Chapter 884: Yoshimura Ohno's Despair
readx; In fact, the operational plan for the sortie had already been finalized in the second half of the night, including the air command and the course of the formation, and so on, and they were waiting for the attack after dawn, and now it was only the final decision. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
With the order of Rear Admiral Zhao Zidong, the ships in the aircraft carrier formation began to change course to sail against the wind, and then the ships began to take off one after another with neat air groups, and the fighters first took off, followed by dive bombers or torpedo bombers.
The size of the first wave of aircraft sent out by the first wave of aircraft with sufficient time for preparation is very large, and in order not to delay time and for the convenience of command, this wave of aircraft is still divided into team A and team B, and the nearly 100 planes that take off first are flying towards the fleet directly under the fleet for team A, and at this time, the planes of team B are still taking off one after another, and they will form the remaining more than 100 formations after takeoff to attack.
After taking off these planes, the aircraft carrier formation changes its headwind state and changes its course to due east, and they need to keep a certain distance from the forward fleet to avoid being attacked by enemy surface ships too close!
At the same time, in the fleet directly under the Second Mobile Fleet, Vice Admiral Lu Jian had already begun to order the fleet to open up the combat distance with the First Guerrilla Formation, and at this time Lu Jian no longer had to entangle the enemy's First Guerrilla Formation, but wanted to give full play to his own long-range shooting level after opening the distance, and at the same time avoid being hit by the firepower of the First Guerrilla Formation.
Now that the sky is dark, Lieutenant General Lu Jian knows very well that victory is already beckoning to him, as long as he waits for the arrival of the attack aircraft group, then he will be able to completely establish the victory, and now he no longer needs to make indifferent sacrifices, sinking the enemy's warships, and bringing the Yandi and the Yellow Emperor back to China is his current expectation!
Now that he has lost a Shaohao, he doesn't want to let the Yandi or the Yellow Emperor suffer any losses at the last moment!
Although the Yandi and the Yellow Emperor are far less important in naval battles than those aircraft carriers, the symbolic significance of these two battleships is greater than that of their actual combat significance.
Even though naval warfare has now been dominated by aircraft carriers, the naval symbol in the hearts of the people is still the battleship!
The Yandi is the most intuitive feeling of the Chinese people for the navy, is their spiritual symbol, since the twenties for China's coastal defense everywhere and the Yandi class battleships are far more important in the hearts of the people than those aircraft carriers.
Even in the hearts of the people, the important surname and popularity of the Shaohao are much greater than those aircraft carriers, and now after the sinking of the Shaohao, Lu Jian still doesn't know how to explain it to the domestic people.
Since the 20s, although the strategic focus of the Chinese Navy has gradually shifted to aircraft carriers, the Chinese Navy has rarely carried out any propaganda activities on aircraft carriers for the sake of some military secrecy, and the Qingshan-class aircraft carriers built in World War II have also been kept secret, not to mention that the Tianshan-class armored aircraft carrier, the world's largest warship with the largest displacement, is even more of a top secret in the Chinese Navy, and most Chinese people do not even know that the Chinese Navy also has two Tianshan-class aircraft carriers with a combat displacement of more than 60,000 tons.
The most familiar to the domestic public are still the four old battleships, and the second is the Shaohao.
Lieutenant General Lu Jian distanced himself in order to avoid losses, but Yoshimura Ohno tightened his teeth and advanced instead of retreating, and even pursued him!
Because he knew that it was dawn, and it would not be long before the bombers of the Chinese Navy would arrive, and once the enemy's bombers arrived, his fleet would be doomed, and he would have to fight for the final result before that!
He was bent on sinking a battleship of the Chinese Navy!
The two-ship formation of the Shinano and the Haruna braved the fire of the Chinese Navy and rushed straight for them, and at this time they were also as damaged as the Yandi or Huangdi of the Chinese Navy, and there were traces of the explosion everywhere, but the nine main guns on the Shinano continued to fire!
Since the start of the war, the capital ships of the two sides have continued to fight for up to ten hours, although everyone's main guns are not constantly firing, but stopping and stopping, but until now, the two sides have also fired shells, and the Yandi that fired the most shells even fired more than 800 sixteen-inch main gun shells, most of which were 1,200 kilograms of super-heavy armor-piercing shells, a small number of high-explosive shells, and the number of shells in reserve for the main guns of the Yandi was only more than 900 rounds.
The combined number of shells fired by the capital ships of both sides was more than 2,500 rounds for 16 inches, several hundred rounds for 14 inches, and more than 1,500 rounds for 12 inches.
So many large-caliber shells were fired out almost overnight, and water columns were lifted around the ships of both sides.
And up to now, there are actually not many shells on both sides, and the armor-piercing shells of each main gun on the Yandi are less than ten rounds, basically after this naval battle, the Yandi no longer has combat effectiveness, and must return to China for rest, on the one hand, it needs to be repaired, and at the same time, it is also necessary to replenish and replace the No. 2 turret, and the main gun barrels of other turrets must also be replaced because of their life.
But as long as it does not sink, then it is a victory, and after a period of maintenance, the Yandi will be able to rejuvenate and participate in the war again!
It's also unfortunate to say that in the Yandi several combat records, almost every time it was hit hard, in 1923, in 1931, and now.
At 6:40 a.m., after a long period of formation and cruising flights, the first wave of Team A arrived in the skies above the two sides!
Yoshimura Ohno was already desperate when he looked at the dense planes over the fleet, and in the last more than an hour of pursuit, although the Shinano hit the Yellow Emperor again, it still failed to sink the heavily damaged Yellow Emperor. By now, his fleet could no longer attack!
Although he was already determined to die, Yoshimura Ohno still knew that it was impossible to do anything, and when he ordered an air defense operation, he also ordered to turn northward, shoot down as many enemy planes as he could, and go back as much as he could!
What followed was a one-sided massacre, in the face of the air raids of the Chinese carrier-based air forces, although the First Guerrilla Formation desperately resisted, and was supported by dozens of planes from the Second Air Fleet on the way, but it still could not change its tragic fate.
At 7:05 a.m., the Shinano was attacked by up to five torpedoes in the front and rear, more than 10 16-inch shells, and many aerial bombs were hit.
Thirty minutes later, at 7:35 a.m., the port side of the Shinano capsized badly and could not maintain its balance, and finally slowly capsized, and by this generation of famous ships, the Yamato-class battleships claimed to be the most powerful in World War II, two had sunk, and only one Musashi remained.
Although the Haruna of the First Guerrilla Formation passed the air attack of the first attack group, it finally failed to escape the fate of sinking at 9:40 a.m. under the air attack of the second wave of attack aircraft of the aircraft carrier group of the Second Mobile Fleet of China. Its fragile protection simply could not withstand the hits of multiple torpedoes and aerial bombs, and after struggling on the surface for thirty minutes, it was sunk by firing multiple torpedoes from its own destroyer.
Many of the light ships of the 1st Guerrilla Formation fled at high speed after rescuing the crew members who had fallen into the water, and many were sunk on the way, and by the time the two sides were out of battle at noon, the 1st Guerrilla Formation, led by Vice Admiral Yoshimura Ohno, had escaped back with only one heavy cruiser, the Chikuma, and four destroyers.
All the others are sinking!
Standing on the scarred Emperor Yan, Lieutenant General Lu Jian looked at the sky where the sun was already high, and the joy on his face was something that anyone around him could see, he had won this battle!
How many admirals have been able to command such a large-scale naval battle and win from ancient times to the present day? Lu Jian asked himself that no one else could compare to him, as if he had seen the rank of marshal beckoning to him, as if he had seen him being treated like a hero when he returned home!
At 12:40 p.m., Vice Admiral Lu Jian ordered the fleet under his command to retreat to the south, ordered the 24th Squadron to break off the rear cover, ordered the 25th Squadron to cruise to the west to cover, and the three detachments would converge with the 21st and 22nd fleets. At the same time, the 23rd Squadron had been rushing from the northeast hundreds of nautical miles away since yesterday, and although it was not able to arrive in time to join the battle, it joined up with the fleet directly under the Second Mobile Fleet at about 2 p.m. and provided the fleet with air defense cover and aerial reconnaissance.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, the Second Mobile Fleet completed its assembly, and the five sub-fleets and the directly subordinate fleet returned to Taiwan in a mighty manner!
At this time, several US submarines in the vicinity of the sea area where the two sides were engaged also surfaced one after another, and they all rushed to reconnoiter one after another after receiving a large-scale engagement between the Chinese and Chinese navies in this sea area, and at this time, these US submarines had already informed the superior fleet of all the information they could get, and what kind of shock the specific situation of the naval battle between China and China that the two countries would bring to the US Navy as shown in the intelligence would be a matter of later.
Now, in the war conference room of the Nanjing Presidential Palace, Chen Jingyun looked at the battle report sent by Lu Jian in his hand, although he had tried his best to suppress the excitement in his heart, his face was already full of joy: "Okay! Good! Good! ”
After three days in a row, Chen Jingyun couldn't help but look at the battle report again: "Sink four enemy aircraft carriers and severely damage three." Sinking five enemy battleships and severely damaging two, such a result is not enough to show military might! ”
Although the data reported by Lieutenant General Lu Jian is somewhat different from the actual situation, it is difficult to get accurate results in these years, and the approximate data can only be used and exaggerated, but it is almost the same as the actual situation.
Chen Jingyun didn't care whether Vice Admiral Lu Jian sank four aircraft carriers or three, this is almost the same data for him, the important thing is that Marshal Guan Shijie and Admiral Jin Hongye both assured him with joy: After this battle, our navy will be invincible!