PS: Thank you for the tips of "Mars Collides with Jupiter" and "Will Be Small" from book friends, and continue to ask for recommendation votes ^_^

Because the U.S. military no longer has so many planes to patrol the perimeter of the fleet, even if the Americans have the deep pockets to send fuel-guzzling bombers to partially replace fighter jets (World War II aircraft carriers are rarely equipped with dedicated reconnaissance aircraft, and fighters are generally used part-time). They did not dare to go too far from the fleet, and the effective detection range of airborne radar was quite limited, which meant that even if they were able to detect German bomber groups at low altitudes, it was often too late. Even if the only few fighters of the US military reacted quickly, with their limited number and weak firepower, the German bomber group could completely resist their attacks and pounce on the US ships, although there would still be some losses, but as long as they could blow up and sink a few enemy ships, it would be completely worth it

In addition, since the German fighters now have no opponents, the Germans can completely leave a small number of planes to patrol at an altitude of 10,000 meters that the enemy's anti-aircraft guns cannot hit, condescendingly find out the direction of the relatively weak defense of the US fleet, and provide guidance to the bomber groups that arrive later.

Because half of the planes dropped their bombs ahead of schedule, the second ultra-high-altitude bombing of the German aircraft group failed to achieve any results, but as long as it was feasible to penetrate the defense at low altitude, the hundreds of Stuka dive bombers that had been preparing to leave before could also participate in the battle, and the blow that could be inflicted on the US fleet was far from being comparable to the luck of ultra-high-altitude bomb crashes.

After discovering that more than a dozen enemy planes were hovering over the head of the fleet all the time, the commander of the US fleet could not help but quickly guess the enemy's intentions. Some of the bombers were immediately ordered to take to the periphery of the fleet to patrol to make up for the lack of fighters, but the effective range of the anti-aircraft guns that did not dare to leave the warship greatly limited their detection range, and the hundreds of Stuka fighters that the Germans rushed to this time did not carry high-explosive bombs, but carried aviation torpedoes in unison, which enabled them to launch an attack from a distance of 10 kilometers from the US fleet, and they could immediately return home after firing the torpedoes. Even if the few fighters of the US military that are still scattered in all directions are concentrated at the fastest speed, they will never have time to pursue them

It is worth mentioning that the aviation torpedo carried by the German bomber this time was also the latest product - hydrogen peroxide torpedo. The reason why the Germans would have thought of developing such a torpedo. The main thing is to compensate for the congenital deficiency of oxygen torpedoes. Although the reliability of oxygen torpedoes has been greatly improved compared with the Japanese original model after Goddard improved the liquid oxygen kerosene engine and Hu Weidong improved the overly sensitive torpedo fuse, there are still big problems if it is projected by aircraft. Because the vibration when the torpedo entered the water was too great. Even an improved oxygen torpedo could still detonate early. While this risk can be largely avoided by reducing altitude and slowing down when an aircraft drops a torpedo, it puts the torpedo machine itself in great danger.

For this reason, the German military industry came up with a design scheme to replace liquid oxygen with hydrogen peroxide, so that the reliability of the torpedo would be significantly improved. The advantage of an inconspicuous path of an oxygen torpedo will not only be retained, but even more pronounced (due to the higher proportion of water in the combustion products), although the speed and range of the hydrogen peroxide torpedo are slightly inferior to those of the oxygen torpedo, but it is sufficient.

In addition, the oxygen torpedo is too noisy to apply the acoustic self-guidance jishu that Germany has already made a preliminary breakthrough in the future, and in the case of hydrogen peroxide torpedoes, this problem does not exist. In addition, hydrogen peroxide torpedoes are cheaper to build than oxygen torpedoes, so it didn't take long for them to replace oxygen torpedoes, not just for aviation torpedoes, as in Jihua.

The hit rate of torpedoes fired from a distance of 10 kilometers will naturally not be very high, but the size of the US fleet is too large (there are more than 100 combat ships, and there are also a large number of supply ships and other non-combat ships accompanying it), and even if they fail to hit the enemy ships on the periphery, they may also hit the inside or behind, which means that each torpedo actually has several or even more chances to hit the US ships, and its actual hit rate will naturally increase significantly.

Moreover, it is worth mentioning that in order to prevent the German submarine from attacking and damaging the capital ships, the destroyers and light cruisers on the periphery were simply surrounded by impenetrable, which of course could effectively prevent the capital ships from being hit by torpedoes, but under the saturation attack of hundreds of aviation torpedoes by the Germans, the US auxiliary ships inevitably suffered extremely heavy losses

"1 heavy cruiser, 2 light cruisers, 11 destroyers, 4 supply ships, and 1 landing ship were sunk, 1 battleship was damaged, and 2 heavy cruisers and 1 light cruiser were severely damaged." The commander of the US fleet could not help but be dumbfounded after reading the report on the losses that had been counted. At this time, he couldn't help but regret even more the wrong order to let the carrier-based fighter group take the initiative to meet the enemy, otherwise why would the German aircraft group launch a torpedo attack so swaggeringly? It's just that before that, how did he know that the performance gap between the two planes had reached such a big point?

Thinking of this, the admiral couldn't help but take a deep breath, thinking that even if the position was not guaranteed after he returned, he would try his best to use his residual influence to promote the F4U fighter under development to be finalized and equipped with troops as soon as possible, even if the F4U fighter was still not the opponent of the German aircraft, it was much stronger than the current F4F

The entire U.S. fleet has not yet fully recovered from the horror of this torpedo attack, and the nearly 100 FW190B fighters that returned after the last air battle victory have already hung up their torpedoes and come again, and a few minutes later there are dozens more (they returned after dropping bombs at a very high altitude, so the time is a little later). Arrived

After losing 2 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser, 17 destroyers, and 2 supply ships again, the commander of the American fleet, who could not bear it anymore, finally ordered the fleet to spread out in order to reduce the probability of the warships being hit by torpedoes, but there were still some light warships left near the 9 capital ships and those supply ships and landing ships to protect (in fact, as a shield) to avoid being taken advantage of by the enemy

Although the torpedoes are no longer so easy to use after dispersing, the German bombers can completely rush into the loose formation at a low altitude to bomb the US warships, but then the US troops will be able to shoot down some German planes and not be beaten in vain as before, and their morale will be much more favorable; in fact, after the successive blows, the morale of this fleet has fallen to an unprecedented low, and the US commander is forced to let the military doctor distribute medicine to the officers and soldiers at the grassroots level in advance. So as not to break down the morale of the army (to be continued......