Chapter 739: Naval Battle (9)

After receiving the battle report from the front line, everyone in the temporary combat command room in Washington was filled with fear.

In just half a day, they lost more than 400 fighter planes (fighters + bombers). Adding yesterday's loss, the number is close to 600. You must know that this number of fighter planes is enough to equal the entire air force of some small countries!!

In addition to these fighters, they also lost a fleet. Dozens of battlecruisers, cruisers, frigates, and destroyers, including seven battleships, sank into the deep sea inexplicably. By the time nearby ships arrived, it was already ten hours later. Because the battleship sank so fast, let alone the lifeboats, most of the sailors fell into the sea before they even had time to put on their life jackets. The sea conditions in the Atlantic Ocean are notoriously bad. When the rescue ship arrived, they saw corpses covering the entire sea area.

This news almost made President Wilkie vomit blood. Not to mention the loss of tens of thousands of well-trained sailors, the pensions of these people were astronomical.

"How many German warships have our fighter planes sunk?" President Wilkie, with a pair of panda eyes, asked with a glimmer of hope. Not only him, but everyone in the command room has not slept a wink since last night. They were holding on to coffee and cigarettes for fear of missing any important battle report.

Arnold, who seemed haggard as a teenager overnight, shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid there aren't even one, Mr. President."

"..." The room was eerily quiet, as if even the sound of a pin dropping could be clearly heard. Nearly 600 fighter planes were lost, but not even a single warship or destroyer of the other side was sunk; is there anything more useless and aggrieved than this? !

Seeing that everyone's expressions were not very good, Arnold added. "But the good news is that the German fleet has begun to return, and it is obvious that they have also suffered a lot of losses in their fighter planes."

"..." Everyone couldn't help but roll their eyes. The German fleet just ran over and sank one of its own fleets, shot down nearly 600 fighter planes, and then returned safely. Is this good news? !

Someone asked. "Should we continue the pursuit?"

Everyone looked at the guy who spoke like an idiot. You're chasing a bullshit, but if you don't think it's embarrassing enough, why don't you continue to give the other party's head?

"The German fleet has left for the time being, and I don't know when it will come back. The Atlantic Fleet needs to replenish new warships as soon as possible. I suggest that some warships be transferred from the Pacific Fleet to replenish the Atlantic Fleet." Although the last time German carrier-based aircraft attacked the Pacific Ocean The fleet base is Oahu, but no large-scale duel between fleets broke out in the Pacific. Therefore, the main battleships in the Pacific Fleet did not suffer any losses.

"Can the Soviet Union send a few battleships to support them? Especially their 'Soviet-class' battleships. Tsk, I don't know what these Soviets are thinking. They actually came up with a 460 mm caliber cannon. They are simply invincible. "It happens that the Americans still don't know that the blueprints of the "Soviet-class" battleships were obtained by the Soviets from the Germans. If you knew it, you might think about the strangeness in the middle. Since the Germans can provide the design drawings, why don't they build such a super battleship themselves?

There are currently six Soviet-class battleships in service in the Soviet Navy, and one is about to complete outfitting. "We only provide support materials to the Soviets, it's time for them to do something, right?"

Everyone nodded, and President Wilkie spoke. "Inform Commander Eisenhower and ask him to convey this matter to Stalin and ask the Soviets to support at least two Soviet-class battleships. At that time, we will add these two battleships to the Atlantic Fleet. If the Germans dare to come again, they will be ruthless Teach them a lesson."

But the Soviet battleships alone are not enough. "We need to speed up the production of our warships." There are many warships under construction in the shipyard, but they are all semi-finished products. If a few ships were completed ahead of schedule, maybe this naval battle would not be so embarrassing. Of course, it may be the same. The entire army was annihilated. "We should find out as soon as possible what weapons the Germans used to annihilate our fleet in such a short period of time. If we don't solve this problem, I'm afraid it will end in the same way next time."

It's easy to say, let alone the fact that the intelligence network originally deployed by the United States in Germany was uprooted a few years ago. In recent years, the German intelligence services have assisted other EU countries in eliminating spies within them. The United States has almost no spy network in Europe. There isn't much left. The lucky ones who survived were all low-level fish and shrimps. The information they could collect was only the information released by the European news media or the gossip spread among the people, and they could not get any substantive important information at all.

Director of the Strategic Intelligence Service Donovan can only guarantee to find out as much as possible.

Arnold spoke. "Our P-40 fighter jets are no match for German fighter jets. The newly developed P-47 and P-51 fighter jets have passed test flights and can be mass-produced."

As for which of the two fighters is better, the P-51 was designed to have a relatively long range to escort bombers, as well as good high-speed performance. However, the early model P-51 had poor high-altitude performance due to engine performance flaws. Later, after the Merlin engine was installed, it became truly capable of high-altitude combat.

The P-47 was equipped with a high-power engine and turbocharger from the beginning. Its high-altitude and high-speed performance is unparalleled. Its sturdy fuselage has stronger mounting capacity and damage resistance, and it is also quite good at ground attack. However, due to the range limitation, it cannot effectively perform some escort missions. By the time the later models with increased range came out, the war was almost over.

"Step up our radar research. It is obvious that the Germans have developed very advanced fire control radars and put them into actual combat." Otherwise, the Germans' night battle artillery would not be so accurate. The Germans can already accurately fire at a distance of more than 20,000 meters, while their radar search distance for the sea is only 15 kilometers, far behind the Germans.

Listening to everyone talking about developing this and producing that, President Wilkie sighed deeply; all of this requires money!

The 8 billion war bonds issued last time have been almost squandered. To complete so many projects, they can only continue to issue war bonds. Moreover, 8 billion seems far from enough this time. President Wilkie roughly calculated that at least 15 billion US dollars of bonds must be issued.

Now that the gold in the treasury is almost exhausted, issuing war bonds of such a scale will cause big trouble in the future, and may become the fuse of another economic crisis.

But now there is no time to care about so much. The main issue is to defeat Germany as soon as possible, and after defeating Germany, it can still solve these problems by squeezing enough war reparations from the Germans.