The Rise of the Empire

Betty dared to propose intercepting the American transport fleet, not only because the Japanese combined fleet was tough enough, but also because the British intelligence network was indeed powerful. Although, the British Empire has declined, and the once mighty fleet has collapsed. However, the war wisdom of the British Empire for hundreds of years has still survived. In the new era, when the British can no longer suppress everything, the British have invested more in intelligence, and there have been new developments! The Pacific War was also a test of the British new intelligence system.

"The Americans are gathering their transport fleet again." Captain William of the Flying Fish stood on the bridge and observed the US transport fleet on the distant sea with a telescope. At this time, in the A35 sea area marked on the map, the United States The navy once again gathered a large number of transport ships, and then they were uniformly covered by the escort fleet. Then it went directly across half of the Pacific to deliver a large amount of supplies to the front lines of New Guinea and Bismarck Island.

In order to find out the gathering time, sailing time and route of the American transport fleet, the British intelligence agency also cast a wide net on the ocean. Considering the current relationship between Britain and the United States, it is naturally impossible for the British to use British-flagged merchant ships to track the American fleet, so their method is to use merchant ships registered in a third country, and then paired with the Royal Navy's Personnel observe the U.S. transport fleet.

This observation requires great care. First of all, the reconnaissance ship must not get too close or stay too long. Surrounding the huge transport fleet are more than ten destroyers or armed merchant ships. The U.S. Navy will never show mercy to suspected targets, so These scout ships must keep a certain distance and must not stay for too long at a time. Well, if it is this relay tracking method, then the British must prepare a considerable number of reconnaissance ships, and this is obviously not a good choice economically.

The British also have a way to deal with it. They can change their identity every time they come out. The ship is equipped with a large number of panels and paint. After completing an approach reconnaissance and before conducting another reconnaissance, the British will do their best to disguise the ship, such as Speaking of the Flying Fish, this time it is a fishing boat from Peru, and next time it will become a transport ship from Chile. The crew will carefully repaint the boat and change some of the upper layers of the hull. Architectural appearance. Think about it, the British Navy can cosplay a merchant ship into a super-dreadnought. How difficult can it be to add a few chimneys or remove some bridges?

In addition to conducting reconnaissance at the U.S. Navy's assembly location, the British Navy will also arrange "accidental encounters" with the U.S. transport fleet on the vast ocean! Of course, this kind of "accidental encounter" must also be handled carefully. For example, the location of the encounter should be near the intersection of the U.S. transport fleet and normal commercial routes, and the ships that are "accidentally encountered" must also be "diversified." When executing the tracking plan for the same transport fleet, the ships participating in the "accidental encounter" operation will come from France, Brazil, Turkey or other seemingly unrelated countries.

Even so, about 40% of the ships participating in the reconnaissance plan may not be able to find the target at the first time, because the Americans do not use the original commercial routes to transport supplies. They will choose some unknown or even rare routes. The sea area that the ship passes through,

The weather may be bad in these sea areas, and you may need to take a long detour, but at least it is safe! As an American officer assisting maritime escort said: "I would rather let 70 ships sail around together than lose a merchant ship by taking a shortcut!"

The Americans' caution paid off, because by choosing relatively remote sea areas, the probability of Japanese submarine forces discovering targets was greatly reduced, and the number and command system of Japanese submarines were far inferior to those of the Germans, so they wanted to establish a submarine force all over the place. Networking in war zones is very difficult. As a result, more than 30% of the transport fleet did not find a single Japanese submarine during the entire voyage.

Of course, Americans are definitely not sailing all over the ocean. After all, the seemingly calm sea is actually not safe. The route must avoid storm-prone areas or passing typhoons. In fact, there were not many large ships in this era. The average tonnage of the general ocean transport fleet was about 6,000 tons. Therefore, after avoiding too remote sea areas and storm areas, the areas that could be passed through were relatively limited. What the British did was to look for the American transport fleet in these areas, and then sort out several common routes of the American transport fleet based on the results of multiple tracking.

After months of tracking and surveillance, the British Navy had gradually figured out the movement patterns of the U.S. transport fleet. It was on the basis of this intelligence that the British tried to persuade the Japanese to attack the U.S. Navy's transportation lines. .

"The assembly time of the U.S. fleet takes about 6 to 8 hours depending on the size of the fleet. Their radio contact remains open before the fleet sails from ports across the United States to the target assembly area. That is to say, if we are relatively close If you get close, you can use radio lateral technology to detect the location information of the U.S. fleet."

"After completing the assembly and entering the route, although the Americans tried their best to maintain radio silence, they still maintained regular communications in some low-frequency bands. This contact cycle is about once every 6 hours. Based on the wavelength, it should be far away. The distance is long-wave communication, and the content of the report should also be about the fleet’s navigation status.”

"The sailing time of the U.S. fleet varies depending on the assembly point and destination location. It takes about 150 hours to reach the A1 target from assembly point A. It takes about 165 hours to get from B to B1, and it takes about 165 hours from assembly point C. It takes 170 hours to reach C1 and 160 hours to reach C2."

"The U.S. Navy seems to adhere to the principle of randomness in choosing routes. Before the transport fleet leaves the port, they don't know which route they will take after rendezvous. The only people who really know the route are the commanders and guides of the escort fleet. , after rendezvous, they will lead the fleet to walk, and during this process, the fleet personnel do not know which route they are walking on. Perhaps only experienced crew members can determine it through simple equipment such as sextants. My approximate location. Considering that the Americans will place military personnel on every merchant ship, the idea of ​​relying on merchant ships to sneak in and send messages is almost unfeasible."

Here comes the second update~~~! Please subscribe and reward~~~! ! !