December 5, 11:27, Torres Strait.

A PBY Catalina seaplane, which is part of the Royal Australian Navy, is on patrol.

The crew was shocked to see what they thought they were dazzled - two Ming warships and an aircraft carrier were crossing the strait westward.

The aircraft carrier was being towed forward by a Ming warship, and its appearance was ...... How is it exactly the same as the Lexington?!

"My God, what the hell is going on?"

"You must be mistaken, Victor, bring the identification manual."

Several crew members snatched the ship type identification manual.

Comparing and comparing, it was finally unanimously determined that this was indeed the Lexington, the Lexington that had been confirmed to have sunk itself a day earlier.

Three minutes later, a telegram was sent to Townsville, then to Melbourne and finally to Hawaii.

"That's completely impossible!"

"Mr. Commander, the location and situation found are facts, and the only possibility is that."

At the Pacific Fleet command at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Hasburn-Kimmel was full of incredulity.

Seeing Adjutant Colonel Dean's affirmative tone, the Admiral's gaze finally dimmed.

With a bad temper, he slammed the table hard, his eyes became cold, and he asked angrily, "Has the report of the Mastin" been confirmed?" ”

"Yes, commander, the rescued officers and pilots saw multiple torpedo explosions."

"Damn! Immediately report the situation to the Southwest Pacific Theater Command and demand that all their forces be used to carry out an air strike! ”

"Yes! Sir! Colonel Dean saluted, then turned to leave his office.

But before he could step out, he heard Haspen's voice coming from behind him, "Not only the plane, but we should also move immediately when we deploy to the submarine there." And then...... Damn, who can tell me why (half) of the torpedoes did not explode! ”

As everyone knows, half of the torpedoes detonated are already a great luck.

Historically, in the early and middle stages of the Pacific War, the Mk14 torpedoes used by US submarines and the Mk15 torpedoes used by surface ships both had serious dud problems, and the probability of failure to fire could reach 80%.

In July 43, the submarine Black Trevally under the command of Captain Das Pete ambushed the Nanto Maru, Japan's largest oil tanker at the time, and all four torpedoes in the first round were hit, and none of them exploded.

After the Nandu Maru fled, the unwilling people chose to surface and accelerate the pursuit. After a full night, the Black Trevally took up the firing position again, and the second mine successfully exploded, but did not sink.

The Black Trevally fired nine more torpedoes, none of which detonated, and an exasperated Darth Pitt recorded in his logbook, "I found it hard to believe what I was witnessing."

Later, the Black Trevally brought back the only remaining torpedo in the entire boat, and after inspection, it was found to be in working order.

The Naval Ordnance Bureau flatly denied that there was a problem with the torpedo itself, but instead blamed the submarine forces for not following the correct steps to set the torpedo parameters.

[Picture]

Americans often show a strange arrogance in continuing to stick to their ideas when they have learned from the past and learned from the past.

Often, this kind of self-confidence is often ridiculed by later generations, such as:

The mobile iron coffin of the Seven Brothers - the M3 Grant medium tank.

Magical kinetic iron torpedo - Mk14/Mk15 torpedo.

Forced full-power ammunition - 7.62×51mm NATO rifle cartridges.

Maybe... Is this a kind of self-confidence?

“…… Townsville's air force was already planning an air strike on the Lexington, and now they had 15 B-17s available. Sir... Sir? ”

On the bridge of the West Virginia, the adjutant is reporting on the latest situation, but finds the commander distracted.

The immediate superior's outrage led to the frustration of Rear Admiral Frank Fletcher, who was directly responsible for the capture of the Lexington.

It is basically certain that he has memorized this black cauldron.

"The capture of the USS Lexington means eternal shame for the U.S. Navy going forward." He sighed.

The remnants of the TF-12 fleet retreated to Moresby at first, when the Ming Air Force had not yet carried out a large-scale air raid on the local airfield, so the remnants of the fleet were still under the protection of the US-Australian coalition aviation.

However, with air supremacy falling into the hands of the Ming army, the T-shaped 39th Detachment also approached Moresby, so the TF-12 fleet, which had only been hastily repaired in the port for a day, was forced to set sail again and take advantage of the night to go to Australia.

The Ming air units stationed in Rabaul and Tulagi were trying their best to suppress Moresby, so they did not deal with this remnant defeat.

Another reason is that for more than a week, the fleets of the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Dutch Navy had been operating in the waters off the Solomon Islands – preventing the Ming army from Rabaul from landing in the northern part of the Papua Peninsula.

Therefore, the Ming Air Force was trying to deal with them during this time, and the storage of aviation torpedoes at the Rabaul and Tulagi airfields was exhausted.

Now, with the defeat of the TF-12 fleet, the Dutch and Australian armies can only withdraw and retreat to the Australian mainland.

The waters off Moresby were already filled with dozens of Ming naval vessels, and countless soldiers climbed down the rope nets to board the landing craft that had been laid down not long ago.

Then, hundreds of dinghys swept across the sea like a long fine comb, leaving behind a conspicuous white track.

Smoke and dust were still rising from the depth of the landing site, and it was the Ming fleet that had extended its artillery fire and was carrying out blocking and obstructing fire at the enemy's depth.

From time to time, explosions occurred on the surface of the sea near the beachhead, the water column soared into the sky, and the large waves were like blooming ice cream, which was the 1st Marine Brigade Beach-grabbing Strike Battalion blasting and clearing the obstacles laid by the enemy.

More than 20 Type 35 amphibious tanks drove into the sea from the special landing ship, their engines roaring, their tracks paddling the water, and the propulsion propellers at the tail rotating at high speed, driving the small tanks forward.

As the landing force of the first echelon was about to come ashore, artillery fire from the depth of the land finally arrived, and more and more water columns suddenly appeared on the sea, and the sand, dust and gunpowder smoke raised by the explosion appeared on the beachhead.

"It's a strategic place that has been in business for a long time, and this artillery fire is even more fierce than that in Darwin." Yao Liangchuan said.

Zhu Lixuan, who was holding a large-magnification telescope, observed carefully and hesitated: "There should be four or five artillery battalions in total, but only half of them are firing now." Look at the strength of these bombs...... Part of it was a two-and-a-half-inch light gun. ”

His judgment was accurate, the more powerful drop shells came from the QF 4.5-inch howitzer, and the less powerful drop shells came from the M7897 75mm field gun.

The latter does not need to be guessed to know that it is the handiwork of the Americans, and more and more military aid weapons and equipment appear on the battlefield.

Zhou Changfeng pondered in his heart for a few seconds, and ordered: "It's almost, except for Section B, the other landing sites will start to be covered by smoke screens one minute earlier." ”

"Yes!"

It is inappropriate to carry out large-scale smoke screen shading at the outset, as it is easy for the landing force to lose its reference and lead to deviation.

At the same time, the smoke screen will also prevent your side from aiming directly at fire support.

In the final analysis, the landing operations in these years were three-plate axes, unlike later generations when there were fancy jobs such as airborne raids in the rear and hovercraft assisted flank landings.

But even if it's just a seemingly easy three-plank axe, it's extremely difficult to make sure that every detail is foolproof.

In several operations in the Nanyang Campaign more than half a year ago, the fire support ships that had been pinned on by Zhou Changfeng did not perform well, and the main drawback was that the stability of the sea platform was not as good as that of the land, and the ship was shaking all the time.

The accuracy of the rocket artillery is already poor, so the dispersion is so big that it makes no sense - it looks ferocious, but in fact it is the equivalent of watching a fireworks show.

So some people privately complained that even the idea of being a rookie is not 100% reliable.

Despite this, Zhou Changfeng insisted on continuing to improve the fire support ship, after all, if this thing is improved properly, then it will definitely play a big role.

Instability? Then find a way to make it stable!

Three-axis stabilized gun mounts were commonly used for ship-based anti-aircraft guns - for example, the 37mm hand-pulled machines of the Germans in history, so it was enough to copy the ready-made design and install a three-axis stabilized gun mount for MLRS.

In order to speed up the progress and reduce unnecessary troubles, the Naval Ordnance Research Institute directly copied the gun mount of the twin-mounted 38.4mm anti-aircraft gun, enlarged it a little in equal proportions, and adapted it to the 15-pack rocket launcher.

After testing, the stabilization effect was obvious, and the launch dispersion was also considerably reduced, so three fire support ships modified with stabilized gun mounts were hurriedly transferred to participate in the battle.

The Ming Navy has so far converted eight of the twelve old Taiping-class destroyers into fire support ships, and if they perform well this time, then the rest of the Taiping-class destroyers will also be converted.

At 8:11 a.m. on 6 December, several flares were lifted off from the beachhead.

The officers and men of the first echelon of about six infantry units successfully landed ashore, and none of the four landing sites in A, B, C, and D met with beachhead resistance.

The floating tank battalion also landed smoothly, but one platoon was supposed to go ashore in section B, but it ended up running to section C, but fortunately the whole front was particularly calm.

Except for the constantly falling shells and sporadic cold guns, not even the shadow of the enemy was seen.

"Oh, I guess I know what these guys are up to."

Combined with the current situation and the previous aerial reconnaissance photos, Zhou Changfeng had almost guessed at this time.

He turned around and walked to Zhao Hanfeng's side, first looked at the fine map, and then stretched out his index finger and pointed at the sand table and shook it.

"They estimate that the main force will be deployed in the fields and hills north of the city, and there is only a little alert force here, and they plan to play deep resistance with us."

"It's useless, it's a fool's errand." Zhao Hanfeng commented very concisely.

Zhou Changfeng smiled, "Extending the depth and defending to the death is stupid, but it is also a good way to prolong the resistance time." ”

After a while, he suddenly asked, "When will the troops on the north road be able to land?" ”

Roughly consistent with Zhou Changfeng's speculation, the Australian army's defense strategy in Moresby was to stick to the outskirts and resist in depth.

Major General Vernon Stedy, who served as the commander of the 8th Infantry Division of the Australian Army, carefully studied the past landing examples of the Ming army, and also specially pondered the command habits of Zhou.

He believes that the Chinese side is fighting in isolation from sea and air supremacy, and must avoid any meaningless troop losses as much as possible, so that it can resist for a long time and gain time.

To sum up, only by relying on the strong fortifications built in advance can we minimize the huge damage of the enemy's superior firepower of land, sea and air and avoid uncovered field battles.

Based on this theory, the 8th Infantry Division moved the large amount of military supplies that Moresby had hoarded from the city warehouses to the hills, where dozens of supply depots, field hospitals, and barracks were set up and well camouflaged.

At the same time, they built a large number of field fortifications on the undulating and complex terrain, because there was a lot of cement in stock, including a considerable part of the concrete shelters and bunkers.

This makes it clear that you have to shrink back and defend, although it reduces the possibility of losing troops in vain due to unexpected situations, but it will also make you fall into passivity.

It can be said that Vernon's strategy was very passive, almost giving the initiative to the Ming army.

Or rather, he was mentally prepared for defeat in this battle from the beginning, and purely just wanted to do his best to delay the pace of the Ming invasion of Australia.

In this way, more than 15,000 Australian officers and men of the 8th Infantry Division, the 12th Independent Field Artillery Regiment (Battalion), and the 3rd Separate Light Tank Company defending Moresby quietly waited for the stormy offensive to arrive in a strong defensive line.

Perimeter Feng was in no hurry to rush the attack, and since the Australians showed no signs of taking the initiative to counterattack, they slowly landed to unload heavy weapons, and then organized an attack.

During this time, a detachment of detachments also quietly disembarked in a bay in the northeastern part of the Papua Peninsula.

This force included a battalion of the 36th Infantry Division and a scout of the 19th Infantry Division of the Ming Army, as well as a battalion of the 2nd Infantry Division of the Royal Army of Annam

The first two were formed in Dali Mansion and Guilin Prefecture, and were the Yunnan and Guangxi troops of the Eight Classics.

This detachment of more than 1,300 men, commanded by the commander of the 107th Regiment, You Zitao, was ordered to cross the Owen Stanley Mountains through the Kokoda Trail and surprise the defenders of Moresby from the north.

The Owen Stanley Mountains, which reach their highest peak of 4,000 meters, are extremely hostile and unsuitable for human activity at all.

This hellish place is full of rapids, valleys, vines, rotten leaves, swamps, jungles, mosquitoes, locusts, parasites, and poisonous snakes carrying malaria parasites and various germs.

Historically, the Battle of the Kokoda Trail ended in victory for the Australian army, mainly because the Japanese had only one main direction of attack at the campaign level, and the Kokoda Trail was too narrow to exert its troops, and finally failed miserably due to the exhaustion of supplies.

The Ming army, on the other hand, had landed in Moresby and launched an offensive from the front, and only a flanking division was taking the dangerous road of the Kokoda Trail, and there were only more than 1,000 men, and the supply needs were very small.

After Zhou Changfeng learned about the complexity and difficulties here, he specially proposed the formation of such a carefully selected force, hoping to give the flank of the Australian army a hard stab.

"Has the snake medicine been distributed? Apply the ointment or something, squeak if you are uncomfortable, and stiff is asking for your own death! ”

"Bring enough dry food, water purification tablets must also be brought, one can for each group, it is strictly forbidden to eat secretly if you are in an emergency, and you will be severely punished!"

"The fire rises, and after this meal, you will leave, the action is fast, the soldiers are fast, and they are all put away."

(End of chapter)