Hearing this, the US admiral couldn't help but be stunned. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

After being silent for a while, Halsey nodded and said: "This may be a good suggestion, these small islands are outside the defense circle of the Japanese and have no strategic value for the Japanese, at most they only use them as outposts, so it is not difficult to occupy them, if we deploy artillery on these islands...... This means that we can get close to the bombing and suppress the Japanese artillery fire! ”

This is exactly what Zhang Chi wants to say...... The bombing of atolls by warships and warplanes has its drawbacks.

Needless to say, as soon as the warship fires or the fighter drops a few bombs near the island, the sky over the island will soon be covered with dust and moisture, which makes it impossible for the pilot to see the target clearly, so the bombing will have little effect.

In terms of warships...... Its disadvantage is that it must distance itself from the island, otherwise the warship is likely to be bombarded by large-caliber howitzers and cannons on the island.

The island is unsinkable, but the warship will be sunk, so this is not a wise way to play, especially during the day, and the warship should stay away from the range of the island's artillery fire to avoid becoming a target.

However, if the distance is long, it will cause a series of problems such as insufficient accuracy and low extension of the trajectory, which can easily cause ricochet.

The U.S. Navy had actually discovered these problems during the Battle of Tarawa, which is one of the reasons why they lost confidence in the bombing of warships and warplanes.

But in fact, their worries are completely unnecessary.

The main thing is that the Marshall Islands do not have the same strong defenses as the Tarawa Atoll.

Of course, there are fortifications in the atolls of the Marshall Islands, but none of them can match Tarawa.

This is due in part to Keiji Shibasaki, whose operations on the Tarawa Atoll have turned Tarawa into a "U.S. military that can't capture Tarawa in a hundred years with a million men."

Shibasaki Keiji proved to be wrong, and it took less than three days for the Chinese and American forces to completely occupy Tarawa. However, this also shows from the side that Tarawa is a different kind of atoll, an atoll carefully managed by the Japanese army.

And Shibasaki Keiji has only one, so none of the atolls in the Marshall Islands have reached the level of Tarawa.

On the other hand, there is the arrogance of the Japanese people.

This was mainly due to a series of victories won by the Japanese at the beginning of the war...... Starting with the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, it has conquered Singapore, the Philippines, etc.

Under this mentality of easy victory, the Japanese army will seriously manage the islands that can only be defended, such as Tarawa, Rabaul, Guadalcanal, etc., because they are afraid that the enemy will soon turn to a counteroffensive, so it is necessary to defend.

As for the Marshall Islands...... This place has been controlled by the Japanese since the First World War, and the Japanese did not think that the enemy would fight here, and even if they did, they would have a buffer time to build a defense.

What's worse is that the Japanese were surprised to find that their Zero fighters were almost invincible in the air, and the Japanese army could easily use the Zero fighters to seize air supremacy in most areas.

Since it has air supremacy...... Then it would be somewhat redundant to build fortifications on these islands, especially in the Marshall Islands, which belong to the rear.

The reason is simple, with Japan having air supremacy, the enemy's navy cannot even get close to the Marshall Islands, let alone launch a direct attack on the Marshall Islands.

It is only natural that the Japanese ignore the defense of the Marshall Islands and pay more attention to the construction of their airports, which is one of the reasons why the Marshall Islands has so many airports.

It's just that what the Japanese didn't expect was that one day Japan's air supremacy would be transferred to the enemy, and the airfields in the Marshall Islands would not even be stationed with fighters.

Another factor that can explain the defense of the Marshall Islands is the Japanese troops stationed in the Marshall Islands.

The number of Japanese troops in the Marshall Islands seems to be quite large, nearly 30,000.

But almost all of these 30,000 people were garrisons of the Japanese army...... The so-called garrison force is the force that is responsible for the fortification and defense of islands, fortresses or cities.

There was no problem with this, the combat effectiveness of the garrison troops was strong and weak, after all, some garrison troops were stationed in strategic places, and they also crawled out of the mountains of corpses and blood.

The problem is that the Marshall Islands have been under the control of the Japanese army from World War I until now...... Another implication of this is that there has been no war in the Marshall Islands since World War I, that is, the garrison of the Marshall Islands has never fought.

In fact, there was only one unit of the Japanese army in the Marshall Islands that had ever fought, and that unit was the Japanese 1st Marine Mobile Brigade.

The reason why this 1st Maritime Mobile Brigade fought was because it was a unit transferred from China...... But even if it has fought, it has never fought a decent war, and its main task in China is to conduct a battle for the security of railway lines in northern China.

In other words, the task of the 1st Maritime Mobile Brigade in China is actually to deal with the railway guerrillas.

As a result, the Marshall Islands is actually composed of tens of thousands of Japanese troops who have never fought and not strong fortifications, and if the US military really attacks the Marshall Islands like Tarawa, it will bomb it like a storm for a few days, and I am afraid that the Marshall Islands will collapse without attack.

Of course, the U.S. admirals didn't know this, and they imagined every atoll in the Marshall Islands as Tarawa, so they hesitated to worry about it.

But now Zhang Chi seems to have given them a good offensive plan...... Occupy the small islands on the periphery of the atoll, and place artillery on the small islands for close suppression.

"I think this plan of the colonel works!" Smith agreed: "In this way, we can use naval guns, warplanes, and artillery stationed on the island to suppress the Japanese fire." In particular, the artillery deployed by our army on the near islands will be a big trouble for the Japanese, and the limited artillery fire of the Japanese does not know whether to counterattack our artillery on the near islands or to block the entrance to the atoll or bomb the landing force, and no matter which one the Japanese choose, the result will be the same for them, that is, they cannot prevent us from landing! ”

"I also agree with this battle plan!" Turner agreed: "This would make the most of our army's firepower superiority, and directly attack the Japanese weak fortifications on the lagoon side, the Japanese would not have imagined that we would dare to land from the lagoon in broad daylight, and even if they realized it later, it would be too late!" They don't have the time or the conditions to deploy a new line of defense! ”

(To be continued.) )