At that time, French believed that the biggest gain of the bombing on the morning of the 16th was to pass on the pressure to the Chinese Navy.

The reason is that after the Chinese Marines fighting on Guadalcanal mainly rely on air transport to deliver supplies, the Marines' air operations were forced to pause after destroying the airport on the Solomon Islands, so the Chinese Marines on Guadalcanal will soon encounter logistical support problems.

French made this judgment, which has a lot to do with the battle reports provided by the island defenders.[..com]

At that time, the US Marines on Guadalcanal Island discovered that the offensive intensity of the Chinese Marines began to weaken and they no longer went deep into underground fortifications to fight. Therefore, it was believed that there was a problem with the logistics support of the Chinese army, which caused the Chinese Marines on the island to not obtain enough combat supplies.

Obviously, this is the result of the US military's speculation.

At that time, there was no problem with the logistics support of the Chinese army. The Chinese Marine Corps on Guadalcanal Island had sufficient combat supplies. The weakening of offensive strength was just a superficial phenomenon. The main reason was that the Chinese Marine Corps was trying to use drilling methods to blow up the underground tunnels of the US military. Although the results of these tactical attempts were not ideal, at that time, the offensive actions of the Chinese Marine Corps would definitely be affected.

However, French didn't believe in the battle reports of the US Marines at that time.

Through the special forces returning, France had a relatively intuitive understanding of the situation on Guadalcanal Island, that is, all the US Marines were huddled in underground fortifications, rarely moved to the ground, and rarely took the initiative to counterattack, and were basically in a passive state of being beaten.

At that time, French even personally asked several Navy SEALs.

In his opinion, the credibility of the Marine Corps battle report is not very high. After all, the Marines hiding underground cannot know what the enemies on the ground are doing.

However, this report gave French a preconceived view.

On the afternoon of the 16th, the US Air Force submitted a reconnaissance report to prove that the Marine Corps' report was credible, because no large amount of hoarded combat materials were found in the photos taken by the reconnaissance aircraft, and the Chinese Marine Corps were mainly concentrated in several locations and did not search for US military underground fortifications everywhere.

The Air Force concluded that the Chinese Marines on Guadalcanal are likely to be short of combat supplies.

There is no doubt that this is a very wrong conclusion. The reason is very simple. After the arrival of the US fleet, the Chinese Marine Corps also adopted the method of the US military: digging underground fortifications and hiding materials that are easily destroyed during bombing. More importantly, the Chinese Marine Corps even used some occupied US military underground fortifications, so there were enough places to store military materials for more than 100,000 Marine officers and soldiers.

According to the Chinese Marine Corps' battle report, by mid-June, the various types of combat materials reserved on Guadalcanal Island were enough for eight marine divisions to use for more than half a year.

Of course, French didn't know the truth.

The air force's reconnaissance report made him an extremely wrong judgment that in order to support the Marines on Guadalcanal, the Chinese Navy will definitely make the fleet more active, because only after seizing the sea control power can the Chinese Navy transport military supplies to Guadalcanal.

Judging from the situation at that time, it is absolutely impossible to blame France.

You should know that under the misleading of wrong information, anyone will make wrong judgments.

If French was at fault, the biggest problem was that he did not allow the staff to use the intelligence obtained before and check the reconnaissance reports provided by the Air Force.

Just check carefully and you will find that there is great uncertainty in the Air Force's reconnaissance report.

The problem is that, with the situation at that time, France could not have allowed the staff to check, because the verification work took several days, and he had to make a decision within a few hours. More importantly, the Chinese army did transport combat supplies to the Marines on Guadalcanal by air transport, accounting for more than 40% of the total transportation volume. The US military did not know the number of air transports per day in the past few months, and even the flight orders of tactical transport aircraft, so it was impossible to make an accurate estimate of the total amount of materials reserved on Guadalcanal. In other words, even if the US military staff checked the reconnaissance report, they might not be able to make an accurate judgment.

At that time, the truly valuable information was in some strategic intelligence.

For example, after the Battle of Guadalcanal began, the total amount of materials transported by China from the rear to the Solomon Islands, as well as the total amount of materials consumed on other islands of the Solomon Islands. The US military has this information, and at least the most important part is mastered.

Unfortunately, it is obvious that the staff of the Third Fleet could not obtain such important strategic intelligence.

Only when French stayed at the Pacific Fleet Command could this intelligence be obtained and the staff could find the fallacies in the reconnaissance report through verification.

It is no wonder that after making a wrong judgment on the situation, it is not surprising that wrong actions are taken.

According to French's judgment, the Chinese fleet entered the Coral Sea at the early morning of the 16th, that is, when the US fleet was discovered by the Chinese submarine, and at the latest it was on the morning of the 16th, that is, after the US military bombed the Solomon Islands. If the Chinese fleet had previously been active in the north of the New Hebrides, that is, the reconnaissance information provided by the Air Force on the 15th was not wrong, it could roughly determine the sea area where the Chinese fleet was located.

The conclusion drawn from this made French very worried.

The reason is that as long as the Chinese fleet sails towards the Great Barrier Reef at full speed, the distance between the Second Fleet in front and the US fleet will be shortened to within 1,200 kilometers at the early morning of the 17th and the latest morning of the 17th, while the distance between the First Fleet and the US fleet will not exceed 2,000 kilometers.

You should know that the Chinese Navy's large-caliber coil electromagnetic cannon can hit shells 1,200 kilometers away.

In fact, this is also a false information, that is, French did not know that the Chinese Navy had obtained a new range of extended range shells with a range of 1,600 kilometers.

However, the impact of this wrong judgment is not very big.

Now, the problem French faces is that he must concentrate his efforts to kill the Second Fleet rushing ahead before fighting with the First Fleet.

If this goal is not achieved, the US fleet will undoubtedly be defeated.

From a time point of view, the approaching second fleet must be found on the night of the 16th, and in the early morning of the 17th, it is best to launch an attack on the night of the 16th, at least to severely damage the second fleet, and it is best to wipe out the second fleet at all. In this way, you can fight the first fleet in the early morning or in the morning of the 17th.

When French made this judgment, it was around 8 o'clock on the night of the 16th.

In fact, this is also the main reason why French decided to let the fleet continue to sail north, because only by rushing to the open water north of Cairns in time can the US fleet be deployed and aircraft carriers can deploy carrier-based fighters with the highest efficiency when sailing against the wind.

The problem is that the US fleet can only reach the open water north of Cairns at the early morning of the 17th.

In other words, if the Second Fleet is to be eliminated on the night of the 16th, carrier-based fighters will not be the main force, and the real main force is the shore-based aviation force.

Obviously, this is the main reason why France didn’t immediately strike Bougainville.

In his opinion, the threat of the Second Fleet far exceeded the hundreds of fighter jets fleeing to Bougainville Island, and this judgment was not wrong.

Now, the remaining question is whether the Chinese Navy Second Fleet can be found in time.

At half past eight, before Tong Shaoyun and Jing Wenhui parted ways, French contacted the shore-based aviation force and arranged night reconnaissance operations.

However, the first batch of reconnaissance aircraft will not be dispatched within an hour.

According to French's deployment, the reconnaissance aircraft will focus on searching for a 150-kilometer-long navigation area from the north of the New Hebrides to the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.

The reason is very simple. If the Second Fleet entered the Coral Sea in the early morning of the 16th, it means that it had received a telegram from the submarine, knowing that the US fleet was heading north at full speed, and then through the battle on the morning of the 16th, it was roughly determined that the US fleet was sailing towards the Great Barrier Reef. Therefore, the route of the Second Fleet must point to the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. However, in the few hours before the morning of the 16th, the Second Fleet was likely to go in a more southerly direction, because at that time, the commander of the Second Fleet was unlikely to be sure that the US fleet would enter the Coral Sea. You must know that after being discovered by a Chinese submarine, the US fleet would be able to turn back. In this way, the search area should be appropriately expanded.

It must be admitted that French's inference is basically correct, and the search area he sets just covers the route of the Second Fleet.

However, French didn't know that Tong Shaoyun was a bold fleet commander.

In fact, if it weren't for this war and especially good luck, a naval general like Tong Shaoyun would not have been reused or even become a naval general. You should know that a major feature of a naval general is that he is timid when fighting, and generals like Mu Haoyang are already rare. Of course, when the war broke out, Tong Shaoyun was still a naval lieutenant colonel, and had been in the lieutenant colonel for six years. It was not until the war broke out that he got the opportunity to be promoted.

What's even more unfortunate is that the US military's shore-based reconnaissance aircraft was dispatched too late.

Given the situation at that time, even if the flight direction of the US reconnaissance plane was not wrong, and the Second Fleet was discovered when it first passed, it was after 10:30 on the night of the 16th. At this time, the squadron led by Jing Wenhui had sailed north for more than an hour, and had sailed almost ninety kilometers. If the US reconnaissance planes were delayed for some time on the Second Fleet, they would miss the squadron heading north.

Of course, things are not that simple yet.
Chapter completed!