Chapter 245 The Fleet's Home

The Atlantic combat operations led to the postponement of the US mainland until the end of March.

Objectively speaking, postponing for one month is not a bad thing, but a good thing.

By the end of March, the Chinese Navy and Air Force were able to provide more comprehensive and powerful air cover and air support to the Marine Corps landing on the west coast of the United States.

At that time, in the Eastern Pacific, the Navy gathered fifteen aircraft carrier battle groups.

In fact, by this time, the main task of the main fleet is no longer to seize sea power and air power, but to cruise near the battlefield, searching and annihilation of US warships that leave the port and seeking opportunities for sneak attacks, especially those small ships made of non-metallic materials.

To put it bluntly, the task of the main fleet is to protect thousands of ships gathered at the forefront that lack mobility and effective self-defense methods from sudden attacks by US high-speed small ships, and create a safe waters on the frontline to ensure that other ships are not affected.

Obviously, the main fleet has become a machinist fleet.

The ones that truly undertake the main combat missions are those ordinary ships that were not valued before and were even considered unable to survive on the battlefield.

To be precise, it is a ship modified from a merchant ship.

In regular naval battles, these "army auxiliary ships" do not have the ability to survive, but after naval battles, especially when the enemy has lost their naval battle capabilities, these ships that were not valued by the navy before are very useful, and their combat effectiveness is far greater than those of warships.

For example, the actual value of an escort aircraft carrier is only one-twentieth of a super aircraft carrier, the conventional combat cost is only one-tenth of a super aircraft carrier, and the maintenance cost is only one-fifth of a super aircraft carrier. However, it can carry thirty carrier-based fighters or twenty-four fixed-wing carrier-based anti-submarine patrol aircraft, and its combat capability is equivalent to 30% of a super aircraft carrier, and its comprehensive efficiency cost ratio is five to ten times that of a super aircraft carrier.

In other words, using the same funds to purchase escort aircraft carriers is much more cost-effective than purchasing super aircraft carriers.

That's why, since 2054, the Chinese Navy began to purchase escort aircraft carriers in large quantities, and even gave up orders for the sixth batch of super aircraft carriers. In fact, by the end of the war, the fifth batch of super aircraft carriers were not fully built, and only four were completed. The remaining eight were sold to steel recycling companies after dismantling sensitive equipment. Only one-third of the active super aircraft carriers were retained, and the rest were retired within five years after the war ended, partly sealed, partly sold to the allies at low prices, partly became target ships for testing new anti-ship weapons, and some were dragged to the South China Sea and became the cornerstone of artificial undersea coral reefs.

By the end of March 2056, there had been more than 180 escort aircraft carriers in the Chinese Navy.

What is this concept?

According to an escort carrier, 30 fighter jets were carried, and these escort carriers could carry a total of 5,400 aircraft, but in fact, it was far more than that, because some later improved escort carriers had a capacity of more than 60 aircraft, and some escort carriers modified with 300,000-ton container cargo ships could even carry a hundred fighter jets. At that time, the 150 escort carriers deployed on the front line carried a total of 8,000 fighter jets.

The 15 super aircraft carriers of the Pacific Fleet can only carry less than 1,400 fighter jets at most.

By comparing this, you can find out how huge the escort aircraft carrier group is.

Of course, how to deploy and mobilize these escort aircraft carriers is definitely a science.

From the perspective of command, it is almost impossible to mobilize 180 escort aircraft carriers at the same time, and it is almost impossible to command 8,000 fighter jets to fight at the same time.

Fortunately, the Navy had developed a more powerful electromagnetic bomb launcher at that time, which could allow J33 to take off at full load at zero wind speed or even at a negative 25 knots of wind speed. It did not require the aircraft carrier to sail in the wind to drive the wind speed of the deck to exceed twenty knots as before. In this way, the escort aircraft carriers that gathered together could launch and recover carrier-based fighters in an anchor state.

The use method has been simplified and the value of escort aircraft carriers has increased significantly.

In addition, a new military command system has also taken shape and has begun to work.

In fact, this is not considered a military command system, because its core is actually a command and communication network based on military communication satellites.

At that time, when China was clearing out low-Earth orbit space garbage, it also launched dozens of military satellites.

These military satellites are cleaning up the satellite cluster.

When removing space garbage, China adopts the method to deploy a group of cleaning satellites in the same orbit, with a number of ten. One cleaning satellite can remove space garbage within one kilometer of transverse width in front. Ten satellites work at the same time to clear one orbit space with a width of about ten kilometers. In each group, there are at least two spare cleaning satellites to replace damaged cleaning satellites in a timely manner. Behind these cleaning satellites are military satellites, including communications, reconnaissance and alert satellites. Generally, a satellite cluster consists of six or nine military satellites, and each satellite cluster has at least two communications, two reconnaissance and two alert satellites to ensure that under any circumstances, at least one of each type of military satellite can work.

Among them, the most important one is military communication satellites. Therefore, there are often three or even more military communication satellites in each satellite cluster, so that when necessary, such as when crossing the battlefield, several satellites work at the same time, and provide more communication channels for combat troops.

In fact, these communication satellites also determine the rhythm of military strikes.

At that time, military satellites were in low orbit and stayed on the battlefield for about two hours, so the Chinese Air Force bombing operations were often concentrated in these two hours, that is, bombers entered the bombing area during this period, dropped bombs, and evacuated before satellite communications were interrupted.

Improved communication efficiency means improved command efficiency.

You should know that during the war, the problem of limiting command efficiency is that communication efficiency is too low.

Although military communication situations have improved by using ultra-high-altitude long-distance drones, the working efficiency of drones is far less than that of military communication satellites, especially the battlefield coverage is only one percent of that of military communication satellites. The use of 100 drones at the same time means that information needs to be exchanged between these 100 drones and establish a communication network, thus greatly reducing communication efficiency.

By replacing one hundred large drones with a communication satellite, the communication efficiency has naturally improved a lot.

At that time, the military communication satellites launched by China had 2,400 communication channels, that is, they could connect 2,400 communication lines at the same time and provide services to 2,400 combat units. Although limited by the number of satellites, even if three military communication satellites work at the same time, they could only support 7,200 combat units, which was far from the level before the global natural disaster. At that time, the military communication satellite networks of China and the United States could support tens of thousands of combat units at the same time, but compared with the war, this was definitely a huge leap.

You should know that during the war, the team had simplified the communication system, imposed strict restrictions on communications between troops, and found other alternatives. Take the Army as an example, an assault cluster is a combat unit, and internal communication relies entirely on directional communication systems and tactical radio stations. Only when communicating with other units do they need to use military communication satellites.

In the navy, a fleet of ships is a combat unit.

At that time, the Navy organized six escort aircraft carriers into one combat unit, one of which was a flagship, and only the flagship needed to use military communication satellites. The other five ships exchanged information with the flagship through directional communication systems, and other ships in the formation also exchanged information with the flagship in the same way.

In this way, the Navy's communication efficiency has been greatly improved and the command efficiency has been comprehensively improved.

It is no longer difficult to use these means to command 180 aircraft carriers.

The large number of escort aircraft carriers is an important basis for the Chinese Navy to maintain air supremacy in the Eastern Pacific battlefield and cover strategic bombing.

Subsequently, it will also become an important force in attacking the United States.

Interestingly, the fate of most escort carriers is much better than that of super aircraft carriers. After the war, only a small number of escort carriers with longer-aged escort carriers were demolished and sold at the price of scrap steel. The rest of the escort carriers were remodeled and restored to their original appearance, namely container cargo ships, sailing on major routes of the oceans again, making significant contributions to the reconstruction work of countries around the world. Later, another escort carrier was preserved in its wartime appearance and became an exhibit in the Chinese Naval Museum.

Together with the escort aircraft carriers, there are also crew members who fought on these auxiliary ships.

At that time, most of the military auxiliary ships only had the treatment of active-duty naval soldiers, and most of the crew were conscripted sailors, but they were not included in the formal establishment of the navy and became a very unique "quasi-military group", so they were not treated as retired soldiers after the war. During the entire war, nearly two million seamen were conscripted, of which nearly 200,000 were killed on the battlefield. It was not until fifteen years after the end of the war that China Political Department officially recognized the military status of conscripted seamen and provided them with treatment of retired soldiers.

Later, the Chinese Navy specially established a "Monument to the Dead Seamen" in Zhoushan Port.

Not only the navy, but the Army also had similar situations. For example, there were more than one million people who were recruited to participate in the Army Transportation Team at that time, of which nearly 50,000 died on the battlefield. It was not until the end of the war that when the issue of resettlement of millions of para-soldiers attracted high attention from the society and caused many well-known people in society to run for it that the Army recognized their military identity.

Of course, these are all off-topics.

After everything was ready, on March 27, Mu Haoyang signed a landing operation plan to land on the west coast of the United States.
Chapter completed!