"When the German fleet completed their strategic maneuver, the collision between the Allied fleet and the Allied fleet became inevitableThe Germans wanted to annihilate their opponents in one fell swoop in this engagement, and the Allied fleets had to defeat their opponents in order to survive. I've been speculating about what caused the Germans to rush to seek a decisive battle with the Allied fleet, thinking that China was preparing to enter the war? Is that fleet, which has not fought a large-scale naval battle for more than 20 years, really as terrible as everyone thinks? I'm sure my opponents would have guessed that the Huaxia fleet would not be going into battle anytime soon, but their decision was unusually decisive. I always thought that the Germans were a little nervous, and they overestimated the Huaxia Fleet, but in fact, judging from the series of battles that followed, the Germans knew the horrors of the Huaxia Fleet better than our so-called allies, and when the Germans were proud of their elite aircraft carrier battle groups, they never let their guard down, and it was not until the middle and late stages of the war that I finally understood how correct the choice of the German Navy was at the beginning, otherwise, they would definitely not have been able to support it for that long, and finally get a decent result. Cunningham, Apocalypse Atlantic

All the warships of the Entente were using the last time to prepare for battle, and Nimitz and others had to admit that the Germans had chosen a very good time, because in the coming week, the weather on the entire battlefield was very good, which was very suitable for the two giants to fight well. In order to gain the last time, the Allied fleet had to retreat slightly south under the coercion of the Central Powers. By this time, the Allies had no longer hidden their strength, and a group of reconnaissance planes that had appeared out of nowhere appeared in the outer air defense circle of the Allied fleet, and they desperately approached the Allied fleet and then sent back the information they had obtained before they were shot down, and even an American pilot won the title of trump card simply by fighting reconnaissance planes. "It was a bunch of crazy people, and if we wanted to beat them, we had to be crazier than them," Nimitz later recalled.

The Americans are really crazy, they did everything they could to prepare for this battle, more than two dozen aircraft carriers of various kinds were piled with fighters, and in order to maximize their combat effectiveness, they spread as many planes in the hangar as they could on the deck. From the control tower, you can see rows of dense planes, and the back deck of each aircraft carrier is full of planes, and in front are fighter jets. Behind were attack aircraft, and finally torpedo aircraft, and in order to maximize the use of catapults, even the front of the flight deck was parked with planes, according to Halsey, if someone detonated a grenade in the group at this time. Then the fuel and ammunition carried by these planes can blow up the entire aircraft carrier to pieces.

And in the hangar, the Americans were not idle, Nimitz and others finally signed their names on the documents for the maintenance of aircraft in the hangar, according to Halsey's "Wild Bull Wave" tactics, when faced with an inevitable decisive battle, what the aircraft carrier formation has to do is to release the largest number of and the most reasonable carrier-based aircraft in the shortest possible time, Halsey may not be as good as Fletcher in strategy, but it is definitely a master in tactics, Even the new U.S. aircraft carriers, all of which use broadside folding lifts, came from his suggestion.

With the support of Nimitz and Cunningham, Halsey replanned the carrier-based aircraft and aircraft carrier positions for the entire fleet. Because this attack was mainly carried out with limited attacks, not all aircraft carriers released attack aircraft groups, on the one hand, for defensive needs, and on the other hand, the range of Spitfire 9 fighters was not enough to support long-range attack needs, and the number of Hellcat aircraft that could cover attack aircraft forces for long distances was limited. Therefore, the aircraft groups responsible for the attack were concentrated in the two detachments of Halsey and Nimitz.

The Nimitz fleet and the Halsey fleet can release about 400 planes of various kinds under the limit situation, if the first batch of aircraft can wait for the second batch, then counting the aircraft prepared in the hangar, in the case of a long waiting time, this wave of attacks can reach more than 500 aircraft, which is already the limit of the strength of the two Allied aircraft carrier formations responsible for the attack. 500 aircraft did not account for a high proportion of the total number of Allied air forces. But in fact, with a small half of the aircraft carrier, 7 large aircraft carriers and 4 aircraft carriers. And the Entente fleet has more than 2 dozen aircraft carriers in the fleet, and it is not easy to release how many aircraft. And considering Halsey's new tactics, it would be difficult to coordinate a fleet of aircraft that were too large.

As for the remaining three aircraft carrier battle groups, they were responsible for defending themselves against the German attack with all their might, and the Americans knew that they could hold back a big wave through hangar rearmament. In the same way, the Germans were absolutely able to unleash a wave of aircraft of an unnormal size in the same way. It is conservatively estimated that the Germans can release at least 1,000 planes in this wave, considering that the number of Allied fighters that can be lifted into the air to intercept in addition to those planes that need to be rotated in the hangar or because of air alert is actually less than that of the attacking side, according to the Americans' estimates, if you want to keep your fleet safe, the remaining three aircraft carrier detachments will release fighters with all their might

Although the combat effectiveness of the Spitfire 9 fighter is strong, the range is really tragic. Even the time spent in the air has become very short, and the U.S. military, which is accustomed to using Hellcat, suddenly found that the Spitfire is good but it can't stay in the air for long, which means that the Americans need to arrange more combat power to carry out air alert missions. In order to minimize this patrol attrition, Halsey came up with a very peculiar idea, which was to divide the fleet into two main parts, one with two attacking squadrons under the command of Nimitz, and the other part with a defensive fleet under the command of Cunningham, consisting of three squadrons. Because the main air defense of the fleet relied on the 700 Spitfires provided by the British, and the British clearly knew better how to use these original British weapons. So it was the British commanders who were in charge of the defense, not the Americans, who had the majority of the total force

In the formation, Cunningham's defensive fleet will spread out on the front, forming an air defense network with a frontal width of several hundred kilometers. And the Nimitz's attack fleet is in the rear, and after the release of fighters, the engine capacity of the entire aircraft carrier will be overdrawn, because of the physical strength of the ground crew, it will be difficult for them to release even if they have aircraft in the hangar in a short time. Therefore, Halsey believes that these aircraft carriers that cannot provide defense not only have no value in defensive warfare, but are cumbersome, increase the targets that need to be protected, and disperse the air defense capability of the fleet, so Halsey deploys the attack fleet 100 kilometers behind the defense fleet, and then quickly withdraws in the opposite direction after releasing the attack aircraft group, assuming that Halsey is given an hour and a half. Then this fleet can run out at least 70 kilometers plus the initial distance of 100 kilometers directly from the defense fleet, if the Germans want to attack the attack fleet lacking air defense behind, they need to first break through the layers of defense of the defense fleet and then fly 170 kilometers to find the rear fleet, which is difficult to find without AWACS. And even if they did, the Germans would not necessarily choose such a thankless approach

Of course, Halsey's style of play is only suitable for the tactics of limited attack and full defense, but it does maximize the optimization of the Allied fleet's anti-air defense capability, and this tactic is highly praised even by the British. Halsey also confidently stated at a meeting that as long as the British pilots were strong. If there were no major mistakes in command, then the German attack aircraft group would have crashed into an iron plate

After some deployment, the self-confidence of the Americans and the British has increased significantly. They thought they could safely block the other party's fatal blow. But in fact, the Germans have also prepared quite a lot of tricks, the kind of tactics of taking off a bunch of planes and then going up and directly rushing forward is too rough and too low-end, while the Americans are doing tricks in formation and formation, the Germans are determined to make up their minds on the planes, as the Americans expected, the Germans will also use the hangar to prepare and park the planes, and then release a wave of super-large-scale attacks. And unlike the Americans, in this wave of attacks. The German Navy will release more than 150 twin-engine aircraft, which may seem like a small number, but most of them will carry the most formidable weapons in the arsenal of the German Reich: 1.2-ton Fritz-type guided bombs and 1.4-ton heavy anti-ship missiles, while others will carry electronic warfare equipment, which will be the key to breaking through the opponent's defenses at a critical moment

"How's the air force doing? Bruno. Count Spee asked, looking at the neatly arranged planes on the deck outside the window. In order to ensure the strength of this attack, the Germans will also do their best to unleash the first wave of attacks, and a full fleet of 4 aircraft carriers will all participate in the attack. It is expected that by the time of the first attack, the Germans will be able to release nearly 1,100 aircraft. But unlike the Americans, the Germans did not bring about a weakening of the engine after such a release. Because although nominally it was a wave of attacks, but in reality it was very long, when the Germans compressed the flight time. They have more time for the plane to be on standby in the air. The first wave of aircraft released will be dominated by fighter jets, with four aircraft carriers releasing about 150 FW190 fighter jets, which will carry extra-large auxiliary fuel tanks that can hold 600L. They will be released early, and then the main swarm. Finally, there was a formation of twin-engine attack aircraft covered only by a small number of fighters.

When Bruno proposed this attack plan, many people expressed opposition, and in the eyes of ordinary people, the attack plane group is the most taboo to act in batches, and the attack must be continuous, killing the opponent in one go. But now the plan is a bit of a fuel to the plate. Faced with various objections, Lieutenant General Bruno, chief air combat staff officer of the German naval aviation, then put forward his own point of view.

"A super-large fleet engagement is not at all the same as an engagement with only four or five aircraft carriers. When you command a huge fleet of hundreds or even nearly a thousand aircraft, you will find how weak your command system is. The radar can only detect the incoming enemy aircraft, but it is difficult to estimate the number of aircraft, and more often it is necessary to deal with the situation through the feelings of the commanders at the grassroots level. People have a herd mentality, when the opponent is discovered, the defenders will subconsciously want to rush to the target, and they rarely consider whether a large number of planes rushing over are a waste of valuable interception resources. In this case, when we act in a group, we are undoubtedly in the hands of the other side, and they can rush towards our fleet like crazy, and in this case, the result will be a hard-fought encounter. The Entente countries have recently replaced their fighters, and they have a large number of Spitfire 9 fighters in their fleet, which is a great danger for us, and the losses will be very large if we go head-to-head. ”

"So I adjusted the original plan accordingly, the first wave of fighters is to disrupt the opponent's perception of the battlefield and consume their defenses, although the Spitfire 9 fighter is excellent, but the range is very short, our first batch of aircraft carries a large fuel tank, which can fully support long-term air combat, when the opponent's fleet is chaotic, our main group will take advantage of the situation to cover up, if we are lucky, we can directly break through the opponent's defense, and even if we are unlucky, we have a third wave." Lieutenant General Bruno explained.

To put it bluntly, this plan is a tactic of fishing in troubled waters, using fighters, electronic warfare aircraft, and multi-point advances in batches to disrupt the opponent and finally break through the opponent's defenses. This plan seems to be a refueling tactic, but considering the excellent long-distance high-speed cruising ability of the twin-engine attack aircraft, the twin-engine aircraft that departs at the end can coincide with the second wave of the main force when attacking, and if the centripetal assault is launched from two directions at the same time, the probability of success is naturally much stronger than a simple group charge

This arrangement also has the advantage of having the aircraft carriers of the Allied fleet actually have a certain interval in the process of releasing fighters. It's not that after everyone holds back a wave, they are all weak. After staggering the time, there are always aircraft carriers that can release fighters at any time to compensate for the lack of anti-aircraft firepower. And considering that the Americans may also be a wave of push to death, the eight aviation cruisers within the Allied fleet all carry fighters, and do not engage in ship attacks, these air cruisers can send more than 100 fighters into the air in a short period of time to serve as interception missions. In this case, together with the fighters released by the main aircraft carrier and the aircraft on the air cruiser, these numbers are also quite impressive, and there is every chance to stop the opponent.

Both the Central and Entente powers were in full swing. Both sides have decided to have a fight with each other, then they will definitely be able to fight, and both sides are happy with their plans and think that they are foolproof, but what happens in reality? You can only see it on the battlefield. The world's two largest fleets are approaching each other, and when the sun rises again, the world will be transformed

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