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In any case, the Solomon Islands were lost, which not only made the expedition of the main force of the American Atlantic Fleet useless, but also opened the door to Australia for Japan, and the situation of the Pacific War became more and more unfavorable for the Allies

But as one of the most outstanding naval commanders on Shijie today, Nimitz saw a rare fighter in the passive situation in front of him, and he found that the Japanese army did not know if it was carried away by the successive victories, and actually divided the capital ships that originally had absolute superiority in numbers into two, and the Western Front plus the German Far East Fleet also had 6 aircraft carriers, and they were relatively old, and the tonnage, especially the number of aircraft, was not large, and although he only had 4 aircraft carriers under his command now, However, three of them are heavy aircraft carriers with a relatively large number of aircraft, and even the only light aircraft carrier, the Raider, carries more than 80 aircraft, which is more than the number of heavy aircraft carriers of the Japanese army

In terms of battleships, the advantage of the US military is even greater, the Japanese side only has two Kongo-class pseudo-battleships with a main gun caliber of no more than 356mm, while the US fleet under Nimitz has a full 5 real battleships, both the caliber of the main guns and the thickness of the armor are above the Japanese Kongo-class, and there will be no suspense about the outcome of the bombardment. As for auxiliary ships, the US military has an even greater advantage, not to mention that the quality is better than that of the Japanese in all respects, and the number is more than twice that of the enemy, which gives the Nimitz fleet a super regional air defense capability. Even if the carrier-based fighters were not powerful enough, Nimitz did not have to worry too much about the problems of the air defense of the fleet

The only thing that made Nimitz scratch his head a little was that the American battleships were slow, which slowed down the speed of the fleet, so it was impossible to actively seek a decisive battle with the enemy, and could only wait for others to attack first before launching a counterattack. However, this is not difficult for Nimitz, anyway, he also helped the American army in the Solomon Islands bring a division of reinforcements this time, so he simply changed the operation and launched an attack on the Japanese army on the Solomon Islands, although the strength of one division is not enough to recapture the entire Solomon Islands. But in the case that the enemy's fleet does not come out to help. It is no problem to seize a few of the most important islands as bases for a counteroffensive, and if the combined Japanese and German fleets come to support them, they will fight a decisive battle, and if the enemy does not dare to come, recovering a few islands can also encourage the military and civilians at home and allies overseas. At the same time, it laid the foundation for a future counteroffensive

Under the three-dimensional attack of the US military. A Japanese brigade defending the island was all "jade shattered". For the first time since Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military successfully seized an island in the Pacific Ocean, but the U.S. military still paid a huge price of more than 500 casualties despite the stubborn resistance of the Japanese army. Due to the large number of equipment of automatic weapons. The current Japanese army does not suffer as before, and the firepower will quickly decay after a little heavy casualties, which has caused great difficulties for the American army's attack. At the same time, because automatic weapons have increased the firepower of infantry, so that Japan no longer needs to station heavy troops on each island as in history, which also weakens the lethality of heavy firepower of the American army to a large extent, although the wealthy United States actually does not care whether 10,000 shells kill a devil or a thousand shells kill a devil

However, under the siege of more than 50 combat ships and no less than 300 carrier-based aircraft of the US military, no small island lacking a permanent fortress could hold on for a long time, so after losing the first island, the supreme commander of the Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands Awabayashi Tadamichi immediately sent a telegram to the Japanese-German combined fleet under the personal command of Tawen Yamaguchi to request naval and air support.

When Yamaguchi learned that the Solomon Islands had been attacked by a large U.S. fleet and a large number of air forces, he quickly understood the enemy's intentions, but he was convinced that the aircraft carriers had replaced the battleships, and he did not fear the large number of enemy battleships, but decided to meet the enemy because he had two more aircraft carriers, a decision that he almost regretted for the rest of his life because he underestimated the strength of the enemy army

Although he knew that due to the great increase in anti-aircraft firepower, who attacked and who suffered when the aircraft carrier formation was engaged in battle, Yamaguchi Tarumi could not sit back and watch the Solomon Islands being taken down by the enemy one by one, so he could only choose to take the initiative to attack, but he still asked the German aircraft carrier to send a higher ceiling and more airborne radar performance to conduct high-altitude reconnaissance to search for the main force of the enemy fleet as soon as possible, but the Japanese carrier-based aviation was naturally responsible for the main attack from low altitude. The Germans were required to send only a small number of aircraft at high altitudes to attract enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire.

Although this task would be very dangerous, the small number of planes could be arranged in a relatively dispersed formation, which would greatly reduce the lethality of proximity fused anti-aircraft shells, and because of the small number, even if all of them were shot down, the carrier-based aviation units of the German Far East Fleet would not be broken.

As for the enemy's fighters, with the German pilots' exchange ratio of at least one to ten in previous battles and their condescending superiority, even if the number was smaller, it was not necessarily impossible to deal with them, and because it was a feint, the German troops dispatched far more fighters than bombers, which also relatively narrowed the gap in the number of fighters between the enemy and us

When the German fighter planes found the US aircraft carriers in the Coral Sea, they were also discovered by the US carrier-based radar, and Nimitz smiled slightly when he learned about it, "It's finally here." The fighters on the four aircraft carriers were immediately ordered to take to the air as fast as possible to meet the battle, and the gunnery radars and anti-aircraft guns on each ship's hull immediately entered a state of imminent combat, and at the same time, the five battleships and the air defense ships responsible for protecting them also immediately moved closer to the four aircraft carriers in order to increase the firepower of the regional air defense as much as possible.

After seeing more than 100 US fighter planes swooping down from a high altitude, all the Japanese pilots were unconsciously overshadowed in their hearts, "The Mi army has long been prepared, and this battle is not easy to fight." ”

Due to the super horizontal maneuverability of the Zero fighters, the Japanese pilots successfully avoided most of the bullets fired by the enemy planes by changing speed and direction, and the aviation machine gun fire of the US F4F fighters was not strong, so in the first dive attack of the US fighter group, the Japanese fighters did not lose a few. However, the problem is that they are not the main targets of attack of US planes in the first place, and the Japanese bombers, which pose a greater threat to the fleet, are the focus of attack of US planes, because they are not as flexible as fighters, and they are also loaded with heavy high-explosive bombs that seriously affect their mobility, and it is much more difficult for them to escape than fighters (to be continued......