Turn right, turn right, turn right, it seems to be a circle, the cruiser pursuing the Hangzhou found that it was taken around in a circle, the hateful Huaguo warship was too fast, looming outside the range of the main gun, but did not give up to continue the reconnaissance, and came back in a circle to continue tracking the expeditionary fleet.

Shen Lan has no fear, of course, it is impossible for the battleship to maintain the maximum speed all the time, but with the cruising speed, he can hang the two battleships behind him without being overtaken. In addition, after the telegram was sent, the warships of the 1st Destroyer Detachment and the 2nd Destroyer Detachment that had gone out on reconnaissance missions were all converging in this vicinity, and the sharks that smelled the smell of blood immediately became excited, and their eyes turned white and they looked like they were about to eat people.

Natal hoped that the main force of the Chinese navy would come over as soon as possible, and he looked forward to a decisive battle with its main force, but this hope was dashed after an hour, and it was not the main force of the Chinese army that rushed over, but three Chinese reconnaissance ships.

You can't continue to send out cruisers to drive away those reconnaissance ships, cruisers are an important fighting force in a decisive battle, what if the Chinese army intends to let the reconnaissance ships divert their own cruisers? However, it is not possible to let those reconnaissance ships follow around all the time, so that any move of the fleet will be clearly seen, and the Chinese army can modify its strategy at any time according to changes.

It was difficult to do, it was impossible to catch up, and it was impossible to run away, and just when Natal hesitated, the number of Chinese reconnaissance ships around the fleet increased to five.

Spreading out the charts, the fleet is currently located at about 15 degrees north latitude and 114 degrees east longitude, about 800 kilometers from the coast of Guangdong, about 600 kilometers east from Manila, and about 300 kilometers from Cam Ranh Bay in the southwest.

Natal could no longer tolerate the tracking of the Chinese reconnaissance ships, and it has been seven hours since they were discovered, and the main force of the Chinese army has still not appeared, but those reconnaissance ships have been rotated, and they have remained around five following.

In another three hours, the sea would be completely dark, and the expeditionary fleet could use the cover of night to get rid of the Chinese reconnaissance ships. Tomorrow's tactical plan will also be revised. Waiting for the Chinese army to appear is too passive, and it is necessary to take the initiative to attract the enemy army to appear.

Natal thought that if they were separated by a few thousand meters in the dark night, the Chinese reconnaissance ships would not be able to find the trace of the fleet, but he did not know that the Chinese army had such an artifact as radar. As the sky gradually darkened, the reconnaissance detachment changed its tactics, and the radars of the two reconnaissance ships were turned on to follow. The other three radars are turned off and rotated after the radar time has elapsed, so that there are radars to keep an eye on the movements of the expeditionary fleet at any time.

So far, the expeditionary fleet has not been completely at a disadvantage, and the Chinese reconnaissance detachment has ignored one of the biggest problems, that is, the expeditionary fleet lacks a large part of the warships. The 2nd Combat Group took forty-five battleships and supply ships, and the number of battleships in the fleet was reduced by almost half. The detachment was not detected by the reconnaissance ship, after which Natal regrouped, but sent several cruisers to expand the area of defense, blocking the reconnaissance ship more than five thousand meters away. At such a distance, the change in quantity is not visible to the naked eye. However, due to the performance of the shipborne radar, the number of warships cannot be accurately calculated, and the light spots on the display screen are slightly reduced, which does not attract the attention of the radar commanders.

The 2nd Combat Group, which was 40 nautical miles away, was attracted by the attention of the Chinese army to the 1st Group, so it did not encounter a single reconnaissance ship.

The night of the 15th was also calm, and when the first rays of sunlight fell on the sea, the expeditionary fleet was horrified to find that the Chinese reconnaissance ships in the rear had once again caught up!

How did they get to grips with the whereabouts of the fleet in the darkness of the night? You must know that the fleet has been in radio silence, and the determination of the route was decided by Natal on the fly. It is impossible for intelligence to be leaked. That is, the Chinese army has equipment for long-range reconnaissance!

It's like eating a fly. Natal felt extremely disgusted, the super-fast speed and long-range reconnaissance and detection capabilities were enough to change all the tactics of naval warfare, unless he had the same speed and equipment, Natal could not think of any other way to change the current passive situation. Is it another day to be followed? When does the Hua Jun plan to show up?

Now it is about 600 kilometers away from the coast of Guangdong, China, so it will drive directly to the city of Guangzhou. Natal believed that the main force of the Chinese navy would not escape in the event of a threat to major industrial cities. As for the scouts, Natal could only express his anger with a word starting with F, and then watched helplessly as they followed behind him.

Yes, Natal decided to ignore the scouts, and angrily driving them away could easily lead to a reduction in the level of defense of the fleet's perimeter. Once the Chinese army seizes the opportunity of the weakening of the cruiser detachment to launch a surprise attack, uses the capital ships to contain its own capital ships, and launches a torpedo offensive with those ultra-fast cruisers and torpedo boats, it will certainly suffer certain losses.

Perhaps this is the plan of the Chinese army, the reconnaissance ship seduces the fleet cruiser to separate from the fleet, the cruiser and the destroyer take the opportunity to attack, consume the capital ships of the expeditionary fleet, and then join the battle with two super battleships to reduce the disadvantage caused by the difference in numbers. This is what the Chinese army did in Yangon before, the purpose of those water ghosts is to reduce the number of capital ships of the expeditionary fleet, but unfortunately they can't imagine that the sun never sets Empire can easily replenish the loss of ships, and now the number of capital ships of the expeditionary fleet has not only not decreased, but also increased slightly!

Thinking of this, Natal felt much better, and the Chinese army explained that they were not sure of defeating the huge expeditionary fleet, so they used the despicable means of sneak attack, so they used reconnaissance ships to provoke themselves. But how could I, Admiral Natal, be fooled by such inferior means? Let the young Chinese Navy know that naval warfare is not a child's game, and it is not possible to challenge the entire West with one or two pieces of advanced equipment!

Natal was making up his mind passionately, and at a depth of more than fifty meters under the seabed around the fleet, thirty sea wolves were slowly surrounding. The tracking of the reconnaissance ships allowed the naval command to fully grasp the whereabouts of the expeditionary fleet and calculate the route of the fleet accordingly, so that the operation plan could be drawn up with greater certainty.

It is also because of this that the submarine group can be ambushed in advance on the path of the expeditionary fleet. Attacking a large number of ship formations with submarines is tantamount to suicide, but the submarine officers and men know that they will not arrange their own mission to the death, and the captain has already conveyed to the crew the content of the mission, that is, to attack any enemy warship from a long distance, and then avoid the fleet's search and mine attacks from a distance, and wait for the situation to change before joining the battlefield.

The captain did not say anything about the so-called change in the situation, and the crew did not ask, and it was good to follow orders when the time came.

The expeditionary fleet, advancing at a speed of fifteen knots, did not notice the movement under the water, and according to the calculations of Western submarines, it was impossible for submarines to operate at such a distance from the coast and to keep up with the speed of the fleet. Even in the event of an underwater attack, the cruiser detachments around the formation will blow the submarine to pieces with depth charges - once they show up, they will not want to escape the cruiser! In order to deal with the threat of Chinese submarines, the West's anti-submarine research was very fast, and the depth charges produced by military factories were quickly equipped with various types of warships.

The 15th King Squid of the Seawolf class approached about 1,500 meters to the right side of the expeditionary fleet, and the captain Jiao Shaoxin ordered the submarine to enter a launch depth of 30 meters and adjust the angle of the submarine so that the torpedo tubes were aimed in the direction of the enemy ship. In order to achieve an accurate hit rate, submarines generally aim and shoot at a distance of about 1,000 meters. However, Jiao Shaoxin received an order to conduct a deterrent attack, forcing the local fleet to form a submarine defensive formation and withdraw immediately after the first attack, regardless of whether it was hit or not.

The young captains strictly executed the battle plan, even pinpointing the attack to the minute, and almost at the same time, the wolves fired a torpedo from each boat, then descended to a certain depth and quickly left the dangerous sea.

This time is 9:35 a.m. on July 16, and it is also the time when the naval battle in the South China Sea officially broke out. Only one of the torpedoes fired by thirty submarines was successful, and the only result was achieved on one torpedo boat, which was better than nothing, but it had already achieved its goal.

"Submarine!" The sailors spotted the torpedo at the waterline and immediately issued an early warning, and the battleships on the periphery took advantage of the time before the torpedo attack to dodge.

"The formation was changed to a defensive submarine formation, and the 2nd and 3rd torpedo boat detachments went out to look for the submarine, which had to be sunk! The 1st Cruiser Detachment conducted reconnaissance within ten nautical miles of the periphery! Natal quickly gave orders based on his own judgment. In the new formation, the battleship detachment moved closer to the center, the cruiser detachment was on the second layer, and the torpedo boat detachment cruised on the periphery.

However, in this way, if the main force of the Chinese fleet takes the opportunity to attack, it will be more troublesome for the expeditionary fleet to adjust its formation, and it is easy to cause chaos. When the formation of defensive submarines was formed, Natal became very nervous, not worried about those submarines, but worried about the appearance of the main force of the Chinese army. Therefore, he asked a cruiser detachment to expand the reconnaissance area to 10 nautical miles, so that there would be enough time to react and adjust after discovering the Chinese navy. (To be continued.) )