Iron Cross

If Ozawa's plan is placed in the French Navy or the Italian Navy, it will definitely not be completed. If it is placed in the careless U.S. Navy, it will probably sneer at this system - why spend so much work, build two more Wouldn’t that be great? Only by encountering the extremely rigid Germans can this combat system, which is as accurate as clockwork, be implemented. Moreover, Ozawa and the Japanese advisory group also formulated a total of 4 plans from A to D based on the different needs of actual combat and the unique tastes of the Germans.

Most of the steps in the plan are accurate to the minute. It has also been compiled into a combat manual, which clarifies and solidifies the command responsibility to each officer and sergeant major. It also proposes a coordination strategy for A/B posts to complement each other. Because the Navy calculates gunnery and ballistics all year round, and also uses a variety of instruments to measure speed, orientation, and angles, its mathematical level far exceeds that of other arms.

At the same time, the Germans are famous for hating ambiguity. Historically, there have often been opinions about the German army falsely reporting its own losses. The actual reasons are very complicated, because the headquarters staff’s statistics of losses rely on the numbers reported by the front-line troops. If the battle situation is tragic, generally The front-line commander could only report a vague approximate number, but the staff refused to accept it because it was "fuzzy", let alone included in the statistics, so black humor appeared. The more intense the battle, the more fuzzy numbers, and the German "statistics" The related losses are even less. If all the troops in a certain unit are killed and no one reports the losses, then the staff officer will solemnly write down - no losses on that day!

No one in the fleet concerned questioned this sophisticated and complex logical system. Instead, they believed that this was how it should be. Everyone was in awe of the commander and the advisory team.

"Attention, all ships, execute the D-level plan!" Following Colonel Seydlitz's roar, the entire Dunkirk seemed to have received a huge dose of stimulants, and everyone began to run.

The D-level plan is the highest-level combat plan. In this tactical background, the highest command authority is transferred from the captain to the aviation commander. All officers and soldiers, including bridge command personnel, except for necessary positions, are Providing services in combat.

At 10:01, the combat order was issued;

At 10:07, 24 direct cover aircraft belonging to the Dunkirk ship mounted their auxiliary fuel tanks and took off one after another;

At 10:29, the first artillery unit direct cover aircraft landed. Within 9 minutes, all 27 fighter jets landed. The ground crews swarmed up and began to replenish fuel bombs for them;

At 10:51, the fighters that had completed their supplies took off again after changing pilots. Together with the Dunkirk direct cover aircraft, they formed the first air defense echelon of 51 aircraft, responsible for regional air defense. At this time, the attack aircraft group reinforced from behind had already In sight from afar;

At 10:59, the 11 Ju-98s belonging to the Dunkirk began to fly at full speed and wait;

At 11:02, 48 He-218s flying from the rear, with the shortest range and fastest speed, entered the airspace control area and prepared to land one after another to replenish fuel. 34 Ju-98s and 36 Bf-219s with auxiliary fuel tanks were finally launched. Rush forward at economical speed, preparing to join the 11 Ju-98s that have just taken off;

At 11:04, the two runways were operating at the same time, and the He-218 was performing supplementary go-around operations. One aircraft after another landed from the two deck runways at the same time, and then quickly carried out fuel refueling work. The fastest operating speed on each runway could be One sortie was received every minute, and everyone was highly concentrated. This was the moment when the Dunkirk was at its weakest. The deck was covered with aircraft loaded with ammunition and waiting to be refueled. All officers and soldiers, even Sedley, He also assists the ground crew in carrying out operations;

At 11:19, 34 Ju-98s merged with 11 Ju-98s, combined with 36 Bf-219s to form an attack wave and flew around the fleet's exclusive airspace towards the attack target. No one on the deck was distracted;

At 11:44, all fuel replenishment was completed, and the operation mode was suddenly reversed, changing to takeoff at full speed. The two runways were released together, with the fastest efficiency reaching 3 aircraft per minute...

At 12:09, the radar reported that the enemy aircraft group was 185 kilometers away from the fleet. At this time, all the attack aircraft groups had been completely released. The last ones to take off were the 12 Ju-198s belonging to the Dunkirk (which were carrying bombs and performing dive bombing missions). A total of 60 dive bombing formations have been released. The formation can rely on its high speed to catch up with the attack echelons that have set off earlier.

So far, Ozawa has dispatched all 141 attack formations including 36 fighters, 60 dive bombers, and 45 torpedo attack aircraft. Dunkirk has 51 air defense fighters left, and only 29 of the main aircraft carrier forces are left. A fighter jet. This was quite a risky move, but the total number of aircraft was only this small, and we had to form as many attack groups as possible, and we also had to cover the exposed target of the Dunkirk, so we could only arrange it this way.

"Long live!" The officers and soldiers on the left and right, including Seydlitz, cheered. They were 3 minutes faster than the planned operation time, and there was no accident or failure.

"Now, please take your positions and prepare for air defense. We will make it impossible for the Americans to come back!"

"Sir, all the instructions have been completed without any mistakes. The enemy planes will attack the Dunkirk in about 20 minutes. It will take our army about 90 minutes to attack the enemy fleet."

Ozawa nodded: "Everyone, the winning hand has been released. Regardless of success or failure, let's give it a try!"

Machar said: "You can let the air force bomb the island again. They still have more than 40 bombers. They are idle. It is better to add trouble to the Americans..."

Krank added: "Let the S-boats also dispatch. They are quite experienced in dealing with coastal infantry. It would be good to send some supplements to the island."

These few words doomed the 3rd and 5th Army Divisions to misery.

At 12:34, the US attack aircraft group arrived less than 30 kilometers away from the Dunkirk. What made commander Lieutenant Colonel Macmillan's scalp numb was that they encountered more than 40 German fighter jets that were waiting in full formation. In order to increase the intensity of the strike, Most of the F6Fs are equipped with 500-pound bombs. After encountering an interception, they are either forced to throw away the bombs hastily, or they can only use clumsy maneuvers to avoid them. However, the German pilots are still veterans, and a few of them are taking chances. The fighter jets were directly eaten by the opponent in the confrontation. In the end, all the fighter jets could only give up their bombs - a shadow was cast before they even touched the edge of the enemy aircraft carrier.

Macmillan then planned to split his forces into two groups and rely on his larger number of planes to overwhelm the Germans. Seydlitz seemed to see through his idea, but his strategy was consistent with Macmillan's, letting go of speed. The slow but torpedo-carrying TBFs instead focused on attacking the bomb-carrying SBD dive bombers. The two sides have very similar ideas, but their starting points are completely different. The Dunkirk is an aircraft carrier transformed from a battleship and has relatively strong defense. The US military hopes to kill the warship with torpedoes. The German army believes that it can rely on its own defense to withstand it for a while. The key is to keep it. His ability to take off and land. As for TBF, there are other ways to deal with it.

The U.S. military has a good idea, but the performance of U.S. aviation torpedoes is not good, and they must fire at close range. This provides the best target for the Phalanx close-range anti-aircraft firepower used on the Dunkirk, one after another. TBFs were continuously shot down, and some even failed to successfully release torpedoes. As for the SBDs that were intercepted by German fighter jets, it was even more painful. Although more than 10 F6Fs desperately covered them, they were still shot down by Bf-219s. In just 7 minutes, nearly 30 SBDs were buried in the sea.

"Boom", after dodging four torpedoes in a row, one torpedo finally couldn't be avoided. The captain chose to use the front of the ship to carry it hard. The torpedo exploded a three-meter square hole, and seawater continued to pour in, but in Under heroic damage control, the officers and soldiers only swallowed more than 1,000 tons of seawater to plug the leak, and quickly injected water to restore balance. The overall speed of the warship dropped by 2 knots. The rest seemed safe and sound, and there were also a few SBD bombers that slipped through the net. They jumped down to attack, but no bombs hit the warship, and only two near-misses were caused.

At 12:58, the US military formation returned after completing the attack mission. They suffered the loss of 52 aircraft, but only hit one torpedo on the Dunkirk and a 1,000-pound bomb on the Hipper. The most important thing was to paralyze and The goal of destroying the enemy aircraft carrier was not completed. Eight German fighter jets were lost. The pilots who fell into the water were quickly rescued by the extremely fast Utopia class.

"The attack formation has returned. They damaged the enemy aircraft carrier and heavy cruiser. However, due to the large number of enemy fighters and intensive fire interception, they were unable to destroy them. It is recommended to send more forces..."

When the staff read out the message, there was silence on the Unicorn. Cunningham sighed: "The enemy is harder to fight than we expected...Have all the troops who attacked early in the morning been gathered in?"

"Completely packed and replenished, ready to go."

"What a pity, we still don't know where the enemy's main aircraft carrier is..." Cunningham pressed his temples as if he had a headache, "Where are these Germans hiding?"

"Sir, the radar reports that a group of aircraft has been spotted 200 kilometers away. It may be an enemy attack group."

"It came so fast!" Everyone exclaimed.

"The location of the enemy plane?"

"Northeast direction..."

"It is estimated that the enemy ships are hidden further to the northeast. Let all the carrier-based aircraft that can be dispatched take off. The air defense fighters will try to entangle the enemy aircraft and buy time for the rear."

"140 kilometers, the number of enemy aircraft is estimated to exceed 130... no, 140!" Cunningham watched the very nervous aircraft flying on the deck while listening to the report from the radar room. The situation suddenly became tense, but Kan Ning'an remained very calm. While issuing attack orders in an orderly manner, he asked the aircraft carrier formation to hide under a cumulonimbus cloud as much as possible.

"Attention, members, we have discovered the enemy fleet and are about to launch an attack!" As Frank shouted, the German attack wave's sharp counterattack swept towards the US fleet...