Chapter 55 Decisive Battle is Coming

On November 23, after McCarthy submitted a strategic plan approved by Lucas, General Jordan issued an order to the Third Fleet and the Fourth Fleet, and formally appointed Major General Reagan, the commander of the Fourth Fleet, as commander of the Joint Fleet, and Brigadier General Nixon as the chief of staff.

In the afternoon of the same day, this large-scale joint fleet turned northwest and rushed to Digo Garcia.

It must be admitted that the combat effectiveness of the US joint fleet is far above the task force.

On the fleet, the US Joint Fleet has six aircraft carriers, twelve cruisers, 18 multi-purpose destroyers and 18 anti-submarine destroyers, while the task force has only four aircraft carriers, eight large integrated warships and 16 anti-submarine warships. Even in terms of the number of submarines, the US military has 18, while the task force has only 12, of which eight are the "Stingray" class fully electric submarines with limited combat effectiveness, and only four are Type 099 attack nuclear submarines. At that time, the "Great Wall" class attack nuclear submarines that the Chinese Navy had high hopes for had not yet been launched. Fortunately, the submarines of China and the United States had the same problem, that is, they could not keep up with the new aircraft carriers that were sailing at full speed.

This problem directly reduces the value of submarines in this naval battle.

To put it simply, as long as the new aircraft carrier is sailing at full speed, no submarine could catch up with it at that time, and even most torpedoes could not catch up.

The result is that full speed navigation has become the main way for aircraft carrier combat groups to counter submarines.

Of course, at this point, the advantage of the task force is very obvious, because its twenty-eight large warships can sail at a speed of forty-five knots, while only the US military's fourth fleet's warships can reach this speed, and the maximum speed of all warships in the third fleet is within thirty-five knots.

It is not the fastest warship that determines the speed of a fleet, but the slowest warship.

The result is that the speed of the US joint fleet cannot exceed thirty-five knots, and it is really good to get thirty-three knots.

In terms of carrier-based aviation, the US military has six aviation corpses, with a total of 504 fighter jets, while the task force has only four aviation corpses, with 376 fighter jets. The US military has about 34% more and has a relatively obvious advantage in force.

In naval battles with aircraft carriers as the core, aviation forces are of decisive significance.

Put aside the unexpected factors on the battlefield, in a relatively equal situation, if the US joint fleet attacks, the task force will undoubtedly lose. If the task force attacks, it is possible to win after paying a large loss. In this way, whoever can launch the attack first will win, but the price of winning is different.

In fact, Mu Haoyang had already been mentally prepared.

When he flew to the aircraft carrier "Tarzan" and took over the command from Major General Gong Jifei, he was ready to win a miserable victory in the Indian Ocean.

Of course, in Mu Haoyang's view, a tragic victory is enough.

You should know that with the situation of the Chinese Navy, what is most needed is a victory, not a way of victory. Therefore, only victory can boost morale and revitalize the morale of the army.

After a sudden attack at the beginning of war, the morale of the navy has fallen to the bottom.

Although the naval officers and soldiers were still very high in fighting spirit and were eagerly looking forward to a decisive battle with the US fleet, almost no one had hope for victory, but had a mentality of fighting against the enemy to the death. The reason is very simple, the gap between the strength of the Chinese and US navies is too huge.

It is precisely this reason that Mu Haoyang went to the front line in person.

With the circumstances at that time, any failure, even if it was just a tactical failure, was enough to completely destroy the fighting spirit of Chinese naval officers and soldiers.

If he had enough capital in his hand, Mu Haoyang would definitely not command the fleet to fight as the Chief of Staff.

In fact, after the end of the Second Indian Ocean War, Mu Haoyang gradually faded out of the front line and decided to spend a lot of effort to train young and strong officers. In the past seven years, he personally approved the promotion orders of hundreds of generals and personally interviewed all the young generals who were reused.

The problem is that the crushing defeat of the Western Indian Ocean Fleet made Mu Haoyang realize that the young generals could not take on the heavy responsibility.

It can be said that this situation made Mu Haoyang a little sad.

This cannot be blamed on others. If he had trusted Zhang Yuting highly in the Second Indian Ocean War and valued talented young generals, the results would be completely different. Of course, in the Second Indian Ocean War, especially in the early stages of the war, the situation of the Chinese Navy was not very optimistic. In other words, this cannot be blamed for anyone. The fundamental reason is that the Chinese Navy has not been strong enough to waste its troops.

On the 23rd, the task force continued to bomb and shell Digo Garcia.

During the day, the aircraft carrier-based aviation team was mainly dispatched, and the artillery formation retreated, and met with the two rapid combat support ships of the Western Indian Ocean Fleet to replenish the consumed ammunition. At night, it was the aircraft carrier's turn to replenish ammunition, and the artillery formation took on the main strike mission.

It was in the early morning of the 24th, after confirming that all important targets had been destroyed, Mu Haoyang asked the fleet to withdraw.

Next, the Air Force will regularly bomb Digo Garcia to prevent the US military from repairing damaged military facilities to ensure that the Marine Corps can get ashore smoothly.

In the early morning of that day, the task force conducted the third resupply operation in two days on the west side of the Jiudu Strait.

It mainly replenishes ammunition for the returned artillery formation, and the task force had sailed about 700 kilometers south at this time.

Although there is no definite information, Mu Haoyang has enough reason to believe that the US fleet is coming.

During these two days, he also did a crucial thing: to form two submarine reconnaissance lines of the twelve "Stingray" class fully electric submarines that accompanied the fleet, as well as the eighteen fully electric submarines of the East Indian Ocean Fleet and the West Indian Ocean Fleet, southeast of Digo Garcia, 2,500 kilometers and 2,000 kilometers, and order all submarines to report the situation first after discovering the US fleet.

In fact, submarines are one of the most effective reconnaissance methods at this time.

Of course, Mu Haoyang could not place his hopes entirely on the submarines. After all, the number of submarines is limited and the scope of monitoring is extremely wide.

To this end, Mu Haoyang asked Zhou Yusheng to adjust the deployment of anti-submarine patrol aircraft within the past two days, increase the anti-submarine patrol aircraft in the Indian Ocean to 160, and send all 20 large electric refueling aircraft to increase the search range of anti-submarine patrol aircraft.

In other words, Mu Haoyang set up a net of heaven and earth to the east of Digo Garcia, waiting for the US fleet to come and fight to the decisive battle.

At this time, the situation of the US fleet was not ideal.

In terms of personnel appointments, Major General Reagan was named Fleet Commander, and his military rank was one level higher than Brigadier General Nixon, but the age difference between the two was not big. Moreover, four years ago, when Reagan was a colonel, he was once Nixon's subordinate, but now he has been turned upside down.

Obviously, this made Nixon very dissatisfied.

More importantly, he failed to be promoted to major general and lost the opportunity to command the Fourth Fleet, not because his command talent was not as good as Major General Reagan, but because a sex scandal three years ago made him miss the opportunity and gave him the opportunity to be promoted to brigade general to Reagan, who was promoted to major general before the war broke out. In Nixon's view, his command talent was above Reagan, and he should be the commander of the joint fleet.

Of course, Reagan completely agreed to the contrary.

In addition to personnel issues, the US Joint Fleet also has a more serious problem, that is, its combat capabilities are far less powerful than those on the books.

The key is that among the six carrier-based aviation corpses, three of them have been established less than half a year ago, and three fighter squadrons were originally affiliated with the Marine Corps. In fact, these corps and squadrons are the aviation corpses that are additional to the combined fleet in addition to the three carrier-based aviation corpses of the 71st combat fleet.

At that time, the carrier-based aviation corps of the Third Fleet were all new units.

As mentioned earlier, these wings were originally prepared for the second batch of "American"-class aircraft carriers to serve, and were not formed before the war broke out. At that time, they were still in the training stage. In addition to the team leader, other pilots had just completed the landing and catapult takeoff training course. As for other tactical skills that must be mastered, training was not started until November, with an average training time of less than forty hours per pilot.

What is forty hours?

You should know that a qualified carrier-based fighter pilot needs to have at least 1,500 hours of flight experience before landing on an aircraft carrier, and must take off and land 150 times on the aircraft carrier simulation platform on the ground, and then transfer to the training aircraft carrier to complete a total of 1,200 hours of aircraft carrier training courses before being qualified to be incorporated into the combat force. After that, a total of 600 hours of combat training will be required to perform all combat tasks and become a pilot who can go to the battlefield.

In other words, a carrier-based fighter pilot needs 3,300 hours of flight experience before going to the battlefield.

This training volume is twice that of Air Force fighter pilots. The main reason is that carrier-based fighter pilots need to spend a lot of time mastering the skills of landing and taking off on aircraft carriers. Of course, the harshness of modern warfare has also greatly increased the training requirements for pilots. It should be noted that in the early 21st century, training a qualified carrier-based fighter pilot only required 1,800 flight hours in total.

As measured by this standard, all carrier-based fighter pilots of the Third Fleet are not qualified.

In fact, the Fourth Fleet also had a similar problem, that is, the pilots of the three fighter squadrons affiliated to the Marine Corps did not meet the Navy's standards.

Of course, there is nothing strange about this, the U.S. Navy has been with the Marine Corps Public Carrier Air Force.

In many cases, the US aircraft carrier is not equipped with naval fighters, but with Marine fighters. Especially when supporting Marines, letting the aircraft carrier carry Marine carrier-based fighters can reduce the combat burden of the navy and improve the coordinated combat capabilities of the aviation and ground forces.

The problem is that the quality of pilots in these three squadrons is not very good.

Not to mention, the main subject of these pilots in daily training is ground strikes, not air combat, nor sea strikes.

With these questions in mind, the US Joint Fleet wants to fight the most experienced fleet in the world. Neither Reagan nor Nixon are optimistic.

Chapter 55 Decisive Battle is Coming
Chapter completed!