Compared with the Spruance fleet, which is always chasing after twenty or thirty nautical miles, the second attack of the US bomber group is a more direct threat, although the German fleet has no fighter escort, but the Americans still sent a lot of P51D fighters, on the one hand, as cannon fodder to disperse the German anti-aircraft fire, on the other hand, to dive strafing to suppress the German close fire artillery, in order to facilitate the B-29 at low and medium altitude to launch the second carpet bombing, after all, although the first attack sank and damaged a large number of German warships, However, the losses of the U.S. B-29 are also very staggering, more than 100 planes were shot down alone, and there are dozens of planes that have barely flown back to the airport on the mainland, but because they are too seriously injured, they have lost the value of repair, and if the difference in the survival rate of pilots is not considered, there is not much difference from being shot down. So the Americans have to find a way to reduce their losses anyway, the cost of a P51D fighter is only less than 6% of a B29, even if a few are sacrificed to reduce the losses of a B-29, it is worth it.

Since the Hindenburg looked badly damaged, it was only natural that it would be the number one target for the U.S. military, and the B-29s, who had boldly lowered their altitude, stared at the blasted No. 1 main turret to drop their bombs. But these Americans did not expect that there was a thick layer of armor under the No. 1 turret of the battleship Hindenburg, and the material was as excellent as the main armor, and only the armor-piercing aerial bombs with a large enough penetration depth of the "goblet" could pose a fatal threat to it, and those high-explosive bombs of several hundred kilograms or even more than one ton were helpless against the outer armor plate of the ammunition depot that was much thicker than the horizontal armor of ordinary battleships, unless it could be smashed into hundreds, or dozens in a short period of time.

But it is clear that this is simply not possible. Maybe the Americans really brought so many, or more, bombs, but even if the bomb height was greatly reduced, for a moving target like the battleship Hindenburg, the average hit rate of the B-29 bombs was only one or two percent, and the one that happened to be smashed on the No. 1 main turret was less than one out of ten percent, and it was useless to smash it outside, and it had to be smashed into that hole, uh, just like that, hundreds of bombs had to be smashed in, and the Americans had to bring hundreds of thousands of bombs to be enough. If there were really so many, the Hindenburg would have been blown up and disintegrated a long time ago. It doesn't matter where you hit it

However, the US Army Aviation pilots, who were eager to make meritorious contributions, did not immediately realize this problem, and kept staring at the indiscriminate bombing of the Hindenburg, until after consuming most of the bombs, they found that the Hindenburg had not shown the slightest sign of sinking, and then realized that they had made a big mistake

The reason why the US military would make such a low-level mistake. Mainly because these planes and pilots are all land aviation. And it is also a strategic bomber force that is rarely sent to carry out ship-to-ship attack missions under normal circumstances. Therefore, they did not know that high-explosive shells alone could only damage battleships, but it was impossible to sink them at all (they should know that it is difficult to bomb and sink, but to what extent. But few people knew. The tragic appearance of the Hindenburg objectively led it to a miscalculation that "it only needs to drop a few more bombs to sink it".

Although Spruance was a famous general, he could not directly see the battle situation dozens of kilometers away, and when he found out that something was wrong in the battle report and asked about it, the US bomber group had already wasted most of the bombs he carried, so angry that Spruance scolded the stupid man on the radio.

As a result, these young men of the army aviation were angry, they came to help the navy this time, and they also lost more than half of the planes for this, and the number of dead and missing personnel also exceeded a quarter, but the navy did not know how to thank them, but scolded them, who can stand this bird anger?

And although Spruance realized his faux pas, how could he, as a dignified admiral, bow his head to the junior officers of the army and admit his mistakes? You must know that although the US army and navy are not as close to each other as the army and navy of the devil at the beginning, there have always been a lot of contradictions, so even if Spruance himself regrets it, for the sake of the navy's face, he can't admit this mistake, not to mention that with the performance of the army aviation's garbage, isn't he scolding right?

Because of the difference in ranks, the commander of the US bomber group did not dare to scold Spruance on the radio, but this turmoil had a huge blow to the enthusiasm of these army aviation officers and men.

At the current speed of the German fleet, it is impossible to expect another attack by strategic bombers. Spruance therefore had no choice but to order the fleet to begin to speed up, to catch up with the enemy as quickly as possible for a final decisive battle with them, or to entangle them. Spruance's wishful thinking was that if the Germans were to fight, they would find a way to delay the bomber group for a third time, and if the enemy was only trying to escape, they would follow behind and blow their chrysanthemums, well, no, a decisive battle with them

Due to the failure of one turbine unit under the indiscriminate bombardment of the American aircraft group, the maximum speed of the battleship Hindenburg had dropped to 27 knots at this time, but this huge ship was priceless and could not be easily abandoned like those auxiliary ships that were badly damaged and could not keep up with the speed of the fleet, so although Wegener did not want to be entangled by the American fleet, the Spruance fleet finally caught up. When the distance between the two sides was reduced to within 30 kilometers, an Iowa-class battleship of the United States was the first to open fire in the afterglow of the sunset, and the shells fell near a German destroyer, stirring up a column of water that soared into the sky. Wegener, who had always advocated attack, showed a rare calmness at this time, and he did not respond impulsively, because this sea area was still within the combat radius of the American long-range aircraft, but it was beyond the reach of all German combat aircraft

"Damn! As long as I am given a maximum of 3 hours, our land-based aircraft will be able to provide support", Wegener's face sank like water, and ordered the ships to return fire with their main guns in the future, but they were not allowed to slow down and stop, and at the same time sent several destroyers to fire torpedoes at the enemy, in order to disrupt the enemy's formation and slow down the enemy's pursuit, but at this time, the advantages of hydrogen peroxide's track was not obvious but became a defect, and the US officers and men could not see it anyway, and naturally they could not make evasive actions, plus the high seas fleet may really run out of good luck, Not a single torpedo hit the enemy ship, so the destroyer's torpedo attack was just a waste of work (to be continued......