679 Closed Gate (6)

"Report, Task Force 3 reports, the Australian Grand Fleet set sail from Sydney two hours ago!"

"Great!"

Hearing the news, Chen Ping, who was studying the war with Tang Shaoyi and others, immediately stood up, but when he got the information and looked at it twice, his eyebrows wrinkled suddenly. 【 I want: super fast update 】

"What's wrong?" When Li Enfu saw his appearance, he couldn't help but ask in surprise.

Chen Ping took the telegram and did not speak immediately, but walked to the map and swiped his finger, his face was serious: "Claxton did not go to South Africa or South America, but turned the rudder to the north and led the fleet straight to Noumea!" ”

"To the north, Noumea?!" Zhang Zuolin, who had previously speculated that Claxton would take the South African route, also frowned, what kind of tactic is this?

If it is a general who does not know the speed advantage on his side, he may use the attack as a cover, and then find an opportunity to support Noumea or take the opportunity to turn around and withdraw quickly at night, so as to confuse the opponent, but Claxton's choice is too strange, after fighting Hua twice, he will not know that he has no speed advantage, not to mention that Hua also has an unparalleled aviation advantage, which can control the 300-kilometer combat range with the mothership as the center point, and any fleet within this distance cannot escape as long as it is discovered.

Why, then, did Claxton choose to head north?

"Unless, he doesn't want to leave at all!" Thinking of this, Zhang Zuolin's eyebrows jumped, and he was about to speak, but another telegram made everyone seem to fall into a fog.

"The report, S19 emergency telegram, they tracked the Australian Grand Fleet about 32 nautical miles northeast of Sydney Harbour, and have confirmed all 6 types of capital battleships and 9 old battleships, but the fleet has divided its forces from 20 minutes ago, and it is divided into three formations, moving due north, northeast and due east respectively."

Division?

Zhang Zuolin snatched the telegram, and immediately marked the direction of the enemy's movement on the chart after reading it, but the appearance of the arrow made everyone present puzzled, in the case of too big a gap in equipment superiority and insufficient troops, dividing troops in the attack is almost no different from sending them to death, what does Claxton want to do?

"Is it?" A thought flashed through Chen Ping's mind, he seemed to feel that he had caught something, and immediately ordered: "Order all our submarines and patrol ships operating in the southwest to go to the waters of Dongao to support!" ”

"Yuanshou, what are you?"

Looking at Tang Shaoyi, who was asking, Chen Ping said with a somewhat solemn face: "I guess, Claxton is probably going to divide troops to cover the attack target!" ”

"Cover the target?" Li Enfu asked, "You mean, Claxton didn't actually plan to attack Noumea, but had another purpose?!" ”

"I can't say for sure now, but his division is too strange. (Full text reading, all in. (.i. Want. Wen. Chen Ping pointed to the sea off Sydney and drew a circle: "This area is our key monitoring range, submarines and patrol ships have sunk more than 5 warships here in the past few months, so Claxton must know that as long as he goes to sea, he will definitely be discovered by us, so why does he still divide his troops under our noses?" And not farther away, or wait until late at night to divide the troops?

This can only show that he deliberately did it for us to show us this division of troops, and now it is night there, and the aircraft reconnaissance must wait for more than ten hours, and during this time, only submarines will definitely not be able to keep up, and only a few reconnaissance ships equipped with radar can be tracked, but it is impossible to distinguish the type and size of warships by radar, and if we take the opportunity to cover the departure of several warships, it will be easy, so we will have to wait for a while. ”

"What about Task Force III? Didn't Xiao Tianzhi intercept him in the past? Tang Shaoyi asked.

"The Third Fleet has already rushed to the Gulf of Southern Australia, and at this rate, it will be met in 22 hours, and our destroyer fleet in Perth has already entered the Southern Gulf of Australia an hour ago, and General Sa Zhenbing's South American fleet is also ready to go south to intercept it at any time."

"What about India?"

"There has not been any movement in the Indian Grand Fleet, 40 minutes ago the reconnaissance plane just reconnoitred the port of Mumbai, and found no signs of raising fire and anchoring, the Socotra Island Air Wing will be put on standby tomorrow morning, the Xiqin aircraft carrier of the First Task Force has returned to Guangzhou, and the Yin Shang and Xizhou are currently rushing to the Arabian Sea, and it is expected that they can join the fleet later tomorrow."

Zhang Zuolin received the telegram from the staff officer, and at the same time summarized it for everyone to introduce, but the more he introduced, the more strange it made Chen Ping, Tang Shaoyi and others feel strange, Claxton came out, not to the west, but to the north, and the Indian Grand Fleet, which was supposed to flee together, did not move, this strange behavior made everyone smell a trace of weirdness.

In fact, not only the General Staff, but also the flagship operations center of the Third Task Force was already busy, Claxton's division of troops was not too unexpected, the naval battle of the Gulf of Panama proved that when there is air force, the more concentrated the fleet is, the more it dies, but why should he divide his troops when he knows that there is some visibility in the sea area where there is enemy reconnaissance?

Walking out of the bridge, the sea breeze was whistling, and the sky was full of stars showing the way for the soldiers, and the fleet had increased to 25 knots, and at this speed, it would be possible to meet the Australian Grand Fleet tomorrow evening.

But which one can you meet?

Xiao Tianzhi quietly lit a cigarette and fought on the vast sea, to put it bluntly, it was a gamble, if Claxton did not divide his troops, it would be two sides of the coin, and now that he divided his troops, it became a color with six faces.

From Sydney to Noumea, the lack of islands on the sea is not conducive to the concealment of the fleet, so his division of troops is surprising, what is he going to do? What is the goal?

Even the most idiotic fleet commander must have a goal as long as he goes to sea, and everything must act around this goal, and now Claxton is heading north, and it seems that he is going to support Noumea, but is this true?

Tomorrow morning, the second task force will escort the marines to land, and the three light carriers and three capital ships will have enough certainty to cover the boarding of the troops, and at the speed of the Australian Grand Fleet, even if they avoid themselves, it will take at least 55 hours to reach Noumea, so that even if they arrive, the marines have already completed the early deployment of positions, plus the fleet attack, he cannot have much chance.

So why does he want to be neatly written? Flee if you pretend to attack, or simply fight yourself?

Xiao Tianzhi took a breath, the cigarette butt flickered on and off, until the cigarette butt burned his fingers, woke up from deep thought, and also got another news: "Report, the Hunhe sent a message, five minutes ago, their radar found that the enemy's third formation was divided again!" ”

Flagship, battleship USS North Dakota.

Inside the command tower, everyone's eyes were on the young major who suddenly came to Lieutenant General Claxton before leaving, and as he explained, everyone was also moved by his whimsy.

Divide the troops, constantly divide the troops, use the night as a cover, and reduce the fleet to pieces.

Everyone knows that the enemy has too many enemy submarines and reconnaissance ships in this sea, and there will be more eyes from the top of their heads after dawn, so this tactic is not too unexpected, and Claxton and Seymour thought of dispersing the fleet before departure.

What is really surprising is that Major Fletcher, who was promoted by luck because of the serious shortage of experienced middle-level command officers in the US Navy, came up with an amazing way to divide the troops.

Taking advantage of the fact that it was difficult to distinguish the number of fleets in detail under the enemy's reconnaissance at night, he quietly separated several capital ships under the cover of their respective fleets in the process of constantly dividing his troops, and these detached capital ships will resume assembling tomorrow morning, and then mix into a team to attack the target!

His tactic seems to be very simple, but it is actually very bold, first of all, it completely abandons the current mainstream idea of the decisive battle of the Grand Fleet, and then the escort force around these capital ships that have been covered away is very weak, or even not at all, only when they are regrouped and have enough escort force, so that in tonight's solo voyage, they will not be able to survive once they face an attack.

But what people didn't expect was that such a bold, almost gambling tactic was jointly approved by Claxton and Seymour, which can also be seen that the two actually want to get rid of the current embarrassment, or at least win once to save the fleet's confidence, rather than let the enemy hang out at home.

"We don't yet know if the enemy's main force has left Noumea, but I think they are definitely leaving, and they are blocking our way, but even if they do, they will definitely leave 3 light carriers behind to help, so that we will not have much chance of arriving even if we do."

Fletcher pointed to the chart with bright eyes, pressed his finger Port Vila, gritted his teeth, and said, "So, I think we should make this our goal!" ”

"Port Vila!"

"Yes."

Fletcher explained to his companions: "Port Vila in the Hebrides is only 570 nautical miles from Noumea, and according to intelligence, it has been temporarily used by China as the main base for attacking Noumea, and there are more than 100,000 Marines on standby there, with nearly half a year's worth of war materiel, and now they are besieging Noumea, and it must be relatively empty."

It is impossible for us to retake Port Vila, so the core of the mission is to launch an artillery bombardment and destroy the port facilities, so as to at least delay the attack on Noumea and Australia, and if we are lucky, maybe there is no need to worry in three months, I think that the battleship detachment in charge of the attack must avoid entanglement, and immediately after the shelling, go to the Fiji Islands to join the rest of the forces, and then return to Sealand along the Tonga Islands. ”

"Not going back to Sydney?"

"The facilities in Sydney Harbour are very good, but it is a cage for us, only by leaving Sydney and moving the anchorage to Auckland or Wellington, we can have a good field of view, and there are basically no islands between Australia and Sealand, the sea area is very wide, and it is easy to maneuver and reconnoitre."

After listening to Fletcher's explanation, Claxton suddenly smiled and said, "Major, would you like to be my staff officer?" ”

"Flagship Staff Officer?!" Fletcher took a deep breath hard, suppressed his ecstasy, and said, "General, this is a dangerous plan, Hua has the speed and air power that we can't match, so I can't guarantee that it will succeed." ”

"I know." Claxton nodded, and suddenly turned to Seymour next to him: "From the moment General Seymour and I made the decision not to leave Australia, we were ready to sacrifice. ”

"So, we chose to go north!"