If you want to say, Spear's worries are actually a bit redundant.

Cunningham was indeed stubborn, but he did not have much deviation in his judgment of the battle situation. Moreover, the expeditionary fleet was ahead, and there were weather factors.

In the southern hemisphere, January is summer.

Although the high latitude areas are not hot, there are stormy waves near the distant horn, and the average daytime wind speed is generally above level 8.

This means that carrier-based aircraft cannot take off and land on aircraft carriers at all!

The key is that as long as you sail a few hundred kilometers northeast, the weather will improve after leaving the westerly wind belt and the wind speed will drop to about level 5.

Obviously, the Liang Xia fleet, which is hundreds of kilometers away, will definitely be able to deploy carrier-based aircraft normally.

If the Expeditionary Fleet and the 61st Special Mixed Fleet are attacked in the south of the Far Cape, they will have to be beaten because they cannot deploy carrier-based aircraft!

It was precisely this that Cunningham decided to let the two fleets act separately.

Even if one is attacked, the other can avoid it.

Besides, if the expeditionary fleet successfully enters Fanyan Ocean, it can cover the 61st Special Mixed Fleet in front.

If you can escape the south or southeast of Liangxia fleet, you may even have the hope of launching an attack first and catch Liangxia fleet off guard.

In any case, it is extremely stupid to enter Fanyan Ocean together.

According to the plan, after sending the telegram, the Expeditionary Fleet entered a radio silent state and never contacted the 61st Special Mixed Fleet again.

Not afraid of exposing his whereabouts.

The radio monitoring station of the Liangxia Empire was thousands of kilometers away, and there was reason to believe that the Liangxia Navy did not send submarines to Fanyan Ocean to operate.

Using radio will not expose the fleet to its whereabouts.

In Cunningham's opinion, he just felt that there was no need for this.

Although Cunningham did not deny Spee's ability, he always believed that this general Newland, who was just a colonel before the war, was simply a nouveau riche, lacking the demeanor of a naval general, and in many ways it was like a cowboy wearing a Shanghai army uniform.

Cunningham thinks there is nothing to say about this kind of person.

As for whether Spear could understand his good intentions, Cunningham didn't think much about it.

He is the commander-in-chief of the expedition, and Sp just needs to act according to his instructions.

Nothing to say along the way.

On the evening of January 25, the expeditionary fleet arrived at the sea south of the Far View Cape and entered the Fanyan Ocean.

In fact, Xi Luoyang and Fan Yanyang have no boundaries at all.

During dinner, Cunningham told all the officers and soldiers through the radio that the expeditionary fleet had entered Fan Yanyang and was about to fight with Liang Xia's fleet.

That night, there was nothing important except for letting the pilot rest and preparing for takeoff early in the morning of this day.

At 4 a.m. on the 26th, the "Guanghui" and "Kewei" became lively.

After half an hour of intense preparation, the "Swordfish" that carried out the reconnaissance mission took off one after another.

In the summer of the southern hemisphere, it is still in high latitudes, so it will dawn after 5 o'clock and the sun will rise around 5 o'clock.

According to Cunningham's arrangement, the two aircraft carriers each dispatched 8 "Swordfish" to carry out reconnaissance missions.

In fact, this is also all the torpedo aircraft carried by the two aircraft carriers.

Because the primary target for Liang Xia’s fleet was the fleet aircraft carrier, before the expedition, they only replaced the old bomber with SBD.

The most important thing to replace is the bomber. The Royal Bran Navy has no dive bomber in the true sense.

In addition, the "Glory" class can only carry more than 40 carrier-based aircraft. Because it has to sail through the harsh climate of Nanxi Luoyang and Nanfan Yanyang, both aircraft carriers only carry 32 carrier-based aircraft, and all of them are placed in the hangar and not tied on the flight deck.

The result is that 12 F4Fs and 12 SBDs were eliminated, and only 8 "Swordfish" could be stuffed into them.

In fact, the small load capacity has always been a common problem with Bran aircraft carriers.

Fortunately, the Royal Navy has made arrangements long ago to deploy a batch of carrier-based aircraft to the Nanxuan area, including more than 40 "Swordfish".

After leaving the westerly belt, you can get supplements.

Including the flight deck, it can carry more than a dozen more aircraft.

The 16 reconnaissance aircraft are not sufficient, but the search waters are not open.

As mentioned earlier, the westerly wind zone can be ignored, and the focus is on the sea area north of the westerly wind zone.

To this end, Cunningham sent all 16 "Swordfish" to the northeast, expanding the search range to 800 kilometers, almost reaching the farthest flight radius of the "Swordfish".

In addition, Cunningham also made second-hand preparations.

The two aircraft carriers each made four SBDs ready for takeoff.

If at 8 a.m., when all the "Swordfish" reached the farthest reconnaissance radius, the Liang Xia fleet had not been discovered yet, and the SBDs should be taken off immediately, expand the fan-shaped reconnaissance area to both sides by 30 degrees, and send 6 SBDs to focus on searching the sea area close to Xuan Continent.

In this way, you can still go out again until the "Swordfish" returns at noon.

In short, the first task is to find Liang Xiate's mixed fleet.

To this end, the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force deployed in the Nanxuan area will also do their best to send all the aircraft that can be dispatched.

Including the air force on Magas Island, a total of about 30 patrol aircraft can be mobilized.

There are also some "Sunderland"-style long-range patrol aircraft that show their power in Beixi Luoyang anti-submarine operations.

According to Cunningham's judgment, unless Bai Zhizhan did not bring the fleet here, he would definitely be discovered.

That's why he also deployed attack missions in advance, allowing the pilots to prepare for combat, and even let the carrier-based aircraft performing attack missions refuel in advance.

If you want to say it, this is also a major advantage of Bran aircraft carrier.

Because they often move in the harsh northern sunset, the Royal Bran Navy requires that at critical moments, the carrier-based aircraft complete the preparations before takeoff in the hangar and be sent to the flight deck in a full load state, so as to shorten the stay time on the flight deck as much as possible.

There must be risks, but they have never been revealed.

As for the benefits, they are very outstanding.

To put it bluntly, when the Liangxia aircraft carrier, which uses an open hangar, and the Newland aircraft carrier cannot deploy carrier-based aircraft, the Bran aircraft carrier can continue to fight.

It should be said that the number of carriers of Bran aircraft carriers is relatively small, and the first reason is to use a fully enclosed hangar.

Of course, unless the tonnage of the aircraft carrier continues to be expanded, there will be a trade-off between the capacity of the aircraft and the airworthiness performance, and it is impossible to have both.

From another perspective, Liang Xia Navy has continuously increased the tonnage of the aircraft carrier, which is also to improve the aircraft carrier's airworthiness performance.

The most significant feature of the "provincial" level is that it greatly improves the navigation stability under high sea conditions on the basis of appropriately increasing the number of aircraft carriers.

The fastest navigation speed is also reduced due to the wide hull configuration.

Objectively speaking, it was only at the "provincial" level that the Imperial aircraft carrier surpassed the Bran aircraft carrier in airworthiness performance, and it was impossible to even look at it before.

After making all the arrangements, all that is left is to wait patiently.

But, this wait took a whole day.

In the afternoon, when the "Swordfish" took off again and performed the second time, and the third round of reconnaissance mission that day, there was still no news.

Subsequently, the SBD that took off in the morning returned one after another.

It was still quiet in the radio channel until the evening, and even the patrol aircraft troops deployed in the Nanxuan area did not send any messages.
Chapter completed!