With the sound of violent scraping between the landing gear and the flight deck, the first wave of attack aircraft released by the German fleet landed on the aircraft carrier one after another. The flat, open flight deck soon became full under the constant filling of these warhawks, while the ground crew was busy reloading a significant portion of the aircraft into the hangar to make enough room for the aircraft to land later. Because in addition to this wave of attack aircraft, the German fleet also released a large number of fighters to intercept the enemy's attack; After a fierce air battle, they will return to the mothership after the attack.

In the navigation room of the aircraft carrier Hindenburg, Karls was making repeated trade-offs for the next move. At present, he has two choices: one is to send attack planes to continue the unfinished business and strive to wipe out the five US aircraft carriers that have already appeared in this sea area, and the other is to reconnoiter the position of another US aircraft carrier fleet in order to cooperate with friendly fleets to complete a larger scale of annihilation. Although he did not know the exact location of the two friendly armies until now due to the silence of the radio between them, one thing was certain: after receiving the initial information from him, they must have been approaching the battlefield at full speed at a maximum speed of about 32 knots. If you can see the situation of the entire US fleet, the battlefield advantage you will gain is also extremely huge. ◆↘

After a period of muttering, Kars finally chose the more radical latter. From a strategic point of view, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, which has considerable strength, has always been Germany's throat bone in advancing the war against the United States; Under the deterrence of this force, Germany had to devote a large number of naval and air forces to preventing it from penetrating deep into the North Atlantic, without mentioning the huge amount of manpower and material resources. There is also the danger that the other party may turn the world upside down on their own shipping lines at any time. If this threat can be solved once and for all. Then the situation in the Atlantic as a whole will be fundamentally decided. All of Germany's naval and air forces could be used against the American mainland, and every Allied ship could sail the North Atlantic without any qualms.

In contrast, the conservative No. 1 plan, while more secure, would at best guarantee a major setback for an American fleet; With the remaining strength, the U.S. Navy still has the strength to make waves in the Atlantic, and its strategic shape has not changed substantially from before. In addition, the current tactical situation prompted Kars to make this decision. In the previous two rounds of interception of the US military aircraft group, the fighters on his own aircraft carrier were almost exhausted. If another wave of attacks on the enemy fleet were launched at this time, the attack aircraft group would not be covered by any fighters. And if there were enough attack aircraft, it would be fine, but now its own aircraft carrier is retracting the aircraft, and a large amount of flight deck space after the beveled deck is occupied; Neither the remaining runway length nor the scattered logistics capacity will be enough to support a large fleet of aircraft in a short period of time!

According to the reports sent back by the first wave of attack forces, only three of the five aircraft carriers of the other side were hit, and as long as the target still has a certain aviation capability, the escort of the attack aircraft by fighters is indispensable. After all, an attack aircraft with a load of 800kg or even 1.2 tons cannot be compared with fighters in terms of flight performance, once the formation is disbanded. Even a slightly experienced fighter pilot can sweep these clumsy guys out of ten. Given the enormous value of the pilots themselves, it is clearly unwise to let such an attack aircraft with two crew members on board go to the head. Unless the situation is really compelling, no aircraft carrier commander will give such an order for a small number of attack aircraft to strike alone.

And if it's just reconnaissance, then the problem will be solved. As long as it does not carry a heavy additional load, the attack aircraft with greatly improved flight performance can perform reconnaissance missions like fighters, and since the Ju-87 and Do-22 are both double members, they have an additional layer of insurance in target identification than the single-seat TA-152. After a short time, dozens of attack planes with nothing under the belly of the aircraft took off into the air and scattered towards the distant sky and sea. Lars's abacus is very clear, wait until the current fleet is recovered, and then choose where the next attack wave will target according to the results of this round of reconnaissance.

As far as attack planes are concerned, single-flying reconnaissance is really not their strong point, and once they are intercepted head-on by the opponent's fighters, they can only choose to flee because they are inferior in speed and firepower, and there is no doubt that they have no future in fighting with the fighters. However, this wave of attack planes did not disappoint Kars, and while most of the fighters were forced back, three planes still used the cover of clouds to evade the interception of US fighters, and two of them successfully flew over another US fleet. In a faint gray shadow, the flat flight deck of the aircraft carrier, barely devoid of any convex material, was extremely recognizable; Soon, a telegram was found to have a fleet of four large aircraft carriers as the core reached the Hindenburg's communications room.

"The distance is 430 kilometers, and the opponent is heading east-southeast, so it is difficult to organize a powerful attack in this situation." Kars put down the ruler and pencil in his hand, and his words could not help but have a little worry in his words. With bombs and torpedoes attached, the range of our attack aircraft is only slightly more than 1,000 kilometers, and even if the aircraft has already lost its load on the way back, this distance is somewhat beyond the normal strike radius of our own air forces. You must know that the combat radius of the aircraft is definitely not as impressive as the range divided by 2, and it must be given enough combat time; However, there is obviously a huge difference in fuel consumption between full-speed flight during combat and cruise flight at normal times, which is the same reason as the range change of warships at different speeds. In addition, because the target fleet is in a state of constant motion, the attack aircraft group spends more time maneuvering than in the case of ground attack, and if there is not enough redundancy in the air, even if the fighter plane with huge fuel consumption flies over the target, it can only return straight after dropping bombs in a hurry.

According to the experience of the German Navy, the strike range of aircraft carrier-based aircraft should not exceed 400 kilometers, which is still the ideal situation for continuous tracking of the target's bearing. And at present, whether it is distance or intelligence, Kars's fleet obviously does not have any of them. Although Kars was very aware of the fact that Guò would inflict heavy damage on the U.S. carrier force in a surprise attack and then wait for friendly forces to catch up and launch a decisive attack on the stalled enemy ships, reason prompted him to abandon the operation and choose to carry out a further attack on the previous U.S. fleet. Judging from the distance of the previous engagements between the two sides and the navigation of their own fleet in these few hours, the other side should still be within its ideal strike radius. It's almost four hours before dark, and it's enough to make the pilots cool again.

Under the orders of Kars, the German aircraft carrier formation sounded the horn of a new round of offensive. Fighter jets roared through the air, using their excellent speed and air combat capabilities to carry out reconnaissance missions; Planes of various types, which had been refilled with fuel and loaded with ammunition, were neatly docked on the deck of the aircraft carrier in a posture of folding their wings, and when the reconnaissance report of the enemy ship was discovered, they scrambled to start their engines and took off one after another from each aircraft carrier at an average speed of 30 seconds. To the surprise of the German pilots, none of the three US aircraft carriers that had been attacked before had not sunk, and including the large aircraft carrier that had been hit by two torpedoes, the entire US fleet was still sailing at a speed of more than 26 knots.

In fact, American warships are also excellent in mine protection and damage management, and they have left many world-famous cases in another plane. The battleship USS North Carolina was hit with a 405kg charge submarine-launched torpedo and was directly flooded with less than 1,000 tons, and the heavy patrol of the USS Pittsburgh, which was still sailing normally after the bow was completely blown off by a typhoon, and the light cruiser that still survived with a water intake of more than 10,000 tons, are the best examples of this. The Essex-class aircraft carrier itself adopts an ideal underwater mine protection layout between empty and liquid tanks, with a total thickness of nearly 66 millimeters and a total depth of more than 5 meters, which is much better than the lightning protection of the Hindenburg-class aircraft carrier designed by Qingying based on the experience of later generations. The two Essex-class ships that sank in the Battle of Bermuda six months ago were also killed after one was ignited by heavy armor-piercing bombs that exploded the aviation ammunition depot and the other was attacked by more than 10 bombs and torpedoes. The most effective way to deal with this American aircraft carrier is to use armor-piercing bombs to shoot directly into the soul, and even if the aviation torpedo hits the position quite ideally, due to its small power, it takes multiple torpedoes to sink this type of aircraft carrier.

After some attacks, the German pilots again achieved the result of 6 bombs and 2 torpedoes against the American aircraft carrier. This time the retreat of the other side was even more decisive than the battle a few hours earlier, not only the aircraft carrier itself, but even the destroyers accompanying the escort joined the lineup that pulled up the smoke screen for it; German pilots had to search for targets in a brownish-red haze with extremely low visibility, greatly reducing the effectiveness of their attacks. Of course, the miscellaneous fish ships next to them, which had no special protection, became the punching bag for the German pilots to vent their anger as they did last time, and 3 cruisers and 5 destroyers capsized and sank in the monstrous flames. According to the reports sent back by the German pilots, the flight decks of the three large aircraft carriers of the opposing side were hit by bombs many times, and it was almost impossible to release the fighters. (To be continued......)

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