When Nimitz was helped down into a lifeboat by two Marines, the second batch of Chinese fighter jets began to attack the US fleet.
Braving the heavy rain of anti-aircraft fire from the US ships, Xue Shanghai first carefully observed the two US aircraft carriers. After confirming that they were unable to escape, he pulled up the fighter planes, found the secondary target, and shouted on the command channel: "Brothers We, targets, American battleships and heavy cruisers, attack freely."
The air defense radar equipped by the U.S. Atlantic Fleet has an effective radiation radius of 350 kilometers. In order to gain speed, Xue Shanghai did not fly close to the sea to conceal their tracks like their previous comrades. Therefore, when they entered the air defense warning range of the U.S. ship After that, they were immediately intercepted by American anti-aircraft fire. However, within the first five to ten kilometers, the American anti-aircraft fire was still very weak. When Xue Shanghai lowered his flying altitude to about three thousand meters, The anti-aircraft fire immediately became intensive.
The Americans are not fools. Even if they have lost Nimitz's guidance now, they know that the most important thing at this time is to protect the few heavy ships that still exist in the fleet. Therefore, when it is discovered that Chinese fighter jets may break through the air defense cordon, temporarily Spruance, the deputy commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet who replaced Nimitz, immediately ordered all ships to engage in air defense operations. The focus was to protect several heavy ships such as the Oklahoma battleship so that Chinese fighter jets could not threaten them. them.
Because of the unexpected rise of Ouyang Yun and Koizumi Toshiichiro, history has reached a turning point here. That is, the once arrogant U.S. Pacific Fleet has actually been reduced to a second-rate fleet due to repeated defeats. On the contrary, it has hardly caught the U.S. in any war. Although the Atlantic Fleet is inferior to the U.S. Pacific Fleet in terms of equipment level and scale of ships, it has become the hope of the Americans because it has not suffered a defeat. In addition, the U.S. Pacific Fleet has to frequently withdraw from the Atlantic Fleet after losing a large number of front-line combatants. Replenishing troops has enhanced the status of the Atlantic Fleet in the navy to a certain extent. Therefore, from bottom to top, the Atlantic Fleet is much stronger than the US Pacific Fleet in terms of morale and desire to win.
Nimitz and Spruance were the mainstays of the U.S. Navy in that time and space, and they all achieved great fame in the Pacific War. In this time and space, although they did not appear in the U.S. Pacific Fleet by some strange combination of circumstances, But he has moved forward smoothly, and now he has become a senior commander in charge of his own affairs.
Be it Nimitz or Spruance, before the Battle of French Guinea, their greatest wish was to personally lead the fleet to the Pacific and defeat the Japanese aircraft carrier fleet in one fell swoop. After the secret treaty between the United States and Japan, Although they were reluctant in their hearts, they still adapted to the changes in the trend and began to regard China's Pacific Fleet as an imaginary enemy. Then, because they found that China's Pacific Fleet was more powerful and more difficult to deal with than Japan's Takeku aircraft carrier fleet, they became competitive and began to Consider what you should do to ensure victory when encountering China's Pacific Fleet in a certain sea area in the future.
Compared to Admiral King, who lived a life of fear and trembling on thin ice in the U.S. Pacific Fleet, because the U.S. Atlantic Fleet basically had no enemies in the Atlantic, Nimitz and Spruance once lived a very leisurely life and had a lot of time. Used for war chess drills and battle drills with various enemies in various environments.
Spruance once imagined encountering China's Pacific Fleet at Midway Island and conducted a simulation with the U.S. Atlantic Fleet for the Red Army. This simulation lasted nearly three hours, and finally the Red Army under his command destroyed three of China's Pacific Fleet. Through this deduction, Spruance concluded that in order to defeat China's Pacific Fleet with a similar number of ships, the most critical thing is not to allow the Chinese aircraft carrier to continue to fly carrier-based aircraft , also because of this deduction, he searched for a large amount of intelligence information afterwards to understand the Chinese Pacific Fleet, and based on this, he inferred the tactical characteristics of the Chinese Navy, namely the "aircraft carrier victory theory." Because of this incident, he later discussed with Nigeria In one of his talks, Mizzi specifically pointed out: I studied the growth process of the Chinese Navy and discovered a very scary feature. The Chinese have never made any detours from the beginning... It is obvious that from the beginning, the Chinese have realized the aircraft carrier It plays an irreplaceable role in modern naval warfare. Therefore, when China and the United States were in the honeymoon period, they would repeatedly ask us to provide aircraft carriers... Although the history of the Chinese navy is very short, because from the beginning We chose the most correct path. In fact, they are almost catching up with us now...
At that time, Spruance used sentences like "It's almost time to catch up with us," indicating that although he recognized the strength of the Chinese navy, he also believed that the U.S. Navy would still be superior.
Because of what happened at that time, what is happening now is like a slap in the face.
Spruance, like Nimitz, is by no means a mediocre person, so he breathed a sigh of relief after the two waves of attacks launched by the USS Genghis Khan aircraft carrier fleet failed. Like Nimitz at the time, Spruance believed that Now that it has withstood the first two waves of attacks by the Chinese, especially the missile attacks, no matter what moves the Chinese use in the future, the Atlantic Fleet will definitely be able to withstand it. Even knowing that the Chinese only have four aircraft carriers in total, he was We are already calculating that if we can crush another Chinese air attack like before, then the Atlantic Fleet will launch a counterattack, and we can consider using the same method to give the Chinese a heavy blow.
"The Chinese certainly did not expect that our air defense firepower would be so powerful. Then, after crushing another of their air strikes, we can send fighter planes to attack them in turn. This time, we will teach the despicable Chinese a painful lesson. "At that time, Spruance was saying this to the adjutant. Suddenly, an exclamation of "torpedo, torpedo found" came from the headset. Then, before he could react, the flagship aircraft carrier USS San Francisco and other One aircraft carrier had been hit by several torpedoes each, and his idea of countering air attacks was suddenly shattered.
After the war, Spruance admitted that even if God gave him another chance, he would never have thought that the Chinese's killer move would be submarines and torpedoes. However, Spruance was not an ordinary person after all, even if he suffered such a heavy blow Despite the blow, he still kept a cool head and was able to make the most correct response when Nimitz temporarily left the command post.
However, as he said during previous deductions, once the aircraft carrier fleet loses the aircraft carrier, it is equivalent to losing its offensive weapons. In modern naval battles, it can only be passively beaten.