It can be said that if anyone in the Chinese Navy at that time regarded defeating the US fleet as easy as possible, they would definitely be considered to have a problem with their heads.

The fleet is where the strength is, and no one can deny that the US fleet is very powerful.

However, some people do think that defeating the US fleet is easy to capture, and this person is in a key position, namely, the commander of the Second Fleet Tong Shaoyun.[..com]

When formulating the combat plan, Tong Shaoyun sang a counter-tune with Gong Jifei.

Given that the US fleet has stronger aviation combat capabilities, and the US Navy has obtained the latest improvements of the F-44 fighter, namely the F-44ka, which has significantly improved its air combat capabilities. According to the intelligence provided by the Military Intelligence Agency, the F-44ka's air combat performance is no less than that of the J-33b, and the J-33d used to replace the J-33b is still being produced and will not be provided to the fleet until the end of the year at the earliest. Gong Jifei believes that the shore-based aviation troops deployed in the Solomon Islands and Ponape Island should be used to fight an inside battle that is beneficial to the Chinese fleet.

To put it more directly, Gong Jifei planned to let the fleet stay behind the defense line.

Obviously, Tong Shaoyun believes that such a conservative tactic is just about defending the sea, not seeking victory. Although the main purpose of this battle is to preserve the sea control power that has been obtained, it does not matter whether the US fleet can be eliminated, but Tong Shaoyun believes that the fleet itself is an offensive force. Even if the strategic goal is defensive, it should try its best to exert the offensive force of the fleet in tactical terms and use offense to achieve victory.

Therefore, Tong Shaoyun insisted on leading the fleet to take the initiative.

In fact, as early as April, Tong Shaoyun proposed a plan that even Mu Haoyang was extremely shocked, that is, to lead a fleet to Panama Bay and sneak attack the US fleet entering the Pacific Ocean.

In Mu Haoyang's words, Tong Shaoyun was so idle that he had the energy to come up with such an arrogant combat plan.

It is no wonder that during the Battle of the Solomon Islands, the Second Fleet was basically doing nothing except covering the Marines on board Wanwunu Island. Then the Second Fleet returned to Alapu Port twice, and Tong Shaoyun took the opportunity to return to China, entitled to report the combat operations to the Navy Command, which was actually running around and selling his combat plans. Especially in April, when he returned to China for the second time, he directly found Mu Haoyang and proposed a combat plan for principal and interest in Panama.

Fortunately, Mu Haoyang has not been confused yet.

It must be admitted that Tong Shaoyun's idea is very bold and has high assault value, but it lacks the necessary factor to succeed. That is, after a sneak attack on Panama, he could not lead the fleet back to the Western Pacific safely, and 99% of it may be annihilated by the US military.

This kind of fighting method of killing one thousand enemies and losing eight hundred by itself is definitely not the navy's tactic.

Of course, Tong Shaoyun became famous for this, and even Huang Hanlin had asked him specifically about it.

After the war, many people mentioned the sneak attack on Panama when studying Tong Shaoyun, and many people thought it was a pity that Mu Haoyang did not approve Tong Shaoyun's combat plan. In the eyes of these people, if the fleet was dispatched in early May, the chance of sneak attack was very high, and it might even sink the US fleet into the canal, causing the canal to be paralyzed, thereby cutting off the most convenient shipping channel between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

The problem is, this is just hindsight.

You should know that even if Mu Haoyang approved Tong Shaoyun's combat plan, it would not be possible to attack the US fleet, because the intelligence at that time was that the US fleet entered the Pacific from the Panama Canal in mid-May, and the actual situation was that the US fleet entered the Pacific in early May. The problem arises that even if Tong Shaoyun led the fleet to rush over, it would be based on the arrival of the destination in mid-May. This is the time, the US fleet happened to be on the west coast of the United States and had enough ability to intercept the Chinese fleet returning to the Western Pacific.

Taking a step back, even if Tong Shaoyun's fleet arrived in Panama Bay in early May and was well hidden, it was impossible to return safely by successfully attacking the US fleet passing through the Panama Canal, because on the route back to the Western Pacific, there are dozens of islands controlled by the US military, which need to face hundreds of submarines, thousands of combat aircraft, and the Fifth Fleet consisting of three aircraft carrier battle groups.

In fact, the Chinese fleet will be exposed after arriving in Panama Bay. The problem that leads to this is that if you want to sneak attack on the US fleet, you must grasp every point in time, arrive when the US fleet enters the Panama Canal, and then launch an attack immediately.

Obviously, this is almost impossible because there is no intelligence needed to achieve this combat purpose.

Mu Haoyang did not approve Tong Shaoyun's crazy plan, and was not trying to kill young and promising generals, because Mu Haoyang then increased Tong Shaoyun's command authority.

Now, Tong Shaoyun was even more like a fish in water.

The first thing that led to this was that in fleet combat, his views were completely opposite to Gong Jifei, and he believed that only by taking the initiative could he achieve a major victory.

In fact, Mu Haoyang favored Tong Shaoyun at that time, but did not intervene.

No matter what, Gong Jifei's proposal makes sense. After all, the Chinese Navy cannot withstand the losses, and the result of both sides' losses is not much helpful to the Chinese Navy.

More importantly, by May, Mu Haoyang was under a lot of pressure.

The main reason is that the bloody battle on Guadalcanal has not ended for a long time, and casualties have increased day by day, and the guarantees Mu Haoyang gave to Huang Hanlin have become far away.

In this way, Mu Haoyang turned to conservative.

You should know that Huang Hanlin urgently needs a major victory, but he will definitely not be able to accept the result of the crushing defeat again. Mu Haoyang is very clear that although Tong Shaoyun's proposal is most likely to achieve a decisive victory, he is also most likely to suffer an unprecedented crushing defeat. This is directly related to Mu Haoyang's future and will also determine China's overall strategic direction and even the final outcome of this war in the next few years.

To put it bluntly, ensuring unbeaten is more valuable than taking risks to win.

In this way, Gong Jifei's proposals gained the upper hand.

By late May, the arrangements related to fleet combat were carried out according to Gong Jifei's requirements, and the joint fleet retreated a thousand kilometers north of the Solomon Islands. Although Tong Shaoyun still insisted that he should take the initiative, Gong Jifei basically ignored him.

Things didn't change until the last day of May.

On that day, the submarines waiting outside Pearl Harbor did not find the US Fifth Fleet. At night, a "Tuna" class fully electric submarine cruising northeast of the Ryan Islands discovered a huge fleet, and it was concluded that there were at least nine super aircraft carriers in the fleet.

After eleven o'clock at night, the submarine sent the telegram to Mu Haoyang.

The intelligence is very reliable. The U.S. Fifth Fleet encountered the submarine, which has hundreds of large warships, speeds up to 45 knots and a course of 220 degrees.

That is, the fleet is heading for New Zealand.

In the early morning of June 1, the discovery of the submarine was confirmed, that the submarine used a high-frequency communication radio station to send the photos taken with a periscope to an intelligence ship operating in the Southeast Pacific, and then forwarded it to the Military Intelligence Agency, and finally handed it to the Ministry of War.

The high-resolution infrared photos are taken very clearly, and they are indeed "American"-class super aircraft carriers.

Obviously, during the high-speed transit, the US Fifth Fleet was not alert to potential dangers at all, and did not find submarines lurking on the waterway.

This is understandable. At the end of March, the "Tuna" class only went to the Eastern Pacific for the first time to carry out a breakthrough mission, and achieved very few results. Before that, the Chinese Navy had only a few attack nuclear submarines in the Eastern Pacific, and mainly squatted on the waterway from the Hawaiian Islands to the West Coast ports of the United States. It rarely went to the waters near the equator and had never been to the waters south of the equator.

Perhaps, at that time, the US military did not believe that Chinese submarines could sail to the waters east of the Ryan Islands.

The result is that the US fleet not only did not strengthen anti-submarine alerts, nor did it avoid the main international waterways, but it took the route from the West Coast of the United States to New Zealand.

Interestingly, that "Tuna" class submarine did not attack the US fleet.

It is definitely not because the captain was timid and afraid of death, because all the "tuna" class captains had served as captains on the "Stingray" class submarines at that time. They had at least one year of combat experience. The captains sent to the Eastern Pacific were all veterans of the combat operations.

No attack may have something to do with the mission of the submarine itself and the captain's intuition.

At that time, the boat was tasked with ambushing the fleet on the US West Coast to the Southwest Pacific route, rather than the fleet. More importantly, the captain sent out intelligence at the first time, and contacted the intelligence ship and sent back the high-resolution infrared photos, indicating that the captain had realized that providing intelligence was far more valuable than ambushing the US fleet.

It was later proved that the aircraft carrier captured by the submarine was the Fifth Fleet flagship "America" ​​(full name is "United States of America"), and Admiral France was on this warship. After the war, some people believed that if the "tuna" class ambushed the US fleet, France might have been buried in the sea. It was later proved that killing France is definitely more valuable than annihilation of a US fleet.

Of course, this is just a guess.

The full load displacement of the "American" class super aircraft carrier exceeds 160,000 tons, and the trimaran is extremely sturdy and will not sink immediately even if it is hit by six heavy torpedoes. The fleet command center on the flagship is the most securely protected inside the main hull, and it is unlikely that France will be buried in the sea.

Judging from the situation at that time, the loss of an aircraft carrier did not have much impact on the US Fifth Fleet. Instead, the submarine ambush could alert France, thus making the subsequent actions of the US Fleet unpredictable, causing the intelligence provided by the submarine to lose value.

That is to say, it is the right thing to do if the submarine did not ambush the US fleet.
Chapter completed!