It was only after Christmas that MacArthur returned to Port Moresby from the United States. Lieutenant General Kincaid also stepped back from the battlefield and began to participate in the planning process for the next phase of the campaign. However, the fighting at sea did not stop, and the commanders of several US task forces and Zheng Xuechang, commander of the first task force of the Haitang Army, had the opportunity to take turns commanding the Allied fleet.

This kind of opportunity to command a large fleet is extremely rare, and if it were to rely only on the strength of the Haitang Kingdom, in three or twenty years, this kind of command of hundreds of warships, let alone combat, and even the opportunity for exercises may not be available. Such an experience is not only an improvement in Zheng Xuechang's own command level, but also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Haitang Army, and it is a qualitative leap in the improvement of the Haitang Army's operational command system, tactical planning, intelligence system integration, and multi-service coordination.

At the beginning of January, another aircraft carrier of the Haitang Army, the Pacific Pacific, joined the combat sequence, and the strength of the Allied fleet increased again.

The aircraft carrier Pacific is an aircraft carrier modified from the Japanese army. This aircraft carrier, which was originally designed to be a battleship, is almost a record of the history of the development of Japanese aircraft carriers, and I don't know how many times it has been transformed since it was installed. This time, after the transformation of Haitang, the performance of all aspects has been improved again.

Enclosed bow bow, open hangar, sliding take-off deck, inclined deck, light landing system, sea radar, air defense radar, central communication system, everything.

Moreover, the Haitang Army, which has a lot of experience in aircraft carrier operations, has also made many improvements to this aircraft carrier, and there are thousands of large and small transformation projects. There are four of the most obvious transformations.

First, due to the width of the hull, the Kaga aircraft carrier originally had a speed of only 28 knots, and it was difficult to cooperate with the existing fleet of the Naval Resistance Force with a speed of 30 knots. Therefore, the designers did not hesitate to occupy part of the cabin and installed four oil-fired boilers. In the end, the speed of the ship ran at a high speed of 30.1 knots during the sea trial, which met expectations. However, this transformation has improved the inherent shortcomings of the Kaga. Originally, the Kaga had the problems of top-heavy and poor seaworthiness that the Japanese army was used to. In use, it is often forced to inject nearly 3,000 tons of seawater into the bottom tank, which wastes a lot of fuel, reduces the speed, and also weakens the ship's anti-sinking performance. Due to the increase of boilers, although the power system is much more complicated, there is no need to inject water. Overall. The pros outweigh the cons.

In the second place, the chimney design of the Kaga aircraft carrier was originally tilted outboard to prevent the smoke from interfering with the take-off and landing of fighters. In this renovation, the designers continued the two-ship island design of the USS Indian Ocean. The chimney and the ship island are integrated, which not only greatly improves the ability to resist strikes. And due to the greatly increased height. The ventilation performance has been enhanced, and the smoke exhaust will no longer interfere with the take-off and landing of fighters.

The third place. The original ten single-mounted eight-inch naval guns on the Kaga aircraft carrier were all dismantled (these ten guns were used for the main guns of a gunboat of the Haitang Army), reducing the weight of the superstructure by more than 3,000 tons. Further improved the seaworthiness of the ship.

The biggest renovation was the hangar and flight deck. Because more than a year ago, the Haitang Army received a cutting-edge dive bomber from the United States. And this bomber. It is a very rare twin-engine fighter among the carrier-based aircraft of World War II, with a large height and a wide wingspan.

In this way, the two-story hangar originally designed by the Japanese army seemed very unsuitable. In order to carry this fighter. The USS Pacific is only one hangar, which greatly reduces the height of the flight deck. Compared to the original design, it is four or five meters lower. Although according to the habits of the Haitang Army, the flight deck is still an armored deck with a weight of 4,000 tons, due to the reduction of the deck height, the ship's center of gravity as a whole still drops by nearly one meter, and the parameters such as roll and roll are more superior. According to the evaluation of the officers and men of the Haitang Navy, this aircraft carrier has been transformed, and its seaworthiness, sinking resistance, elastic resistance, and anti-torpedo (the battleship hull is originally torpedo-resistant) and other aspects of performance are comparable to that of the British's main aircraft carrier, the Glorious Class.

In later days, the aircraft carrier Pacific used to operate in the Atlantic. In the Atlantic, where the climate is harsh, it turns out that this aircraft carrier is no worse than the British aircraft carrier, and the protection is not bad at all.

Unlike the British Radiant-class aircraft carriers, the British Radial-class aircraft carriers have a standard displacement of more than 22,000 tons and are less than 30,000 tons at full load. The Pacific aircraft carrier has a standard displacement of more than 35,000 tons (3,000 tons less than the original Kaga) and a full load displacement of more than 42,000 tons.

Similarly, the hangars of both aircraft carriers can only accommodate thirty-six fighters. Of course, with the same 36 planes, the Naval Resistance Force is carrying twin-engine dive bombers with a full take-off weight of about 10 tons, and their combat effectiveness is not at all the same.

This SB2C dive bomber has a bomb load of two and a half times that of the original SBD dreadnought bomber of the US military. Thirty-six ammunition were delivered, and ninety SBDs were on top.

Originally, it was planned to deploy twenty-four escort fighters on the deck of the aircraft carrier. However, with the concerted efforts, the Haitang Army made bold changes to the deployment of carrier-based aircraft on the Pacific aircraft carrier. The USS Pacific does not carry fighter jets, hangars plus decks, and carries a total of forty-eight SB2C dive bombers.

This change made the Pacific aircraft carrier not only the largest in World War II (Japan's Shinano aircraft carrier was the largest, but it did not have a chance to appear.) ), and it is the aircraft carrier with the strongest sea-to-ground strike capabilities.

Of course, such a change makes it impossible for the Pacific aircraft carrier to fight independently, and must be formed with the Indian Ocean or other aircraft carriers. The Indian Ocean aircraft carrier has also made changes and no longer carries bombers, all F6F Hellcat fighters (in January, it also carried reconnaissance aircraft).

There are many reasons for this change. The most important thing is that an aircraft carrier has only one type of fighter, which is simple to maintain, simple to prepare bombs, simple to provide, and more professional ground crew. After testing, the take-off time for refueling and bombing of the fighters on the whole ship has been shortened to 30 minutes, which is half an hour less than the previous one.

Half an hour is enough time to decide the outcome of a war. In the Battle of Midway, the Japanese army took too long to refuel and hang up bombs, resulting in a crushing defeat. In addition, since the aircraft carrier can release fighters at the same time as landing fighters, the survivability increases dramatically.

After the previous stage of fighting, Li Guang discovered many problems with the Allied fleet. After consultation, Li Guangzhi's large circular battle formation was released.

The circular aircraft carrier formation adopted by the US military in the 21 st century has a diameter of 500 kilometers, or even thousands of kilometers. In this era, the diameter of the US military's annular aircraft carrier formation was only about 50 kilometers. In fact, the diameter of the large circular battle formation proposed by Li Guang is only 160 kilometers, which is far from being large. It's just that it's much larger than the U.S. military's existing ring array.

Due to the strength of the Allied fleet, this large ring formation did not meet Li Guang's expectations. However, the increase in combat power is real, and many drawbacks have been avoided.

The periphery of the large circular array is a triangular deployment of three fleet groups, and in the middle of each side of the triangle is a cruiser equipped with air-to-sea radar as a relay protection alert. And the center of the fleet is the US escort aircraft carrier group.

There were three fleet groups on the periphery, two of which were battleships and one was the 1st Task Force of the Haitang Army.

Originally, if it was ideal, it should have been the two main aircraft carriers of the Haitang Army in the middle. However, don't look at the fact that the US army has two battleship groups and six battleships, because of the pitiful slow speed and lack of mobility, if they are divided into three groups, once they meet the main battleships of the Japanese army, their strength will be too thin, and they don't know if they can carry the fighter reinforcements to arrive. Therefore, don't look at the Haitang Army, which only has one battleship, but it acts as a corner of the ring array.

Later, this large ring formation, also known as the triangle formation, is due to this.

Such a battle formation, with obvious advantages, protects the escort aircraft carriers with the weakest survivability. Moreover, the Haitang Army alone played a corner and acted as the main force of long-range strikes, and the US military was not dissatisfied.

One of the reasons for this adjustment is that there is indeed a gap in the quality of the US Seventh Fleet compared with that of the Third Fleet. In the past battle, there was a encounter with a Japanese warship, and the huge military force was unexpectedly disturbed by a few small warships of the Japanese army, and there was a thrilling scene of two battleships colliding in the middle. Suffice it to show that the US Seventh Fleet and the Grand Fleet are seriously lacking in training in formation. In this case, it should be said that it is better to separate the two battleship groups.

Li Guang and Kincaid also understand that the key to such a battle formation lies. In fact, in naval battles, these three horns are baiting each other, and of course, they are also helping each other. The weather conditions are good, and there is nothing wrong with such a battle formation. If the weather conditions are bad and the fighters cannot take off, then the fleet, regardless of the corner, is at risk. The biggest risk is that reinforcements from the other two corners of the fleet will have to be put in place. In this case, the First Task Force of the Haitang Army actually suffered a lot of losses because it had only one battleship (as for the specifics, Li Guang knew it in his heart).

After some deduction, the US escort aircraft carrier also made adjustments to the carrier-based aircraft. In addition to a group that served as an escort mission, six aircraft carriers were arranged with fighter and torpedo machines. In the other two groups, the aircraft carrier was all changed to a single fighter.

Each group has six escort aircraft carriers, one of which is on reconnaissance mission, and all are equipped with 20 PBY torpedo planes (without bombs and with auxiliary fuel tanks). Two deployed Wildcat fighters of twenty-four each, and three deployed PBY torpedo aircraft of twenty each.

As a result, after such a configuration, the 100 torpedo planes provided by the Haitang Army were not enough, and they had to finally deploy almost all the torpedo planes that Haitang could use to the US military. These torpedo planes were very popular with rookie pilots on US escort aircraft carriers, and they were easy enough to fly. And after improving the tactics, the survivability is also greatly improved.

Although the military also has intrigues, they are much more naïve than politicians. Improving combat effectiveness, improving survivability, and also increasing the hope of victory are the first priority for the soldiers of any country.

Although the allied officers at all levels inevitably said strange things about the series of adjustments made by Li Guang, the supporters accounted for the majority, after all, the advantages were real. Therefore, Li Guang's voice in the Allied forces was once again enhanced. (To be continued......)