Guns and shells whistled and antiaircraft guns roared, and just as the first round of German air force assault on the US fleet was about to end, a large number of US fighters were also ushered in over the German fleet. As soon as they were within range, the German gunners, who had been preparing for a long time, opened heavy fire on these uninvited guests; Compared with the air superiority and firepower of the American fleet, the German fleet, which has a larger lineup, is undoubtedly denser and more powerful than the other side.

In the command tower of the Wilhelm the Great, Scheer was involuntarily nervously watching the fierce sea and air battlefield in front of him. Fighter planes in the air roared vertically and horizontally, and anti-aircraft guns and shells shot like electricity, diving, rolling, climbing, and flying sideways...... Each fighter is performing a variety of intricate high-speed maneuvers, which is dazzling and dizzying. Occasionally, an American bomb crashed into the sea, stirring up storming waves, and at this time, Scheer's heart would also be violently shaken. Since this time our fleet is fighting in a sea far from the mainland, it is extremely inconvenient to repair and maintain the ships, and if the other side can inflict heavy damage on our own ships, they will not be able to participate in the war for a long time to come. For the German High Command, which needed to attack Cuba as quickly as possible, a naval fleet as complete as possible was undoubtedly the best guarantee for the realization of their plan.

"Our lads are really brilliant at today's table!" Seeing that another US FBD bomber was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery and dragged into the sea with billowing smoke, Rear Admiral Ruttyans, chief of staff of the fleet, said with excitement. In the last twenty minutes of fighting, the German fleet was hit only by 5 bombs, and it was a heavy cruiser and a destroyer that suffered heavy losses; Compared with the battle five months ago, the damage caused by the US fighter planes to their own side is already insignificant!

Listen to the words of Lytjans. The gray-haired Scheer did not have the joy of his assistant. Although the battle went fairly smoothly. But he always felt that there was something hidden under this plain exterior that he had not been able to see yet. This is a veteran who has served in the Navy for more than half a century after countless affairs. A hint of indescribable intuition about the battlefield. Looking at the several US bombers that failed to drop their bombs and had to turn around and return home, the inexplicable doubt in Scheer's mind suddenly became clear: Why did the Americans release such a small number of attack planes, but they prepared far more fighters than normal?

This thought came to mind, and it instantly swept through Scheer's mind like a spring flood bursting its banks. According to the reports sent back by the first wave of attack planes, they were violently intercepted by more than 200 US fighters, and both fighters and attack aircraft were lost; And on their own battlefield, the number of US fighters has also reached this number! After releasing the first wave of attack, its seven heavy aircraft carriers were fully prepared with fighter jets to stop the manic Hellcats. Compared with. However, the number of attack aircraft released by the other side is obviously small, and according to Scheer's estimates, it will not exceed 6 squadrons at most!

As a commander who has successfully completed the transformation from a traditional battleship to an aircraft carrier commander, Scheer deeply understands the great significance of aircraft matching to aircraft carrier combat. Although the fighter can also carry a certain weight of bombs, its attack power against the ship is obviously not as good as that of a professional single-engine bomber; Carrying torpedoes is even more difficult for fighters, whose slender size is not suitable for heavy work such as brick lifting. Therefore, unless the number of bombers is no longer sufficient, no commander will use fighters as the main force in an attack on a ship. In order to effectively strike at the opposing fleet, large fleet aircraft carriers will carry a considerable number of attack aircraft. Even the German aircraft carrier fleet, which was on an expedition and needed to strengthen its air defense, carried only 45% of its fighter jets. And Scheer thinks that this number is already a bit too much.

However, the Americans today on the battlefield are xiàn. But it subverted Scheer's understanding of aircraft carrier operations. According to a rough estimate, Scheer was shocked to find that more than 400 fighters had directly participated in the two naval and air battles; Considering the dispatch of daily reconnaissance, the number of fighters in its aircraft carrier formation is at least two-thirds or more of all aircraft! Everything that seems illogical has its most logical explanation, and Scheer soon realizes that the opponent's attack may not have intended to inflict heavy damage on his own fleet at all; It carries a large number of fighters for only one purpose, and that is to preserve its strength as much as possible under the attack of its own air forces!

"What about the battleships of the Americans, did the attack aircraft group find the battleships of the Americans?" Scheer suddenly turned his head and asked aloud to the adjutant beside him. The adjutant, who was also unaware, immediately contacted the signal room and asked the signal corps to send a flag of inquiry to the aircraft carriers - the flagship, the Wilhelm the Great, could not directly contact the plane of a certain air captain, and had to release their carriers for relay. After another 10 minutes, a flag was belatedly typed out from the "Mackensen" aircraft carrier: The fighter planes it was carrying had discovered another US fleet with five battleships as the core 120 kilometers north of the US aircraft carrier formation. Since these guys were old capital ships with guns still in their arsenals, the first attack group didn't waste precious bombs and torpedoes on them.

"But according to the report of the U-47 submarine, the Americans have at least four or more new capital ships involved in the operation!" Hearing the report sent back by the adjutant, the chief of staff of the fleet, Lu Teyans, couldn't help but speak in astonishment. After a round of attacks, the lineup of the US aircraft carrier group has been exposed in front of itself in quite detail: in addition to the aircraft carrier, their largest ship is the heavy cruiser, and all the previous reports of finding battleships in it have been proved to be a miscalculation of the heavy patrol as the battle progresses. And from any point of view, these new capital ships should not be absent in this naval battle; Even those old super dreadnoughts with a speed of only 21 knots are pressed in the rear as a reserve force, and how can the cutting-edge capital ships with a speed of at least 26 knots or more hibernate in the harbor?

Scheer took a deep breath and said, "The Americans must have used the fleet separately. They used their aircraft carriers to entangle our troops on the front, making the gesture that the main force was concentrated east of the Bermuda Sea, while the fast fleet, led by the new battleships, headed south from another channel and headed directly at our landing sites in Dominica and Puerto Rico! ”

As soon as these words came out, all the officers in the command tower were shocked. Lütjans's thoughts raced, and he immediately understood all of Scheer's considerations. As far as the US Atlantic Fleet is concerned, this sortie can be said to be completely unavoidable: although the United States has been building warships on a large scale since the end of the treaty, its strategic posture of having to divide its forces into two oceans has determined that its eastern forces will not be able to compete with the Allied Combined Fleet in a short period of time. Under these circumstances, the best strategy for the United States is to drag out the time and wait for the mass commissioning of its own warships, thereby closing the relative gap with the Allied fleet. It is precisely for this reason that the U.S. Atlantic Fleet remained on its home soil for more than four months after Germany shifted its strategic center to South America; After all, every day of delay would improve their situation at sea.

However, the German landing on the Caribbean islands completely undermined this process of accumulating forces for the US Navy. The other side has burned the flames of war to the back garden that connects the door to the vault, and the US Atlantic Fleet has no reason to lie dormant; In fact, this is exactly the strategy implemented by the Allied fleet, which has the advantage of troops. Berlin is also soberly aware that the Americans fighting on the inside must not be allowed sufficient time to gather a large wave of strength, and that it must take advantage of the current period of superiority to inflict heavy losses on the opponent.

Although the German army's strategy of attacking and saving the enemy has successfully led to the opponent's aircraft carrier formation, two American aircraft carriers, one large and one small, have been sunk by German aircraft, and two large aircraft carriers have been severely damaged; But for the Americans, their core goal is to extinguish the fires in their backyards, not necessarily to bring down the invaders! Rather than fighting an enemy armed to the teeth with no chance of winning, pouring a bucket of water on the fire while they are unprepared is obviously the wisest choice; As long as the German army and air force are driven out of the Caribbean islands, the southern front of the United States will be able to stabilize again, and the American fleet will be able to continue to wait for the new warships to enter service on the mainland!

Standing in front of the wide chart, Scheer clenched his fists. From a tactical point of view, this action of the other side can also be called a stroke of genius. At present, our army occupies only a small area near the sea in Dominica, and Puerto Rico is only a small Caribbean island; Whether it is an airfield, a dock, or a defensive position, the 406-mm heavy guns on American battleships can carry out a thorough sweep like a Tarzan crushing egg. Although the Luftwaffe had built field airfields in Puerto Rico, almost all of them were FW-190 fighter jets used to seize air supremacy – and the German forces were inevitably much less deployed than they had been fighting in Europe because of transoceanic operations. Compared with bombers, which had a large demand for fuel and spare parts, stabilizing the situation with less consuming fighters was obviously a top priority for the German army fighting away.

Even some high-explosive bombs with ground support could not pose a threat to a battleship with strong armor. Not to mention the fact that American land-based aviation, which took off from Dominica, was equally able to cover the actions of battleships. Another advantage of using battleships to surprise the landing site is that they will not be detected by anti-aircraft radars more than 100 kilometers away, like the attack planes released by aircraft carriers, and they can quickly advance to the target sea area at night and then launch a deadly attack in the early morning. The tight anti-aircraft defense network established by the Luftwaffe in this area was almost completely powerless in the face of these enemies emerging from the sea!

"It's hard for us to go back today. Even if the attack aircraft landed at the nearest San Juan airport, it was the same! Scheer let out a long breath, his words full of joy, "It's a good thing that I didn't put the slower 5th Battlefleet into the fleet this time, and they and the destroyers that accompanied them should be able to withstand this surprise attack by the Americans." (To be continued......)

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