On the afternoon of 7 July, the US fleet again ushered in a wave of strikes. This time, the Japanese army had less than 80 fighters, but it inflicted even more serious damage on the US military.

A regular aircraft carrier suffered heavy losses, and a heavy cruiser sank.

The U.S. military finally survived until dark, and the sheer beating made the morale of the U.S. military low. Vice Admiral Spruance wanted to repeat his old tricks, and the night fleet moved east.

But Ozawa Seizaburo was also ruthless -- in the evening, two Japanese battleships led the convoy, more than a dozen escort destroyers, and thirty or forty torpedo boats, which appeared more than 400 kilometers west of Saipan.

It is very obvious that the Japanese army did not hide their whereabouts at all, but went straight to Saipan in a big way.

The U.S. military will use decoys, and so will the Japanese military.

Ozawa Sezaburo used a yang strategy this time, and the US military could not accept it. This fleet, if it sailed at a speed of twenty-three knots, would be able to shell Saipan in less than ten hours, that is, in the early hours of the morning.

Of course, once dawn, this fleet will definitely be a dish in the bowl of the US aircraft carrier.

But in the middle hours, it was enough for the Japanese battleships to beat the U.S. Army on Saipan severely.

I can't afford to hurt, I can't afford to hurt. The U.S. Army itself has suffered heavy casualties, and if it is given such an old punch again, I am afraid that it will collapse on the spot. The power of the battleship shelling was seen and experienced by the American military. Spruance would never dare to take such a risk.

Of course, there is another way, that is, the US military sent battleships to intercept the Japanese army. Spruance is still quite confident in this, although the night battle aircraft carrier fighters cannot be dispatched, but after all, the US army still has five battleships, and two against the devils, the victory rate is extremely high.

But what happens next?

American battleships intercept the Japanese fleet. The most optimistic scenario is nothing more than a smooth takeout of the Japanese fleet.

And then what?

It is clear that the American fleet is still being towed near Saipan. The rest is still the same situation as the passive beating during the day on the 7th.

The starting point is back to the end.

Spruance discovered that the battle plan formulated by Ozawa Sezaburo was interlocking, and it was a dead knot that could not be untied.

In naval tactics, the use of decoys is widespread. But Ozawa Seisaburo took out two battleships, although the two oldest ones were unusually generous. This was a tactic that Ozawa Seizaburo was able to implement after seeking the support of General Yamamoto's fifty-six generals. Otherwise, with Japan's poverty, Lieutenant General Ozawa Ichisuke would not be qualified to adopt such a "deep pocket" tactic at all.

Night. In the waters west of Saipan there was a confrontation between battleships. The scene was grandiose, and both sides suffered heavy losses.

The Americans sank two Japanese battleships and more than a dozen other ships at the cost of one battleship seriously damaged, two battleships lightly damaged, and one cruiser sunk. However, several Japanese destroyer gunboats that had slipped through the net approached Saipan. The bombardment was indiscriminate, causing serious injuries to the US soldiers. These devils are acting insanely. Outflanked by American warships. He did not fight back at all, but fired at Saipan with all his strength until the battle sank.

In this way, in the early morning of the 8th, the US Navy was still pinned down in the waters off Saipan.

Spruance had a bit of a headache.

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The rich man and the beggar think differently. Lieutenant General Spruance was a passive headache in the battle situation, but he didn't know the pain of Sezaburo Ozawa, who had the initiative on the battlefield.

The U.S. military lost about sixty or seventy warplanes. But most of the fighters were wildcats on escort carriers, and F4U, F6F fighters on regular aircraft carriers were lost. The elite pilots of the US military have achieved brilliant results in battle, and there are many victories. There were even several ace pilots who emerged.

It seems that the losses of the US warships are somewhat heavy, but in fact the combat effectiveness has not been greatly weakened. Even if a regular aircraft carrier was heavily damaged and withdrew from the battle, the number of fighters did not decrease too much, and remained above 300. (There are about 200 escort aircraft carriers, and the US military has not calculated them at all, and it can be seen that they have a lot of money.) ）

On the other hand, the Japanese army launched three waves of strikes in one day. Ozawa Seisaburo dispatched a total of more than 400 fighters, but the losses were a bit excessive.

There were too many rookies in the Japanese pilots.

First of all, most of the pilots of kamikaze special attack fighters, which are cannon fodder, have only a few dozen hours of flying experience, and it is not surprising that they have lost thousands of kilometers of long-distance flights. As a result, of the more than eighty kamikaze special attacks sent by Ozawa Sezaburo, only thirty or forty flew to the battlefield, and the rest were nowhere to be found.

The pilots of the land-based fighters of the naval aviation that carry out shuttle bombing are relatively good, but most of them have about 200 hours of flight experience, and only about 150 of the 200 fighters can fly to the battlefield. Half of them were shot down, and the other half was forced to land on a nearby island. However, it was able to land, but it could not take off again, and the airport had already been bombed into a mess by "industrious" US fighters.

The fighters on the Japanese aircraft carriers had the best quality pilots. But the Japanese army at this time was no longer what it used to be. At the beginning of the Pacific War, without a thousand hours of flying experience, pilots were simply not qualified to go on ships. Now, most of the Japanese pilots had just over two hundred hours of flying experience, which was enough to land on an aircraft carrier. It is better than the kamikaze cannon fodder of the surprise attack on the Panama Canal and the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, which can only take off on an aircraft carrier and not even learn how to land.

Ninety percent of these carrier-based planes were able to find the battlefield, and forty percent of them were shot down by American ghosts, and then lost one percent on the return voyage and some when landing. Of the more than 150 fighters that finally sorted, less than 30 returned to the aircraft carrier.

In this way, the more than 700 fighters prepared by the Japanese army lost 400 in one day. And at least two hundred to two hundred and fifty of them are non-combat losses.

Sezaburo Ozawa seems to have a toothache. Calculating the strength at hand, he also has more than 30 kamikaze special attack fighters and more than 50 shuttle bombing fighters. There are more than 180 aircraft carriers on seven aircraft carriers (very pitiful, seven aircraft carriers, that's it. ）。

A toothache is a toothache. Despite the loss of so many fighters, the Japanese army was completely victorious in this day, after all, their own battleships were unharmed.

Take it when you see it?

No, Sezaburo Ozawa didn't want to retreat in the slightest.

The goal of the Japanese army in this battle was to inflict heavy losses on the American army, not a small victory. In addition, the reports of the rookie pilots of the Japanese army are varied, and according to random statistics, the US military has lost seven or eight aircraft carriers and three or four battleships. It was not that the Japanese pilots deliberately falsely reported the results of the battle, but in the chaotic battle, the devils could not figure out the real results at all, and under a certain vain mentality, the results were naturally injected into the glorious direction.

Therefore, the decoy fleet that Ozawa had prepared long ago rushed to Saipan according to the plan, and the battle continued.

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The US and Japanese armies had been fighting for a day and a night, and only then did the Naval Resistance Force really cross into the Pacific Ocean.

After crossing into the Pacific Ocean, the Naval Resistance Fleet was unusual, not as cautious as in the Banda Sea, but at high speed.

It's not that Li Guang is eager to fight to the death with the Japanese army. Once the Maritime Resistance Force reaches the current sea area, from the perspective of security, the Naval Resistance Fleet will also have to soar at high speed. The higher the speed, the less likely the fleet is to be spotted and the security increases.

Early morning of the 8th. The naval resistance fleet was 700 kilometers from the Palau Islands, where the Japanese were entrenched, and 2,200 kilometers from Saipan.

The pre-selected route of the Naval Resistance Force was to pass between the Palau Islands and the Philippines, an area where the Japanese army was heavily concentrated, and the air power should not be weak. However, the sea area here is wide, seven or eight hundred kilometers wide, and the danger factor is not higher than that of the Banda Sea.

Several battles have been fought, and a Japanese fleet has been wiped out, and it is no longer a matter of surprise, there are definitely Japanese troops who are paying attention here. I want to pass quietly, and I am a little delusional. As a result, the Naval Resistance Force flew half of the fighters of the Indian Ocean in the early hours of the morning and flew directly to the main island of the Palau archipelago, where there was a Japanese airfield.

Being in the central sea area where the Japanese army was entrenched, there was no complete solution. The reason why they chose to attack the Palau Islands is that there are many airfields in the direction of the Philippines, and the hundreds or so fighters of the naval resistance army cannot take care of it at all, and it is better to eliminate the threat from one direction than to be attacked from both sides. Second, Li Guang intuitively felt that the Japanese fleet was hidden here before, and he couldn't say that the logistics of the Japanese army were also here. (To be continued......)