Between 4:30 and 5:00, at least seven reconnaissance aircraft encountered anti-submarine patrol aircraft dispatched by the Chinese Navy and had to end the reconnaissance operation in advance.

Although these accidental encounters also provided help to the US military, such as at least not being discovered by the US joint fleet by anti-submarine patrol aircraft again before dawn, it also had a very bad impact. These reconnaissance aircraft encountered anti-submarine patrol aircraft while flying north.

As a result, Reagan determined that the task force was on the north, that is, to the east of the Maldives Islands.

Why did Reagan make such a judgment?

After the war, Reagan mentioned during the interrogation that he made this judgment mainly based on intuition, and believed that the Chinese Navy would appropriately strengthen the cover in the direction of the fleet, so he felt that the Chinese fleet was most likely to appear in the direction of frequent anti-submarine patrol aircraft.

There is no doubt that this is an extremely wrong judgment.

You should know that anti-submarine patrol aircraft belongs to the shore-based aviation force and is not commanded by the task force at all, but is deployed by Zhou Yusheng, who is in charge of the General Staff. His activities have nothing to do with the task force. More importantly, using anti-submarine patrol aircraft to perform search and reconnaissance missions cannot provide effective cover for the task force at all. To serve as a cover, the anti-submarine patrol aircraft should be allowed to perform its own mission, namely anti-submarine search.

In fact, the US military had enough reason to believe that the anti-submarine patrol aircraft encountered by the reconnaissance aircraft was not searching for submarines.

The reason is very simple. These anti-submarine patrol aircraft operate alone. When dealing with high-performance submarines, anti-submarine patrol aircraft generally operate in a two- or three-aircraft formation. The combat efficiency of operation alone is not high and can only deter the submarines. Perhaps this is why Reagan believes that anti-submarine patrol aircraft are covering the task force because there were several US submarines east of the Maldives Islands at that time.

It was not until dawn that Reagan ordered the turn.

Instead of evacuating the battlefield, they sailed northward, preparing to attack the Chinese fleet hiding to the east of the Maldives Islands.

There is no doubt that it was the stupid behavior of the Rear Admiral who was highly anticipated by Admiral Jordan that ultimately ruined the US Joint Fleet.

Interestingly, after the battle, Major General Reagan shamelessly shifted the blame to the anti-submarine combat staff who had saved the fleet, believing that it was the negligence of the anti-submarine combat staff, which caused the fleet to encounter Chinese submarines and lost two large escort warships, causing the fleet to expose its whereabouts. The facts were just the opposite. If the anti-submarine combat staff had not dispatched six anti-submarine patrol aircraft in time and accurately judged the threat direction, the "Stingray" class fully electric submarine would have enough time to launch the second batch of torpedoes. Judging from the situation at that time, if the US joint fleet was attacked again by torpedoes, it would have probably been the two escort warships that were lost.
Chapter completed!