"When the German fleet had completed their strategic maneuver, a collision between the Allied and Entente fleets became inevitable! The Germans wanted to annihilate their opponents in one fell swoop in this engagement, and the Allied fleet had to defeat the opponent in order to survive, and neither side had the idea of retreating, let alone retreating, either you die or I die, unless the Germans take the initiative to get out of the way. I've been speculating as to what caused the Germans to rush to a decisive battle with the Allied fleet, thinking that China was preparing to enter the war? Is that fleet, which has not fought a large-scale naval battle for more than 20 years, really as terrible as everyone thinks? I'm sure my opponents would have guessed that the Huaxia fleet would not be going into battle anytime soon, but their decision was unusually decisive. I always thought that the Germans were a little nervous, they somewhat overestimated the Chinese fleet, but in fact, judging by the series of battles that followed, the Germans knew the horrors of the Chinese fleet better than we, the so-called allies! While the Germans were proud of their elite aircraft carrier battle group, they never let their guard down! It wasn't until the middle or late stages of the war that I finally understood how the German Navy had chosen the right thing to do in the beginning, otherwise, they would never have been able to support it for that long and finally get a decent result. —Cunningham, The Apocalypse of the Atlantic

All the warships of the Entente were using the last time to prepare for battle, and Nimitz and others had to admit that the Germans had chosen a very good time, because in the coming week, the weather on the entire battlefield was very good, which was very suitable for the two giants to fight well. In order to gain the last time, the Allied fleet had to retreat slightly south under the coercion of the Central Powers. By this time, the Allies were no longer hiding their strength. Groups of reconnaissance planes that appeared out of nowhere appeared in the outer air defense circle of the Allied fleet, and they desperately approached the Allied fleet and then sent back the information they had obtained before they were shot down. There was even an American pilot who won the title of ace simply by fighting reconnaissance planes. "What a bunch of crazy people! If we want to defeat them, we have to be crazier than them! Nimitz later recalled.

The Americans are really crazy, they are preparing for this battle with all their might. More than 20 aircraft carriers of various kinds are stacked with fighter planes, and in order to maximize their combat effectiveness, they have spread as many planes in the hangar as possible on the deck, and from the control tower, you can see the rows of dense planes, and the rear deck of each aircraft carrier is full of aircraft, fighters in front, attack aircraft in the back, and finally torpedo planes. In order to get the most out of the catapult, even the front of the flight deck is parked with planes! According to Halsey, if someone detonates a grenade in the fleet at this time, then the fuel and ammunition carried by these planes can blow up the entire aircraft carrier.

And in the hangar, the Americans were not idle, Nimitz and others finally signed their names on the documents for the maintenance of aircraft in the hangar, according to Halsey's "brute bull wave" tactic, when faced with an inevitable decisive battle, what the aircraft carrier formation has to do is to release the largest number and the most reasonable carrier-based aircraft in the shortest possible time. Halsey may not be as strategically as Fletcher, but he is a master at tactics, and even the new American aircraft carrier with a broadside folding lift was his suggestion.

With the support of Nimitz and Cunningham, Halsey replanned the carrier-based aircraft and aircraft carrier positions for the entire fleet. Because this attack mainly carried out a limited attack, not all aircraft carriers released attack aircraft groups, on the one hand, because of defensive needs. On the other hand, the range of the Spitfire 9 fighter is not enough to support long-range attacks, and the number of Hellcat aircraft that can cover attack aircraft for long distances is limited. Therefore, the aircraft groups responsible for the attack were concentrated in the two detachments of Halsey and Nimitz.

The Nimitz fleet and the Halsey fleet can release about 400 aircraft of various types at their limit. If the first batch of aircraft can wait for the second batch, then count the aircraft that are being prepared in the hangar. In the case of a long waiting time, this wave of attacks can reach more than 500 aircraft, which is already the limit of the strength of the two Allied aircraft carrier formations responsible for the attack. 500 aircraft did not account for a large proportion of the total number of Allied air forces, but in fact a small half of the aircraft carriers (7 large aircraft carriers and 4 aircraft carriers. And the Entente fleet has more than 2 dozen aircraft carriers alone! It's not easy to release so many planes. And considering Halsey's new tactics, it would be difficult to coordinate a fleet of aircraft that were too large.

As for the remaining three aircraft carrier battle groups, they were responsible for defending themselves against the German attack, and the Americans knew that if they could hold back a large wave through hangar rearmament, the Germans would definitely be able to use the same method to release a wave of aircraft beyond normal size. It is conservatively estimated that the Germans will be able to release at least 1,000 planes in this wave! Considering that the number of Allied fighters that can be lifted into the air to intercept in addition to those planes that need to be rotated in the hangar or because of air alert is actually less than that of the attacking side, according to the Americans' estimates, if you want to keep your own fleet safe, the remaining three aircraft carrier detachments are the minimum standard to release fighters at full strength!

Although the combat effectiveness of the Spitfire 9 fighter is strong, the range is really tragic, and even the time in the air has become very short, and the US military, which is accustomed to Hellcat, suddenly found that the Spitfire is good to stay in the air for a long time, which means that the Americans need to arrange more combat power to carry out air alert missions. In order to minimize this patrol attrition, Halsey came up with a very peculiar idea, which was to divide the fleet into two main parts, one with two attacking squadrons under the command of Nimitz, and the other part with a defensive fleet under the command of Cunningham, consisting of three squadrons. (Because the main air defense of the fleet relied on the 700 Spitfires provided by the British, who apparently knew better how to use these original British weapons.) So it was the British commanders who were responsible for the defense, not the Americans, who had the lion's share of the total forces! ）

In the formation, Cunningham's defensive fleet will spread out on the front, forming an air defense network with a frontal width of several hundred kilometers. And the Nimitz attack fleet was in the rear, after the release of fighters. The engine capacity of the entire aircraft carrier will be overdrawn because of physical problems with the ground crew. Even if they have aircraft in the hangar, it is difficult for them to release them in a short time. Therefore, Halsey believes that these aircraft carriers, which cannot provide defensive power, are not only of no value in defensive warfare, but are a burden, increasing the number of targets that need to be protected. Distracted from the air defense of the fleet! So Halsey deployed the attack fleet 100 kilometers behind the defense fleet, and after releasing the attack aircraft group, quickly withdrew in the opposite direction! Suppose Halsey is given an hour and a half, then the fleet can run at least 70 kilometers! Coupled with the initial distance of 100 kilometers directly from the defense fleet, if the Germans want to attack the attack fleet lacking air defense behind, they need to first break through the layers of defense of the defense fleet and then fly 170 kilometers to find the fleet behind.

Of course, Halsey's style of play is only suitable for tactics of limited offense and full defense. However, it did maximize the optimization of the Allied fleet's anti-air defense capability, and this tactic was highly praised even by the British. Halsey also confidently said at a meeting that as long as the British pilots were strong and there were no major mistakes in command, then the German attack aircraft group would surely crash into an iron plate!

After some deployment, the self-confidence of the Americans and the British has increased significantly. They thought they could safely block the other party's fatal blow. But in fact, the Germans have also prepared quite a lot of tricks, and the tactics of taking off a bunch of planes and then going up and rushing directly are too rough and low-end! While the Americans were playing tricks in formation and formation, the Germans were determined to make up their minds on the plane. As the Americans expected, the Germans would also use hangars to prepare and park their planes, and then launch a wave of super-massive attacks. And unlike the Americans, in this wave of attacks. The German Navy will release more than 150 twin-engine aircraft! These planes may not seem like a lot, but most of them carry the most formidable weapons in the arsenal of the German Empire! A Fritz-type guided bomb weighing 1.2 tons and a heavy anti-ship missile weighing 1.4 tons! And the other part carried electronic warfare equipment, at a critical moment. They will be the key to breaking through the opponent's defenses!

"How's the air force doing? Bruno. Count Spee asked, looking at the neatly arranged planes on the deck outside the window. In order to ensure the strength of this attack, the Germans will also do everything to unleash the first wave of attacks. A whole 4 formation of aircraft carriers will all be involved in the attack. It is expected that by the time of the first attack, the Germans will be able to release nearly 1,100 aircraft. But it's not the same as the Americans. The Germans did not bring about a weakness in the engine after such a release. Because although it was nominally a wave of attacks, but in reality it was a very long time, and when the Germans compressed the flight time, they had more time to keep the planes in the air. The first wave of aircraft released will be dominated by fighter jets, with four aircraft carriers releasing about 150 FW190 fighter jets, which will carry extra-large auxiliary fuel tanks that can hold 600 liters. They will be released early, then by the main group, and finally by a formation of twin-engine attack aircraft covered only by a small number of fighters.

In the eyes of ordinary people, the attack aircraft group is the most taboo to act in batches, and the attack must be continuous, killing the opponent in one go, but now this plan is a bit of a fuel addition. Faced with various objections, Lieutenant General Bruno, chief air combat staff officer of the German naval aviation, then put forward his own point of view.

"A super-large fleet engagement is not at all the same as an engagement with only four or five aircraft carriers. When you command a huge fleet of hundreds or even nearly a thousand aircraft, you will find how weak your command system is. The radar can only detect the incoming enemy aircraft, but it is difficult to estimate the number of aircraft, and more often it is necessary to deal with the situation through the feelings of the commanders at the grassroots level. People have a herd mentality, when the opponent is discovered, the defenders will subconsciously want to rush to the target, and they rarely consider whether a large number of planes rushing over are a waste of valuable interception resources. In this case, when we act in a group, we are undoubtedly in the hands of the other side, and they can rush towards our fleet like crazy, and in this case, the result will be a hard-fought encounter. The Entente countries have recently replaced their fighters, and they have a large number of Spitfire 9 fighters in their fleet, which is a great danger for us, and the losses will be very large if we go head-to-head. ”

"So I adjusted the original plan accordingly, the first wave of fighters is to disrupt the opponent's perception of the battlefield and consume their defenses, although the Spitfire 9 fighter is excellent, but the range is very short, our first batch of aircraft carries a large fuel tank, which can fully support long-term air combat, when the opponent's fleet is chaotic, our main group will take advantage of the situation to cover up, if we are lucky, we can directly break through the opponent's defense, and even if we are unlucky, we have a third wave." Lieutenant General Bruno explained.

To put it bluntly, this plan is a tactic of fishing in troubled waters, using fighter jets, electronic warfare planes, and multi-point advances in batches to disrupt the opponent and finally break through the opponent's defenses. This plan seems to be a refueling tactic, but considering the excellent long-distance high-speed cruising ability of the twin-engine attack aircraft, the last twin-engine aircraft can coincide with the second wave of the main force when attacking, and if the centripetal assault is launched from two directions at the same time, the probability of success is naturally much stronger than a simple group charge!

This arrangement also has the advantage of having the aircraft carriers of the Allied fleet actually have a certain interval in the process of releasing fighters. It's not that after everyone holds back a wave, they are all weak. After staggering the time, there are always aircraft carriers that can release fighters at any time to compensate for the lack of anti-aircraft firepower. And considering that the Americans may also be a wave of push to death, the eight aviation cruisers within the Allied fleet all carry fighters, and do not engage in ship attacks, these air cruisers can send more than 100 fighters into the air in a short period of time to serve as interception missions. In this case, together with the aircraft on standby in the air, the fighters released by the main aircraft carrier, and the aircraft on the aviation cruiser, these numbers are also quite impressive, and there is every chance to stop the opponent.

Both the Central and Entente powers were in full swing. Both sides have decided to have a fight with each other, then they will definitely be able to fight, and both sides are happy with their plans and think that they are foolproof, but what happens in reality? You can only see it on the battlefield. Two of the world's largest fleets are approaching each other, and when the sun rises again, the world will be transformed!

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976, Fengyu 15 for the reward ~~~, and the book friend's unchanged star monthly pass support ~~~. (To be continued......)