July 23 at 10 a.m., Edward? Vice Admiral Abel personally climbed onto the iconic cage lookout of the battleship Utah, and through the high-powered telescope, he carefully observed the end of the fleet's sailing direction, and the destroyers in front of him brought some news that puzzled him, although he had observed a squadron of Chinese destroyers, he had not detected the expected Chinese battleships.

However, the seaplane had sent back news before, confirming that the Chinese were fleeing in the direction of Guam, which made him determined to intercept it before and after, after all, although he was well aware of the strength and excellent quality of the Chinese Navy, but under his careful strategic deployment, he obtained an overwhelming opportunity for this local conflict.

Once the interception is completed, with the advantage of their own 7 battleships over 4 battleships, although they may not be able to win quickly, it is enough to gain an advantage, and after the second squadron arrives to form a pinching situation, the Chinese will not have a chance to turn the tables at all, and the British, although somewhat arrogant, are obviously willing to participate in this one-sided siege!

At that time, the combined fleet will take advantage of the situation to attack Guam, destroy China's most important naval relay station in the Pacific, and paralyze Guam, and the Pacific link controlled by the Chinese Navy will be torn open a huge gap, and the 8,000-kilometer sea route from Hawaii to Luzon will be caught in the artillery fire of the US-British joint fleet at any time.

Running up to the cage lookout with hurried steps, an officer delivered a message from the 1st Destroyer Fleet, "General, the 1st Destroyer Formation has been shelled by Chinese destroyers, and we are requested to support immediately!" ”

As the light cavalry at the front of the fleet, the battle between the destroyer fleets was obviously not surprising, though. At this moment, as far as the eye can see, you can also see several American Vickers-class and Caldwell-class destroyers in the distance rumbling into the distance, but it obviously does not seem to be superior, and one of the Vickers-class destroyers has thick smoke billowing on it, and it is fleeing towards the fleet at a rapid pace.

The Kansas, a Connecticut-class battleship that had broken ahead, had broken away from the battleship formation and quickly swooped forward. This immediately made the so-called destroyer confrontation no suspense, and before the Kansas entered the salvo range, the Chinese destroyers on the opposite side had already dispersed, but, considering that the Vickers-class destroyers could not compete with the Tianshan-class destroyers, the main force of the Chinese Navy, the American destroyers who rushed to reinforce gave up the pursuit, but chose to expand the range of the enemy...... Its target is not the Chinese destroyer fleet, which is running fast.

But soon, the outer destroyer fleet was provoked by Chinese destroyers, and the twin main guns of 120mm caliber on the Tianshan-class destroyers. It was clear that the Vickers-class destroyers were completely suppressed in terms of range and power, which soon led to a significant reduction in the efficiency and speed of the search for the outer fleet...... As a last resort, Vice Admiral Abel sent battleships to tail, but he was completely unable to deal a blow to the Chinese destroyers that fled quickly!

The continuous harassment and shelling made the US fleet extremely angry, but suffering from the Chinese's hit-and-run tactics, at least for a short time, there was no outlet at all, and the mood of the US naval officers was obviously deeply affected. There was even a beginning of a battleship commander reporting to the flagship requesting a pursuit!

For Edward, though? Lieutenant General Abel is concerned. Chinese unusual behavior, it made him feel a little uneasy in his heart...... There was little speculation on his part, and he was sure that the Chinese had apparently discovered his main fleet, otherwise, the Chinese fleet would have withdrawn to Guam and sent a harassing fleet. Obviously, it's hard to explain.

It's just that the Chinese only sent five or six high-speed destroyers to try to delay their own interception with the harassment of the destroyers, but this is somewhat unreasonable, you know. Although the Chinese's large destroyers had the upper hand in the competition with the American thousand-ton Vickers-class destroyers, they were completely incapable of harassing battleships equipped with more than 12-inch main guns......

The 120mm destroyer main gun is completely an itching effect for the battleship, not to mention, firing at the effective range of the 120mm gun also means sending yourself into the high-hit area of the battleship's fire projection, not to mention the effect of the nearly 400 kg high-explosive shell of the 12-inch main gun, which is the power of the 120-150mm secondary gun, which will be fatal to the destroyer.

While this question puzzled Albert, another piece of news forced him to leave the lookout again! The battleship Rhode Island, which was in third place on the battle line, suddenly sent a message that the former dreadnought, which had been launched in 1904, was clearly overloaded due to the continued high speed, and that a PTIII turbine had failed and needed urgent maintenance.

For a 4-seater steam turbine-driven battleship, this means that the battleship will lose a quarter of its thrust, but it does not affect the normal cruise, after all, the fleet's cruising speed of 16 knots at this moment does not need to be fully powered at all, but if it does not stop maintenance, it means that once the battle is engaged, the battleship can maintain a maximum speed of 17 knots, instead of the 20 knots required for battle line operations.

The thorny problem actually appeared at this juncture, which made Abel very angry, but as a senior admiral, he naturally understood that it was obviously impossible to blame someone for this, and among the large number of naval shipbuilders in the United States, there was obviously no quality like the Royal Navy's adequate suppliers, and regular repair and maintenance had long been a common thing.

"Is there any further news about the Chinese fleet? How far are we from the Chinese! Albert, who looked slightly unhappy, stood in front of the chart of the command tower and asked loudly the officer who had lowered his head to survey the chart.

The officer immediately put down the telegram at hand, "General, the Chinese fleet retreated to Guam at a rate comparable to ours, considering our interception route, it is estimated that we are less than 30 kilometers away from the Chinese fleet, which is also confirmed by the encounter with the Chinese destroyer, I predict that the Chinese naval fleet will be observed in 40 minutes, and no later than 12 o'clock, we will officially enter the engagement!" ”

Abel sighed softly, took out his pocket watch from his pocket and looked at it, there were less than 90 minutes, and it was completely unacceptable to reduce the fleet's cruising speed, but now it was time to let the fleet move forward at full speed to ensure that the sea position had an advantage before entering the battlefield, the battle would take place at noon, and he was in the northwest position of the Chinese fleet, and the sunlight shining from due south would be a big trouble for the US Navy.

Although the Chinese fleet is not backed by the sun, the sunlight shining from the side and behind will also put itself in a disadvantageous position for observation, after all, the dazzling sunlight will affect a series of crucial tactical actions such as ranging and even landing point observation in any case, so ......

"Order, the fleet is put on first-level combat alert, the battleship formation maintains course, accelerates to a speed of 20 knots, and orders are given to the Rhode Island, allowing them to change the position of the queue to the end of the battle line, but they must not stop the ship for emergency repairs, but must maintain the maximum speed for emergency repairs, and must follow the fleet to engage in the vital first round of attacks!" ——

At 11:40 a.m., when Vice Admiral Abel was a little confused about the bizarre situation he was facing, a Harrier fighter swooped down from the clouds, and after slightly identifying the command flag on the battleship Guangzhou in the air, it immediately flew towards the battleship quickly, and at an altitude of less than 50 meters, it dropped a signal bottle with a parachute, and a few minutes later, the wet bottle was fished up from the sea, and the message in the bottle was immediately sent to Tang Zhen.

The surveying officer carefully compared the chart a few times, and then marked a clear red triangle on the map, and close to the left front of this red triangle, a small red flag marking the fleet was erected, "General, take off now, and you can complete the first wave of attacks in 15 minutes!" ”

Tang Zhen stared at the chart, clenched his fists tightly, then knocked on the table heavily, and gave an order with a decisive expression, "Attack!" ”

At the sound of an order, two red signal flares immediately rose on the lookout of the Guangzhou, and almost at the same time, on the Shandong aircraft carrier that was sailing at full speed against the wind in the distance, two Eagle monoplane bombers swooped into the sea from the front deck of the battleship, and then quickly pulled up the nose to accelerate the climb, and less than a minute later, another group of planes took off again! And on the 4 battleships that have entered the formation of the battle line, orders are constantly being given one after another, and the various gun positions are already crowded with soldiers, and everyone's eyes are pointing to the southeast!

Sima Jian held the joystick steadily, turned his head sideways to Sun Guoxing, who was closely following to the left, made a fist gesture, both of them looked at each other and smiled, and immediately led their respective teams of 4 Eagle bomber formations to start raising the altitude!

The Eagle dive bomber is a cutting-edge product of the air power competition between China Southern Heavy Aviation and Beihang Airlines, with its own research and development of Mustang II - 10-cylinder air-cooled piston engine, up to 550 horsepower, but also makes this 13-meter wingspan monoplane, aluminum alloy frame aircraft has a take-off weight of 2,500 kilograms, and can carry two 320 kilogram bombs.

After all, the navy's full affirmation of the power of the torpedo, coupled with the high initial velocity of the surface projection, makes this air weapon irresistible to the temptation.

However, in the actual confrontation exercise, the naval aviation also realized that the torpedo plane with more than 600 kilograms of torpedoes was definitely a big-bellied snail, so before a substantial breakthrough was made in the aircraft engine and flight speed, the torpedo plane in the aircraft carrier's aircraft carrier aircraft was included in the alternate option, and the number was greatly reduced.

Among the 25 aircraft equipped on the Shandong aircraft carrier, only 2 Harrier fighters and 5 torpedo planes are equipped, and the remaining 18 are Eagle dive bombers of China Southern Airlines Heavy Industry. (To be continued.) )