Note: When chapter 366 came out, I listened to the opinion of a professional book friend who thought that such a large fleet was only equipped with eight cruisers, and 24 destroyers was too few. This number is a reference to the first Great White Fleet's round-the-world voyage, when they had only seven mine-striking ships (the predecessor of the destroyers). After all, this is a demonstration of force, not a combat configuration.

However, considering what the book friend said, "In 1907, the Americans knew that the Japanese would not dare to fight, and at that time the destroyers had not all been changed to burn oil, and the tonnage of the destroyers had not exceeded 1,000 tons, and the endurance was not worth mentioning at all, so they used such a weak light ship configuration." The United States knew from the early 1920s that the Japanese were trying to figure out the nine-stage attack, and it was really inappropriate to bring such a small number of auxiliary ships."

If you think about it, he is indeed right, mainly because I neglected that the first White Fleet trip was due to coal burning and the strategic environment of the world at that time.

So I changed the setting of 8 cruisers and 24 destroyers in the previous chapter to twenty-four cruisers and 60 destroyers.

On June 22, the sun rose in the waters of Guam, near the equator, at around 6 p.m. local time. However, because of the environment of the ocean, the visibility of the sky improved at half past five.

According to the operational plan that had been drawn up, the Japanese Combined Fleet planned to launch a general attack at about four o'clock in the morning. But in fact, the first battle in the Pacific began at two o'clock in the morning.

The fighter took place between several Japanese destroyers and an American submarine.

This American submarine is a submarine of the Pacific Fleet, which performs combat-ready cruise, reconnaissance missions. At two o'clock that night he was afloat (World War II submarines only sneaked during the day and during battles, and surfaced at night).

Hannah's cruiser Izumo spotted the American submarine thirty nautical miles away, and at her direction, several Japanese destroyers quietly approached it. The headlights were suddenly turned on 4,000 meters away, and then a burst of artillery fire bombarded, and within half a minute, the boat ate more than 10 shells, the hull of the boat was greatly damaged, and finally it was seriously injured and captured. It was also the first Navy soldier to be captured in the Pacific War.

By 3:15 a.m. on June 22. At this time, the ocean is still pitch black. Most of the officers and men of the Pacific Fleet are still asleep.

At this time, the radio listeners in the fleet suddenly listened to a long string of radio messages, which lasted for nearly three minutes before disappearing.

It was early in the morning, and the watcher on duty, who had stayed up all night, dragged on for five minutes before lazily reporting to his superiors, and his superiors, after receiving the telegram, thought that the captain was still asleep and saw that the time was almost dawn, so he casually withheld this information. Claims to wait until dawn to report.

The precious 10 minutes of warning time were wasted.

At 3:25 a.m., the radar crews of the Pacific Fleet suddenly found that the screen was covered by a dense snowflake, and the radars of all the ships in the fleet had suffered from strong external interference.

After the end of the European War in 1940, the British and American navies later reflected on the reasons for the British naval defeat, and they all believed that the German navy had made a breakthrough in radar technology. Since then, both the United Kingdom and the United States have attached unprecedented importance to radar technology, after which the two sides have exchanged technology. Significant efforts have been made in this regard. The Japanese Navy, which originally did not pay much attention to radar, was influenced by Li Huamei. Even if there is a ship spirit, it has also begun to pay attention to the role of radar.

It's just that the developers related to radar frequency conversion technology in history have either been accused by Germany or assassinated by Lin Han and Hannah in the past few years. The war spurred the development of science and technology, and Lin Han and Hannah had previously assassinated and poisoned everywhere. The resulting obstruction effect is evident at this critical point in time. By June 1942, the Americans had learned the lesson of the war in Europe, when the British and French radars were completely damaged by the interference effect of the aluminum foil jamming band, and began to realize that it was necessary to develop variable frequency radars. However, because of the lack of key talents in this area, the imminent kick that pierced the "window paper" has not been kicked out so far -- because Heidi is related to the development of variable frequency radar. Rama is now not only the "pet" of Lin Han and Hannah, but also in the service of Germany, and as for several other key scientists, they have long since died.

Therefore, although the US fleet is equipped with a large number of warning radars, they are all fixed-frequency radars, which are extremely easy to be interfered with. When the radar crew in the US fleet discovered that the radar had been jammed, they reported it to their superiors, who in turn asked the deputy captain on duty for instructions, and the deputy captain woke up the captain to ask for instructions again, wasting another precious two minutes of time.

In the two minutes of reporting and re-reporting, the radio listening room in the US fleet listened to more radio commands, and although the other party used a short code word, the experienced radio listeners had already heard something wrong.

However, bureaucracy and cumbersome escalation procedures have hampered the fleet's timely response.

Without waiting for their superiors to radio call the flagship, Admiral Kimmelli, the commander of the fleet, who was getting acquainted with him, and the cruisers Tuscaloosa and San Francisco, which were in front of the fleet's right flank, sounded a series of violent explosions in less than thirty seconds between them.

According to the US Navy's operational regulations, when driving at night, a large number of patrol and alert ships will be deployed between 30 and 50 nautical miles outside the main fleet's fleet to prevent the enemy from launching a night lightning strike. These vigilance missions were carried out by a vigilant fleet headed by cruisers and supplemented by destroyers.

Relying on the ship's "intelligence control" over the distribution of enemy ships on the battlefield, the Japanese Navy's lightning strike fleet chose the weakest point of the US warship's northwest alert fleet as the breakthrough point.

The brief wireless telegraph heard by the American monitors earlier was the same telegram from the wireless station on the cruiser "Izumo" directing the direction of action of the fifty torpedo boats following behind.

Unlike the Yamato, which was larger and had a strong radar reflection, the relatively "short" Izumo could approach as far as about 30 kilometers from the U.S. ship without being detected by radar, and it was at this distance that the Izumo gave radio indications. 、

At twenty-six o'clock, the dense coded commands heard by the listening personnel were that the Izumo was directing the assault torpedo boat to make the final course correction in this night when it was out of sight.

As for the more "shorter" Japanese torpedo boats, the radar of the US ships could not even detect the opponent until they approached within 10,000 meters.

As for the S3 torpedo boats imported from Germany. Because of its smaller size and weaker reflected signals, the radar can detect it closer, and theoretically it has to be approached to 7,000 kilometers before it can be detected by radar.

As for the detection capability of American-style radars, it comes from the intelligence provided by the British before the war. Anglo-American before a complete fallout. Radar technology was widely exchanged between the two countries. The radar technology of the British is already higher than that of the United States, and it has only been a long time since Britain and the United States completely turned their faces, and most of the radars used by the US Navy at present use British technology (the old ones with their own technology are not in good performance).

Before the war, the British, at the request of the Japanese, "enthusiastically" provided a set of "samples" with the same performance as the current US Navy radar.

At 3:25 a.m., the US ship's radar was strongly interfered with by the aluminum foil jamming band, and the torpedo boat was sneaking in. The Japanese torpedo boats had rushed to a distance of about 10,000 meters, but the three S3 German torpedo boats in front of them had approached about 8,000 meters from the outermost Orleans-class cruiser, the Tascaloosa.

At this time, the Japanese ships released the aluminum foil jamming belt precisely to cover the traces of the torpedo boats.

The cruiser Tuscaloosa was located in one of the weakest points of the Pacific Fleet's right flank alert group, including him, and within five kilometers of the vicinity, there was only one cruiser and three destroyers.

Night raid fleet of the Japanese Navy. It is to choose this place as a breakthrough.

With the last minute or so of the aluminum foil jamming belt, the three S torpedoes rushed to a distance of 3,500 meters from the cruiser Tuscaloosa. The three boats aimed at all six non-triacid torpedoes, and he shot them all.

At 3:28, there was a loud explosion in three sequences, and a dozen seconds later, an even louder explosion tore through the silence before dawn. In the dark of night, even from thirty kilometers away, you can see with your eyes the earth-shattering flash of the ammunition depot of the cruiser Tuscalu. The loud noise of its martyrdom also woke up the sleeping sailors on other nearby warships.

This heavy cruiser with a displacement of about 10,000 tons, after eating three torpedoes, blew up in two on the spot due to the detonation of the ammunition depot. The wreckage lasted less than two minutes at the surface before sinking separately in the warm waters of June in the South Pacific.

There was no need to "report at every level" to Admiral Kimmelli, the loud explosion of the cruiser Tuscaloosa, and the continuous explosions that sounded for the next minute, were themselves the most piercing "battle alarms".

Less than 40 seconds after the cruiser Tuscaloosa was hit by a mine, an American destroyer located 3,000 meters behind it also exploded, and a quietly approaching S3 torpedo boat also fired two torpedoes at a very close distance, hitting one and dealing a fatal blow to the fragile destroyer on the spot.

At 3:31 a.m., when the cruiser Tuscaloosa was sinking into the ocean in two, another Portland-class cruiser about five kilometers away also exploded violently.

In view of the fact that the US Navy is equipped with a large number of radars, these S3 torpedo boats removed a piece of unnecessary equipment that can be removed from the ship to reduce the radar reflection signal before the attack, and the people who operate these torpedo boats are all elites in the Japanese Navy.

By firing torpedoes at a distance close to the point of "fighting bayonets," the first wave of the lightning strike fleet succeeded in opening a gap in the Pacific Fleet's police ship defense, and the remaining twenty torpedo boats swarmed along the gap and pounced on the battleship formation, which was only 30 nautical miles (about 54 kilometers) away. And behind this wave of 20 S3 torpedo boats, there were also 20 Japanese torpedo boats that were larger and equipped with more torpedoes.

In front of this group of 40 torpedo boats, there were only six destroyers nearby, and there were two more fatal points: first, it was dark night, and visibility was the most important factor for anti-lightning operations, and second, the entire American fleet was now in a "state of march," with an average speed of only 16 knots, and the boiler steam pressure was insufficient. On the contrary, the boilers of the Japanese fleet, whether it was a torpedo boat or a capital battleship, were boiled to the maximum.

When the torpedo boats began to assault at high speed, Aoba, Kinukasa, Furutaka, and Kako, the four heavy cruisers also followed closely behind, and in addition, six light cruisers and twenty destroyers also bit behind the assault torpedo boats and launched a charge.

And in the distance, the main fleet, led by two Yamato-class battleships and four Kongo battle cruisers, was also rushing head-on at maximum speed from a distance.

One side was concentrating its forces to attack one point, while the other side was not rushing to the battle, and the whole fleet was still in a loose marching state.

When the Japanese lightning fleet poured in from the breach, it was still thirty nautical miles (about fifty-four kilometers) away from the battleship formation, a distance that could give the American fleet about forty minutes or so to react.

This may seem like a long time, but it's actually very short.

Due to the fact that the warship was in a state of march before, the boiler pressure of the warship was insufficient, and it was difficult for a large warship to change the speed and state of the march in a short period of time, and the maneuvering of a large fleet at sea was an extremely complicated problem, and it was the most difficult at night, which involved coordination in all aspects. Don't rush the U.S. fleet under war, the personnel of the key departments on the ship have just woken up from their sleep, and they are completely ignorant of what is happening and the situation on the battlefield in the outside world.

It takes time for a warship to fire and pressurize, it takes time for a warship to change direction, it takes time for a warship officer to understand the battlefield situation, and it also takes time for the staff officers of the chart room to work out a sound battle plan to prevent collisions in the chaos.

What's even worse is that Admiral Kimmey, who had just woken up from his dream and rushed to the command center of the fleet, asked his subordinates: "Where is the warship that attacked us!" ”

An officer next to him urgently sent a piece of information: the battleship USS Maryland, which was located on the left flank (that is, in the south) of the fleet, was struck by lightning and was suspected to have been hit by three torpedoes, most likely targeting a Japanese submarine.

This situation is the masterpiece of a Japanese I16 submarine that was previously blocked in the march of the Pacific Fleet. The time when Li Huamei chose to launch the lightning strike was precisely the moment when the Pacific Fleet passed through the Guò submarine ambush area.

A large number of torpedo boats and destroyers broke into the ships at night to launch a large-scale lightning attack, and submarines launched an attack inside, and they were attacked from two different directions at the same time, which caused even more panic among the people in the center of the fleet.

Since World War I, the US Navy has not participated in a war for more than 20 years, and neither the commander nor the captain nor the ordinary sailors have the experience to deal with the situation at hand.

One side was in a thrilling arrangement, it had long been in control of the whole field, and as soon as it struck, it was going all out, while the other side was in a hurry, and from the very beginning of the battle, the US Pacific Fleet fell to the point where the situation could not have been worse. (To be continued......)

PS: Update it first, and then go back and proofread