News that the Bermuda airport was air strike and the F-13 ultra-long-range reconnaissance planes discovered that the German fleet passed through the Bermuda-Nova Scotia Peninsula blockade quickly shocked Washington.

In the White House cabinet meeting room, a strong smell of coffee and cigarettes floated. The US president who had just sent off the visiting Mussolini held an emergency military meeting overnight to discuss countermeasures. Senior generals and main cabinet ministers gathered together. Vice President Wallace and Truman, who is running for president, and Dewey's representatives also appeared here.

"Gentlemen," Roosevelt sucked a camel cigarette and was banned from smoking after a stroke, but today seemed an exception to the sick flush on his face. "What do you think the Germans want to do? And how should we stop it?"

"Mr. President," replied William Lech, the President's Chief of Staff. "The Joint Chiefs of Staff study believes that the German fleet that broke through the Bermuda-Nova Scotia blockade is likely to be coming to attack our East Coast... The German fleet is likely to launch long-range missiles into big cities on the East Coast."

"But the East Coast is big!" Roosevelt said, "Can we make sure that all places are well-defended?"

"No." William Lexi shook his head regretfully. The coastline of the east coast of the United States is three to four thousand kilometers long, so how can it be closely guarded everywhere? Moreover, the Germans are not going to come to shell. Most of them don't even need to send bombers. They just need to launch missiles at sea 400-500 kilometers near a certain place."

"Can you send a plane to an air strike?" Roosevelt asked again.

"This... may be a little further away." William Lexi glanced at Navy Operations Minister Admiral Ernest King.

Admiral Kim said: "Given that the German fleet will likely use night cover to rush up to 150 nautical miles (about 280 kilometers) and then quickly launch missiles, what we want to bomb is a target 800-1,000 kilometers away from the coastline. Moreover, the German carrier-based aircraft have relatively superior performance, and our medium-sized bombers and SBD dive bombers and TBF torpedo bombers are difficult to pose a threat to the German fleet. The only effective one is less than 200 F7Fs. At first, most of the F7Fs have been transferred to Trinidad, and only two squadrons of F7Fs are deployed at airports on Newfoundland and Nova Scotia Peninsula.

In addition, the climate in the North Atlantic has been poor recently, with large winds and waves, and thicker clouds in the air, which is not conducive to bomber groups' attacks."

The Battle of Bermuda in September was a heavy blow to the United States! Not only did their battleship troops encounter an almost devastating blow under the attack of German missiles, but even the powerful American air force seemed powerless in front of the German Navy aviation.

The numerous heavy and medium bombers lack the necessary anti-ship capabilities, while professional anti-ship aircraft such as the Navy Aviation and Marine Corps SBD and TBF appear to be outdated in front of the German Folk 636 and are difficult to survive. Moreover, the distance between 800 and 1,000 kilometers is a little further for the SBD and TBF.

The four types of p47, p51, f4u and f6f can act as fighter jets, but cannot carry enough large bombs to attack targets of 800-1,000 kilometers. Therefore, the only aircraft that can attack the German fleet near the east coast of the United States is only a limited number of f7fs.

What's worse is that after the Battle of Bermuda, the Joint Chiefs of Staff judged that the target of the German army was Trinidad, most of the service's F7Fs were transferred there, with only two squadrons, a total of 24 F7Fs were placed on Newfoundland and Nova Scotia Peninsula. It is certainly impossible to threaten the German fleet with at least 200 Fokker 636s (actually only 192) guarding them.

"Where is the aircraft carrier? Where is our aircraft carrier?" Roosevelt asked.

The US battleship troops suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Bermuda. All super battleships were sunk, but the aircraft carrier was not damaged and intact. They were just aircraft carriers. The losses of carrier-based pilots were still very heavy, and there were two other Essex-class aircraft carriers in late September and early October (one of which was repaired), so now the number of large fleet aircraft carriers owned by the US Navy has reached 11!

“The Enterprise and eight Essex Classes are receiving carrier-based aircraft in Pensacola,” Ernest King replied. “There are two Essex Classes and ten Independent Classes that are performing escort and decommissioning missions in the Pacific.”

"Escort and blockade?" Roosevelt thought for a while and asked, "Is it targeting Japan?"

"No, no." Ernest King and William Lexi looked at each other, both showing worried expressions.

Because they also reported to Roosevelt a few days ago that the US aircraft carrier launched a blockade against Germany (Portugal-Buenos Aires route) and escort mission in the Pacific.

"Mr. President," William Leach reminded Roosevelt, "the main task of the Pacific Fleet is to support the operation of the Hawaiian Islands, in the Southeast Pacific, to support our operations in Chile."

"Oh, I remembered it." Roosevelt also smiled bitterly and shook his head. He had a superb memory and became a little forgetful after the stroke.

Roosevelt asked again: "That is, we have no way to deal with German warships that are ready to launch missiles into New York, Washington or Boston?"

"We can send out b24 and b17," said General Arnold, commander of the Army Air Force. "The range of p51 and p47 is also sufficient to escort. Moreover, according to the intelligence we have, the German missile ships do not have many missiles on them, and they will fire up to dozens of missiles at a time, which will not cause too much damage to big cities like New York, Washington and Boston..."

The judgment that "it won't cause too much loss" is based on Boston's continuous missile attacks these days. Since the number of German me264f missile bombers responsible for attacking Boston is only 36, the Death 2b missiles hit Boston every day is only about 20. The result is nothing more than "demolition" of ten or eight houses, and then killing more than a dozen to dozens of Americans. For a world war, this loss is indeed insignificant.

"Okay." Roosevelt glanced at the cabinet meeting room and nodded, "Let the big cities on the East Coast enter a state of emergency, and at the same time, we should eliminate fighter jets from intercepting enemy fleets and missiles as much as possible."

...

October 10th at 1:00 a.m.

In the missile hangar (hangar) of the USS Max missile aircraft carrier running at full speed at 26 knots, several missile soldiers slowly pushed a v1b cruise missile placed on a four-wheeled trolley onto the elevator. With the help of the hydraulic oil pump, the missile was slowly lifted to the deck. The whistling deck wind blew, and a missile soldier guarding the missile was shaken several times by the wind, and quickly grabbed the handle of the missile vehicle.

"Hans, be careful."

A sergeant shouted at the missile soldier who was almost blown down by the wind, and then took the lead in pushing the missile vehicle toward a missile launcher on the flight deck of the bow. A v1b cruise missile with a pair of short wings and a shorter tail wing was placed on the missile launcher. There was a vertical steel plate about ten meters behind the missile launcher, which was a baffle used to resist the missile tail flame. Behind the baffle, there were four-row reserves, each row was 10.

All the reserved ammunition was placed on a specially made four-wheeled cart, and the four wheels of the cart were stuck in the mount installed on the flight deck. There were 8 missile soldiers standing behind each row of reserved ammunition, which was a missile launch squad dedicated to launching V1b cruise missiles.

Each Kesseling-class missile carrier has 16 such missile squads. The four missile squads share a hydraulic catapult launcher (it is modified with catapults. The original Kesseling-class aircraft carrier has two catapults. After the Kesseling-class aircraft carrier is converted into a missile carrier, the number has doubled into four hydraulic catapult launchers. These launchers can also use externally boosted rockets to launch missiles without hydraulic catapulting). When performing launch operations, the four teams take turns to install the missiles on the launcher and then launch them.

According to the results during training, as long as the two missile squads do not make any mistakes, one launcher can launch 10 v1b cruise missiles within an hour, while four launchers on a missile aircraft carrier can launch 40 v1b cruise missiles within an hour.

In addition, each missile launcher is equipped with a fire extinguishing team, and the leather tube and water gun are ready at any time. It can not only extinguish the fire caused by the failure of the launch, but also spray water to cool the overheated launcher to ensure that the launch can be sustained.

"Sir, Marks and Anthony Folk reported that the missile launch operation has been prepared and can be launched at any time."

In the bridge of the flagship aircraft carrier Kesseling, the Guns and Guns Staff loudly reported to Major General Mayer's preparations for missile launch.

Mayer looked back at the nautical staff, who replied: "It is about 10 nautical miles away from point x, and it will be available in 23 minutes."

Mayer looked at aviation staff officer Hessman again. Hessman was contacting a BV138e type water early warning aircraft in the air on his phone. He put down the phone receiver and said to Major General Mayer: "Sir, there is no large enemy aircraft group within 200 nautical miles around point x, and the launch site is safe."

Major General Mayer breathed a sigh of relief. Although it was night now, it could not be ruled out that Americans' night bombers also had the ability to deal with surface targets. If Americans' planes launched high-intensity horizontal bombing like during the day, even if they could not hurt the aircraft carrier, it would seriously affect the missile launch operation.
Chapter completed!