The reason is very simple: On the one hand, due to the application of proximity fuses and gun-sighting radars, the fleet's anti-aircraft firepower has increased more than tenfold, and the large pomp and circumstance of the US main fleet, which is accompanied by more than 100 auxiliary ships, has exponentially increased the power of its large-caliber antiaircraft gun group. On the other hand, the US military's radar is becoming more and more advanced, and there are even carrier-based planes patrolling everywhere, and even if the Japanese aircraft group adopts low-altitude penetration tactics, the US military is still very likely to detect it in time and let the fighters take to the air to meet the battle. At that time, the Japanese army will be torn apart by the US anti-aircraft artillery barrage when it enters the middle and high altitudes, and at low altitudes, it will be easily shot down by the dive attacks of US fighters, just like the tragedy of the South Pacific naval war

Under such circumstances, if the Japanese army still follows the previous fighting method, not only will the planes attacking the enemy's aircraft carriers suffer heavy losses, but the Japanese army will lose a large number of excellent pilots again, and it will also be difficult to really inflict heavy damage on the US Pacific Fleet, because I am afraid that before a few aircraft carriers are blown up and sunk, the Japanese bomber group will already have suffered heavy losses and will not be able to continue the attack. The generous gifts, including 12 aircraft carriers and more than 100 auxiliary ships, were enough to enable the Japanese Navy to come up with two secret weapons that had been treasured and not used before, early warning aircraft and proximity fuse jammers

After receiving the report of the discovery of the Japanese reconnaissance plane, Nimitz only shook his head lightly and lamented the difficulty of the sneak attack, and immediately ordered the carrier-based fighters on each aircraft carrier to start taking to the air to prepare for battle, and asked the first batch of fighters to leave the fleet to reconnoiter the nearby sea areas for safety, and at the same time ordered the anti-aircraft artillery on all ships to enter a state of readiness for battle

Before the reconnaissance planes sent out could send back any valuable information, a large number of unidentified targets were discovered by the powerful new shipboard radar on the heavy aircraft carrier USS Essex. After confirming this, the radar soldier hurriedly reported to Xiangshang, "The group of planes and the group of planes with the enemy are rapidly approaching, and the number is so amazing that it is difficult to count!" ”

"There weren't so many planes on Midway, and most of them must have come from Japanese and even German aircraft carriers, so did the Japanese guess it? But that's fine, just to wipe out the Japanese aircraft carriers! In the face of overwhelming superiority in strength, any conspiracy and trickery are useless," Nimitz did not panic after hearing this, but only ordered the reconnaissance plane to expand the search area. Look for the enemy's aircraft carrier formations. At the same time, the second batch of carrier-based aircraft was required to seize the time to take to the air to meet the battle.

In addition to being relaxed, Nimitz also felt a little uneasy in his heart, because he found that the enemy planes did not adopt the ultra-low-altitude penetration tactic, which had been proved to be a relatively small loss rate, but chose to pounce directly on the three US aircraft carrier formations at maximum speed at medium and high altitudes. Nimitz's keen battlefield instincts told him. The enemy is not making a mistake by doing so. But there is another mystery

As the enemy's aircraft group gradually approached, the US military quickly estimated the approximate number and found that there were only seven or eight hundred. Nimitz immediately judged that the Japanese and German aircraft carriers were not fighting together, and he was somewhat relieved, although he believed that his own air defense capability had absolute superiority, and the performance and number of aircraft did not suffer, but a little less enemy could always increase some chances of victory and reduce some losses

The first interception launched by the carrier-based aircraft unit against the enemy also achieved satisfactory results to Nimitz, and they successfully shot down three Japanese planes without losing any of them, which was definitely a rare and outstanding record since the outbreak of the Pacific War. This is mainly thanks to the staff officer Jishu of the US Navy, although they have not yet obtained the actual Zero fighter, they still found some shortcomings of the Zero fighter based on the pilots' accounts of previous battles, and developed highly targeted tactics based on these weaknesses.

For example, the Zero is relatively slow, especially compared to the F4U fighter with a maximum speed of more than 700 kilometers per hour, and because the fuselage is too light, the Zero fighter dives much slower than the two carrier-based fighters of the US military. This is because the US Navy Department has asked its fighters not to engage the Zero fighter as much as possible when engaging it, but to let it deal with the Zero fighter mainly with the "dive-pull-away-again" one-hit disengagement tactic. And when attacking the enemy's bombers, once the escorting Zero fighters rush over to intercept them, then once again give full play to the advantage of fast dive speed to quickly get rid of the enemy planes, without needlessly entangled with the enemy's fighters. If you are accidentally bitten by a Zero fighter, you will have to rely on this tactic to escape

In addition, the Japanese Navy's outstanding pilots have suffered tremendous losses in the Pacific War, and their training mechanism is not as good as that of the United States, so the superiority in the quality of pilots is no longer obvious

However, this tactic is not invincible, in terms of time efficiency, its killing speed is relatively low, and it cannot prevent a large enough number of enemy aircraft from approaching your fleet, so if you rely too much on this tactic, it will often lead to "brush up the battle and lose the war." ". But the American pilots need not worry about this, because their fleet is not only extremely large, but also has the strongest anti-aircraft firepower on the shijie, they only need to disrupt the attack formation of the enemy planes and weaken them as much as possible, and leave the rest of the work to the anti-aircraft guns on those ships. Nimitz clearly thought the same way, so he always had a confident smile on his face, but after just a few minutes, the smile on Nimitz's face froze

After the enemy planes entered the effective firing range of the US large-caliber antiaircraft guns, the US warships that were relatively close to them immediately launched a fierce artillery bombardment into the air, but something happened to the US troops who were stunned, and the countless antiaircraft shells that were whistling towards the enemy aircraft group exploded one after another one after another when they were still a long way away, and as a result, not a single enemy plane was shot down

However, the Japanese planes seized the stunned efforts of the Americans and accelerated their approach to the US fleet, especially the 12 aircraft carriers that were extremely conspicuous, and only then did the pilots of the US carrier-based fighters react and rushed at the enemy planes one after another in a desperate attempt to intercept them. In addition, at this time, they could no longer hide and fight, and could only fight the enemy head-on, so the advantages of the Zero fighter were brought into play again, and for a while, I saw that planes in the sky were constantly shot down and fell into the sea, and more than seventy percent of them were American (to be continued......