"The key is, how do you safely transport tens of thousands of troops to Hawaii?"

A voice came from behind, and everyone followed the voice, only to see Cheng Han walking over accompanied by two staff officers.

"I've seen Tongzhi." More than a dozen people present hurriedly surrendered their hands.

In order to deal with the 20,000 American troops stationed on Oahu, you need to bring at least two infantry divisions, but to be on the safe side, you must also bring more tank troops and heavy artillery units.

The number of high-speed troop carriers in service in the Ming Navy is limited, which cannot meet such a large-scale ocean-going projection.

Although there are many low-speed transport ships, they cannot keep up with the speed of the main fleet, and they will become a burden to the fleet, and they also need to be specially assigned a part of the warships to protect them, and they can't even escape when the situation is bad.

The Ming navy mainly attacked the British, but it has always been based on deterrence and strategic defense as its construction idea toward the United States, so there is no need to spend huge sums of money to maintain a large number of high-speed troop carriers.

If the troops he needs can land smoothly, Zhou will have a greater certainty of taking Oahu, but the problem facing the admirals is how to bring the troops over safely?

"Even if you start from the Wa Kingdom, Hawaii is thousands of miles away, and there are Wake Island and Midway Island along the way, and you can avoid Wake Island by taking the middle route, but you have to pass through Midway." A tall colonel's senior staff officer said calmly.

Zhou Changfeng naturally thought of the route of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, and asked, "What if you take the northern route?" ”

"The Northern Front? North Pacific routes? It's windy, rough, and not suitable. ”

"Yes, although there are few merchant ships on the northern route, and their whereabouts are not easy to be exposed, if you bring a large number of transport ships, it is definitely not appropriate to take the northern route."

"That's right, you may not know that if you encounter a big wave, the ship's roll amplitude can shake people, and it can easily last for more than ten hours or even a few days, and the sailors are enough to choke, and the army troops can't stand it."

"And the voyage is so long, after more than ten days of rough and tiring at sea, and then suddenly go ashore, and you can't adapt to it all of a sudden, then you will become a soft-footed shrimp that is unstable."

The staff officers present all objected, believing that this was a move to weaken themselves before fighting.

Zhou Changfeng immediately figured out that in history, the Japanese were purely for sneak attacks, and they could let the aircraft carrier units quietly reach the vicinity of Hawaii, anyway, it was carrier-based aircraft that participated in the attack.

However, the current Ming generals are studying around the landing and capture of Oahu, and the objectives of the campaign are completely different.

Annihilation of field forces or capture of cities? In the current situation, it is to annihilate the US Pacific Fleet or seize the strategic node Hawaii.

If it is in a sea area adjacent to the mainland, then the importance of the naval base will decrease, and the annihilation of the mobile fleet is the optimal solution.

In land warfare, they also have the same idea -- regardless of the gains and losses of one city or one pool, they should move flexibly, wait for an opportunity, and put the enemy's vital forces first.

However, the Pacific Ocean is vast, and the importance of a well-established naval base like Pearl Harbor has skyrocketed.

If there is only one city in the middle of a wasteland, who would dare not care about it?

Because of this, a group of senior staff officers have tacitly ranked dealing with the Pacific Fleet as the second priority.

In fact, everyone thinks that in the face of the mighty Ming Navy, the Americans are likely to make a decisive move-

Because the Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor alone had little chance of winning, facing the battle was basically self-defeating, and it was necessary to join the Pacific Fleet stationed on the west coast and reinforcements from the Atlantic Fleet.

The U.S. fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor consisted of three aircraft carriers, nine battleships, four heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, and dozens of destroyers and auxiliary ships.

And because the Ming Navy has cleared the enemy forces in the South Seas, Britain and the Netherlands have no spare strength to send reinforcements across half the world, so they can concentrate all their forces into the Pacific Ocean.

The progress of the two Yongle-class battleships is about the same, the Yongle is undergoing sea trials, and the Xuande is a little slower, but it has also completed outfitting.

Excluding them, as well as the battleship Yuanding that is being overhauled in the dockyard, the Ming Navy's two-ocean fleet can also assemble a huge main fleet of 9 battleships, 2 battle cruisers, and 6 aircraft carriers.

Even in the past, when aircraft carriers could only play an auxiliary role, the Ming Navy was fully sure, and now it is even more confident.

The U.S. Pacific Fleet has the 1st Aircraft Carrier Group and the 2nd Aircraft Carrier Group, and has a total of three aircraft carriers: the USS Lexington, the USS Saratoga, and the USS Enterprise.

Six to three, how to lose the flying dragon riding face?

On the contrary, Zhou Changfeng was a little apprehensive, because the origins of these three ships were not ordinary.

Both the Lexington and the Saratoga were based on the unfinished Lexington-class battlecruisers, and they had good speed, protection, and firepower.

They are also equipped with four twin 203mm naval guns, and it is undoubtedly rare for an aircraft carrier to be equipped with heavy cruiser-level firepower.

In the famous "Ninth Fleet Problem" exercise, the Red Saratoga made a detour to attack the Panama Canal locks, and because it looked almost identical to the Lexington, she fooled a Blue destroyer into escorting her and then "sank" it.

The destroyer sailors, who had withdrawn from the battle, could not swallow this breath and sent a telegram requesting reinforcements in violation of the rules of the exercise. The nearby light cruiser Detroit rushed to intercept it violently, but was judged by the director team to be unable to beat it and was also "sunk".

Both the USS Lexington and the USS Saratoga were pioneers of U.S. aircraft carrier tactics, gaining experience and refining tactics during numerous exercises.

As for the enterprise number, it is even more unusual.

The Annapolis Naval Academy has this to say about her:

"Of the more than 20 major battles of the entire Pacific War, she missed only two. In total, her carrier-based aircraft shot down 911 enemy aircraft, sank 71 enemy ships, and damaged 192 enemy ships. Her deeds will always be the glory of our army and the nightmare of the enemy."

The Akagi, Kaga, and Wyvern were all killed by her hands, and in the most difficult moments of the war, the Enterprise once released an epic statement - Enterprise vs. Japan.

However, Zhou Changfeng also comforted himself, the two Taiweiyuan-class fleet aircraft carriers of the Ming Navy are also excellent, and they are based on the third and fourth ships of the Yongyuan-class battlecruisers, which are not inferior to the Lexington-class.

The two Ziweiyuan-class are sturdy armored aircraft carriers that are inherently extremely survivable.

Its flight deck armor is 64mm thick, which can resist most high-explosive and semi-armor-piercing bombs, and only 1000-pound and 1600-pound armor-piercing bombs can penetrate it.

And even if it was broken, the bombs at the end of the crossbow did not have the strength to penetrate into the power compartment and ammunition depot further down, at most blowing up the hangar to force her to withdraw from the battle, and return to Hong Kong to repair it for a few months and return to full blood.

As for the underwater threat, the iron-rod kinetic torpedoes of the Americans in the early days of the war could basically be ignored.

After several rejections in succession, it was proposed that the fleet should simply take the middle line generously, pass through Midway Island and turn northeast, and the fleet would reach northern Hawaii.

Because the coastal defense guns identified so far are basically concentrated in the southern part of Oahu, but they have a limited range of fire, facing south, and only a small number of open batteries are capable of rotating 360°.

So if you want to land, you have to avoid the dense crossfire blockade, and for now, the best location is Haleiwa in northern Oahu.

[Picture]

"Landing from the south is self-defeating, go to the north, look, this Haleiwa is very suitable." Zhou Changfeng leaned forward slightly, stretched out his hand and nodded on the sand table.

"It stands to reason that the Americans will continue to increase their troops, and the informant sent back the news that the Eighth Marine Regiment will be transferred to Pearl Harbor once it is reorganized." Cheng Han looked at Zhou Changfeng, who was three steps away, and asked word by word: "If you want to make sure that nothing goes wrong, how many soldiers do you need?" ”

The latter stared intently at the sand table, constantly comparing the differences in the establishment and analyzing the impact of the terrain in his mind, and muttered for a full ten seconds before he spoke: "One Marine Brigade, one Southern Infantry Division, two heavy mountain artillery battalions, one storm-attacked vehicle battalion, and two engineer battalions. ”

There are not many expensive soldiers, and the transportation capacity is limited, so it is necessary to carefully select the most elite and suitable troops.

The Southern Infantry Division has received more training in complex terrain operations, and it was all of them who participated in the operation to pacify the South Seas.

They have been tempered by the flames of war, and they can choose any one of them.

As for the heavy tanks of a battalion, they are mainly used against the armored forces of the American army and to break through the strong defensive line.

The Americans, who had no outside pressure and a serious lack of experience in tank design, were still tinkering with some industrial waste - the M2A3 light tank with two turrets and one machine gun each had just been discontinued, and the M2A4 equipped with the M5 37mm tank gun had finally begun mass production.

As for the medium tank, the Americans said that we are still testing it and will probably be ready for production by the end of the year.

The overall technical level of the M2A4 is probably equivalent to the British Vickers MkE ten years ago, but the M5 tank gun is very eye-catching, a bit of a beauty to cover up the ugly.

It is capable of penetrating steel plates about 500mm thick at a distance of 50m, which is more powerful than the German Pak36 type 37mm towed anti-tank gun.

In view of the fact that this thing could pose a serious threat to the Ming army's Type 38 medium tanks, Zhou Changfeng insisted on the deployment of heavy tank units.

Only in this way can we reverse the disadvantage of landing across the ocean with the crushing superiority in the quality of weapons.

That is, about 24,000 men and horses, 110,000 tons of marines and 160,000 tons of infantry divisions...... Including a standard campaign ammunition volume, a total of 360,000 tons of shipping capacity is required. ”

A skinny logistics staff officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel reacted quickly, dividing five by two to directly explain the required capacity.

"There are not enough landing ships and high-speed troop carriers." The admiral looked a little headache, and he clenched his fist to his mouth in thought, "Perhaps...... Can you try to transfer a batch of old destroyers to transport troops? ”

The eyes of everyone present lit up, and this is indeed a good solution.

The Pingyang class of the Ming Navy is the oldest destroyer in service, and its first ship entered service in the fifteenth year of Zhichang, with a total of 34 destroyers.

Now, with the launch of the cutting-edge Jieyang-class destroyers, the Navy is planning to remove the 13 Pingyang-class destroyers in poor condition from active service and turn them into reserves.

It's just right for them to exert their residual heat again.

These destroyers, which temporarily serve as high-speed troop carriers, can cut out the sailors who were originally in charge of weapons and free up some ammunition depots. According to the degree of uncrowded, a single ship can carry 400 army soldiers.

"Bring up all the intelligence materials related to Haleiwa, and take my warrant." Cheng Han casually took out a pen from the inner pocket of his jacket and signed a note.

Someone immediately took the order, turned and ran away.

After the general context was preliminarily determined, everyone began to discuss the specific strategy in depth step by step.

How should the fleet route be arranged? How to ensure the fuel supply of the fleet? How much food should the landing force bring to eat? What is the best firepower system for landing support?

The staff office of the Governor's Mansion was full of enthusiasm, and their exuberant energy surprised everyone Zhou.

After entering the palace and going to the Zhaoren Palace, he gave feedback to the emperor about the previous discussions.

Zhu Lingjing was lying on a chair, the gramophone record was slowly spinning, and beautiful music came out of it, filling the room.

She said nonchalantly: "Don't talk too much at every turn, how can there be anything foolproof?" ”

"It's okay, Your Majesty, I'm not going to give a military order casually."

It's too easy for the old foxes to want to harm people, especially for those young and vigorous juniors who are not deeply involved in the world, and a radical general may be able to lead the other party to take the initiative to issue a military order.

If it succeeds, then go along with the compliment; But if it fails, don't blame people for being ruthless.

Zhu Lingjing said lightly, "Let's not talk about what to do militarily, now the opposing side is focusing on whether the advantages of Australia outweigh the disadvantages." ”

"There is no decisive advantage militarily...... Mainly economically, Australia is rich in all kinds of minerals, and then politically it is also obvious, this is a big step to project our power to the world. Zhou Changfeng said.

After all, it is only to claim hegemony in Asia, and in the future, as the world situation is finalized, it will be more troublesome to export influence.

"Oh, it's probably worth the economic benefits."

Why does that sound a little weird? Isn't political benefit important?

Zhou Changfeng asked puzzledly: "Didn't Your Majesty still have ambitions back then?" ”

Good fellow, it doesn't count after you tricked me into getting on the thief ship, does it?

Zhu Lingjing's eyes flickered for a moment, then glanced at him, and said calmly: "After all, it's just the vision of the past, and now ...... Do your best. ”

The rich second generation before taking over the company: listed three years later, marching towards the top 500 in Asia!

After taking over the company, the rich second generation: This year's loss is a bit much, and next year will strive not to lose money.

Fortunately, Australian iron ore has been discovered today, and although only a small part of it has been discovered, the abundance of hematite in those open pit deposits is still breathtaking.

Historically, the Great Iron Ore Mine in Western Australia was not discovered by a couple by chance until the fifties.

The difference is that after the German Revolution, some of the old nobles who had fled crossed the ocean to settle in Australia.

Three or four years ago, a young man born into an aristocratic family in exile challenged himself to fly around Australia on a solo plane and discovered hematite in a gorge in Western Australia, which turned people's perceptions upside down.

If it weren't for the fact that it was clear that there was an iron-rich mine there that the Ming did not have, Zhou Changfeng felt that the Ming people would definitely not covet Australia.

(End of chapter)