On October 1, after a two-day voyage, the fleet had reached the sea off Matrou, Egypt. It is located 140 kilometers from Matrou and 200 kilometers from the target Alexandria, which happens to be not yet on the shipping lane, so it naturally became the preferred location of the Romanian fleet.

In fact, at 1 o'clock in the morning, the fleet had already arrived here. It's just that in order to wait for the best time to attack, I've been wandering here.

Although the fleet is wandering, the five aircraft carriers as the core are brightly lit but extremely busy. The ground crew was busy carrying all kinds of ammunition and torpedoes onto the deck, ready for the upcoming aircraft.

"There are still four aviation torpedoes missing here, hurry up, there is still an hour before the plane is ready to take off. What about tanker trucks? I saw that there was one less tanker. ”

Already the ground staff statisticians are loudly calling for the lack of preparation, which naturally attracted several ground staff to immediately bring professional vehicles to pull.

In the dining room, the pilots sat together and were enjoying the delicious food before the expedition. Major General Fernandez, who was mainly responsible for planning the air raid plan, was in the dining room to comfort the pilots who were about to leave the expedition.

From time to time, he would talk to the pilots and pat them on the shoulder as a sign of encouragement. And the pilot who talked to him naturally had a flattered expression when he saw the general flower on the epaulettes.

And when the hour hand pointed to four o'clock, all the pilots stopped what they were doing, and they immediately gathered on deck, ready to fly their beloved planes and attack the enemy. At this time, the five aircraft carriers also drove themselves to the maximum speed to help the planes rise smoothly.

The three Bormiku-class large fleet aircraft carriers, which are the absolute core of the air attack, are the slowest torpedo planes that are released in the first wave. This is the second torpedo machine developed by Romania, the number H47 torpedo machine (the first H45 was not satisfactory and was directly abandoned).

Its main data are: wingspan 15.1 meters (folded 11.09 meters), length: 10.51 meters, height: 4.52 meters, empty weight: 2900kg, maximum load 5100kg. It is powered by a 1,400 hp air-cooled engine with a maximum speed of 415 km/h. The combat radius is 476 kilometers. (maximum range 1900 km) armed with two 12.7 mm self-defense machine guns, 900 kg of aviation torpedoes or 900 kg of aerial bombs. Crew: Three (pilot, bombardier, self-defense machine gunner).

So with the help of ground crew, the first torpedo planes were already on deck ready for takeoff. For the torpedo plane to take off, it is the most tense moment for ground crew, because the torpedo plane carries an aviation torpedo less than half a meter high from the deck, especially if there is an accident during takeoff, it will be very dangerous. Therefore, when choosing a torpedo engine driver, it will be selected to be stable and heavy.

I saw that under the attention of the ground crew, the torpedo machine jumped up with full horsepower and rose into the air. This caused a cheer from the deck, and the other torpedo planes followed suit, one by one, flying off the deck.

While the three Bormico-class aircraft carriers were flying torpedo planes, the two escort aircraft carriers were also flying fighter jets. It's just that the fighter it is flying is not like the RH20T carrier-based aircraft adapted from the Peregrine RF20 fighter in Romania. The main thing is that this fighter is a high-altitude fighter, even if the air-cooled engine is changed, its low-altitude performance has dropped too much, and it cannot be compared with this new fighter.

If anyone who knows this fighter comes to see it, they will definitely blurt out how it is the Zero.

That's right, this is the Zero fighter, after the reconciliation of Romania, in order to ease the relationship between the two sides, and at the same time increase the design capacity of its own carrier-based aircraft, it specially came up with its own newly developed 1200-horsepower air-cooled engine, and wanted to jointly develop a carrier-based aircraft.

In the face of this engine taken out by Romania, the Japanese side is about to drool. Besides, the new fighter required by the Navy is also being developed, so I don't have to say anything, so I naturally agreed to it. Thanks to the addition of Romanian technicians, the research and development work of Jiro Horikoshi's team was accelerated, and it also brought European design concepts to him as a reference.

The first prototype was developed in September 1938, using Romania's latest air-cooled engine, and the test flight performance far exceeded previous expectations, reaching a top speed of 513 kilometers per hour. And thanks to the abundance of power, not only does it not need to be punched, but it also provides it with some armor protection.

The result is a new Zero that has been modified a lot, with a length of 9.37 meters, a wingspan of 12.2 meters, and a height of 3.6 meters. Empty weight: 1890 kg, maximum take-off weight: 2940 kg, maximum flight speed 565 km. Maximum range: 3,100 km (with drop fuel tank), 2,100 km (internal fuel). Armed with two 20 mm cannons, a 12.7 mm machine gun (Romanian version), and two 30 kg or 60 kg bombs.

This new fighter is much stronger than the RH20T carrier-based aircraft currently developed by Romania itself, so after the successful finalization in May, more than 200 were urgently produced. It's just that at present, this model is HF201 fighters, and only about 100 of them can fly on ships, so priority is given to equipping escort aircraft carriers. And when the pilots are familiar with the carrier-based aircraft, the fighters on the aircraft carrier will all be dominated by this HF201 fighter.

Now this HF201 fighter will provide protection for the sortie torpedo machines. Using their tail lights as a guide in the night sky, they formed a formation and flew towards Alexandria in the southeast.

And after releasing the sortie torpedo plane, the ground crew immediately pushed the dive bomber up. The Navy's carrier-based dive bomber, an evolution of the Air Force's RU18 dive bomber, shortened the wing size and designed to be folded, with reinforced landing gear and tail hooks.

This naval version of the RU18 dive bomber has a maximum speed of 420 kilometers per hour, a combat radius of 645 kilometers, and can carry two 500KG aerial bombs or one 1000KG bomb.

After hanging bombs for the dive bombers, the RU18T dive bombers also took off from the aircraft carrier one by one, and then it was the turn of the RH20T fighters.

Midrafael and Fernandez watched the whole process of the carrier-based aircraft taking off, watching batches of fighters fly out of the aircraft carrier in turn. After all the planes were released, the two looked at each other, and now that all the means have been used, then it can only be seen that the pilot's strength is displayed.

But when it comes to Romanian carrier-based pilots, they are definitely first-class. Don't look at the fact that the Navy's carrier-based aircraft formation has only been established for a few years, but the shortest flight time has reached eight years, and more than 10 years of driving experience abound. Because Eder spoke, carrier-based pilots could be picked from the whole army, so these were the Romanian elite.

Of course, the navy also knows how to take proportions, and it is impossible to take away all the good seedlings of the air force and army air force, and the main selection is personnel below the top elite. However, the quality of the selected pilots still occupies the first place in China. No way, the whole is better to naturally surpass the individual spikes.

Among the fighters released this time, there are 94 HF201 fighters (Romanian version of the Zero), 114 H47 torpedo planes, 78 RU18T dive bombers, and 36 RH20T fighters.

It's a give-and-go if you don't succeed. You must know that the total number of carrier-based aircraft in the Romanian aircraft carrier formation is only about 370, and 322 of them were released at one time, showing the meaning of breaking the kettle.

Of course, this also has a lot to do with the commander of the aircraft carrier, Rear Admiral Fernandez. He believes that since it is a sneak attack, it should be used to the maximum combat power, because the enemy who is unguarded will react the slowest in a wave of surprise attacks, which can give the greatest results.

Therefore, the raid fighters who formed a huge formation were flying towards Alexandria under the leadership of the pilot. And Romania is preparing for more than this for the smooth air raid.