"General!"

When the battle for Kuah began, Halsey got the news as soon as he could.

"The Japanese have launched an attack on Kuah Island!" The staff officer said to Halsey: "I don't know how many troops there are, do you want to go for reinforcements?" ”

Halsey thought for a moment, then shook his head and said, "We can't reinforce us!" ”

Halsey had expected this for a long time, and at the same time, other admirals also knew that this time the strength of the US Navy and the Japanese Navy was too different, it is estimated that Japan has at least four aircraft carriers, and there are countless submarines in the sea, and the United States and the Enterprise that has just returned from repair have only two aircraft carriers, so if they go to reinforce like this, they are likely to jump into the trap set by the Japanese and be wiped out.

"Shall we not do anything?" The staff officer asked again.

"Of course not!" Halsey pointed to the map and said: "Although we can't directly reinforce Kuah Island, we can bypass Kuah Island and send an aircraft carrier battle group to the southeast or east of Kuah Island to look for fighters, so that we can put a little pressure on the Japanese and indirectly reinforce Kuah Island!" ”

This plan was obviously conceived a long time ago, and the advantage of this was that it could bypass the dense Japanese submarines in the waters off Kuah Island and avoid torpedo attacks. The second is that as long as the Japanese Navy is not careful, the carrier-based aircraft on the US aircraft carrier will give them a good look.

But Yamamoto had long since thought that the U.S. Navy would do this.

This is not to say that Yamamoto Fifty-six is an unpredictable prophet, but that Yamamoto Fifty-six has more room because he has superior forces.

For example, there are a large number of submarines in the waters off Kuah Island, and Yamamoto 56 easily knows that the US aircraft carrier will try to avoid the waters of Kuah Island, otherwise the US aircraft carrier may be hit by three layers from the sky, the sea, and the bottom of the sea, which almost means that he is killing himself.

Therefore, the U.S. Navy has no choice but to operate in the more open and farther waters east of Kuah Island.

In response to this, Yamamoto fifty-six divided his fleet into three parts.

The "offensive" fleet consisted of the aircraft carrier "Flying Eagle", two seaplane carriers "Nisshin" and "Kamui", 3 battleships, 3 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser and 7 destroyers, commanded by Rear Admiral Hiroki Abe on the battleship Hiei.

Needless to say, the tasks of this fleet. As the name suggests, it is responsible for attacking Kuah Island. Among them, the "Flying Eagle" aircraft carrier was responsible for cooperating with battleships and cruisers to bomb Henderson Airport, making sure that not even a single fly could take off from Henderson Airport. Two seaplane carriers, with the cooperation of the destroyers, transported supplies to Kuah Island and cooperated with the attack of the Japanese 2nd Division on Kuah Island.

The "Forward" fleet consisted of the aircraft carrier "Hayabusa", plus 2 battleships, 4 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser and 10 destroyers, commanded by Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo, who was on the heavy cruiser "Atago";

The task of this fleet is to play the vanguard for the main fleet, use carrier-based aircraft to reconnoiter the position of the enemy's aircraft carriers and even attract the enemy's carrier-based aircraft with themselves so that the main fleet can attack.

The "main" fleet consisted of the "Shozuru" and "Zuiho", plus 1 heavy cruiser and 8 destroyers, under the command of Vice Admiral Nagumo Tadaichi on the "Shozuru";

Its mission is to search for and annihilate US aircraft carriers with the cooperation of the "Vanguard" fleet. Because Isoroku Yamamoto was always obsessed with the so-called "out-of-distance" attack, that is, taking advantage of the long range of Japanese fighters to form a situation on the battlefield in which "I can hit the enemy but the enemy cannot hit me," the "main force" fleet and the "forward" fleet were separated by 50 nautical miles (90 kilometers).

It should be said that this "out-of-distance" attack is theoretically perfect. This minimizes the possibility of the Japanese aircraft carrier being attacked by enemy carrier-based aircraft, and sometimes even if the US military discovers the location of the Japanese aircraft carrier, it can only look at the ocean and sigh...... The distance between us and the enemy has already exceeded the combat radius of US carrier-based aircraft.

But this kind of "out-of-distance" combat has its irreparable shortcomings:

First of all, the combat radius of US aircraft carriers is roughly 500 kilometers, and to conduct "out-of-distance" operations means that Japanese pilots must discover US aircraft carriers from 500 kilometers away, track them for a long time, and send carrier-based aircraft to bomb them in a timely manner.

Secondly, it is this kind of "out-of-distance" combat that will greatly reduce the combat effectiveness of aircraft carriers.

500 km...... The maximum speed of the Zero is about 533 kilometers per hour, and the cruising speed is about 300 kilometers per hour, that is, the distance of 500 kilometers from the Zero fighter is about an hour and a half.

In this hour and a half. The Zero could be attacked by enemy aircraft at any time...... This is determined by the fact that the US military has advanced radar, and the US military can always detect the Japanese aircraft group in advance and lay an ambush on the road.

According to scientists' statistics, the flight limit of the pilots in such a state of high alert was one and a half hours, that is, when the Japanese pilots reached the skies over the US aircraft carriers. Its pilots are exhausted.

But obviously, the Japanese do not think about these issues, on the one hand, Japan always emphasizes the "spirit of bushido" and blindly emphasizes the spirit, so they do not care about whether the pilot's body can bear it at all. On the other hand, it is because the vast majority of Japanese aircraft carrier commanders have no pilot experience. They simply don't understand or believe how difficult it is.

Because of this, the Japanese Navy has even set an extreme operation from Rabaul to Kuah Island in history...... The distance from Rabaul to Kuah Island is more than a thousand kilometers, which is the limit of the combat radius of the Zero Battle. The Japanese pilots had to sail their fighter planes under high alert for more than three hours to reach Kuah Island, leaving them with only a dozen minutes to stay in the air before returning to Rabaul. The total combat time even reached more than seven hours.

Of course, that's all for later.

From these distributions of Yamamoto Fifty-six, it can be seen that Yamamoto Fifty-six is at ease in the operation of troops.

He used one aircraft carrier, two seaplane carriers and a large number of ships to suppress and seize Kuah Island, and the remaining three aircraft carriers were used against the two US aircraft carriers.

Yamamoto Isoroku was not worried that the U.S. Navy would not meet the battle.

If the U.S. Navy does not meet the battle, then Yamamoto Isoroku will take Kuah Island in his pocket, and Yamamoto Isoroku is even ready to make Rabaul's fighters ready to transfer to Kuah Island, and then the Combined Fleet can easily use Kuah Island to drive the U.S. Navy out of the Solomon Islands.

If the U.S. Navy meets the battle, it will be just the right time to defeat it in one fell swoop, and it will also save the trouble in the future.

So, there is only one thing Yamamoto Isoroku has to do, and that is to wait. (To be continued.) )