New World War II Eagle Strikes the Sky

When the U.S. military in Guadalcanal and Maruyama fought to the death, the Japanese combined fleet also fought a decisive battle with the U.S. Navy in the waters near Guadalcanal.In this battle known as the Naval Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in history, the bull Halsey fought a battle with the Japanese Combined Fleet, which was stronger than him.As a result, the U.S. military sank one aircraft carrier and one destroyer, damaged one aircraft carrier, one battleship, one cruiser, and one destroyer, and lost 74 carrier-based aircraft. The Japanese army sank not a single warship, only damaged two aircraft carriers, one cruiser and one destroyer, and lost 100 carrier-based aircraft.Just looking at the comparison of data, the Japanese army seems to have achieved a brilliant victory. However, the Japanese aircraft carriers that were injured all need to return to China for repairs. With Japan's industrial strength, these two aircraft carriers will not be able to perform combat missions for quite a while. The Japanese army's blockade of Guadalcanal Island was naturally broken.Due to the existence of Guadalcanal Airport and the Cactus Air Force, the air supremacy of Guadalcanal Island is still firmly in the hands of the US military, and the blockade of the Japanese army on the island is still tight.It can be said that General Halsey exchanged a tactical defeat for a strategic advantage, just like a chess master playing a beautiful game of sacrifice.

After the failure of the Santa Cruz Islands naval battle and Maruyama's general offensive, both Japan and the United States evaluated the current battle situation in Guadalcanal Island.However, two diametrically opposite views were obtained.

The headquarters of the Japanese army believes that after the Santa Cruz naval battle, the battle situation is developing in favor of the Japanese army. It only needs to further strengthen the strength of Guadalcanal to win the final victory.So these guys decided to transfer the du li mixed 21st brigade stationed in the East Indies to Rabaul, which was organized into the 17th army. They also transferred the 51st division in the Chinese battlefield to the South Pacific battlefield, and transported Guadalcanal Island as soon as possible required combat supplies. On October 10, Takushiro Hattori, chief of the Operations Section of the Army Department of the base camp, and Denbachi Kondo, the chief staff officer, boarded Guadalcanal Island to assist Hyakutake in formulating a combat plan and organizing the third general offensive.It is planned to send the main force of the 27th Division to Guadalcanal in early November, and the 11st Division to Guadalcanal in early December, and then concentrate a considerable number of heavy artillery and sufficient ammunition to launch the third general offensive in mid-to-late December. , At that time, one of the most elite infantry regiments of the 38th Division will take an armored transport ship to land in front of the enemy and cooperate with the operation.

It has to be said that the base camp that can make such judgments and plans, their level of thinking is really beyond the reach of normal humans.With the Japanese army's logistic capabilities, it would be extremely difficult to maintain the basic survival needs of the existing army on Guadalcanal while the Cactus Air Force continued to exist. They actually thought about sending so many troops up in one go.Do they think that the Japanese imperial army has chloroplasts in their bodies, so they don't need to eat every day, just drink some water and bask in the sun, and photosynthesis by themselves is enough?Don't they know the old saying that "the emperor does not send hungry soldiers", or do they think that Hirohito of Japan has an extra "heaven" in his title, so they can ignore all laws on this special plane of the earth?

In fact, looking at the past records of the Japanese base camp, we can know that this is not the first time that the Japanese army, which has extremely underestimated logistics, has made such a decision, and Imphal is a precedent.

In the United States, both the Chief of Naval Operations Knox, the Army Chief of Staff Marshall, and the Army Aviation Commander Arnold all agreed that the battle on Guadalcanal consumed the Japanese army's aircraft, ships, and soldiers, and would greatly weaken the Japanese army's presence in the Pacific. The defense of other areas, so Guadalcanal is decisive for the entire battle situation.The U.S. military should make good use of Guadalcanal Island, making it a wound that will never be bandaged, and let Ri himself here, slowly bleed out. If the decision of the Japanese base camp is known to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, they will definitely be willing to give a one-ton medal to the group of Martians in the Japanese base camp.

In fact, after the victory of the naval battle, the situation of the Japanese army on Guadalcanal did not improve. On October 10, the Maruyama Division began to retreat.However, among all kinds of combat methods, retreat is almost the most complicated and dangerous.Of course, the First Division of the Marine Corps will not let the enemy slap their ass and leave.Instead, he followed behind Ri himself, chasing and killing him all the way.As a result, Maruyama lost more than half of his people on the way to retreat.

However, the number of people brought back by Maruyama has decreased, which is not necessarily a bad thing for Hyakutake: fewer people have returned, and there will be fewer mouths to eat.

The U.S. military realized that the key to the First World War on Guadalcanal lay in the airport and the Cactus Air Force on the airport.As soon as the Battle of Santa Cruz was over, General Halsey immediately began to organize the transport fleet to Guadalcanal.In order to restore the combat effectiveness of the Cactus Air Force as soon as possible. On October 10, a group of transport ships arrived in Guadalcanal successfully and unloaded a batch of construction machinery, a large amount of fuel and aviation ammunition. On October 28, another batch of transport ships arrived in Guadalcanal, bringing the 10mm M30 "Long-Range Tom" howitzer to the Marine Corps.The arrival of this batch of goods also further expanded the firepower advantage of the Marine Corps over the 155th Army of the Japanese Army on Guadalcanal Island.And brought a new aircraft to the cactus - f1u pirate.

This is a super versatile fighter, and its arrival immediately made those Marine Corps pilots who envied the Army Aviation's p-38 very happy.This guy with special inverted gull-shaped wings has a huge 4-bladed propeller (2 meters in diameter) that no one has seen before.On its wings, there are four 4mm revolving cannons—since the P-20 in Guadalcanal Island became famous with the 38mm Vulcan, the cannons of the Boa Constrictor became famous.The navy is also very envious of this, but unfortunately the navy does not have a plane with an empty nose that can hold this big guy.Fortunately, the Boacon also has a rotary-bore gun specially designed for aircraft that can only mount weapons on the wings.The ballistic performance of this gun is basically equivalent to that of the 20mm Vulcan. As a single-barreled machine gun, its firing speed is as high as 20 rounds per minute. Although this cannot be compared with the 1300 rounds per minute of the Vulcan, it is relatively For other single-barreled artillery, this is already an astonishingly high firing speed.Even faster than the much smaller caliber m6000 aviation machine gun.Four doors can be installed on the pirate, so that the four doors can fire together, and the shooting speed can reach 2 rounds per minute.Although this shooting speed is still a bit worse than Vulcan's, it is already a very terrifying shooting speed.And because this gun is installed on the wing, this also leads to a major difference between the pirate's firepower and the p-4: the p-4's shells are very dense, and it can maintain sufficient firepower density even at a long distance .The firepower of the pirates will be very dense before and after the convergence point of the shells.But after exceeding the convergence point of the shells, they will gradually disperse.This was originally a disadvantage, but it brought an unexpected benefit: in a short area in front of the convergence point, the pirate shells will cover a considerable area, and enemy aircraft in this range will be hit by bullets of baptism.That is to say, for small high-mobility targets, the pirate's hit rate will be higher than that of the p-5200.The pirate's flight performance is even more enviable: the climb rate is close to that of the p-38, and the level flight speed is as high as 38 kilometers per hour (the later improved model has a higher speed), which was unmatched at the time.Coupled with excellent roll and acceleration, quite good hovering (of course, it cannot be compared with those Japanese aircraft that can only hover) and excellent dive performance, all these make it a very terrible fighter , and the advantages of the pirate are not only that, it also has the potential to be a bomber, or even a dive bomber.He can hang a 38-pound bomb and dive bomb the target at a large angle of more than 38 degrees.In this way, even if the opponent is a thick-skinned battleship, you have to be careful when you see it.

Under the proposal of HNA and Marine Corps Aviation, Army Aviation's p-38 and their newly acquired f4u conducted a series of confrontation exercises.At the beginning, Army Aviation could take advantage of the opponent's lack of understanding of the aircraft's performance, but as time went by, the side using f4u gradually began to gain the upper hand.Later, as long as the air battle was carried out at an altitude below 20000 feet (in the Pacific Ocean, air battles are all at low and medium altitudes), the p-38 would have little chance of winning, even if it was piloted by Army Aviation ace Ron or Captain Foss.

Of course, it's nothing if it's just like the staff of Japan's staff headquarters who can only be bullish in front of their own people.If you are a bull in front of the Japanese, then you are a real bull.Such an opportunity appeared soon: at 11:7 pm on November 2th, a reconnaissance plane spotted 35 Japanese destroyers in the "Slot Sea" that were going to be transported at night, and the opportunity for the pirates to try their skills came.

Just after Maruyama's retreat, the 11st Marine Division launched a counterattack, relying on sufficient supplies and strong firepower, they captured a Japanese position at Cruise Point in one fell swoop.Facing the offensive of the US military, Hyakutake had no choice but to request more personnel and supplies from the base camp.However, because Guadalcanal's air supremacy is firmly in the hands of the US military, it is basically impossible for transport ships and the like to arrive safely. The Japanese army can only use high-speed destroyers to use the night time to do the work of transport ships.But the load of a destroyer is extremely limited, and there are very few things that can be transported there, and there is not even a single heavy weapon.From November 2 to 10, the Japanese army dispatched 65 destroyers and 2 cruisers to deliver troops and supplies to Guadalcanal.The group of destroyers now discovered does just that.

罗恩一声令下，8架sbd、8架tbf，再加上新来的15架f4u全都挂着炸弹出发去围观ri本军舰去了。罗恩自己也得带上6架p-38给他们护航。

When the reconnaissance plane appeared, several Japanese destroyers already felt bad.They have begun to pull back slightly to the east.But they didn't dare to really give up the transportation task. If a fleet of 11 warships was scared away by a reconnaissance plane, the navy would have to be laughed to death by the army.

As a result, as the old saying goes, "I will suffer at the cost of saving face".At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the attack fleet spotted the Japanese destroyer formation.

First of all, the torpedo plane launched the first round of attack. Facing the high-speed and flexible destroyer, the torpedo plane's attack did not achieve any effect except disrupting the enemy's formation. However, the attacks of sbd and pirates were different. The bombs they dropped Even if there is no direct hit, the near-miss bomb can still cause damage to the destroyer with super high agility but thin skin and low health.And even if one of the two 500-pound bombs they dropped directly hit one, the destroyer might not be far from death.

While the Japanese destroyer was busy avoiding torpedoes, SBD and pirates swooped over.Marine Corps pilot Captain James fell in love with pirates the first time he came into contact with them, and now he is controlling this powerful warhawk to roar down at a large angle of 70 degrees.The enemy ship was getting bigger and bigger before his eyes. After pressing the bomb release button, two 500-pound bombs left the fuselage, and then James pulled the control lever violently, trying to level the plane.The huge overload pressed James firmly on the seat, and his eyes began to darken.Fortunately, this process was very short. With the help of the dive flaps, he quickly leveled the aircraft.This is from his earphones, he heard the shouts of his comrades: "Good job James, hit one directly!"...

When Ron left with the fleet, there were 4 destroyers sinking on the sea, and two of them were f4u pirates. The Japanese destroyer gave up the night operation, and the Japanese army in Guadalcanal Island would continue to starve.

But bombing is not the job of pirates, and the place where pirates really show their strength is air combat.And the next air battle is actually not far away.

As soon as he came back, Ron was notified that a big man would come to Guadalcanal for inspection tomorrow.