Empire Conquest
Chapter 358 - 354: The Three Key Elements

Chapter 358: Chapter 354: The Three Key Elements

To defeat Bai Zhizhan, not only did one require the patience of a Meditation as still as a stone turtle, but also the keenness of a Spiritual Dog Tracking its prey, and the decisiveness of a Tiger pouncing for food.

These three qualities were all present in Spur!

Since the 11th, Spur had been waiting for an opportunity, and to wait for that opportunity, he had maintained secrecy, he hadn’t even sent Seaplanes to contact Hal up front.

According to Spur’s arrangement, there was no need for contact before the battle began.

Once the battle commenced, there was no need for contact either, at least there was no need to use Seaplanes.

Even by this morning, Spur was still calmly sitting like someone fishing, in fact, he was almost silent.

Let alone communicating with Tanimoto, he barely spoke to the staff of the 17th Special Mixed Fleet.

Most of the time, Spur sat in the position of the Fleet Commander, expressionlessly staring ahead as if there were something there that no one else could see.

Actually, this was his usual state.

Because his immobile demeanor was so much like a Stone Buddha, Tanimoto privately called him that, and the nickname "Stone Buddha" stuck to Spur.

In fact, it even sounded a bit similar.

It was not until Hal sent a message from the "Lek" indicating that he was fully engaged with the 21st Special Mixed Fleet’s attack, that a Plane Group from the south attacked the "York".

After that, this Plane Group also attacked the "Lek".

The key was not that the two carriers were attacked, but that the attacking Plane Group came from the south, the direction where the Heavy Cruiser had been exposed earlier.

Clearly, Bai Zhizhan’s 41st Special Mixed Fleet was there!

That the Attack Aircraft Group could attack two fleet carriers at the same time indicated that they definitely came from two carriers, that is the 41st Special Mixed Fleet, there could be no mistake!

It was then that Spur finally "thawed" from his "petrification".

The first order he gave was to have the ship-borne aircraft from both carriers take off according to the previously drafted plan and attack the 41st Special Mixed Fleet.

Tanimoto’s tactics were actually very simple.

After the first group of ship-borne aircraft took off, they flew southwest, then after reaching the south of the area where the Liangxia Heavy Cruiser had been exposed, they turned northwest, attempting to round the back, or at least the side of the 41st Special Mixed Fleet, and launch a surprise attack.

After the second group of ship-borne aircraft took off, they flew directly westward, attacking all enemy ships encountered along the way to draw attention from the 41st Special Mixed Fleet.

In fact, the mission of this Plane Group was to create an opportunity for the first Attack Aircraft Group.

As for the combat radius, it was not considered in the tactical planning, but Tanimoto still made arrangements when the mission briefing was being prepared.

Also simple, after completing the attack mission, being able to return to the 17th Special Mixed Fleet would naturally be the best outcome. If they were unable to return, they should fly as far east as possible. The 17th Special Mixed Fleet would dispatch Destroyers and Cruisers to rescue those pilots who had to make emergency landings.

In essence, the message was simple, don’t worry about preserving the ship-borne aircraft; the priority was to safeguard the pilots.

The Navy’s ship-borne aircraft were already outdated; the torpedo attack aircraft, TBD "Destroyer," should have been retired to the scrapheap long ago.

After arriving at Treasure Harbor, Tanimoto specifically flew a few rounds in several of the Navy’s main ship-borne aircraft.

According to the conclusions he gave, except for the Dive Bomber, the SBD "Dreadnought," which was still considered decent, the other types of ship-borne aircraft, especially the TBD "Destroyer" and F2A "Water Buffalo," were outdated, not even comparable to the Liangxia Navy’s "Flying Fish" and "Typhoon."

As a result of this assessment, the Navy had started early work to replace the F2As with F4Fs.

Because they believed the F2A "Water Buffalo" was not inferior to the Liangxia Navy’s "Typhoon," the Navy had scheduled the F4F refitting for the end of the year.

That schedule was surprisingly arranged to save a batch of maintenance equipment procured last year that hadn’t been used!

Unfortunately, the torpedo attack aircraft set to replace the TBD had not yet been produced, so they had to continue using the TBD.

Even if everything went smoothly, the TBF "Revenger" wouldn’t be delivered to the Navy until early next year, and it was still uncertain whether it would see action.

In summary, the loss of some ship-borne aircraft was truly inconsequential.

According to Tanimoto’s tactical arrangement, two attack aircraft groups could almost simultaneously reach the 41st Special Mixed Fleet and launch their attack at the same time.

However, the situation wasn’t as he had expected.

After 11 o’clock, the first attack aircraft group led by Major Clark had not sent back any message.

According to Tanimoto’s judgment, the first attack aircraft group would have definitely encountered the fleet carrier hiding behind the heavy cruiser between 10:45 and 11:00.

Even if they hadn’t encountered the fleet carrier, they would have certainly come across other warships, such as the long-range cruisers.

Tanimoto had been paying attention to that kind of warship for several months.

It was only after arriving at Treasure Harbor that Tanimoto learned from the Newland Navy that the Liangxia Navy had built a type of warship with the tonnage of a heavy cruiser but only the firepower of a destroyer, with an enhanced focus on anti-aircraft capabilities. Thus, the only value of such warships was to provide air defense cover for carriers.

The firepower of this type of warship’s main gun wasn’t even comparable to a light cruiser!

Because they didn’t have a main gun!

The main gun of this type of warship was a 130mm high-altitude gun!

To maintain the consistency of trajectories, presumably also for ease of combat command, they even employed short-barreled high-altitude guns, which greatly limited their abilities in naval surface combat.

Even destroyers had longer-barreled 130mm or 5-inch naval guns as their main armament.

Moreover, they didn’t install torpedo tubes; everywhere they could be used, high-altitude guns were placed!

In other words, aside from having a larger quantity of guns, these so-called cruisers were even inferior to destroyers in naval combat!

The first batch of four had already been completed a few months ago and, according to the latest intelligence, were assigned to the 41st Special Mixed Fleet under Bai Zhizhan’s command.

Therefore, detecting a long-range cruiser was tantamount to finding a carrier.

In any case, these warships dedicated to air defense wouldn’t stray far from the carrier.

Unfortunately, they were not encountered.

Major Clark was a pilot over fifty years old with plentiful experience, and his son was also a naval aviator.

In his plane group, there were several officers in their forties.

If even one person made a mistake, others would have immediately reported seeing the enemy ships back to the flagship upon their discovery.

Because the attack aircraft group constantly sent no message, this certainly meant they found nothing!

As it turned out, at 11:15, the second attack aircraft group struck, and they first encountered a formation composed of four heavy cruisers.

This discovery confirmed Spur’s concern.

The four heavy cruisers were operating independently, not with the fleet carrier.

Tanimoto shared similar concerns.

If Bai Zhizhan was convinced that Newland’s 17th Special Mixed Fleet was to the east, having the four heavy cruisers make a full-speed rush overnight wasn’t strange at all.

In the past, at West East Ocean, the third Aviation Mixed Fleet under Bai Zhizhan’s command had almost collided with the Saiyi heavy cruisers.

Critically, Bai Zhizhan had four long-range cruisers with very strong anti-air firepower at his disposal; he didn’t need to rely on heavy cruisers to provide air cover.

As long as Bai Zhizhan believed that the heavy cruisers could catch Spur, even without the long-range cruisers, he would proceed with the plan!

That was Bai Zhizhan, never hesitating when an opportunity arose.

It was this exact concern that led Spur to adopt Tanimoto’s suggestion the previous night, dropping the cruising speed by 5 knots, which meant roughly 100 fewer kilometers traveled.

If they hadn’t slowed down, at dawn, they would have been only 100 kilometers away from those four heavy cruisers.

While Tanimoto and Spur were anxiously worrying, the attack aircraft group already had a new discovery.

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