Iron Cross

If Kusaka Renji still doesn't understand Hori Teikichi's entire command thinking, then he is a complete idiot and is not worthy of being the chief of staff of the Combined Fleet. He connects all the things together and understands the other party's careful arrangements:

The first step is to attack Guadalcanal at night. The large-scale fleet bombardment is certainly to cover the retreat of the Guadalcanal Army, but more importantly, it is to completely destroy the Guadalcanal airport and make the US military completely lose its reconnaissance vision centered on Guadalcanal. The reason why more than 200 203mm caliber naval guns were used to perform the bombardment mission was, of course, to make the Guadalcanal airport unusable for a longer time.

The second step is to conceal the mobile fleet. Now Tsukahara 243's mobile force is still hiding in the triangular waters between Bougainville, Munda, and Choiseul. It is not hiding behind the bombardment fleet as conventional thinking would suggest, but is 260 nautical miles northwest of the bombardment fleet - it is difficult to guess, which increases the difficulty of enemy reconnaissance.

The third step is to advance the bombardment fleet. By using a large main fleet of 3 battleships, 9 heavy cruisers and more than 30 destroyers to lure the enemy aircraft carrier formation to attack first, the approximate range and distance of the enemy fleet were deduced. The bombardment fleet would take a great risk, but the risk has been reduced to the lowest level due to the arrangement of land-based zero fighter groups for cover.

At this moment, if the aliens use satellites to look down, they will find that the US TF16\\17, the Japanese mobile fleet, and the bombardment fleet just outline a roughly equilateral triangle. TF16\\17 is 290 nautical miles away from the mobile fleet, 240 nautical miles away from the bombardment fleet, and the bombardment fleet is 260 nautical miles away from the mobile fleet. However, except for the mutual position and distance between the Japanese bombardment fleet and the mobile fleet, the other distances and relative positions are not clear.

TF16\\17 had turned to the southeast and was advancing slowly. The fleet had good visibility around it, with only occasional cumulus clouds at 300-450 meters. The South Dakota was escorting the Enterprise not far to the starboard. However, Kinkaid was in a very bad mood: on the one hand, the TF64 formation had fallen into trouble before the attack aircraft arrived at the scene - he wanted to blame Rear Admiral Lee for colliding with the enemy even though he knew there were three battleships (Rear Admiral Lee cried: I am wronged, how could I have known that I would run into perverts like Nagato and Yamato? I couldn't defeat other Japanese battleships, but couldn't I just hide from them); on the other hand, the reconnaissance aircraft of the TF64 formation sent a message that the enemy landing fleet was found 50 nautical miles due west of Guadalcanal.

Kinkaid's mind had been troubled by the false information that Japan would launch a counterattack at a chosen location, so after receiving the telegram, he took it for granted that this was the fleet that the Japanese army used to cover the landing of the army by bombarding Guadalcanal last night. As for why the course was from east to west, he thought that it had completed the landing and was on its way back - he never thought that it was the Japanese army's retreating troops. The situation reported before the destruction of TF64 exacerbated his confusion: the enemy battleship fleet received aircraft support - this further strengthened the idea that the enemy aircraft carrier fleet was behind the battleship formation, but it was just temporarily unavailable.

After thinking for a long time, he hesitated and issued the third order, requiring the Enterprise SBD formation that was currently attacking the Japanese battleship force to send 12 aircraft to search in depth and not to participate in the attack on the battleship for the time being - unless the enemy aircraft carrier could not be found, it could turn back and continue to attack the enemy battleship force. In this way, the Enterprise's 61-aircraft formation that originally attacked the bombardment fleet became a 49-aircraft formation. Due to the difference in speed between TBF and SBD, the 49-aircraft formation was also divided into two front and rear attack echelons.

Then he issued a fourth order. Since the SBD search force that took off from the Hornet in the early morning had not found anything so far, he asked them to attack the Japanese landing fleet according to the results reported by the No. 4 reconnaissance aircraft of the TF64 formation. Then he sent a telegram to Halsey in the rear, asking him to send land-based B-17 bombers to deal with the landing fleet and the Japanese troops on Guadalcanal. The carrier-based aircraft were really too busy.

In the view of later military observers combined with the actual battle situation, every order issued by Kinkaid since the morning was wrong - each mistake was not big, but the sum of them was fatal.

The first mistake was that he only sent out the Enterprise formation to attack the Japanese bombardment fleet instead of all aircraft - if he had decided to launch a full-deck attack at the first moment, a large formation of more than 130 aircraft (TF16\\17 has a total of 165 carrier-based aircraft available, and more than 130 aircraft can be dispatched after leaving necessary cover fighters) would likely severely damage the Japanese bombardment fleet, and three powerful battleships could at least kill one;

The second mistake was to send out 16 SBDs from the Hornet to search for the enemy in other directions - since it was believed that the Japanese aircraft carrier formation was behind the battleship formation, then The search fleet should at least work in that direction. If they can't find the target, they can return to cooperate with the Enterprise fleet to attack the Japanese battleship fleet. In this way, the first wave of aircraft attacking the bombardment fleet will not be 61, but 61+16, a total of 77 aircraft;

The third mistake was that 12 aircraft were assigned to perform the re-search mission because TF64 reported that the enemy battleship fleet had aircraft cover. Since the enemy fleet was covered by fighters, the attack force of the Enterprise should not be weakened. Originally, the attack force of the Enterprise was only 61. After executing this order, the short-term attack force was only 49;

The fourth mistake was to abandon the reconnaissance mission of the Hornet's 16 SBDs and deal with the "landing fleet" - since reconnaissance aircraft had been sent to other directions, they should have persisted to the end. After analysis, it was found that the aircraft closest to the northwest fan-shaped surface of the 16 SBDs could make contact with the Japanese mobile fleet in just 20 minutes. Whether it could be discovered was one thing, but at least the possibility of discovery was retained, rather than attacking the so-called "landing fleet" in a reverse order.

These four orders combined finally completely destroyed the hope of TF16\\17 formation to discover the Japanese mobile fleet before the enemy, but the consequences of these situations are still not visible to everyone now. Everyone currently only sees Major General Lee's mistakes - but he finally diluted everyone's impression with his heroic feat of self-sacrifice (he was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor), and no one can blame him too much. Of course, there are also military analysts who feel sorry for Kinkaid, believing that this analysis is entirely based on the judgment that the mobile fleet was not behind the bombardment fleet and was conducted elsewhere after knowing it afterwards, which is unfair to the parties involved - when the battlefield was full of black fog, Kinkaid's strategy was not a big problem!

At 5:41, under the unified command of Kondo Nobutake, the huge bombardment fleet formed a circular anti-aircraft formation. The cruisers and destroyers were arranged in three circles, surrounding the three battleships tightly in the center. At the same time, the 36 Zero fighters that had been circling over the fleet dropped their auxiliary fuel tanks and prepared to intercept the American aircraft group.

"Fire the three-type anti-aircraft bombs!" As Kondo Nobutake's order was issued, the main guns of the three giant ships Nagato, Mutsu, and Yamato were raised high, and the famous three-type anti-aircraft bombs were fired at the aircraft group flying from the Enterprise. Before the invention of the proximity fuse of anti-aircraft guns, this type of ammunition was considered a threatening shell.

"Boom boom" The huge shells continued to explode in the air. Although they did not hit any enemy aircraft, they at least successfully dispersed the American aircraft group. At this time, the Zero fighter group rushed up to intercept without hesitation. The F4Fs who were covering them fought hard with the Zero fighters, while using all their strength to open the attack channel for the SBDs and TBFs. Thanks to their efforts, at least 8 SBDs and 8 TBFs broke through the interception circle and entered the airspace above the bombardment fleet.

Compared with other warships, the Yamato, which was the largest, looked the most majestic, and had the flagship flag, was undoubtedly the most attractive target. The SBDs and TBFs swooped down on the Yamato, which was located in the center of the entire fleet, like moths to a flame. The two SBDs rushed down from an altitude of 4,000 meters side by side. Although the anti-aircraft guns standing around them tried their best to block them, they did not interfere with their attack. Under the operation of the old American pilots who had participated in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, two 250-pound bombs were accurately thrown on the rear deck of the Yamato, destroying four 127mm anti-aircraft guns and killing more than 20 sailors. However, the good luck of the two SBDs ended there. Just as they tried to pull up and break away, they were torn into pieces by the dense 25mm anti-aircraft guns on both sides because of the slow speed, and fell into the sea on the spot.

While the SBD successfully dropped bombs and there was chaos, the other four TBFs also dropped torpedoes on the left and right sides. The captain of the Yamato, Colonel Takayanagi Giya, flexibly controlled the warship to avoid the first three torpedoes, but the last one was really unavoidable. The people in the command tower only heard a "bang" and felt the hull shake slightly, and then there was no other feeling. Of course, the torpedo still exploded successfully, but the Yamato's defense was thick enough to withstand this damage, which did not affect the speed or damage the defense, but only made the damage control team more troubled.

In addition to the Yamato, Mutsu was hit by three near misses (the unlucky Mutsu was hit by all near misses), and the destroyer Kaifeng was hit by a bomb (almost sank on the spot), and the rest of the warships were no different. The first wave of attacking aircraft from the Enterprise paid a heavy price for this attack. 8 F4Fs were shot down, 7 SBDs were shot down, and 11 TBFs, the slowest and least agile, were lost. There was a large formation of 49 aircraft when they came, but only 23 were left when they returned, and half of them were injured. The Zero fighter group that was responsible for the cover mission lost 9 aircraft, but except for one pilot, the rest successfully parachuted and were finally rescued by the destroyer.