The needs of the escort fleet are far from being needed by the United States on a single route, and in three to five days, a fleet of the Naval Resistance Force was dismantled. It seems to be a powerful force, but it is extremely thin.

At this time, the Maritime Resistance Army ordered several warships at the Oolong Shipyard, and basically all of them had been delivered, or were still on the way to be delivered.

Taking stock of the existing surface warships of the Maritime Resistance Force, there are more than 20 of them, which is two times the number compared with last year. But it's still not enough.

Li Guang's use of warships was completely calculated, and even the two French warships captured in Madagascar were planned. Even if one of the French cruisers was still on the beach at the moment, the other destroyer was simply able to sail.

The escort mission of the four routes occupied more than 10 ships of the Maritime Resistance Army.

The Naval Resistance Army, which escorted the US Pacific route, sent three Baxia-class anti-aircraft and anti-submarine destroyers.

To escort the convoy of the port of Tang to Madagascar, the Maritime Resistance Forces allocated a Tengu-class destroyer and two torpedo boats.

In the waters off Vladivostok in Madagascar, a submarine of unknown nationality was found here, so three Jairus-class torpedo boats had to be assigned to the anti-submarine mission again.

Due to the early appearance of Japanese submarines in the Indian Ocean, in order to ensure the smooth evacuation of the Chinese from Southeast Asia, the Naval Resistance Force sent six destroyers or torpedo boats.

In this way, the fleet of the Maritime Resistance Army left only eight main warships as mobile combat forces. And even then, there is no absolute guarantee of safety on all four routes.

Dealing with submarines is definitely not simple, think of the hundreds of powerful warships of the British Empire being confused by hundreds of German submarines. Although the Maritime Resistance Force has some means to deal with submarines, the size of the fleet is still difficult to meet the needs of escort ships.

According to the estimation of the General Staff of the Maritime Resistance Army, if the Japanese army dispatches a submarine, the Maritime Resistance Army needs a warship to escort it. Even so, the safety of the route cannot be guaranteed.

Japanese Army, German Army. Italian troops, and even French troops. How many submarines these countries will send in the Indian Ocean is impossible to estimate at all.

Among the means used by the Maritime Resistance Force to deal with submarines, its own submarine force is also an effective force. However, after a long period of exploration, the effectiveness of submarines against submarines is not as good as that of surface ships equipped with well-equipped sonar systems. In terms of combat effectiveness, Li Guang will not use his most powerful submarine force in escort service.

Since the outbreak of the Pearl Harbor incident, the submarine force of the Maritime Resistance Army, three submarine fleets, have attacked from all sides. By the end of January, the number of submarine submarines lurking in the Pacific Ocean had reached 16. In just over a month, these 16 submarines have sunk 150,000 tons of Japanese merchant warships. On average, the tonnage of sinking of each submarine reached almost 10,000 tons. As the war deepens, it is definitely not difficult for the submarine combat level of the Maritime Resistance Force to reach a sinking capacity of 10,000 tons per ship per month.

Weighing the pros and cons, even though the main fleet of the Naval Resistance Army only had eight warships, Li Guang still insisted on no longer using submarines to escort the convoy. The operation of the submarine force is a powerful containment of the Japanese army. The main thing was the depletion of Japan's war potential. This is the strategic focus of the Naval Resistance Army, and Li Guang is very clear about this.

The war situation in the Malay Peninsula is becoming more and more dangerous. At the request of Lieutenant Commander Smith of the British Naval Liaison Group. The naval resistance fleet had to be split again. The Liberty Dragon aircraft carrier formation was separated to participate in the operation against Japan.

The British troops in Malaya and Singapore were quite numerous, originally more than 80,000 men, and the British continued to increase their troops, and according to Li Guang's knowledge, their increase in troops would reach 45,000. There were 130,000 or 40,000 troops. The British batteries in Singapore were even more formidable. The shore artillery it defended against was currently the largest caliber shore artillery group in the world, and its huge muzzle was 15 inches.

But this powerful artillery, lost in the Air Force. Without the navy, it is useless to follow the enemy on the back.

Like the Navy's twelve-inch fortified guns against the French port of Vladivostok in Madagascar, these shore guns simply could not see their backs. The Naval Resistance Army can come up with a way to deal with this giant shore artillery, so the army of the little devil is also experienced in a hundred battles. Definitely going to figure it out.

In this sense, the British fortress guns in Singapore were inferior to the two shore guns equipped in Tang Harbor. ALTHOUGH THE TWO SHORE GUNS EQUIPPED WITH TANG GANG WERE 356MM IN CALIBER, WHICH WAS NOT AS GOOD AS THE FIFTEEN INCHES OF THE BRITISH ARMY, THEY WERE DISMANTLED FROM THE BATTLESHIP PACIFIC AND WERE MODIFIED TO HAVE A 360-DEGREE STEERING CAPABILITY.

The Japanese offensive continued, and the commander of the Japanese army, Lieutenant General Yamashita Fumi, who commanded the Malayan campaign, made excellent use of bicycles to strengthen the Japanese army's mobility. Never underestimate the simple tool of the bicycle, which is no less useful than armored forces in the rainforest environment of the Malay Peninsula.

The Japanese army interspersed again and again, and the British army retreated again and again.

The British have always looked down on Asians, and they have not realized the strong combat effectiveness of the Japanese army. At the moment, he is still dreaming of trying to defend Malaya.

The situation on the Malayan Peninsula was not only unfavorable to the British troops, but also extremely unfavorable to the evacuation of the Chinese. It was under these circumstances that Li Guang agreed to Lieutenant Colonel Smith's request: the Naval Resistance Army dispatched the aircraft carrier Liberty Dragon to help the British army fight, and the British army promised to reinforce the Malayan fleet and bring the emigrant overseas Chinese with them when they returned. This kind of cooperation, both sides take what they need, and both are happy. And in fact, the naval resistance army is more generous, and it pays more than the British side. Lieutenant Colonel Smith's diplomatic activities have been fruitful, and his voice within the British army has increased a lot.

The longer he came into contact with the British naval officer, the more Li Guang discovered that Smith had changed extremely quickly. This guy is definitely not a military man, although his tactical literacy is not low, this Lieutenant Colonel Smith is actually more suitable for being a politician. Li Guang's level of people is still not as good as that of Mr. Yuan Ye, this Lieutenant Colonel Smith during his time in Tanggang, the most contact was not with the military, but with the National Development and Reform Commission. Lieutenant Colonel Smith is often invited by the NDRC to give a presentation or hold a discussion.

This was obviously deliberately instructed by Professor Yuan Ye, and Li Guang inquired privately when he had nothing to do, only to know that this little lieutenant colonel was not so simple. He studied at the prestigious Eton College in England. Just such a small piece of information has revealed the extraordinary thing about Smith, this guy is an English aristocrat. In a country like England, the title of nobility is the only way to be eligible for a rise in the government or the military. The more prominent Smith's diplomacy is, the more upside there is. Li Guang estimated that Professor Yuan had plans to cast a long line to catch big fish.

The harmonious cooperation between the two sides has no priority or priority.

Times have changed, and the Naval Resistance Force is a force completely independent of the British Navy. The British Empire has now discovered that the Naval Resistance Army is no longer a dough, nor is it a wage earner.

Not only that, but at this moment, the Maritime Resistance Army has a tendency to develop towards fragrant gluttony, and the Americans have also shown their co-optation. The United States has been in the war for more than two months, and the only fighter that has received foreign aid is the Haitang Kingdom, and Britain and the Soviet Union have not been able to get a single American fighter plane in these two months, and the Americans themselves are not enough.

The British were bent on tying the Naval Resistance Army to their chariots. But Professor Yuan's level of negotiation is even higher. Tiering the Maritime Resistance Army to the British broken battleship is completely inconsistent with the interests of the Haitang Kingdom. For the Haitang Kingdom, the ideal is to fight independently, and if it is a last resort, the Maritime Resistance Army is tied to the American warships, which can be regarded as a sub-optimal choice.

Now Professor Yuan is in the United States, fighting for American aid while fighting with Britain and the United States, and the core of the dispute is which theater of war the Haitang Kingdom will belong to.

The Allies at this moment established the Chinese theater of operations, the Pacific theater of operations, the Southeast Asian theater of operations. The alternative existence of the Haitang Kingdom, the division of belonging has become a problem.

First of all, if the Naval Resistance Force is divided into the Chinese theater, it is obviously not very suitable, because the Chinese army does not have a navy at all at this time, and it will not play a role in being under the command of the Chinese theater. But this is what the Navy's resistance forces are most looking forward to.

In the Southeast Asian theater, the Far East Fleet of the British Empire has been crippled, and although Britain is deploying troops and sending more warships, the current naval resistance force is the most powerful fleet in the Indian Ocean. If the Naval Resistance Army was asked to obey the command of the British Army and work for the British Army, Professor Yuan would not agree to it under any circumstances.

However, the base of the Maritime Resistance Army is in Ceylon, in the waters of the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean has always been considered the British sphere of influence, one is that it is still on the second line of the war, and the other is that Britain has not planned to give up Singapore at this time.

So at this time in the Indian Ocean, although the British army had the Indian Ocean Fleet (part of the remnants of the Far East Fleet), it did not have an Allied command. That is, the British armed forces in the Indian Ocean were not included in the Allied command. Of course, the British were not willing to bring the British Navy under the unified command of the Allied forces, and at this time the British were still dreaming, and they did not want the Americans to enter this sea area. Once the Americans enter, then it is not so easy to say whose Indian Ocean owns. It's strange that the British are so careful.

This is the case in the Indian Ocean.

At present, Professor Yuan is still in the United States and has a verbal war with diplomats from several countries. Until the outcome of the debate was reached, there was a loose cooperative relationship between the Naval Resistance Force and the British.

On 1 February, the USS Liberty Dragon led two Tengu destroyers and two Haji-class air defense destroyers into the Andaman Sea. While looking for fighters, escort the Chinese fleet that is being transferred. The Tang Harbor Naval Resistance Force left only one Atlantic battleship and two Pickup-class air defense destroyers as mobile combat forces.

The cooperation between the UK and Haitang is going smoothly, and both sides are satisfied. The British thought that they had tied Haitang to their chariot again, and the immigration speed of Haitang had also increased a lot. And the British did not raise any protest against the attack on Madagascar by the Haitang Kingdom, and they were all happy. (To be continued......)