Leaving aside the allusion to picking up soap, after making all the preparations, Nagumo Tadaichi commanded the combined fleet and sailed towards Hawaii.

The formation, consisting of 6 aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, 3 cruisers and 9 destroyers, set sail from the Kuril Islands to the east.

In order to increase concealment as much as possible, Yamamoto chose the northern route, which was windy in winter and had few ships, and adopted concealment methods such as radio silence.

On the flagship of the aircraft carrier fleet, the Akagi, Vice Admiral Tadaichi Nagumo was sitting on the bridge watching the sunrise over the sea.

It may be a little different from what many people in later generations think, indeed, Yamamoto Isoroku was indeed the planner and commander of the "air attack on Pearl Harbor", but the real implementer was actually Nagumo Tadaichi, and Yamamoto Isoroku was actually not acting with the fleet―――――― at that time, Yamamoto Isoroku and his flagship "Nagato" battleship were actually at the anchorage of Seto Inland Sea Pillar Island on the mainland...

"Is the rise and fall of the empire in this battle..."

Looking at the sunrise over the sea, Nagumo sighed.

No one knew that Nagumo Tadaichi, as the commander of the aircraft carrier fleet, was actually an expert in torpedo warfare, so he actually obeyed the staff officers many times.

In fact, like Yamamoto Isorochi, Nagumo Tadaichi was also a general who opposed a war with the United States, because just like Yamamoto Isoroku, Nagumo Tadaichi was also well aware of the huge war potential of the United States.

And, unlike many of his compatriots, Nagumo, like Yamamoto and others, sees China as a threat rather than a partner in the revitalization of "East Asian civilization," let alone trust.

Just as an admiral. In the end, Nagumo had to obey orders and was ordered to command this huge expeditionary fleet.

Although Yamamoto was a strategic decision-maker, Nagumo Tadaichi's performance as a front-line commander directly affected the outcome of the battle. And as a fierce opponent of this operation, the reason why Nagumo was appointed commander was because of his strengths.

That's right. Nagumo was indeed born in the torpedo department, but mine warfare experts are experts in navigation, and when everyone had a headache about how to secretly sail 3,000 nautical miles, Nagumo said that everyone should not worry about navigation.

"As long as you can fly, drop bombs, and blow up American ships, I will definitely be able to take you to the place you have designated."

The outbreak of Pearl Harbor in history also proves that Nagumo did just that.

"Your Excellency Nagumo. The sea breeze is so strong, do you want to go back and rest first? ”

Just as Nagumo Tadaichi was sitting there watching the sunrise over the sea, the captain of the "Akagi", Kiichi Hasegawa, stood up, and when he said this, Kiichi Hasegawa's face was somewhat worried.

And no wonder. After all, Nagumo Tadaichi is already in his fifties, although as a naval admiral Nagumo is also used to life at sea, but after all, it is still early, low temperature and sea breeze or something...

You know, they're on their way to attack the Americans, thousands of kilometers along the way. If the commander of Nagumo Tadaichi on the peninsula is sick or even hangs, then the excitement will be big...

In fact, Nagumo Tadaichi's body bones may be better than Hasegawa Kiichi imagined, but now Nagumo Tadaichi is under great pressure in his heart, so it is not impossible that a situation like Hasegawa Kiichi is worried about will appear.

Just when Hasegawa Kiichi was thinking about how to persuade Nagumo Tadaichi to go back first. At least wait until the climate is a little warmer When it came out, Nagumo Tadaichi, who was sitting there, spoke.

"Hasegawa-kun. What do you think the Chinese are doing now? ”

What are you doing? Naturally, they are watching this fleet...

Maybe Tadaichi Nagumo and Kiichi Hasegawa don't know at all. Although their actions were considered secretive, they had been under the surveillance of the national government from the beginning of the project...... ――――――――――――――――――――

"It's a huge fleet..."

Just more than 100 kilometers away, a radar soldier was smiling at his companions while staring at the information transmitted on the monitor.

When the companion next to him heard his words, although he also nodded, he said disdainfully.

"Not bad, but it's far from our ocean fleet..."

Although Yan Guang was only a half-baked military fan in later generations, the importance of engines and radar and other technologies was well known even to Yan Guang.

Therefore, after the radar technology was developed, Yan Guang has been investing heavily in this area.

Although China could not become the first country to invent radar due to time, due to Yan Guang's attention to this aspect, China has always been ahead of other countries in the research and application of radar.

It is not only the radar stations that have been set up at some important border gates, ports and coasts, but even the larger warships have set up new types of shipborne radars.

Emphasis is placed on radar, a new type of equipment, from top to bottom, because after being equipped with radar, the advantages displayed in various exercises can be seen and felt.

Therefore, when the radar can be reduced to a certain extent with the advancement of technology, Yan Guang's suggestion of "installing the radar on the aircraft" was quickly responded to by the Ministry of Defense, after all, if the radar can be installed on the aircraft, it is not only the navy that will enjoy the benefits in the end...

After all, the size of the radar at this time is not small, since it is used as an "early warning aircraft", then the size and range of the carrier aircraft are naturally as large as possible, and there are only a handful of suitable carrier aircraft in the Air Force at that time ...

The real problem is the model of the radar, although China has been at the forefront of the international radar field, but after all, the radar belongs to the relatively new technology, the practical application of the radar is a recent thing, and the vast majority of the models of radar are very large, only suitable for installation on a large enough warship, want to choose a radar to install on the aircraft, even the largest aircraft of the Air Force is also a difficult thing...

It is not for nothing that the radar that meets the conditions and is small enough in size, the problem is that the radar power of these models is insufficient. In terms of performance, it does not meet the requirements of the Navy and the Air Force. And the performance is sufficient, but it can't be used by the aircraft because of the volume...

In the end, there was no way, and the Ministry of Defense could only let the people below install and test the advanced radar, and at the same time allocate funds to research new radars.

Since it will take a while for the new radar to come out. Therefore, the Ministry of Defense did not use the existing model as a radar carrier aircraft as originally planned, but chose a new four-engine large bomber that the Air Force is testing and flying.

With a range of more than 6,000 kilometers, a huge take-off weight, and a new bomber similar to the B29 in terms of performance, it is definitely the most suitable carrier aircraft option in the eyes of the Air Force.

After all, the radar of this period, if you want to have the right performance, the size is absolutely small, so the most suitable is only the new model of bomber...

Although the H40 existed as a bomber. At the beginning of the design, the problem of carrying radar as an "early warning aircraft" was not considered, but fortunately, the aircraft in this era were not as elaborate as those of later generations, and a slight change required to blow one or two thousand times in the wind tunnel, and there was no more suitable model for the Air Force at that time.

After all, a range like the H40 is more than 6000 km. It's hard to find an aircraft with 16 hours in the air, especially if you don't need to carry heavy bombs, and the extra space can always be loaded with more fuel, so that the H40 can reach a longer range, not to mention that it will take at least a year or two to redesign a special model. There is also not enough time. …,

In addition, for the first time, the H40 uses a pressurized cabin, so the crew does not have to wear oxygen masks and endure severe cold for a long time. However, as a bomber, not the entire fuselage of the H40 is pressurized, and the bombing bay is not pressurized because it can be opened in the air. Only the cab at the bow and the gunner at the rear of the aircraft are pressurized, and the two are connected by a small tunnel.

At the same time, it is considered that people have three urgency. It's impossible for someone to fly in the sky for more than ten hours without hurrying, so on the H40 there is even a rudimentary toilet ...

Since the prototype of the H40 began to fly very early. So the real question is when the radar will come out, but fortunately, the technology in this area has been advancing rapidly. So by the time of the Soviet-German war, there were already at least 10 YJ40 aircraft in service in the Wehrmacht.

These ten AWACS aircraft are mainly used in South Russia and Vladivostok and other regions to monitor the movements of Russians and Japanese, but because the level of secrecy of YJ40 and Limbo-class aircraft carriers is the same, not many people know about it.

YJ40 is equipped with an early warning radar using S-band, with a peak power of up to 0.8~1kW, an antenna diameter of 2.4 meters, and a weight of 318 kg, which is the largest airborne radar at that time, and its detection distance for low-altitude aircraft targets is more than 100 kilometers, and it can reach 320 kilometers for large ships on the sea surface.

However, in a strict sense, the YJ40 can only be regarded as an aerial radar warning aircraft, which can only carry one pilot and one radar operator, and does not have any command and control capabilities, because it can only be transmitted to the intelligence processing center of the surface warship through the data link of the UHF band, and then the command staff on the ship can read the radar data and guide the aircraft to intercept the target.

But even so, after equipping the YJ40, the Defense Navy and Air Force still have a great advantage in intelligence.

It was as if now, after getting the exact time and place of the Combined Fleet's departure, the three YJ40s had already departed from the air base in Vladivostok, trying to completely monitor the movements of Nagumo Tadashi and his party.

In fact, they did, and although the performance of the YJ40 is still far from perfect, it is enough to monitor the combined fleet. And when monitoring the Combined Fleet from a distance of more than 100 kilometers, Nagumo Zhongyi and the others on the Combined Fleet didn't even feel it at all, and they didn't expect that their every move had been noticed by Yan Guang and the others...

In fact, the radar on the YJ40 is not very reliable, at least in the case of bad weather, the radar carried by the YJ40 will also have some errors. However, the size of the combined fleet of the Japanese was too large, especially two battleships and six aircraft carriers, and it was not easy for the operators of the AWACS aircraft to lose their eyes even if they wanted to lose their eyes ...

――――――――――――――――――――

"It was a wise decision to choose to develop an AWACS aircraft in the first place!"

Although the performance of YJ40 is not up to the level of early warning aircraft in later generations, it is the first radar alert aircraft of this era. There is nothing wrong with calling the YJ40 an AWACS aircraft, not to mention that the YJ40 has indeed played its due role...

"Indeed..."

Hearing Yan Guang say this, Cai Ye nodded in agreement.

Although in history Cai Ye died young very early, due to this era. Cai Ye was not misdiagnosed by German quacks, so he lived to the present day smoothly, and at the same time, even tuberculosis was much better. (It was the German quack doctor who diagnosed tuberculosis as syphilis and then treated Cai Ye with the method of dealing with syphilis, without him, Cai Ye might have lived until 1949, and it is not impossible to live until 1970, after all, Cai Ye was born in 1882 and was only 33 years old when he died in 1916.) And only 4 years older than Zhu De... ）

Looking at some staff officers on the map, plotting various data of the Combined Fleet there according to the information transmitted by the AWACS aircraft, Sa Zhenbing suddenly had some hot eyes.

"President, when will the carrier-based AWACS aircraft be able ..."...,

More than 100 kilometers away. It will be able to closely monitor the movements of a fleet, which is undoubtedly a sharp weapon for the navy.

However, one of the more important issues is that AWACS aircraft have a limited range.

Although it is no problem for AWACS aircraft to have a range of five or six thousand kilometers, after all, it is a whole course and not a combat radius, and in fact it is now closely following the AWACS aircraft of the United Fleet. At most, you can only track half a way...

Unlike in the past, the Ocean Fleet has become the standard global fleet, although it rarely leaves East Asian seas because of its main adversaries being Japan and the United States. But that doesn't mean he won't leave.

If one day, the Ocean Fleet is going to be with the Americans in the Pacific Ocean. In the event of a war with the Japanese in Oceania, then the presence of carrier-based AWACS aircraft can give the Ocean Fleet a great advantage. At least the advantage of the first enemy to find out ...

In fact, there were many reasons why Japan would lose the Battle of Midway, but one of the more important reasons was radar, wasn't it...

On the contrary, if AWACS aircraft can be deployed on aircraft carriers, although AWACS aircraft in this period can only be called "radar warning aircraft", as long as they can detect the enemy and relay the enemy's traces to the commander of the fleet...

But...

"It's a bit of a problem..."

Yan Guang touched his chin.

"In fact, several subordinate airlines began to develop carrier-based early warning aircraft very early, and you also know this. It's just that the aircraft carrier is only a mobile airport at sea after all, not an airport in the real sense, so although the plane has been made, the aircraft carrier that can take off and land this kind of early warning aircraft is..."Yan Guang shook his head with a wry smile. “……… Not a single one..."

After all, at present, the most active aircraft carriers in the Wehrmacht are still medium-sized aircraft carriers of 20,000 tons or 30,000 tons―――――― of course, in later generations, such aircraft carriers will be called light aircraft carriers.

These aircraft carriers were very experimental in nature at the beginning of their construction, and although there was no problem with taking off and landing ordinary piston fighters, it was somewhat difficult to take off and land twin-engine AWACS aircraft weighing more than ten tons ...

"However, the new medium and heavy aircraft carriers seem to be almost completed, and I believe that it should be no problem by then..."

Yan Guang is naturally talking about the "Lingbo-class" heavy fleet aircraft carrier, and there is another medium-sized aircraft carrier.

The former has a deck of 331 meters, the latter has more than 270 meters...

None of this is important, the most important thing is that these two types of aircraft carriers are equipped with catapults, of course, not steam catapults, although China is ahead of other countries in many aspects at this time, but it is not impossible to get a steam catapult so many years ahead, in fact, the Navy has made a "hydraulic catapult".

Catapults have appeared since the invention of airplanes, and Langley, who was the same time as the Wright brothers, first used springs and slides to help fly, and the Wright brothers also built the weight catapult under the same concept. With the help of such a catapult. The Wright Flying Craft successfully performed a powered flight.

Seaplanes appeared soon after the invention of airplanes, and when seaplanes were used by navies of various countries, ships could allow airplanes to rise into the air in a short time in order to allow ships to take off in a short period of time without stopping. Countries began to develop flight aids, which were first equipped with seaplane catapults on large surface ships. There are many kinds of falling weight type, flywheel type, rocket booster type, hydraulic type and pneumatic type.

However, the use of catapults has increased the operational complexity of lift-off deck crews, making it more difficult to carry out already complex lift-off operations. Instead, it led to a delay in liftoff. This problem plagued the aircraft carrier for many years and led to the catapult being listed as obsolete. After the outbreak of World War II, due to the need for escort ships, escort aircraft carriers were developed. Due to the short deck distance of this type of aircraft carrier, the aircraft must rely on catapult to take off, and the catapult becomes an indispensable piece of equipment. ..., initially equipped on escort carriers were flywheel catapults. The high-power hydraulic catapult developed later was officially put into service in 1943, and the "Enterprise" was one of the first carriers to be modified with this type H21 hydraulic catapult, after which most of the escort aircraft carriers were equipped with this hydraulic catapult. In terms of performance, the H21 catapult could accelerate a 11,000-pound load from 73 feet to a speed of 70 mph, which basically met the operational needs of the time.

On the latest two types of aircraft carriers, they are equipped with newly equipped [hydraulic catapults]...

This kind of [hydraulic catapult] can be relatively easy to take off and land the carrier-based early warning aircraft developed by the Navy after the speed of the aircraft carrier itself and the length of the deck―――――― and it is ironclad impossible for the early warning aircraft like E2C in later generations. After all, the E2C weighs almost more than ten tons, and the maximum take-off weight reaches 23.5 tons...

However, the aircraft of this period were relatively light, and the on-board equipment was also relatively light, such as the YJ40 equipped with an airborne radar weighing only 318 kilograms. So that the weight of the entire AWACS aircraft is only 11 tons ...

The most important thing is that the B25B, which has a total weight of 12.9 tons in history, has also taken off and landed on aircraft carriers and went to Japan to bomb Tokyo, which is the more famous [Doolittle Air Raid] in history, although the B25B piloted by Doolittle has lost weight. However, the weight of the new AWACS aircraft itself is much lighter than that of the B25B, not to mention that even if the above two types of aircraft carriers have the shortest deck, they are more than 20 meters longer than the Hornet, not to mention that the Limbo-class heavy aircraft carrier is more than 80 meters longer than the Hornet...

"So if the Navy also wants to get AWACS. I'm afraid we will have to wait for these two types of aircraft carriers to enter service. ”

In fact, in Yan Guang's heart, the most suitable is the Lingbo-class aircraft carrier. After all, the deck length of the Limbo class is sufficient, while the other type is relatively reluctant. But after all, all this will have to wait for the aircraft carrier to come out ...

"So..."

Sa Zhenbing nodded.

"I see."

After all, Sa Zhenbing is also an old navy, and he understands that he can't be impatient about this matter, as the so-called can't eat hot tofu in a hurry...

"But then again, do you think the Japanese will really succeed?"

Although the intelligence collection work of the Japanese has been done well, and almost all of the relatively detailed information of the Japanese has been collected by the Military Intelligence Bureau, in fact, the people present are very uncertain about whether the Japanese operation will succeed or not.

After all, this time it was necessary to travel thousands of kilometers to attack one of the naval bases of the Americans.

Although the current naval base is not in a state of combat readiness, but after all, it is a heavily guarded naval base, according to the intelligence of the Military Intelligence Agency, the Americans even deployed their latest equipment of a type of radar there―――――― the performance of the radar is not very clear to them, but in the opinion of Sa Zhenbing and others, it should be no problem to do early warning...

And hearing Sa Zhenbing say this, Yan Guang also scratched his head.

To be honest, even Yan Guang's heart didn't have a score, after all, many things have changed since he came to this world, and it is difficult to say whether this operation will be successful.

Just like in the Pearl Harbor attack in history, in fact, the Japanese declared war before the attack, but in the end, due to various accidents, the Japanese declaration of war was only sent to the Americans after the attack―――――― and it was still a Japanese American who was sent to the Americans, which is really a great irony.

So whether the Japanese attack will succeed or not, God really knows, and everyone else doesn't know ...

While Yan Guang and the others were still there speculating whether Nanyun Zhongyi's action would be successful, Nanyun Zhongyiyi, who was more than a thousand kilometers away, was still slowly driving in the direction of Hawaii.

It's just that Nagumo Tadaichi and the others, who are doing all kinds of simulations on the sea, don't know, at this time, their every move is actually under the monitoring of an early warning aircraft more than a hundred kilometers away, of course, maybe this ignorance is also a kind of luck for them, after all, going into battle with too much psychological burden will lead to the failure of the mission...

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With a weight of 11 tons, a deck of 331 meters, and a hydraulic catapult, it should fly, right? (To be continued......)