In the thick of the night, two speedboats of more than 400 tons untied their cables and slowly sailed away from the old pier of the Forget Me Reef. These are two missile boats equipped with Shuangsanqi naval guns and two triple C-801 anti-ship missiles; after coming down from the front-line troops, the anti-ship missile launchers were dismantled, the Shuangsanqi naval guns and other electronic warfare equipment were retained, and a part of them were used as armed patrol boats for the island and reef garrison units.

The armed patrol boat disappeared into the night, and three J-8FRs waited for take-off instructions at the runway take-off position.

Because there is no shelter around, the unique roar of the turbojet engine is quieter, and listening to the tower here can distinguish the roar of the aircraft engine from the sound of the waves crashing against the reef.

Li Zhan's landline was in front, with Zhu Wei and Li Zixin behind him, one left and one right, in a triangular formation. The runway here is built according to the take-off and landing of four-engine large passenger aircraft, and the runway is very large, even if three J-8FRs take off in parallel, there is no problem.

While waiting for the take-off command, Li Zhan used his flashlight to carefully look at the hand-drawn chart of the mission sea area. Based on the latest intelligence, the charts of the mission area are a little rough but informative.

Although there are regimental headquarters organs on the reef, there are only more than 200 troops here, except for the 100 officers and men of the guard company, the rest are agency personnel, and because of the special nature of the long-term task of guarding the islands and reefs, these people rarely have contact with combat work, so Li Zhan and the others had to personally go into battle to hand-draw the charts of the mission sea area according to the latest information.

"Wow, Lao Li, there are more merchant ships going south at this time, do you think the direction we enter will be adjusted?" Zhu Wei's voice came from the radio, and there was slight electromagnetic interference.

Li Zhan was also thinking about this problem, and said, "Yes, enter in formation from south to north, and confirm it, after entering, I will cruise in 6000, and you will search visually in 1600." ”

"I understand the two holes."

"I understand."

After finalizing the final undecided details, Li Zhan turned off the flashlight and put it in his pocket to fix it, put away the navigation chart and put it in his pocket to fix it, and waited for the command from the tower.

The ground commanders in the tower belong to the Air Force sequence, and they are air traffic control personnel sent by the Air Force to a certain department of China Southern Airlines for temporary posts, and then a certain department of China Southern Airlines is stationed at Wangwu Jiao. The reason for such a big detour is that in fact, when the reef entered the second generation, air traffic controllers were stationed here for a long time, because a navigation station was built here to provide navigation services for our country's passing aircraft. The ground navigation system is under the jurisdiction of the Air Force.

So Li Zhan is not at all worried about the ability of the ground command staff, it can be said that they are very experienced. The previous days of confrontation drills with the 117 squadron have proven their capabilities.

At 2:30 a.m., the tower commander called Li Zhan, "The instructor is ready to take off in a timed manner, and it's over." ”

"The instructor is ready, request to take off, over." Li Zhan replied.

The tower commander looked left and right, once again confirmed that each post was fine, and gave an order, "The instructor can take off at a time!" ”

"Understood!" Li Zhan pushed the throttle stick hard to the end.

The tail nozzles of the two turbojet engines were widened, and the powerful thrust that burst out instantly made the fighter in the braking state begin to tremble, and the engine speed quickly climbed to the designated position, Li Zhan released the brake, and the fighter began to accelerate and slide. Reconnaissance pods, two aviation fire launchers, three auxiliary fuel tanks, and the rather heavy-duty No. 101 J-8FR acceleration momentum is quite fierce, and the acceleration performance of the turbojet engine is better than the turbofan engine is fully reflected.

Zhu Wei and Li Zixin followed closely and began to slide, and the three planes took off in formation at the same rhythm. The huge roar of the turbojet engine completely drowned out the sound of the waves, and the navigation lights, landing gear lights, and anti-collision lights flew high like huge fireflies in the dark night sky.

The three dark gray J-8FRs took off in formation, so they saved the time of the air formation, and after taking off, they turned to the right at a small angle while climbing in altitude, pulling out a beautiful arc.

Zhong Guobang watched the group of planes go away on the tarmac, and his mood was very surging. The reef has the conditions for stationing fighters, and it also has the ability to ensure that fighters are simply stationed for training, but for various reasons, fighters have never really been stationed.

Forget the reef is a reef, how can there be an airport on the reef, how can fighters be stationed?

However, with the development of the shipping industry and the fishery industry, the vast sea area where the Forget Reef is located is becoming more and more unstable, and there will be more contradictions and conflicts when there are more activities. There is no law enforcement force on the reef, and the garrison has always played a temporary cameo law enforcement role.

For example, there are frequent pirate raids on the waterways, and you transfer people from the mainland to arrest such a long distance, and when you get to the pirates, they will eat and sleep a few times.

Therefore, the garrison on this side of the reef can only go out to do this job.

How aggrieved Zhong Guobang is, how aggrieved he is when the South China Sea is big. The pirates plundered the shipping lanes seventy or eighty nautical miles away, but they were never able to catch up with the pirates once because they did not have a suitable platform for rapid maneuvering.

That's just pirates, no matter how good the island and reef garrisons are, they are still a standing armed force, and they are regular troops that can be pulled out to fight at any time. can't even deal with a few pirates, can Zhong Guobang not feel aggrieved in his heart?

Once again, the garrison force of the island and reef has always been doing garrison, very boring work and life, and the opportunity to pull the troops out to yoke is something that everyone welcomes with both hands raised, and everyone is very, very looking forward to. As a result, the past with high spirits was punched empty, can you not feel aggrieved?

Zhong Guobang said to Li Zhan in private, "Li Zhan, if you find pirates, as long as they are not looting, I hope you can track them for a while and let our soldiers catch up and do some work." ”

"No problem, I will definitely leave the good meat for the brothers guarding the islands and reefs." Li Zhan agreed.

It is impossible for the fighter to board the ship to arrest it, and it is certain that this task will be handed over to the garrison, but Zhong Guobang obviously did not mean this problem. Zhong Guobang knows a lot about Li Zhan, who doesn't know the famous "mad dog of the South China Sea", who doesn't know it?

If Li Zhan, the "mad dog of the South China Sea," had used the tactics of aerial fire attack regardless of it, let alone boarding the ship and arresting him, it would have been estimated that when the garrison boat arrived, he would only be able to see the splash of the sinking pirate ship.

So Zhong Guobang mentioned this, Li Zhan was actually quite embarrassed, of course he knew his own affairs best, and the most important thing was that he really had the idea of being pulled down by the aviation fire, and it would be troublesome to catch him back.

Through the analysis of previous cases, most of the looting incidents that occurred at night were carried out by Western Pacific pirates, who obviously deliberately avoided the customary time of Malacca pirates in order to avoid conflict with Malacca pirates.

Two-thirds of these night-time raids occur at four or five o'clock in the morning, which is the time when people are most tired, and the pirates of the West Pacific are very picky. After careful deployment, Li Zhan decided to dispatch at 2:30 a.m. to conduct armed patrols and searches in the sea areas where the West Pacific pirates might appear.

If the West Pacific pirates come out, then they must be halfway at this moment.

In fact, Li Zhan believes that the most likely to find traces of pirates in the West Pacific are the three armed patrol boats codenamed "Red Arrow No. 1", "Red Arrow No. 2", and "Red Arrow No. 3". They went out and searched eastward in a horizontal column twelve nautical miles apart.

The armed patrol boats are equipped with a sea-to-sea search radar, and the maximum combat distance has reached 80 nautical miles, and the effective combat distance is also 40 or 50 nautical miles, so the search capability at night is not weak. Don't underestimate these armed patrol boats with a displacement of only a few hundred tons, their predecessors were missile boats, which used to be the backbone of the People's Navy's coastal defense strategy, and were equipped with a large number of electronic equipment, especially in search and guidance.

In the era when the People's Navy was extremely short of large destroyers, there were two main anti-ship forces, submarines and missile boats, and the main operational tactics at that time were also summarized as submarine acceleration boats, and only these two means could achieve the operational goal of effective anti-ship.

The role of missile boats should not be underestimated, the target school has strong concealment but not weak firepower, such as the Red Arrow class, equipped with six C-801 anti-ship missiles, and can withstand half of the three or four thousand tons of frigates. The people's navy's love for and attention to missile boats is reflected in the development of such weapons and equipment.

No, more than 100 Type 022 missile boats with a stealth design of high-speed wave-piercing catamarans have been launched, replacing all other types of missile boats. In the presence of signal relay aircraft, the wolf pack tactics of the Type 022 missile boats have the strength to launch saturation missile attacks against large task forces.

The dark gray J-8FR does not have radio equipment that can communicate with the Red Arrow speedboat detachment, and normal communication needs to be transmitted through the tower, but this communication efficiency is very low, and at Li Zhan's suggestion, the two sides use satellite phones as a tool for communication.

It was a non-military operation, and the use of satellite phones for communication was in line with the requirements, as were some of the non-military operations that Li Zhan had carried out before. When he worked in Beiku, he often flew with a satellite phone, which was due to the fact that some contacts could not be carried out through on-board communication equipment.

Later, after the completion of the first phase of the Beiku Intelligence Interaction Center, the communication network was gradually integrated and a flat command and communication network was formed, which solved the problem of communication relay and improved the efficiency of communication.

At present, the work of the Navy is also being carried out at a rapid pace.

After climbing to an altitude of 6,000 meters, Li Zhan turned on the airborne radar and used the Doppler radar, which had very limited ground-to-sea search capabilities, to search the vast frontal sea area. After a wave of scanning, more than a dozen targets appeared, but unfortunately the radar system did not have intelligent analysis functions, and Li Zhan could only rely on his own experience to distinguish which were merchant ships and which might be pirate ships.

The characteristics of the radar reflected signals of most merchant ships with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons are all memorized by Li Zhan. The reason why people are excellent is because people have indeed put in a lot of hard work.

Zhu Wei and Li Zixin descended to a height of 1,600 meters as planned, mainly by visual inspection, at this altitude it is relatively easy to see the lights on the sea surface, and it is under the clouds, and it is better to have no clouds to block the visual distance.