For Japan, Operation Jie-1, which destroyed Pearl Harbor's fuel system, was successfully completed, and the rest were within the affordable range, except for the slightly higher cost. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 The next key battle was the Jet-2 - encirclement and suppression of the main force of the US Pacific Fleet, clearing the way for the subsequent Jet-3 - Raiding Hawaii Battle.

So far, the Jet-2 is still full of difficulties, but it is completely under the control of Horiyoshi, which Matsuda Chiaki and the staff officers can see very clearly, on the surface, the combined fleet is divided into several fleets and overturned the river and sea, and there was a situation where the second air war was short of fuel and it was difficult, but in fact, Matsuda Chiaki never saw embarrassment on Horiyoshi's face, only self-confidence - even if he failed to induce Halsey to divide his troops, he did not shake his self-confidence. This kind of self-confidence seems to be rarely revealed in the field of warfare, except for the "Heavenly Punishment of the National Thief", so the interest of Chiaki Matsuda is also very high.

To be fair, Halsey has been generally able to deal with the situation so far, but the fatal problem of imperfect intelligence has never been avoidable -- his reconnaissance planes often cannot find the Japanese fleet, and his estimate of the strength of the Japanese army has been slow to be determined.

The total number of Japanese planes was 378 (169 in Horiyoshi + 68 in the decoy fleet + 141 in Tsunoda), and after deducting nearly 30 Saiyun Gai and Night Saiyun, which were unable to fight, there were 350 actual combat aircraft, and after deducting reconnaissance planes, the US military was able to use exactly half of the combat aircraft.

However, there were more Japanese pilots than Halsey, and Tsunoda still had nearly 260 pilots in his hands, and Horiyoshi before the division of troops had more than 450 pilots, and the total number of pilots exceeded 700, more than 50 more than Halsey, who had 550 planes and 650 pilots.

What cannot be ignored is the comparison of quality and experience, the support fleet set out from Japan with more than 650 pilots, one-third are experienced backbones, and the remaining two-thirds are more than 400 pilots are considered novices, after several consecutive rounds of operations in the second Pearl Harbor offensive campaign, this group of new pilots all have actual combat experience, and the battle of Tsunoda in Seattle also allowed some of the novice pilots (although the number is small) to be trained, which is equivalent to the current Japanese pilots all have been combated. However, only more than 100 of the more than 650 pilots in Halsina have more than one actual combat experience, which is really far from it.

More than 75 percent of the officers and men of the Japanese army have experience in more than one battle, and the US sailors are also mainly newcomers, with an experience rate of only 25 percent, especially 8 of the 12 Casablanca-class escort aircraft carriers, from pilots to sailors, are novices in the water, and have never participated in any battle. Even the other 4 ships only undertook escort operations in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and followed Nimitz all the way from South Africa, Australia and New Zealand to Pearl Harbor.

This is how the TF50 is composed mainly of new ships and new people, and Nimitz, who knows the state well, has this kind of reminder, and after all, Halsey and McCain are battle-hardened veterans, and he and Spruance are more or less at ease.

For Hori, none of these questions existed: he knew how many warships the TF50 had; He did not know how many planes were on board, but he inferred strictly from the full strength of the Essex and Casablanca classes - which was basically consistent with the facts; He still knows exactly how fast the TF50 can go. The doubts and difficulties that Halsey faced were non-existent to him - so it seemed that Halsey had more troops, but to Matsuda Chiaki felt that the commander was driving his opponent into the cage step by step.

Faced with the possibilities listed by McCain, Halsey hesitated for a long time, but still couldn't sort out the clue completely, so he had to continue to ask the staff group: "If I don't divide my troops, will the Japanese organize a fast column to take the initiative to attack us this evening?" ”

"It's hard to say......," McCain replied after thinking for a long time, "although it is very probable, I am inclined that the enemy will not do this, for two reasons: first, if our troops maintain their current speed and course, the enemy will not have a chance to enter the 800-kilometer attack range until at least 17 o'clock, and by the time they reach the sky above the fleet, it will already be dark, and the Japanese will not be able to bargain much; Second, our army is now in a complete lineup, with 550 combat planes, including nearly 230 fighters, and the Japanese attack may have to come in multiple waves, but our army can put in all the air defense fighters at one time to intercept and defend, and the Japanese attack group will definitely run into a bloody battle in the face of 230 fighters. This is also the reason why the enemy has been using all kinds of means to trick us into dividing our forces, and Horiyoshi can see very clearly that as long as we advance in a group, his fleet will not be able to gnaw us. ”

"The only concern is that these two fleets ......," Halsey pointed to the decoy fleet and the Tsunoda fleet that had been identified above the chart, "they will join forces tomorrow morning, and it will greatly strengthen the enemy's forces." ”

"Actually, it didn't change anything, but it made it easier for us to gather and annihilate." McCain shrugged, "It's nothing more than Horikichi regrouping part of his forces with another fleet, originally A strong and B weak, but now A weak and B strong, nothing more than every time he uses the strong fleet to face us, in essence, it doesn't make his forces more, but his small troops now hiding in the shadows need to be vigilant to prevent the opponent from giving us a sudden sword." ”

Halsey was basically convinced, and at 15:45, after in-depth discussions and many simulated deductions and diagrams by the staff officers, he finally decided to stand still: the results of the deduction showed that the results of a quick column attack in the evening would be very limited because of the line of sight -- 3-4 escort carriers or 1 fleet carrier, and the fast column would have to risk losing more aircraft -- part of the aircraft would be lost during the attack, and the other part would be lost on the return voyage, and it was precisely this batch of BTD attack planes that would be lost in both crew and aircraft, All of them are invaluable for the current TF50.

The staff officers came to a cruel conclusion: even if the Japanese army only defended and did not counterattack, because of factors such as long voyages, night flights, and fighter interceptions, the losses of their own attack groups would exceed 65%, which would be an unbearable price for tomorrow's battle, because the Japanese army still had a fast column that did not show its face.

In the end, Halsey decided to continue to maintain the momentum of advancing in large formations, and organized a fast column to prevent the Japanese army from eating himself, and took the initiative to adjust the formation speed from 17 knots to 14 knots, intending to breathe a sigh of relief and wait for the night to recover to more than 16 knots.

Halsey and McCain could not blindly defend themselves, so they quickly drew up an offensive plan: At about 5 a.m. tomorrow, the reconnaissance planes will be released first, and the attack planes will be released 20 minutes later, and they will pounce on the meeting point where the Japanese troops are theoretically possible.

After deducing, the staff officers deduced that at about 5 o'clock tomorrow, the TF50 would be about 500 kilometers away from the two Japanese fleets, just in time to launch a wave of attack streams.

In the face of the overall situation in the Pacific and the repeated advice of McCain and others, Halsey finally did not dare to send a fast column to swallow the decoy fleet prepared for him by Hori Tsukichi, and chose the safest way -- to meet the imminent attack of the Japanese army with an unchanged attitude of responding to all changes, and to prepare for the attack at dawn the next day.

Just in case, he asked his men to send the details to Washington, and Spruance to help see if there were any flaws in it - the TF50 was the only mobile force on the West Coast at the moment, and any negligence could lead to devastating consequences.

An hour later, Washington called back, and Spruance thought that the existing response was more appropriate—and he was not alone, Nimitz and the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed with the options after judging the situation between friend and foe, and Ingram sent a telegram urging caution.

As for his idea of a quick attack tomorrow morning, Nimitz privately reminded him not to go out of his nest! At least more than half of the planes had to be left to deal with the situation, and the consequences of the attack were unimaginable -- who was sure that the two Japanese fleets must have met each other? What if we change course tonight?

Halsey and McCain were convinced of this.

At the end of the Nimitz telegram, a special sentence was added: If you are convinced that your opponent is Hori Yoshiyoshi and do not have too advantageous fighters, you may as well turn around at night and abandon the pursuit, and sometimes it is also a victory to effectively save yourself.

Halsey and McCain both shook their heads at the suggestion: a turn is impossible, that means that the Navy and the Pacific Fleet will be completely worthless, and in the future can only be relegated to the west coast as a presence fleet and a harassment fleet, but the telegram reminded Halsey that tomorrow's battle is not as easy as it seems, and his mentality has unconsciously changed, believing that if he cannot defeat the opponent by a large margin, it is acceptable to successfully eat a small part of the enemy fleet on the premise of preserving his own strength, and accumulating small victories into big victories can not only make the troops fully trained, It is also an account for the other branches of the military and Washington.

At 17:45, the aviation staff officer loudly reported to Halsey: "4 enemy reconnaissance aircraft have been found!" ”

"Sure enough! The Japanese were waiting for us to divide our forces and send reconnaissance planes to check the specific state of the fleet. Halsey patted his head in rejuvenation, "Let the carrier-based planes take them down as much as possible." ”

Normally, the Japanese army sent only one reconnaissance plane, but now it has four in one go, apparently preparing to carry out an extraordinary reconnaissance mission -- immediately reminiscent of Halsey and McCain. However, the Japanese moved faster, and as soon as it was determined that the TF50 fleet had not divided its forces, they immediately fled, and the F4U only pounced.

"Sir, the adversary has turned a blind eye to our two fleets and still refuses to divide his forces." Chiaki Matsuda said with a smile, "I feel that the enemy is a little too cautious, and if I change my command, I will definitely rush forward, even if I don't eat the decoy fleet, I will go to fight Kanoda's second air battle." ”

"Is it possible for 2 Essex-class ships to sink 2 Yunlong-class ships?"

"It's up to you...... At least one can be killed, and if you sacrifice a little more, it's not impossible to kill two. ”

Hori Yiji nodded: "Based on the calculation of all 2 sunk, how many attack planes do you think the Americans will have to lose?" ”

"Tsunoda has more than 60 fighters under his command, and if the US military sends an attack formation of 180 planes, according to the normal exchange ratio, the opponent will lose at least 80-90 planes after the air raid."

"What do you think of the loss of 80 planes first, and then the loss of 40 planes on the return voyage?"

"To lose so much?" Chiaki Matsuda was stunned.