing), although the 6th team had found alternative materials (replacing honeycomb steel plates with thick wooden planks) and organized all the manpower they could find to build a field airfield. However, the construction of the airport will certainly not be completed on the 2o, and the afternoon of the 22nd will be the earliest.

There was no way for Yan Guozhong to do this, and the order given to him by Gan Yongxing was that the airport must be repaired before 2o days (when Yan Guozhong received the telegram, there were less than 3o hours left). If he could do it, Yan Guozhong would definitely not go to Nie Renfeng. Nie Renfeng and Yan Guozhong are also old friends, and he knows very well what this strong-willed and tenacious general of the 6th team is. Now that Yan Guozhong bypassed the chief of staff and sent him a telegram directly, it proved that the 6th team really could not complete the task. After calling Yan Guozhong back and asking the 6th team to complete the work of the field airfield before 6 pm on the 22nd, and at the same time making preparations for receiving the first batch of HNA fighters, Nie Renfeng sent someone to find Gan Yongxing.

Nie Renfeng did not criticize Gan Yongxing, but raised the question, and then the two discussed it, and both believed that in order to ensure the victory of the naval battle, it was necessary to delay the date of the decisive battle until after the 22nd, at least on the night of the 22nd. Then we have to do something about it.

In the early morning of the 2o, Luo Yunchong received a new order, and the bomber unit went all out to bomb the US airfield on the same day. If the bombs run out, then use incendiary bombs, anyway, all the bombers have to move and drop bombs on the airfields of the US military! This is a death order, and Luo Yunchong also knows that the strategic strike force has been pushed to the front. He did not hesitate and immediately ordered the troops to be organized. Bomb the US airfield!

Almost at the same time, U.S. heavy bombers deployed on Saipan, Tinian and Guam began to hang bombs. The mission of these U.S. bombers was the same, to bomb Iwo Jima, the Don Army airfield on the Ogasawara Islands, and destroy the Tang Army's heavy bombers, and the U.S. heavy bombers had been doing this for many days. This time it is different, all the US heavy bombers will be dispatched, and the first bombs will be dropped before dawn!

In addition, tactical bombers deployed by the US military on the islands. Fighter jets are also getting ready. These tactical aircraft were not able to attack Iwo Jima and the Ogasawara Islands. But it is possible to bomb the islands of Agrihan and Asunción. Asunción was the focus of the U.S. bombing (mainly using warplanes from Pagan Island), and the field airfield on Agrihan Island, which was still under construction, was also within range.

The reason why the US military concentrated all its forces on bombing at this time is simple, the "Z fleet" will come out on the same day. In order to ensure the security of the "Z Fleet" and to weaken the support of the Tang Imperial Air Force for its fleet, it was necessary to first seize air supremacy and reverse the situation in the air battlefield.

An hour after the U.S. bombers came out, the Tang Army bombers on Iwo Jima and Ogasawara Islands also took off, but the Tang Army tactical bombers deployed on Asunción Island had not yet received the order. Before that, the US army had hardly bombed the front-line airfields of the Don Army before the early hours of the morning!

The airfield under construction on Agrihan Island was bombed first, and the time of the bombing was 6:35 a.m. Twenty minutes later, two field airfields on the island of Asunción were also bombed. The fighters deployed by the Don Army on the island of Asunción rushed into the air, but as a result, more than two dozen did not have time to take off. It was blown up on the ground. In the interception operation, the Tang fighters shot down 39 US fighters at the cost of 12 fighters.

American bombers reached Iwo Jima at about 7 o'clock and dropped hundreds of tons of bombs. U.S. bombers bombing the Ogasawara Islands arrived at around 7:15 and rained hundreds of tons of bombs on the airfields of the three islands. None of the bombers of the Tang Army were destroyed, because these bombers had already gone out one step ahead of schedule (the two groups of planes were missed at night, because there was a difference of 15oo meters in cruising altitude, so neither of them showed each other) These American bombers were also stubbornly intercepted by the Tang Imperial fighters, and more than 3oo US bombers who participated in the bombing were shot down 42, and more than 5o were injured and returned home. This was the heaviest loss of US heavy bombers since the start of the war.

The bombers sent by Luo Yunchong bombed Saipan at 8:05, Tinian at 8:10, Rota at 8:15, and Guam at 8:25. The bombers who participated in the bombing campaign dropped more than 35oo tons of bombs, and the eight airfields bombed on the four islands received an average of more than 4oo tons of bombs. The Tang bombers were also stubbornly intercepted by American fighters, 36 were shot down, and 48 returned with injuries (as well as forced landings in waters controlled by the Tang Army). This was also the heaviest bombing operation of the heavy bombers of the Tang Army in ten days!

Neither of the fleets of either side made a sortie, as a result of which the aviation went first. It was also when the group of bombers that bombed Saipan returned home, and the U.S. fleet operating near Saipan appeared. This news was immediately returned, Luo Yunchong did not dare to delay for a moment, and immediately transmitted the news back to the naval headquarters.

Soon, HNA sent more than a dozen fighters with the longest range to take off from the airfield on the island of Asunción, which had not yet been fully repaired, to find and track the American fleet and determine whether the American fleet was heading north. It was not until two o'clock in the afternoon that the planes, who were on a reconnaissance mission, appeared in the waterway between Tinian and Rota. At this time, Gan Yongxing was also relieved that if the US fleet wanted to rush to a decisive battle at night, it should go north in the morning and drag it out until 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and there was no sign of going north at all, which proved that it was impossible for the US fleet to come to provoke that night.

In fact, at that time, the "Z Fleet" really had no plan to go north, and Admiral Kimmel was still familiarizing his fleet officers and men with the atmosphere of the battlefield, and more importantly, the battleship "Oklahoma" had to wait for the "Oklahoma" battleship to replenish coal on Guam (the degree of replenishment of coal was much slower than that of refueling), and the American fleet was the fastest, and it had to wait until the day of the 21st to go north.

At the same time, the problem was also exposed, the US fleet was obviously making preparations, then it was very likely that they would go north the next day, and the 6th Sentai team would have to delay the construction of the airfield until the afternoon of the 22nd at the earliest (and it was very likely to be delayed until the evening, because the US bombing caused a lot of damage) This day is nothing in peacetime, but at that time, it is possible to decide the final result of the battle!

Drag down the US fleet! This was the unanimous idea of everyone in the Navy Staff at that time, but what could be done to hold off the American fleet? The Third Task Force and the First Task Force are both hidden, and this is a decisive force that cannot be easily mobilized; the shore-based tactical bombers of the HNA cannot fly that far, and the fighters that can fly over can hang bombs of up to 1oo kilograms, not only are the bombs less powerful, but also the bomb throwing skills of the fighter pilots are really not very good. As a result, the only thing that could be used was the heavy bomber in Luo Yunchong's hand. Although heavy bombers can only deliver bombs at high altitudes (more than 1ooo meters, which is high-altitude by the standards of sea bombing), the accuracy of bombing is certainly unsatisfactory. But if hundreds of bombers are dispatched together and drop bombs together, and thousands of bombs fall together, there must be dozens or hundreds of bombs hitting the target!

The mission was quickly arranged, and Luo Yunchong had to shoulder the heavy responsibility of turning the situation around again, and let those pilots risk dropping bombs again. In order to win in the end, you have to take risks, you have to make valuable sacrifices!