"Admiral Kim, you should already know what happened two days ago, right? The American people, Congress, and president all need an explanation from the Navy, and more importantly, to address the issue as soon as possible. In less than ten days, we've failed twice in a row. The sea lines of the South Atlantic have become precarious. I'm not a navy, but I also understand that relying solely on the North Atlantic route will be difficult to meet the attrition of the European theater, you know? In just a month's time, the United States of America lost more than 1000 aircraft in battle! If you take into account the losses from various accidents and accidents, this number will increase by 50%! In one of the Admiralty's offices, Marshall, as the president's special envoy, sent an ultimatum to Admiral King.

"In the original plan, the first light aircraft carrier formation had already entered the Central Atlantic, and in two days it would be able to enter the theater of operations, but now, I am a little hesitant, and a separate light aircraft carrier formation does not seem to be enough. We now have only two options, one is to risk the fight of 3 light aircraft carriers and 3 aviation cruisers, and the other option is to continue to mobilize forces, I discussed with Nimitz and decided to send a regular fleet aircraft carrier to the Atlantic to hunt the opponent! But I need time. Admiral Kim thought for a moment and said.

"Then please come up with a plan, we need a well-developed and highly feasible plan, and besides, who is the commander in charge of the operation this time? Finally, I hope Admiral Kim will be able to come up with a timetable. Marshall said after a moment of contemplation.

"General Fletcher will be in charge of this round-up. The plan is being worked out and will be delivered to you within three days at the latest, and General Fletcher is more prudent and will not let the Germans take advantage of the loopholes, and there should be no problem with the presence of Admirals Nimitz, Admiral Halsey, and Admiral Cunningham of the British Royal Navy on the European side. Also, Huaxia seems to be very interested in the South Atlantic war, can we establish a deeper connection with them? Admiral King hesitated, but decided to consult General Marshall before making a decision. After all, it is not good to bypass the government and directly engage in in-depth military intelligence exchanges with a quasi-ally.

"Huaxia is finally interested in the European theater now?" Marshall felt a little unhappy in his heart. After the end of the war in Iran, in addition to technical and military exchanges between the parties. Other areas of exchange actually went downhill, starting with China's dissatisfaction with the British first withdrawing from the war in Iran, and then friction between the two sides in other areas, causing relations to deteriorate. Despite the coordination of the U.S. government, relations between the two countries never returned to the state they had during the Italian Civil War. In particular, before the start of the war, after the Americans' proposal that China would be able to participate in the war in Europe was vetoed by the Chinese government, the relationship between the United States and China also tended to be cold. Although Marshall knew that the root cause was that Huaxia believed that the rewards of war were not proportional to the payouts, but this time. What is Huaxia's idea to take the initiative to contact the US Navy? Although it was now certain that Huaxia would certainly not be an enemy of the Entente, Marshall did not dare to agree to Huaxia's proposal on his own initiative. So he decided to talk to the president first.

"That's a bad sign!" When Marshall told Roosevelt about this, the latter fell into silence unexpectedly, and it took ten minutes for Roosevelt to spit out these words that made Marshall feel a little frightened. "I don't quite know what that means." Marshall said with some confusion. There was some nervousness in the words. "It's true that the situation at sea is a bit unfavorable at this time, but the overall situation is quite stable. And we should trust the Navy, all they need is time. Although in front of Admiral King, Marshall tried his best to ask the other party for an explanation, but in front of Roosevelt, he still pleaded with his colleagues in the army. After all, the sea is vast, not that you can beat the opponent to solve the problem, but also to be able to catch up with the opponent! Naturally, the time will drag on for a long time.

"Essentially, we share one goal with Huaxia, which is to crush the Allies and weaken Germany. Militarily we are absolute allies. That's why, despite the fact that relations between the two sides are not very good, I have not interrupted the exchange of military technology between the two sides, and persuaded the British to continue their work in this area. Huaxia doesn't want us to fail. If they are desperate to tell us something, then eighty percent is good for us. In other words, they may have seen the Germans' moves. Or have some understanding of the strategy of the German Navy. Therefore, I agree that the two militaries should establish deeper ties, not only with the navy, but also with the air force and the army. Intelligence, technology, and, within certain limits, the trade in equipment can all be determined by the military. "To Marshall's surprise. Roosevelt not only agreed, but also greatly expanded the scope of cooperation between the two sides, and even delegated power. And Marshall told Admiral King the news that night.

However, it is clear that at this time, Huaxia's help can hardly affect the upcoming hunting operation. At the Allied naval base camp in Britain, the top brass of the U.S. and British navies put the finishing touches on the upcoming operation codenamed Hunter. In this operation. The British also seem to be very active, the reason is very simple, most of the materials of the TP35 transport fleet are supplied to the British, and the result of the Germans breaking diplomatic relations is that the Americans are slapped in the face, but the real pain is the British, as an ocean island country, the British will never allow the Germans to hunt transport ships unscrupulously in the Atlantic! So the British threw themselves into this coming battle with unprecedented enthusiasm.

"Our control over the ocean is still too poor, and at first, our approach of concentrating only forces on transportation lines is still too conservative. If the German fleet had hid in the depths of the ocean, leaving the main transport routes, we would have no idea what was going on with the adversary. We just thought about how to defend passively, but not how to attack actively. This is the biggest reason why we failed in the previous stage. The Germans can leisurely replenish supplies and obtain information, and we don't even know the size of the opponent's fleet, which is very passive, if this continues, even if we defeat the opponent in the next operation, it will only be temporary, as the German navy enters the Atlantic from the Mediterranean, their attacks will become more and more frequent, if we can only parry. The consequences were unimaginable. At the meeting, Cunningham unceremoniously pointed out the problems of the Entente side in the early stages of the war.

I have to say that Cunningham's gaze is still very poisonous. He has grasped the core of sea power, and the core of sea power is the control of the sea, and you need to be able to control the entire sea. The important places must be firmly grasped, and the unimportant places should not be allowed to be reckless. Set a sentence in the future generations, even if you grasp it with both hands, both hands must be hard! At the beginning, the Allies focused too much attention on the exit from the Strait of Gibraltar, and as a result, at the door of someone's house with security doors and a large number of security guards, you will naturally be hit on the head and bleeding. So Cunningham came up with another solution. Can we not block people's doorsteps, but instead deploy a ring of vigilance outside their yards? This approach may seem like it will take more warships to maintain the ring, and it doesn't seem to work very well, but at least there is one good thing, and that is safety! After reducing the loss, it is equivalent to reducing the cost of maintaining the blockade in disguise!

The Entente also had a large number of auxiliary warships and submarines, and the Allies' sea transportation was almost all internal transportation, and submarines were almost useless in breaking diplomatic relations. Submarines equipped with radars. With the cooperation of the seaplanes of the auxiliary cruisers and land-based facilities, the effect is still very good. If at the beginning the Entente side was only discussing countermeasures tactically, then now with Cunningham raising this issue, the ability of the Entente to deal with the Allies to break diplomatic relations has been raised to a strategic level! Unfortunately, this plan is good, but it is cumbersome to set up. The Allies apparently did not have time to deploy a cordon against the German attack fleet.

Cunningham's proposal was adopted, and all that remained was a discussion of the situation in the South Atlantic war, since the SN12 Fleet and the British Fisherman's Escort Group were knocked to the ground by the Germans suddenly burst out of Fleet A, the Allies had a huge disagreement over the German investment of forces in the Atlantic to break the diplomatic relationship, optimistic people believe. The Germans' strength for breaking the diplomatic relationship was already on the table, after all, the number of aviation cruisers in the German Navy was limited, and according to the way the Germans were grouped, they would not let the gunboats attack alone. As for the dispatch of the main aircraft carrier. Americans are beginning to think that this is impossible, at least for now. Some pessimists thought that the Germans might have sent other warships to hide in the shadows, but this idea was rejected by the top brass as soon as it was raised!

The Americans are not stupid at all, they know how to determine the size of the opponent's forces by reconnaissance in various ways, the smarter ones are to send maritime patrol planes to risk close to the reconnaissance, and the stupider ones are to estimate the attendance rate of German aircraft carriers by observing the number of sorties of German naval aviation and the tonnage of bombs dropped. Of course. The Entente also had ears and eyes within Italy and Germany, and they could also provide some information. Judging by the current situation, the German High Seas Fleet does not seem to have spared its efforts. Moreover, the Americans believed that the German Navy would not easily get into danger with valuable fleet aircraft carriers, and that if there were fewer of them, they would be eaten, and if they were large, they would put the cart before the horse. Because just when the Atlantic operation entered the first golden period, the German army was also preparing to launch a large-scale offensive in southern France, and during this time, the German naval aviation was an important support force, and the main force of the German fleet should not leave the important European theater to go fishing in the Atlantic.

Therefore, the vast majority of the Allied naval commanders thought that it was enough for Admiral Fletcher to command a fleet consisting of 1 fleet carrier and 2 light aircraft carriers to support the 4 light aircraft carriers that were previously prepared to be sent, and a total of 7 aircraft carriers of all sizes were enough to form two battle groups with strong combat effectiveness, and any single battle group would have the strength to independently destroy the German fleet of breaking diplomatic relations. It's not enough to have great power! The Americans are also seeking to station reconnaissance forces in South American countries. Of course, these ocean-going patrol planes naturally cannot be stationed in the name of the Entente parties, and they will enter the South American countries under the guise of civil aviation. Central American countries are the closest to the United States, and the influence of the United States is also the greatest, and in the face of the United States, which is already a little red-eyed, the South American countries can only agree after weighing it, but for Argentina, Brazil, and other South American powers, the threat of the United States is not so useful.

Politically speaking, the two countries are relatively pro-German. However, the United States naturally relied on verbal threats to these two major powers, and Roosevelt had neither the ability nor the determination to deal with the two regional powers over such a trivial matter. Therefore, although the plan is in place, this reconnaissance force will not be used in the short term. If nothing happens, Fletcher will follow this plan. But just a few days before the plan was finalized. Nimitz met with Rear Admiral Deng Mingxin, the representative of the Chinese naval delegation who had arrived from China. The latter brought the opinion of the Huaxia Navy to the American admiral. Casting a shadow over this imminent plan.

"According to our inside information in Italy, all the air warships of the main German fleet are cruising in the Mediterranean, they are all on combat duty, cruising and resting, there is nothing out of the ordinary. It can be established that the Germans did not make much movement, but we found some problems in the operational sequence of the Austro-Hungarian fleet, and their number of battleships outwardly remained almost unchanged, but we found this. As he spoke, Major General Deng Mingxin handed over a stack of photos.

"Isn't this the Austro-Hungarian Aegean-class aviation cruiser? But unfortunately, I can't see which one it is, it's too unclear. Nimitz said, looking at it.

"No, you're wrong, it's not an Aegean-class aviation cruiser, this one is." As he spoke, Deng Mingxin took out another photo. Then he pointed to a reference on the coast. "If the first ship had been left alone in the harbor, I wouldn't have been able to tell whether it was true or not, but alas, not far from this berth, there was the cruiser Aegean, which had been heavily damaged by us, and although it had been repaired, it still had some obvious features on it. So we can recognize it, and if you compare the draft and the height of the two ships in these two photos, you can see the difference. The draft of the photographs in the first chapter seems to be much shallower, and the height of the reference is much lower, and more importantly, the paint in some places is somewhat different from the pre-war collection. So I suspect it's fake! Deng Mingxin said.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 for the reward~~~, as well as the book friend athlon9527, the monthly pass support of the boring dead ghost ~~~. (To be continued.) )