Empire Conquest

Chapter 493 - 489 Tactical Deception

During the plan formulation, Bai Zhizhan faced the most severe problem, not the assault on Transfer Island, but how to achieve strategic deception.

The key to attacking Transfer Island was strategic deception.

Due to insufficient forces, it was impossible to attack Wei Island simultaneously; thus, the fleet’s range of action was strictly limited and could only enter from the northwest of Transfer Island.

This severely limited the fleet’s tactical flexibility.

As a direct result, as long as the Imperial Navy’s operational intentions were exposed or guessed, the Special Mixed Fleet might be ambushed during the attack on Transfer Island.

Even if the Newland Navy had only two small carriers, seizing the opportunity would give them confidence to annihilate two large carriers.

Clearly, the only method was strategic deception, making the Newland Navy firmly believe that the Imperial Navy would not attack Transfer Island but target other locations.

Indeed, this was also the key reason why Bai Zhizhan had to collaborate with Wang Kaiyuan.

Only the Sixth Bureau could make strategic deception effective.

Of course, the Imperial Navy also did quite a bit of homework.

For example, after occupying Sai Island, the Navy continually reinforced Sai Island with a large amount of combat supplies and maintained relentless bombing of Guan Island.

During this period, long-range bombers were even sent multiple times to target Tuk Fortress.

This move was to make the Newland Navy believe that the Imperial Navy was preparing to attack Guan Island soon or to directly assault Tuk Fortress under the guise of attacking Guan Island.

To enhance the deception effect, the Imperial Navy also sent more submarines to the Southwest East Ocean.

Of course, the Imperial Navy was also closely monitoring Wei Island.

Over the past few months, a submarine appeared near Wei Island every few days, sending telegraphs on the surface before urgently submerging.

It was very secretive, giving the impression of conducting reconnaissance missions.

However, the Imperial Navy had never harassed Wei Island, nor had it sent reconnaissance aircraft there.

This move was actually also to confuse the Newland Navy.

In Wang Kaiyuan’s words, the Newland Navy might not be certain that the Imperial Navy intended to attack Guan Island and Tuk Fortress, especially at the strategic level. With no current motive for the Imperial Navy to advance into the Southwest East Ocean, it was very likely that the Newland Navy would take the Imperial Navy’s actions in that direction as feints.

As a result, they would conclude that the Imperial Navy intended to attack Wei Island.

Yet the problem was that these deception tactics were all reflected at the strategic level, at least at the level of campaign operations.

When it came down to tactics, there was no effect!

To put it bluntly, once the fleet moved out and communicated using radio, intercepted by the Newland Navy, the Imperial Navy’s intentions would be completely exposed.

Maintain radio silence throughout before the raid?

It wasn’t impossible, just that it would greatly increase the difficulty of operations and would restrict the fleet’s operational flexibility.

Moreover, the risk was just too great!

During the plan’s formulation, Bai Zhizhan and Zhou Yongtao conducted several war game simulations.

The results showed that if radio silence was maintained throughout and long-wave radios were not used, tactical coordination required that the two Special Mixed Fleets must operate together.

If the two Special Mixed Fleets operated separately, they definitely could not maintain radio silence throughout.

Allowing the two Special Mixed Fleets to operate separately while maintaining radio silence required strict adherence to the operational plan.

Having a fixed operational plan with no flexibility meant that in the face of sudden, necessary decisions, the situation could likely spiral out of control.

Until now, the Imperial Navy had already abandoned its prewar practices and no longer emphasized the plans made before the battle, granting more decision-making power to its Frontline Commanders.

If everything had to be done according to the plan, rigid and unyielding, the Imperial Navy would have been defeated long ago.

Thus, the only option was to let the two Special Mixed Fleets operate in conjunction, not too far apart, at least within the operational range of the long-distance voice radio.

As a result, the distance between the flagships of both sides was 100 to 200 kilometers.

At this distance, there was no concealment to speak of.

According to tactical simulations, regardless of which Special Mixed Fleet exposed its position, detected by the enemy’s Reconnaissance Aircraft, the other was very likely to be attacked.

Theoretically, four carriers might be targeted simultaneously!

Even if the worst-case scenario were to occur, the possibility of all four carriers being sunk was almost zero, but the chance of them being damaged and losing their combat capabilities was not small.

In fact, if just two carriers were to be targeted, the operation against Transfer Island would end in failure.

In several tactical simulations, without exception, the fleet’s position was exposed due to the use of long-wave radios, followed by an attack.

There was no doubt that this scenario was unacceptable to Bai Zhizhan.

For this reason, Zhou Yongtao suggested bringing two dedicated flagships.

This proposal awakened Bai Zhizhan.

The two flagships had just been delivered to the Navy at the beginning of the year; because they were equipped with numerous, and in many cases the latest model, electronic devices, their reliability was not high, and issues of interference existed, so they had not yet passed naval acceptance and were still being modified and tested in the Xu Sea.

The key point was, these two flagships had never seen action in battle.

What Bai Zhizhan considered was not about moving the Fleet Headquarter somewhere else.

At least from a personal perspective, Bai Zhizhan was very satisfied with the "Province" class, and the officers and soldiers of the Fleet Headquarter had no complaints.

In any case, compared to the "Imperial Capital" and "Longjiang" classes, the "Province" class was not just a little more spacious but significantly so.

According to his plan, the main value of these two flagships was for tactical deception, making it impossible for the Newland Navy to accurately determine the Imperial Navy’s intentions.

The method was actually quite simple.

Communications between the two Special Mixed Fleets would be handled by the two flagships, which would periodically change radios, preventing the Newland Navy from discerning the type of warship from the signal characteristics.

In other words, the Newland Navy definitely could not immediately identify that the radio signals were from two dedicated flagships; it was more likely they would think it was from multiple warships.

Besides, frequent communication was a key.

In Bai Zhizhan’s words, these two dedicated flagships could masquerade as dozens of warships, completely confounding the Newland Navy.

Who would believe that the Imperial Navy would send dozens of warships to boldly attack Transfer Island?

Even if the Newland Navy concluded that they were two dedicated flagships, they wouldn’t connect them to an Imperial Navy Special Mixed Fleet.

The reasoning was simple; those two dedicated flagships had not yet officially been commissioned, so even if they were temporarily drafted, they definitely wouldn’t be used as fleet flagships.

Whether it was Bai Zhizhan or any other Fleet Commander, nobody would put themselves and their headquarter staff on a warship that had neither been tested by battle nor passed military inspection, even if it meant enduring cramped conditions and various troubles.

In fact, the Newland Navy might not even be aware of those two dedicated flagships.

As Zheng Jiangming said, it has always been believed that the "Qinling" class was Fast Combat Support Ships, with very high secrecy level and little publicity.

Furthermore, even if the Newland Navy speculated from this that two Imperial Navy Special Mixed Fleets were heading to Transfer Island, they could have the two dedicated flagships break away from the fleet to distract the Newland Navy’s attention, allowing the Special Mixed Fleet to remain concealed, at least avoiding simultaneous attacks on the two fleets.

However, whether this method would work or not was still unknown.