"4 battleships, 2 armored cruiser collar ships, and 4 armored cruisers of the Sea of Azov type .\\ Very good, this is all the fleet in my hands, by the way, we still have more than a dozen torpedo boats. And our opponent has 3 battleships, 2 PISA-class cruisers, 2 Garibaldi-class cruisers and 3 King-class cruisers, by the way, Lin Yongsheng also has 4 light cruisers in his hands. Makanov couldn't help but smile bitterly.

"The adversary's sea transport lines are very short, only a few tens of nautical miles away. They can maintain radio communication in such a small area, and the two fleets of the North Ocean and the Outer Ocean are huddled together, and if they rush in, it will be nine deaths! Makanov muttered to himself.

Although the situation is grim, but it has not reached the situation of nine deaths and life, if it is only to temporarily repel the Beiyang Fleet, then Makanov still has a way, first of all, once the Japanese transport fleet sails, the Beiyang must provide escort, and the escort will definitely reduce part of the force, if the battleships used by the Beiyang Fleet for escort can have 2 or 3 armored cruisers left, then the Russian fleet will dare to fight! The Beiyang Fleet was capable of fighting no more than three and a half armies. (Well, Lin Yongsheng's fleet is not suitable for fleet warfare, let's count half of it) If the Russians send a fleet to attack, then Beiyang has two options, the first is to attack to meet the enemy. The second is to protect the transport ship to the death, and the Russians can't do anything about it.

What will the Beiyang Fleet do? They will not choose the first option, the reason is very simple, Beiyang also needs to solve the Russian fleet once and for all, since the fleet is out, then Beiyang really can't fight a war! If you form this fleet yourself with the Prince, Russia and Rurik. Beiyang will send at least 3 King-class ships to deal with it. In Makanov's opinion, it is unlikely that the North Ocean will concentrate all its fleets on the transport lines, and the 4 Guiyuan types, which are not suitable for hard fighting, will definitely use the high speed for reconnaissance. The three battleships may not be able to match the patrol formation, because the speed is about 2 knots after all, and judging from the recent performance, the three Dante-class battleships in the North Ocean will swing between the landing site and the Russian front line, waiting for an opportunity to provide fire support to the Japanese Army and cover the landing site.

In general. The 7 main battle armored cruisers in the North Ocean still have a certain advantage over the 6 armored cruisers of Russia plus the prince. But this advantage is not enough to allow the Beiyang side to kill itself. If the opponent chases after the patrol, use the patrol as a bait and place another 3 battleships in the preset battle zone. Once the main force of the Beiyang Fleet enters this area, it will still be able to catch some of it some, in an unfavorable situation of 7 to 10. There will definitely be warships left behind in the Beiyang Fleet, for example, those two Garibaldi-class, even if they don't have a chance to completely destroy the opponent, can inflict heavy damage on them, and then let the Beiyang Fleet stay in the port for a few months to make corrections.

As for the opponent battlefleet? If those three big guys were present, the Russian fleet would have to choose to give up the plan, after all, the firepower of both the King class and the PISA class is about half of that of the Dante class. As for the most tragic scenario, that is, if the main forces of the two fleets completely collide together, Makanov also has a way, such as ordering the lightning strike formation to launch a decisive charge to buy time for the withdrawal of the main fleet. Of course. If the battle comes to this point, even if it can escape, the Russian Far East Fleet will completely lose the ability to fight head-on with the Beiyang Fleet!

Once the general strategy has been formulated, all that remains is the question of how to group them, and the three warships with the highest comprehensive performance of the Russian Navy, the Prince, Rurik and Russia, will naturally be incorporated into the decoy fleet. And 3 slow-moving battleships, naturally, could only be on standby in the predetermined sea area. Wait for the lure enemy fleet to attract the opponent's main force before the decisive battle. And the remaining 4 cruisers of the Sea of Azov type were grouped separately. Their task was to guard and outflank, to be responsible for reconnaissance before the Beiyang Fleet entered the encirclement. and to support ships such as the Prince when necessary. And once the Beiyang Fleet is calculated, the 4 armored cruisers of the Sea of Azov will go to the battlefield at full speed and enter the battle.

As for the specific deployment, Makanov made such an arrangement, and the luring enemy fleet naturally had to look for the Japanese transport fleet and the escorting Beiyang Fleet. Judging by the current habits of operations in the Beiyang, the escort fleet will be 5-7 armored cruisers. In the face of 3 Russian warships, Beiyang is very likely to engage them. The 4 armored cruisers of the Sea of Azov were temporarily grouped into the B fleet, and their task was to search the Beiyang battleship formation and see if there was a chance to attack the landing site by the way, and after discovering the opposing battleship formation, inform the headquarters of its location, and then decide on the next step of planning.

If the Beiyang Fleet pursues, the Russian fleet will choose to fight and retreat. When it was determined that the opposing battleship formation would not be able to arrive in a short time, the Russian battleship formation would attack. If the battleships on the Beiyang side are discovered, the Russian fleet will choose to evacuate, and the battlefleet will withdraw first, and the patrol formation will be installed to cover the fleet's withdrawal.

For the ambush site, Makanov chose to deploy a battleship formation off the coast of Mutsuno, and then decide whether to continue to go forward according to the battle situation, the biggest advantage of choosing this place is that the Russian Navy has two ways to choose, the first can directly withdraw to Muroran Port. The second is to retreat into the Tsugaru Strait, both of which have mine arrays that can effectively delay the pursuit of the other side. Even before the operation, the Russian fleet was discovered by the North Ocean, and the Russian battlefleet could be evacuated smoothly, while the armored cruiser formation could take advantage of the range advantage and go around the North Ocean and wait for an opportunity. The Beiyang warships are all decisive battleships, there is a gap in endurance, and they are far away from Tokyo Bay, which can supply the Grand Fleet, so they will not dare to chase and fight fiercely.

After some planning, Makanov felt that there were no loopholes in his arrangement, and even if Beiyang was not fooled, he could get out of the way. And when he submitted the plan to the meeting for discussion, Essen raised an objection, he thought that it was a waste to use 4 valuable armored cruisers of the Sea of Azov for reconnaissance, and Beiyang could use secondary capital ships to serve as reconnaissance missions, but the Russian fleet, which was already insufficient in strength, absolutely could not do this, so it was suspected of wasting troops, so Essen proposed to divide the B fleet into two parts, 2 for reconnaissance, and 2 for the main fleet. In this way, the fleet went from an almost equal distribution of forces to two heavy and one light.

Makanov agreed with Essen's view after a night of reflection, because after reading the materials of the last battle of the Spanish-American War, Makanov found that in the decisive naval battle off Santiago, the American battleship formation was successfully assaulted by the torpedo boat unit of the Spanish Navy because of the lack of cover of cruisers. And Essen's opinion raised his status in Makanov's heart. After some deliberation, Makanov decided to have Essen lead the decoy fleet, while Makanov led the main fleet plus almost all the mine-striking ships. The other two cruisers were commanded by a captain named Werther.

Now that the plan has been finalized, the Russian Navy has decided to start the operation, and before the official launch of the campaign operation, the Russians need to verify the operation pattern of the Beiyang Fleet as much as possible, so there are often warships such as the Azov cruiser or the Russian Sea in the eight outdoor sea activities, and the abnormal behavior of the Russian Navy has obviously aroused a high degree of vigilance in the Beiyang Fleet.

"The Russians really can't sit still." Seeing the information submitted by his subordinates, Yang Yonglin said. If it is a normal time, Yang Yonglin will be very excited when he learns that the opponent is going to attack, and what a natural warrior hopes most is to defeat the opponent in the war and reflect his value. But now, Yang Yonglin is a little hesitant, he doesn't know what the opponent will do, and more importantly, his fleet is tied up by the Japanese Navy transport fleet, which restricts the decision-making of the fleet makes Yang Yonglin quite uncomfortable, just like the situation when the American fleet was subject to various flying war factors in the Spanish-American War.

So in desperation, Yang Yonglin sent the collected intelligence and the results of the discussions of many meetings to Xu Jie by telegram, so that the top leader of the Beiyang Naval Division made a decision, and Yang Yonglin, as the leader of the front line, naturally put forward some of his own views, first of all, he also agreed with some of Xu Jie's views, that is, the Russian fleet will use the tactic of decoy to gain tactical superiority. Therefore, Yang Yonglin wanted to use the same method to lure the opponent's fleet into his encirclement, and his battle plan was surprisingly similar to Makanov's plan, both of which were to use a lure enemy fleet to attack, and then lure the opponent's main fleet to a preset war for ambush.

But then the problem came, the Northern Fleet and the Foreign Fleet were tied to the coastal waters by the Japanese Army. Even if they disregarded the safety of the Japanese transport fleet, or even directly used the Japanese transport fleet as bait, the Russians would definitely avoid a head-on clash with the main forces of the Beiyang Fleet. And if you can't take the opportunity to catch the Russian slow battlefleet, the opponent's patrol can immediately call out as soon as the battle situation is not good, anyway, your battleship formation can't catch up with the Russian cruiser, and the Beiyang patrol can beat the Russian cruiser, but it doesn't mean that you will be able to keep the opponent! Moreover, we must be careful that if the Russian battleship formation comes up with reinforcements, it will become the main force of the Russian Far East Fleet to pursue the Beiyang Fleet and the foreign fleet!

When Yang Yonglin's telegram that could be called a memorandum was sent to Xu Jie's desk, Xu Jie couldn't help but smile bitterly. It's really not a good fight, and dancing in shackles is really bad. Although there is no clear plan, Xu Jie has sorted out a general idea. Even though the Russians had the initiative, they still had their own weakness, and this weakness was the three slow battleships in the German Navy!

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