The plan soon entered the preparation stage.

First of all, a large number of equipment, such as tanks, armored vehicles, etc., were transported from Hawaii, USA in batches. As Zhang Chi said, these tanks and armored vehicles are the backbone forces that the Expeditionary Force can quickly occupy and defend the Northeast, and are of course indispensable.

The second is strategic materials, such as fuel and ammunition required by tanks and armored vehicles, as well as ammunition required by troops and warships, guns, etc.

The gasoline, bullets, and shells can be described as piled up in the underground warehouse.

On the other hand, in order to cooperate with the Chinese team in this battle, more than 200 b29 bombers located in the Mariana Islands were also prepared.

Needless to say, their role is to carry out carpet bombing on the target when necessary.

However, at this point, Zhang Chi believes that it should be used with caution.

There is no reason. The b29 bomber, as mentioned before, is a long-range high-altitude bomber. Its advantage is that the combat radius is long, up to 5,000 kilometers, and more importantly, safety... At a height of 10,000 meters, the Japanese army basically has no fighter in China that can reach this altitude and effectively intercept it, so the b29 can explode wherever it wants to enter a no-man's land.

But the problem is... high-altitude bombing means low accuracy. At this time, the bombs are not as accurate as modern times. They are all very primitive trigger or delay bombs. The aircraft flew over the target and opened the bomb bay and threw it down. Whether it can hit the target depends entirely on luck.

If a bomb is dropped from a height of 10,000 meters, its path is often affected by many factors such as wind.

In other words, using b29 bombing...is generally indiscriminately carpet bombing, just like the bombing carried out by the US military on the Japanese mainland in history. Although it was called a bombing mainly targeting military targets and not civilians in the early stage, it was just a talk... The b29 bombing was usually at night, because the Japanese radar was poor in the night combat capability of the fighter jets, making the b29 bombing safer at night. At night, it was bombing at a height of 10,000 meters. The bomber looked down and it was pitch black, and he could not see where the military targets were. Most of them were throwing randomly.

In the middle and late stages, they simply did not target any military targets, but directly bombed civilian targets and even dense areas of people... In history, Americans were quite cold-blooded in bombing on Japan. First, they sent a team of b29 bombers to carry out low-altitude bombing. Low-altitude means higher accuracy. These b29 bombers used incendiary bombs to explode a large "x" in densely populated areas. The "x" burned out by this flame is very obvious in the dark. Even the main force of the b29 aircraft group at a height of 10,000 meters could see clearly, and then the main force of the aircraft group used this "x" as the target and poured down thousands of tons of incendiary bombs.

According to Japanese records, under the bombing of the US military, the burning fire could not be extinguished for three days and three nights. After the fire, the Japanese dragged out tens of thousands of scorched corpses from the fire, not including those that were burned so that the bodies could not be found.

This kind of bombing looks really powerful.

But the problem is...

The Chinese troops are going to attack Northeast China, where most of the people living there are Chinese. If bombing in this way, they will only blow the target and its surroundings into scorched earth. This will not only cause a large number of casualties from the Chinese people, but also will not use the Chinese team's next defense in Northeast China.

So this is not what Zhang Chi hoped.

On the other hand, Halsey transferred ten submarines to assist the Chinese team in the offense.

On the surface, the submarine seems to have little impact on war... When the battle starts, it is almost a pile of aircraft, warships and artillery fire. Submarines, which have slow speeds and poor firepower, are never conspicuous compared to destroyers and cruisers.

But in fact, it is of great use.

For example, now, Zhang Chi wants to have a preliminary understanding of the defense of the Japanese army in Lushun Port. It is obviously not possible to send reconnaissance planes or destroyers to reconnaissance, because this will arouse the Japanese army's alertness and may expose its strategic goals in advance.

But sending one or two submarines can easily complete the mission, and even the submarines can sneak into Lushun Port without any preparation or send divers to perform further reconnaissance.

On the other hand, Zhang Chi has reason to believe that due to the importance of Northeast China, once the battle begins, the Japanese army may transfer troops from the local area to the Northeast for reinforcements. Submarines are the best choice for blocking the seas... If blocked with destroyers, such a large warship or fleet will easily be reconnaissed by enemy planes at sea. Therefore, the Japanese army can flexibly formulate reinforcements plans based on the reconnaissance situation, and suspend reinforcements when the enemy ships arrive, and then calculate the time to quickly cross the strait.

In this way, for the Sino-US coalition forces that want to block the strait, they will spend a lot of effort but cannot achieve the purpose of blockade.

But if you lose a few submarines in the sea, the situation will be completely different.

Most of the time submarines lurk in the sea. The Japanese army had no way to know how many submarines there were in the strait, and at the same time they were not able to know their distribution and location, so they could not formulate any flexible and targeted reinforcement plans... At this time, they could only take chances or use destroyers to escort them. As a result, they would often become targets of the air forces of the Sino-US coalition forces.

Therefore, these ten submarines are undoubtedly a good supplement to the Chinese Navy, which has no submarines available. Unfortunately, these submarines were not "sent" to the Chinese Navy, but were only used to assist the Chinese Navy in combat.

This also reminded Zhang Chi that he would seize the opportunity to develop submarines in the future.

From the reconnaissance of US submarines, Zhang Chi learned that the Japanese fleet in the direction of China was mainly stationed in Qingdao... Except for three or five Japanese warships that were repairing and replenishing supplies, the rest were basically transport ships.

This was something Zhang Chi and Halsey didn't expect.

But it feels normal to think about it. Qingdao is located at the mouth of the Bohai Sea. As long as you defend it, any enemy fleet entering the Bohai Sea is likely to be blocked in the Bohai Sea by the Japanese Qingdao fleet.

If you conduct further reconnaissance on the Japanese fleet, you will know that this Japanese fleet is the third fleet of the original invading China fleet. Later, because its warships were constantly being transferred to the Pacific battlefield, it was first renamed the Third Detachment China fleet when its strength was greatly reduced. At this time, it was demoted to the Qingdao Special Base Team.

Up to now, this warship has been continuously drawn and downgraded, leaving only two cruisers and seven destroyers.

The first step in the battle is of course to destroy the Japanese fleet.

(To be continued.)
Chapter completed!