Although Stark was full of confidence when formulating the plan, believing that Bai Huawei would take Task Force 41 to the waters near Jotun Island, when it came to the implementation stage, especially after the battle began, Stark had to admit that the plan could not catch up with the changes.

It can also be said that no matter how perfect a battle plan is, it cannot cover all situations, and there will always be unexpected things.

First of all, the attack on the Khowaii Islands did not achieve all its objectives, and to be precise, it failed to destroy the intended Category A targets on the first day of the war.

In Stark's plan, the military bases on the Khowaii Islands, the associated military installations, such as air defense positions near the military bases, long-range warning radars deployed separately on the eastern islands, and civilian facilities with military use, such as airports and ports, are all classified as Category A targets that must be destroyed on the first day of war, or at least paralyzed, so that they cannot be restored to operation in the short term.

Of course, Stark didn't put the plan to death, leaving some room for the combat troops to maneuver.

To put it bluntly, only an 80% destruction rate is required, and this must include Treasure Harbour and the large air bases on the eastern islands.

According to the battle report received on the morning of the 5th, only 60% of the Category A targets were destroyed on the first day of the war, and the Treasure Harbor was still operating normally.

The reason is also very simple, the bombers and submarines that carried out the mine-laying mission did not complete the mission!

What happened to the submarine, Stark is not very clear. For the time being, no operational report has been received from the submarine force, and perhaps several large attack submarines on mine-laying missions have not been able to get close to Zhenbao Harbor, and may even be sunk by the Liang Xia Navy, after all, Zhenbao Harbor is the number one military port in the Guia Ocean.

What happened to the bomber left Stark speechless.

According to the plan, after the 51st Task Force dispatched carrier-based fighters to attack the early warning planes of the Liangxia Air Force, the bombers carrying out the mine-laying mission will fly to Zhenbao Harbor and use special spreaders to drop hundreds of intelligent mines that can independently attack ships into Zhenbao Harbor.

To this end, the Air Force dispatched 20 B-1Bs to carry out airdrop minelaying missions.

The whole operation seems to be foolproof, and there is basically no suspense.

Unfortunately, it backfired.

Because a batch of Liang Xia Navy's "Zhan-9B" was not shot down, and they got rid of the F-14B with a faster speed and flew out of the detection area of the E-2C, the B-1B group that was attacking Zhenbao Harbor in the south at that time threw away mines halfway and gave up mine-laying operations.

After the incident, the Air Force declared that it was worried about being intercepted by Liangxia fighters, so it temporarily terminated the mine-laying operation.

There is nothing wrong with this concern.

Not to mention that the 20 B-1Bs are all flying with full loads, even if they do not carry 24 intelligent mines with a total weight of more than 30 tons, they can only be slaughtered after encountering fighters. As long as those B-1Bs are found, even if the missiles have been used up, the "Battle-9B" can shoot them down with aerial artillery.

But the question is, are those "Zhan-9B" really threatening?

The answer is no.

The "Battle-9Bs" that got rid of the F-14B failed to fly back to Honu Island, and all crashed due to running out of fuel on the way back!

In addition, four hours later, the "Finger-8C" sent by the Liangxia Air Force arrived.

At this time, the primary task of the Liangxia Air Force and the Liangxia Naval Aviation was not to intercept bombers or cruise missiles arriving in waves, but to evacuate the combat units deployed in advance, such as the front-line aviation, and reduce the losses suffered as much as possible.

In this case, the Liangxia naval aviation simply could not intercept those B-1Bs.

In fact, without AWACS to provide guidance, those defeated Liangxia fighters would not have been able to detect the bombers flying at the altitude of the sea.

The B-1B's housekeeping skill is ultra-low-altitude penetration!

After the success of the B-52, the Nuland Air Force kept up with the pace of the times, in fact, it was closely focused on the Liangxia Air Force, and also focused on the 3 times the speed of the sound bomber. For more than 10 years after that, the Nuland Air Force burned billions of New Zealand dollars on the XB-70 project, nicknamed "Valkyrie". Because the threshold for the XB-70 is too high and there is a lot of risk, the Nuland Air Force also purchased hundreds of B-58 bombers that were slightly slower and less technically difficult during the same period. In the end, the Nuland Air Force spent tens of billions of dollars on these two projects.

The result was a bamboo basket for water.

The final result of the XB-70 project was only 2 prototypes.

Because the reliability of the B-58 was too poor, the difficulty of maintenance was frightening, and the main performance indicators were not outstanding enough, it was only in service for less than 10 years before it was all retired.

After more than 10 years of tossing, the main bomber of the Nuland Air Force is still the B-52, which was originally planned to be replaced.

It was against this background that the Nuland Air Force launched the XB-1 project.

Initially, the Nuland Air Force regarded the XB-1 as a low-profile version of the XB-70, which can also be said to be an enhanced version of the B-58, that is, with a high-altitude speed of Mach 2, a combat radius of 6,000 kilometers when performing typical strike missions, and a maximum bomb load no less than that of the B-52.

This is the B-1A.

However, it was not until the B-1A was developed that the Nuland Air Force suddenly discovered that in the face of modern air defense systems, which are mainly long-range air defense missiles, any bomber flying at high altitude is actually a target for air defense missiles. No matter how fast a bomber flies, it is certainly slower than a missile!

On the contrary, the penetration efficiency at ultra-low altitudes is much higher!

It was in this way that the design drawings of the B-1A were thrown directly into the trash and replaced with the B-1B, which paid more attention to ultra-low-altitude flight stability.

At this time, the Nuland Air Force had been tossed to the point that it had no temper at all.

The key is that the new strategic bomber of the Liangxia Air Force has entered the mass production stage, while the Nuland Air Force is still using the outdated B-52.

In order to save time, the Nuland Air Force made modifications directly on the basis of the B-1A.

To put it simply, it is no longer required to reach a flight speed of Mach 2 at high altitudes, and excellent low-altitude flight performance can be obtained by strengthening the fuselage structure and increasing the wing load.

In addition, it is necessary to maintain a combat radius of 6,000 kilometers.

Actually, it's easy to understand.

The shortest distance from the west coast of Nuland to Hounu Island is about 5,000 kilometers, and the combat radius of 6,000 kilometers is barely enough because it is necessary to consider the deployment of bombers at inland air bases and the unexpected factors when performing missions. What's more, the westernmost transit island of the archipelago is about 7,000 kilometers away from the Nuland mainland, so even if the bomber has a combat radius of 6,000 kilometers, it will have to mount and use cruise missiles with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers to attack the island.

It is precisely like this that 6000 km is the minimum requirement of the Nuland Air Force for the combat radius of strategic bombers.

Strictly speaking, the B-1B is not much better than the B-52.

If cruise missiles are used, due to the limitations of the external hardpoints and the problem of aerodynamic shape, the combat efficiency of the B-1B is inferior to that of the B-52.

To put it simply, the B-52 can use composite pylons and carry 24 long-range cruise missiles under the wings, while the B-1B can only carry up to 12.

In addition, the B-1B is still not as effective as the B-52 in combat efficiency against low-threat targets.

The advantage of the B-1B is that it penetrates the enemy's air defense network at low altitudes, or relies on low-altitude penetration, to destroy heavily protected strategic targets.

This is also the original intention of the Nuland Air Force to invest in the development of the B-1B.

Thanks to a highly sensitive radio altimeter, an extremely advanced autopilot system, a digital flight control system for the first time on a bomber, and a high-wing aerodynamic layout, the B-1B is able to fly at high subsonic speeds close to Mach 1 at an altitude of less than 100 meters above the ground.

More than 10 years ago, this was a unique skill that was enough to laugh at the world.

It's a pity that by the time the B-1B entered the mass production stage, ultra-low-altitude penetration had become yesterday's obsolete.

The reason is also very simple, ultra-low-altitude penetration is aimed at the air defense radar deployed on the ground, and the influence of the curvature of the earth on the radar is used. For AWACS aircraft, that is, radars deployed in the sky, the effect of the curvature of the earth is negligible and basically negligible.

Large early warning aircraft such as the "Finger-8C" can detect bombers flying at ultra-low altitudes from a distance of 300 kilometers and direct fighters to intercept them.

There is no doubt that ultra-low-altitude penetration has become a dead end.

As a result, the Nuland Air Force only made a symbolic purchase of more than 100 B-1Bs, and then spent huge sums of money to modernize the thousands of B-52s that had been in service for almost 30 years.

As mentioned earlier, the B-52 surpassed the B-1B in all other aspects, except for the lack of ultra-low-altitude penetration capabilities.

The key is that in the case of cruise missiles as the main weapon, the bomber has become the platform for the missile, and it is no longer necessary to have a strong penetration capability.

Penetrate the defense, just hand it over to cruise missiles.

Of course, the B-1B's ultra-low-altitude penetration capability is not useless.

In some cases, it has a very great value.

The choice of B-1B for this minelaying operation is to take a fancy to its ultra-low-altitude penetration capability and be able to complete the minelaying task relatively covertly.

Because of the use of aviation spreaders, the B-1B does not need to fly over Jumbo Harbor and can complete the mine-laying mission at a distance of more than 100 kilometers.

In Stark's view, this is a surefire task.

The key is that as long as 10 B-1Bs successfully complete the mission and drop aviation mines into the treasure port, they can blockade and paralyze this military port.

Where did you think that 20 B-1Bs did not complete the task with 1!

It's just that Stark doesn't blame the Air Force, and there is no reason to blame the Air Force.

In his battle plan, the carrier-based fighters of the 51st Task Force had to first gain air supremacy, including shooting down the enemy planes that were coming out.

As a result, the F-14Bs sent by Task Force 51 failed to shoot down all the enemy aircraft.

If anything, Stark is the main person responsible.

This is not to say that Stark is the commander of Task Force 51, and the commander-in-chief of combat operations should bear the responsibility for the defeat.

Fundamentally, Stark's battle plan was inflexible.

At that time, the F-14B, which was on a surprise mission, did not accelerate the pursuit of the fleeing "Battle-9B" because the pilots were worried that they would not be able to return to Task Force 51. The key reason for this is that Task Force 51 can only dispatch 24 A-6Ds to provide one in-flight refueling for the F-14B fleet.

If the flight deck is not occupied by additional fighter jets, the three Nitz-class ships can dispatch at least 48 carrier-based attack aircraft to provide two partner in-flight refueling for the F-14B fleet, so there is no need to worry about not being able to return to the fleet even if the pursuing enemy aircraft uses up more fuel.

When the plan was being drafted, a staff officer pointed out this problem.

It is not that it is impossible to arrange more attack aircraft to carry out refueling tasks, but it occupies the flight deck, and the negative impact of the reduction in the combat efficiency of aviation is inevitable.

Stark didn't turn a deaf ear, he was helpless.

With a few more aircraft carriers, even a few more flat-topped ships capable of carrying F-14B fighters, Stark would not have filled the flight decks of 3 "Nix" class with fighters.

In fact, Stark was also prepared.

For this reason, he arranged five large attack submarines of the "Los Angeles" class to carry out minelaying tasks in the plan.

Each of the five "Los Angeles" class attack submarines is equipped with 48 self-propelled mines, and their mine-laying capabilities are comparable to those of 10 B-1Bs.

It's a pity that the submarine is even more uncontrollable.

Although no news was received from these 5 submarines, Stark had no illusions.

The self-propelled mines carried and used by submarines are actually torpedoes that replace the war mine head with an intelligent mine, and the maximum range is only a few tens of kilometers.

This means that the submarine carrying out the mine-laying mission must be close to the Treasure Harbor.

There is no doubt that this is about the same as sending you to death.

Zhenbao Harbor is the most heavily defended military port in the Guia Ocean, and it not only deploys hundreds of anti-submarine patrol planes, but also has a set of anti-submarine networks based on submarine sonar arrays.

The coverage of this set of anti-submarine nets is up to hundreds of kilometers!

In times of war, any enemy submarine that enters the area is sunk.

Even in peacetime, the Liangxia Navy will arrange its own submarines to track and monitor any third-party submarines that try to get close to Zhenbao Harbor.

The main purpose of this is to ensure that the submarine that is delusional about attacking Treasure Harbor can be sunk immediately after a sudden war.

So far, there has been no news, and there is no sign of a mine blockade of Zhenbao Harbor, so the five attack submarines carrying out the mine-laying mission must have been more than lucky.

It is that, after the failure of the mine-laying operation, Stark did not blame the Air Force.

But that's just the beginning.

In the ensuing strike operation, because of problems in command and coordination, especially in the front-line command, three bomber formations were not able to reach the airspace where the missiles were launched on time. Although the 60 bombers of these three formations finally dropped missiles as planned, the delay in front of them was enough to make the bombing operation bleak, at least unable to fully achieve the set operational objectives.

Among other things, 1 of the aircraft groups was responsible for striking Wallace Air Force Base on Hono Island.

Because of the delay of about three quarters of an hour, by the time the cruise missiles dropped by the bombers fell, the combat planes deployed at the base had already taken to the air.

In addition, the air defense forces deployed outside the base also shifted positions.

The key thing is that one of the engineering units stationed at the base withdrew safely and hid before the bombing arrived!

On the night of the 4th, after sunset to be exact, the engineering unit returned to Wallace Air Force Base and began repairing the infrastructure damaged during the bombing. According to the information received in the early morning of the 5th, the unit was very effective, and the base could be restored to operation as soon as the afternoon of the 5th.

For this reason, the Air Force had to make adjustments to the bombing operation on the 5th, and transferred valuable reserve forces to carry out supplementary strikes at Wallace Air Force Base.

It's not that bombers are precious, but that they will occupy sortie capacity.

Sending bombers to strike at Wallace Air Force Base would certainly not have been able to be sent on any other mission.

Relatively speaking, these are minor issues.

The real trouble came on the night of the 4th, and it almost caused the battle to spiral out of control.

That's right, it was the strategic counterattack launched by the Liang Xia Air Force!

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