Iron Cross

Generally speaking, Marshal's estimate of the strength of the British and American navies was very correct. The only problem was that he underestimated the talents and skills of the Americans.

The first talent of the United States is that it is the world's best in logistics, and the second is that it is the world's best in production capacity, which brings about an implicit talent - the world's best repair speed. This implicit talent was activated more than once during the war. When the Yorktown aircraft carrier entered the shipyard with numerous injuries, just when the Japanese Navy thought it could be paralyzed for at least a few months, the ship was magically repaired and returned to the war within three days; another example is that most of the warships in Pearl Harbor that Japan believed had sunk for a long time were salvaged, and not only that, they were also recovering their combat effectiveness quickly. On February 28, the Royal Navy's previously severely damaged Indomitable aircraft carrier, the sunken ships Nevada and Tennessee salvaged from Pearl Harbor were all repaired and shipped out of the factory. In contrast, the Count Cavour, a sunken ship in the Battle of Taranto that was attacked a year earlier than the Pearl Harbor incident, was salvaged a long time ago, but it has been lying in the dock and has not been repaired.

This hidden talent is actually more powerful than Germany's hidden talent - universal transformation (meaning that no matter what mechanical equipment is in the hands of the Germans, it can be transformed into something incredible). Spruance led these newly repaired warships, plus the battleships Anson and Howe (both King George V class) that had returned from Asia, and the aircraft carriers Victory and Formidable (both Glorious class) to form the X Fleet, and headed towards the possible hiding place of the German fleet.

It is true that the Royal Navy assisted the US military in the siege of Attu Island, but this was a British trick. The main force of this attack was the USS Saratoga and the newly commissioned Essex aircraft carrier, and the carrier-based aircraft formation of the Glorious aircraft carrier also participated in the operation. But the British participated in the war for a short time. After the landing troops went up, the other two King George V-class battleships left in the Far East, King George V and Duke of York, sailed towards the Panama Canal together with the Illustrious, preparing to return to the United States as soon as possible. At this time, there were only 14 carrier-based aircraft left on the Illustrious, and the remaining aircraft had long been transferred to the Borg. In order to confuse the Japanese defenders, a large number of American carrier-based aircraft were deliberately painted with the Royal Navy logo, making people mistakenly believe that the British aircraft carriers were still in the Far East.

The policy of attacking Attu Island was personally determined by Admiral Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet. After learning that all British warships were about to return home, he thought everything through and took the opportunity to propose to use the power of these battleships to delay 3-4 days on their way back to fight another battle, which could also conceal the true intention of the Royal Navy. The British side readily agreed to this. In Nimitz's view, it was necessary and beneficial to attack Attu Island. Attu Island was American territory anyway - although most Americans did not know or care about this, if they could win a beautiful victory and bring President Roosevelt the long-awaited good news, the Pacific Fleet would have the credit and would have a lot of political points.

Admiral King was very supportive and attached great importance to this, and even proposed that if necessary, the British ships could be retained for 7-10 days, but the war was obviously going smoothly, and even the Sakura missiles that always frightened the US military were not used. The landing troops completed the landing in three days - this was of course just an illusion. The Japanese army, who had learned their lesson, gave up the fight for the beachhead and just let the US troops come up to fight. A lot of iron fists were waiting for Sherman and others. Nimitz obviously knew nothing about this. He was only anxious about the future of the war zone and the fleet: the country had originally agreed to support him with an Iowa, an Essex-class aircraft carrier and an Independence-class light aircraft carrier after the British fleet was withdrawn, but the promise could not be fulfilled because the German fleet rushed into the Atlantic. Although Admiral King promised to allocate the above-mentioned troops after the Battle of the Azores in April, Nimitz thought that things were not that simple. What if the Battle of the Azores was not successful? What if the Atlantic Fleet suffered heavy losses? What if the Combined Fleet returned home early?

On March 6, Fleet X led by Spruance and Fleet Y led by Rear Admiral Brown met in the designated waters. The two sides exchanged forces, and then under the unified command of Spruance, the two fleets began a comprehensive search at a distance of 200 nautical miles and in parallel.

After the exchange, the main forces of the X fleet included the battleships Anson and Howe, the aircraft carriers Victory and Formidable, and the heavy cruisers New Orleans and Minneapolis (both New Orleans class), while the main forces of the Y fleet included the battleships Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Tennessee, the aircraft carriers Indomitable and Independence, and the two heavy cruisers Chester and Chicago (both Northampton class). Although both fleets had warships from China, Britain and the United States, the aircraft carriers were all from the US Navy Air Force, and the command was entirely in the hands of the US Navy.

The Illustrious-class armored aircraft carrier only had a single-story hangar and was designed to carry only 36 aircraft, which made Spruance, who was used to using 70 or 80 aircraft, very dissatisfied. Before leaving, he left an additional 6 aircraft on the deck, reaching 42 aircraft. The Indomitable aircraft carrier is a subsequent improved ship of the Glorious class. It has a two-story hangar and can carry 48 aircraft. Then, it is loaded with the Independence, which has 30 aircraft, to form two aircraft carrier formations.

The strength of the reorganized US fleet should not be underestimated. Compared with Marshall's North Sea Fleet, the ratio of the number of battleships between the US and Germany is 5:2, the number of aircraft carriers is 4:2, and the total number of carrier-based aircraft is 162:82. The US has an absolute advantage in any of these. Moreover, because the first elevator of the Zeppelin aircraft carrier has been stuck, the speed of the one-time delivery of carrier-based aircraft has slowed down a lot. Both the X Fleet and the Y Fleet have the strength to compete with the German fleet alone, but the cautious Spruance does not want to make the mistake of the Royal Navy's division and then being defeated one by one in the Battle of the North Sea. He emphasizes moving forward in parallel and supporting each other-even if the German fleet discovers one of its fleets first, the other can quickly provide reliable support. In his opinion, the Germans should have 3 battleships-he also counted the Richelieu that was repaired in France.

Of course, Marshal was not without good cards. The Germans had a clear advantage in the performance of carrier-based aircraft and heavy cruisers, and the quality and combat capabilities of their pilots were far beyond the reach of the US military. The US carrier-based pilots were 10% veterans and 90% rookies, while the Germans had the exact opposite ratio. In addition, the North Sea Fleet also had the support of the unsinkable aircraft carrier Azores. As long as they entered the island air defense circle, there would be more aircraft waiting for the enemy.

"Sir, the Crow sent out intelligence again, and Washington will send you a copy of the intelligence simultaneously." The confidential staff handed the telegram to Spruance, who read it carefully.

"The air raid last night was extremely ineffective. Only one bomb landed on the island, which did not cause any damage at all..."

"The German army brought in a giant turret for installation, but its performance is unknown. Another 30-40 German planes have arrived."

"The air raid caused people's hearts to be unsettled, and a large number of people left the port, which objectively helped the German army to speed up the evacuation of the population. I may be forced to leave the port in a while."

He asked, "Is there any news about the German fleet returning to the port?"

"Not yet."

Spruance shook his head and fell into deep thought: It was obvious that night air raids were not a good idea. On the contrary, they would stimulate the Germans to strengthen their anti-aircraft firepower and anti-aircraft fighters, adding trouble to the future capture of the island. After the local Portuguese population was forced to leave in large numbers due to the threat of war, the crows would be easily exposed, which was very unfavorable for subsequent intelligence acquisition - fish can only be caught in muddy waters, and fish cannot jump up when the water is drained.

The Royal Air Force was also troubled by this matter, and finally decided to use Lancaster for daytime air raids. This was a rather risky decision, because Lancaster did not fly as high as B-17, and was easily intercepted by Fw-190 fighters. Moreover, escort fighters could not be used at such a long distance, and everyone felt that the prospects were not good. But there was one thing that the British insisted on, that the airport and turrets must be destroyed, otherwise the harm during landing would be too great. It was better to lose some Lancasters now than to have a large number of casualties later. The only thing they didn't figure out was that the German army controlled the Azores for only three weeks, so how did they build the turrets? According to the normal engineering design, even if it was only a 150mm caliber turret, it would take more than three months to think about it.

Of course, the giant turret was not made out of thin air. It was all triple-mounted 283mm naval guns removed from the Gneisenau. Although this caliber was nothing in the field of naval guns, it was terrifying in island defense. As the British expected, the Germans did not have much time to build fortifications, so they could only dismantle the naval guns and use them directly. Two were installed on the main island where the port of Angra is located, and another was installed on the southeastern island of São Miguel (the island has an airport). According to Hoffman's instructions, the Azores islands were to be fully fortified, and a large number of naval gun turrets were waiting in line to go to the islands, including the two 283mm main gun turrets to be dismantled from the Scharnhorst (originally three, one has been blown up), and the 11 twin-mounted 356mm naval guns dismantled from the battleships Ise and Hyuga (originally 12, one has been blown up) were arranged for other uses - after the implicit talent of the United States for rapid repairs was stimulated, the implicit talent of Germany's universal transformation was also stimulated.

In the early morning of March 7, the German fleet was replenished at the La Coruña naval port in Spain. After nearly 20,000 tons of heavy oil were poured in, the fleet regained its vitality. Marshall, Ozawa, and Crank gathered together to consider the next course of action - they didn't know yet that the US fleet that was besieging them was more than 700 nautical miles behind them.

"The Allied ships in the North Atlantic are either hiding or sailing in the land-based air defense circle of the United States and Canada. We will go to the South and Central Atlantic and try to cut off the Brazilian line..."