.Chapter 43 Everyone has their own plans

There is no doubt that Mu Haoyang has complicated simple questions.

After sending the telegram, Dongxiang Zuwang made the joint fleet turn north. Because in the Japanese fleet, except for the aircraft carriers that are nuclear power, other warships are all conventional power, so when performing tactical maneuvers, the continuous speed can only reach twenty-four knots, which is much slower than the Chinese fleet.

It can be said that in this regard, the joint fleet is not as good as the battle group of the USS Akagi aircraft carrier.

This is also easy to understand. During the Indian Ocean, the Akagi aircraft carrier battle group was able to obtain fuel supplies from Japanese ships, while in the Western Pacific, China's "unlimited submarine warfare" played a role, and there were only a few ships able to support the joint fleet.

With just four fast combat support ships, the fuel supply of the joint fleet was not guaranteed at all.

Given the situation at that time, if the sea control power cannot be seized as soon as possible, the joint fleet would be cut off before August 10, which is also one of the important reasons why Dongxiang Zuwang seeks a decisive battle.

The result was that the joint fleet directly rushed to Iwoyu Island.

At this speed, the United Fleet will arrive in the early morning of August 7th.

For Dongxiang Zuwang, this is obviously not a good time.

Because it is impossible to dispatch carrier-based fighter jets during the day, the joint fleet only has one chance of attack at most, and it must find the target before this. If the first fleet is not found in time, the joint fleet must wait near Iwoyu Island until the night of August 7. Although the Chinese Navy's anti-submarine patrol aircraft will not be dispatched during the day, if the attack is launched on the night of the seventh day, the joint fleet is likely to be exposed in advance.

In other words, Dongxiang Zuwang must try to eliminate the threat from Iwo Huang Island.

To address this issue, Dongxiang Zuwang has already made arrangements.

According to the combat plan he formulated, the counterattack forces will set off on the night of August 5 and arrive at the attack area of ​​the First Fleet from August 6 to July. If the Chinese Navy discovers the counterattack operation, it will definitely let the First Fleet head north and intercept the transport ships heading south.

That is to say, from the night of August 6 to 7, the First Fleet will be active on the north side of Iwo Huang Island.

In this way, the reconnaissance and surveillance missions south of the First Fleet will be undertaken by anti-submarine patrol aircraft on Iwo Huang Island, and the First Fleet is unlikely to send reconnaissance aircraft to the south.

If you can approach Iwoo Island during the day and launch a sudden attack at dusk to prevent the anti-submarine patrol aircraft on Iwoo Island from taking off, the combined fleet will have the opportunity to approach the First Fleet in the first half of the night and launch the first round of air strikes before the First Fleet realizes the danger.

It must be admitted that Dongxiang Zuwang's ability to formulate a combat plan is extraordinary.

According to his arrangement, in the early morning of the seventh day, four cruisers in the fleet headed north at full speed, sailed 630 nautical miles, or about 1,160 kilometers in 18 hours, and then shelled Iwoo Island 300 kilometers away. At this time, the joint fleet will dispatch the first batch of reconnaissance aircraft about 600 kilometers south of Iwoo Island, and complete the search operation of the northern waters of Iwoo Island before 8:30. If everything goes well, the first round of attacks will start at nine o'clock, and the attack aircraft group will arrive over the First Fleet at around 10:30. Before dawn, the joint fleet can launch at least two more attacks to ensure the first Fleet is killed and then move southeast during the day.

If everything goes well, the United Fleet will fight the Second Fleet on the night of the eighth day.

Dongxiang Zuwang has not yet decided on how to deal with the Second Fleet, and in his opinion, whether the Second Fleet will come to the decisive battle after the first Fleet is destroyed is a question.

Of course, such a perfect plan is almost impossible to achieve all of it.

For example, the cruiser that departed must head north at 0:00 a.m. on the seventh day, and before that, it must reach less than 1,500 kilometers from Iwoo Island. During the eighteen hours of continuous voyage, the speed of the four cruisers must reach thirty-five knots, which is the maximum speed designed. After the shelling begins, only long-range ammunition can be used, and there are only a few hundred long-range shells on the four cruisers. In this way, it is necessary to ensure that hundreds of shells are used to paralyze the airport on Iwoo Island and prevent the anti-submarine patrol aircraft from taking off in the evening.

Of course, this is not the biggest problem.

Although before this, the Chinese Navy compressed the patrol radius of anti-submarine patrol aircraft, which was only 1,500 kilometers, mainly because the support capacity on Iwo Huang Island was quite limited and it was impossible to ensure that all anti-submarine patrol aircraft were deployed normally, even so, the cruiser that was forward was likely to be discovered by nighttime anti-submarine patrol aircraft before arriving near Iwo Huang Island, and may even be attacked before dawn.

To take a step back, even if the cruiser is not attacked, the First Fleet will be vigilant.

Take a step back, even if the cruiser is not discovered, the First Fleet will quickly adjust its combat deployment or move westward after Iwo Huang Island is attacked. Therefore, the reconnaissance aircraft sent by the Joint Fleet are unlikely to find the First Fleet before 8:30.

If the First Fleet cannot be found in time, the joint fleet's sneak attack will have no meaning.

So many variables doomed the fate of the United Fleet.

Unfortunately, Dongxiang Zuwang has no better choice.

If it drags on, the Chinese Navy will definitely attack the Okinawa Islands, and the First Fleet will also maneuver westward to meet with the Second Fleet that has entered the Western Pacific. More importantly, the Japanese Navy's counterattack against Iwo Yu Island is impossible to bring the Chinese fleet yin* over.

At that time, the joint fleet can only go to the Okinawa Islands to fight the Chinese fleet to a decisive battle.

Obviously, the Joint Fleet could not defeat the Chinese fleet near the Okinawa Islands.

Since there was no choice, Dongxiang Zuwang no longer hesitated. In his opinion, if he had good luck, the United Fleet would turn the situation around in one fell swoop. If he had bad luck, he would just be defeated early.

From this standpoint, you can find that Mu Haoyang has indeed complicated the problem.

When arranging the operation of the Second Fleet, Mu Haoyang's first consideration was not to cover the First Fleet, because he believed that Yang Yu's side could accurately grasp the battle situation and make the most correct choice. Therefore, Mu Haoyang first thought that if the joint fleet failed to succeed in a sneak attack, he would flee south.

In other words, his entire tactical deployment was mainly aimed at the joint fleet's escape to the southwest Pacific Ocean again.

If we knew that Dongxiang Zuwang had the same urgent hope of a decisive battle, Mu Haoyang would not have let the Second Fleet go south at all, but went directly to Iwo Huang Island.

Because Mu Haoyang was the commander of the fleet, his deployment also had an impact on Yang Yufang.

After learning that the Second Fleet was heading south and preparing to pass through the south of Guam and attacking the Combined Fleet from the rear, Yang Yufang did not dare to fight the Combined Fleet directly.

It must be admitted that Yang Yufang is a very cautious commander.

More importantly, he is a general of the naval aviation corps and is proficient in aviation tactics. Therefore, when judging the situation of the battle, he often regards aviation as the main factor in decisive victory.

In the air force duel, quantity plays a crucial role.

It is obviously not a wise move to use two aviation corpses to deal with four corpses. Even if the actual force gap between the two sides is not twice, but about 1 or seven times, because the carrier capacity of the "Kunlun Mountain" class aircraft carrier is much higher than that of the "Flying Dragon" class, and the joint fleet has not been supplemented, but in Yang Yu's view, the joint fleet still has an advantage in military strength. If the head-on battle is fought, the first fleet has little chance of winning.

As a result, when Mu Haoyang and Dongxiang Zuwang were actively seeking a war, Yang Yufang tried to avoid the decisive battle.

Judging from the situation at that time, Yang Yufang did nothing wrong.

According to Mu Haoyang's deployment, the Second Fleet will not reach southeast of Guam until the early morning of August 8, and then dispatch a carrier-based reconnaissance aircraft to search for the joint fleet. According to the telegram intercepted in the early morning of August 4, the joint fleet will arrive as early as the night of August 6.

A one-day gap is enough to determine the outcome of the sea battle.

In this way, Yang Yufang's first task is to hold back the joint fleet and wait until the second fleet arrives before fighting the joint fleet.

To do this, he had to make sure that he would not encounter the United Fleet before the early morning of the eighth day.

Of course, this is just a preliminary judgment. When it comes to tactical deployment, the deviation will be more obvious.

According to Yang Yu's arrangement, the First Fleet will stay west of Iwo Huang Island. On the night of the 5th and 6th, it will dispatch reconnaissance aircraft to find Japanese troop carriers, and the anti-submarine patrol aircraft deployed on Iwo Huang Island will search south. After discovering the Japanese troop carrier, the anti-submarine patrol aircraft will launch an attack, and the carrier-based fighter aircraft will be responsible for the search mission on the south of Iwo Huang Island. This arrangement is mainly to avoid sneak attacks by the joint fleet. If you encounter the joint fleet before dawn on the seventh day, the First Fleet will have to maneuver west and drag it to dawn as much as possible. Because there is not enough confidence to avoid a decisive battle with the joint fleet, Yang Yu's side will leave all its troops to prevent attacking the joint fleet when necessary. In this way, the task of attacking the troop carrier is handed over to the anti-submarine patrol aircraft, rather than dispatching the carrier-based fighter aircraft.

As for other possibilities, Yang Yufang also considered it.

For example, if the joint fleet does not appear, it will maneuver southward on the night of the seventh day, approach the Second Fleet, and narrow the encirclement of the joint fleet. As long as you move south decisively, in the early morning of the eighth day, the distance between the First Fleet and the Second Fleet will be shortened to about 2,000 kilometers.

At this distance, as long as the joint fleet is in the encirclement, it will be hit hard.

The problem is that no matter how powerful the commander is, he cannot consider everything, and he cannot make accurate predictions about all possible situations.

Not to mention anything else, Yang Yufang never expected that the joint fleet would attack the airport on Iwo Huang Island first.

On the night of the sixth day, the reconnaissance plane sent by the First Fleet discovered the troop transport ship heading south. The scale was not too large, but it was enough to carry two land combat brigades.

According to the plan, Yang Yufang quickly adjusted his combat deployment.

At around 1:00 a.m. on the seventh, twenty anti-submarine patrol aircraft carrying anti-ship missiles took off from Iwoyu Island, and the mission of searching south fell on the carrier-based combat aircraft.

At this time, the joint fleet had also launched operations in accordance with the deployment of Dongxiang Zuwang.

The four cruisers responsible for shelling Iwoyo Island left the formation before midnight and headed north at a speed of 35 knots. The remaining warships also increased their speed to twenty-seven knots...
Chapter completed!