afterglow

Chapter 647 Chapter 58 Beidou and Gou Chen; Task Force , assemble!
The original idea of ​​the Ming Navy was to wait until winter, when several aircraft carriers in service had completed adaptive training and formed combat effectiveness, before planning a large-scale attack.

The US military's interference was more like a provocation, which completely disrupted the Ming army's plans.

Long-range bombers had the audacity to fly across the vast country and drop bombs, and most places across the country were under threat.

If they were poor and weak, they would have to endure it and protest a few times. But in the eyes of the people today, the Celestial Empire has been able to defeat the enemy with fewer troops and win every battle since the war began, and it is fully capable of suppressing this threat.

How could an empire with such strong self-esteem and pride tolerate such behavior?
"Such bombings may not cause substantial damage, but they are a huge blow to the prestige of the court and the army," said Prime Minister Liao Zihe. "As long as they are not eliminated, the people will be suspicious."

The Navy Department's assistant sighed deeply and said, "We are in a hurry to go into battle now... The difference in strength between the enemy and us is not big, so it will be very difficult. If we wait for another three months, we will have an 80% chance of winning."

Army Commander Liu Kehuai glanced at him and said sarcastically, "You make it sound as if the enemy has stopped building ships in the past few months."

"No, there is a difference. Our two newly commissioned armored aircraft carriers have an advantage over the enemy, and it is a significant advantage that cannot be ignored."

"Oh."

"Everyone, be content. I have already painted the outer wall of the Air Force Office three times in four days." The assistant officer of the Air Force Department of the Grand Marshal's Office said quietly, "Let's just not paint it for now."

The result of the high-level meeting was still the same. The civil servants wanted to attack as soon as possible, while the naval generals were extremely conflicted.

Afterwards, unwilling to accept their fate, they petitioned for an imperial judgment - in fact, they were just hoping that the emperor would stand on the same side as the navy this time.

However, Zhu Lingjing's answer disappointed them.

"It's been too long. The opportunity will never be fully ripe. We should strike when it's time to strike." She said calmly, "I agree with what Zhou Kexing said, 'Opportunities are not waiting for, they are finding.'"

It is still September now, and it will take at least two months to complete adaptive training and form combat effectiveness. Obviously, there is no time to delay until then.

The Ming Navy was quite helpless. The arrow was on the string and had to be shot. It could only make one of the two choices.

From the opponent's perspective, the US military would certainly be wary of the departure bases of long-range bombers, and would also have expected that the Ming army would most likely attack Alaska in order to eliminate the threat.

Therefore, Song Zhongkai, Ouyang Zhanghua, Dong Yunzhang, Zou Pu and others all agreed that the risk was extremely high, and it could almost be concluded that the US military had carefully prepared a tight net and was waiting for the Ming army to pounce.

So initially, a massive attack on Hawaii would appear to be the best option.

But if you think about it further...

Is it possible that the enemy predicted our prediction?
The Ming Navy held several meetings in succession to discuss combat strategies and still decided to attack Hawaii, but they had to do a good job of strategic deception. During this period, they made large-scale feints in Alaska, pretending to make the US military mistakenly believe that they really wanted to destroy the departure base of long-range bombers.

What makes the Ming Navy regretful is that the two armored aircraft carriers and three ordinary aircraft carriers that have been completed may not be able to participate in this operation.

Unlike battleships that can be put into battle even after being hastily commissioned, aircraft carriers and their fleets can hardly perform to their full potential if they are not well-coordinated.

Moreover, these brand new warships had a series of minor problems during sea trials. Although they were not serious, they could not be ignored.

The seven "Case 3 Modified to Case 6" were named after the Big Dipper, and coincidentally, there were exactly seven ships.

The standard displacement of the Beidou class is 2.7 tons. The power configuration includes eight high-temperature and high-pressure boilers, four steam turbines, and four-axis propulsion. The normal maximum output is 13 horsepower, and the maximum speed during sea trials is 31.5 knots.

The power system of this plan is consistent with that of the Longshuo battleship and the Ziweiyuan class, which significantly reduces costs.

The armored flight deck is two-layered, with a 48mm teak deck on the top for anti-slip and heat insulation, and a main 96mm thick strong deck on the bottom.

In fact, the structure of the strong deck is more complicated. It is divided into two layers. The upper layer is 16mm thick carburized surface hardened steel, and the lower layer is 80mm thick high-tensile steel.

The reason for this design was to use high-hardness armored steel to smash the head of the incoming bomb, thereby reducing its penetration ability. Later, experiments by the Naval Weaponry Institute proved that this design was not effective and of little significance, so only the first four ships adopted this design, and the last three were cancelled.

The Beidou-class has a closed bow and a single-story hangar, which can accommodate a maximum of 58 carrier-based aircraft. If deck moorings are included, the number of aircraft on board can reach up to 70.

In addition to the two elevators in the front and back, inspired by Zhou Changfeng's casual mention, the final plan also added a side elevator on the left.

What cannot be ignored is that the Beidou-class ships are equipped with the most powerful long-range warning radar of the Ming army to date, which is also the fundamental reason why the Ming Navy has high hopes for them.

The Type 1.5 search radar is a meter-wave radar with a wavelength of 275m. The peak transmitter output power can reach 3kW, the angle measurement accuracy is 200°, and the detection distance for the aircraft group reaches km, but it does not have the altitude measurement function.

In addition to the good paper data, it is also equipped with a Type A oscilloscope and a PPI flat-panel display, which provides a better viewing experience in actual operation.

The performance of the Type 330 radar is very close to the US military's 100kW SC/SK radar, and it is far ahead of the Japanese military's historical Type - radar, which had a power of at most kW.

It is also for this reason that the Ming Navy is obsessed with launching attacks later. Doubled early warning capabilities may mean the difference between a great victory and a great defeat in actual combat.

In addition, the results of the "Aircraft Carrier No. 4 Modification 2 Project" were produced earlier, and the three ships Gou Chen, Yu Nu and Hua Gai were completed one after another.

The Gou Chen class is essentially a modified version of the Tian Shi Yuan class with mediocre overall performance. When the construction project was finalized, the Ming Navy regarded it as a lower-level supplement to the Bei Dou class armored aircraft carrier.

The approximate indicators of the Gou Chen class are a standard displacement of 1.73 tons, a steel-framed wooden flight deck, and a hangar deck armor thickness of 64 mm. It can carry up to 72 carrier-based aircraft through dense deck moorings and hangar suspension, but usually only 62 to 64 aircraft.

In order to save costs and shorten the construction period, the Gou Chen class reduced some complex curved surface configurations during its design and increased the proportion of welding construction methods.

It also uses the same main engine as the Asukian-class light cruiser. Its eight boilers and four steam turbines can output 10 horsepower, and its maximum speed in sea trials is 31.8 knots.

In general, this is a medium-sized fleet aircraft carrier that cannot be called excellent, but is sufficient in quantity.

Since the first ship, the Gou Chen, had been commissioned more than a month ago, the Ming Navy certainly wanted to have more support when attacking Hawaii.

If the ship has stepped up its training in recent days, it should be able to participate in this operation.

Amid the intensive pre-war preparations, time passed quickly and soon it was the end of September.

The Ming army's bombing of Seattle also had a great impact on the whole of the United States. The idea of ​​the enemy attacking their homeland seemed far away from the people, but now it has actually happened.

Public opinion is polarized, with some people either cursing the military for being incompetent or clamoring for revenge.

Newspapers were flooded with propaganda, creating a terrifying, fear-inducing atmosphere, but state and federal governments turned a blind eye and acquiesced to such propaganda.

Because recruiting chiefs reported an increase in the number of people signing up in West Coast states after four consecutive months of declines.

The Homeland Emergency Defense Act submitted by a senator unexpectedly received the approval of the majority and was therefore quickly approved.

The bill requires the deployment of no less than 25 ground troops, 2000 anti-aircraft guns, and 600 advanced fighter jets in the northwestern states of Washington and Oregon to withstand any possible air strikes and landing threats; in addition, the US military should enter Canadian territory and build radar stations on Vancouver Island and Moresby Island.

The Army Air Force also came up with a bold idea - to follow the same method and carry out air strikes on the inland of the Ming Dynasty via the Siberian route, but this time the target would be changed to Xi'an.

This idea was not implemented in the end because it was too extreme and the error tolerance was infinitely close to zero. Even a slight deviation would mean running out of fuel and crashing. Especially after noticing that the Ming army had recently sent reconnaissance planes to Nome and Anchorage, the US military was convinced that the Ming army was preparing to attack Alaska.

Although the competition between Ming and the United States was quite bold at many times, once it came to the aircraft carrier showdown around Hawaii, the command of both sides became cautious and conservative.

No one wants to let the precious fleet aircraft carriers go into direct confrontation with shore-based aviation.

After all, this was not a case of the big bullying the small against the Japanese in history, and Chester Nimitz did not dare to risk losing several fleet aircraft carriers to counterattack Hawaii.

He flew from his headquarters on the Big Island of Hawaii to San Diego to discuss the next deployment in detail with Raymond Spruance, William Halsey, Mark Mitchell and others.

"Will the enemy really arrive on time? I mean within the next month," said Navy Secretary Frank Norfolk worriedly.

He reminded the naval commanders not to be happy too soon. The pressure from all walks of life on the navy was growing day by day. He and Admiral Ernest King tried their best to deal with it by using Tai Chi, but it would not last long.

Raymond Spruance sighed, "Alas, the politicians are too anxious to see warships coming out of the shipyards one after another."

"It doesn't matter. Once the fleet is assembled, we might as well take the initiative to kick down their door! I've been waiting for this day for a long time." William Halsey was full of fighting spirit.

On September 9, the British armored aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable joined the Pacific Fleet after completing repairs. Due to the damage from the previous battle, she could not be replenished and temporarily had only 28 Sea Spitfires and 17 Barracuda bombers.

On September 9, the TF-30 Task Force, the largest task force of the Pacific Fleet to date, was assembled in San Diego.

①第58特遣舰队第1大队【TF-58.1】——3艘埃塞克斯级航母、1艘独立级轻母、1艘新奥尔良级重型巡洋舰、3艘亚特兰大级防空巡洋舰、18艘驱逐舰。

>USS Yorktown (CV-10)

>HMS Valiant (CV-11)

> Constellation (CV-16)

>Independence (CVL-22)

>USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37)

②第58特遣舰队第2大队【TF-58.2】——1艘埃塞克斯级、1艘约克城级、1艘列克星敦级、2艘独立级轻母、2艘克利夫兰级轻型巡洋舰、2艘防空巡洋舰、9艘驱逐舰。

> USS Bunker Hill (CV-17)

>Enterprise (CV-6)

> USS Saratoga (CV-3)

> USS Cosburn (CVL-25)

> USS Monterey (CVL-26)

③第58特遣舰队第3大队【TF-58.3】——2艘光辉级装母、1艘独立级轻母、1艘波特兰级重型巡洋舰、1艘亚特兰大级防空巡洋舰、15艘驱逐舰。

>HMS Illustrious

>HMS Indomitable

>USS Princeton (CVL-23)

>USS Portland (CA-33)

④第58特遣舰队第4大队【TF-58.4】——1艘北卡罗来纳级、2艘南达科他级、1艘依阿华级、3艘巴尔的摩级重型巡洋舰、10艘驱逐舰、7艘给油舰。

>USS North Carolina (BB-55)

>USS South Dakota (BB-57)

> USS Indiana (BB-58)

>USS Iowa (BB-61)

> USS Baltimore (CA-68)

>USS Boston (CA-69)

>Canberra (CA-70)

现在的第58特遣舰队总计8艘舰队航母、4艘轻型航母、4艘战列舰、5艘重型巡洋舰、6艘轻型巡洋舰、52艘驱逐舰。

Although it is still far from the peak period of the original plane, this well-known nation-destroying fleet has already taken shape.

Off the coast of San Diego, you can see a dazzling array of warships quietly anchored on the sparkling sea by taking a seaplane...

And in faraway Guam, at the Admiralty of the Ming Navy Special Mission Fleet, the generals decided on a new idea after many discussions.

The original plan of "feigning an attack on Alaska and then actually attacking Hawaii" seemed a bit hasty and crude to everyone, who worried that it would be easily discovered.

There is also a deeper concern - there is a possibility that the enemy has predicted our prediction.

Therefore, everyone decided to add another layer of the chain plan, which was to send a bait fleet to attack Hawaii while implementing the feint to Alaska, in order to attract the main US fleet.

At this time, the main fleet of the enemy, which has been ambushing in the dark, can take the opportunity to attack and severely damage the main force of the US military in one fell swoop.

To put it simply, the battle strategy changed from making a feint to the east and attacking in the west to besieging a point and attacking its reinforcements.

The decoy fleet that attacks Hawaii must be realistic and must fool the US military into thinking it is serious.

Dong Yunzhang, who was holding a cigarette, clicked his tongue a few times, shook his head and sighed, "This is too hard on us, a self-torture tactic, even if half of the bait fleet is destroyed, it would be considered a minimum."

Cheng Jian, who was standing nearby, said seriously, "This raises a question, that is, is the sacrifice of the bait worth it? If we don't put out the bait and fight head-on, our army's combat power will be increased by two points."

"How can there be so many fair and honest decisive battles? This is not a game of chess. If you don't cheat, others won't cheat too, right?" Ouyang Zhanghua immediately refuted.

"Now both the enemy and us have long-range detection equipment, and the suddenness of an ambush has been reduced by technology. Just like the last time I led my troops to attack the fleet, even if it was completely unexpected by the enemy, various early warning methods can still buy time for reaction." Cheng Jian looked around and bowed, "Senior Ouyang, I think I still need to think it over again."

(End of this chapter)